If I met up with Farage I’d rip him to shreds
His Brexit will ruin NHS, says TV Paul
TELLY favourite Paul O’Grady says he’s so disgusted at how Brexit could damage our NHS that if he got into a lift with former Ukip leader Nigel Farage he’d “rip him to shreds”.
And the outspoken host also hit out at ex-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson for being “narcissistic” for his part in the Brexit shambles.
Paul, 63, fears leaving the EU will cause economic ruin – and wreck our understaffed, underfunded NHS.
He predicted: “Kent will be a write-off with the M20 turned into a lorry park between junction eight and nine.
“Going abroad won’t be as easy as it is now, our farmers will really suffer without grants, food prices will go sky high and all the businesses are leaving.”
The tirade came as Paul spoke about his three months of filming inspirational sick kids in Great Ormond Street Hospital for new ITV1 show Paul O’Grady’s Little Heroes.
The experience left him despairing at the impact Brexit could have on patients who were told leaving the EU would lead to £350million a week more funding for the NHS.
“With Brexit we won’t have as many overseas members of staff – good doctors, good nurses, chiropodists, speech therapists, everything. We’re not going to have them,” he said.
“They are really committed. They love their jobs. They’re not there for the cash – it’s a vocation.
“They’re paid appallingly for the hours they work. When you see how much the likes of footballers earn, it’s gross.
“It’s all about immigration and Farage and Johnson. I cannot stand either of them. If I was in a lift with Farage I’d rip him to shreds.
“He’s taking a £70,000-ayear pension off the EU and is sat there making money off his radio show. As for Johnson, he’s a selfpromoting narcissist.”
In his new show Paul forges friendships with staff, patients and parents. And he revealed he was moved to tears by the singing talent of a nine-year-old girl called Lara, who has battled a rare life-threatening blood disease since she was one.
She tells Paul: “I had cancer and the cancer made me small.”
Paul, who is now filming a new series of his For the Love of Dogs show, said: “She broke my heart that little girl.
“She sat in the hospital’s Victorian chapel, singing her heart out, a tiny little thing.
“She was really chatty and charming and sang Summertime for me off-camera, all jazzy.
“She’s got a remarkable voice and I just sat there looking at her thinking, ‘I need to get myself together here’. She’s just a great kid.”
Paul added: “Viewers can expect to cry a lot because these kids are so courageous, so gutsy and stoic.
“Then there’s the parents. How they keep going is marvellous. “There were nights I’d come home and go ‘that poor little kid’ and if you get a bit of bad news you’d have to be pretty hard not to get a bit upset.”
In one scene, he wears scrubs to see a 13-yearold have an ear reconstruction.
Paul said: “The surgeon carved the ear from a rib. “I told all the kids that these doctors are magicians because they really are.” Despite presenting family friendly shows, Paul insists he is not a “goody, goody”, saying: “I’ve a terrible temper, you know!”
And much of his fury is directed at politicians.
He said: “I think the world is in a terrible state. Trump, Putin, our own country – Labour’s in a terrible mess, Theresa May’s being bullied by her own. It’s like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
“We’re living in very strange times at the moment and it’s going to get worse.
“That’s why I loved doing Little Heroes. You go in to Great Ormond Street and you meet good people doing good work. It’s good for the soul.
“It’s just ordinary people, dealing with extraordinary circumstances.”
We live in strange times and it’s going to be worse PAUL O’GRADY ON IMPACT OF BREXIT