Maisie: Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Andy: Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94.
My name is Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here in the private eye office with
Helen Lewis, Matt Muir and Ian Hislop.
We are here to discuss the news, not only of the last week since the last edition
of the magazine came out, but also the near future as well, because there's a
lot of exciting stuff about to happen.
We're all back to.
School back to term.
So we're starting with, a big speech made by Ki Starer last week, and I've just
got a quiz for the room to kick us off.
Which of these was not something that Starer said.
All right.
On the day, we're in not just an economic black hole, but a societal black hole.
There will be short-term pain for the long-term.
Good.
It's all going to be fine really soon.
Which of those was not a genuine quote?
pretty sure it was the last one that wasn't Yeah, it was the last one.
Yeah.
The whole time of the speech was beatings will continue until the morale improve.
Yeah.
Ian: Yeah.
And I should point out we are, back at school 'cause if we
are not, we're gonna be fine.
So I'm very glad to see you all in attendance apart from MacQueen.
Yeah.
who I hope will be paying the
penalty.
Helen: He's been having a holiday outside of term time and we should
make him pay 200 pounds for it.
Yeah.
Matt: Yes.
At least.
Yes.
Things are worse than we ever imagined.
Oh, I've slipped into quoting again.
Sorry.
but this is the new, dominant note of, the government.
Certainly in the short term at least, is things are really awful.
We're gonna be honest.
This is disgusting.
Look at this mess.
Look at it.
Ian: I'm enjoying it Hugely.
A, I just, I'm Doism, or Doomers as we all are now, Baby Doomers
for, those who are younger, you're gonna have to get used to this.
And it's a great strategy because essentially the press in particular want
to say things are terrible under Labour.
And Keir Starmer is saying, yeah, they are.
They really are.
But they won't be in the future.
I'm just happy, that we can have a different note because we
had quite a lot of boosterism.
You, do you remember Boris?
Probably some of you, you remembered what it was like someone
telling you everything was fine.
you remember this trust.
You remember someone telling you it will be fine, very, quickly.
Having someone tell you that it won't be fine for a bit is different.
Yes, it's new.
Matt: And you are a, I think a contrarian on the domer line of
thought because everywhere I've seen the argument that this is a
really counterproductive strategy.
yes.
But you think it might actually work a bit.
Ian: I'm not sure that, it's taken into account, the British love, the idea that
we're all going to hell in a hand cart.
and online everyone says, it's all finished, the world's over.
and SEC's twist is, we're going to hell in a hand cart, but we're gonna turn the
corner and we're gonna come back again.
And I think this will, I think this will appeal.
Interesting.
So I refuse to be downbeat, which is, very contrary.
But I do think it's ing that he's decided.
He'll be, private Fraser from Dad's Army.
We're doomed.
We're do, but we're doomed for a bit.
and there will be a scrooge like feel, a dickensian feel to him.
So he's not just boring here, he's full on, doomy here.
Matt: It's quite Continuity Sunak in a way.
And that was a bit of a message, wasn't it?
We, we've had a lot of tough times.
We're turning the corner now.
That was the Sunak message, whereas this is more
Yes.
That was tricky
Helen: though, because the tough times were previous Tory Prime ministers.
Yeah.
So let's turn the page from my predecessors in my party
and I was
Ian: chancellor, which is a bit of a bad look.
And Rachel Reeves, they, mirror very well.
The full on gloom.
and I do think, it's part of a, obviously it's part of a strategy, but it is
a way of saying, everyone knows that when you, promise too many things, And
then you don't deliver any of them.
Q previous government people start hating Q hate us now.
and I think this is very innovative.
I love the fact that it was in the Rose Garden and for those of our
readers who are of a certain age.
I beg your pardon?
I never promised you a rose garden
Andy: right
Ian: along with the sunshine, Andy.
There comes a little rain sometime and I think that particular song is perhaps more
thematic than any other Labour anthem.
Helen: God dear, Thero, the roses have
Ian: been deadheaded.
Helen: Yeah.
And I know he should have had, he should have a sort of
decaying Halloween backdrop.
Shouldn't he gothic, like wilted tulips or something?
I, the counter point to that is, so everyone I think will obviously mention
Keynes's idea of animal spirits, right?
The idea that markets want to hear this kind of story of, integration and growth.
I think you are right, Ian.
I think the thing they're worried about is everybody coming to them
with their handout stretched.
and they already feel they've got quite a big public sector
pay, pay deals to settle.
I'm really interested to know how they feel about the deal that they did with
Aslef, who are the trained drivers union.
'cause Louis Haigh, the transport secretary, gave them the pay
claim that they wanted and it was.
All of the day they were happy about that.
And then they announced they would still be going on strike
over working conditions.
Ian: There's another pay increase coming along down block
Helen: three.
Yeah, that was buses.
Hang on.
Yeah, but I just wonder if they, I felt that made them look like Muppets.
I wonder if they feel that too.
And, but then you've got, they've got some big, they've got the
Infected Blood scandal bill coming, for example, which is pretty large.
and they have got the junior doctor settlement and they,
all of these things are coming.
Our cover last week was about the taking away, the winter fuel
allowance from wealthier pensioners.
So they, go, they're gonna have to make this case of it being miserable
in order to tell people why they're either taking some money away from
'em or they can't have any more money.
Yeah.
They really got to land that argument of restraint.
Matt: There was a bit of a debate about whether.
In the closing days of August, a winter fuel payments cover was the most topical,
but it was a really big story at the time.
Helen: It was a lovely picture of a penguin.
My theory is always, you can't go wrong with putting an animal on the cover.
Look, I
Ian: was on the holiday in Greece and it was very warm there.
Andy: There's a solution.
Yeah, just, global warming.
Move the elderly to Greece.
Yeah.
Matt: I like the idea that this, the Starless doism is somehow an appeal
or an attempt to appeal to younger voters who are, famously not wholly
enthused by the proposition of the label putting forward for them.
Because basically this is a generation that lies in bed.
It bed rots, it doom crawls what is more on brand than they know you.
You are, entirely right guys.
Everything is screwed.
Stay in bed.
Yep.
Yeah,
Helen: Do you remember how we heard about Liam Burns "I'm sorry there's no money"
left note for 14 long years, and I thought they're passing What, Labour have proposed
what they unofficially calling the Liz Truss Bill, which is the idea that the
Office of Budget responsibility will have to vet all, fiscal statements like 10
weeks beforehand, which is essentially to say Liz Trust's mini budget ruined
the country, which was a very appealing message to them, and I thought, we're
still gonna be hearing about Liz Trust.
In 14 long years time.
I, I do
Ian: hope so.
And, I do hope
Helen: you just love misery.
Ian: I do hope we'll be hearing more from her.
Oh.
'cause it, in terms of comedy, it's very important that, that keeps going.
But again, I, the other thing about the doism is it's just there is
a narrative that everybody now.
Says on social media and papers to say, oh look, this argument that the national
budget is somehow like a household budget and you can actually run outta money.
how naive and pathetic is that?
And I'm thinking to myself, look, countries do sometimes run outta money.
We don't have to go back to Weimar, but they're quite a lot of countries in
Latin America who, did run out of money.
and the idea that, it's a cynical ploy.
By care.
why would anyone pretend to be George Osborne?
The idea of that saying, look, he's just cosplaying, George Osborne.
No one wants to be George Osborne.
Not even Osborne wants to be George Osborne.
Andy: Robert Genrich is now doing a, a George Osborn, turnaround.
He's, looking and looking very,
Helen: svelte.
Matt: It's felt is a lovely way of putting it.
Yeah.
but he has taken Ozempic
Helen: hasn't he?
Can he accuses me of being obsessed with who it has and hasn't in politics.
Taken a emek.
It's, and my private running title, but Robert General is one of the
few who's admitted it certainly,
Matt: I'd like to imagine.
That's why I was looking at.
Actually at the, tour leadership candidates political ad spend over the
course of the past month, because that's how I like to have fun in the morning.
And, turns out that, none of them really spent anything apart from
Genrich who's chucked 12 grand, adverts over the course of the past
month promoting his leadership bid.
He's the only person to have spent significantly, and I like to think
that's because he's just so proud of his new slim down physique, that he wants
to show as many people as possible.
he can afford the vertical ads on websites and fit all of himself into it.
So it's very handy.
Ian: is this more, less, is more from
Andy: the Tories is you're gonna have to tighten your belt.
So there, there is a, thing about, sort of personal optimism, which I wonder
if, Labour have taken into account.
I'm just, I'm interested in this because there's something about the fact that
people tend to be optimistic about their own personal lives if they're
polled about it and pessimistic about the national, mood that people tend
to think their personal finance is going to improve in the next year.
But they say, oh yeah, the country's in a going to the
dogs and it's, in a bad state.
And this happens even with.
if you're asked about your relationship or your health or whatever it is, you
think, oh yeah, I'm probably gonna stay married or whatever it is, or,
I'm not gonna get ill softly taking a very personal turn and on the couch.
Yeah.
People asked about their own lives, basically.
All sorts of aspects think fine.
Yeah.
I think it'll be all right.
Yeah.
Happens a
Helen: lot with crime.
People say, how do you think the country is riddled with crime?
They go, yes.
I hear it's terrible out there.
People, constantly and they say, what you about your neighborhood?
And they go, actually my neighbor's quite nice.
Yeah.
It just seems to be people mowing their lawn and Yeah.
It's a sort of negativity bias.
Ian: Yeah.
In terms of the Doism, I think part of this is, we've talked about not
wanting to be Osborne, but it's, part of it is not wanting to be Blair.
I'm sure Seki would love to get away from Blair, he's on the television
most of the time or in the paper telling you what to do, but.
I couldn't help thinking because I'm slightly older than some of you.
the rose colored spectacles, not paid for by Wade, that are being
applied to 97 are extraordinary.
The idea, ki is not, he's not nearly as exciting as Blair and Blair had this
long honeymoon, he didn't really, he had the Bernie Eckelston, scandal with
the cigarettes straight away, right?
And had to tell people, I'm a pretty straight kind of guy.
Kia's cronyism Row is pretty much bang on time, for the first 97 lookalike.
So I am.
I am concerned that people are nostalgic and you think, oh
God wasn't nine seven great.
And the music and, brick pop and the sheer excitement of Gordon
Brown being chancellor, really.
Helen: I think things were better when I was young, generally, but I think that may
be a, and it turns out from the massive interest in Oasis tickets that everyone
in my generation also agrees with this as they spend 300 pounds to watch a man who
can't sing, so extra a man who hates him.
There we go.
Matt: but basically it sounds like Ian, you are very pro doom and it sounds like
you are going to get lots more of it.
So good news for you.
Ian: I'm pro doom 'cause I've had enough of, birdie boosterism, to last me forever.
I'm interested where being, pro Doom turns into Puritanism.
and I think the anti cigarette thing is quite interesting.
and telling people.
If they're going to have a tough time is slightly different from
telling people they're not going to enjoy anything ever again.
and that, that might be a bit of a gift.
Yes.
So I do think it'll be interesting to watch that.
and the idea that it, Angela Rainey goes dancing once,
half the Tory Press has a fit.
Is that appropriate behavior?
Nadine, Doris, Nadine, Doris of all people who failed to criticize Boris
Johnson during the whole of Party Gate now says it's not appropriate for
Angela Rainier to dance during what?
Some holiday before the budget.
this, is Puritanism on a massive scale.
Helen: Tom Watson did a great tweet about that, which was you ate an ostrich
anus during the parliamentary term, which is a fairly unanswerable charge.
I tell was anybody who's
Matt: been paying attention to politics for the past 14, 15 years, we've seen
a selection of horrendous videos of Tori's dancing at their party conference
to a selection of terror, I'm sorry.
Yes, equal opportunities for terrible political dancing.
Helen: one of the people he defended there was Michael Gave, who said, I
strongly believe in community safety.
He's being allowed to terribly dance in public.
So what
Ian: about Pretty Patel and Nigel Farage?
No.
There we go.
I wanna
Matt: know.
you're all puritans at heart, but think this podcast is pro dancing.
I think we can say that.
Yeah.
Helen: Okay, good.
But the weird thing is that the Tories will now, as you say, criticize that idea
of smoking ban in pub Gardens, having not three months ago, had a policy that was
under 18, should never be allowed to smoke ever in their lives anywhere at any point.
So it's really interesting to watch them try and balance
those libertarian instincts.
depends on them.
We get your fav, your Caesar head, Faye Rob Genrich as Tori leader,
Ian: And will he be, telling us all to take Ozempic?
Will he be putting that on the health service?
I read a report saying pic.
Enhances your mental capacities.
it's time then.
just
Matt: on
the Ozempic point, if you ever want to cast iron bits of proof about the
power of, well-funded public relations by the pharmaceutical industry the past
six months have headlines about ozempic are an excellent, example of that.
Ian: I will have more on this piece in the magazine.
Thank you, pat.
Matt: so we now turn to, What Helen did on her summer holidays, which was go
to the Democratic National Convention.
Yes.
Because, Helen, you've been, writing a bit, about, American politics
and there's been a development since the end of the DNC, which is
from the other side of the aisle.
Donald Trump's, great big podcast tour of the USA.
Helen: Yeah, he's having a, lovely time.
Actually, it's funny, we talked about Duma Tism here because the big theme
of the Democratic convention was joy.
You had Oprah saying, only Kamala can bring Joy.
Everything will be joy.
but at the same time it came to programming to the Democratic
convention was that Trump went on the podcast of a Louisiana former,
standup comedian called Theo Von.
Whose name actually stands for Theo Von Something Quite Long 'cause
his family are Polish aristocracy in way back in the midst of time.
and in which they discussed in the most interested that I've ever seen.
Trump being another person.
Theo Von's, previous alcohol and cocaine addiction.
In which Trump was like, what is it?
What's it like?
Cocaine.
Is it better?
Is it better up than alcohol?
Because he's completely teetotal.
His older brother was an alcoholic.
And his dad was obviously who was a mean authoritarian controlling type
of person, was always very awful to Trump's older brother, which I
think tells you a bit maybe about where his psychology was formed.
But he had a genuinely very interesting question about,
just about what cocaine's like.
And this guy said, it'll have you like a damn owl homie.
You'll be out in your own front porch, you'll be your own streetlight.
And Trump went.
Yeah.
yeah, I hear it.
I hear it.
I hear it's good.
And then Theo Von started complaining that the Coke you could get
these days wasn't very good.
And he didn't know where they were getting them from.
And Trump had this sort of look on his face, like he might appoint some sort of
federal commission to look into this...
terrible!
So everything's getting so much worse these days, but
this is part of a much broader.
, a tour of young male podcasters and podcasts that appeal to young men.
he had, for example, Logan Paul, who was a former YouTuber turned
professional fighter, come to Mar Largo.
Andy: when you describe him as a professional fighter, you mean someone
who actually physically fights as opposed to the Kemi Beja knock model
of professional fighter of this.
Okay.
Helen: there's a very funny thing if you ever look at any of these
people, the best thing to do is looked at their Wikipedia entries
and look at the controversy section.
'cause there's always the maddest stuff you've ever seen, right?
Logan Paul's one says.
Japanese suicide forest controversy.
That's all I'm gonna say about that.
Ian: has a small boy wants to know, what's it like taking Coke?
Yeah.
Is it great?
What's it like hitting people?
Andy: Is
Ian: that good?
Or, I'd like to hit people.
I'd like to and take Coke.
Is are we saying he's in fact a 13-year-old trying to appeal to
slightly older boys who've got the vote?
Matt: there's an interesting question about the demographics of these things.
So Theo V's.
Podcast has, I think it's 3 million subscribers, thereabouts.
Logan Paul's has.
significantly more, if I'm not mistaken.
However, if you dig into the numbers, it does seem significantly likely that
a large proportion of those listeners are going to be 13-year-old boys.
And one, one does wonder exactly what electoral impact this is gonna have at
the ballot box come the 4th of November.
'cause Yeah, that's interesting.
Helen: It is also a, way of looking at it is, and whole new alternative ecosystem
has been melded together of a couple of different things in commercial and sports.
So lots of these people are linked by, Dana White, who is the president,
USC, ultimate Fighting Champion.
Which Trump goes to a lot, right?
Because he's the kind of guy who grew up with casinos and hotels, and
then all of this kind of fighting industries that you go and watch these.
Then they are now mega pay-per-view events because they
sell millions of pounds, right?
So there's all of that.
Then there's the other weird thing, which is that every time they do these
interviews, there's always an energy drink on the table or behind them.
They've all got their own energy drinks, so it is also they've got their own.
Yeah, Prime is the one that, Logan Paul has got,
Ian: can I just say the I Energy Drink
Helen: and a J Yeah.
Is
Ian: incredibly effective and it's available.
quite soon.
Absolutely.
Herbert Gassett swears by it, it keeps him feeling just 94 years old.
Helen: Definitely
Matt: doesn't contain cocaine.
Helen: yeah.
But they do, they all, the Daily Wire, which is behind a big ultra
conservative culture war site in the US has its own range of vitamins that
are called, I think Responsible Man.
And it says, because you need.
To be No, because you need to be ready, like fighting ready for
the cultural battles we face.
We now have anti woke vitamins, is where we now are.
Matt: But cultural battles, they're not muscle pills.
They're,
Helen: they're are.
'cause you have to be fighting for, to make arguments on the internet.
Matt: I
Ian: see, But
Helen: All of this kind of stuff that a particular tendency of kind of men's not
Ian: going to storm itself.
Matt: And you need fit bodies there.
Yeah.
But there's, something interesting about the strategy as well to.
Pick up on what Helen was saying.
So if you look at, if you look at the amount of money that's currently
being spent on digital advertising in the us elections right over the
past month, the Harris campaign since basically she was, or since Biden's
resignation, at which point it became obvious that she was the defacto pick.
the Harris campaign has outspent the Trump campaign by a factor of about five six.
there's a, real disparity in terms, and this is across
meta and Google's platforms.
And just in terms of the amount of eyeballs that you're gonna reach,
Trump is lagging significantly, and this podcast stuff is like it's free.
You don't pay to go on these things.
It's a great boost for them because you've got Donald Trump on, so
they'll get a boost to their audience, which means ad revenues go up.
Trump gets access to an audience of 3 million, 5 million children possibly.
But nonetheless, he gets access to them and this is the way, this is the new
way of disseminating political content.
you must have seen when you're at the D nnc that they had.
I think, was it 200 TikTok as influencers and things like that, doing
broadcast directly to kids through TikTok, all about what was going
down at the convention rather than, or as an adjunct to the Press Corps.
this is standard, practice Now, what's also interesting about the Trump
campaign is that his social media strategy is being driven apparently to
all intents and purposes by, his son.
Baron, who you may remember from being a very tall sort of, how old must he?
A 10-year-old He 19 now.
Yeah.
And yeah, he's 18, 19.
And so he's in charge of Trump's social media strategy, being advised
by his good friend who's a 17-year-old influencer, called Bo Loudin.
So, basically, and if you, I've never felt older.
I've never felt older than discussing these.
If you, read these things, some of the transcripts of Trump going on these
podcasts, he, he'll literally say things like, yeah, my son really likes you.
so I think a lot of the strategy is this is basically Barron Trump going,
so I like this, do you wanna go on this?
And Trump going, yeah, okay fine.
Helen: But that does remind me of Bo, there was a thing where Boris Johnson,
remember that election campaign where he just used to dress up and someone
said this as what an 8-year-old boy thinks grown up jobs are like.
Like here I am, I'm a builder.
I'm in a hard hat.
Like they were all like little but, and but, and I think this
is a sort of slightly more.
Coked out version of that really.
But you are right.
The Harris campaign has taken a completely different media approach.
It's paying for it all.
She only sat down for her first interview and it was a joint
interview since becoming the nominee.
And that's it.
There's massive grump in the US Press Corps about the fact they're not
submitting themselves to interviews.
Trump is similarly.
Swerving big set piece interviews because he can go on a, like one of
these, max Reed called them the Dip Shit podcast circuit, which is sums
up the appeal of them and just have these weird vibey conversations.
Like the Logan Paul, they did talk a bit about Iran, but they also end up
just talking about in the Theo Von.
But they took about why don't people have heart attacks out, have
excitement at sporting events anymore.
When we were growing up, that used to happen all the time.
So just weird flights of fancy,
Matt: which,
is the Trump.
Trumpy model of conversation is this, to that, to this, to that.
in terms of the audience who are watching these things, assuming that they're not
all 13-year-old boys, as Matt points out, assuming a good chunk of them at least
do have the vote, is it likely to work?
there's a
Helen: huge split in gender terms in the us.
Traditionally, there hasn't been that massive agenda split in voting norms,
but in the US at the moment, it is really big, particularly among young people.
Young women are really in the tank for the Democrats.
And young men are really in the tongue for the Republicans, and that is
also correlated with a load of other opinions, like young men being more
like to say that feminism has gone too far, or that actually it's harder now
to be a man than it is to be a woman.
And there's, and that feeds into the cold, whatever you want to call it, anti
woke discourse of people like Elon Musk.
Which is you go to work in a company and it's all run by women in HR who
tell you can't say anything anymore.
this sort of Jordan Pizza idea that it was better when men were
in charge of stuff 'cause they were aggressive and they had fights.
Whereas women are passive aggressive and so they just plot and scheme
and bicker among each other.
This is all a very male.
Sort of world that appeals to these, as you say, ma, like quite a particular
type of masculinity that is a very anxious young man's masculinity.
it's,
Ian: is this the incel tour really?
Matt: it, I'd say it's, incel adjacent.
There was, an excellent piece of writing by a guy called Ryan Broderick, about
this, who basically posited that, the entire appeal of the Trump campaign over
the past eight years is pretty much being like going after people who really just
don't like themselves very much and feel quite uncomfortable with who they are.
And appealing to those very specific vulnerabilities.
And this feels like a sort of end point manifestation of that
because a lot of these podcasts are being consumed by young men.
Men who don't feel very comfortable about themselves.
They often don't feel their economic prospects are great.
They don't feel that their, position in what they would very much consider
the sexual marketplace is advantageous.
And they don't necessarily feel that they have a lot to hope
for and go for, and this is.
Basically appealing to them and telling them, it's not your fault.
It's and it's
Helen: presented in very racial terms, but it's not just young white men either.
Joe Rogan's audience, I think is about a quarter, of that,
of the young male demographic.
Listen to it is Hispanic or black.
And there is a sort of sense of like solidarity between the races in America.
For young men is, that is a big, you have more in common than you do
with women of the same race as you, which again, is very different to
how politics has traditionally worked in kind of voting blocks in America.
Matt: so one of the interesting things about the targeting of this is that,
it's not just the demography in terms of age and gender split, that's peculiar
and skew's quite young and very male, but it's also the fact that many of
these podcasts are very international.
Joe Rogan, for example, is a truly global proposition, and whilst obviously
it's an English language thing, it gets translated and clipped into lots and
lots of other an anchors worldwide.
So this is, in many respects, something that you might.
Term as an using advertising parlance as wasted inventory.
you are buying presents or gaining presents somewhere that can't
actually materially impact the goal that you are trying to achieve.
Andy: and it must be tricky.
I presume that a lot of Theo Von viewers or listeners also watch Logan Paul and
also watch Adam Ross and also watch blah.
But that's, unavoidable.
Matt: there's an argument to suggest that, as, we, noticed during the
election campaign over here, Kier kept on saying his dad was a tool maker.
Because unless you say something 3 million times, the average voter will
not retain it, which means that you are
Ian: kidding.
Matt: He was a tool maker.
That's all I've heard.
Helen: There is an interesting thing though, which is it creates an
intellectual climate and a kind of current, so even in our, politics, you
will see the way that the Tory party is struggling to not bend towards
some of the opinions of these people struggling not to bend towards the
opinions of the American right, which are very minority opinions here.
And people wrestling with that on GB news when the latest kind of woke
controversy is often an American one or a Kind of slightly more provincial
British version of something that's become made as a big theme by Americans.
There is definitely, we do catch the kind of backdraft of a lot of this stuff.
Ian: but Trump's was the ultimate booster essentially.
And he got into power by saying, I'm great.
It'll be great.
Things will be great.
And I get the feeling.
He's now without an act, because, he's got to say things are gonna be
terrible, particularly under, this new joyful and happy Democratic party.
So what, can he do?
' do as far as I, I gather it.
that group of people that he's going through on the podcast want
to hear that everything's awful.
Helen: yes and no.
So one of the big blocks of Trump's support last time was people
who are quite wealthy in America but don't have a college degree.
So one of the ways that this was described as a kind of demographic was like boat
people, like people who are wealthy enough to own a boat, but they don't feel
like they're part of a cultural elite.
Isn't here, isn't it?
I don't feel
Ian: Trump's going
Matt: for the boat people landing in Kent.
Helen: People who would have a kind of, miniature yacht that'd be
called something like, box and bell.
And they'd more it in Florida, and where they'd come have their winters, but they
would feel that the kind of snooty bike, coastal elites looked down on them.
And there's a very telling moment in the Theo Von Podcast where.
he says, under me, we had the greatest economy ever.
The economy was amazing.
And Theon says, yeah, my cousin bought a boat.
And it was that thing of, his tax cuts for the rich and upper middle
did make a lot of people feel better.
The covid stimulus stuff did make a lot of people feel economically better in the
way that it did very briefly here, right?
Suddenly when everybody was going to the pub for free, people briefly about
things were quite good, but the bill has come, due for all that stuff.
And I'd like to end by saying if Donald Trump would like to come on
this podcast and be interviewed by Dipshit, I am available at short notice.
I don't have an energy drink, but I will get one in time.
I have a few kind of red Boulogne in the background.
Matt: Now I have another quiz question for you all.
Who here has an app called Telegram on their phone?
I do.
You are nicked Helen, and you are nicked Matt.
Mine's the Daily Telegram.
Helen: Got an actual telegram every day.
Andy: Matt, can you tell us a little bit about not only, telegram itself,
but also about its founder pov who has recently been arrested in Paris?
Matt: telegram is a slightly difficult app to describe.
it's part messaging app and it's part social media platform.
And effectively the way it works is like all of these things, you can share
messages with people, either one to one or with multiple people in groups.
Or you can have groups of up to 200,000 people.
All of which can communicate with each other, which can be subdivided
into different channels that can broadcast different types of things.
And this can be written video, images, et cetera.
Can I just say that's a nightmare?
I didn't even like WhatsApp groups with more than about four people in them.
It's just too much.
Okay.
or you can have, channels which are effectively one, two potentially
infinite broadcast streams that anybody can sign up to follow and gives you a.
Platform to then say things to your followers.
the thing that's curious about pla about Telegram as a platform is that
it is the most maximally free speech of all of the platforms that exist.
it's founder Pura, is Russian, and he made a violent amount of money from setting up.
What was basically the Russian version of Facebook called Vicon Act in the
two thousands, which he then got out of in 2013, 14, I think, partly
because he was feeling intense pressure from the Russian states to hand over
user data, and all the rest of it.
So this prompted him to create Telegram, which he always said
would be maximally free speech.
And what that means is that basically they commit to and say on their FAQs that
they will never, ever, hand over any data or any information to law enforcement
anywhere in the world, regardless.
So there are things that you can't do on Telegram, right?
You definitely can't.
Post child sexual abuse material in public channels that is explicitly stated.
What is not explicitly stated is that you can't do that in private channels,
which as we can all understand, is a tacit admission that you definitely, can.
similarly, Telegram has for a long time been the preferred messaging and broadcast
and information dissemination platform of isis, of Hamas, of Islamic Jihad.
it is been linked to operations conducted by people like the Proud Boys in the US
and various other Far rights, extreme organizations, but also plenty of far
left extreme organizations as well.
without wishing to give anyone any ideas here, if anyone ever does want to buy
drugs really quickly and easily, searching on Telegram is not a terrible first step.
Trump could give it a go.
Should Donald be interested in, trying some of that exciting marching power?
I've been trying to get hold of some responsible man pills, and so this
Helen: Anti weight vitamins are only a click away.
but the, the persistent question, isn't it about telegram, is to what extent
it really is at arms length from the Russian state, as you say, power dur of.
Went into exile in Dubai.
he obviously recently arrested in France.
He's got a number of different passports.
Hasn't he's got one from St.
Kits.
Nevis.
He's got a French one.
He's got a Russian one I believe, if
Matt: I'm not mistaken, UAE.
'cause telegram is currently based in Dubai for legal reasons, although
interestingly, it's server architecture is spread all around the world,
which makes it incredibly evil.
Not incredibly easy, but it makes it very hard for specific domestic legal
setups to prosecute them meaningfully because the data is so distributed that
the jurisdiction for overseeing the use of that data is very, fragmented
and hard to effectively track.
but the reason he was arrested, is, in France a couple of weeks ago, there
were a variety of charges, 12 in total.
The majority of them relate to what the French authorities refer to as complicity
in criminal acts, which effectively means.
You know this stuff is happening.
it's illegal and yet you are not doing anything to stop it.
Andy: And presumably it's a national border thing that's
happening in France on Telegram.
Therefore, they've arrested him.
Matt: There is one charge which pertains to running unlicensed encryption tools.
Within France, and it's this that is getting people's culture war backs up.
as you can imagine, the arrest of this man who runs, what is in part
an encrypted messaging service, it's not entirely encrypted.
You have to opt into the encryption, which is one of the other reasons why
it's in a very interesting position.
because not everything on its encrypted.
Unlike WhatsApp, where literally no one, not even meta, can see the contents
of your messages, stuff on Telegram if you don't automatically encrypt it.
It's not encrypted, which means that anyone at Telegram
can see your messages, right?
Which means that Telegram literally knows that people are using its
platform to share messages containing child sexual abuse material, or
to sell guns or drugs or people.
however, upon dur, Rob's arrest, all of the people that you can imagine
getting very exercised about perceived crackdown on freedom of speech and the
ability to send encrypted messages, got very upset about this Elon Musk.
as you can imagine, a variety of other charming people from across
the right wing political sphere.
that's
Helen: part the more interesting one, I would say is.
Is Tucker Carlson, if you remember of lately, of having traveled to Moscow
to hear from Vladimir Putin about various incidents and grievances from
many centuries of Russian history.
And this has always been one of the big question marks about Telegram.
It was, it is the, as well as you say, Hamas, isis, others.
It is the defacto communication system for the Russian Army.
And you, it was very popular in Ukraine as well.
To the extent that the Ukrainian authorities have said,
please do not use Telegram.
We absolutely are very worried that this stuff is ending up.
Being looked at by people and it is insecure.
And as Matt says, it's not, it's sold as a secure encrypted app.
And it's really not.
Unless, you're in a one-to-one channel, unless you've explicitly opted in.
But the interesting thing to me about the learning from this is that these
social media platforms that started off as a fun way to stay in touch with
your friends have essentially become.
Giant national security problems because not only is this huge amount of traffic
going through them, this huge amount of illegal material, there are also very good
ways of mapping who is talking to who.
So if you are a dissident, for example, every, everybody that you are talking to
will now be held on these platforms, which is why the Ukrainians are so worried about
the way about any potential connections between Paval, Joof and, the Kremlin,
Matt: and
Helen: which he denies, I should say.
Matt: He does deny, but I was.
Reading something interesting in the key of independent about the fact that he's
traveled back to Russia approximately 60 times during his supposed exile.
Ian: and he's never fallen outta a window once.
No, I, rest my case, possibly
Matt: coincidentally, when he flew into France and was arrested,
he flew in from Azerbaijan where he'd just been for a few days.
Coincidentally, Vladimir Putin had also been in as I'm,
Helen: it's lovely this time of year.
That's what they always say about as correlation,
Matt: of course, not equal and causation, but yes.
Andy: it does remind me of something of the covers a great deal, which is the.
The trickiness of pinning down international and offshore money,
except this is international and offshore information and country.
If until all 193 countries agree to crack down on offshore money, then
it's going to exist in an enormous way.
And this is exactly the same thing happening all over again.
And it's about which countries will and won't.
Do something.
And as long as there are a few countries which won't, this can thrive there.
And if the, Helen, you were saying something interesting
about this enormous pile of coma, basically being in Dubai now.
Helen: and as Matt says all over the place, but you are right, there is a form
of digital nationalism that's emerging.
So China has, from the start of this era, said.
We're having our own social media networks.
We're not letting other people's in.
We want to be entirely in charge of, Baidu and WeChat and all
the kind of stuff that's there.
And there are certain things you can't say on those things.
We are, we are not gonna pretend this is about free speech at all.
No.
You use our controlled apps.
And we're in charge of them, which is why Donald Trump was very cautious about
TikTok, which is, its own at the time, bite Dance is a Chinese company because
it was saying, do we really want young Americans on a Chinese own platform that
could be used as an influence operation by China if they want, if they say wanted to.
And that, there's a version of, telegram called Signal that is based in the
US and I think the US would be much happier if US citizens were on that.
they feel quite smug about the fact that so many of the big social
networking companies are based.
In America, and therefore you can get Mark Zuckerberg in, in front of
Congress and quiz him about what stuff he, what covid stuff he's allowing
on the platform and stuff like that.
But for any smaller country, it's a really difficult question to do.
Do you really want your citizens on these platforms that are in some external jury
extinction you have no access to at all?
Yeah.
Ian: But the same arguments as with banking apply with, information.
And as soon as.
Anybody begins to take the mildest form of action, which we're all told is hopeless
and couldn't possibly work, they all start screaming, this man gets arrested.
and all the Freedom Warriors are saying this is the most worrying
thing that's ever happened, in the entire history of the world.
Yeah.
And you think, maybe it is possible to take action against these people
and maybe some of these actions work?
Yeah,
Matt: I think it's, important to, to make the very clear point that.
It is very hard to conceive of this rationally as a freedom of speech issue.
nobody is saying that you shouldn't be allowed to have encrypted messaging.
That is not what the French government appears to be saying.
That is not indeed what they've taken issue with.
What they've taken issue with is the fact that you shouldn't, they
posit be able to run a platform that serves nearly a billion people.
900 million users, telegram globally, a billion people, and
have a hundred staff globally.
A hundred staff in total globally and literally not comply with police requests
to remove child sexual abuse material, or people trafficking people or guns.
Drugs.
that doesn't strike me as a reason of speech issue.
The second point to note is that the reason it's become a cultural war
Shibboleth is because Signal, which Helen mentioned, which is the sort of
peer, encrypted app, which is frankly better encrypted in a better and more
robust piece of software, happens to have as one of its board members,
a woman who is also on the board of American Liberal News Outlet, NPR.
And as a result of this, a lot of it very,
Helen: basically the signal is run by a bunch of woke hippies.
Exactly.
and therefore, and you will see all the time now, people talking
about how amazing Elon Musk.
Exes because now it's allowed back on all these people like Tommy
Robinson who were banned before.
It's the only place that freedom of speech still exists on the internet.
His AI is, will allow you to do, pictures of Mickey Mouse smoking crack.
there's a big kind of, we don't have to obey any rules and laws.
Whereas, as you say, signal, it's Catherine Mayer, isn't it?
Yes.
Who, she once did something like she put her pronouns in her bio
and they, this is evidence that she shouldn't be in charge of a, network.
Matt: So can I check, does Signal comply with requests from law enforcement
agencies or anything like that?
Helen: not aggressively in the sense none of these companies do.
Even Facebook, which is probably, fairly well established is quite
hard to extract information out of.
Matt: to give you an example, in WhatsApp, in Signal, in almost all of these
platforms, in fact, apart from Telegram, there is an easy option within the app.
To be able to report content that you see that is illegal, breaks,
the terms and conditions, et cetera.
Telegram doesn't provide you with that functionality.
Which I presume is why they can get away with having a hundred staff.
Helen: Yeah, it's, philosophically opposed to any kind of government intervention,
it's beyond libertarianism into the kind of amazing Wild West, but there is
a big current within the online right, and within the tech sphere of that hyper
libertarianism that, governments only exist to get in the way of innovation.
And part of that is they also only get in the way of censoring, the
real ideas that people need to hear.
Ian: ideas like globalization, taking over everything and, individuals
in countries no longer having any power to change their own lives.
do their heads never blow up?
Helen: once you've been to the NatCon, which is the international
gathering of nationalists, like you just have to accept that.
No, don't expect it to make any sense.
Victor Ban has traveled over to America to tell, how terrible it
is for other countries to lecture you on how to run your country.
What, yeah.
None of it makes sense,
Ian: but Matt, , I keep reading in your column that, Platforms and
channels, and these organizations say it's absolutely impossible.
we don't have the number of staff to interfere.
We can't possibly moderate that stuff.
And then one of their advertisers complains, and
within about 38 milliseconds, all content has been removed.
That defended the advertiser and the entire process seems
to be incredibly possible.
Matt: what is interesting about Telegram is that it has occasionally been
really good at complying with take down requests for copyrights of material.
so yeah, it turns out, that paring a film terrible, posting, posting terribly
offensive pictures, not terrible at all.
One of the reasons is that larger platforms, can operate automated systems
whereby copyrighted material gets uploaded somewhere by the copyright owner, and
their automated systems can basically find anything that matches that and take
it down entirely, which is significantly easier to do for copyrighted material
than it is for new, fresh content, which is one small justification,
possibly not wishing to protect
Ian: So if ISIS branded their material better, it would be easier to take down.
Matt: Yeah.
What they, really need is a nice identifiable logo watermark in the top
right hand corner of all of their stuff so we can just nix it immediately.
Ian: And that's very helpful, man.
Matt: OV has nearly enough children to fill one of his own telegram groups.
he's got a hundred children, I think.
Is this Helen?
Is this right?
You've got Chap.
He claims to
Helen: be an avid, sperm donator.
Yes.
yeah, I'm thorough.
Eni encourage you to check out his Instagram feed, which features lots of
photos of him topless in the desert.
He doesn't drink caffeine, he doesn't eat meat.
he's one of these people who lives a very acetic lifestyle, but part of that is the
intense natal wisdom that characterizes a lot of that kind of on what you call
Ian: natal.
Helen: Tech Elite?
so Elon Musk resemble, has 10 children, maybe more, but that we know of.
and there is, there are consistent reports that he is, he's very
keen on the idea that high IQ people should be overrepresented.
a lot of this is a return of a soft form of eugenics.
The idea that smart people aren't having enough.
Kids,
Ian: And is it true that none of Musk's children actually talk to him?
Matt: he
Helen: has a transgender daughter who's now called Vivian, and she's got a
very interesting account on threads.
I think this is probably the thing that's most hurtful to him, which is
the platform owned by Meta, a Facebook, which she uses just to talk about
what a terrible father she thinks he is, how he never accepted her.
He said in his interview with Jordan Peterson, she had been
captured by the woke mind virus.
and a social contagion, but several of his other, he's got, ex a dark cerial
and, the ones, the newer children, there is a feud between his, most recent
ex-wife and the executive of his company who had two of his chil children.
As Matt says, there is a difference sometimes between these people wanting
to father children and what might some might call parent children, right?
Sure.
In an ongoing basis,
Andy: it does sound like Boris Johnson and.
Ruper Murdoch are both part of the tech elite, which I didn't suspect.
It turns out that the great men of our time have a surprising amount in common.
That's it for this episode of page 94.
if you have enjoyed it, then why not buy the magazine,
private-eye.co.uk, get a subscription.
It's a fantastic magazine.
That's all I need to say on the matter.
thank you very much to Helen, to Ian, and to Matt and to you for
listening and to Matt Hill from Rethink Audio, who has always produced it.
We'll be back again in two weeks with another one of these
and we'll see you next time.
Goodbye.