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.

So here we are. We have reached the end of the first week of the country in lockdown.

If you are one of the people doing their bits, staying at home, only going out for absolute necessity

and entertaining your children, your partner or your parents, I salute you.

We are going to be here for a while, ladies and gentlemen, so you may as well get used to it. Today, we are going to try and celebrate what is great

about our country, what is amazing about our people, and just how we are going to get through

all of this, the biggest challenge to face our nation for three generations. Forget the

stupidity of the minority out there, ignore the nastiness of the small mind. And let us be thankful that this

government is handling the crisis with a level of calm and common sense in the face of an army

of critics from the media, the Labour Party, an armchair medical specialist. Yesterday,

Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled a nine billion pound rescue package for the self-employed.

Not everyone was satisfied by what he did, but he went a great

deal further than most people expected today. He's being urged to speed up the payments, which at the

moment won't be available until June, and I'm sure he might be able to do that. We'd like to be your

voice on this. So if you have particular concerns, please let us know. I know that some of you are

saying that you'd like to have seen other measures being brought in. We'd like to hear from you what those are, because we can then

pass them on to the powers that be. You can call us, of course, on 0344-49-1,000, because your views

and your news is most important to us, because we are the only radio station in the land that

cares about what you think land that cares about what you

think, that cares about what you want, and that actually listens to what you will want to do.

Coming up, we'll bring you the latest news from Downing Street, which has effectively suspended

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