
By the time I write this, you will have (I hope!) seen the final interview of my career. I'm thrilled it was with none other than my good friend and political hero, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who, as he told me, is on course to become the next prime minister of Great Britain.
I interviewed Nigel last week on a warm, sunny day in my beautiful garden, the perfect setting for our 20-minute chat for TALK. We've known each other for at least two decades, so it seemed highly fitting that he should be my last broadcast interview.
I must've talked to thousands of people over the last 52 years - maybe even tens of thousands - but Nigel is one of my favourites. Unlike most politicians, he's never less than 100% honest and frank. Which is why he cuts through to the public.
You may not agree with him, but you know he's not going to tell you a load of porkies. He told me that, if he wasn't a politician, he'd like to run a smallholding with ducks and geese or be a fisherman.
Frankly, I think he'd miss the cut and thrust of politics and Westminster. But this is another part of his appeal; he doesn't have to do any of this. He's wealthy enough to retire but he cares deeply about our country - enough to put himself through the hellscape of politics. I can't think of a better sign-off for my broadcasting career than speaking to the man I am convinced will be PM when Sir Keir gets his marching orders from the public. I'm sorry I won't be around to see him save Britain.
But it's comforting to know it will be in safe hands - eventually! "If I'm the bookies' favourite to be prime minister, which I am, it doesn't say much for the rest of them does it really?" Nigel jokes. "But we have a chance of doing something genuinely historic, really genuinely historic, and there's momentum out there, there's an optimism out there. They're gonna throw everything they've got at us, but I think we're going to do it and I'm certainly not even contemplating failure."
Good luck Nigel! You can do it.
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There's not much that makes me smile right now, but the sweet image of the Queen posing with her beloved rescue puppy Moley is one of them. Camilla unveiled the portrait, taken with the cute Battersea Cats and Dogs rescue, after a visit to the shelter last week. How mutt-erly adorable.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again - NHS doctors need to get off the picket line and get back to their wards. It's not fair for very sick people who have waited months, sometimes even years, for operations, to have them cancelled because some greedy junior doctors (sorry, resident doctors - whatever) demand yet another pay rise.
I am blessed to have received expert care from the NHS, who have kept me alive until now. But I simply can't abide that the BMA resorts to strike action every time it feels like it. Doctors are well paid enough as it is.
Many people haven't had a pay rise in a decade.
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Labour is so desperate to cling onto power, it has found the only people left in Britain willing to back them: children. Around 1.5 million 16 and 17-year-olds now have the vote. How utterly ridiculous. We're talking about giving the vote to pupils, who have never worked or left home. They're too young to join the military or drink alcohol.
The vast majority will have never paid a single bill in their life! It's a shameless tactic to snatch more leftie votes. That's how terrified they are of Reform's rise. But here's the really hilarious thing - 49% of 16 and 17-year-olds don't want the vote, one poll says. And only 18% would vote tomorrow if they could.
So let's see democracy in action when teenagers don't drag themselves to the polling booth - or vote for the more radical Greens or Jeremy Corbyn's new hard-left party over Labour.
I'm only sorry that I won't be here to see it!
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