Across the UK, online, on DAB and on your smart speaker, the Independent Republic of Mike Graham, on Talk Radio.

Good morning and welcome to the Independent Republic of Mike Graham right here on Talk Radio.

There's only four days to go, ladies and gentlemen, four days until we emerge out of the tunnel of darkness.

Four days until life will begin to return to normal. Just think of all the things that you'll be

able to do. You can go to the gym, you can get yourself a haircut, you can go to the actual shops and buy

actual things that you put in an actual bag and take home. You don't have to get it delivered to you.

And perhaps best of all, you can go out for a drink with your friends and you can even have dinner out as well. I of course will be doing all of those things

apart from possibly getting a hair cut so I'm starting to quite like the fact that my hair

looks completely and utterly ridiculous. It might seem like I'm making too much of what should

be considered to be normal activity but when you consider that none of us have been doing any of it since December the 18th?

It is actually quite a big deal.

And I want you to join me in celebrating it because it's, guess what, 114 days since we last did anything like that.

This morning we've got a great many guests to talk to about a great many things,

starting off with Alan Mendoza from the Henry Jackson Society, on the astonishing news that came out of Forbes magazine

that our 40 new billionaires created by the COVID pandemic.

14 of them, 1-4, are from China.

What a coincidence.

0344-491,000.

What a great idea, by the way, that Julie Hartley-Brew has had.

Why don't we actually impose some kind of COVID tax on

anybody who allows a virus as deadly as the coronavirus as COVID-19 to escape from their borders

and infect the rest of the world? Why can't we do that? I'll be asking Alan that very question.

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