 Okay, good morning all. Sorry about the slightly late start. Computer crash. This is one of these things of hazards of going live. Things can and do go wrong. Especially where computers are involved. Anyone who knows me knows my opinion on computers and technology and all the rest of it. Okay, bit of a change this morning. I had a bit of a change planned full stop. I'm gonna keep this short this morning just to let you know of a few changes that are going to be made. This will be the last for now of my Wednesday morning Hartlepool live streams because I am beginning to campaign for May's election. We have elections here in Hartlepool in May and I will be standing in DeBruce Ward as I did last year. Instead of live streams on Wednesday mornings between now and the election, I will instead, instead of a half an hour a week I'll be doing an hour every two weeks. And one of the things that I want to do is summarize and report to you to the people of Hartlepool on what is going on at the council meetings. So I'll be at all the council meetings and I'll be doing not just a report on them but a response. Essentially what I'm gonna do is let people know and see what I would do and say at council meetings. So the next council meeting is the 24th of February. I'll be reporting on it on the 25th of February. I will still continue to do campaign work online but most of it will be out in the streets on the doorsteps where politics belongs talking to the people. And that starts essentially now. My Hartlepool website a little bit messy at the moment and my apologies for that but that's because it's undergoing huge changes. I have lots of ideas on what I'm going to do for this campaign but it will all be taking place and the bulk of it will be taking place out in the real world. So I will change from a weekly live stream to an hour long every two weeks reporting. Okay, just a couple of things that I do want to say about why I'm standing. And what I think is necessary in politics at the moment. I firmly, firmly believe that the gap between the elected and those who elect them has never, has not been wider in my lifetime than it is now. We have a situation where only one side of very important debates are represented in elected chambers. If you have concerns about immigration, for example, you're not represented in elected chambers. If there is someone in the elected chambers who dares to put their head above the parapet and say something about this issue, for example, immigration, if they have the nerve to, a lot of people will be thinking these concerns but thinking it and saying it are very different. They are very likely to find themselves attacked, labeled, even brought to book under code of conduct regulations. Simply for speaking, what millions of people across the country are thinking, that has to stop. And for the most part, when this does happen, if someone does put their head above the parapet, which is rare and express the view of millions of British people, if they do that and they are attacked, which they inevitably would be, many, if not most, will end up apologizing for it. I, first of all, make a solemn promise but I'm not afraid to put my head above the parapet. I'm not afraid to represent the voices of the millions who are silenced in this country and I won't be apologizing. People have a right. This is supposed to be a democracy and people have a right to have their views represented in the elected chambers. Similar for things like a safe vaccination. This happened to Karen King, previous councillor on Hartlepool Council who was told she had breached code of conduct for saying that we are fear mongering to children. And that is a view held by very, very many and Karen is honest and has integrity and said what she thought and what millions of other people think that we are being fed a diet of fear by the press. This is extraordinary in a democracy, absolutely extraordinary that a code of conduct can be used to silence an elected representative in an elected chamber who says, A, what she thinks has the integrity and honesty to say what she thinks but B, what millions of other people are thinking as well. If we don't stand, then we leave the elected chambers to a single voice and a single opinion and we leave them to people who make a career out of politics and in keeping to keep that career, they say what they think needs to be said and they think what won't get them into trouble rather than what is in the best interests of open and robust debate and in the best interests of the people. If we don't stand, we leave our elected chambers which don't forget, do make the decisions that we all have to live under. Elected chambers in this country, particularly parliament, has the power of life and death over us. How can we just leave them to it? We've got to stand ourselves. We've got to push and push and push our way into these decision making chambers and I know how difficult it is. I know that it takes a great deal of courage and I know that when you're a party like ours, you are facing an uphill battle. It's difficult to campaign regardless. Politics is not an easy arena to be in. It's a snake pit, it really is but we've got to persevere regardless and when you're at a party like ours, you face even more challenges than are faced in politics generally. Our party faces the extra challenge of being demonised, smeared, lied about and people actively seek to stop us making gains and fighting our way into elected chambers despite the fact that we represent the views of millions of people and we do. So we either keep fighting, keep standing or we walk away and leave the decisions that affect our lives to be made by people who don't represent our views. We give up the political arena. I am not willing to give up the political arena. I care about the people of this country and of this town and I will continue to fight, to push this boulder uphill because breaking into politics, that's what it feels like and often what it is but we have to continue to do it. We are also looking at a extreme crisis in terms of people's ability to pay their bills. We are facing this while those in elected chambers are not facing it. The ones who make these decisions are not facing the same hardship as the people on the receiving end of those decisions. That has to change as well. On my live stream on Monday, I spoke about how MPs are claiming for their energy bills for second homes on expenses and we know that energy bills are about to explode. We are not governed by people who are going to use creative ideas, who are going to look for ways to stop those energy bills going up, alternative ways of providing energy, for example, for example, recalculation of taxes, reassessment of public spending so that we don't face that crisis. Instead they're telling us to brace ourselves for the very crisis they are allowing to take place but while we, the people have to brace ourselves for a energy crisis and a cost of living crisis, the people telling us to do that are claiming public money to pay their bills. This gap between the people and the politicians has got to be closed. We've got to make people into politicians. We've got to do all we can to represent the interests of the people and try to find ways to argue ways in the public sphere, to expose, to continue to expose the disconnect between the people and the politicians. And that is why I will be standing again this year and I know what I'm going to face. I know that there will be liars out there who will campaign against me. We'll have the same things that we had last time. Little leaflets put through doors, absolutely filled to bursting with lies. I know that's what I'm going to face and it doesn't bother me. If you want to achieve something in this life, especially something as challenging and as difficult as this and as important as this, you have to persevere, you have to keep going and that's what I intend to do. So, if you're in the area and you're watching this, get in touch with me. I'm putting together a team of volunteers from various different places. I'm also going to report back to you on something called People's Parliament. Keep an eye out for that. I'll make a special video reporting to you on that. Where I intend to hold the MP for Hartley-Pill II account in the public sphere. More about that over the next couple of weeks. So, if you are, if you want to help me, please do get in touch, get in touch with inquiriesatforbritain.uk and let Sharon, that's Sharon who looks after me and the party so well, give her a shout and be part of the team that I'm putting together to fight for our voice to be represented. First on council, on this council and then across the country and then in parliament. I still believe that change is coming. The great reset is coming, but it isn't the great reset that the politicians want. Okay, let me just on the cost of living crisis. I want to tell you about an article this morning. Yesterday, it was actually published yesterday morning. It is about the cost of living crisis and Hartley-Pill's MP. Who has said that a wide range of support to assist with the cost of living will be available. Now, Jill Mortimer, the MP for Hartley-Pill has said in a letter to constituents that the quote, the support available covers all areas of the cost of living and is quite rightly designed to specifically target those most in need. The best way to address increased cost of living is to increase income for households. The government is putting this extra support in place. What good quality high-paid jobs is the way forward. Now, that's the kind of political rhetoric that is to my mind just completely unacceptable. High-paid jobs is the way forward. This is a soundbite that no one can really argue with. Who can say, no, no, we don't want good quality high-paid jobs. The statement itself isn't untrue. The problem is it doesn't at all address why we're in this cost of living crisis in the first place. And the reason we're in it is parliament and those sitting in it. Boris Johnson, her boss, is 100% signed up to the Green Agenda, this net zero nonsense. And we are taxed to the eyes because of this net zero nonsense. And it's going to get worse and worse and worse. They're taking our cars away. It's madness, absolute madness. And it's going to get worse and worse. So this high-quality jobs thing, it's a soundbite. It's a nothing. When are we going to have someone point out the elephant in the room, which is mismanagement of our economy, partly by signing up to net zero rubbish? Well, India, China are spewing out the very fumes that we're told we're not allowed to. And yet our government and the Labour Party, of course, on board with all this as well, think that taxing us and taxes are a huge part of energy cost crisis. Taxing us is somehow going to solve this problem as they see it. We have a property price crisis. We have a homelessness crisis. All of it created by policies, by Labour and the Conservative Party. At no point are these MPs going to say so. There's no real investigation, there's no real investigation, no real discussion, no real exposure of the reasons we are in this mess in the first place. And the reasons we're in this mess in the first place is the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. And they pretend that that isn't the case. They pretend that that isn't so. They'll throw £150, £200 at somebody instead of fixing the real problems or even addressing the real problems. And by the way, if you think you're being taxed now, wait till you see what's coming. Tax increases are going to be even more common than they have been. For example, the NHS. You can't get an NHS appointment, I've tried. The best you'll get is a phone call, a phone call, and you'll wait weeks for that. Try and get an NHS dentist, but wait for it. Your taxes are going up to pay for that as well. Council taxes are going up. No reduction in massive salaries, but council taxes going up. The Labour Tory stranglehold has to stop and there's no benefit, nothing changes for the people when you get sound bites like high quality jobs is the way forward. The way forward is political management, competent political management of our economy. Let us not let them get away with pretending they are not causing this crisis in the first place because they are causing this crisis. And throwing a few quid here and there of public money isn't the way to fix it. This isn't good enough. It really isn't good enough. And by the way, still, I've still got this cough as well, still nothing on the party gate from our Tory MP. No comment on it still. Okay, I'm going to finish up this morning. And once again, just to remind you, there are going to be some changes here. My website is undergoing change. My campaign for May has started. I'm putting a team together and we will do our utmost, do our best to at least let people know. All of the vast number of people who agree with us that they are not on their own and they have people fighting for them. So from here on until the elections in May, I will be attending council and reporting back and letting the people of Hightleypool know what I would have said done at that council meeting. We will be out on the doorsteps and our campaign priorities remain decent, standard of living, jobs, lower taxes and a clean, prosperous area to live in. More details on that as we go through the campaign. I will be having, I will be doing reports on our campaigns. My website will show you everything, every leaflet we put out, every report. So keep an eye on it. Like I say, it is a bit messy at the minute, but it is undergoing transformation for this campaign. To finish, I do want to say a couple of words about the headline on the Hightleypool Mail this morning. And that is that the mayor of Hightleypool, Brenda Lines, has passed away. Now, I haven't, I'd never met her, but I do want to express my condolences to her friends and family. The report says that Hightleypool Borough Council has confirmed with Deep Sorrow that Council Lines passed away peacefully on the morning of Tuesday, February 8th, yesterday morning, following a long battle with council. She had been a Conservative councillor since 2011 and had served as the ceremonial mayor since 2019, raising thousands of pounds for local charities. Councillor Shane Moore, the leader of Hightleypool Borough Council, said Brenda has been the most amazing public service, servant, mayor and friend, who was totally committed to the residents and the council she served with pride. My thoughts at this very sad time are with her husband, Dan, their children, Mandy and Simon, and all of Brenda's extended family who she adored and cherished. To finish, I'd also like to say to offer my condolences to her friends and family. So the mayor of Hightleypool passed away yesterday. Okay, that is it for me for the moment. That is it for me from Wednesday morning at live streams. I'll give you a quick update over the next week or so when the various bits and bobs are put in place for the campaign. And I will keep you updated on that campaign as we go along, but it will be taking place on the doorsteps in Hightleypool. I will be knocking on doors before the end of February because I want to know what it is that people want to campaign on. I know a few issues, as I live in the town myself, a few issues that I know are a thorn in the side of people that I will be campaigning on. But we will be hitting the doorsteps this month. And if you can help, please, please do. Get in touch with Sharon at inquiriesatforbritain.uk and sign up to my campaign team. It is so important, so crucial, that we close the gap and have representatives in our elected chambers that speak for all of us, including those, especially those who have been silenced for years. And the political mainstream won't allow their voices to be heard under shouts of take your pick. Racist is the most common one, probably. Thank you for all your support last year. Let's do this again this year. Let's get out there and let's keep pushing and pushing and pushing until we win. And we can move on. Thanks, everyone. Take care. See you very soon.