Andrew Bridgen | A Thousand Words (Part 1 of 3)

Hello, it is Ryan and we could all use an extra bright spot in our day, couldn't we?

Just to make up for things like sitting in traffic, doing the dishes, counting your steps, you know,

all the mundane stuff. That is why I'm such a big fan of Chamba Casino.

Chamba Casino has all your favorite social casino style games that you can play for free

anytime, anywhere with daily bonuses. So sign up now at chamba casino.com.

That's chamba casino.com.

You've got a hood over your head and someone's kicked you in the face and your nose is bleeding.

Then you put onto the floor of a helicopter that which takes off and you hear the door shut,

you hear the helicopter take off and then a few minutes later the door opens,

you haven't landed and then you were thrown out of a helicopter that hasn't landed.

I owned my own fairly big house in its own grounds. I got my astamart in and I got the

range rover and I got a trophy wife and we were a long way from the cameras and we thought

we were having a confidential conversation. It was me telling Boris,

confidentially, that we're definitely going to win the referendum tomorrow

and Boris's face. Eugenicist, Malthusian, yes. What have you got against Stanley?

I'm a little bit lost in this town.

Andrew, thank you for inviting us to your home.

Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for letting us use your

hands. I haven't seen the lovely picture yet. We'll save that to the end.

As you know, it's a long format, so we've got plenty of time what I quite like to. I'm

quite interested in people as much as what's going on out there. You're a local lad, aren't you?

I've got a great affinity with North West Leicestershire.

Yeah. I mean, the way you talk about your constituency and the people.

Well, I've worked miracles here and I'm very proud of North West Leicestershire.

Did you go out far from me? No, I was actually brought up.

I was born at Burton Hospital because that's where the maternity war is. Most people around,

a lot of people around here would have Burton on Trent as their place of birth because that's

where the maternity hospital is. To the age of six, I was living in Tamworth in Staffordshire

about 10 miles away. I looked after my maternal grandmother until I was six and then moved back to

my mum and dad then. Why did you end up with your grandmother? We didn't have room. My father kept

a shop in Tamworth and they only had a one bedroom flat above the shop and my mother had three

sons by the time she was 21 and this wasn't room. I was ousted.

There's so many in the bed roll over. How did that fit? Do you remember the feeling of

that stuck with you at all? I think it probably does, but I mean, my grandmother,

Levinia, was a lovely lady. I remember that she had a lovely voice, a perfect pitch when she was

cleaning the terrace house and I went to school in Cross Street in Kettlebrook for a year

at primary school because I was six when I was five. Then my middle brother Anthony also

was looked after by my maternal grandmother. So you weren't there? Well, I had your brother with you.

Well, it would have been for about a year until he was born. Then we all went back to the family

at home when my father had bought a small holding at Nethersyl, which is right on the border with

Leicestershire. It's only a few miles away. The most Susie village in Derbyshire, right on the border.

And that was interesting. So a bit of a culture shock. So a little cottage out in the middle of nowhere

in about, and we didn't have mains electricity. So we had a one kilowatt-lister engine

and you had to wind it with a handle to get it going and it went off at night. So we didn't have

a fridge or a freezer or any of that. And if you put anything on, because there's only one kilowatt.

So if you put the no electric kettle or anything, if you put too many things on,

the television used to drop into a little pin in the middle of the screen.

In the winter bath night was an experience you weren't looking forward to. As I remember.

I went, we all went to the junior school in Nethersyl, which was St. Peter's, which is I think,

when I left to go to the Comprehensive, I think it was 64 pupils,

all right, three classes, 64 pupils, very small. We used to walk to school and

well, they were often dropped off but we always walked home. And

yeah, they were happy days really. And then I had another bit of a culture shock when I went to

the local Comprehensive, which was the Pingle that swaddling coat, 1,200 pupils, which having

spent me until the age of 11 at a school with 60. It's a bit of a difference.

Yeah. Did you have to fight for yourself there or was it a fairly easy?

It was a very comprehensive education, Jake. I'll tell you about it.

Yes. You had to. Yeah.

Yeah.

Some really good teachers there. Yeah. Some not so good, but some very good teachers.

And I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed my time at school. You're quite

competitive, quite strong world, not competitive in a negative way necessarily,

but did you feel driven when you were at school? Did you want to do the best?

We motivated to. Well, I was, I was fortunately in the top set for all the subjects I was doing.

And there was all streamed. So although it was a Comprehensive school, it was all streamed.

Right. So all the people that I was in lessons with, they weren't,

there wasn't a full cross section of the school. You met those in the playground.

Yeah, I was, I was captain of the rugby team. Yeah.

Well, I used to play all over the place. I've played at Fly Half. I've played

right wing. Yeah. I played a lot more rugby at university. Right. And I won my first

election at Pingle School because I was, I was voted head boy of school. Yeah, okay.

I think it was 1980. And that, that was quite interesting. So I, I was the head boy and we had

two deputy head boys, we had a head girl, Alison Bome, her name was. Two deputy head girls.

I'm trying to remember. Well, I think you probably, when you're 16, that's anything.

Pretty much. As long as it was female. Yeah. And I had a load of prefects and the prefects had

privileges, but they had to do duties and that was mostly like policing the school at break time

lunchtime. And I think the major, the major job of the head boy was to prevent the other

pupils from burning the school down. I was, I was pretty successful. I was, you know,

there were a few small fires while I was there, but I mean, after I left, they, they did burn

the whole school down. Oh, really? Yes. Because you'd left. No, no, I'm not taking it.

It was always amazing because the fires always used to, well, generally is nothing we could do about

it because the fires normally broke out that the end of the last week of the summer holidays.

So did you quite enjoy the responsibility, the kind of authority?

I'm ashamed to admit I'd probably did, yes. Well, you know, you'd have to be ashamed.

Everyone's, everyone's different. Everyone's got a certain drive. Well, I did like that. I

admired the headmaster, Mr, Mr Bradley, who was an X-R-E-F vampire pilot. Do you know the,

the Volker, the V? No, no, no. It was a sort of twin tailed little, it wasn't a very long or

famous jet fighter, which is called the Vampires. You're right. It would have been in the 50s. Right.

He was an X-R-E-F pilot and yeah, he was a really good committed man. It was interesting that

many years, many years later when he'd retired, he was a constituent of mine, and I knocked on

his door. I knocked on his door in probably 2008, so you're talking, you know, 28 years,

30 years later, and asked him to vote for me. As many of my teachers had retired and lived here,

because it was right next door, and he said to me, call me Joseph, and you know what, I couldn't.

I just couldn't call him Joseph, and even when I was his elected member of Parliament,

he was always Mr Bradley, because he was my headmaster. Those things stick with you from

childhood, don't they? Yeah, so I think I did 11 O levels. Nobody's gonna know what O levels are

soon, aren't they? We were the last first year to do GCC, so O levels were in my brother did O levels,

and then I went into the sixth form at the Pingle, and I always intended to do that, so I probably

could have gone to another school, but that was the only one in the area that had the sixth form,

so I went there, and... Do you do A levels? Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics,

and we did a general studies as well, we had to do... We did, yes. So it was a kind of early

inkling that you would always... I always wanted to go to university. Nobody in my family had ever

gone to university. Right. I wanted to go to university. It would have only been about

four or five percent of people went to university in those days. Yeah. So they wanted everyone in debt.

Exactly. Well, they didn't get me in debt because I had a full grant, which they could have

forward to do that, couldn't they, in those days? Yeah. With only a few percent of people going to

university. And I had a look around which university I wanted to go to, and I wanted to stay in

the Midlands. I like the Midlands, so I had a look at Leicester, Birmingham, Nottingham,

Keel. No, okay. And being a country boy, I looked at Nottingham University's campus,

and it's sort of three hundred and odd acres of parkland, and you got Woolerton Park next door.

So although it's in the city, it feels like you're in the countryside. Right. I just fell in love with

the campus at Nottingham, and so I applied first and second for Nottingham, first of all, to do

biological sciences, and secondly to do zoology. So I was really keen on going to Nottingham. Yeah,

and I got two A's and two B's at A-Level, so I went to Nottingham. Nottingham was very,

also a very interesting university because so in 80, 83 was the only university in UK with more

women at it than men, 51, bonus, and also the girls worked much harder than the bloats. So the

grades at Nottingham, the girls were enhancing the academic prowess, so by sort of 84, Nottingham

was in the top four or five universities in the country, and then every other university realised

that the girls work harder, more dedicated, and they're going to get high grades. So if you want to

move up the, so it was an arms race, but Nottingham started it, and yes, but there were a lot of women,

I mean, no touristly Nottingham had a gender bias anyway. Right. I mean, I got two nursing

colleges. I played a lot of rugby at university. I was playing three times a week. I had the privilege

of playing rugby with Brian Moore, England Hooker. Oh, okay. It's two years older than me.

It's two years older than me. It looks a lot. It's had a hard life. Right, okay.

And probably my rugby claim to fame is that, I mean, obviously Brian was already playing for England,

but he played for the university sometimes. He played for Nottingham. Okay.

But he had a very bad scrum, he was Hooker. He had a very bad scrum collapse, and injured his back,

and nearly was never going to play again. He nearly broke his back, and he had to referee for sort

of at least half a season. And I'd I'd broken my collarbone, playing rugby in the first year,

and it was always that name, wasn't it? Yeah, so and my sort of physique had changed. Yeah,

and I ended up moving from playing right wing to playing Hooker, which was Brian's position.

And I was playing in a game that Brian Moore was refereeing, and I was playing Hooker.

And the the opposition hooker kept, he was he was foot up every time in the scrum.

Oh, okay. So and eventually I got pretty racked off with it. So when he put his foot up,

I just kicked it right on the shin, and then the front, the front rose erupted.

And of course, I'm bound in with these two props are the side of me, and the other hooker head

butted me straight in the face. And it's very hard when you you couldn't unbind, you know what I mean?

So it's right, someone's going to, but Brian Moore threatened to throw, to send me off a rough play.

So that's rough, isn't it? If Brian Moore thought it was rough play, but it was pretty rough.

Well, it is to be young and insane. Well, that's kind of reflected in how you are now, I guess,

isn't it? I mean, all that, you're not afraid of a fight. Well, Nigel Farage said that to me

a couple of years ago. He said that the problem with you Andrew is, he said you're always looking for

a fight. Right. And I said, no, that's not true, Nigel. But if there's one going, I'm not going to

walk away from it. Right. Yeah. The righteous brothers are an arts collective,

fronted by me, portrait artist Jake Fern. And for the last three years, we've been producing

images that have had us cancelled and our shows pulled. It seems though that things might be

changing with four of our limited edition prints coming under the hammer at Rose Resortian House in

London on February the 18th. You can find more details in the full catalogue at Rose Breeze website.

If you're interested in buying original art, posters, prints, all merchandise, head over to

the righteousbrothers.uk. Alternatively, if you're interested in commission and a portrait by me,

head over to my personal website, JakeFern.co.uk.

Because there is a difference, because there are people who get the feeling that they're just

always trying to play out some kind of childhood, saying that they just want a fight all the time.

Well, I mean, obviously we used to have a few games in the rugby club at Nottingham.

I used to go on a few pub crawls and things. And apparently at the time in the early 80s, Nottingham

was supposed to be the most violent city in England. Right. But I never saw any. But I mean, I know that

you could go to the nicest village in England, go to the local pub. And if you really wanted a

fight, you can have one country. If you want one. Yeah, of course one. So I mean, that's just,

no, I didn't see any trouble really at all. But no, Nottingham was good. I studied biological

sciences. What was it about science that you did the logic of it? The logic of it, the fact that

you could challenge it and especially getting involved in genetics in the early 80s. I mean,

the doubling time for knowledge in genetics when I was a student was six months. But I remember

the textbook was Edwin Lewin Jeans. And it was volume one, two. And every few months there was,

volume ten. The books were coming out as they were being updated. The editions because say

the doubling time for knowledge, the doubling time. No twice as much in six months than we did.

So I specialised in genetics, virology and behaviour. Interesting. And just because I was actually

out for an easy life. And it was something I was really interested in. So I mean, find a subject

that you're interested in. It's not a bind, is it? No. So that was the only reason.

I remember my final year project was on transmembrane protecting transmembrane proteins from

amino acid sequences. And actually, I had missed computers completely. I'd never, ever been on

a computer while at school. So I did night classes for... I think it wasn't that many computers

around them. No, but I mean, it was at university. Yeah, but the computers at Nottingham University

in those days were about the size of this kitchen. Yeah. In the basement, air conditioned.

And you had terminals upstairs. And they did a thing where they linked up with a university

in America. And they used our computers at night when no one was using them. And this is

to have all these terminals, how things have changed so quickly. So I had to do night classes.

Because I actually didn't know anything about computers. I learned to code in a scientific

language. And I wrote a program which could detect transmembrane proteins, obviously the

potential signal proteins, receptor proteins, on the outside of cells by finding, you know,

four, three or four sequences of amino acids that were like glycephilic, either like fat,

like being in cell walls. Yeah. Potential transmembrane proteins. Is that something that you're

still trying to follow the science? I try to follow the science. It's been very difficult

over the last few years to follow the science. But now you have to follow the money. Yes.

I was actually offered the chance to do a PhD in genetics by the university at the end of my course.

But I decided to join the Royal Marines instead. Are you doing it? Yes. I didn't know that about you.

Yeah. Okay. I only put in for it as a commission for four years, for a short commission.

But I was offered a full career commission and they said we'd take great offence if you didn't accept

it. Okay. And that was, that was, that was interesting. That was interesting. I don't know

who's going to pay. I think my, I think the training, the training year in the Royal Marine

Commandos was in 86, 7, whereas I think it was quarter million pounds. I mean, you got to play

with like, you know, three helicopters. Yeah. Martillery and the mortar line and

tanks and things. Yeah. It's quite interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So in some ways,

it's different to a lot of the people that, you know, we've come across in the movement,

tend to tend to be, I think the majority of people who are freedom people now have come from

the kind of left wing sort of anti-authoritarian standpoint. And they, they probably shook the

deal to a more central kind of, well, not central. Yeah. These things are arbitrary. It's a joke,

the whole left right thing. But the left thing is, it's, it's illusion. But there is a kind of

mindset. I mean, so you describe, you know, perhaps more of a, a left brain kind of approach,

very logical science, interesting science, interesting order in the military in the, that's quite

different from a lot of the people who might be, you know, which is, I can't, I can't say that, that

the mindless orders, I mean, I don't mind, I'm a bit of a rebel really. Well, obviously you are.

I don't mind following orders as long as they're good orders. And it makes sense. But I mean,

obviously I find, you know, I mean, I mean, I mean, but you know, burning with an iron, the dimples

off your boots, and then polishing the toe caps, I found that, you know, I did what I had to do.

Yeah. But I couldn't say that, you know, it wasn't like, or being told you've got to,

you used to have to polish the bottom of your boots. Yeah. The souls of your boots, where you can

imagine running up downstairs, within the souls of your boots are polished. But also,

what that does to the floor, yeah. And, and then being told you've got to get a toothbrush and

clean the stairs. I don't, I think I look back on my experiences in my earlier life

before I realized the magnitude of the challenges we're facing in the world currently. And

a lot of it, I think, was, was essential training to get me into the

a position where I was mentally able to stand up. Yeah. And I think a lot of things, I think, you know,

doing, studying the right subjects at university. I think, you know, being trained in the raw

marines as an officer, you know, I think when I was ostracised in Parliament for sort of 20

months and no one's talking to you. Yeah. And they're gearing you in the chamber and you have

feed all your meals on your own. Yeah. I mean, if they thought they were torturing me, I mean,

it's nothing compared to what real torture is. Yeah. You know, I remember once, on one exercise,

you know, being interrogated at a doe camp and battle camp, you know, you've got a hood over

your head and someone's kicked you in the face and your nose is bleeding. Then you put onto the

floor of a helicopter that which takes off and you hear the door shut, you know, hear the helicopter

take off. Right. Right. And then a few minutes later, the door opens, you haven't landed and then

you were thrown thrown out of a helicopter that hasn't landed. Yeah. I mean, the first, you know,

two seconds are falling. You've got to do thoughts going through your head until you hit the ground.

And then the next thing is you're rucksack and rifle and on the back of you and someone shouts,

don't let us catch you again. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, they are experiences. Yeah.

And in early 88,

my mother rang up and said that my father had got to have his hip replaced at 48.

There's no one to look after the family and you'll have to come home and look after us.

And I did. And I set up a company called my father had this small holding and a fruit and

veg business, which had always, he'd made money to live, but it wasn't a business you could

really scale up. And I formed AB produce and limited with my little brother and started that

with a thousand pounds and a 74 thousand pound loan from my father, which we repaid

in 12 months. Yeah. And my mother and father went and retired into Spain and we kept them on the

payroll and built the company up 22 years. So I was the MD in chairman to a 30 million pound

business built a new factory in Northwest Leicestershire down at Meesham on the Westminster

in Westminster Industrial Estate. That's interesting. That 2001 built a new factory there.

I'd, we'd won awards in just over the border in Derbyshire, Derbyshire Business of the Year.

We'd become chairman of the East Midlands Institute of Directors. So I was on the council that

was running 116 pound mal in London. I did that for nothing one day or two days a month.

All right, while I was running my business, we'd grown that every year,

making over a million pounds a year profit by the mid 90s.

But it was on the old farm site, the old, this old small holding site and the problem was the

roads weren't very good. And although we'd improved the roads with Leibys and things,

the growth of the business was upsetting some of the locals who didn't want to see Laurie's going

by there. Right. Yeah. Which is always a problem. The other half of the village liked it because

they worked at my plant. So we've got a problem expanding because the business needed still to

expand. And it was getting harder and harder to get planning permission to expand the business.

And I think it came home to me when I to get a little tiny building, not 1% of the footprint

of the buildings we already got, to link two buildings together for a process that we were doing

took sort of 18 months and a lot of effort. And then I realised there was really no future at that

site to grow the business. We could stay there and make money. We couldn't grow.

And so I went and spoke to the village and I had a public meeting and said, look,

we've got a problem. I want to grow the business. We can grow this business and it's very good for

the local area. A lot of people work there and you're employing about 150 at the time.

What we could do is

complete breach of planning at the time. It's planning law now because they bought it in. But I said,

look, I'm going to build a new factory just down the road at Measham for miles away so that

everyone who works at the factory will still be able to work at the new factory because we're

going to just move it down the road. But it's what I'm going to do with the old site. I mean,

it's all business development and I can rent that out to 20 different companies or businesses.

You'll have more traffic than you've got now. And you won't be able to say who it is because

because there will be 20 different businesses renting a little unit each. I said, or

we could pull the whole lot down and we could build some houses on top of the brown field site.

And that'll be nicer for you. And they said they'd rather have the houses.

So I made an application to the local planning authority and it was voted through,

although it's outside the plan. And I'm going to invest 10 million pounds in Measham and build a new

bespoke factory state of the art on an industrial estate. And I was going to float the company

on the stock market on aim, the alternative investment market. That's why the companies called

AB Produce PLC because we were raised again. And then the planning inspectorate, this is under

the Labor Government. They said they had an objection and pulled the planning permission.

So the flotation on the stock market dropped. A quarter of a million pounds wasted on the fees.

And I was pretty annoyed. And also the locals were fairly annoyed because they thought they were

going to get rid of this traffic problem. So it was actually George Cox who was Director General

of the Institute of Directors and Ruth Lee, who was the economist. And they were meeting with

Gordon Brown. And they said to me that my own personal example was a very good example of

red tape, stifling business and development. It was actually stifling everybody because

everybody locally liked the plan. And so Tony Blair sent some civil servants to meet me

up from London. I really? Yeah. And the first time I met these sort of people, they're a bit

different. And I said, well, you know, you refuse the plan. And I put it in for 10 houses.

They were largely attached houses. And I said, well, they said, well, we'll put him for a bit less

and we'll make sure it goes through this time. I mean, you know, that's what they said. And I said,

well, it was only 10 to start with. And they're already massive houses. And she's under a

label going, so we'll just make the houses bigger. Another thing. So we ended up putting in a

planning permission for five enormous houses, five enormous houses, which which went through.

Yeah. And I sold the site, I think for a million pounds. So it was 200,000 pound of plot.

Yeah, in 2000. And that post code wall stitch park, it's called, is the most expensive housing

post code in Darbyshire. Yeah. And they were built by by by builder and they're very nice,

very nice development. And that allowed me to move, get on the plan. And by the time all this

had been resolved, another 18 months had gone by. The company was profitable. We got money in

the bank. Interest rates have gone up because they've been so for any failures on aim of

companies that haven't made it. They'd increased the cost to a million pounds to float,

instead of a quarter of a million pounds. And I weighed it all up and said, we don't need to borrow

the money. I'll just borrow the money from the bank. We'll build the new factory. And we built

I built the new factory at Westminster Industrial Estate. And the cost went from, I think the

business rates went from 25,000 a year on the on the rural farm site to 150,000 a year. So I

needed to grow the business. And we had the capacity with the building. So basically trebled,

trebled quadrupled the size of the business. Yeah. And paid back all the investment by 2006.

Six years paid paid all the money back for the factory and everything. And it was happy days.

Yeah. And I'd met through the Institute of Directors. I'd met all of Tony Blair's

ministers who were to do with business. And I think that basically confirmed my worst fears that

these would absolutely useless. And got a clue. And you know, I was in a position where

where I was. You know, I owned my own fairly big house in its own grounds. And I got my

aster Martin. And I got the range rover. And I got a trophy wife. And two kids going to private

school. Yeah. And I don't really, I mean, the company was, the group was a group of companies

by then. It was company called Bridget Investments. I'd formed. The group was making three million

profit a year. And I was paying tax personally on a million pounds. And I didn't really need

anything else. So what was I, you know, I had done like 20 years building this business up.

How are you feeling then inside at that point, you feel content satisfied, like you achieved what

you wanted to, or did there's something in that year that didn't feel quite right?

Well, like it was the fact that we've done, we built this business up. And I could see if we

tried to apply the same principles of valuing people. Yeah. And the right leadership, we could

do a lot better. And Northwest Leicestershire, where we are. I mean, it was always considered the

most deprived part of Leicestershire. Right. Um, Colville was the most deprived town in Leicestershire.

And La Paul relation. And I don't think, you know, it deserves better. It's actually a wonderful

place. Yeah. Um, Northwest Leicestershire is the, probably the constituency furthest from the

sea anywhere in the UK. And we're also center of population in the UK. So if everybody in the

UK wanted to walk the shortest distance and meet up somewhere, you would be Applebee, Applebee

Magna at the south end of Northwest Leicestershire. And I used to go to a pub in a little village with

a few friends on a Friday night. It seems like a different lifetime. And the conversation would

always go the same way. It's just around 2005, 2006 that, you know, the government make it hard

for you to do business to employ people and get on. And the areas couldn't, it's not good enough.

Yeah. The government's not good enough. And it was like being in a, in a loop every Friday,

to the point where I was dreading it. And I think it was definitely one point of master's pedigree

too many. And I just, I just, well, every, every Friday we have this conversation people.

Right. You know, there isn't anybody else to help us. Right. So how about this for a plan?

I'll put the money up for the leaflets. We'll all join the local Conservative Party in

Northwest Leicestershire, who probably only have about 55 members and haven't put a leaflet

out in 10 years. You all stand for Councillors. I'll stand for MP. We'll take over the area.

And, and then we'll sort it out ourselves. Yeah. And I think they must have had a one drink

too many as well, because they all said yes. They all said yes. I said, I'll, I'll fund the political

campaign. And then we'll be in charge. Then we can't moan. Can't make us, we'll be in charge.

It's our problem. And, and, and mysteriously, that happened. Nobody wanted to be the

Conservative candidate for Northwest Leicestershire, because it was seen as an unwinnable seat.

Was it? Yeah. Yeah. 83rd target seat on the 2010. I'd given a lump of money to the

Conservative Party in the 2005 election, I think, I think from memory that the Conservatives had a half

a percent swing to them. I worked out at that rate. We got a Labour government for the next 120

years or something. So I said, you know, we need direct action. So you still obviously had

faith in the system at that point. Only because I didn't know the system. I had no faith for

the politicians I'd already met. But I was, I was hoping that the Conservative ones will be

rather better. Yeah. How I was disappointed. Well, yeah. But that's a journey. We go on, isn't it?

Yes, it's a journey. It's a journey I had to go on. Yeah.

So, believe it or not, you have to go and do an exam, a test to, to be a Conservative candidate.

And you have to pay the Conservative Party. Well, I think, well, a long time ago, it was 250 pounds.

Okay. So money making scam. I think 70% of people don't pass.

And, you know, having been in the military, I remember no, no, no notice at all.

So they didn't really want people like me. It was all the Cameron's A-listers and it was all

already D-A-R. You know, they wanted a lot more women candidates and minorities.

Gay. When I didn't take any of those boxes. So, but anyway, I paid my 250 pounds and kept saying,

you know, when the selections were coming up for North, Westchester and South Darbyshire,

the only seats I'd ever wanted to stand in. Yeah. Because they were my, they'd been my homes.

And at sort of two days notice, I was told, oh, someone's dropped out of this selection.

And it was somewhere like a hotel at the side of the motorway at Newport Pagnoll or somewhere.

Goat, you know, you've got to be there at 9 o'clock on the Saturday morning or something.

You know, Friday, whatever it was. And I went down there and obviously, you know,

military selections are interesting and you can see what's going on. Yeah.

I don't know all that. And we went down to this hotel and they came the old trick on us.

When you went into the reception and they said, go through to that room there. And then someone

came out at the, so say it was supposed to start at say 10 o'clock. And this chap he came out and

said, oh, there's been a bit of a delay. The room's not ready for the exams to start. So just have

a coffee and, oh, yeah, as if they're not spying on you. So all these people for the test were,

they put some, you know, bits and bumps out and coffee and whatever in this room. And there

were chairs and things and, you know, there was that chap in the corner with a new spectre.

But I, basically, yes. And I thought, oh, for goodness sake, I went and did all that,

you know, my name's Andrew Bridge and all that's in the end all that, yeah, all that rubbish.

And then, then, then after about 20 minutes, this check comes out. The room's now ready for the

exams to start. Okay. As if they haven't already started. And as I was walking to the exam room,

I went by this chap here with the newspaper and tapped him on the shoulder. And I said, my name's

Andrew Bridge and I hope you've made a note of all that interacting. I was, and he just burst out

laughing. I mean, it was like a very bad spine moving. And the, yeah, there's a lot of psychological

profiling in those exams. So you couldn't really say whether you've got the right hand straw,

not. I mean, a fair bit of role playing, which was interesting and scenarios and interacting

with the other candidates. And they were spying on you at lunchtime as well. They didn't

they never stopped spying on you. So it was all very interesting. And I was, I was pleased to pass.

There were only 13 people applied to be the candidate for Northwest Leicestershire. I mean,

I think they, the cycle afterwards next door is Charmwood, which has always been a conservative seat.

I think there were 220 candidates for that seat for the Conservatives.

Applicants for the seat because it was a, a shoe in, but Northwest Leicestershire was not. And

I got into the last three candidates here for the Conservative candidate. And then the party decided

they'd throw it open because they didn't have many members throw it open to an open primary. So

they just put coupons in the local paper and, and anyone could vote. And I got 60, 66% of all the votes.

And so I became the candidate for Northwest Leicestershire in 2006. My, my friends, a small business

people stood for the council and I ran that campaign and funded it in 2007. And mysteriously,

we had the biggest swing in the country against Labour. The council here had been basically

Labour since 83 when Northwest Leicestershire was created. And we took the unwinnable Labour seat

down to only five Labour Councillors out of 38 in one night from control. Labour was so arrogant.

They even put the council tax up 8% in election year. They were so sure that they were going to win.

8% increasing council tax. When we got in, we didn't put the council tax up for 15 years.

It was the longest, in the Library of the House of Commons, Northwest Leicesters' council tax

freeze was the longest ever in the UK, 15 years, no rising council tax from the district council.

Yeah. And I built this factory in Northwest Leicestershire and I was actually, as the

Institute of Directors representative, I was on the East Midlands Assembly, which was one of the

first things we got rid of when I got into Parliament. But their civil servant said to me,

that said to me many years before, the late 90s, that I was building my new factory and the

least business friendly planning district in the whole of the East Midlands. And that's what it

was. I mean, often, you know, bringing 300 jobs and investing 10 million, the way the planning

officer spoke to you, you thought you'll bring in bubonic plague. Yeah, they were not business

friendly. Yeah. And obviously, there was a lot of allegations around the area when we took over

in 2007 that, you know, some local councillors were known as Mr. 2% and they wanted 2% of the

build cost. I mean, people don't want to play those sort of games. And speaking to developers and

architects, they wouldn't apply. It was so much aggravation, they wouldn't apply for a planning

application in Northwest Leicestershire. So it meant that the whole area had not developed.

So it was a bit like fellow ground, but it just needed cultivating. So the advantages of Northwest

Leicestershire were that we got very good communication in the centre of the country.

And we've got an airport, East Midlands Airport, which is the biggest dedicated cargo handler

in the UK. So if you wanted one big shed and you want to distribute over the country,

four hours, four and a bit hours, lorry driving time from here. And you can get back in the same day,

84% of all the chimney pots in Great Britain. So if you, you know, distribution and logistics,

big opportunity, we've got the M1, we've got the M42, we've got the A50, we've got the airport,

central of the country. So that's what we decided to push on, massive business growth, big

sheds, a third of all the jobs in Northwest Leicestershire now are logistics or transport related.

We're just commented to Vicki on the way here. How many trucks and lorries there are?

Absolutely, it's crazy, yeah. And also as part of my MD and Chairman of AB Produce PLC,

we also ran 12 HGVs, our own transport fleet. So I was actually a qualified transport manager,

was the only one in Parliament, which is completely in line with the employment profile of

Northwest Leicestershire. We've got this area, which was supposedly the most deprived in Leicestershire,

and with the team who were quite, I'm just quite determined to do something about it.

When I was running my food business, it was the best in the industry. And I like it being the best

in the industry. And I don't think it's a coincidence that 12 years after we took control of the

council, Northwest Leicestershire was delivering the highest economic growth in the UK. From a lower

base, but by 12 years, and it wasn't a full-time job, it was just a matter of making the right

decisions, making the right decisions. And it was follow ground, so we had plenty of headroom

for building new factories and houses, because no one wanted to build.

So by the 2019 election, we've got 1.2 jobs in the constituency for everyone of working age,

so people have to travel into this area to work, which keeps the wages going up because they're

most sustainable, the most sustainable way of improving paying conditions is to create a strong

demand for labour. And we did. And the skill sets are, people want this job security,

so I can't give you job security, but if your skill sets are transport logistics, warehousing,

or even, you know, the office functions for those sort of businesses, you could get yourself

or a HGV lorry driver or a fault lift driver, you could leave your job in the morning and find

another job in the afternoon. I mean, that's that. I can't give you job security, but I can give you

employment security. And that means that people have to pay proper wages to hang on to staff.

Sure. Yeah, so that was really good for the people. So by 2019, North West Leicestershire

moved from the poorest area of Leicestershire to the richest. It's the only part of Leicestershire here

where the average household income is above UK averages. I'm very proud of that.

Yeah. And we'd also built about 800 houses a year.

800 houses a year. And we, you know, the, the government's building beautiful that they adopted,

Labour have got rid of it now, where houses have to be aesthetically improving the built landscape.

Oh, okay. We developed that here 12 years ago, 14 years ago, and we've been doing it. And I

presented it to the government and parliament. And they eventually adopted it 10 years after we'd

started it. We called it building for life, better by design. And it's easier to get

planning permission if the houses are not boxes. So we built good quality housing.

And because we built enough, house prices in North West Leicestershire are about 30% less than the UK

average. So you imagine a situation where you've got above average household incomes for the UK,

but house prices is 30% less. So I'd suspect when I first became the MPI, I said I wanted to make

north process for a better place to live, work and to visit. Well, most people I spoke to

they to make them happy. They wanted a, well, a reasonably well-paid job locally.

We've got the jobs now. They want to be able to buy a house of good quality locally that they

could afford to do 30% less than the UK average. Pay the bills, go out on a Saturday night,

and go and have a holiday, hopefully from East Midlands Airport, for a couple of weeks in the

summer. I mean, I don't think they weren't asking for that much, were they? And that's the

definition of happiness. We delivered it. And it's interestingly with all those indicators by 2019,

um,

helpfully just before the 2019, 19 December election, the government bought out there

and updated their happiness index. And North West Lestershire, unsurprisingly, was the happiest

place to live in the Midlands, right? From the most deprived. And, you know, it's unsurprising

then that at that 2019 election, I'd led the leave campaign for the whole of East Midlands

against Ken Clark, the builder burger, who was the MP next door in Rushcliffe in Nottingham.

So, and it was humiliating for Ken Clark. It was a big beast of the conservative party.

You know, how many jobs have he held? You know, everything except for Prime Minister.

Um, in the whole of the East Midlands, it was really only Rushcliffe was the only part

of the Holy Midlands that voted to remain everywhere else voted to leave.

Right, yeah. So it was 59-41 in the East Midlands. And North West Lestershire was

61-39 leave.

Yeah.

And I knew we'd, I knew that leave at one when I saw the turnout figures. So we

was 79.8% turnout in North West Lestershire and the referendum.

People will turn out if they think there's something to worry about.

Oh yeah, sure. And real change. Yeah.

And I knew those people weren't coming out to vote for the status quo.

And it had been very interesting because leading the leave campaign in North

in the East Midlands. The day before the referendum,

leave had rung me up from London and said Boris is coming up to you for the eve of poll.

And so Boris Johnson came up to, and I'll meet you at Ashbeda LaZouche, the market town.

And we'll walk up Market Street and all the TV cameras turned up and everything.

And I was also, we're making a little documentary. I think it's called Brexit

a very British coup. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can remember standing on the Royal Hotel car park

with Boris. And we both have forgotten we got the radio mics on. And we were a long

way from the cameras and we thought we were having a confidential, confidential conversation.

But it was one of those Gordon Brown moments. You remember him with the bigoted woman?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But a bit like that. But I mean, it wasn't anywhere, it was bad as that.

But it was me telling Boris, confidentially, that we're definitely going to win the referendum

tomorrow. And Boris's face, that was not what he wanted. Right. He tried to talk me out of it.

Oh, seriously? Oh yeah, he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I said, Boris, I don't know how many how many doors you've knocked on. But we're going to win.

He said, it'll be close. It'll be close, Andrew. I said, well, maybe Boris, I said, but not

round here. And so what had what were you feeling when you? Well, I realized, did you smell a rat

or did you? Well, I just think he was being negative. At the time, I knocked a rat, but I

now realize, I've seen, looking back, I think you're right, then. Well, yeah, well, close

party gate, yes. And well, I tried Swade Boris early on to be a lever. And I mean, he was

he believed remain. He was. Yeah. You know, he wasn't really bothered. And I think he bought

now looking back. I mean, what Boris, Boris, all his family are a remainers. His father was an

enemy. Yeah. Of course, where his father was a genesis. Well, you genesis, Malthusian. Yes.

What have you gone against Stanley? Yeah. I haven't read his book, I don't think. No,

and I tried to persuade Boris to stand for to be on the leave side side. And he said, oh,

are you backing leave? I said, well, of course, I'm going to back leave. Yes. And a bit of

sovereignty. And anyway, he eventually did. But I mean, Boris had just looked at it. I mean,

Cameron had made a huge tactical error in that he had decided to place himself in charge of

the remain campaign. So sure was he that he was going to win. And obviously Boris,

he likes the stardom. I mean, the crowd that the stage was very, very crowded on the

remains side. And they weren't going to let Boris have much of the glory. So if Boris wanted a

bit of stardom, the only place he could get that was on the leave side. So we were desperate on

that side for a few big, big beasts. So do you think he's making those decisions or do you think

now looking at it? Right. No, no, he'd made that decision that he would be on for leave.

Most of the conservative type voters were probably vote to leave, but leave would lose. So it's

staying the EU. But Boris had been seen as a hero. And he would eventually be leader of the

conservative party, you know, the vanquished hero. And it didn't come out to plan. I mean,

there's no way that anyone I can remember. Is it Mr Oliver who was Cameron's one of Cameron's

special advisors? And in the middle of the referendum campaign in 2016, we had a conservative

party away day at a big hotel in Oxford. We had, they had them every two years and the reason

we didn't had it, I mean, the party was sort of two thirds, one third, two thirds remain,

one third of the MPs were for leave. It was like a civil war. And for two days in Oxford,

shirtless hotel, we were told we were having a party meeting and we don't mention the R-word.

Right. So it had a whole weekend where the party came together to discuss policy and nobody

mentioned the R-word. And we were in the referendum. And it was a bit bizarre. And Cameron hated me

anyway. He'd come to North West Western 2008 and told me that the area was a dump and I wasn't

going to get any money from the party and I wouldn't be an MP. And I said, well, we'll see about

that. I don't need the money. I've got my own money. And if you really think that the area

is a dump, Dave, I said, what makes you say that? He said, oh, I came to Corvall in 2005 with Michael

Howard in the election. What a SH-1T. I said, well, like this is my, you know, I'm not a

floating candidate. This is the area where I live in. And I said, if you really think that

best thing is, you never come here again. Don't come here again. And I will win it.

And I wrote to the government, I said, well, you know, this is killing people. And I was told that

there was no link between lockdowns and suicide rates. I mean, clearly it occurred to me that the

people in Number 10 had got access to the best scientific advice available, haven't they?

They weren't worried about killing granny. There were 50 civil servants and younger advisors

or just standing there, not mass, not socially distanced, watching it all. It said it was an absolute

pantomime. As far as Johnson could not have had COVID. I didn't have the best of childhoods myself.

And I've just got this thing. I can't stand anyone doing anything to children. And here, why are you

willing to die on that hill? Because that's the hill you're killing my people are. I know he's sold

to the devil and he is not. He's not what he purports to be.

Hey, it's Cole Swindell. After I give everything I've got to land a perfect vocal, I usually take five

before jumping into the next track. And I've learned exactly how to recharge in that time. Some folks

grab coffee. I hit a quick good looks then. Next thing you know, the break is just as fun as land

down the track. A better break makes for a better take. Need a break? Let's chumble. No purchase

necessary. VGW group void were prohibited by law. 21 plus TNC supply. Sponsored by

Chamba Casino.