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, Adam MacQueen and Ian Hislop.
We are here to discuss everything that's happened since the last edition
of the magazine was published, and we're gonna be talking about what's
coming up shortly, starting with.
The American election.
If you haven't noticed, there's one on.
And, we are very lucky because we have in the room with us today a reporter
and journalist who has actually been in the USA very recently, unlike 98% of the
British commentators on the election,
Helen: who just re-watched the West Wing box set.
Andy: Exactly.
Helen, you've been there, you've been living it.
Helen: I have, I've been at, the Atlantic.
My other gig asked me which swing state I would like to drive
across, and I said, Pennsylvania.
So I've been to a Trump rally.
I've been to a Harris rally.
I've been to a Tim Waltz event in the middle of a field with some pumpkins where
they said you could take a pumpkin home.
And I had to explain that journalistic ethics.
So you did stop.
Adam: Sorry, I misunderstood.
You just said.
Drive across Pennsylvania.
Yeah, I know.
See how long it takes you.
Helen: Actually, they laughed at me because quite a bit
of it I did on the Amtrak.
I took a five hour train journey.
Lovely.
From Harrisburg to, yeah, to Pittsburgh.
Andy: is that laughable?
Is that
Helen: It is to Americans.
'cause they think when you pop out to get a snack for a five hour drive, why
you, why are you treating this like it's an epic voyage across the far east.
I see.
Andy: So we, thought we better treat this as a kind of town
hall event before the election.
You're gonna be answering all our questions.
Yes.
so would anyone like to leap in first, of all,
Adam: tell me about the Trump rally.
what's, what's that actually like?
How long did he talk for?
Helen: Oh, 90 minutes.
I can see why people leave because it is, it, the, I've just written this.
I, but like the experience to me replicates, sometimes when you're
really sleepy late at night and you're watching TV in a drama and you're just
nod off a bit and then you'll wake up in a minute and they're in Venice.
That's exactly how it feels to try and listen to a Trump speech.
You're just n not off.
And he'll be talking about fracking and then you'll come to, and he is talking
about, something like he covered, how much he hates Whoopi Goldberg,
who I said something mean about him.
And, he said, 'and I once booked her to do a comedy set at Mar A
Lago: filthy mouth, filthy mouth!'
And you're like, why are we here?
Why am I getting reviews of Whoopi Goldberg's comedy from the 1990s?
And it's, a real check.
It makes sense weirdly, if you let it wash over.
It's a bit like a sort of.
Magic eye painting, right?
You just have to step back and let your eyes on focus and you get the vibe.
But on the sentence level, it makes no sense at all.
Adam: What, are they for?
is it literally just to hear him do a rambling speech?
That's the entire function of the whole
Helen: thing's, but it's like going to a WWE event or a concert like
I, I found it quite reminiscent.
The other thing it most reminded me of this year is going to a
Taylor Swift concert because you've got people with their families.
People queue up for hours outside.
They've got, instead of friendship bracelets like you would have if you're
a swifty, they've got MAGA hats, right?
People have signs.
There's a carnival less kind of thing.
There's loads of merchandise.
Adam: So his fundraising as well, presumably, is it the mech and stuff?
Helen: No.
'cause it's all bootleg merch, right?
It's all people who've badly screed printed that picture of him with his
fist from the assassination attempt, and they're trying to sell him for $10.
People want
Ian: to go to share an event.
Yeah.
someone said to me, he keeps saying that he's a standup comedian and he
does stand up and they say, no, he isn't because standup comedian A has to
be funny, and B, there has to be some sense during the 90 minutes that you've
had, some sort of coherent experience.
I'm still baffled.
Yeah.
what, were the low lights and the highlights?
Helen: there's a point.
He does do a standup sort of improv thing because he does a free association.
So at one point he started talking about how he'd been to Iowa
and he liked Iowa and he just went, I love Iowa, I love corn.
And it was just like, that was what his memory, like his mental Rolodex retrieved.
I input Iowa output, what's in Iowa corn.
So it's
Andy: like a very bad, whose line is it anyway, right?
Helen: Yeah.
Effectively it had, that kind of vibe.
Who's
Andy: lie is it?
Anyway, there you go.
Thank you.
Helen: and then there's all these people who do warmups who are trying
to essentially do impressions of him, which is a very peculiar and an extremely
embarrassing thing for all of them.
Vivek Ramaswamy was there that night.
Who's the...
Andy: he wasn't the running to be the vice president of at one point?
Yeah.
He ran in the primary and, he's a biotech investor and I, yeah,
I described him in the magazine as being a podcast in human form.
That's, he just will turn up and talk about anything at any point.
You'd be
Adam: a bit disappointed though, 'cause some people get Kid Rock, some people get.
Hulk Hogan and you get Vivek.
That's
Helen: he, at least I say this for Vivek, it was a type five.
Some people, ramble just by
Adam: comparison with Trump.
Yeah.
So you,
Helen: the doors open at 3:00 PM in the afternoon and Trump
doesn't come on until seven 30.
So it's a, I'm just trying a marathon, trying to
Adam: translate this into slightly parial terms, but can you imagine
anyone wanting to wait four hours to hear Keir Starmer give a speech?
It's just,
Helen: I just think the Americans are much more enthusiastic people than we are.
Ian: Just,
Helen: yeah.
Ian: So it's a collective thing.
What you mean generally about politics,
Helen: about everything, about just small things in their long
lives, about the concept of getting dressed up and going out.
there's just a
Ian: Yeah,
Helen: but definitely about politics.
I think British people regard enthusiasm in politics as innately suspicious.
religion too, right?
Actually, yeah.
there's a lot of, there's a strain of you about us evangelical.
Christian, I grew up in the Catholic church and there was a deep suspicion of
those kind of like Alpha Course people or the evangelical people who would
fall to the floor and speak in tongues.
This was seen to be a bit, a bit much, we all like God, a bit much,
Ian: I kept thinking of Halloween, which seems to be an event that's
got nothing to do with All Hallows even, or indeed anything else.
it's a chance to dress up and feel part of something or other and watching the
Andy: big orange face.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's a Trump rally.
is it a bit like Labour live?
I say this to you as someone who has been reporting on Labour politics, do
you remember Labour had that kind of one day, what was, it was one day festival.
It was
Adam: the Corbyn Glastonbury
Andy: wasn't exactly after Corbyn had played Glastonbury to greater a claim.
And he did have a number of massive rallies in the run up to the 2017
and 19 elections, and hundreds of thousands of people came along to them.
And then Labour life was an attempt to piggyback on that Glastonbury thing.
Helen: I went to a Corbyn rally in the, union chapel.
It was the very first one.
It was packed to the rafters and everybody started seeing the red flag.
And it was, and that was a moment when I really thought,
wow, something's happening.
Adam: He came to my hometown, St.
Leonards On Sea and, packed out the local park to the extent that someone was
climbing over the railings and trying to get in and match to impale themselves.
That's how much people wanted to see him at the time.
Ian: Wow.
But this is directly contrary to your theory about British
people are not very bothered by.
Politics and find enthusiasm for it.
Embarrassing.
perhaps Glastonbury was the end for enthusiasm.
Yes.
Oh, Jeremy Corbyn and everyone think, oh no, we, no, we can't do this.
This is just too, it's embarrassing, isn't it?
Yes.
Andy: unless they're a Davian.
They do resolutely, nonpolitical things, which is probably, he might
be Britain's Trump, He turns up, makes a bit of a wally of himself.
Everyone says they're get empty Seeds.
Yeah.
Ian: and.
At the end of this 90 minutes in which you are half asleep and some
people have left, presumably the bulk of the crowd think this is the sort
of person we'd like to be president.
Helen: I think there's a real difference in Trump support.
There is a hardcore of supporters who really love it properly fall, maga.
And then I think the other big block of people in this election are relatively
low information voters who, not low engagement voters, who think that Biden
put the country on the wrong track and think that they were richer under Trump.
Because if you remember, he handed out checks literally with his signature on.
And inflation in the US hasn't been as bad as it has been here, but it was.
prices did go up.
So I think there's a, there's two dynamics.
There's some people who really love the MAGA stuff and there's other people who
think the economy was better for me, my taxes were lower under Trump, and are
willing to ignore all the other stuff.
They either think it's a lie or a media confection, or they think
it's not that big a deal and it's overblown and it's, it's compared to
the stuff that he did, they just seem as a normal Republican politician.
Ian: Can, I bring up the F word at this point?
Because Does it matter that everyone's calling him a fascist?
Helen: I don't, the funny thing is that the polling shows that it is a,
it is the least good of the, Democrat arguments in terms of persuading people.
but then lots of people have historically.
Voted for fascism.
This is not a thing that has never happened before.
people, Victor Ban said, I'm an illiberal democrat, and
people voted for him in Hungary.
and then what tends to happen is the elections get less and less democratic.
And, people become, more and more disillusioned with it.
But then they don't have a chance to, rethink.
But I'll be
Ian: reading this Sinclair Lewis book, which is called, it Couldn't
Happen Here in 1935, which is about an American president who gets voted
in and then becomes a dictator.
and he is an absolute fascist, and it's a brilliant prescient read.
by the time this podcast is out, it may be just of historic interest, but
no more, it may be current offense, but he said, when fascism arrives
in America, it will come wrapped up in the flag and carrying across.
Do you get a sense of that?
Helen: I don't think that's true.
I think it's arrived in a clan wig of making funny jokes.
Ian: This is Mussolini time, isn't it?
Who, was called the clown?
Hitler was the serious one.
Mussolini, no, he was a joke.
And until he wasn't.
Helen: there was a Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday night and that
one would be the one where I, I'm always really hesitant about using
these words or making comp, comparisons between Israel and the actions of,
the war shall get all those things.
'cause I think you just get stuck on having that argument rather
than arguing about the substance.
But I did watch that Madison Square Garden rally and think.
this is a, bad business.
So there was, not just the usual enemies of the people, stuff about
understatement, but there was Trump and other speakers explicitly calling
for mass deportations and it's never.
Said how these would be accomplished.
But there are a huge number of undocumented people in America,
often with American citizen children.
because you get American citizenship if you're born in the us The only
way in order to do this would be to set up an enormous police and
paramilitary state and go door to door, dragging people out of their homes.
Andy: is it remotely in the same way that he promised to build a
big, beautiful wall and people cheered and then he didn't do it.
is it.
Does anyone seriously think it's going to happen?
Or do people just like the idea and they're willing to count on and it
Helen: People then say, what he's actually saying is that he would
be tough on the border and he would restrict immigration, right?
they mentally downgrade it to a level that is palatable to them.
All, they think it's a rhetorical flourish.
Ian: it is a slight change in American politics.
Say, bring me your huddled masses and I'll deport them all.
that's new, isn't it?
Helen: It's been a year zero in the Republican party, right?
If you think about the fact that nobody from its history is on his
side, it's like there was a kind of terrible event that happened.
So John McCain previous.
Presidential candidate died hating him.
George W.
Bush won't come out and, campaign for him.
Mitt Romney, former Republican, , presidential candidate, voted to impeach
him and has now retired from public life.
Essentially.
His former vice president, Mike Pence, he tried to kill
so he's not stumping for him.
Kamala Harris is able to send out Barack Obama, still a popular politician,
Michelle Obama, even more popular.
Bill Clinton has been doing events in the South where he's still quite popular.
he, she has these surrogates from a, an idea of what the Democratic Party's
tradition and achievements were.
But Trump has succeeded by trashing the institutions of the
Republican party and its personnel.
One of the most popular lines when he, I went to rally, which
was wild to me, was him saying.
I didn't, I, I'm the first American president for 70 years
who didn't start any wars.
In fact, I ended a war quote.
I beat isis, which was good of him to do that in his downtime.
But that, to somebody who came of age as I did, like in the Iraq war
era where everybody hated George A.
Bush for being a kind of haw.
The fact that's where the, now, the Republican party is, and that Dick
Cheney the great architect of the Iraq War is now voting for Harris is just it.
There's been a complete fundamental reset in American politics that he's
accomplished because of that kind of cult of personality round him.
I'm not sure if he loses what's left of the Republican party.
Where they go from that.
That's a, I also think he, even if he does lose, he will never concede that he lost,
Andy: obviously.
there was some good polling done this morning that was about
who, how many Americans believe who would or wouldn't concede.
Quite a lot of people think Trump wouldn't concede if he lost, but there is a small
core of, I think it's 11% who believe that Harris wouldn't concede if she
lost, but Trump would concede if he did.
And you think.
Really,
Helen: I'd like to play those people at poker.
course that's quite easy to take money off.
Andy: so what about the Harris event then?
What was that?
Helen: the thing, the funny thing about that was it was just really normal.
the Trump event was boring in this completely surreal and bizarre way,
but the Harris event was slightly eh.
Isn't it?
yeah, they, they copied a trick from the Democratic National Convention,
which they had DJs beforehand.
So you get a, of sports arena full of people bopping away to Dancing Queen
and like Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This.
Ian: It's like all weddings.
she can't escape.
ABBA, I
Helen: She walked onto Beyonce's Freedom and then gave a really, there
was a terrible bit where she said, why are we, why won't we go back?
her, slogan is, we won't go back.
Why won't we go back?
Because we're going forward.
Oof.
And I thought, yes, that's the kind of cliche that soothes
me, that this is, that's
Adam: fantastically meaningless, isn't it?
That's beyond even.
Yes, we can.
That's just, yeah.
Helen: I thought one of the things that's interesting is that the Republicans
have been trying to claim, there's no grassroots enthusiasm for her.
it's all the media propping her up, blah, blah, blah.
But Erie, where I went to the Harris rally and.
Reading where I went to the Trump rally, both have 95,000 people that live there.
So the towns of equal size, if anything, erie's harder to get to.
And the Erie rally was packed, whereas the Trump rally actually, they'd had
to section off the back stalls and quite a bit of the, the floor space.
It wasn't it was only full for the cameras because they'd rigged it to look that way.
So Trump lying about the figure.
I know you turn up to events.
This is extraordinary.
Andy: And the kind of tone of coverage in the UK has very much been that the,
air has gone out of the Harris souffle.
Helen: Based around an incredibly small, within the margin of error tightening of
the polls in the last couple of weeks.
Okay.
they're essentially where they were when she, had enormous bounce
after taking over from Biden.
People genuinely did think Biden was too old and, at that point it was a Trump
landslide that every, everybody, including the Trump campaign was planning for.
She then had an enormous boost and has coasted downwards as you would expect
from independence finally breaking one way or the other, whatever it might be.
And she hasn't.
She's run a very tight and competent campaign.
She hasn't done that many mainstream media appearances.
As I said, when I swatch at the CNN Town Hall, and the answers
are quite vague and waffly, right?
She's not an Obama level inspirational visionary.
She's a competent technocrat who, doesn't make you think I preferred
this in the original German.
I'm not surprised about that.
But the thing is, it comes down essentially to seven swing states.
Anybody who tells you they think they know what's gonna happen is lying, right?
Because it, it is matter of, I think Joe Biden won Pennsylvania
last time by 80,000 votes.
So you know it we'll have all this commentary afterwards about what it
tells us about the State of America.
It's redundant because we already know what it tells about the state of America.
It's that a race between these two people is essentially tied, right?
And then you can be Trump and you can still get 47% of the electorate
in America think that's the bit
Ian: we don't understand from the coverage over here because as
you say at the moment, everyone thinks, oh, Trump's gonna win.
He's gonna win.
it's just too depressing for words.
the whole of America must be mad.
which isn't a very rational.
analysis of what's going on there.
But there is gen, genuine bafflement that someone can come out, say
what he says and people don't care.
this is a really basic question, but why
Helen: I think you can't discuss it without the media environment.
And I've always been slightly skeptical of the idea that kind of
media gives people their marching orders and then they just her off.
But if you look at America, and I think.
Adam, I'd be really interested in your take on this because I think
it's what some people are attempting to recreate here is a kind of Marvel
cinematic extended universe where you never have to hear anything that.
Contradicts your preconceptions even slightly.
So that's an alliance between the mainstream news channels, the influencers,
the podcasters, this hermetic universe.
I met this Trump voting couple from Florida who were on holiday
who said, we're voting Trump.
I think we were much more respected abroad when he was president.
And I went slightly unprofessionally, no.
And I just thought, of course you don't know that.
How, where is this if you are watching?
Fox all day.
You are just, that information will simply never reach you, and your
information has been so tightly curated.
And I think that's the point of polarization.
It's why I feel very lucky in Britain to have.
A spread of news outlets and a BBC, which is obliged when it puts Nigel
Farage on to also put someone from the Labour party on question time.
I just think whatever happens, you are exposed to a wider range
of opinions here than you are
Adam: the thing he's done that has been very clever, has been to just say
to people, you don't trust the media.
The media just lie to you, and, that has been adopted wholesale.
And people can now live through social media, whatever, in their
own sort of ghettoized area and just get the news that appeals to them..
Ian: But there's me watching it thinking.
Now, who was the first person who said, don't trust the mainstream media?
Oh, yes, it was Bels.
it's not new this broach, but I,
Adam: suppose you're right, Andy, there is a certain sort of authority
that comes from the fact that he's standing up there at a lectern on
stage and delivering it that way.
he's, as you said, he's avoiding debates.
He's avoiding questioning except by fairly friendly people.
But even the, the Joe Rogan interview that, that's just come out, he's
very deft at avoiding the question.
Helen: Yeah.
And then tries to get him onto the subject of whether or not in the second term he
would declassify the alien, information, which obviously Joe Rogan is mad for.
'cause he's obsessed with, aliens.
you mean
Ian: outer space aliens?
not illegal alien aliens come in trying to work,
Helen: perceiving whatever it was, operations in prison.
Yeah, I think you are entirely right about that.
I.
I and also I think there has been a certain boiling frog aspect, but there's
always a bump for the fact when there's the first presidential debate, if it's
a new person, an incumbent versus a challenger, there's always a bump for
the challenger because at the, finally, at that point, it's oh, they're standing
on a podium next to the president, like that they could be president.
These people are of equal worth.
And I think a similar thing is true that because someone's
standing behind a podium.
You go, oh, that's obviously everything he does is presidential.
'cause he's doing president.
I remember Sienna Miller saying this about UPS skirting, right?
Which is, if you had 10 men chasing a 19-year-old down the street trying
to look up a skirt, everyone would go, that's obviously disgusting
when they've got a camera in their hands for a period of time.
Everyone was like, that's the pursuit of journalism that's got to be allowed.
And I think there's a similar kind of.
he's behind a podium, so it's
Adam: okay.
You frame the right as you said about Kamala, what, whatever the completely
anodized, meaningless phrase was, but if you say it to a cheering crowd behind
a podium, you can just say Absolutely.
With the right intonation, people will go, oh, this is the bit right clap, isn't it?
Helen: Yeah.
that's, what you've learned the first time you go on question time,
which is just that if you say it with enough gusto, people will
applaud and you realise the terrible power that you hold in your hands.
The secrets out.
. I suppose while we're on, media, we should talk about the, various
endorsements that the Havel haven't been.
'cause two big newspapers have failed to endorse anybody.
Yeah.
The LA Times, which is run by, Patrick Soon-Shiong who is a billionaire.
And then the Washington Post, which is run by Jeff Bezos of, Amazon and incredible
midlife crisis fame have both, have both declined to endorse at the last minute.
Andy: Jeff Bezos, one of very few people whose yacht has its own yacht.
Doesn't also have,
Helen: his, it has his, fiance, a bust of his fiance on the front of it.
Eh, as well.
Ian: It does,
The figurehead.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
And does it matter?
That these two mainstream media outlets, don't endorse the president.
Helen: I, think, should we fight all this, Adam?
'cause I,
Adam: so I'm gonna come in with, we won't surprise you.
My usual take on the American media, which is, oh, for God's
sake, get over yourselves.
You pompous self important bunch of lunatics.
No one cares what you think.
the idea that, I just love the idea that readers of the Washington Post, oh, no.
who am I gonna vote for them?
I haven't had my instructions.
the idea that this will change absolutely anyone's mind.
I, I did this rant, didn't I?
Ahead of our own election when, when Kirstan was desperately causing
the Murdoch papers, this exercise.
Oh, it's just the pompousness.
I sort, I just think over here, journalists, we can be incredibly
pompous, but mostly we know our place and we know we don't.
That the difference, it's this, idea that the, the Washington
Post will speak its mind.
The LA Times will speak its mind.
Democracy dies in darkness.
They won't mind as long as they can find the crossword.
Most of them it's fine.
Andy: it's again, it's the pop star endorsement thing is
very, it is pretty alien here.
Taylor Swift endorsing or.
Kid Rock on the other side.
Yes.
He'd
Ian: forgotten the days when Andrew Lloyd Weber would say, look, if there
isn't a Tory government, I'll go abroad.
And we all thought, ah, there's also a cost
Andy: he made.
Did it happen in the, did it happen in the sixties?
Did it happen with, did the TROs endorse Alec Douglas Hume?
did that was Herman Hermit Okay, sorry.
Adam: Harold Wilson was desperate to be photographed with the Beatles.
Okay.
That is fair.
He personally presented them with their mbs, I think.
there's amazing photo shoot, which.
It comes back to me now.
Jeffrey Archer somehow managed to get himself involved with as well, didn't he?
He did.
So
Ian: yeah.
All of the great publicity though.
He has now endorsed Kamala Harris, which I thought was, oh no, one of
the, one of the worst but domes then
Helen: we really are.
The Beatles wrote a whole, one, one of the weirdest Beatles songs is Tax Man, which
is them complaining about their tax rates.
That was the sort of political intervention basically.
Yes.
I
Ian: mean that the Labour tax rise is very current.
No one likes them, but I think that's unfair.
I think there have been celebrity endorsements, but.
Presumably Taylor Swift matters
Helen: I think there's an interesting thing that two sets of endorsements
are interesting for the Democrats.
One is the celebrities, and Taylor Swift is incredibly popular.
and, and, also she just might increase, get out the vote among young people
who are reluctant to vote, right?
Just by increasing turnout.
She, that might be an influential endorsement.
And then there's all of the, Stars of Puerto Rican descent who appear
to be extremely angry about the, Tony Hinchcliffe comedian's comments at
Madison Square Garden, including Bad Bunny, who I'm sure you're intimately
familiar with, and JLo, who you actually probably have heard of.
But, it's, not good to have that mood music of like people that you like.
Or endorsing someone else.
But they've also done the thing which Keir Starmer did, which has caught
Republican, he didn't call Republicans, but he courted Tories, right?
They've wanted to reduce the cost of defection in identity terms.
So it's like Kamala Harris has done events with Liz Cheney, former Congresswoman
daughter of Dick Cheney, because it's, there's a kind of whole Republicans
for Harris and a whole line that is.
You don't have to be a Democrat to vote for Harris.
You just have to be a patriot.
go back to voting Republican after this, but this one election, we need you.
And so I think those endorsements are interesting because a lot of people think,
neocons endorsing you is quite repulsive.
That's not where the zeitgeist is now.
But the counterpoint to that is seeing the people cross the floor might help other
people feel that they can, do the same.
Ian: And,
when those senior military figures endorse Kamala Harris and say, don't vote Trump.
even though I was,
head of staff or I was in charge of the Army at the time, don't vote for him.
Does that matter?
Is that the equivalent of a younger influencer?
Will that get old people thinking, my God, the head of
the Army thinks he's a fascist?
Helen: I met some moderate Republicans, as they would've described
themselves, who just thought it was he, that Trump had betrayed what
they saw as conservative values.
And that is a caucus of voted here.
Nikki Haley got did all right in the primary of everybody.
She did best by being an old fashioned internationalist, sane Republican and
not doing the cultural stuff at all.
So that caucus does still exist.
On the right.
It has been thoroughly marginalised by the Republican party, but I think
there are people who do think, why did I identify as a Republican?
It's because I believe in low taxes, but also institutions
and the military and the police.
The weirdest sign that I saw in the whole time driving across was in the
rural areas, which was a Trump sign that said, I'm voting for the felon.
And I've just been thinking about that ever since because it doesn't match up
with, the hatred of the defund the police.
As a slogan, all the people who during the Black Lives
Matter protests had pro-Police.
Ones that said, blue Lives matter.
And yet you get to this stage where people who simultaneously would say
that they love the police and the military and the rule of law also
love that Donald Trump has stuck two fingers up at those institutions by
becoming an now convicted criminal.
Andy: Yes, I'm struggling with that one too, but it's
Adam: also the same people who are saying, what's it.
Awful.
politically led persecution of poor Donald who were at the rallies chanting, lock her
up about Hillary Clinton, weren't they?
Yeah.
there is, you people are perfectly capable of holding to completely
contradictory views at the same time.
Helen: Yeah.
And to Harris's great credit, people started chanting, lock him up at her
rally, and she held up her hands and said.
Let's the, let the courts deal with that.
Let, we are just gonna deal with the election in November and this
is what I mean, it's, such, and that sense from now, that's a lot
Adam: less fun than actually getting to chant lock at lock.
that would be fun at a rally guy.
Helen: Yeah, but that's, what I mean is this, you have this bizarre situation in
which one people are running it, what is a recognizably normal political campaign?
And some people are doing what is half a very professionally run
campaign at its headquarters and its ad spend and then half this kind of.
mad, chaotic drama but it's
Adam: not totally unlike what's happened over here, has it, that we have this,
form of conservatism now in a few days, we'll know whether it's Kemi Badenoch, or
Robert Jenrick that are leading it, but neither of them are coming from mainstream
conservative with a small C, are they, we had this mad situation
where people like Jacob Rees Mogg have, been presenting themselves as
the anti-establishment candidate.
And Boris Johnson is incredibly successful at coming basically just smashing
things up and acting unconstitutionally and provoking parliament and being
knocked down by the courts and things.
And then now we're all talking about leaving the ECHR.
we've gone to quite an extreme on that side.
That's a long way from your sort of mainstream, old fashioned
conservative in that way.
And name
Ian: is now embarrassing 'cause there is.
Almost nothing they want to conserve.
the disruptor party, would do better, but I presume that's the same, you
detach yourself from the old party as with the Republicans and you do well.
Helen: Yeah, I think it's a difference between a conservative party and
a radical right party and whenever else you wanna call it, I would say
that probably general and Badnock are more from the radical right than
they are from, Burkeian conservatism.
And it was traditional that what happened in a Tory leadership election
post Cameron, is you have one sort of middle of the road person and
then one more fire breathing person.
And we go always, we go for Liz Truss over Rishi Sunak, right?
We go, yeah.
And, that now, no, there's not even a kind of the Nando's mild
option is no longer available.
It's just two different grades of spicy.
Andy: But Adam, you study the endorsement thing a lot and you probably know
more individual endorsements than I would say just about anyone in
the just a lot of who's endorsed,
Adam: who I know
Andy: when The Guardian went Lib Dem, so you,
Adam: I know
Andy: when the Independent said, let's have another coalition.
Oh.
So there is something in, maybe in that it doesn't matter to individual
voters, but the fact that papers might be declining to provide a.
An endorsement.
'cause they're nervous that of retribution if Trump wins or if a billionaire
proprietor says, I want to keep him sweet.
I, think in this case matter,
Adam: it is significant, isn't it?
Because, Patrick Soon-Shiong, is not just a newspaper owner.
He is got biotech and, AI firm startups and all sorts of things that have got
contracts within the healthcare sector in America and could be affected.
Jeff Bezos.
Amazon.
if they decide to stop cracking down on the way that Amazon treat their tax bill,
then that, that could be interesting.
But more to the point, he's got Blue Origin as well, isn't he?
'cause they all end up in space, don't they?
All of these billionaires, that's what they then start, must they
start spending their money on.
but I mean that, that's largely, contracts with, the American
Defence Department and things.
So there, there are direct obvious ways that their businesses could be
damaged by a vengeful, president, such as we know Trump is promising to be.
Helen: Yeah.
And he's explicitly said that's what he wants to do.
He said that there was a, a comment made on a podcast about the fact 'I'm
gonna be watching Mark Zuckerberg' of Meta, Facebook 'very closely, and if
he does anything wrong, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see him in jail.'
I think there has, so the tech leaders have all started phoning him up.
He was recounting both on Rogan and the most recent rally, how under Pekin,
Google had phoned him up and said how well the McDonald's stunt had done.
He claimed it was the most Google thing ever.
And I thought, I think it's probably pornography actually Donald.
But well done.
And, but clearly they've all the tech guys, this, the tech elite, like the
tech workforce is still, I think, donating more to a Democrat, but there
is a now a cadre of people who think, God, we better suck up to this guy.
Do you
Ian: think that.
Trump has seen the latest private eye cover with because I felt
that finished him off really in terms of an anti endorsement.
surely, it's all over for him now.
Yeah,
Helen: I dunno how he can recover.
What was it?
Donald McDonald.
I enjoyed that a lot.
And I think mu Elon Musk is, the interesting counter example to that,
which is one of the reasons he has gone all in on Trump, is it he thinks Trump
will just give him regulatory ability to build rockets and not get in his way.
But the funny thing about both him and Peter Thiel, who is the founder of
Paler and, a big investment, venture capitalist is that they're both
all with the height of capitalism.
We are these are Randian superman and both of them really depend heavily on.
Government contracts, it's gonna health data and things like that,
and surveillance technologies and ai, everyone's obviously puts AI in it because
it means that people give you more money, but they, but Department of Defense
contracts for both of them are absolutely, they, they're lifeblood, so they don't
actually like competition all that much.
Musk came on stage and said.
So the, us I can't, the US budget is something like, say 6.4 trillion a year.
And someone, and the guy who was introducing him said, how much do
you reckon you could cut out of that?
And he went, I reckon the Department of Government efficiency
Doge could cut out 2 trillion.
And it was like, oh, okay.
I, look forward to seeing you try.
But if people had to think about what that actually means in practice.
If you say, I'm sorry, we're just gonna, we're gonna shut
the roads, you have to know.
In order to cut that kind of figure, it would be immensely unpopular.
So people are allowed to get away with saying insane wild things, right?
With no then drill down.
In America that has completely gone.
The idea that things you say at political rally have in some way to be
tethered to reality is O is so over,
Adam: and yet here all we are hearing about is, well, Labour may have broken
and manifesto commitment depending on how you define working people.
Helen: And the equivalent would be ki star.
We going out and saying, I just, I've decided that we're
no longer gonna have bees.
Ian: Look, we can't let Helen get away with this podcast without a prediction.
Yes, surely.
Yeah.
Helen: I just feel like I'm the weight of a thousand humiliating sons
of being asked to do predictions.
I am gonna, I'm gonna say I'm not gonna make a prediction, but I'm
gonna say that I find myself more than people in Britain that I talk to
optimistic about Harris for two reasons.
She is sneakily ahead in the polling still.
She's not dropped behind in the polling and the early vote returns.
Look.
Good for her.
'cause lots of people, mail in ballots or do in person early voting.
I think there might very well be a big turnout among women who are driven by
the Dobbs decision to overturn, the Fed.
The constitutional right to abortion, and you probably don't hear as much from
those women because they don't spend all their time on ex screaming at you.
But like middle-aged women are quite reliable as a block at doing things.
They say they do.
Whereas 18-year-old men are less reliable, I would say, at doing things
on a particular day at a particular time.
So I think I'm probably, I'm, I think I'm more optimistic about a
Harris victory, which is my personal endorsement, just in case anyone.
Oh wow.
Okay.
Has been waiting.
I think she'd probably did better at it.
Ian: New I,
Adam: will make a prediction.
I'll make a very confident prediction.
I think that most readers of the LA Times and Washington Post will manage
to cast a vote for Kamala Harris anyway.
Good.
Without being told what to do.
Helen: But basically, yeah, about 250,000 people can swing it in either direction.
So there is no clear winner in the way somebody who's head.
Head and we, none of it.
The polls are trustworthy because they've all tried to readjust what they
felt were mistakes they made last time.
And we don't know they that.
They drastically undercounted the Democrats in the midterms
in 2022, and they drastically undercounted Trump supporters in
its previous, in 2016, for example, so that the polls have been wrong.
and if you think about the polls for the UK election we were having MRPs that
said the Tories were gonna be on 50.
Yeah.
And then actually what happened there is not only were maybe those
statistically their methods wrong, but also the pole dramatically
tightened in the last couple of days when the, to switched their message
to, please don't hurt us that badly.
We know we're going to lose what we'd like to still survive.
so I'm afraid you, you're gonna have to just, they call it the polar
coaster, which is that you can just check the polls every single day
and kind of worry yourself to death.
I've
Ian: read a headline saying, election in Georgia, rigged by, Russians.
And then I realised it was not Georgia.
It was the country Georgia.
Love the Georgia.
Adam: You had the wrong Georgia on your mind.
Andy: we should probably turn to a bit more.
That was just magnificent.
We should probably turn to some, some British politics because, Britain
has, is capable of producing world leading headlines as well, actually is.
that one
Helen: about the cheese theft was the only one that really broke
through to me when I was in America.
Andy: that was fantastic.
but there was also over the weekend, Helen, so you might have been, it
might have been on the red eye at this point, back from the, Caucasus, not
the Caucasus, that's the other Georgia.
Anyway, Labour MP Mike Amesbury was, suspended from the Labour
Party after there was some CCTV footage released of him.
Supposedly punching a man to the ground and punching him a bit
more while he was on the ground.
He has lost the Labour whip.
is being investigated by the police, so obviously we shouldn't.
Say too much in either direction, but it might be a fun opportunity
for a little look back at political punch up in previous years.
It's the sub Judas say quiz.
That's it.
So You are only gonna be quizzed right now on punch up that have already happened
and that have been totally litigated.
Adam: Yes.
Good.
Anything
Andy: you say is safe.
Hooray.
Mike Hansbury did say when he was elected, reelected this year, I'm
gonna fight for all my constituents.
Eventually he was gonna also be fighting with, yeah.
Okay.
now you remember the story of Eric Joyce, who pled guilty to attacking, four people
in the House of Commons Bar in 2012.
Yes.
And there was, and he was
Ian: entirely different 'cause he was attacking other MPs They weren't members
of the public to much lesser crime.
Andy: Firstly, can anyone tell me what kind of event he was at?
Helen: cliche was like the Temperance League or something.
It wasn't
Ian: fundraiser for the AA
Adam: Quaker meeting.
Andy: It was a Oh, you're so close.
In the sound of it.
It was a karaoke night.
Ah, yes.
the opposite of, aside from Quaker meeting.
I don't say anything either, is what is the similarity?
no, he said there were too many Tories in the bar and and
that was, why he lashed out.
It was one of the reasons.
Anyway,
Helen: The Eric Joyce punch is known in Westminster Law as the
punch that changed politics.
Because it was his deselection in Falkirk that led to the, if you remember, Len
McCluskey trying to get his very close associate to that seat, which led to the
reader of the Labour rules, which led to the change of the Labour Leadership
election rules, which meant you only had to get nominated by a certain number
of MPs and then you're on the ballot.
Which is what got Jeremy Corbyn elected Labour leader.
Yeah.
And then Labour, not complaining strongly enough to remain in the EU is
attributed by many to not activating those voters and thereby us doing Brexit.
And there is a, it's a bus fly of faith.
isn.
It isn't it?
Direct line from Eric Joyce's karaoke addled fist to, us leaving the EU.
Andy: Superb.
Can't fault it.
Adam: That's what happens.
Very Joyce.
Floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.
Yes.
Wow.
Oh,
Andy: excellent.
now let's go to another political punch up with a butterfly effect, actually too.
This is a great one.
We go to Rhyl In 2001 the press got punched.
this was Labour's reelection campaign, as it were.
It's so 2001 and Prescott's a former boxer, so yes, that makes a difference.
He was professional and actually didn't he start out doing cabaret on ships.
He was a ship steward.
He a steward.
Steward.
Not cabaret.
He, sorry.
You're absolutely right.
He did not do cabaret.
I've really written, he was serving gin and tonic, which gave
Tory members a lot of chances for snobbery, for most of his career.
Is that
Okay.
he was walloped with an egg and then immediately lashed out.
John Lancaster, the writer has a theory about the butterfly effect of this one.
Ah, can anyone tell me how John Prescott's punch.
Changed the course of history in terms of the Iraq war
Ian: was Prescott anti, and therefore, after this, his opinion was discounted.
Andy: Not bad.
it's about how he hit the farmer who had walloped him with an egg, right?
Adam: Wasn't
Andy: it?
Left hook
Helen: that discredited un weapons detectors.
Somehow
Andy: standing behind that farmer was Hans Blix.
No, it was, the, now that, one's good.
This is John Lanchester's theory, so put tongs of caution around it, but basically.
Lancaster reckons that he hit with his left Prescott 'cause that was
the hand closest to the farmer.
Whereas if he'd hit with his right, he might well have broken this guy's jaw.
Being a former boxer, which might have hospitalized him and meant
he actually probably would've had to step down as it was.
It was Blair said.
John is John.
Yeah.
now if he'd had to stand down, Blair might have had to appoint
a new deputy leader of the party.
Probably one who'd had less clout with the Labour left, which might have meant
that when Blair had his big vote on the war in 2003, he would've had less support
from Labour backed benches, which might have meant he'd lost it, which might have
meant that Britain didn't get involved.
it's not a slam dunk butterfly, but I quite like it.
Who would he have appointed then?
Unclear.
Helen: If he'd ended up with Robin Cook as the deputy leader, then it
would've been quite a different, who then had, then resigned from that role.
Maybe that would've changed.
Andy: Forough.
What was Prescott's nickname, which predated the punch up, but
proved very apt in the event of it.
it was two Jags.
'cause
Ian: he owned
Andy: two Jaguars.
Ian: Yes.
Andy: And then he was known as Two Jabs.
Yeah,
Ian: that's it.
Slightly inaccurately.
'cause he only hid him one.
Andy: that was one of his nicknames.
But there's another nickname.
He had Bruiser.
Oh, you're so close.
If I say that Blair was nicknamed Bambi.
Thumper.
Brilliant.
Thumper.
That was his, other nickname.
now why in the early nineties did Alistair Campbell punch Michael White,
political editor of The Guardian?
Adam: Oh, I know this.
It was because Michael White said it was a good thing that Robert Maxwell had died.
Ian: No.
He told a joke.
He told a joke about it.
I think the joke goes.
Something along these lines.
I've worked out the punch line.
What, is in the sea?
going, Bob.
And the answer was a drowning Robert Maxwell.
Yep.
it's not the most tasteful joke ever.
Helen: But beloved podcaster, Alistair Campbell was so offended on Robert
Maxwell, presumably at that point.
Not yet, no.
Well-known pension frauds to Robert Maxwell when he was the
Adam: man who saved The Mirror.
Great eulogies being paid to him everywhere.
And it was about four days later that went.
all that stuff that was in private eye.
He actually might not have been such a great guy after all.
And they discovered the 450 million hole in The Mirror's pension funds.
And well, Campbell was political editor of the Mirror at the time.
He was indeed.
So
Helen: that's,
like punching someone over sort of Jimmy Saville's honor and then having
to go update regarding the punch.
You can now punch me back 'cause I need to withdraw that.
Andy: Look.
You've all been very impressive back to the nineties.
We're gonna go even further back now.
Which MP and eventual Prime Minister owed their first front bench job
to their predecessor, kicking someone down a flight of stairs?
Helen: Adam looked so confident when you said, we're gonna go a bit further
back in history, but now it looks tense.
How?
How much further back?
Andy: 30 odd years.
Helen: oh, I was going like,
Adam: was itra bit the younger, Is it Giles Brandreth?
The answer to most of your questions is Giles Brandreth.
Ian: Griff?
No, I think that's poor
Andy: and this person's pre.
Alright, I'm gonna give you another clue.
Alan Clark.
Yeah.
This person's predecessor was, a chap called Sir Walter Bromley Davenport,
Tory MP for Nutsford at the time.
Adam: Wow.
Gosh, they know how to pick him in Nutsford, don't they?
So then they got Neil Hamilton, and then they got George Osborne.
Wow.
Andy: okay.
Shall I tell you what happened?
Yeah, Right soon after the war.
Walter Broley Davenport, saw an unfamiliar person leaving the House
of Commons just at the time of a three line whip, like compulsory vote.
Challenged him, shouted after him.
The person kept on going.
so Walter kicked him down the stairs when this guy refused to stop.
Anyway, the person, so Walter was in the whips office.
The person he kicked down the stairs turned out to be the Belgian ambassador,
and the Consequ vacancy in the whips office was filled by a young Edward Heath.
Oh
wow.
That is good.
Not Walter...
Probably not the kicking down the stairs, the ambassador, just the, information.
There you go
Helen: Again.
I just feel like kicking the Belgian ambassador down the stairs is a
Private Eye phrase in the making.
Yes,
Andy: finally we can't have a punch up, political quiz without a, brief
mention of the UKIP, Stephen Wolf, Mike Hook and Barney in 2016 in Brussels.
With what headline did Private Eye sensitively cover this
story in the jokes pages?
Ian, I'm looking at you as you probably wrote this joke.
Yeah.
And I'm thinking,
Ian: I can't remember.
Helen: Was it a pun on UKIP?
Andy: No, it wasn't.
That would've been good.
Should I tell you?
Yeah.
Meeting Breaks Out At UKIP Fight F Classic.
That was Nick Newman's joke.
I remember it.
Very good.
It was.
you're all winners.
You all did marvelously.
There you go.
that's it for this episode of Page 94.
Thank you very much for listening.
We'll be back again in a fortnight with another one.
Until then, if you, want to get more, Page 94.
Go and listen to the other episodes or go and get a copy of the magazine.
private-eye.co.uk...
subscriptions are available and reasonably priced.
Until then, thank you very much to Helen, Adam, and Ian.
Thank you to you for listening and thank you as always to Matt Hill
of Rethink Audio for producing.
Bye for now.