Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast.
Hello and welcome to the Private I Podcast.
I'm Helen Lewis sitting in for Andy in the chair this week and joining me are Jane
McKenzie, Ian Hislop and Adam McQueen.
This week we're gonna kick off with gorgeous.
George, George Galloway, the newly minted MP for Rochdale.
I have to say that I greeted his return with the kind of
groan of, oh no, back again.
But then I sort of remember that he's got an enormously large greatest hits sort of
back catalog in can you remember when you first kind of crossed your consciousness?
Well, it
was so long ago.
I think he was a member of the Labour Party.
Um, obviously I'm, I'm going way back here.
Uh, but that was before, um, various permutations in which he was always,
um, on the border of being sacked by the Labour Party, or there was always
some reason, um, successive Labour leaders wanted to get rid of him or
found him incredibly embarrassing.
And then, then he moved and, and it was Respect, I think it was next after that.
And, uh, then it was the Workers' Party.
Was respect and then Respect split as kind of sects on the left tend to do.
Uh, and then there was a sort of offshoot of respect, which
was basically just George.
And then I think he fell out with himself as well.
And that was the end of that.
And now, yes, it's the workers party, not the Workers Revolutionary party.
They were different.
But the Workers Party,
There were a lot of marriages along the way, al almost as many
marriages as, as political parties.
But there have been periods where, George Galloway, not only his marital life,
but his sex life became massive news.
I mean, George went on a charitable mission to Anos and admitted
that he had a huge amount of heterosexual sex, uh, with people on.
And I thought, well, that's amazing.
That really is a first.
So are, my tiny quiz for this week is, can you name one of the constituencies
he has previously represented?
There are four previous ones before Rochdale.
Yeah.
Bradford.
Bradford West.
Yep.
Allowed?
Yeah, he, when he got in, he said this is the Bradford Spring.
Like the Arab Spring.
Yes, I remember that.
I mean, he
does repeat a bit.
So this time when he won, he said, this is for Gaza.
And I remember him saying, this is for Iraq.
So he does win on behalf of, of major, trouble zones in the
world.
you look like you knew one Adam.
Bethnal Green.
Bethnal Green and Bow, correct?
Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
And can I, can I go for the, the both?
Can I go for the first one?
This is
almost like a pointless answer now.
If you can get the first one.
I will.
I will g give you a Glas
Glasgow Hill Head.
Hit head
from Roy Jenkins.
Very good.
Who was the former, uh, MP there?
Can you name...
that was Glasgow Hillhead between 1987 and 1997.
Can you name the subsequent Glasgow constituency that he's then stood for?
No, no, no.
That was gonna be amazing because that was, uh, Kelvin, Glasgow, Kelvin, Kelvin.
, I would say my first contact was.
George Galloway was, I think probably actually when he had that big dingdong
with Christopher Hitchens and called him a drink sodden, former Trotsky's popinjay.
And I can't remember what Christopher Hitchins said back.
I imagine it was similarly uncomment,
But that was around the time of the, the Iraq war and, and one of
the things that's often mentioned up is, what did he say to Saddam?
I salute your courage.
Your I salute..
"Sir.
I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability,"
I can't pronounce that word.
It's the only time anyone's ever said inde....
indefatigability.
I can see why
described George incredibly well.
It's perfect, isn't he?
He
is indefatigable.
Um, and so, yeah, Ian, has he ever sued you?
Uh, no.
he's often very disappointed by Private Eye.
Um, he feels we've let down the side and I'm never sure which side that is.
Um, 'cause um, I'm, no, I'm not very keen on sides.
Uh, but, uh, uh, I think you can
usually trust that it's the side of George Galloway, can't you?
In most issues.
Concerning
and Bright the way through.
I mean, there was a period where, I mean, George Galloway was the most litigious
person in Britain and he just won.
I remember we used to try and top up in our heads his income over the
course of any year, out of newspapers, and it was sort of quite funny.
and everyone just rolled over.
'cause the idea of taking on Galloway or paying up in the days when libel
was just mad and a, a complete lottery.
People just paid up.
He had the big case, didn't he?
In the sort of early noughties when the Telegraph and the Christian Science
Monitor, I think an, an, an American newspaper that's actually more respectable
than its title, makes it sound accused him of taking bribes from, uh, the Iraqi
government in the form of oil barrels.
Uh, and it, it was unfortunately complete nonsense.
It was based on, um, on, on forged documents that had been sort of
conveniently, that found the ruin.
Yeah.
Um, so it was a story that journalists were so excited about.
You know, we are wandering through, uh, the ruins of Saddam's Palace.
And look, here's a piece of paper on, it says, pay George
Galloway, the following huge sum.
So, and rather than thinking, oh, wouldn't it be nice if that were true?
They said, this is true.
Must be.
And got into terrible, terrible financial
trouble.
No, he had, he had, he had a great victory with that one.
He was a bit less lucky with some of his li uh, legal travails later on.
Uh, there was a point where he was accused of, um, antisemitism by several
people on Twitter, and he employed a, a legal film called Chambers of Bradford.
This is during, uh, post Bradford Spring.
This is sort.
Bradford summer, autumn kind of time.
Um, and, um, they decided to send out, uh, letters before action, but
not, not the usual sort of letters before action that, um, that,
that you've probably had a few of.
In these ones said, pay us six grand upfront and we'll make this go away, which
it was then pointed out very rapidly to the solicitor's regulation authority.
It's not really the way the law works.
Um, and so there was, uh, there was a big investigation into Chambers of Bradford.
Um, not only on that, that topic, but also, uh, uh, the, the fact that
they were, um, at that point, uh, undergoing, um, a criminal investigation
which ended up with two of their partners, uh, being convicted of
fraud and struck off as solicitors.
So that probably wasn't George's most, most glorious moment
with the legal profession.
Last heard off with KRW law in, um, in Northern Ireland.
I think we were about the.
Fierce assist firm of solicitors, this side of Carter Rock.
I mean, I say he tended to win against newspapers and when his former, um,
assistant, um, decided, uh, to enter into prolonged litigation, , with
George G, that didn't go so well.
Also when he had a, a bailing campaign in which he, accused the, uh, his
opponent of being a very bad Muslim, um, and of having faked the fact that
she was put into an arranged marriage
that was Nas Sha who, um, yeah.
And he said she wasn't.
15.
She was 16 when this happened, which she was, he said, was, really went
to the heart of her credibility.
Whereas the f an entirely different matter of being put into a forced MA marriage at
the age of 16 rather than 15, isn't it?
Yes.
Yeah.
Um, Jane,
on a lighter note, what animal did George Galloway impersonate once on?
Big celebrity.
Big brother.
Oh wow.
That, that was a, a moment.
His, his, uh, buzzy Catt.
Oh, I can't
believe.
Oh.
Why you want me to be the cat?
No, he defended himself at the time saying this is no less than people did,
um, on other shows, and it wasn't worse than that, and it got the message across.
He came out of it.
Abso, I mean, to be fair, he, he played it entirely to his advantage.
'cause at the end made his, his theme tune for his talk show,
uh, uh, the Top Cat theme.
You know, he was absolutely unashamed and un embarrassed about it, that that would
be the talk show that he presented, I think on both Russia Today and Press tv.
Nik funded by the, uh, sput.
Sputnik was the spinoff from Russia today, wasn't it?
Just a very old fashioned notion.
But we did used to have a problem with public servants being in the pay
of foreign governments, didn't we?
Wasn't that a thing back the day that
was generally frowned on, on behalf of KRW Law of Northern Ireland that.
George Donaway threatened to sue Twitter for branding him as Russian
State affiliated media for hosting the mother of all take shows on Sputnik.
And he says he's never received any money from a foreign government.
He's only received it from Sputnik.
Again, his record on.
Say sexual misdemeanors in Iran is not strong.
He now describes himself as socially conservative, which goes down extremely
well with, um, Muslim voters who, who, who think they know what that means.
but for a lot of other people, Including several
ex-wives,
quite this is now a conservative position.
And Adam, I can see that this is a, a time you'd kind of expect George
Galloway to come back because I think the backlash to, um, Israel's incursion
to Gaza after October the seventh, has really generated a lot of anti-Israeli
government sentiment that sometimes tips over into anti-Israel, anti-Semite.
statements, and that does seem to be anti-Israel has been a kind of
motif of George Galloway's career,
hasn't it?
Oh, it absolutely has.
I mean, famously when he was MP for Bradford, he declared the, uh, the entire
city an Israeli free zone, uh, which is a fairly inflammatory, um, uh, uh,
statement, whichever way you cut it.
I mean, apart from, it wasn't
just investment and, um, uh, business opportunities.
He said, we don't want Israeli tourists here.
it was absolutely specific, and you can see why at the time people thought.
That is that tipping over into, um, the sort of, um, apartheid he's very keen
to accuse Israel of, of, propagating.
And famously he refuses to, uh, debate, uh, in any kind of, uh,
political debates with, with anyone with Israeli citizenship.
Uh, so I mean, the idea that this is gonna, in any way gonna be sort of,
you know, working towards a two-state solution or any kind of diplomatic,
uh, end to, uh, this conflict as if the MP for Rochdale has any sort of actual
sway over over international affairs anyway, I mean, I mean, it, it, it, it.
It's, it ain't gonna happen.
He's been
around for so long in British politics that actually he once refused to debate
a student about 10, 15 years ago.
And that student is now Israel's spokesman, uh, levy.
Really?
Yeah.
I did not know the second half of that story.
Okay.
That's what I was referring to.
Right?
Yeah.
He's a, he's an official Israeli spokesman now.
That's how the on the wheel has turned.
That whole generation
possibly inspired by being rejected by George Galloway, he thought.
Right.
I'm going, uh, full on.
Wow.
Spin
Doctor.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I, it was really interesting when, uh, that Ian brought up the, the,
the, um, aspect of LGBT rights because I remember when there was the.
The famous case, I mean, a kind of poster case for an awful lot of these
cases, but with the two, um, Iranian teenage boys who were, were hanged
for the, uh, the crime of sodomy as, as, as it's called over there.
Um, and, and, and, and George N'Golo was quite happy to defend this and say
that actually, you know, they were, they were convicted of sex crimes and
Well, that is kind of the point, is that the Iranian states criminalizes
sexual activities between men, you know.
But what he said was that that, this was just typical of the sort of,
issue that people use, to try and discredit the Iranian government.
, and that is always, George Galloway's line.
Is that.
Whenever things are inconvenient about the people he supports,
uh, he turns it back and says, well, that is what you would say.
So if, if, people say, well, what happened with the various charities
you were involved with and the, the trouble about oil and, you know, the
various things during the railway, he says, well, what about Halliburton?
What about America's record?
What about, neo imperialism from Ulo?
And, and he's good at that.
I mean, what about.
is George Galloway's Forte, and there's always someone who in a
George Tiade, at some point he'll say something you agree with.
Um, and that's, that's really awful.
Um, and he'll get you, he'll get you
that way.
Right.
And I, I remember that.
And in terms of the Iraq war, and, and you mentioned Halliburton there, you
know, which was the company linked to Dick Cheney that did make an enormous
amount of money outta the reconstruction.
And, and that was a fair point that there was, I mean, there was
a very, uh, a nuanced critique that it was a war for oil.
It was a war just purely for American interest.
I'm not sure that's entirely true, but it is also fact that lots of military
contractors got extremely rich outta that, that war in a way that seems
really quite tasteless in retrospect.
I was
gonna say, it's not just water battery either.
I mean, he, he tips over into straightforward denial of facts.
I mean, I, the last time I was found myself writing about George N'Golo, it
was back in 2018 and 2019 when he was subject to all sorts of, uh, off com
complaints against both, um, uh, Russia.
Today, I think it.
Rebranded itself as rt.com by that point, and a talk radio, amazingly,
Rupert Murk's Talk radio, which he used to present a show on as well.
Uh, but essentially those were a, a, a number of complaints about him
running shows where he basically just denied that there was any Russian
involvement in the poisoning of Sergei Skal and his daughter in Salisbury.
Um, and just, just sort of flat out, no, it couldn't have been the
Russians because, you know, they're, they're his team essentially.
And he said the Tucker Carlson interview was great.
Um, with Putin and everyone should watch it and it would, it
would banish your preconceptions.
What if preconceptions one might have about Putin?
I dunno.
Um, to be fair, it did banish my preconceptions that Tucker
Carl interviewed Putin.
'cause I thought Putin would be a bit more interesting, whereas he just gave him a
sort of hour long lecture on the history of Russia from about 1300 to the present.
So, in a way.
Well done Maddi Putin.
But yes, and, and Tucker Carson didn't ask about Alexi Navalny, for example,
in that interview, um, who was then imprisoned and obviously he's now dead.
And I, it doesn't, it's not to me the most stirring piece of penetrative
broadcast journalism I've ever seen.
But, but George, it's enough for George.
It's enough for George.
And also, you know, his supporters surrounded Sky News's, Sam Coates at them.
And when he is questioning an account and you can see him doing what is now
a very popular move of you are the establishment media, and, and then
obviously that kind of make that.
That makes people think, well, you would say that, wouldn't you?
You know, any criticism of George Galloway can be dismissed because that's just the
establishment kicking back against him.
But he worked for
the Iranian establishment of the Russian establishment.
Why
is that place?
Well, the last place he popped up was Beijing last year, appearing at the
second international forum on democracy.
And, uh, praising, praising the Chinese regime all over, um,
state controlled media over that.
I mean, there's not many kind of really unpleasant regimes out there that
George isn't willing to, uh, to do a bit of burnishing the reputations of.
I think that's one of the thing that's really interesting to
me about his reemergence is what exactly his politics are.
'cause he's classically described as being part of the kind of hard left or far left,
but actually as you say, there's a real soup of different types of politics there.
He made a very big appeal, as you say, to Muslim voters, particularly in Rochdale.
Um, you know, he, he starts with, uh, Sala Maum when he talks about the umma,
you know, the global Muslim community.
So he's very embedded in that kind of, um.
Kind of sectarian politics, I guess you would say that is often quite unpleasant.
But as you say, the other motif throughout his career is defending
men accused of sexual offenses.
He was a big defender of Julian Asange.
He's been a recently defending Russell brand saying that, you know, the only
reason he's being pursued is 'cause he spoke up against the Covid lockdowns.
So there is a kind of worldview there that.
I, it fires to me like a pick mix from lots and lots of anti-establishment
issues, but I wouldn't now describe it as actually either left or or right wing.
It is, it is sort of anti-establishment, isn't it?
It's that kind of conspiracy sort of soup.
He's, he's drawn from, well,
this is kind of a return to his greatest hits, this, uh, this latest election
victory because the, the, the election before this that I, I can remember if
from was the 2019 general election when he stood in, um, uh, west Bromwich East.
That bizarrely named, um, constituency against Tom Watson at that point,
deputy leader of, uh, Labour.
Um, and that was on a pro Brexit ticket.
Do you remember George hanging around on a podium with Nigel Farage?
There's a particularly alarming, you've wiped it from your memory.
There was a particularly alarming, uh, photo of the pair of them
grinning like Cheshire cats together.
But, um, and what the exact
wording he used to Farage was, I salute your, uh, was it
your courage, your strength?
I can say it.
I'm gonna say in d.
Fatigability
in.
Very good.
Very, very good.
Yes.
Um, in, in that election, I'd just like to point he picked up a total
of 489 votes, which may be why he's decided to return to the, uh, to the
greatest hits, uh, at this point.
And Mayor of London.
Do you remember that?
2016 No.
Stood for Mayor of London.
Didn't turn up at the camp because he knew he wasn't gonna win it.
And so, um, just didn't turn up, uh, less than 2% of the vote in that one.
So, um, he knows he's, he's worked out now where his audience is and,
and, and where he can bag the votes.
Well, the really interesting thing is not the number of elections
that George Galloway has won.
It's the number of reelections reelections he hasn't won.
Uh, and certainly this has tended to be sort of one, one term things and
then, uh, and then, uh, whichever community has got fully behind
him finds that maybe he isn't.
All that they expected and off he goes at the next election.
The people of Rochdale probably don't have to put up with him for long if, um, if
they decide they've made a terrible error
now.
Well, I think you are.
I think what's interesting is it's very hard to extrapolate from that
by-election, because there are a lot of moving parts you won't find
necessarily elsewhere in the country.
So you have an independent coming second who is a local garage owner
who seems to be, you know, very invested in local community in a way
that perhaps George Galloway isn't.
You have a Labour candidate who is.
You know, basically accused of anti-Semitism and
Labour pull their support.
So there's no Labour campaigning, no Labour candidate.
The Conservatives come absolutely nowhere.
And then Reform who you might expect in other constituencies to pick up a bit
more of that anti-establishment vote.
Their, um, candidate is Simon Chu, who used to be the Labour
MP there and was not particularly well, like, left in, you know, not
particularly great circumstances.
So it was a kind of the, it was sort of an open goal.
I think, uh, to some extent for, for George Galloway, that constituency,
which it won't necessarily be repeated at the general election,
how many other people are there, and I hate to sound as though
I'm giving him any respect.
Um, or, and which was another political party he ran briefly for a while.
Uh, why is it that he can, uh, mobilize that level of support?
Because, you know, we, we have a go at the Conservative party when they
come out and say, well, it wasn't a great result when they got three votes.
when he comes out, everyone goes, well, it's not such a big deal.
I mean, you know, it's only 40% of the vote.
Anyone could do that.
And the depression thing is, anyone can't.
No.
And I would say, you are right For him, it was a very huge swing towards
him, so he has definitely got.
Something he's what?
He's selling something that people are buying.
Yeah.
And I watched Rishi Sinek gave a speech on Friday night after it and say he
was very worried about what happened.
And he said, well, you know, you didn't put up a candidate that they
liked better for a start, Rishi Sinek.
And then, and, and what's your answer to it?
Mm.
And there wasn't really a kind of part two to that Rishi Sinek speech beyond,
you know, you've let yourself down, you've let the whole school down.
Yeah.
Um, and
like it was really an attack on the voters, wasn't it saying involved.
You really should have done better.
And, and you know, I'm with my long, long.
Knowledge of George, I would say they didn't vote well, they really didn't.
Without, but I'm not prime minister.
I'm not making a, a full blown attack on people who should be voting for him.
But at no point did he say, I'm not scared.
Um, this is the reason why.
We should have a better
candidate.
But I also think he offered a Gaza protest vote.
And there is a, there are a huge number of people who want to, as, as
you'll see from the marches in London every weekend, pretty much, there are
a huge number of people for whom that is a very huge and energizing issue.
And he was the candidate that was the vessel for that.
So I think, but he,
he is I'm sure on record as saying that he's in not in
favor of a T state solution.
so I mean, a lot of the people who are pro Gaza wouldn't necessarily.
Want that to be the protest vote.
If you wanna protest, vote The Lib Dems.
Were right there.
People come on.
Yeah.
Um, you know, that's my, that's the politics I grew up with in the Iraq war.
If you're upset about the Iraq War, the Lib Dems were right
there.
I just thought Friday night was another example of how incredibly
bad at politics our Prime Minister is of just like, of all the things.
I mean, if any advisor truly was that to themselves, what George Galloway
really, really wants now, what would absolutely make his day is if, if.
Prime Minister personally comes out and names him and says, this
is a terrible, terrible thing.
So what does Richie do?
Oh, it's awful that George Galloway, I mean, just playing
entirely into his hands, isn't it?
Yeah.
And then to give a speech about, you know, the forces of division and, and,
and, and, and, and people playing culture was in the week after you've had to
sack Lee Anderson, but actually still can't bring yourself to say exactly
what it was that he said was wrong.
It's just he's.
How can you be that bad at politics and be a politician, let alone
Prime Minister and the cartoonists
are incredibly grateful, literally all of them.
The next day did a picture of Rishi saying, well, the forces
of extremism, are terrible.
And then they just put Sue Ella Braman and um, uh, Lee Anderson in the picture.
And they all did it.
And, um, everyone's thinking, you're making this too easy,
Rishi, we've gotta try harder.
That is your number one job as Prime Minister.
Never make cartoonists happy.
No, don't, you're, you're failing if you're doing that.
Uh, we're gonna move on now, to, uh, a subject that everybody on the
internet has been talking about.
Adam, tell me about Kate Middleton.
I.
I can't quite work out Why?
Because there's, there's nothing new in there.
As it, we found out in January that she'd been in hospital for,
um, a, a surgical procedure.
We didn't, we weren't, weren't told exactly what, and we were told that
she was gonna be out of action and not appearing in public until at least Easter.
Then suddenly everyone sort of forgot about this a few weeks later
and got all excited about it again last week and said, where is Kate?
What's going on?
Has she been kidnapped and all this kind of thing, which it was very odd.
It
was particularly strange.
I watched the BBC six o'clock news and they had the raw correspondent on to
be interviewed by the anchor to say, we actually don't know anything anything.
And I thought, that's really.
It's interesting, isn't it, that now kind of something becomes, reaches such
a fever picture of speculation online that you kind of have to pop up and
say, it's not a mad conspiracy, we just, we're not keeping anything from you.
We just don't have anything to tell you.
Sorry about that.
But it also coincided with, um, another very, very sad story, which, which was a
new story, which was the death of Thomas Kingston, uh, the son-in-law of, Prince
Michael and Princess Michael of Kent.
and that also just threw a really interesting light on.
The whole kind of idea of the royals and privacy and, and, and, and, and
how much kind of privacy they are, they are entitled to, and how much
privacy everyone is entitled to 'cause.
I was copied in last week on, on, on, on a very cross email from, um, the
Royal Spin Doctor, uh, Tobin, Andre, Who, uh, was, was coming down quite
hard on any newspapers and websites who, uh, reported details of, uh,
where Thomas Kingston's body was found at, as has now been confirmed his
parents' house in Gloucestershire, accusing, uh, various websites
including the one he used to work for.
the, uh, daily Mail website of a gross intrusion of privacy and bad
taste, over details of, of where he was found and details of his
parents' house in Gloucestershire.
All of which then was confirmed and came out at the initial coroner's
hearing, uh, of the inquest last Friday.
which we also learned that, uh, which details that hadn't been reported in the
paper, which is that he was found, uh, with a, a head wound, which was the cause
of death, uh, and a gun near the body.
So, um, and, and no suspicious circumstances according to the police.
So it was this slightly bizarre procedure of of, of trying to keep
a lid on details that were going to become public in a few days.
Anyway.
when, uh, Kate was in hospital back in January.
There was, I don't think any sort of formal kind of, uh, uh, order or anything,
but there was a request from, uh, from the Royals Bend doctors that, the press pack
should kind of not hang out outside the hospital and, you know, you shouldn't have
what actually is a very, very traditional.
British tradition of, you know, Kay Burley on the pavement,
talking to someone in a union Jack bowler hat saying, "go bless him.
Get well soon.
ma'am!".
You know, that's absolutely been a part of a, a, of, of all royal
coverage, of any health issues and ever institution, isn't it?
I'm pretty sure it's Magna Carter, isn't it?
But, um, it was really, really noticeable.
And I I, I, I've heard this was down to sort of some slightly clever, um,
uh, slight of hand with the press pack, uh, when she actually left the
hospital, that, um, it was ensured that there were no photos could be taken of
her and certainly no photos appeared.
And that, if you remember, I mean, Prince Philip was not afforded this, uh, this
politeness when he was coming out of hospital, uh, shortly before his death.
Um, and, and, and, and in scene that same month, king Charles.
After having his, uh, prostate, um, uh, procedure, you know, came
out, waved to the crowds, did, did all of that kind of thing.
So there, there does seem to be this requesting a level of privacy
beyond what would be legally required or, or expected of most people.
And also for a family who.
The expectations of privacy are surely different for the Royals as well.
And you can see a lot of newspapers, the newspaper columnists kind of
nudging their way towards this kind of saying, well, you know, it really isn't
sustainable to not say exactly what type of cancer King Charles has and,
and exactly what's wrong with Kate so no one's quite ready to kinda like break it.
I don't think anyone actually knows.
I mean, I certainly haven't heard, and I, you know, as journalists we
kind hear rumblings around the place.
Uh, but, um, I, I, I don't, I don't think anyone actually knows what
they're, but there there's a sort of push Can we make that's clear then Adam.
It is not.
Alien abduction.
Uh, which seemed to be, I mean, amongst my group of friends is
right, is top, , at the moment.
So it's not that the reason you can't even see a photo of
her 'cause she's not on earth.
Does she think she's off on planet Venus?
I mean, this
is pretty strong weed on a strong runner.
Um, out
there.
I, I enjoyed the suggestion that she was off on a secret ambassadorial mission.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
I don't, I'm not sure where in the world she's trouble solving, but,
uh, she's gonna fix world peace and then she'll be back after Easter.
Easter.
My favorite was actually that she was that Umer Lumper at the Glasgow Willy
Wonker experience, but unfortunately, actress who was in that wonderful photo
that went viral of that has come out and said she's not Kate Middleton now.
So, um, I think we can rule that one out at
least.
I think it's a strange thing though because um, I'm sure everybody
throughout British history, as I was always gossiped about the royal health,
it's just you couldn't really see that everybody was talking about it.
Right?
You would just have done it in privately, in the pub and you'd never been
able to see that in every other pub.
Everyone was also doing it and that's what's kind of changed
is it's leaked out onto Reddit forums and Twitter and wherever it
might be.
In the pub, it would be recognized that the bloke who's behind the bar on the
left telling you exactly what's wrong with Kate, may, may not be very well sourced.
And he may not know.
Probably not the Royal
Insider, is it?
Probably not, no.
And the fact that he knows someone whose mother used to know someone who's, that
wouldn't be taken as, as as definitive.
Now because of social media, everybody on the internet is incredibly sure.
Mm-hmm.
So the thing that always amazes me think is the levels of certainty.
No one says, I wonder if it's this, it's this.
It is this,
you, it's the way that journalism works now, isn't it?
In that it's not journalists jumping on this stuff.
It's, it's SEO specialists, search engine optimization.
People who are saying, wow, there's a lot of chatter about Kate's health.
We need five articles about this within the next five minutes, and, and, and, and
that, that sort of stuff is rattled out.
Talking about people who are well sourced.
in the last ministry of the magazine, Flunky, our royal correspondent, had a
piece about the new slimmed down monarchy.
And it seems to be, there's been quite a lot of discussion, Adam,
about the fact that that may have slightly backfired with Charles.
Out of action, Kate, out of action.
William taking some breaks to look after Kate and Camilla, who doesn't
seem to be the most enthusiastic royal in the world, although she, you know,
she turns up to things now, it kind of left her shoulder a lot of the burden.
Yes.
I mean, Camilla, I think, uh, Fluky made quite clear before Camilla was
under the impression that she was gonna get to her seventies and have
a bit of a rest, kind of go back, go back to her house in Gloucestershire,
the one that's just down the road from Prince Charles, the one she retires to.
Whenever he's getting a bit too annoying for her, she leaves him to
talk to the plants and goes back to her own house and, uh, uh, and smokes
a fag, which is frankly what I think Camilla wants to spend her time too.
But no, she has stepped up to the plate.
She, she, she's, she's doing the stuff.
The, the point that Flunky made in the last article he did for us
actually, interestingly, was that.
Although there's been a lot of royal spin about Prince William stepping up to
the plate and filling him for his dad.
He hasn't actually done a great deal of that.
I know, absolutely.
Fair enough.
He's got, you know, his wife is ill.
There is a lot going on, but in terms of it's not another planet.
Okay.
We're pushing this one.
You heard it here first listeners.
And he's gotta do like the school run and, you know, take the kids to see her.
And that's, you know, that's several light years, um, every time, isn't it?
But I did see, uh, a welcome return for everyone's favorite royals.
Prince Andrew and Fergie.
Pushing their way right to the front at the, uh, memorial service.
Where was it?
Was it
King Constantine of Greece?
Sorry,
can we No, no, no.
King Constantine of the Helen.
Helen, yes.
He's not king of Greece.
Can I just even more importantly put an X King?
Greece does not.
And Greece and the Helene, neither of them actually have a monarchy anymore.
He's not a king.
Well explain
explain
that to the new King Pavlov.
problem with the slim brand, Dan Royal family, and they,
they are in real trouble.
I mean, one of the working roles that they're relying on is, uh,
currently, um, Princess Alexandra, the Honorable Lady Ogilvy.
I love that title 'cause it sort of suggests that there's, she's got this evil
twin called the, the dishonorable lady.
Ogilvy.
You just.
Really, really naughty.
But, uh, no, Princess Alexandra is working royal.
I mean, she, she's 87 and she attended the memorial service in a wheelchair.
She's, uh, in the, in the official photos of the Coronation.
She was bless her, having to be held up by, uh, by I think Edward
and Sophie on either side of her.
I mean, this is not the kind of crack team of working royals to start with.
, so they have got a real problem.
I, I, one solution I would like to propose with this is let's
just give 'em a few weeks off, see if we can get by without them.
I mean, if, if a few garden centers didn't get opened.
they're gonna open themselves.
Are they, Adam?
What you proposing?
There's these amazing things called door handles.
You can, you don't actually need a royal to go through it first.
Wow.
And that's scandalous note.
I'm going to, uh, I'm gonna move on Adam, and I'm gonna leave you
think about how disrespectful and unpatriotic you've just been.
Jane we're gonna move on now to, uh, a subject that is very dear Our hearts,
which is West Midland's Housing News, . That's how, that's how I think of this.
Um.
Which is the crooked House pub.
Hmm.
For, first of all, for anybody who hasn't listened to the previous episodes where we
discussed one of my favorite crooked house pubs, the Crooked House Pub, what was it?
Well, obviously it was a pub.
had in the 18th century started out as a not crooked building, but underneath,
It's, old mine workings and as they've, uh, collapsed, the building had subsided
and then it had had sort of structures built on to keep it going despite
being a sort of leaning tower of pub.
and it was well loved as a, a local quirk.
The, the pub that's leaning.
Very far over.
You could go in and play silly games with marbles and things to,
because the whole thing created a bit of an optical illusion.
And your pint would be all
wonky.
Oh.
Like a pool table where it all just run to the
end of the table?
Absolutely.
So it was, it was, it was a sort of a well loved local.
you
sound as though you've been there.
Well,
I'm not sure.
Um, that's not a very good answer.
It might
have been a really, really drunk night in another pub in Dudley and
everything seemed to be a funny
angle.
Exactly.
So I was You are more right
than you know Adam.
You're so right.
I was a local paper reporter in the West Midlands.
And, uh, certainly on one occasion, we, uh, the local reporters went
on an outing known as the beer bus.
And for, for many years I thought that the Crooked House was one of
the pubs, the Beer Bus visited.
And I've been, yes, I went to that pub before.
It was tragically illegally demolished.
And then the other day I was thinking.
Did we?
Or was it just by the end of the evening everything seemed on the wonk?
So I'm not sure.
I wish I hadn't started this.
I wanna know why we don't have a beer bus now.
Come on.
That's why I wish I hadn't started
private eye champagne shower bank.
We have couldn't we
love it.
Prosecco Petty cab.
Um, not if Chris Bryant has his way.
Um, Jane.
But what happened?
So the pub, as you say, was illegally demolished.
What?
What happened then?
Well,
it went on fire first.
it, when it went on fire, it was, um, being considered, uh, for listing.
It had, it had been sold and closed as a pub.
Um, and locals were rather upset about this because it was a local quirk
and, and everybody kind of thought of it as an important community
thing and, and had memories of it.
and while it was still under consideration, it.
Went on fire, uh, which, uh, remains under investigation.
but what happened afterwards was the owners very rapidly
demolished it, uh, without getting permission from the council.
For demolition.
Now, their excuse for this was that it was not safe, they
weren't still selling points in it at that point,
presumably they No, no.
So it was, it was burned out, but um, you know, there's a lot you can do with
a burned out brick building to put it.
Right.
Um, but not once it's been demolished.
Also it
seemed, or, yeah.
And would I be too cynical to suggest that perhaps there was thoughts that
this ex side of the pub could perhaps become, say, some quite lucrative
housing or some sort of development?
Uh,
probably not.
I mean, to the, uh.
Mine workings underneath.
Ah, and the, the high risk of, um, substance.
Right.
Okay.
there's a, a landfill business, um, which, uh, is adjacent.
And, in terms of what you could have done with, the former site of, of the pub, it
was a sort of expansion of that business.
rather than building some, some beautiful flats and selling them for a lot
of money, build some big holes underneath
the pub, could, you could very easily build some big holes.
'cause Well there's obviously they're,
yeah, they're there.
But the brilliant and exciting news is that they've been ordered, haven't
they, to rebuild the pub and better even than that to rebuild it crooked.
Um, yes, that's right.
uh, the company that owned the land that the pub is on, has been ordered by South
Staffordshire Council to, v rebuild.
My question, is that possible and is it likely to happen?
It's theoretically possible.
There was another, uh, old building that was also, uh, had a spectacular lean
to it, which, um, has been, uh, rescued and moved to the Black Country Museum.
So it was possible there to sort of take it apart carefully
and move it to another site.
So it's not impossible to rebuild a building.
Uh, is it desirable?
Well.
the question really if you do it is have you, have you rebuilt it or have you
built a sort of fun house model of it?
Uh, what the question of.
It's likely to happen.
there's a, a few precedents in, um, 2021 in the nooks column and we
wrote about a pub, actually listed pub in Ribble Valley in Lancashire
called the Punch Bowl, which, uh.
Was demolished by, um, its owners and they under an order to rebuild it.
There's, there's not a wreck of it gone back up yet.
And the, the three year time limit has now been reached on when they
should have rebuilt it by that said, the Carlton, tavern in London.
though they were re-order to rebuild and although it took six
years in the end, that is now back open and serving customers.
So, so there's a glimmer of hope,
They were very big developers who had to rebuild the Carlton Tavern.
so much more difficult to,
um, hold them to account, I guess if it's, if it's a, it's a difficult sort
of husband and wife business, wasn't it?
Much more difficult to, for a big company to step away from a single
plot of land and just say, well.
Screw you.
Well, this is, uh, I, I guess the fortnightly reminded people to read the
Nooks, uh, and Corners column because I, you've been tried chronically, not
just buildings that go on fire, but the new one that you were talked about, the
Market Tavern in Sheffield, and the new one is that they, they collapse, but
extremely neatly, suspiciously neatly.
Well, what interestingly in this case is obviously in the case of,
um, the Crooked House and South Staffordshire Council Councils ordered
it, rebuilt the Punch Bowl and.
Bel Valley, the councils ordered it to be rebuilt.
The market tavern in Sheffield, um, which campaigners locally thought had
been saved on the brink of destruction.
Um, you know, they'd been told, does a stay on the demolition?
Uh, and then.
Mysteriously the next day they were told terribly sad, it spontaneously fell down.
Could happen to anyone.
Well, unfortunately, somebody was videoing it and it, it fell down largely
because it was being knocked down by some demolition people, um, which the
council later, um, fessed up that they hadn't in fact canceled the demolition.
Um, so.
Yeah.
Unlike, uh, south Staffs and, and Rebel Valley, uh, Sheffield
Council was responsible for that building, being knocked down.
So I'm not sure who, who they order to rebuild it now.
But they order themselves or does Michael Gove have to step in and rebuild it?
Michael go personally, yes.
With a little trow, some mortar.
Yes.
He
might have a lot more time on his hands in futures that may
not be entirely impossible.
Well,
I mean, I do find it quite pleasing that in, in the case of the Crooked
House, now, those people who knocked it down have to, not only do you have
to rebuild it, but they have to rebuild it crooked, which presumably is.
Quite difficult, isn't it?
But it's not more difficult to build a crooked house than it's just to let
one kind of subside and go crooked.
And as you say on these mine workings that are gonna be really, really difficult
to build on as well, aren't they?
Absolutely.
I'm, I'm sure if you were to start from scratch and go, we'd like to build
a lovely new pub here, it would be, I'm, I'm not sure that's advisable.
Can they not build it out of rack?
You are reinforced concrete, uh, from ooh, previous podcast and in about
10 years time, it'll collapse anyway.
Anyway, light,
nice, lightweight
material that's exactly, got a lot to recommend it and, and quite guaranteed to
collapse within a certain amount of time.
There is
presumably no guarantee that it will reopen as a pub.
I mean, it had closes a pub because it wasn't financially viable
in the first place, wasn't it?
it was put up for sale as a going concern and bought by the owners
of the neighboring, uh, scrap yard.
Okay.
So, so it might, it might, it could run as a pub again, that would
be the best solution, presumably
possible that it was a going concern if, if somebody had
been willing to fight for it.
That, that said, an awful lot of pubs became not going concerns
through 2021 because it was a very hard time for, for pubs.
So,
can I suggest that when it, when and if it finally does get rebuilt, it's the first
stop on the private I beer bus there.
You're
not gonna let this drop, are you?
I'm pushing
for it.
That's
comfortably.
Two and a half hours.
This, this is gonna be, I mean, that first two and a half hours
of conversation, probably even like one point is gonna be dry,
isn't it?
Adam, come on.
Really gonna be a bitter lemon bicycle for you.
Good God.
Nook, the nooks pub crawl is probably worth the putting together.
There are a lot of, of endangered pubs we've written about over the last
year or so that uh, people ought to go
to.
I hope you're gonna put one or two good news pubs in the itinerary.
Otherwise it can very bleak tour.
This one web, just
a small piles of brick Ming rooms.
This one fell down.
No, I want a success story at the end.
, talking of something else that is so groaning full, it's close to collapse.
See what I did there?
The Private Eye Podcast inbox is still open for business.
Hopefully you enjoyed our last episode where we did a special post bag.
Uh, if you want to email us, we are on podcast@privatehypheni.co
uk and I've got one to read from you, some feedback from last time.
This is from Tom in Winchester.
Good afternoon.
Enjoyed the latest pod, but it got me thinking about what food
stuff is most like Private Eye.
I hate you.
Remember this from last time, Adam.
I'd say a sausage.
I don't really know what goes into it or how it's made.
I feel simultaneously great and awful when I eat one and I'm not
sure if it's good for me or not.
Right.
Awful.
Then basically that's not what we're saying.
Awful in a skin.
Yes, exactly.
Welcome to page 94,
the emulsified high fat, awful tube, I think, as I said in uh, yes, minister.
Anyway, that's, uh, I thought we'd, uh, we'd close on that.
You can still, uh, send us more thoughts about what.
Food stuff you think.
We are send questions for the team, which we'll address in a future episode, and
as ever, of course you can subscribe by going to either subs online.co uk or the
private I website@privatehypheni.co uk.
But for now, I'm gonna say goodbye and thank you to Jane,
Ian and Adam, and from me, Helen.
Goodbye.