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. Welcome to the hottest day of the year so far, ladies and gentlemen. There will

been thousands of you flocking to the beaches, to the parks and to the pubs of this great

nation today. Already, I can tell you, the work rate in London has slowed to an absolute

crawl. There's only about 50% capacity on the roads this morning compared to yesterday. And if you can find any, it might be wise to seek out some air conditioning.

I'm sitting in a very, very well air-conditioned studio here, looking out over the rooftops of London.

I can see the Tower of London glistening in the sunshine.

It's absolutely beautiful.

It's very hot.

It's going to get up to about 35 degrees, which I can tell you is going to be unbearable if you're not sitting in an air-conditioned car, which I'm going to be doing a little bit

later on today. We've got lots to be getting on with before any of that happens, though. Not

least the news that broke late last night, that about 4 million people in the north of England

are in a new lockdown. On the day that Eid begins in the Muslim calendar, the government obviously decided it would be a great idea to limit the ability of people in Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and parts of West Yorkshire to mingle in each other's houses.

This morning, Julie Hartley Brewer asked Matt Hancock if there was an elephant in the room, and he more or less admitted that there was indeed such an elephant.

We'll be exploring that, we'll be talking about it,

because in the end, the only way to get the truth out there is to talk about the truth, to talk

about what's actually going on. But when is all this going to end? We'll be asking Professor

Carol Secora, the man who is genuinely known as the calmest man in medicine today. 0344-491,000. Coming up later on, we'll be finding out

whether the Prime Minister is going to change the quarantine laws for people returning from

holiday to include more countries on the bad list. There's a briefing around about midday. We'll

bring that to you live. And we'll be following up on our exclusive with Nigel Farage yesterday.

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