>>a >> a very, very good evening to you at 7 pm. on martin daubney. standing in for the big man nigel farage on friday night. tonight. on tonight's show of the new devolution of power rules, is the labour party about to cancel a raft of council elections in may.7 pundits to cancel a raft of council elections in may? pundits had predicted that the labour party would get a hammering and reform would get a hammering and reform would clean up. is this a cynical way of denying democracy? next up, a convicted terrorist. can you believe this is reportedly suing a pub called the saracen's head inn, saying he was deeply offended by its sign. look at the state of him.

he was offended by the sign. next up, an anti storm, a christmas parody song, has reached number one on global's top 40. but here's the point they removed the lyrics criticising the prime minister and refused to even say the band's name. by the way, it's by sir starmer and the granny homers, and we'll have the creator of that song on the show a little later in the show. but first, here's your headlines and it's sophia wenzler. >> martin. thank you. good evening. it'sjust >> martin. thank you. good evening. it's just gone. 7:00. these are your headlines. first to some breaking news coming to us from the us, where five people, including a juvenile suspect, have died after a shooting at a school in wisconsin. us police said the shooting occurred at abundant life christian school in the state capital of madison. authorities said children were among the dead, while police believe the suspected shooter

was a student at the school. writing on social media, police said multiple injuries have been reported and this remains an active and ongoing investigation. the alleged chinese spy linked to prince andrew has said he did nothing wrong or unlawful after he was publicly named for the first time. in a statement, yang tingbao added that the widespread description of me as a spy is entirely untrue. the high court lifted a ban on naming yang, described as a close contact of the duke, after rejecting his bid for anonymity. the 50 year old, who was banned from britain on national security grounds, ran a lobbying firm with ties to beijing, westminster and royal circles. yang reportedly attended the duke's birthday party in 2020 and helped organise a uk china business summit. pressure to reveal his identity mounted after reform uk's nigel farage vowed to name him in parliament.

meanwhile, the duke of york will not join the royal family for christmas at sandringham, according to sources. it's understood both prince andrew and his ex—wife, the duchess of york, have decided to avoid the annual family gathering amid the ongoing scandal over the duke's close links to the alleged chinese spy. it comes after the duke was urged to, quote, do the decent thing and maintain a low profile over the christmas penod profile over the christmas period to avoid causing further embarrassment to the king. in other news, killer nurse lucy letby legal team has said they will be asking the court of appeal to immediately review all her convictions because an expert witness has now changed his mind on the cause of the death of three babies. her new lawyer, mark macdonald, said doctor dewi evans had told the jury doctor dewi evans had told the jury letby had injected air down a nasal gastric tube, leading to the death of the three babies. but he said doctor evans has now changed his mind. letby is

serving 15 whole life terms in prison for the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others while working at the countess of chester hospital in 2015 and 2016. now, a snap election has been triggered in germany after chancellor olaf scholz lost a vote of confidence in parliament. the german chancellor called today's vote, which he lost, paving the way to an early election on the 23rd of february next year. it follows the collapse of schulz's three party coalition government, which left the embattled chancellor leading a minority administration. those are the latest gb news headlines. now it's back to martin for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts.

>> thank you sophia. now let's get cracking on tonight's farage. now, it's fair to say that local government reorganisation may not get the juices flowing for most of us, but this one, trust me, it's a biggie because angela rayner is planning the biggest shake—up in local government in an entire generation, and district councils could be abolished and more elected mayors introduced. now, elected mayors, of course, could also get sweeping new powers to grant planning permission for major infrastructure projects, for example. so will these changes get britain building, or are we chucking yet more money at our bloated bureaucracy? well, joining me now is the reform councillor for kent county council, thomas mallon. thomas, welcome to the show. thomas, pleasure to have your company. the reason i wanted to speak to you tonight is because your party leader, nigel farage, has been saying that the devolution model is actually a cover story.

devolve power means , actually, devolve power means, actually, there'll be a good chance that a good number of local elections might be cancelled in may. in fact, jim mcmahon, the government minister, said that there's a good chance that that could happen. and that, of course, would mean that those are elections, that the reform party is expected to do well at. do you think this is a manipulation of democracy , using manipulation of democracy, using devolution as a cover story for avoiding a good hounding, a good kicking? at the polling for sir keir starmer? >> absolutely. and what we've got right at this moment in time is orwellian double talk. and that's what's coming out of the labour party right now. i was elected democratically by the local people of, of greenhithe and swanscombe, and that democratic mandate gives me permission to do what they are asking. this proposal by the labour party would take democracy out of the hands of the local people, and it would

put it in the hands of bureaucrats. it would put it in the hands of people that don't care or have any interest in local issues. and looking at some of these proposals, the wider development powers, this would give labour permission to, pardon the pun, bulldoze planning permissions through to build more housing estates and are already already overpopulated. area of dartford and kent. and to me that's just riding roughshod over democracy andifs riding roughshod over democracy and it's taking democracy away from the people and that's the problem we've got at the moment. >> but thomas, it was the labour party. in fact, it was dame harriet harman who at the weekend said that the enemy of democracy is the reform party. but isn't it true to say that a bigger net deficit of democracy would be the conservative party? a lot of these a lot of these elections are in rural areas. conservative party might get the boots put into them. and isn't it funny? they've been conspicuous by their silence

today on this. normally they they kick off at any opportunity about the devolution of power because it generally means more control of towns, more control of the provinces by the labour party. >> yeah. i mean, the problem we have at the moment in this county anyway, is the local building isn't going on and the tory rural areas, it's going on in built up areas like dartford and kent, where on the thames estuary, the house building round this area is one of the highest, most populated house building we've had in years. and the house building round here is astronomical. it's the highest in england, so the people don't have a chance to breathe at this moment in time. but you don't see that in the rural heartlands where the conservatives are at the moment in time. so again, there is another problem. >> do you think that devolution is actually just a way of getting more control of local areas without giving people a

say? for example, if you're a mayor, do we need mayors? do we need this or should we have more stuff run from westminster? >> well, i don't think maybe more stuff run from westminster. i think the system we have right now with kent county council and local councils is a good idea, because it puts democracy in the pockets of the local people. the local people can vote, like for myself for a four year period. if we don't do our jobs properly, we can be democratically elected and someone else will take our place. now, if you have a mayor, they're just going to be covered in layers of bureaucracy and layers of people round about them again. that again don't have the best interests of the local people at heart, and that is the problem. i was out today and i was with