LadBaby: Food Aid is the UK's Christmas number one

Charity campaigners LadBaby have gained their fifth consecutive Christmas number one with Food Aid - a cover of Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas.

The song, which is raising money for UK food banks and the Band Aid trust, sold 65,000 copies to beat Wham's much-loved Last Christmas.

LadBaby, aka Mark and Roxanne Hoyle, now have more Christmas number one singles than any act in chart history.

"It's unbelievable, isn't it?" said Mark. "All we can say is thank you."

LadBaby made chart history last year when their collaboration with Ed Sheeran and Sir Elton John, Sausage Rolls For Everyone, became their fourth consecutive UK Christmas number one.

Now, with their fifth chart-topper, the Nottinghamshire couple have overtaken The Beatles as the act with the most Christmas number ones overall.

The Beatles had four in total: I Want To Hold Your Hand in 1963, I Feel Fine in 1964, Day Tripper in 1965 and Hello, Goodbye in 1967.

"A massive apology to The Beatles, and to all The Beatles' fans," said Mark. "I'm sorry! The charity wins."

Speaking to the BBC, he added: "If there was anything important enough to take a record from the Beatles, it was to shine a light on 14 million people who are struggling.

"I think it's an amazing moment [and] hopefully it gets everyone talking and gets everyone supporting food banks all year."

LadBaby's run started with 2018's We Built This City, a sausage-roll themed cover of Starship's soft rock classic. They followed it up with 2019's I Love Sausage Rolls and 2020's Don't Stop Me Eatin'.

Martin Talbot, chief executive of the Official Charts Company, said: "Securing one Christmas number one is a huge achievement in itself. To do it five times, in successive years, is unprecedented and frankly incredible."

Their latest cover featured money saving expert Martin Lewis, and a host of celebrity look-a-likes, including an "Adele", a "Paul McCartney" and a belligerent "Liam Gallagher".

The success means that Do They Know It's Christmas, originally written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to combat the Ethiopian famine, is the only song ever to top the charts with five different recordings.

In doing so, it breaks a tie with Unchained Melody, which has been taken to number one by Jimmy Young, the Righteous Brothers, Robson & Jerome and Gareth Gates.

Profits from Food Aid will be shared between the Trussell Trust food bank charity, and Band Aid's ongoing efforts to fight poverty and famine around the world.

Wham's Last Christmas, which was denied the number one spot by the original Band Aid single in 1984, again has to settle for being the chart's second-biggest song.

YouTube supergroup Sidemen, who had hoped to become the first drill act to top the festive chart, ended the week in third position.

Their track, Christmas Drillings, was also raising money to fight food poverty in the UK, and featured vocals from KSI and grime legend JME.

Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You came fourth, with Ed Sheeran and Elton John's Merry Christmas rounding off the Christmas top five.

The highest-charting non-Christmas single was Raye's kaleidoscopic club anthem Escapism, which landed at number six.

A political protest song about the Conservative government, the title of which is unprintable here, was a new entry at seven.

It was the fourth such song to make the Christmas charts for Essex comedian Andrew Liles, whose stage name is also unprintable on the BBC News site.

Meanwhile, the surprise new single by London rapper Central Cee, Let Go (a reworking of Let Her Go by Passenger) outsold dozens of Christmas perennials to enter the chart at 10.

In total, 28 of the Top 40 singles were Christmas classics, including Fairytale Of New York, Santa Baby and Feliz Navidad, as listeners continue to stream Christmas playlists in huge numbers.

Their stranglehold will continue in next week's chart, which will count streams from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, after which streams tend to drop off dramatically.

In the album charts, Taylor Swift's eighth album Midnights regained the top spot, with Cliff Richard's Christmas With Cliff at number two.

LadBaby refused to say whether they would make a sixth attempt on the charts next year.

But if they do, they could be within breathing distance of matching The X Factor's tally of seven Christmas number ones between 2005 and 2014.

The couple said they sympathised with accusations they'd ruined the Christmas charts, but felt the cost of living crisis was too important to ignore.

"We didn't want to come back this year but unfortunately the food banks are in emergency crisis," Roxanne told the BBC.

"We didn't want to turn our backs on so many people. We get messages every day from nurses, teachers, children and families who are struggling.

"You don't want music to become something people get annoyed with [but] that's why we did it."

"We want to do whatever we can at Christmas to support food banks," added her husband. "And if that isn't in the form of a song, it doesn't mean we won't show up somewhere else."

"Plans are always afoot. Don't rule us out. You think we can't sing? Wait until we go somewhere else and can't do that, too."