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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00:02 - 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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