• 7 months ago
Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Sofia Akin joined by Conservative Councillor Tony Hills from Kent County Council and Labour's Lola Oyewusi from Aylesford.

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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Good evening and welcome to the Kent Politics Show
00:22 live on KMTV.
00:24 I'm Sophia Aitken.
00:25 Coming up on tonight's show,
00:27 parliamentary ping pong continues
00:29 as the House of Lords has voted for further changes
00:31 to the Rwanda bill and banning a generation from smoking.
00:35 How did Kent MPs vote on the controversial bill?
00:38 And are we paying Kent's council leaders enough?
00:42 But first tonight, the prime minister has said on Monday,
00:44 they will sit and vote until the Rwanda bill is passed.
00:48 It comes two years and three prime ministers
00:50 after it was first announced.
00:52 It's a scheme which would send
00:53 illegal asylum seekers to Rwanda.
00:56 But this week it's been back in the Lords
00:57 in what's been dubbed parliamentary ping pong,
01:00 with the Lords saying further amendments need to be made
01:02 before they'll deem the scheme safe.
01:04 Now, if you're missing Rob this week,
01:06 here's a clip from him explaining
01:07 what this means to us here in Kent.
01:10 - This is about the safety of people in the sea
01:13 and off the coast of Kent
01:14 and people putting their lives at risk there
01:16 and the knock-on consequences of that
01:19 for the Coast Guard and emergency services
01:22 who may be required to help those people.
01:25 It's also about the processes that exist
01:28 once people have arrived in this country
01:30 where they're being held in temporary accommodation,
01:32 in hotels, in other facilities around Kent,
01:35 while asylum processes are going through.
01:38 And for a long, long time now,
01:40 there have been a lot of people in Kent
01:41 who just want to see an end to the pressure
01:44 that that creates in all kinds of ways in the county.
01:47 - Joining me today is Conservative councillor
01:49 from Kent County Council, Tony Hills,
01:51 and Labour and Co-operative councillor
01:53 from Aylesford Parish Council, Lola Oyoase.
01:55 Welcome to you both.
01:56 Thanks for joining us today.
01:59 So yeah, as I said then,
02:00 we've seen this bill going in and out of the Lords,
02:04 haven't we?
02:05 But we've heard that they will sit and debate it
02:10 until it is voted through.
02:12 Tony, do you think that it's actually
02:15 going to end up getting passed?
02:17 We've seen this now going on for two years
02:18 and still no progress.
02:20 - Yes, I do.
02:22 I do think it will get passed eventually.
02:24 It's been slowed down continuously.
02:27 I understand a lot of people- - By Monday though,
02:28 like he says?
02:29 - Say again?
02:32 - He says it will be passed on Monday.
02:34 Do you think it will be in time for Monday?
02:36 - Yes.
02:37 Well, it depends what happens,
02:40 but I would think that they will try
02:42 and get it through on Monday.
02:44 It'll get through eventually.
02:45 It has to.
02:46 It's our flagship in a way
02:49 because we want to try and slow down
02:52 and stop, if at all possible,
02:54 the boats coming across from France.
02:57 I mean, it's very hard on the French as well.
03:00 They got 60 miles of beach to police.
03:02 It's very tough.
03:04 And all our local services,
03:06 like the lifeboats, are under stress.
03:09 I mean, they don't care.
03:10 A shout's a shout to them.
03:11 They'll go whatever happens
03:12 if the Coast Guard asks them to.
03:14 But you can't be in two places at once.
03:16 And if they're out there rescuing migrants,
03:19 they can't be rescuing somebody else.
03:22 - He says that it will pass by spring.
03:25 He's only got a month left until the end of May now,
03:27 until we are out of spring.
03:30 Lola, wanted to talk to you about this one.
03:32 If we can cut to the wide and see Lola as well.
03:35 So yeah, Lola, do you think,
03:37 what do you think?
03:38 In time for spring, he's only got about a month left.
03:40 - I don't want it to pass
03:42 because I think, as far as I'm concerned,
03:44 it's a waste of taxpayers' money.
03:46 And sending people to Rwanda
03:48 is not actually the right solution
03:51 to the problems of immigration
03:53 that we have here in the United Kingdom.
03:55 That money could be spent usefully
03:59 actually dealing with issues that we have in UK.
04:02 That money could be invested in turning things around
04:05 for the cost of living crisis that we have.
04:08 Investing more in our education system,
04:10 in the NHS system,
04:11 and investing more in policing,
04:13 investing more in immigration,
04:15 and working closely, well in partnership with France
04:19 to ensure that we have more immigration officer,
04:22 more security officers
04:24 that can actually deal with this issue
04:26 and stop the boats from coming.
04:28 We don't want the boats to come.
04:29 And the reason why we don't want the boats to come
04:31 is because lives is at risk.
04:33 People are dying.
04:34 We don't want that.
04:35 We want a safer route.
04:36 We want the right route for people to come,
04:38 but not sending people to Rwanda.
04:40 That is not the solution.
04:41 And I'm praying that it won't pass.
04:43 We've also seen the Home Secretary
04:45 actually blaming Labour for the policy not going through.
04:48 We've actually got a tweet of his
04:49 that we can show of him saying this.
04:51 He says that the party is deliberately delaying
04:55 or disrupting the plan,
04:57 saying that Labour has no alternative deterrent
05:00 to stop illegal migration.
05:02 He says that the Labour Party is terrified
05:05 that the plan will actually work.
05:06 Do you think there's any truth to that?
05:08 There's no truth to it
05:09 because what normally happens is
05:11 there's always an excuse to blame somebody else
05:13 for something that is not working.
05:15 It's not the Labour Party that is in government.
05:17 They've been in government for like over 12 years,
05:20 over 13 years, and this is an ongoing issue.
05:23 They've had 12 years, 13 years to deal with the issue.
05:26 It's not the Labour Party's problem.
05:28 It's their problem and they need to sort it.
05:30 But like I said, I don't want the Rwanda bill to pass
05:33 because I feel that we have issues
05:35 that we need to be spending money on here
05:37 in United Kingdom to fix those issues.
05:40 So let's wait and see what happens.
05:41 Spring is just around the corner.
05:43 Fingers crossed, knees on ground,
05:46 and that will not pass.
05:48 Well, Tony, we did see, yeah, in the Lords,
05:50 274 voted for some proposed amendments
05:54 and the main focus was making this bill safer,
05:58 making sure that Rwanda was a safe place
06:00 to send these people.
06:02 But you said that you do seem confident
06:04 that they'll come to some solution.
06:06 A lot of people, yeah, don't think that it's necessarily
06:08 a safe place to send these people
06:10 who are essentially fleeing very difficult circumstances.
06:15 Well, I suppose at the moment you could argue
06:18 there's lots of places in the world
06:19 that are not safe to go to.
06:21 There's so many problems the world has.
06:24 But I think Rwanda has been proved to be safe.
06:26 I think they're getting a lot of investment.
06:28 The good news is the money, I believe, on migration
06:32 comes out of the foreign aid budget,
06:36 which would end up going to what we used to call
06:39 third world parties in Africa and other places that need help.
06:43 And I think this is actually helping Rwanda a great deal.
06:46 And they need help.
06:48 They've had their problems in the past
06:50 and they need people.
06:51 What I've seen, I mean, I have to confess here,
06:54 Sophia, I'm an Arsenal supporter
06:57 and they do actually support Arsenal.
06:59 It's their chosen place.
07:00 Lola looked pleased about that one.
07:01 Are you actually going to be agreeing on something?
07:05 She looked pleased about that one.
07:08 But I wanted to also ask you,
07:10 Labour's main concerns with this policy
07:13 is that it's actually not going to deter people
07:15 from making the crossing in the first place.
07:17 We're seeing these numbers of people
07:19 crossing the Channel into Kent rising.
07:23 So Lola, I'm sure you'd kind of agree
07:25 there needs to be some sort of strategy.
07:28 We're seeing these numbers rise.
07:29 And there are, of course, people sort of illegally
07:31 making the crossing and people unfortunately
07:33 dying in the process.
07:35 There needs to be some sort of, some controls around this,
07:38 doesn't there?
07:39 Definitely.
07:40 The strategy that we need is a strategy
07:42 that will take power away from those
07:44 who are smuggling people through that route
07:47 and bringing these people in and enslaving them,
07:51 increasing modern day slavery.
07:52 We need to take that power.
07:53 We need to have a strategy that will take
07:55 that power away from them.
07:57 And we need to have a strategy that is not focusing
08:00 on Rwanda, but focusing on dealing with the asylum claim
08:04 as quickly as possible, right from France,
08:08 where they are actually coming from.
08:10 Having a set of people that will be in France
08:13 deal with those asylum claims as quickly as possible
08:16 to ensure people can come in legally,
08:19 rather than people putting their lives at risk.
08:21 Those are the strategy that we need.
08:23 And we need this government to actually be working
08:27 and listening to local people as well.
08:30 The voice of the local community matters in these decisions
08:34 because as you have said, there's been an increase
08:37 and we are coming to, into Kent.
08:40 Of course.
08:41 So there's thoughts as well that eventually,
08:46 we've seen this go through the Lords.
08:47 This is the fourth time now.
08:49 There's thoughts that eventually, of course,
08:52 those in the Lords are unelected.
08:54 There's thoughts that eventually they will concede
08:56 and give way to the MPs who are elected
08:59 and the bills will pass.
09:00 But I guess the challenge then is convincing the public
09:03 that it's a good, that it's an effective scheme
09:06 and they will actually do as they say
09:08 and get the people of the-
09:09 The majority of people in my division,
09:12 which is the Romney Marsh, are in favour of stopping this.
09:16 It's not they don't like, I've been down the beach.
09:20 I have spoken to some of the migrants on the beach
09:23 and they're nice people.
09:24 Why wouldn't they be?
09:26 But I understand if I was in their boots
09:28 and I was in sub-Saharan Africa
09:30 with a mobile phone, solar power,
09:32 and I could see it's a better quality of life,
09:34 you can come here and watch Arsenal.
09:36 Now, why wouldn't I do that?
09:38 So basically, yes, I understand their predicament
09:42 and I've got a lot of sympathy with it.
09:44 But we're a small country
09:45 with too much population already.
09:48 I mean, we've got mass migration, legal migration,
09:50 which has got to come down.
09:52 And here we are in a situation of,
09:54 we've got little housing, the roads are falling apart.
09:58 We need more money spent on,
10:00 and I think Lola's right as far as that goes,
10:02 spending more money on our indigenous people.
10:04 But we can't carry on taking more and more people
10:08 from outside in the world.
10:10 And it's the same problem in Europe.
10:11 I do feel sorry for Italy and Greece.
10:13 They've got tremendous problems.
10:15 And it's a case of we've got to find a solution,
10:18 pan-European solution,
10:20 to otherwise, as climate change progresses,
10:23 and believe me, it will,
10:25 we are all in serious trouble.
10:27 - There are concerns from the House of Lords
10:29 what it would mean for those who've helped this country,
10:32 such as translators who have helped
10:33 the British military in Afghanistan.
10:37 They could, there are fears they could be deported.
10:40 The House of Lords wants them protected.
10:41 - You forget there's a legal route for them to come.
10:44 And the trouble is, I think Lola's got a point.
10:46 We should have more places where people can make
10:48 proper claims outside this country
10:50 before they take a dangerous crossing.
10:52 I don't disagree with that, but we must get tough on that.
10:55 We've got about, I think about 10,000
10:57 that come in already under the Afghanistan plan.
10:59 And I would happily take more,
11:01 because then, you know, they've got trust,
11:03 they've helped us, we should help them.
11:05 That's natural justice.
11:06 But I think to risk their lives
11:08 and paying thousands of pounds to illegal people
11:12 to get across the channel, risking their lives, is insane.
11:17 - Seems like you two have come to an agreement.
11:19 Perhaps on Monday, you should be there
11:20 as they're trying to vote it through.
11:23 (laughing)
11:24 - I'm not in the Lords, I'm afraid.
11:26 (laughing)
11:27 - Well, thank you.
11:28 - At least not yet.
11:30 - Time for a short break now.
11:31 But we'll continue some more political discussions
11:33 after the break.
11:34 - Okay. - Okay.
11:36 - Well, coming up, we'll be discussing
11:38 banning a generation from smoking
11:40 and potentially stopping GPs from issuing sick notes.
11:44 As well as that, we'll be discussing
11:45 whether council leaders are paid enough.
11:47 All that and more coming soon.
11:48 I'll see you after the break.
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15:02 - Hello and welcome back to the Kent Politics Show
15:09 live on KMTV.
15:11 Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to ban smoking in the UK,
15:15 effectively creating a smoke-free generation.
15:18 Under the new law, each year for the legal age
15:20 of cigarette sales would increase by a year.
15:22 The legal age currently stands at 18,
15:25 so it hopes to see those born in or after 2009
15:28 never being able to legally buy cigarettes.
15:31 In Kent, seven of our MPs voted in favour of the ban,
15:35 three voted against it and seven didn't vote at all.
15:38 Well, still joining me is Conservative Councillor
15:42 from County Council, Tony Hills,
15:44 and Labour Councillor from Aylesford Parish Council,
15:47 Lola Oyasi, welcome back.
15:49 Thank you for sticking around.
15:51 So yes, it's an interesting discussion.
15:55 The question is kind of whether it's going
15:58 to be effective.
15:59 I wanted to start off, Tony, by speaking to you.
16:03 The Conservatives don't want the kind of the next generation
16:07 to smoke, but they also don't want them to vape.
16:10 So how are we going to wean people off smoking?
16:12 It's an addiction.
16:13 - It can be, yeah, you're right.
16:17 I used to be a smoker when I was a youngster.
16:20 I haven't smoked for 40 odd years.
16:22 But my father died when he died, he had lung cancer.
16:26 And I think a lot of his generation did,
16:28 when they eventually died, have some form of cancer.
16:31 We've got to get out of this.
16:32 I'm all for, I mean, it's a free vote
16:35 that the House of Commons had.
16:37 And that's why you've got such mixed voting.
16:39 And I don't like banning anything,
16:41 but I wouldn't, would I?
16:42 I'm a Conservative.
16:43 But on this, I think from public health point of view,
16:46 it's something we've got to do.
16:48 Whether it's going to work as well as we think,
16:51 we have to bring other things in later, I don't know.
16:53 But I think it's worth a shot
16:55 because we're talking about young people's lives.
16:58 - Do you agree with it in the current form
17:01 of increasing the legal age
17:03 so that effectively anyone from 2009
17:06 won't be able to buy cigarettes?
17:09 - Yeah, it's one way of doing it.
17:10 I don't think it's any easy way of doing it,
17:13 making it palatable to the majority of people.
17:15 But vaping, I'm more worried about vaping
17:18 in some ways than smoking,
17:19 because vaping's taken off at a rate of knots.
17:22 And yet we don't know what damage it's doing to people.
17:25 It's not simply just nicotine,
17:27 it's the chemistry within the vapes,
17:30 of the pollutants you're getting into your lungs
17:32 at an age, a young age,
17:33 when these lungs are still developing.
17:35 You see kids around 10, 12 years of age vaping.
17:39 I really worry about that,
17:40 'cause you only find out later.
17:42 I mean, we've had things throughout modern history,
17:45 but everything, it turns out later to be dangerous.
17:49 So yeah, I think we've simply got to get a grip
17:52 on the vaping.
17:53 - You were sort of agreeing there, Lola.
17:55 - Definitely, I do agree with Tony.
17:56 That's another thing we agree on,
17:58 apart from being our supporters.
18:01 Yes, I totally agree.
18:02 And as far as I'm concerned,
18:04 I would actually say the age limit should go up to 21.
18:09 If you're not old enough, if you're 21,
18:12 then you can go out and buy a cigarette.
18:13 If you're not 21, you should not be allowed to buy a cigarette
18:16 and I'm telling you this as well,
18:18 because like Tony, my late husband died of lung cancer.
18:24 That was through smoking.
18:26 So I wouldn't want any of my children
18:30 to die from lung cancer because of smoking.
18:33 I wouldn't want my grandchildren to die of cancer,
18:36 because to have lung cancer because of smoking.
18:39 And I'm totally in support of the ban.
18:41 I am actually advocating for banning smoking,
18:45 even in public spaces.
18:47 If you wanna smoke, smoke in your own house,
18:49 smoke in your own car,
18:50 start smoking all around the supermarket,
18:53 in open spaces where I can inhale it,
18:56 somebody else can inhale it,
18:58 you're actually polluting the air for everybody else.
19:00 So I'm in favor of it.
19:03 Let's do it.
19:04 Let's even increase the age limit,
19:06 not only even for smoking, even for alcohol.
19:08 Vaping is totally dangerous because you do not know
19:12 what is being mixed inside of those vape.
19:14 That is actually doing more damage to people's health,
19:18 physically, mentally, even financially.
19:22 So we need to get a grip on it and we have to ban it,
19:25 make it happen now.
19:27 And yes, let's do it.
19:28 - There are concerns though,
19:29 what this means for people's freedom
19:31 if they're having that free will taken away from them.
19:34 - Yeah, is it free will to commit suicide?
19:37 I mean, that's what's happening.
19:40 We don't know what's in those vapes.
19:41 It's the chemistry, I think Lola's right.
19:43 And I would say that at the moment,
19:46 I'm trying to get a dial a ride scheme
19:47 off the ground in Romney Marsh,
19:50 so people can get to hospital to have their scans
19:54 because they used to smoke.
19:56 And the NHS are trying to get people
19:58 to have to go in for more tests,
20:00 particularly our older population.
20:02 And they can't get there
20:03 'cause the public transport is shut away.
20:05 So we're bringing in a dial a ride scheme
20:08 where they can phone up their resource centre
20:10 and get a lift to the hospital and back again.
20:13 That's the sort of thing we're living through
20:14 as the beneficiary of smoking.
20:18 - We've also, so we've been speaking to a GP about this.
20:22 So I just want to play a clip.
20:24 I asked him fears that it could lead to a black market
20:28 of people trying to access it in other ways.
20:29 Let's take a listen.
20:31 - The first thing is to stop children,
20:33 teenagers and so on taking it up.
20:35 The evidence is if you get past about 25 without smoking,
20:38 you probably will never ever take it up.
20:41 I think most people now know that it's a dangerous thing
20:43 to have 50% of people die early from smoking.
20:47 And so they know that,
20:48 but the trouble we have is the sort of bulletproof feeling
20:52 that people have when they're younger,
20:54 which means that they sort of think,
20:55 well, I can give it up later
20:56 without realising quite how addictive it is.
20:59 We've got to carry on having smoking cessation clinics
21:02 and help as well.
21:03 And I do think that a situation where a whole group of people
21:06 will no longer be able to buy cigarettes
21:08 will make a difference.
21:09 - So yeah, we heard that the fears that this could,
21:12 could lead to a black market of people trying to access it
21:15 in other ways.
21:16 How can we police this?
21:17 - Yeah, can I just say, look, yeah,
21:19 you can ask 10 GPs, they're all limited companies anyway,
21:22 but you can ask 10 GPs, we'll get different answers.
21:24 But at the end of the day,
21:26 we know we don't want children to smoke.
21:28 That's the end of the story.
21:30 - It doesn't answer the question though,
21:32 about people are still going to try and access it,
21:34 unfortunately.
21:35 So how do we police it and make sure that people-
21:37 - Well, how do you know that?
21:38 How do you know that?
21:39 If you change the-
21:39 - Of course, your children are going to try
21:41 and access it anyway.
21:42 - If it's called to smoke, it'll smoke.
21:43 - You're saying that no one would try and access it
21:45 in another way?
21:47 - Of course they would.
21:47 - They would try and access this in another way
21:49 because like you said, people will rebel against
21:53 their freedom, wanting to be taken away from them.
21:55 However, the education needs to start from now.
22:00 We need to take this education to primary school,
22:04 and start letting them know the danger of smoking.
22:08 We need to be exposing the real danger
22:12 of what is going on from when they start inhaling it
22:15 in their lungs and actually showing it the way it is
22:18 and not hiding behind, "Oh, we don't want to upset anybody."
22:22 If you know what I mean.
22:23 So education is important.
22:25 Getting the message right is important.
22:27 Yes, they will try and go and buy it illegally
22:30 from somewhere else.
22:31 And that is why this is where the law comes in,
22:34 where the shopkeepers, the people selling it,
22:37 you know, without the law,
22:39 they know they're going to get into trouble
22:41 if they sell it.
22:42 If they go and try and get it maybe
22:43 through the black market as well,
22:45 we need to start monitoring the amount of cigarette
22:48 that is coming in illegally from somewhere.
22:50 So our customs, our immigration officers,
22:53 our checkpoint, have to have more people,
22:56 dedicated people, looking at people's bags
22:58 and looking whether people are smuggling it in.
23:00 So that is the way to go.
23:02 We cannot shy away from this.
23:04 If I have to take people's freedom away
23:06 to save their lives, to save my generation,
23:09 then so be it, because in the long run,
23:11 they will be thanking me for it.
23:14 OK.
23:15 I agree with Nona.
23:16 [LAUGHTER]
23:17 You guys, lots of agreement today.
23:20 We've got one last thing to discuss.
23:23 Dozens of senior Kent Council staff
23:26 are earn more than £100,000, according
23:29 to the local democracy reporting service.
23:31 38 members of staff at KCC took home six-figure sums
23:35 in the last financial year.
23:37 The Taxpayers' Alliance argues this shows
23:39 there's plenty of cash to play with in local government,
23:42 despite many authorities being in financial dire straits.
23:45 So I wanted to have a discussion about this one,
23:48 because we've just seen local authorities setting
23:50 their budgets, saying that they've got these multimillion
23:53 pound budget gaps, but they're taking home six-figure sums.
23:56 Why aren't they taking the pay up?
23:58 What's the budget?
23:58 Do you know, Sophia--
23:59 I'll put you on the spot here.
24:01 What's the budget of Kent County Council?
24:02 OK.
24:03 So Kent County Council, it was about 37 million,
24:05 I'm pretty sure.
24:06 No, no.
24:07 What's the budget, overall gross budget?
24:09 Do you know, as a KCC councillor?
24:11 I do.
24:12 I want to answer the question.
24:14 So you need to let us know.
24:15 2.4 billion.
24:15 2.4 billion.
24:18 Yeah.
24:19 We employ about 9,000 people.
24:21 2.4 billion.
24:21 Yeah, but 38 councillors making--
24:23 That needs a lot of management.
24:24 38 councillors taking home six-figure sums.
24:27 Could that not be going back into public services?
24:29 Not councillors.
24:30 Not councillors.
24:31 Employees.
24:31 Not councillors.
24:32 Employees.
24:33 Employees.
24:35 Yes, get it straight.
24:36 Could that not-- OK.
24:37 I wish.
24:37 Could that not get back into public services?
24:40 Well, I actually believe that all our staff
24:43 should be paid as much as we can.
24:45 Every grade upward, we have brilliant staff in Kent.
24:48 They really are good.
24:49 And if you want to cut down the monies they get,
24:53 at the top level, they've got a business that size.
24:56 It's enormous.
24:57 We need proper, quality people to run it.
25:00 And we have got proper, quality people.
25:02 I would definitely not want to change
25:05 the construction of the higher levels,
25:08 maybe streamline a bit here and there.
25:10 But you cut as well from the top, not from the bottom,
25:13 because the bottom ones are doing all the work.
25:16 And they need renewal nation.
25:18 They really do work very hard in Kent.
25:21 And I'm very proud of my staff.
25:22 And I certainly wouldn't countenance
25:25 cutting those salaries.
25:27 Lola, you had a couple of things to say there.
25:29 Yeah, I mean, you cannot cut salary from the bottom.
25:33 The salary changes has to come from the top.
25:37 It's shocking to see some of the CEO of councils
25:41 earning over 100 and something thousand pounds.
25:44 And people at the bottom are earning less money.
25:49 And they are the one doing all the grafting,
25:50 doing all the work.
25:52 I'm sorry.
25:53 Those salaries from the top has to be revealed.
25:57 And they should be prepared to take a salary cut.
26:00 Because when we make a comparison to what they're
26:02 doing to other private organizations,
26:06 even those outside of private organizations
26:08 are doing more work than those within the local authority who
26:11 are the CEO taking this huge lump sum of 100
26:14 and something thousand money.
26:18 Excuse me.
26:19 We need to fix the budget.
26:21 We've got to reduce the cost that is coming from the top.
26:24 And filter it down.
26:26 Give pay rise to those who are at the bottom doing
26:29 most of the work.
26:30 Unfortunately, we've run out of time.
26:32 But what an interesting range of discussions we've had.
26:36 Thank you both very much for joining us today.
26:38 Thank you.
26:40 Well, as I said, that's all from us here at the Kent Politics
26:42 Show.
26:43 I'll be back straight after the break with Kent tonight.
26:45 See you soon.
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