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,

we're right here on talk of radio.

The snow is falling, the temperatures are plummeting, the floodwaters are rising,

and the cases of coronavirus continue to increase

as we near the end of the first month out of the European Union.

Today, the talks begin to determine what the future relationship between us

and the EU will be in terms

of trade. But judging by what we were told yesterday about our friends in France, it's not going to

matter much longer. The Brexit is coming. The front pages are filled with more dire warnings about a

world pandemic and pictures of women's sunbathing in bikinis and wearing masks in Tenerife.

Even John Snow has self-isolated on Channel 4 News because he just

got back from Iran. Back home, meanwhile, we are still anxiously awaiting the first ballot in the race

to become Labour leader. The trouble is, it's not really a race, is it? And the result doesn't

really matter. As we saw yesterday in Prime Minister's questions, even if the leader of the opposition

proves to be less useless than Jeremy Corbyn. Labor are about as irrelevant as they have ever been.

It looks as O'Kir Starmer is still very much the frontrunner,

but the people who say they want to vote for Rebecca Long Bailey have actually said

they'd rather keep Jeremy Corbyn.

Now Lisa Nandi has effectively branded all their working class voters in the North racist

for not being anti-racist enough. We'll talk to former Labour MP Jim Fitzpatry to see what he makes of it all.

He was always one of the more sensible voices in the Labour Party,

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