 As millions of families in Britain struggle with rising bills and fuel shortages, the Prime Minister has fled to a luxury villa in Marbella. Boris Johnson left for the trip in the same week the £20 cut to Universal credit kicked into effect. Charities warn that the cut will push 300,000 children into poverty. As well as the timing of the trip, eyebrows have been raised because it appears to have been courtesy of someone to whom Boris Johnson very recently gave a peerage. So that was the headline on the Daily Mail, only here for the peer. It was given to Boris Johnson courtesy of Zach Goldsmith. More on him in one moment. First of all, it does sound like it was a very nice pad according to the mirror. The property has its own helipad to make sure VIP holidaymakers can arrive and leave without being seen, as well as two pools and a tennis court. The main house is set on three levels and sleeps 13, while a smaller luxury villa that sleeps up to 10 people and includes five ensuite bedrooms can be rented separately. As I say, the property is owned by Zach Goldsmith. He's the former Tory MP who ran a racist campaign against Sadiq Khan in 2016. He was made appear by Boris Johnson after losing his seat in the 2019 general election. This morning, Kay Burley challenged Tory Minister Damien Hines on the awkward optics of Boris Johnson's break. Do you accept, though, on any level that the optics are not good when people are turning up the heat and can't really afford it at home and the PM's sunning himself on a lounge here in Spain? So look, I would come back to what I just said. I mean, he remains in charge, right? He's the Prime Minister. I think it's also right and important, actually. It's actually important for him and his family. It's also important for the rest of us, actually, for the whole country that the Prime Minister does get to have some family time, does get to have a break. Ash, I want your take on this. Labour sort of taking different lines. I saw there was one person who I think was in the shadow cabinet saying they don't really mind if Boris Johnson takes a holiday. I know Bridget Phillipson has said this is the government going, saying we're out of office at the moment of national crisis because of the shortages, etc. Do you think any outrage has been committed here? I think that when it comes to the issue of politicians going on holiday, it's always kind of for opposition fodder. If Labour were in government and the Prime Minister went on holiday, really, no matter what time of year, maybe if it was in August and during the silly season and it had been fairly quiet, there wouldn't be so much outrage. There usually is some kind of story about it. So Prime Minister's holidays really up to Boris Johnson had to be quite carefully stage-managed. So Prime Ministers wouldn't want to be seen going on a holiday anywhere that nice, anywhere that fancy, probably not too far afield because that would make you look like you're out of touch with people. Boris Johnson comes along, he's like, fuck it, musteak, fuck it, helipad villa near Marbella. I do not give a shit about you people. I want my nice holiday, my spa treatments, my five-star meals. That's what I'm interested in. And so I think what that speaks to is the degree to which Boris Johnson is almost more of a Berlusconi kind of figure. So the usual standards of accountability have never really seen to touch him in any way. He's been able to kind of flout the normal rules of reputation management and in a way embrace being kind of rich and obnoxious. So I think in terms of whether or not this is going to be an effective labor attack line, I would say, well, no, because if it wasn't for mystique, then why would it be for this? And it kind of seems like an opposition bleeding like, oh, you've left during a crisis. Well, we've been in the state of perpetual crisis really for the last five years. It does feel like you could have said that at any other point since the referendum. This is a really bad time to go on holiday. Perhaps that speaks more to the state of British politics than it does about actual Prime Minister's decisions. Where I think the outrage is, is the fact that you've had this very shady business of who paid for the mystique trip. And I think there is still some things that you're unclear about, well, who paid for the travel when it came to Boris Johnson going to Marbella. And then the other thing is, did you know that Zach Goldsmith was that rich? Because I knew that he was rich, but I didn't know he was helipad rich. And that just kind of blows my mind that you've got somebody who owns a helipad who has this villa that they don't even live in most of the time. And it is bigger than some blocks of flats that I've lived in. And he was like, yeah, I want to be London mayor. I can speak to the people. No one who is that rich has any business being in politics. Just shut the fuck up and enjoy your money in peace over there. I don't want to hear about you.