Enda Brady: UK Correspondent on the Clacton by-election, eclipse in Europe

The UK is facing one of its strangest by-elections in modern history. 

Tomorrow will see Clacton constituents vote for their MP – Nigel Farage attempting to defend the seat he stood down from last month. 

The race is currently between the Reform UK Leader and satirical candidate Count Binface, with polls putting Farage around 70% and Binface around 30%. 

UK Correspondent Enda Brady told Mike Hosking those results in of themselves are embarrassing. 

He says Farage fancies himself as the next Prime Minister, but spent the last few weeks campaigning against a bin. 

There’s also the concern that since he has two parliamentary standards investigations coming his way, Farage may have to resign again, forcing yet another by-election. 

Brady told Hosking a by-election costs around £250,000, and the country is already on its knees financially. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right in the do I find you on a beach
steering vacantly into the sky.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Now you find me in my house in Oxfordshire and
we have been staring into the sky and I had
a wonderful interaction a neighbor of mine, it turns out, randomly,
is into astronomy and he set up a telescope on
the green out the frontier. I say green, but it's
parched yellow because there's been no rain here for four months.

(00:27):
And all the neighbors everyone came out of the houses,
gathered around and he had some special filter on it
so it was completely safe and we all got to
have a great look at the solar eclips and it
was beautiful. It was really really nice.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
As an experience. How would you write it out of ten? Ten?
I cannot believe how cool it was one What a
wasted my time.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Look, I'm on a bit of a downer about space
and astronomy and stuff like that. It does not float
my boat. I would give it six point five out
of ten. However, my daughter has a UNI mate and
he is on a beach in Spain and I've just
been looking at pictures. He's been sending horror and it

(01:09):
looked like the most stunning thing. If you were on
a beach in Spain, perhaps with a few beers in you,
it would probably be quite a celestial experience. But make
no mistake the pictures all over Europe. I think they
got a full it clips in Iceland and in parts
of Spain, so it looks stunning. I mean, look the
morning's newspapers, it'll be the front page picture on all

(01:31):
of them.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Did right, So yeah, Greenland, Arsenal, northern Spain I had
as the completed clips. How much did you actually get
in Britain? Was they just a little slice off the side.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
It was about ninety percent I think. But you know,
I really admired the photographers who have gone out to
capture these images for the morning's newspapers. Here people down
at Stonehenge, all the kind of big British iconic landmarks.
Someone will have got Big Ben in the background as well,
you know, yeah, good luck to them. But yeah, it
was a strange experience everyone know. And then what really

(02:01):
I found very interesting was the amount of dogs that
went berserk. English people love their dogs. All my neighbors
seem to have a dog, and dogs were just absolutely
going bananas. For about fifty.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Minutes now tomorrow speaking of bananas, it's collecton and so
we can say for Raj is gonna win. I guess
the key is you'd be wanting a massive win when
we want him to shatter records.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, but what kind of a win is it? Yeah,
that's the question I would ask. So it's him up
against count bin Face. There are thirty odd other independent
candidates as well, but all the polling suggests for ag
is going to hit seventy seven zero percent. Bin Face
will get twenty odd percent. And I think that that
in itself is embarrassing. Nigel Faragh fancies himself as the
next Prime Minister and he spent the last few weeks

(02:50):
campaigning against the bin I mean, it's not a good look.
And the really worrying thing is he has two Parliamentary
Standards investigations coming his way. If they find against him,
he could end up having to resign again, and then
we go through this rigmarole all over again. And you
just think, you know, this is costing four hundred thousand

(03:11):
dollars a pop to have a by election and the
country's on its knees financially.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
The Manchester about the other day had a turn out
of twenty five percent. Will let be something similar tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I look, it's a heat wave. It's going to be
pushing thirty eight celsius tomorrow. I think the good people
have clacton a lot of them. I think will be
down the beach having beers, staying in, staying cool. And
I think the prospect of going to cast your vote
for whether it's Forage or an independent or count binface

(03:42):
will be very very far away from people's priorities in
the morning.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Right. I've got several questions on Burnham's road tour at
the moment. Firstly, this business of the asylum see because
when he starts to talk about look there's bits of
middle England, wealthier England where we can pack a few
of these people. I mean, that's one brain for him.
I guess help willly does it play and how's he
going to get it through?

Speaker 2 (04:03):
It plays very badly politically, and this is a situation where,
let's be honest here, the most disadvantaged areas of Britain
have been finding themselves with all these people being dumped
on them. And that has been happening for several years now.
Burnam has come out this week because a tiny village
here in Oxfordshire where I live, called Piddington, tiny little place,

(04:27):
they've recently been told that a disused military barracks up
the road is now going to be home to twelve
hundred and fifty single undocumented men, and not surprisingly, the
people of Piddington don't want this, and they've actually done
a formal symbolic vote to secede from the United Kingdom
that that is not possible, but that's the level of

(04:49):
anger in that village. Burnam has come out and said
that everyone must take refugees and asylum seekers and that
affluent areas should be prepared to pull their weight as well.
It's not going to go down very well with voters.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
No, And part of his evolution thing he was looking
to give counsel more powers over vape shops and shops
in general and rules and regulations. Are those sort of
ideas of his? Are they doable? So is that a
stroke of a pen decision or a cabinet decision or
religislative decision, and will weigh of a heaven it.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Can be done. I think what he's trying to do
mostly is give mayors the money and trust the mayors
in these big regional cities to spend the money wisely,
because they will know a lot more about what's needed
in their area than some civil servants in London who
live in London and don't leave London. So I admire
what he's trying to do. It can be done, but

(05:43):
there will be serious kickback from civil servants in London.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
And the barbecue thing is is that control freaky or
is it? Look? You know how dry it is? Don't
be an idiot.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, look, unfortunately we have a lot of idiots and
we have a lot of wildfires. And I think it's
one measure that the Fire Service at this Cobra meeting
today an emergency meeting on the climate. We've got thirty
eight celsius coming here in the morning. I'm heading into
London on the tube. I will be wearing shorts and
a very light weight running top and that's what I'm

(06:15):
gonna wear all day until I went to the studio
and have to wear a suit. I think Burnham is
listening to the people who have experience of this, and
firefighters are saying, look, get rid of these disposable barbecues
because idiots are just sparking them up wherever leaving them
and guess what happens. Whole areas of bush are going
up in flames.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Go well, make can ketch up. So I appreciate it
very much. Into Bridie out of Britain this morning, by
why Officially seventy one point three percent of England. England
is now in draft drafted July. Sinceineteen thirty six, which
is when they started taking records. East Midlands, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Kent, Sussex, Solent,
South Downs they move into draft status to join the

(06:53):
rest of the place.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Basically for more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live
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