Page 94 the Private Eye Podcast,
Andy: hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94.
Uh, my name is Andrew Hunter Murray and, uh, I'm here with Ian
Hislop, the magazine's editor, Helen Lewis, and Matt Muir.
We're going to be talking about the latest news in all sorts of areas shortly, and
in the second half of the show we'll be talking to my colleague Heather Mills
about a really fascinating scandal, uh, the stem cell scandal at the Royal
Free she's been writing about recently.
But first, , I gather we have an apology it's actually not an
apology from me, I should say.
Solomon Hughes claimed that you, Ian, were entirely responsible for the turd of
the week feature, and had in fact made it ruder than he'd initially wanted it to be.
Ian: Yes, I mean, Solomon, as soon as I go away, for one episode of the podcast
says he wanted to call it Discharge Of The Week and make it a serious environmental
story And I just said I want it to be Turd Of The Week And I want a picture of
whichever head of the waterboard it is with a turd emoji now that bit is true
But I'm just saying other people thought it was funny as well
And to put a picture of, say, Heidi Mottram, who was the head of
Northumbrian Water, um, next to a turd emoji and say, Heidi Mottram
pictured left, I still think is
Andy: funny.
So
Ian: So that's all I've got to say.
and Solomon, who is not sadly available for this podcast, or indeed ever
again, um, is not here to deny it.
So thank you for that.
Andy: So it's kind of a non apology from everybody of the week.
And, uh, there'll be more turds of the week in future, is what you're saying.
Ian: Yes, and also Heidi was the first woman turd.
Um, to get the award we've had, uh,
Helen: the turd
ceiling.
It's lovely.
I'm sorry.
The ground ceiling.
Andy: turd ceiling.
god.
Okay, maybe,
before we get any deeper into this.
Yeah, let's, um, let's, let's go to some actual news stories.
So, Matt, you're here partly because you write a lot about tech ai and
there's a hugely exciting rebrand.
Even more exciting maybe than Heidi Moran's rebranding as third of the
week, which is Twitter Becoming X.
Matt: Can I just start by saying how much I hate Elon Musk for making me pay so
much attention to him, and what is, what should be, a very,
very, very boring non story.
Company changes name.
Doesn't feel like it should dominate the news page and the
news cycles, but Elon Musk has...
At least three talents, one of which is attracting all of the world's press
attention to him at any given moment.
so this has been on the cards for a while.
So, when, uh, in October of last year, uh, Elon Musk said that, um, his purchase
of Twitter was an accelerant towards his dream of creating X, the everything app.
And then in April, he incorporated Twitter into X.
Which is a company that he had previously owned.
So Twitter technically hasn't existed as a company for about four months now.
so he has now rebranded it to X officially.
And the question as to why he's done this.
So the boring and probably factual answer is that since 1999, when Elon
Musk founded a company called X.
com in the States, which was designed to be a banking and payments provider.
But he had always...
said that was going to be the universal financial services
app, the everything app,
as he
claimed it.
He then partnered, , with, uh, some other people including Peter Thiel, whose, um,
company had come up with very similar technology via their offshoot PayPal.
These companies merged and then basically everyone else in this company kicked Elon
Musk out because they hated him . there's a wonderful quote here, uh, from, uh,
from Elon back in the day where he says that X is the coolest URL on the internet.
Now, now, take a moment, take a moment.
This man was, I believe, already 28, 29 years old at the time.
Surely at the age of nearly 30, one should have grown out of the
belief that the letter X...
X is somehow imbued with this magical property that
makes everybody fall in love with you if you use it.
Helen: I think there's one way to
understand Elon Musk,
and it's basically 13 year old boy do, Right?
So the whole thing is that he has named it X because then
he's now renamed the boardrooms
inside Twitter with names like Sexy with a big X in it, right?
Like that's the whole, like, he's like a kid writing boobs on a calculator.
That is basically the only way to understand
Matt: exactly like that, and the kind of mad thing about this is, the kernel of
this idea is that X will eventually, and this is something he's been trying to do
via a medium of levers primarily in the States with attempts to get licensing for
banking transfers and things like that.
He wants X to fundamentally become...
Much like, um,
say, WeChat is in the, in China WeChat is effectively a kind of
mixture of Facebook and PayPal
and WhatsApp that Chinese people use pretty much for everything.
You pay things through it, you transfer money to your friends,
relatives, the government surveils you, all of these wonderful things.
Ian: is that the important
Matt: That's the really important bit.
But anyway, so the idea is that all of your financial services, in fact,
your entire life will go through this.
Now...
It strikes me as questionable whether the vanishing number of people who
actually want to use Twitter, let alone pay Elon Musk 8 a month or
upwards for the privilege of so doing,
Ian: are people staying with it?
Are they going off to threads?
Which, I obviously, I've moved all my, my accounts there
Helen: it is.
I've really loved all those pictures of you in by the pool,
just saying, you know, blessed.
Family is everything.
Um, a lot of people tried out threads, which is from Meta, the Facebook parent
company, basically because it was very easy if you had an Instagram account
just to say, and I'll sign up for this.
And it was what the brands really liked it because it was a very safe space
that wasn't full of, you know, Nazis
and sort of like race bait content but it was also incredibly boring.
So it looks like a lot of people sampled it and then went, actually, I don't really
think feel like I need this in my life.
Andy: little question for the three of you here.
I'm not quite sure what I was thinking when I wrote this.
Is this Brexit for the internet?
Basically,
there has been a long movement to globalization of content.
Everyone from every direction was in Twitter.
And it meant you could see a lot of stuff you hated or that you loved.
And you could argue with everybody.
And now there is a kind
of fragmentation and you've got a kind of, you know, Grand Duchy here and a little,
you know, micro statelet there and a micro nation here and it's, it's gradually
splintering and we're going to have a Holy Roman Empire situation before long.
Matt: mean if, I, if, if by that you mean that because of the
weird caprice of somebody with a
long standing grudge, all of our experience has been made
marginally worse, then yeah, it's
almost exactly like Brexit, I think.
That's a really good
Helen: analogy, well
done.
You had me at Holy Roman Empire, I was instantly going, who is
the Pope in this situation?
Who is Charles VII?
Who hasn't got enough grandparents, you know, and has got a
weak jaw?
Um, the weird thing about Elon Musk, about this idea about him wanting to run this...
big app is that he talks a big game about being kind of libertarian and
capitalist.
But both he and Peter Thiel of PayPal have throughout their careers relied on
really big government contracts, right?
Palantir and Thiel's companies have relied on these big defense department contracts.
Um, SpaceX nearly went bust and was rescued by winning a couple
of massive NASA contracts.
So there is this weird thing that he wants to usurp the functions of
government, but by doing it in this nimble, agile capitalist way, which is
always slightly when you scratch the surface, not quite as advertised, I would
Ian: say.
Helen: Well, yeah, I think that's, I think that's fair.
You know, the, the basic theory of Tesla is that you get credits, tax
credits for selling electric cars.
'cause governments are putting so much money into the energy transition.
So, you know, you can't really tell that story without a very favorable
tax environment in the us And, and honestly, let's, SpaceX came within
what days, Matt, of, of, of going
Matt: It was literally days.
if it hadn't been for the fact that he was kicked out of...
What was then X.
com by Peter Thiel and others, the company had, again, not long because
Musk was running it into the ground with his obsession with this X thing.
So this image of him as a visionary business genius who, you know, give him
enough rope and he will run it around the world 17 times and electrify it to boot is
possibly somewhat unwarranted.
Don't get me wrong, like the fact that he has made electric cars
worldwide a thing is an incredible achievement and he has changed
the course of human history.
In some way, as a result of so doing.
I don't think that equates to him, as I think the past year has
proven, being able to turn shit into gold wherever he may step.
Ian: for those of us who didn't think Twitter was terribly great
to start with, has he made it worse
Helen: Indubitably.
You can see it
in a couple of ways.
The first is that the verification system being removed from, you know,
brand accounts and stuff like that means it's much harder to see who is genuinely
trustworthy in a kind of breaking news situation.
Something that looks like ABC News tweets you have no idea really
if it's the real one anymore.
Matt: It's also important to point out the hate speech issue because
this is another contentious one.
So obviously Twitter no longer being a public company means that it doesn't have
to provide data about any of this stuff.
And Musk's principle of hate speech has always been freedom of
speech but not freedom of reach.
So the idea being that on Twitter now...
You are entitled, based on the platform's laws, to say probably more bad things,
bad, inverted commas obviously, uh, than you were previously under the old regime.
The difference now being is that, according to Elon Musk, Tweets with
bad things in them will be less visible via algorithmic suppression
than they might have been otherwise.
Which means that Elon Musk, as he has done consistently throughout the
course of his ownership of the company, has been saying things like, well,
hate speech is down, hate speech is down, we've eliminated so much of it.
And firstly, that's impossible to check.
because he doesn't have to publish any data about this.
Secondly, it's impossible to check because all of the, uh, data that third party fact
checkers used to check to verify this stuff, they can't afford anymore because
he's jacked up the API prices, and, and thirdly, the, which is the crucial
thing, now, anybody who uses Twitter and is part of a group of people who
regularly attract a program online, and...
Some of you, as journalists, may be aware of this phenomenon.
Helen: I am familiar with the one you're talking about, yes.
We'll, we'll
Matt: I'm not clear with the volume of terrible things that people say
to you on Twitter hasn't diminished.
In fact, some might argue that it has got larger.
. Andy: bring that up.
Yeah.
It used to be like a large, here's another
Andy analogy time, it used to be like a large open field, with
Ian: Is this going to be a regular
Andy: Angular feature!
I'm afraid it is, yeah, yeah.
It used to be more like a speaker's corner, you know, you get a lot of
weird stuff going on, but it was, but there was a lot, and you know, a hundred
flowers were blooming and all of this.
And now it's a little bit more like a, a kind of worrying petrol station
late at night, you just need to get in.
Pay for the petrol, buy a line bar, get out.
That's it.
You sort of pop in rather than anything
Helen: else.
Yeah, I always thought of it like being
like a pub and it is like, now it is like a pub slightly after
closing time, someone's just snapped a pool queue in half,
Andy: Alright, well speaking about free speech, brings us very nicely
on to the next subject we've got.
It's maybe the most important story happening in the
entire world at the moment.
It is of course...
Nigel Farage's banking arrangements and this has, this has prompted mass
resignations, um, huge campaigns, lots of, I mean, lots and lots and lots
of attention, which obviously Nigel Farage is very, very good at getting.
Unfortunately, on this occasion, it seems like he's got a point.
Ian, are you, you want to step up and defend him, No, I'm just
Ian: Well, no, I'm just, I'm just incredibly angry about the whole
issue, uh, because it appears that Farage is right, uh, which
is just not what I want to read.
, and, uh, having plowed for, you know, years through this, um,
stuff about freedom of expression and, um, uh, used as a flag for,
um, the right to get very excited.
It seems that in this case, they have a point.
And I don't want that.
I do not want to read sympathetic pieces where Nigel Farage
is presumed, to be right.
And to be honest, uh, on this one, initially, no one wanted to believe it.
Um, and most commentators said, well, I bet he hasn't got enough money, which
is obviously what was the, um, the inference, , of the, the head of NatWest
at that infamous charity dinner, and we thought that would be good, or some of us
were hoping that perhaps there'd be some issue of um, uh, Russia Today's money
or, you know, none of these things are true, but it's what we were all hoping.
And the truth is, uh, he was right, um, and I find that very, very annoying.
Andy: We should say that.
Just for any listeners who haven't been reading the front page of The Daily
Telegraph for the last fortnight, it's that there was a dinner at which, uh,
the Chief Executive Alison Rose briefed, uh, A B B C journalist called Simon Jack.
She said no, the reason he was chucked out was because he didn't have the
requisite either 1 million or 3 million pounds in investments or savings.
So that's why.
And then he checked that with her.
She said, absolutely, you can run that.
And it wasn't true.
And, Helen, you've been reading the dossier that Coutts had prepared,
uh, on Nigel Farage, and it, I believe it makes a very interesting
Helen: Yeah, it does.
It, it doesn't, I mean, it doesn't kill you with the best view of Nigel Farage
when you read all his stuff together about why he doesn't like watching Women
Foot women's football 'cause it's rubbish and why women deserve to be Payless.
But, you know, there's stuff in there like his opposition to net zero, right?
Which is, you can agree or disagree with it, but that he is a legitimate
per political position agreed with, with lots and lots of people in this country.
And there is stuff about him not, you know, attacking Black Lives
Matter as a Marxist organization.
As Ian says, there is some mention of Russia connections, particularly the
name Aaron Banks is redacted throughout.
But it also points out we've never been able to find anything.
He's not been convicted anything.
He's not been sanctioned.
You know, he left his Russia Today show in 2017.
so, you know, they just don't really find anything on him.
Apart from the fact there's this phrase that comes up, but he's
not compatible with our inclusive.
policies are included, you know, we might not agree with him, which is kind
of fascinating that you, you know, that your bank is kind of presuming to rule
on what your opinions on climate change or whatever it might be, or like the
particular transition towards, you know, um, towards energy efficiency might be.
So yeah, I, once you come away from that dossier thinking, God, he's had
some terrible opinions in his life, you also come away thinking this is
not a reason to deny someone banking.
My slight concern is that I felt like he hadn't, has he been
debanked so much as down banked.
Andy: I don't like, I don't like the word debanking and I'm annoyed that we
all know it now, but you know, um, he's,
Ian: yes,
It's rather like
Andy: debagging,
Helen: Yes, that's why
Ian: Seems a very old fashioned word, very coot somehow.
Uh, we don't like your record And we're
debagging
Andy: I didn't know that about him thinking that women should be paid less.
Although I guess he has ensured that at least one woman is
being paid much, much less now.
So...
Ian: Well, I don't know, she's getting some vast payoff, I think.
Um, so I don't think even that has worked.
Helen: Yeah, he said they were, they just look, 'cause they go away and have babies,
they just are objectively worthless.
So should we really worry about the gender pay gap?
But again, I find it an annoying opinion.
I would like to have a small round with him about it, but it's not necessarily
a reason to kick him out of his
Andy: bank.
Yes.
but down banking is a, as in,
Am I right in saying he was told he could still have an account at NatWest?
But only a personal account,
Helen: But only a personal account, not a business account.
And I think there are a couple of things that are legitimate problems here.
One is about a million people in Britain don't have a bank account.
And you are supposed to be guaranteed by nine banks that they will give you access
to quote unquote basic banking services.
Now this is a, you know, this is a huge problem, not least among
people like refugees, for example.
You know, they just simply cannot get these bank accounts.
And one of the other things that comes up again and again in these
stories that did happen to Farage is that you don't get told why.
Your bank just goes, sod off.
And you go, why?
And they go, don't care.
Now, obviously, not everybody then has a recourse to not just phoning the
manager, And little did I know that the super option was to go straight to
the chief exec and demand satisfaction.
But yeah, so, so I find it difficult because as Ian
says, there are times in which
Ian: And he wanted to belong to Coots.
So it is a certain sort of snobbery that he wanted.
And you don't have frightful spivs like Nigel.
Uh, having accounts at Coots, I thought that's what they wanted.
The unwritten rule was, but it appears to be stuff about discrimination and
inclusivity, which, again, um, if you want to buy into snobbery and they won't have
you, it does end up being quite funny.
Helen: Right, it's basically Coots is operating like a private members club and
it is doing what private members clubs do, which is say you're an awful rotter and
we won't want to be associated with you.
That does make me think if you've got a Coots account you should have a subject
access request, that's got to be quite
fruity.
I would recommend anybody who, who thinks that they've been wronged
by a company issue a subject access
request.
You Um, so
it's
basically you apply under freedom of information legislation, data protection
legislation, to find out everything that they've been discussing about you.
Andy: So, Ian, you're saying you've never bumped into him around the
potted plants, around the rare
Ian: Um, Um, no,
Andy: Chaps in bowler hats now,
Ian: hats.
Now I think they've scrapped them anyway.
No, totally missed him.
But I was interested in.
The argument about him afterwards, because there was, you know, people immediately
saying, Well, you know, a private company can do what it likes and, and it can't.
I mean, you know, if you've got a house to rent, you're not allowed anymore to put up
signs saying no dogs, no Irish, no blacks.
You know, there is, there is an argument here.
And everyone always brings up the, the gay bakers.
Um.
No, they were Christian bakers, and they were
Andy: Yes, the cake was gay, the bakers weren't.
Ian: weren't.
Weren't.
Thank you, thank goodness I've got people here to pick me up on detail.
Um, but on that issue, UKIP at one point came out entirely behind the
right of the private baking company to
refuse business.
which it did not approve of.
And UKIP in a pledge said, you know, the right to refuse to carry out certain
tasks, we will make that core UKIP policy.
Now, one of those tasks that you may not want to carry out is, is having
a bank account for Nigel Farage.
So there is...
There is a slight contradiction here.
Um, and I think that's why this debate turned interesting.
Matt: From what I'd understood, the crux of the story here is that, uh, Coots
asserted, uh, that there would be a point at which Farage had disposed of
his mortgage with them that he would not technically meet the threshold but it
was at their discretion whether or not customers were able to continue banking
with Coots and they would then, at that point, not exercise that discretionary
Helen: Mm hmm.
Yeah, so they said when his mortgage finished they would put him on a
glide path to exit Which sounds like a euphemism for, like, euthanizing him.
It's gonna put you on a glide path to the pillow of your face.
But yeah, exactly right.
They could have, they could have maintained it, but they said We
think there's a reputational risk in being associated with him.
However, we also think he might,
quote, go public.
Uh, and guess what?
They were in fact right about at least one of
Matt: about in
many respects, this is as much a story as it is about Farage, free
speech and banking rights, as it is about a PR department massively
fucking things up.
Helen: Oh, definitely.
Putting it all down in emails.
I think that's the thing.
People haven't really caught up with the idea of subject access requests yet.
Um, and what it is that people are entitled to do.
I also do feel slightly that people are being a little bit played on
this because it is very much in Farage's interest to, um, stoke kind
of fears about the banking system.
Now, some of those are entirely correct, right?
But he has been.
Up until last year, he had a daily, you know, newsletter in which
he would regularly plug not only gold and silver, but, but Bitcoin.
Right, so he's very much on that, you can't trust the elite, you can't trust
the glo the globalists, that's what he called Grant Shapps, you know, you
can't trust the bank economy, kind of, either put it all in Bitcoin that
no one can control, brackets, it's definitely not a pyramid scheme, or put
it all in gold, you know, where at least you can touch it and know where you
Matt: are.
Can we just point out, by the way, that he was also charging 200 annually to
subscribers of that fantastic newsletter?
Um, I'm not entirely sure
Helen: that fantastic newsletter.
Um, and Freedom, it was
called.
Matt: and freedom.
Helen: I, um, it ended in 2022.
I went and looked it up.
His last email appears to have been in April 2022.
Headline, Reports of Bitcoin's Death are Greatly Exaggerated.
Which he wrote just before Bitcoin spectacularly imploded
and lost about, um, I think, you know, two thirds of its value.
Andy: The other slightly interesting thing is that NatWest is, what
is it, 40% owned by the taxpayer?
Is this why there was such a ministerial push to get rid of Alice and Rose, also
the, it wasn't just the chief executive, the chair resigned as well, and um,
Farosh has now slightly jumped the chuck and said the entire board, maybe
Helen: Yep, the cleaning ladies should go,
Andy: yeah, all branches to be closed and turned into trendy wine bars immediately,
yeah.
old fashioned pubs, Yeah, I mean, that was, the political element to
it was an interesting one as well.
Helen: is a bit I find uncomfortable.
Much as I find uncomfortable.
Banks sitting in moral judgment on perfectly legal opinions.
I also find the government dictating to banks what, and private companies
generally what they should do, a, a dangerous road to go down.
And you're right, there does seem to have been a, a moment when it seemed
like Alison Rose could stay on, and she still had the confidence to
chair Howard Davis and then suddenly Ruy Sinek did a tweet, and then no.
Oh no, she's on a, on her way out now.
Which again, is not a trend I would necessarily like to
encourage,
Ian: No.
But is is this a case of when Farage says, oh, woke, um, Rishi soon says, oh, woke.
Is that, oh yes, that's it.
That's where the votes are.
Banks are woke.
I mean, it's a sort of pathetic me too
Matt: is anyone keeping a running list of all the things that are woke?
Currently, and when they started being woke?
and if they ever stop being.
It's
everything.
Andy: a small corner of a forgotten field that is not
Matt: woke, Are
Andy: everything else is woke.
Yeah,
Helen: I'm
woke.
Yeah,
Andy: yeah.
yeah.
Helen: Actually, the Daily Mind did publish a woke list,
which, uh, so you could still get onto if you're, if you, if you apply
Matt: Did you notice how white it was?
No diversity.
It was very disappointing.
Andy: he's got lots of other business interests, so as well
as Fortune and Freedom, which we just mentioned, he's been
Ian: Is he allowed to refuse?
Is there a
point at which you can de cameo someone?
Helen: threshold.
Yes.
I speak as someone who's watched, uh, his show in which
he got right, said Fred on to
do, I'm too sexy and started stripping off to it and then the screen went blank.
Ian: so it?
. ? is only fans!
If
Helen: didn't
ask you about that, about wokeness, actually, because
we have seen Rishi Sunak 3.
0.
This time he's in Margaret Thatcher's Land Rover.
Andy: 3.
And this was another telegraphy thing, at the risk of this being
a telegraph podcast, rebrand.
He was pictured at the wheel of Margaret Thatcher's old Rover.
being interviewed about how he's on the side of the motorist.
You know, despite being, I think, a helicopter guy,
really.
You know, um, he was, and it was a really, really horrible image of
just, you know, this is, we're just going to, I'm going to put on Harold
Macmillan's old moustache now, and talk, I'm just, this is an example
of, please come up with something new.
But anyway, he was, he was, Trying to rebrand himself, as he has been for the
last couple of weeks since the Uxbridge by election, as, um, you know, Mr.
Mr.
Antiwoke, Mr.
Drill Baby Drill.
He's Sarah Palin now.
He's granting hundreds of new oil and gas licenses.
He is ready.
He is ready to declare war on the war on motorists, you know.
So it is a, it is a funny kind of rebrand and it's, yeah,
it doesn't sit well with him.
Helen: It just doesn't work with him at all.
He, like, every time I see him I mentally put him in a little can
of cap and shorts and a blazer with a school crest on, right?
My mind just effortlessly photoshops that onto him.
Whereas someone like James Cleverley, who's now Foreign Secretary, can do the
kind of blokey Clarkson, beer y, whatever.
It just looks such a put on when Rishi Sunak does it that I'm not sure.
But it does bespeak a certain level of desperation in the Conservatives
about his, quote unquote, narrow path to victory in the next election, right,
which is supposed to be through basically offshore, you know, more gas and oil
drilling in the North Sea, an end to low traffic neighbourhoods, and, you
know, fight campaigning against ULEZ because the by election in Uxbridge went
the wrong way by 500 votes, you know?
I
Andy: you know?
The low traffic neighbourhoods thing is so funny, as in this is...
This is not the grand,
you know, century spanning policy that we are maybe hoping we might
get from the Conservative Party.
It's
Ian: Well again, I came back from two weeks in Greece, which is
frying, and we're arguing about
about ULEZ and um, whether it's, not only whether it's being implemented
properly and whether people are being given sufficient compensation, but
suddenly it's the whole idea of any green policy at all, ever, um, being rubbish.
I mean, this is fairly fast, um, in the course of a two week
holiday, uh, and seems to have been predicated entirely on...
Only, , losing, , two out of the three possible seats.
, and this is suddenly a brilliant new policy, and the same, I mean, you've
written about Starmer as a sort of iron control, but suddenly, um, Starmer is
thinking, Well, I'm, perhaps I'd better drop the green stuff as well, because,
because we only won one seat hugely.
Andy: slicky.
But it's a seat, it's a seat that the Conservatives have never, ever lost.
When Tony Blair won in 1997, the Conservatives held Uxbridge.
Ian: people are always looking for the equivalent of Blaise Mondeo
man, or Vauxhall man, and this appears to be old banger man who's
got some really terrible old van and if that is the only target now,
Andy: Well, it's like how Jeremy Corbyn didn't win because it turns out that
there aren't actually 20 million Marxist academics from North London across the UK.
There probably aren't 20 million old banger men and
women,
Ian: Well, again, returning from the continent and seeing the headline, um,
by election fallout, where I was in the, in the Peloponnese, the actual
ash cloud was dropping ash on you, um, in the mornings, which made being
on, being on holiday, I mean, this is a bit of a first world problem, so.
Do do feel obliged not to sympathize, but it was a reminder that the
slightly weird brown colored sky and ash dropping on your head Might be
more important than ULIS when you when
you got back
Helen: Yeah, I also think you're right, Matt, in the sense that the
problem with it is about the 12.
50 a day charge.
It's a hell of a lot for people whose business relies on it or who can't get
their kids to school without the car.
But it also comes on top of the cost of living crisis, right?
So it's, people can't afford 12.
50 a day for this.
That is true, I'm sure there are lots of people that it applies to,
but not least because the general economic situation after now 13 years
of a Tory government is so grim.
And they'd like to talk about the first bit, but not so
much about the second bit, I
Ian: think.
And didn't the treasury turn down Kane's request for more money to make
les fairer and offer more compensation?
So it's not, it's not entirely black and white, is
Andy: it?
I think what the Conservatives sometimes do is they announce a deadline.
2015 at zero, 2030 cars.
They don't do a huge amount to get the world to that deadline
or to get the country there.
And they say, this deadline is a nightmare.
Who thought of this?
We better cancel this.
That's a vote winner.
Helen: Yes, lots of these policies really either date back to
Boris Johnson or David Cameron.
So it's not like they were opposition policies, they were previous iterations
of the Tory party's policies.
And that is the kind of thing, when you're trying to deal with something
as huge as climate change, about the fact that you can't even agree with
your own party of two years ago.
It becomes very difficult, which is again why, you know, there is...
A big backlash over the kind of suggestions that they might
scrap the um, ban on sales of petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
Because all of the car manufacturers are obviously betting very heavily on selling
lots and lots of electric vehicles.
They want that level of stability and acknowledgement that there's going
to be a market for these vehicles.
So you kind of can't try and trim and trowel, depending on whether or not you
think you've got no election winning issues that you're on the right side of.
That just seems incredibly short
termist.
Ian: But we all laughed at David Cameron from going for Hugger
Husky to drop the green crap.
But it took him a couple of years, didn't it?
I
Andy: the Crap.
Thank you so much, Ian, Matt, and Helen.
Now for the second half of today's show, we are turning to the In The
Back section of the magazine where a fascinating story has been developing
about the misuse of stem cells.
We're going to get into all the science in a minute.
, the basic headline is about donated cells being misused and ending up.
with the first bit of this story in a private Harley Street clinic
being applied to patients in various ways by a doctor called Aimer Khan.
Heather has been writing about Dr.
Khan and the whole tangled saga for some time now so I started
off by asking her exactly how he first came to her attention.
Here's outro.
, Heather: we were first alerted to him actually quite before this, before this
stem cell, And that was to do with a charity he was running called Back on
Tracks for, injured service personnel.
And he was drawn to our attention because he was using the charity
to promote, um, products he was selling and stood to benefit from.
And on a charity you're not allowed to do that.
He wasn't declaring a financial interest.
Um, so that was our first, encounter with, with Dr.
Khan.
Andy: Okay.
Heather: And then it was noticed that on his website, he was also
promoting, quotes, stem cell treatments for all sorts of things.
From erectile dysfunction to, Parkinson's disease to, you name it, almost.
It was a kind of treat all.
Andy: Yeah.
Can I just, ask there for
Heather: Yeah.
Andy: listeners who might have been a while since GCSE
biology stem cells, right.
Can we say what they are?
Yeah.
Heather: we read about these wonderful things called stem cells.
And I think everybody thinks that, you know, whenever you see stem
cell mentioned, it is these stem cells that can reproduce into any
cell in our body, you know, the building cells of our whole body.
and in fact, that is true.
of
only a small amount of the stem cells in, and, and in fact, uh, the real
stem cells, uh, and the ones that were first identified are in human
embryos, but early stage human embryos.
So,
in there you find the true stem cells.
But as they mature, so as the embryo is implanted into the uterus and they
then mature, they become more specific.
So, you know, they enable us, you know, the specific ones we have enable us
to renew our skin every month and, our blood and, and all of those things.
But the ones that actually, you know, could change into all of these things
that we We read about, , you know, a very specific and only in early stage embryos.
Andy: So that's what proper stem cells are.
Heather4: Yes, and then there are these sorts of cells which we've
been writing about, and they're not true stem cells, which is why
we put them in quotation marks.
They're derived from blood or fat cells or cord tissue, and
they contain very little, if any.
stem cells and they're yet to be proven as a treatment for anything,
let alone everything, as some of these clinics are suggesting.
Andy: let alone everything, as some of this clinic, that's what has
been passed along the chain and has ended up in these treatments?
Heather4: Yes.
Andy: So Dr.
Khan is offering, quote unquote, stem cell therapies for all sorts of conditions
Heather: So I, , contacted immediately professor Patricia Murray, who's this
amazing woman who's been looking into all sorts of stem quotes, stem cell scams, not
just here, but you know, a whole range.
She's been uncovering all sorts of alarming treatments and
things that are being offered at exorbitant amounts of money.
And that potentially put, you know, patients at risk.
Andy: I suppose the question that comes from that is where Dr.
Kahn had acquired the stem cells in the first place, because I imagine there
are quite strict rules about getting hold of stem cells and using them
Heather: and so Patricia Murray, Professor Murray, , immediately wanted
to know what were these cells that were being offered and injected?
Where did they come from?
Because they are, you know, human tissue is supposed to be carefully regulated and
she embarked on this amazing tracking.
that took her a little bit of time, um, to forensically go through everything.
And she tracked the whole thing back to, the Anthony Nolan charity.
Andy: And lots of listeners I think will be familiar with
the Anthony Nolan Charity.
So, um, if you, if you have a baby, there will often be someone from the Anthony
Nolan Trust at the hospital asking the mother if she's willing to donate, the
stem cells from her umbilical cord, uh, which are used medically and which, uh,
can be incredibly useful for a patient.
range of different treatments.
Heather: Absolutely.
Yeah.
And the Anthony Nolan charity is, you know, its main effort
is to save lives, basically.
particularly those with blood disease and blood cancers.
And this is one of the few areas where stem cell treatment really works.
And that's in, there are two, there are two treatments which are.
generally licensed as successful stem cell treatments.
And these are blood cancers.
For example, your stem cells from bone marrow, would be used to implant into
another patient whose own, cells would have been killed by chemotherapy.
And then the new ones will take over and hopefully, you
know, reproduce healthy blood.
Andy: So,
it sounds like Professor Murray had found out that there was
a link between the cells being collected by the Anthony Nolan...
Charity.
Yes.
And the cells that were ending up in Dr.
Khan's Harley Street Skin Clinic being offered for, as you say, all
sorts of conditions that are not these two blood cancers that they're
regulated for and that they work
Heather: Yes, the Anthony Nolan charity are very specific that that mothers
donated tissue can only be used for ethical research and ethical treatments,
you know, which are successful.
But they're strict about that because clearly the mothers trust
them to use their cells properly.
There's certainly not for cosmetic use, which, you know, Dr Khan and others.
He's not alone.
There are other clinics offering these treatments.
Andy: the key bit of your story, I think, is this, is this one sentence in the
middle of it, which is all about this one extra use, and I'm just gonna, I'm
I'm going to quote your own story back to you here, that consenting mothers
are advised that cord tissue samples are also sometimes sold on to third
Heather: Yes
Andy: for approved research, quotes, to help the charity
keep the cord program running.
And that, that's sort of the next link in the chain, isn't it?
Of how these stem cells ended up going from the charity to a Harley Street
Clinic, they weren't really regulated for.
Heather: absolutely.
Absolutely.
Patricia tracked the cells back via the, the special center for
cell and gene therapy at the Royal Free Hospital so, you know, mothers
donated cords were being stored and processed at the Royal Freeze Centre,
Andy: And what, what was happening at the Royal Free Centre that allowed
this loophole, if you like, or this, this change of use for these cells?
What was, what was behind that?
Heather: Uh, so, what was behind that was complete non scrutiny of what was going
on in the cell and gene centre, basically, These cells should never have been passed
on for the purposes for which they were.
They should never have been sold to the Harley Street Skin Clinic and another key
player in this is Life Plus Stem Cells.
Andy: So who are life plus stem
Heather: Okay, so they're, they're another company in the chain.
Yeah.
So, Professor Mark Laudel is, was, the director of
that,
specialist centre.
he had several of his own companies operating out of the NHS facilities.
Andy: So I'm just
going to check that.
So he's working for the NHS, but he's also operating his own companies,
which lots of doctors do, don't they?
They have some public and some private practice or some, you
know, companies if they're on the entrepreneurial side of things.
Okay.
Heather: if they're on the entrepreneurial So he had several
spin off companies sharing facilities, basically, at the Royal Free,
sharing staff, sharing facilities.
and this is where the whole thing got...
Rather murky because he wore a third hat, which was his job
at University College London.
where he was also working one day a week.
Andy: This is busy.
This is
a busy
Heather: a very busy man.
Andy: As you pointed out, there is a potential conflict of interest here.
Heather: serious conflict of interest, I would say, in a lot of it.
Andy: So they've set up LifePlus
Heather: between
them.
Yep.
Andy: the moment the cells have come in
via Anthony Nolan and they're at the Royal Free Hospital in this special gene centre.
Heather: Yes.
Andy: Yes.
Then, I'm still no, I'm still not clear how they end up in
Heather: Okay.
So, so the next step is actually not life plus.
So the next step is a huge multimillion international company.
Okay.
it's, it's NASDAQ registered in the States, uh, and there's a subsidiary
over here, which is ImmuneBio.
So, Professor Laudel signed a contract with the Anthony Nolan Trust, not only
with the Royal Free, but also with ImmuneBio, which is his own company.
Andy: And the cells were then, if I'm right about the order of things going
here, the cells were sold 200 per cord.
Immune Bio then...
You know, was permitted to use and store these cell products and commercialize
the cells, but only, as you say, for approved research or licensed treatments.
a...
I'm just picturing this bundle of cells moving from a hospital where the Anthony
Nolan representative has taken them, asked the mother to sign the consent form.
They go to the Royal Free Hospital and then they end up
with Immune Bio or Life Plus.
Heather: So they were flogging them for all sorts of treatments as well.
But as Professor Murray found, and as the inquiry report that we wrote
about in the last issue found, They went via Life Plus, they were passed
to the Harley Street Skin Clinic.
Um, possibly others, we don't know.
and that's how they ended up being...
injected for all sorts of things.
the most, scary ones, Patricia Murray found about, were people who were being
treated for chronic disease, like, chronic lung disease, like, um, chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease, you know, for which they could not work.
They never could work.
And people were being charged thousands of pounds for these treatments.
Andy: it's such, it is such a remarkable story.
It's such a sort of, in, in some ways it's a classic snake oil story, except
that the people donating at the other end of the chain have no idea where
the, the medical products, the, the, the cells they've donated are ending up,
I
Heather: Yeah.
No, they, they were exploited by the system.
The NHS has been exploited by the system, if you like, because their facilities
are being used for, for this purpose.
Andy: And the recipients of these
Heather: recipients are vulnerable people, you know, who've clearly
exhausted, you know, other treatments, perhaps, and they're desperate.
Andy: So what on earth happened next?
Heather: Well, I mean, it's such a huge scandal, really, in that, in order to
be treated for these, chronic diseases.
You need a specials license.
Andy: Okay, can you say what that is,
Heather: Okay, so if a treatment is unlicensed, and it's worth bearing
in mind actually, that stem cell treatments, the only two, you know,
licensed treatments that you can have, really, that are proven to work, are
bone marrow transplants, which I think we discussed a little bit earlier, so
for blood disease, you know, it's clearly very successful, and for, skin growth.
So your stem cell, you know, your skin stem cells will repair that very well.
So for other treatments, they're more experimental
because they're not yet proven.
And it, you know, it's taken 20 years, but they are now going to clinical trials.
You know, they may yet
Andy: So they might work,
but
Heather: absolutely they might work.
Um,
Andy: need a, something called a specials license to carry out those treatments
Heather: or you go for, you know, for a clinical trial, a proper clinical trial,
and that's now what's happening with a lot of specific treatments for stem cells.
in this case, it wasn't a proper clinical trial.
So , to treat these people who were ill at Harley Street, I mean, we're GP.
Here, Dr.
Khan, treating people for conditions for which he is not a specialist.
And he always told us that it was all done in conjunction
with the patient's medical team.
What the new report the Royal Free carried out, um, showed that
actually, sometimes these patients, consultants and doctors had no idea.
that their patients were being treated.
Um, and that's quite worrying, and that may be a breach of these licenses.
Andy: And what you're saying is that these specials licenses had not been secured,
carried out properly in this case.
Heather: that's what the inquiry report appears to have found.
Now, whether that all comes down to a breach of regulations, you know, is
slightly unclear at the moment because the regulatory system is so complex.
Andy: It
feels like there have been multiple failures here
Heather: Yeah.
Multiple
Andy: and multiple loopholes that have been stretched beyond
the definition of loophole.
Heather: Yes, And there are so many cases, I mean, not just these, where, uh, the
regulators are, you know, are looking into whether or not there have been breaches
and so, I mean, and Professor Murray's investigations, I mean, she's calling
for much stronger regulation to stop this happening so that, you know, the clinics
that are actually selling these should be, should be inspected and have their own
licenses and they're not relying on the licenses of the Royal Free, for example,
to treat someone in Harley Street.
Andy: what you say in the latest issue of The Meg is so striking.
It's the, it's about the, the investigation that's been carried out now.
They're finding that Immune employees working at the Royal Free had
processed the Anthony Nolan cord cells, passed them on to LifePlus,
passed them on to the private sector.
And that's, in a nutshell, that's what's gone so wrong here.
Heather: Yes.
Andy: so both you and Professor Murray were looking into this,
and, and getting in contact with various of the parties involved.
What was the, sort of, response?
Heather: So, Patricia Murray filed, formal complaints to regulators and
the hospitals, the websites went down.
Fortunately, we'd done screen grab.
So, you know, we'd kept the evidence.
, but then interestingly, and while investigations are going on into all
of this and are still going on, Dr.
Khan immediately got.
set up into another stem cell scam, and he is currently selling something
called Goldic or iRegMed, which is mixing people's blood with some gold and then
injecting it back into their bodies.
And, and, and you, you can, that's still happening.
Um, but, but what, what, yeah, and not just the UK.
I mean, I should stress that all of these clinics are.
Although, you know, they're not just in the UK, Europe, America, China, it's,
you know, it's happening everywhere.
but during, investigations into the Goldich treatments, Dr.
Khan said to a prospective patient that his earlier stem cell treatments,
hadn't been that effective.
And he said they were also very costly up to a hundred thousand pounds.
Um, so More to come.
Andy: Heather Mills there thanks to her to everyone involved in the first
half of this week's show we will be back again in a fortnight with another
one until then thank you very much for listening and if you'd like to
get a copy of the magazine you always can just go to private hyphen i.
co.
uk and get your subscription today final thanks go to the producer of
this week's show who is as always Matt Hill of Rethink Audio bye for now