The Nick Abbot Habit

00:02 This is a global production. Oh, it's a good one for you this week. In these clips from five years ago, we were having a heat wave. Mr. Blobby made an appointment and we heard where Pink Floyd got their ideas from. 00:16 You've got a good, you know, your mind is a little bit, you know what I mean? Three dimensional. 00:24 No, I did not know what you mean. What do you mean? 00:27 Linda texts, so as soon as he gets into power, just like Boris, Sajid wants a holiday. 00:33 Some people will use any excuse. 00:36 And on that subject, Tim says, feeling groggy on a Friday night doesn't feel like the usual reason to take a COVID test. No, that's right. You wake up Saturday morning and you feel groggy after a Friday night. That's not a reason to take a COVID test. That's a reason to dissolve an aspirin in a martini. Booze. 00:53 And that's the official advice of LBC, by the way. 00:59 John says, Nick, 1976 was indeed a good year for music. Thin Liz's, the boys are back in town. Chicago's, if you leave me now. Leo Sayers, you make me feel like dancing. 01:09 Lots of Abba Queen and your favourite, Demise Roussos. 01:18 That's not how I remember 1976. 01:21 I mean, Thin Lizzy was all right, but, I mean, I did enjoy that Chicago track, and I did feel like dancing when Leo Say was on. 01:30 Not really. 01:32 And Queen leaves me somewhat cold. I mean, a couple of good songs, but other than that, I mean, the problem with me with the Queen was always Freddie Mercury. I mean, okay, just listening. A bit overblown, really, let's be honest. A little bit overblown. Rock and roll! 01:48 But I just couldn't bear looking at him. 01:52 Is that an awful thing to say? 01:55 0345 6060 973. York. Hello, Jan. Hello, Nick. How are you? I'm great, mate. Good. Not too hot? It's a little bit chilly. 02:07 I won't lie. 02:08 Right. Don't take another jumper off, will you? I won't. No. 02:12 Good. Good. Now then, Freedom Day. 02:15 Hmm. 02:16 It wouldn't surprise me if we ended up with a lockdown. What do you think? 02:19 I think we will, yes. I would expect it before October, most certainly. 02:25 I mean, he says, we recommend that you wear a mask, but don't bother if you don't want to. You know, it'll be all right. 02:33 I mean, it's so crazy, isn't it? 02:35 These are quite clear instructions. I don't know why you're having difficulty with them, Jan. You must wear a mask, but on the other hand, you don't have to wear a mask. Exactly. What is confusing about that? Have you heard that Matt Lucas clip? 02:49 Which one? 02:51 The one where he's taking off Johnson. 02:54 Er... 02:56 I don't think so. 02:57 You haven't, have you? Now, I haven't until the other day when James O'Brien played it. It's really good. You should listen to it. 03:05 I most certainly will do nothing of the sort, Jan. No, I thought you might not. I don't do homework. Homework? But, miss! 03:12 It really is good. It's just like him, you know. 03:16 Right. 03:16 OK. You know, don't go out. 03:20 But stay in. 03:21 But go out if you want to. And if you can work from home, do. 03:25 Then do so. But you must go into the office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 03:30 Wear a mask, but don't wear a mask, you know. Just like him, really. It's so good. And speaking of James O'Brien, do you know he did you a compliment the other day? 03:43 Me? 03:44 I very much doubt it. 03:46 He did. He did. He said... 03:50 He was, you know, he was going to play this Matt Lucas clip, and he was talking about clips, and he said, if you want to hear masters of the clip, I recommend you listen to Nick Abel and Eddie Mayer. What do you think about that? 04:04 Does Eddie Mayer do clips? 04:07 Well, not like you, but, you know, he does, you know... 04:12 Play a few clips, but not your kind. 04:14 Right. OK. 04:16 Anyway, that's what James O'Brien said. Right. And he said... I wrote this bit down because I thought it was quite good. He said you've got a deafness of touch and the surgeon's scalpel in the use of recorded clips. 04:29 Good, eh? A deafness of touch. I'm considering being offended by that, being as how I don't really know what it means. I'll look it up later, Jan. How does that sound? 04:38 All right. Right. But... 04:40 Yeah, I mean, I thought it was quite good. 04:42 I think you're telling tales. Stop telling tales. 04:45 No, I'm not. 04:47 But, yeah. And he said there should be a World Cup of clips, you know, you and Eddie Mayer. 04:54 Right. 04:55 Eddie Mayer is the reason I turned on to LBC. Is it? Because, yeah, when he left the BBC, you know, I thought I'll give this LBC a go because I'd never heard of it, to be quite honest. 05:06 Well, yeah, right. 05:09 So I thought I'll give it a go. Sure. So I did. Yeah. So I did. And then I found you. 05:14 Mm-hmm. 05:15 And I haven't looked back since. 05:16 No. Well, I can imagine. 05:17 So I've got Eddie Maker. Thanks for that. Right. Thanks, Eddie. 05:21 Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Cheers, Jan. Keep your ears peeled. And as soon as you hear anything else, I want to let me know straight away. All right. 05:28 Robin tweets, leave Boris alone. He's doing his best. 05:32 Anyone would think that running a pandemic is a walk in the park. 05:37 I assume you're being sarcastic, but you just can't tell these days. 05:43 Harry emails, Bodger in isolation for 10 days. However, will we cope? Yes. 05:49 You know, they're all about to go on holiday for six weeks. Can you believe that? 05:52 Yes. 05:53 Six weeks during a pandemic. They're all about to say, right, that's it. We're leaving. 05:59 Hard to believe, ain't it? 06:01 I mean, it really is. 06:03 What an absolute shower. 06:06 And I bet every single one of them that you've ever heard of will be going to a red-list country under top secrecy. 06:16 They'll manufacture some wizard excuse in case they get found out about, oh, we're here on a trade mission, you know, global Britain, something like that. Yeah, yeah, I'm having a meeting on the beach, that's why I'm in my cosy. 06:33 Yeah, I've got a couple of drinks, one in each hand, when the trade delegation comes along. They'll be here in just a minute. Don't worry about that. 06:46 I wonder how that trial that Michael Gove was a part of when he went abroad to watch the football. He had a very, very important appointment watching the football abroad. Remember that? 06:57 And he came back and he didn't go into isolation. 07:02 Fortunately, he managed to join a trial wherein he didn't have to follow any of the rules, and that's probably going really, really well, I bet. Yeah, for him. 07:11 Jenny says, a Bullingdon mate of Bodger has been appointed as chief advisor to Whitehall's independent sleaze watchdog. Yet another appointment without any scrutiny from the voting public. It just gets worse and worse. 07:24 Yes. 07:25 It is amazing, actually, what's going on. They just don't care. 07:31 What anything looks like. 07:34 Because up to this point, nobody has made an issue of it, or at least not enough people that are their cult fans. I get the feeling that they wake up in the morning and think, what can we do to them today? 07:47 What can we really do to push them over the air? You know those machines in the fairground? Those push-hapenny things? 07:56 All that change is piled up, and you think, I'll just put a 10p in there, and all that money will just come out. And it never does. 08:04 It just seems to swallow it up, doesn't it? 08:07 It can be hanging over the edge, vertiginously, over a cliff edge, this giant pile of money, and it never budges. I think that's us. 08:17 What can we do to them today? Really just push them right up into the edge there. 08:26 And absolutely nothing seems to make any difference. His popularity just keeps going up and up. He'll go on TV and go, poor! 08:34 And people just, oh, he's doing his best. 08:40 Painful. 08:42 What a way to run a country, eh? 08:43 Dreadful. 08:45 A former Bullingdon club member and university friend of Bodger Johnson has been appointed to Whitehall's independent sleaze watchdog. 08:54 Fabulous. I am not making that up. 08:58 Ewan Ferguson, a city solicitor, was announced on Thursday as one of two new members for the Committee on Standards in Public Life. 09:08 A Whitehall source said the appointment was approved by number 10. 09:12 I bet it was. 09:14 You know that famous photograph of the Bullingdon boys in Eton in their waist cuts with their superior entitled expressions? Bodger's at the front, naturally. David Cameron is in there. And this bloke is in the same photograph. 09:29 I mean, Bodger might as well have given the job to his dad. It would have been less infuriating. 09:37 Ferguson appeared behind Johnson... 09:41 And two along from David Cameron in that 1987 photograph of the exclusive male-only Oxford Dining Club. Permission to republish the photograph, by the way, has been withdrawn by the Oxford portrait photographers who hold the copyright. Withdrawn. Huh. 10:00 I wonder why that might be. I can't comment on that. Ferguson's appointment has enraged one former chair of the committee, Sir Alistair Graham, who held the role for four years until 2007. He said the appointment was a pathetic attempt to recruit an old friend of the PM to an independent committee. 10:20 He said it really is desperate if you have to be a university mate of Boris Johnson to qualify to sit on a committee that's supposed to examine sleaze. 10:28 I doubt that the experience of the Bullingdon would provide any of the right qualifications. It seems like a completely inappropriate appointment, he said. Well, you know, I'll keep saying this until they stop doing it. This regime is guided by the principle, what would Donald Trump do? 10:45 Everything that I've done is 100% proper. That's what I do is I do things proper. 10:49 They would appoint members of their family and people totally opposed to the existence of the institution that they are going to govern. And Trump would appoint nodding dogs and lackeys and yes men. 11:04 The committee advises the Prime Minister on ethical standards across public life. LAUGHTER It can conduct inquiries, collect evidence to assess institutions, policies and practices, and makes recommendations to Bodger where appropriate, and he can ignore everything they say. 11:23 Even if they are investigating him, the person who decides on guilt and punishment is Boris Johnson. 11:33 I mean, the system is so totally corrupt, it's surprising that it doesn't have Trump's name on the building. Oh, shut up! Ferguson, according to a 2008 report in the Daily Mail, was one of six Bullingdon Club members who attended a fundraising event for Johnson's London mayoral bid. 11:52 I mean, seriously, why even bother with this? 11:55 I mean, why doesn't he just... Why doesn't Bodger just appoint his dog to oversee him? Ah, ah, ah! A Cabinet Office spokesmodel said, Mr Ferguson applied through open and fair competition following the governance code for public appointments. His application was carefully considered on its merits by the advisory assessment panel, which interviewed him and found that he was appointable. Yeah, you bet he was. 12:18 An old friend of Bodge is now tasked with overseeing the ethics of this regime. 12:26 Fortunately, this government doesn't have any ethics, so his work is done. 12:34 0345 6060 973. 12:39 Lancashire. Hello, Paul. 12:40 Hello. How are you, Nick? Good, thanks. Right. I've come up with a metaphor as to what the government's doing. 12:48 Here we go. Imagine a big building. You've got a small fire in a small room. 12:54 Now, instead of closing the doors around the fire, the fire doors, you start opening them. In half the rooms, you've got some sprinklers, so they could represent the vaccines. So they're putting the fire out. But in one or two of the rooms, you've forgot that you've left some inflammable liquid. 13:16 And so when the fire reaches them, they're really going to shoot up the flames. I don't think... 13:26 In your metaphor, he hasn't forgotten that the flammable liquid is there. He deliberately put it there. 13:32 Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, they can represent the variants, which could be quite dangerous, and sooner or later will inevitably evade the vaccines. 13:41 Yeah. 13:42 Yeah, and put us all in danger. 13:44 Right. 13:45 Yeah. So I just think it's stupid what this government's doing. And as for standards in public life for this government, you only have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, really, don't you? And you get to be prime minister. 14:01 Right. Right at the bottom there. Yeah. OK, thanks a lot, Paul. Keep thinking. 14:06 Simon says, what is it about old people and the weather? It's been the hottest day of the year and he still went to bed with a hot water bottle. 14:13 Who's he? 14:15 By the way, I did look up at the sky and did see one meteor, said Simon. Oh, fabulous. Yeah, it's spectacular. Not really. 14:25 Camden. Hello, Elizabeth. Oh, no, wait. 14:28 One moment, please, Elizabeth. Hang on right there. Coming to you momentarily. 14:32 Don't want to hang. There you are. 14:35 I am, yeah. Are you there, dude? 14:36 I am there. 14:38 OK, I want to tell you a little story and then something which will probably interest you more than the story. 14:45 Twice last year, I had a minor stroke at the top of my stairs. And the second time, much against my will, I got hauled into hospital because of brain clotting. 14:56 And it was a horrendous experience. 15:00 And the worst of it was they would not let me out. I had a CT scan, that seemed to be okay, but they would not let me out until I'd had a 25 minute MRI scan. And what happens with these scans is whichever part of your neurons The rays hit. It affects some part of your body. So you spend your whole time squirming in pain. 15:21 What, from an MRI scan? 15:23 Yeah, for a brain scan, yeah. 15:25 No. 15:26 Yep. 15:26 No. 15:27 Well, maybe your brain isn't as sensitive as mine, but I think it probably is more so. 15:31 An MRI scan doesn't make you... If you have a scan of your brain with an MRI, it doesn't affect your body? 15:38 Yes, it does. How? Because your neurons affect your body. They direct your body. 15:43 An MRI scan of your brain does not make your body hurt. Well, it did. OK. 15:50 So there... And that's what I'm going to say on that, because I want to get to the point. 15:55 Now, we're talking about the MRI. That's the machine that goes boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. 16:00 No, let me tell you what happened. The first, it's the last 25 minutes, and I thought, I will never get out of this hospital unless they let them do this thing. 16:10 They put you in a tube, right? 16:12 Yeah, but that's a CT scan. An MRI scan is a very different story when they do it on your brain. And they didn't tell me until I was out of it. Most people would refuse to go into that because it's so painful. 16:24 No, it's not. An MRI scan of your brain, that's when you get put in a tube and the machine goes... Like that. 16:32 No, it didn't do that. I'll tell you what it did. 16:36 What did it do? 16:37 Well, the last few minutes of it, you won't believe this, are the opening bars. You know the opening bars of the dark side of the moon by the Floyd. 16:47 where it goes... And you think, is this a helicopter? 16:52 No. It was a synthesizer. It was almost like the band was playing. 16:56 It's the last five minutes of the MRI scan for your brain. 17:01 You're right. I don't believe it. 17:02 It's true. And I started to laugh because I thought, that is such a brilliant thing that the Floyd have done. Because that whole record was a tribute to the guy who kind of blew his mind, the lead singer. And the whole record was about him losing his mind, basically. And I just started to laugh. But I promise you, the last five minutes are the opening bars to the dark side of the moon. Because I have spent years thinking, I've done, you know, room cuttings, I've done record cuttings, I've been in the chopper, you know, I know rhythm. Where on earth did they get that opening bar from? 17:36 Because it's electronic, but it's not a synthesizer. And that was it. And I started to laugh. It's magnets, Elizabeth. 17:43 It's all magnets. Magnets is what's making that noise. 17:46 They sound great, actually. 17:51 They use in the MRI scan for your brain, which they probably use for the guy who blew his mind. 17:57 Yeah, probably not, no. 17:59 Oh, I thought you'd been trusted. Well, I'm sure it's true. 18:01 Well, I'm certain it's not. 18:03 Because I experienced it. 18:05 Yeah. OK, then. All right. Thanks a lot, Elizabeth. As soon as you hear anything else, let me know. All right. 18:10 Rock and roll! 18:14 Benny texts. 18:16 The new Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, the man in charge of the safety of the nation from COVID, catches COVID within a fortnight and spreads it throughout the Cabinet. Number 10 and Bojo's office whilst... Oh, that's a comma there. I thought it was a full stop. It was a comma. 18:29 See, that's what an MRI scan does to you. 18:32 I can't tell the difference between a full stop and a comma now. 18:37 He catches COVID within a fortnight and spreads it throughout the cabinet, number 10, and Bojo's office whilst shedding. 18:44 Shedding. 18:46 Let's see if the rulemaker Boris follows his own instructions. I wonder if the NHS have the courage to text him to self-isolate. 18:55 He ain't going to self-isolate. 18:57 I betcha, betcha, betcha that every single one of them has got some red list forbidden country that they're going to be showing up in. 19:07 It's some billionaire's Dachau before you know it. 19:13 Sucking up the free hospitality. 19:15 He'll have a plane juiced up and ready to go at our expense. Don't you worry about a thing. 19:23 Stoke-on-Trent. Hello, Tony. 19:26 Hey, I'm Nick. 19:26 You all right? 19:27 Yes, good, thanks. 19:28 Yeah. I just want to take a bit of an issue about how you're dissing everything the government's done, basically. 19:40 It's dead easy to sit there and say... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's easy. You've got all the facts and figures and everything else. 19:51 I haven't got no facts. I ain't got no figures. 19:54 Right. So this Freedom Day on Monday, you don't agree with it? 20:00 Whether I agree with it or not is neither here nor there. I mean, there seems inevitable what the consequences are going to be. I mean, are you prepared to put up with that? 20:08 So what are you prepared for all with? You prepared for all with this being locked down forever? 20:14 I'm prepared for me to go about my life and you to go about yours, Tony. I'm not running the country. 20:21 No, no, neither am I. Right. 20:24 You get all the critics coming on and saying, yeah, we can't do this, we can't do that. And basically I'm thinking most of the population or the vulnerable people have been jabbed, double jabbed, whatever you call it. Yeah. And... 20:41 it's about time that the country opened up. Right. 20:44 Even as other countries, even as other countries, even as other countries, which have got far less cases than we do, are closing down, we're the only one that appears to be opening. And we've got more cases than anywhere else on Earth. 20:57 Well, what's wrong with that? It's been a bit courageous, hasn't it? It's been a bit... What's wrong with that? 21:02 Well, you know what else is courageous, Tony? Closing your eyes and walking into traffic. 21:08 So what do you want to do? Close your eyes and just sleep or go into a slumber? 21:14 Well, let me put it to you like this. Have you had two jabs? Okay. 21:18 Yes. 21:18 Okay. Now, a variant comes along because we've opened up and people are mingling, all hugger-mugger, and a variant comes along that avoids the vaccine. Wait a minute. That avoids the vaccine and kills you stone dead. Are you okay with that? 21:34 Next. Next. 21:36 From the very start of this pandemic... Not answering the question. 21:40 No. Do you think, from the very start of this pandemic, do you think this society has taken all the rules, done everything that they're supposed to do? Because I don't. 21:53 Overall, pretty much, yes. 21:56 Well, when you're looking in shop aisles and there's... People taking toilet rolls and the last pasta bake off the shelves. 22:06 Yeah, well, that's not against the rules. 22:10 No, it's not. I mean, somebody's got to take the last toilet roll off the shelf. 22:14 What I'm saying, Nick, is... 22:16 We've not abided by all the rules. 22:19 I think we pretty much have. It's quite extraordinary how we've abided by the rules, these privations. 22:25 They've taken our lives away from us. And we've been good as gold. Good little boys, we have. 22:30 No, we haven't been good little boys. Pretty much. Absolutely. Yes. No, we've been very, very selfish now. We've been very selfish. 22:39 I seriously do not agree with that at all. Not where I live, Tony. OK. Maybe up your way. 22:47 No, no. Well, you can't just isolate one area. 22:52 Well, you just said that. I'm saying I have not experienced that, Tony. I have not been to Stoke-on-Trent. But your experience, presumably, is based on living in Stoke-on-Trent. If you're telling me that's what the people in Stoke-on-Trent are like, I'll have to take your word for it. 23:08 Well, I should imagine it's countrywide. 23:12 And my experience of the country, not including Stoke-on-Trent, is that people have been good as gold. 23:20 I don't think so now. 23:21 Considering what has been taken from us, I think we've been remarkably placid and compliant. 23:27 We've been very selfish. 23:29 In what way? Apart from that taking the last toilet roll off the shelf thing. I mean, apart from that, right at the beginning of the pandemic, when the shops were being stripped bare of toilet roll, It's kind of understandable because it's something you don't want to run out of. I mean, it doesn't matter if you run out of bread so much, you've got an alternative for bread. But you ain't got no alternative for toilet roll, especially if you ain't got no kitchen roll. 23:58 I'm sure you didn't rush to the shelves for the last toilet rolls. 24:02 I tell you what, Tony, I swerved the supermarkets entirely because I knew that there weren't any there. So I went to corner shops in the middle of the night because I knew they'd have them. 24:13 Yeah, well, I work night shifts. I work for the police and I did not find anything to eat when I knocked off shift. You didn't find anything to eat? No. 24:26 Where were you looking? 24:28 In the Tesco Isles, mate. 24:29 There was nothing to eat? 24:31 No. Well, what were you looking for? 24:34 I was just looking for something, a quick ready meal. I wasn't looking for... Ready meal. 24:41 Vegetables and fruit, no good. 24:43 Yeah, well, I really could not knock that up at six o'clock in the morning, but... Why not? What I'm saying to you, Nick, what I'm saying to you, Nick, look at... OK, let's fast forward, eh? Let's fast forward to Wembley the other week, OK? 25:00 Do you think them people are isolating? Do you think them people give a damn about anything at all? 25:07 No, not at all. But they aren't representative of the country, nor are they representative of how we've been behaving over the last 19 months. 25:18 That was a one-off. That was insane. 25:22 Oh, Nick, come on. Of course it was. 25:26 Come on, man. 25:27 You can't tell me that you think that that's what British people are like ordinarily, huffing cocaine in Leicester Square and putting fireworks up their bottom. That's not us. That was a one-off. 25:38 It's not a one-off. 25:39 Of course it is. OK, what about what... I mean, we can go through the whole of the summit about, you know, ripping the statues down, ripping... That has nothing to do with COVID. 25:52 What's that got to do with COVID? No. 25:55 It's got to do with respecting, you know, the laws of the land and saying, you know, you haven't got to congregate and you've got to wear the mask, you've got to stay two metres apart. Who the hell has been doing that for the last 18 months? Almost all of us. I tell you what, Nick, I appreciate your loyalty in what people are doing. I'm not... 26:22 I'm not saying it out of any sort of misplaced patriotism. I'm saying it because that's what I've experienced. That's what I've witnessed with my own eyes. As I go about my daily business, people have been completely compliant with all of the requests and the instructions that the government has made. Not 100% of the people, 100% of the time. I mean, you wouldn't expect that. But compared to how you would have expected us to behave, if I told you three years ago, that the government is going to take away your right to leave your house, it's going to take away your right to go to work, it's going to take away your right to go to the pub, you can't go to the clubs, you can't do this or that or have any of your normal everyday living and your normal way of going about your life. 27:07 They're going to take all of that away from you. How do you think that we would have behaved? Like this? No, no way. You'd have thought there were going to be riots in the streets. Not a one. 27:16 OK, so... I mean, just to wrap it up, Tony, your position is that, what, the government is doing its best and people should stop picking on them? 27:27 No, my position is, Nick, is... 27:32 I mean, this is unprecedented, yeah? You'll agree with that. 27:35 God, here we go with the unprecedented again. Yes, OK, it's unprecedented. Not really, but go ahead. 27:41 Well, not really. Why has it happened in your lifetime before? 27:45 Were you living when the Spanish flu was about? You didn't say in my lifetime. You said unprecedented. 27:51 Yeah, unprecedented. Which means, were you living when the Spanish flu was about? 27:56 No, that's not what it means. But anyway, let's skip over that. That's not what unprecedented means. But go ahead. 28:03 Nick, if I'm mixing you up a bit... No, you're not mixing me up, Tony. 28:07 You are tripping yourself up. But let's not get stuck up on what unprecedented means. Go ahead. 28:14 Right, right. So Monday, OK, we... Freedom Day, whatever you call it. 28:22 Freedom Day is what you call it, yes. 28:25 No, no, I don't call it Freedom Day. You just did, though. You just did. No, OK, OK. I don't call it that, but that's the moniker that's been put on it. 28:34 Right, yes. 28:35 OK? Freedom Day. You've just said to me, all these issues that have happened for the last 18 months, self-isolation, blah, blah, blah. OK? Yeah? 28:47 And you want to not to do that. 28:50 You don't want to release that. You want to keep that in state. 28:56 I think that there's some things that would be sensible to continue doing, yes, where the government wants us to be able to just throw off everything that's been restricting us up to this point because that's what Freedom Day means. This is what they've been advertising for a good long while now. And then scientists started whispering in their ears and then they started using the word caution a lot. Like a lot, like every other sentence, we have to proceed with caution. And you must be cautious when you're out proceeding with caution. And caution should be your watchword when you're proceeding with caution out. 29:30 Yeah, I agree, Nick. But don't you think people have got the right to, you know, sort of look after themselves and think for themselves? 29:40 Do you not think that's a possibility? 29:45 If your actions only affected yourself, yes. But as we know, that's not the case here. 29:52 Well, you've just told me that everybody's complied. 90% of the people have complied. 29:58 I didn't say 90%. I said most. I said most of the time, most of the people have complied with most of their instructions. I think we've been amazingly well behaved. 30:08 Right, so why can't we be amazingly well-behaved after Freedom Day and just sort of look after one another and wear masks where appropriate? 30:18 Exactly. That's what I'm suggesting. That's what we should do. 30:21 Yeah, but the government doesn't have to. It's not a nanny state. The government doesn't have to say that. 30:28 Well, it very much depends, Tony. If there's selfish people who aren't remotely interested in protecting others, then, yeah, there should be rules and regulations. 30:42 No, you just said there's no selfish people around. No, I didn't. 30:46 I said that people have been obeying the rules. 30:50 Right. So... 30:52 So when there are no rules... So in that aspect, people should be able to understand the rules... No, Tony, the one does not follow the other. 31:04 If there are rules, then people know what to do. If there are no rules, then people will just revert to their own selfish ways. Tony, it's been... 31:15 Well, mostly painful, actually. 31:18 It's been mostly painful, but I've got to go because I'm past the break and I just can't stand it anymore. 31:24 So they did a poll on who's going to be wearing a mask and who isn't going to be wearing a mask. I should have asked that bloke which way he voted just before he left. I'll assume that I know. 31:35 Nearly two thirds of adults will continue wearing a mask in shops and on public transport after Freedom Day. The Office for National Statistics has found two thirds of adults. OK, so that means one third of adults won't. And it's the one third of adults that is going to affect the two thirds of adults. So it probably won't make any difference. 31:55 From Monday, it will no longer be a legal requirement, but the government has said it still expects and recommends that people continue to do so in crowded areas, which is as clear as anything else that you get from the regime. We're making it legal to abandon masks, but we want you to keep wearing masks. Got that? No. 32:12 I mean, it couldn't possibly be because Bodger wants to be able to blame us when the case numbers go through the roof. 32:22 Oh, well, you'll see. 32:24 I told everyone to keep wearing them while telling them that they didn't have to. 32:30 And they didn't follow my clear instructions. 32:33 I'll bet that's your get-out-a-jail-free card, ain't it, Bodge? 32:38 I can't comment on that. 32:40 The Office for National Statistics have found 90% of adults believe that measures such as wearing a face covering when shopping stops the spread of coronavirus. 32:51 57% of adults said they were worried about the government's plan to lift legal restrictions. I mean, that seems sensible. 32:59 Maybe we should get adults to run the country. What do you say, Bodge? 33:05 As Freedom Day approaches, the Office of National Statistics analysed responses from almost 4,000 people in Britain between July 7th and July 11th. 33:16 That's after the government announced its plans for Step 4. Freedom! Freedom! 33:22 It found that anxiety levels increased slightly. 33:27 When the government said things were going well, anxiety levels went up. 33:33 I mean, that seems sensible too. I mean, whenever Bodger speaks, people get anxious. Especially if he's telling you not to be anxious. 33:41 The most popular activity respondents said they were looking forward to when restrictions eased was holidaying abroad, which doesn't sound very patriotic to me. 33:52 What's wrong with this country to holiday in? I mean, we've got hills and lakes and beaches and parks and moors and fish and chips and tea. And every time you turn on the TV, you've got the dear leader speaking at you. 34:08 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what more could you want? 34:12 holidaying abroad. I don't think he cares for the job very much anymore, do you? 34:19 It's not quite what he had in mind when he was dreaming of being king all those years. I mean, I'm sure he was expecting something out of the Roman Empire. 34:28 He wanted to be attended to by busty wenches who would feed him Turkish delight and massage perfumed oils into his fat folds while he reclined on a chaise. 34:40 That's the kind of thing he had in mind when he dreamed of being the supreme leader. Bodger wanted to be fated and to waddle around to the sound of applause and wave at genuflecting serfs and to squire lovely maidens by the dozen. But what he got was being leader of Plague Island. 34:58 Poor Bodger. 35:01 Don't you feel sorry for him? No. Not even a little bit? 35:04 Negative. 35:05 So he seems bored by the whole thing and it's a bit like, oh, you decide. 35:10 Use your common sense. 35:13 Well, we know what good old British common sense gets you. 35:16 It gets a beard-up moron huffing coke in Leicester Square with a firework up his bottom. Disgusting. So local leaders are having to do his job for him. 35:26 And his own ministers are filling in the gaps. 35:29 We've got the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan. He's insisting that masks should be worn on London's public transport, even as the government says you don't need to. 35:38 And the actual Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, backed up Sadiq Khan. Shapps said he expected operators to put in place conditions of carriage to ensure that passengers were safe on public transport, while his own government was saying the opposite. 35:57 Nice try, Shapps. No sale. I mean, if the Transport Secretary is saying you should wear masks on public transport, why is his actual government saying you don't have to wear masks on public transport anymore? 36:10 Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said they would have to stay on, on transport, in his city too. 36:18 But the instruction might not be necessary because the public seems keen to keep masks on. At least a certain group do. 36:27 YouGov did a poll comparing how leavers and remainers were going to act about protecting other people. 36:39 We are still fighting that little battle probably from now until the end of time. 36:47 We've split into gangs. 36:51 Now, I know it seems odd to have to say that, but, you know... 36:57 They did a poll about how leavers and remainers are going to act about protecting other people. But that's what masks are about, right? Protecting other people. 37:07 I mean, the amount of calls that I get from people who still haven't taken that on board yet. Mask wearing is to protect other people from what you have. 37:15 See, it's altruistic. 37:19 So this poll asked the two sides of the EU debate what they thought. 37:25 Leavers and Remainers. Now, guess which side was more concerned for their fellow man? Leavers or Remainers? 37:33 Which do you think? 37:35 Go on, guess. 37:36 I double dare you. 37:39 If you had to bet every penny that you've got in the world on one side or the other, which would it be? 37:50 Exactly. 37:53 So this poll asked two sides of the EU debate what they thought, leavers and remainers. 37:58 Leavers and Remainers. Which were more concerned about the health of others to the extent that they would keep wearing masks to protect people they didn't know? Which ones? Well, I think you probably know. 38:12 Question. Will you still wear a mask after laws requiring them are removed? 46% of Brexiters said yes, that they would continue to wear a mask to protect other people. 38:27 59% of Remainers said yes. 38:32 Question. Should face masks remain mandatory on public transport? 67% of Brexiters said yes. 83% of Remainers said yes. 38:43 And, like I said, as the wearing of masks is to protect other Britons, which group is the more patriotic? 38:52 Which group cares about their country more? 38:56 The ones that mostly think about themselves or the ones that mostly think about their fellow countrymen? Um... Pick one. Odd, isn't it? 39:05 That the group that wraps themselves in the flag the most is the one that cares about the country the least. 39:11 Curious. 39:13 Who could have predicted that? Yeah. 39:16 But it's another culture war. 39:19 I mean, they've got this one going on in America. 39:23 You know, where the maskless vaccine refusers are the fans of the peach powder puff president. 39:32 The ex-president and full-time whiner. 39:34 I am the most fabulous whiner. And I'm a whiner and I keep whining and whining. 39:39 Lab tests and observational studies have shown that masks can block infected people from exhaling up to 80% of the virus into the air, but it can't stop you from catching stupid. 39:53 Meanwhile, Britain's surge in coronavirus cases continued. Positive cases rose to 51,870. 40:00 A six-month high on Thursday. Infections at their highest level since January the 15th. 40:06 And the number of people who died with the virus also increased by 48% in one week. 40:11 Up to 49 from 33 last Wednesday. Still. 40:17 Never mind, eh? Edward texts, I hope they don't close the dentists if there is another lockdown. 40:23 Oh. 40:25 He says I'm in the process of root canal treatment. Ooh. 40:29 I may end up getting Nick and Carol involved to sort it out with pliers and a mallet. 40:34 Yeah, I'll do it, Edward. I'll knock you out of the mallet and rip it out with the pliers. And on that very generous offer, that's it. If you subscribe to this podcast, the next episode will get squirted up your life as though by magic on Tuesdays. It used to be Mondays, and now it's Tuesdays. To make way for Nick Abbott, The Whole Show Plus, which is an extra special podcast... including all of the messages that I didn't get around to reading on Friday and Saturday, and all of the news stories that I ran out of time before I could get to. 41:08 It's called Nick Abbott The Whole Show Plus. You get that. You also get The Whole Show's ad-free, and you get an extra special newsletter, which gets into your inbox on Fridays to wipe up the week before we... 41:23 launch ourselves into the Friday and Saturday shows. So if that sounds good, go to Nick Abbott, The Whole Show Plus, which is available on Global Player and the new LBC app, or just put Nick Abbott, The Whole Show Plus in your internet search engine and everything will become clear. And I'll be back on the radio Friday, Saturday, Sunday night at 10. And until then, I'll be seeing you. Bye-bye. 41:48 This has been a global production.