LadBaby to spare British public from a sixth bid at Christmas No 1

LadBaby, the duo behind timeless festive classics such as “I Love Sausage Rolls”, “Don’t Stop Me Eatin’” and “Sausage Rolls for Everyone” ft Ed Sheeran and Elton John, have pulled out of this year’s race to Christmas No 1.

The news comes after married couple Mark and Roxanne Hoyle claimed their fifth consecutive spot at the top of the charts in 2022, surpassing a record set by The Beatles.

“After five amazing years we’ve decided to pass the baton over to the Great British public and we’re not going for Christmas number one this year,” Mark told Metro.co.uk, while wearing a jumper bearing the face of the late George Michael.

LadBaby released their first charity single, a parody cover of Starship’s 1985 single “We Built This City”, in December 2018. The lyrics were given a sausage roll theme, with the refrain switched to: “We built this city on sausage rolls.”

Proceeds from the single, which beat Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” to the No 1 spot, went to food bank charity The Trussell Trust.

The following year, the duo beat some of the UK’s biggest pop stars, including Dua Lipa, Lewis Capaldi and Stormzy, to the top spot with “I Love Sausage Rolls”, a cover of Alan Merrill’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll”.

Hoyle drew criticism that year after he told the Guardian that he was sure the new Conservative administration would do a “great job”, one week after a number of charities reported huge spikes in donations. The surge in support was linked to concerns about potential future cuts to public services, after almost a decade of austerity measures since the Tories came to power in 2010.

At the time, figures showed that the estimated number of people dying homeless had increased by 51 per cent between 2013 and 2018, while food bank use had risen by 23 per cent in the last year.

“So much of the last few years has been dominated by Brexit and what’s happening with the government that so many issues – whether it be food banks or so many others – are taking a back seat,” Hoyle told the Guardian. “We didn’t want to involve politics at all, we wanted to focus on the people who can’t eat.” He declined to say who he had voted for at that month’s general election.

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In 2021, musical comedy singer Kunt and the Gang told music website Clash: “When you take a step back and look at it, the idea of an act who hawks a single by crying to camera, repeatedly talking about child hunger all the while waving sausage rolls around, then using our collective guilty about being a society that needs food banks to leverage a sponsorship deal with a crisp company is like something from Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror.”

The singer and Hoyle had previously engaged in a public back-and-forth after Kunt and the Gang made a bid for No 1 with their single, “Boris Johnson is a F***ing C***”.

“We never expected it to be five, I’ll be totally honest. It’s one of those things that just happened over the years and we thought it was amazing that the public got behind us in the way that they did,” Hoyle told Metro.co.uk. “Five years ago when we started this, we knew the importance of food banks in this country and we wanted to raise funds and awareness for that so we did that one [song], that was lovely.”

He insisted that the plan was “always to stop at five” and hoped LadBaby’s legacy would be that charity singles dominate “every Christmas… because that’s what Christmas is, it’s a time for family and time for giving”.

Addressing the criticism, he remarked: “You see [the trolling], of course you see it, and it’s not nice but we don’t pay attention to it. We know the reasons why we’re doing it. When you’ve got a song going for Christmas number one, the only important thing is raising awareness for this important charity.”

Mark and Roxanne, who share two children – Phoenix, seven, and Kobe, five – also hit back at the “false narrative” that they’ve profited from their Christmas singles.

‘What’s sad is that when these things go round, it doesn’t hurt us it hurts the charity we’re representing but it also loses people’s faith in donating to charity if they think it’s not true,” he said. “We have always 100 per cent given all of our profits from all of our songs to the Trussell Trust. It goes to the record label and it goes to the Trussell Trust.”

With more free time now they’re not promoting a new Christmas song, LadBaby are instead busy with the launch of their LadBaby Christmas Dinner Pie – a collaboration with Pukka Pies – as well as a live Christmas theatre show, their Christmas book (along with in-store signings), and a collection of children’s toys retailing between £14 to £20 each.

Their online store also sells a range of merchandise including hoodies, underwear, accessories, and a sausage roll-scented candle, RRP £14.