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 and Adam McQueen.

Later on we're gonna be speaking to Ian Hislop and Nick Newman for a special

tribute, to Barry Fantoni; long one of the key creative voices at the magazine

who very sadly died not so long ago.

And we're gonna be talking about his life and his contribution

to the eye over the years.

It's a really interesting chat.

But first, for this bit of the podcast, we are gonna be talking about two

men in British public life, who I would say might be the opposite.

I think they might be the matter and anti-matter of British politics.

We're gonna start

with one and then move on to the other.

See if you can guess who the second one is from the

first.

Helen: Okay.

So the.

Who, is the literal opposite of Robert Jenrick

Is a

Andy: Exactly.

Helen: That will hover over the listener's ear for some time.

Andy: So

Robert Jenrick is the Shadow Justice Secretary and-

it's Batman.

It seems that you get quite a lot of time on your hands when you're

the Shadow Justice secretary because he's been spending his copious

free time going down the tube.

And, filming, free video content for all of us.

Very grateful for that of him.

Accosting fair dodgers.

People who've shoved their way through the barriers and he then catches up with

'em and says, excuse me, mate, and says, are you sure you should be doing that?

And it's a bit naughty, isn't it?

And, in slightly less friendly tone than that.

Helen, what's he doing?

Helen: he is bolstering the media presence of Robert Jenrick.

I that's one he's advertising himself as an should.

What's that phrase from Boris Johnson?

Should the ball come free from the back of the scrum for Tory leader?

that he could also, obviously he, last time around he, he lost Kemi Badenoch.

Andy: have a go hero.

Helen: He is

a have a go hero, but he is also doing something that you can see.

Stan we're trying to do.

on my other podcast, sorry to reference my other relationship, I talked about

Stan's increasingly butch tweets.

So Keir Starmer has started doing these tweets that are like, you think

you are above the law, you are not.

We're coming for you.

I'm k starer.

And I think there is a general feeling that, particularly with the public

realm in a bit of a shabby state.

People have a certain level of anger about low level social disorder and that

politicians can usefully seize upon this.

Adam, you're old enough to remember, you remember I suppose?

Adam: I remember, I suppose I was thinking back even further than that.

I was thinking Jack Straw and the squeegee merchants of death.

Do you remember that?

them?

No, This

is very,

early on new labor.

They decided they were gonna crack down exactly on that, on anti antisocial

behavior at a very sort of low level.

So people used to come up to your, your windscreen when you were stopped

at the traffic lights and wash your windscreen, whether you liked it or

not, and then demand money from you.

There was a lot of that Tony Blair talking about aggressive beggars.

Helen: To be fair to Jack Straw, you don't actually see a lot of squeegee

merchants from death these days.

So that's one that worked.

Adam: They were big on this thing, particularly when Jack Straw, who was

his first home secretary, but it was very much cracking down on that kind of.

Low level sort of street, anti-socialist things that didn't quite verge

onto crime, but made people feel a bit, both scared and outraged.

that's the thing with generic, isn't it?

It's one of these cases of like, why are these people getting away with

it when the rest of us are all law abiding and paying for our tickets?

Helen: It's got a lot of interesting overtones to it.

'cause the other thing it reminds me of is, broken windows, which is Rudy Giuliani

in nineties New York saying essentially if you just, if things look crap at

the low level, then it just spreads upwards and people do law breaking.

Funny since Rudy Giuliani in my last.

Member of him was him being served with a writ somewhere for some dodgy

thing that he had been involved with.

But anyway, and then the pushback to it from liberals was, this is targeting

young, black and brown men, picking people up for these small offenses and exactly

as you would expect, this has been the pushback to Robert Jenrick stunt was

saying, you claimed twice for the same journey on your expenses when you went

on the train and in the, in your car, Robert Jenrick, or you pushed through

Richard Desmond's, development plans.

And that cost us all a lot of money.

Andy: cost us 40 million quid, which is

twice what TFL had to spend fighting fair evasion last year.

Just to put the numbers on it,

Helen: possibly TFL could stand to spend a bit more fighting.

Fair.

evasion?

On the evidence of Robert Gricks video, to be fair, because the staff

seem to have had the dictat -which lots of staff in shops, had in San

Francisco, notoriously- don't interfere.

don't put your lives in danger.

Leave this to the police to deal

Andy: with.

Yeah, don't get stabbed.

You're not combat trained.

It is

not, it's not an insane thing to

Helen: say.

say.

it's not an insane thing

to say, but

it's the same, it's the same impulse that annoys people.

This is why I, mentioned San Francisco 'cause this has been a repeated

drumbeat of American political conversations that liberal cities

are horrible... no one wants to use public transport, their shops.

And when I went to San Francisco in March, sure enough, all the stuff in the

pharmacy is locked behind glass, right?

You have to come and someone unlocks it for you.

But there is this general sense that people are getting away

with it, getting away with it.

Adam: It is definitely significant that he picked London for this, isn't it?

he's not going after people speeding in, leafy rural lanes.

Andy: it's about that kind of

Adam: metropolitan view of London and particularly

Andy: London

Adam: being this lawless terrible

Andy: That is true.

Although he is going through the crimes quite quickly at the moment, he may

find himself reporting on fly tipping in Bedfordshire before the year is out.

Just you gotta keep the content fresh

Helen: I welcome that.

Andy: that.

Adam: There was a video, was it the Torries or Reform that put out the

video, before the last election saying, this, crime on the London undergrad.

And actually it was very obvious from the pictures, it was

actually the New York subway.

Andy: Yeah.

Clues

were like really big trains that you could

stand up properly

Adam: Yeah.

But there is,

that's very much a sort of narrative that will appeal to the sort of

people who might potentially be voting for Robin Jenrick in a

leadership contest soon, I would

Helen: Mm-hmm.

Andy: I feel the familiar irritation of, if I see someone fair dodging,

I get really annoyed about it.

Gem Rick's previous videos, letter dropping.

I get really annoyed about that.

Theft of trade tools from Vans.

I haven't experienced that myself, but I can imagine it's

absolutely infuriating it.

To what extent is this?

Real or perceived?

Sadik Kane's response when he was asked about Fair dodging on the tube was that,

in the last year for which we have stats, 3.4% of journeys were not paid for,

but the year before that it was 3.8, so it's moving in the right direction.

That does feel like quite a bloodless.

Way of responding.

But then if the alternative is butch Keir, isn't it then

just a competition of who can

be, most angry and what, does that add to the debate really?

Helen: Robert Jenrick has had a, a quite a butch makeover, right?

And he was, no, but he has, he's gotten now, the way that George

Osborne's hair moved forwards instead of having swept back School Prefe.

Look, he had the sweat for the Caesar.

Heck, I just, I believe they called it at the time.

Robert Jenrick has had something similar.

He's also, we know used, wavy.

He's also in a check shape.

In fact, actually Adam, you've come to this podcast recording

dressed as Robert Jenrick.

Adam: Can I just say I had this look First, Jenrick

Andy: me,

Adam: anything.

I am the butch icon,

the Robert Jenrick is modeling

himself on.

Andy: So

if Osborne is, Caesar is generally one of the kind of like degraded, angrier,

later emperors, like a Tiberius or,

Helen: sort.

Yeah.

you want for libel reasons, which is clarify, probably

not Tiberius or maybe just to

Adam: Just

Helen: near Yeah.

Midrange, emperor.

But think you're exactly right to pick it up about, it's

there, it taps into a fear of.

Urban spaces as being places that have a lot of minorities in them,

a lot of poor people in them where people are thrown together.

And I think people who don't live in them, I talk to people who live in other

bits of the country and they, think London's a bit loud and overwhelming and

Adam: well, I'm thinking also of Nigel Farra many years ago saying about,

he'd been on the London Underground and he'd near a single person speaking

English and that, that, had that sort of same cut through on it, didn't it?

with people who fear

Helen: certain

And London demographics are very different to some other bits of the country.

They just looks very, different.

And it's, it is also not a coincidence, I think.

So he filmed that in Stratford, which is a very heavily Asian part of

London.

so he, he wasn't filming it in Muswell Hill, where I imagine you

probably also could find one or two people shoving through the gates.

Andy: is there a synthesis between these two positions?

can we agree that crime is bad?

Helen: Yes.

Okay.

I'm against it broadly and I would happily, as I've said before in

this podcast, people listening to stuff without headphones in

on public transport should be

Adam: I

was gonna say, is this yet another case where Ed Davian is, lib

Dems are not getting the, the credit they deserve for this?

'cause a, couple of months ago, they came out with that as, a lib dem policy.

That, that, it turned out it was the law anyway, that you're not

allowed to listen to music without

Andy: headphones

or it was a sort of nuisance law or something.

Adam: But it was one of those things where lots of sort of newspaper columnists

and said, this is terribly illiberal for the lib dems, and lots of, lots of

readers and voters went, yes, brilliant.

Please, can we take these people's phones away and possibly give them the death

Andy: as well?

Is Robert Emmerich just angry Ed Davey?

Is that what

Helen: we've

Oh, he, you, are right.

He is like the dark side David.

His mal, his malevolent aspect.

Yes.

Like a sort of Hindu God

Andy: he'll bungee jump, but at the bottom of the axis he'll cut some benefits just

with a pair of scissors he is got in them.

Helen: very notoriously he did answer, if you remember, for a mural

and a children's refugee center.

To be punted over in case any of the children experienced joy

Andy: That's very anti

Helen: Vy, which is

like the exactly mirror world Ed Davy, but you are right.

He's onto something.

In the same way that the small boats is such an evocative issue, even when

at the upper bounds we're talking about 50,000 people versus, the legal

migration to this country or other roots over the years has, really knocked up.

But it's a visible symbol and it annoys people 'cause they can visibly

see people breaking the rules.

Adam: It reminds me as well, actually, of going even further

back to the sort of, late Thatcher years when single mothers who

were, having

babies just so they could get a council house, became a, and

it's got that same nature of it.

it's unjust,

Andy: There have been two suggestions posed, in response to this latest

wave of stuff about fair dodging.

the non-ST stupid one is a little bit from the Swiss model

where you get increasing fines.

if you'll find the first time, if you do it again, you get fined more.

And the fines, are not really very lenient.

they're, quite strictly observed.

And also if they go unpaid, they become a major headache for you.

So various administrative doors closed, like if you're applying for, a

citizenship or a lease or like a mobile phone, you, those applications grind

to a halt because the system says no.

You need to go and pay this fine.

You are frowning, Adam,

Adam: think?

No, I'm

just thinking if we're going for the Swiss Swiss approach on law and order,

this is a country where famously certain cantons you are banned as

a male from urinating standing up after about eight o'clock at night.

'cause it makes too much noise for the

Andy: sensible policies

Helen: I bet.

Andy: Switzerland.

Helen: I bet that would poll really.

remember when they're in the COVID pandemic, when they poll people

about whether or not they wanted a permanent curfew at 9:00 PM

and about a fifth of

Andy: Yes,

Helen: Yes.

Andy: So quite a controlling, potentially reasonable solution there.

The other, I read in the Spectator, why can't we have two police officers

stationed by the barriers at every major tube station in the Capitol?

Helen: because there's that would involve an enormous amount of policing manpower.

They could be,

Andy: I think 'cause numbers.

Yeah, because numbers of total police officers,

Helen: that is very, that is a new evolution of why can't we just have

more bobbies on the beat though?

So

Andy: credit

came up

with that.

Okay, let's come on to the, antigen.

Richard Hermer.

Lord Richard Hermer?

Adam: As of last July.

Andy: in the House of Lords.

Yeah.

Helen: Hermer.

Andy: Oh, there we go.

Adam: from patents

Helen: Because-

Andy: This is Ms Debretts has popped in.

So Richard Hermer is the Attorney General.

He's the government chief lawyer.

he's... Keir, big lawyers.

Chief lawyer,

so he's like this sort of Uber lawyer.

Uber is an appropriate word to use actually in this conversation because he's

recently been in the news because, He made some comments comparing, a pick and mix

approach to international law and your international legal obligations to various

things that were going on in Germany in the 1930s where various of their jurists

were saying, Georgetown, Ubers, and, can pick a mix like power is more important

than observing technical legal niceties.

This has led to an enormous pushback against him, from among others.

Robert Jenrick, j himself,

who's no doubt outside the royal courts of justice with his team, filming a

little GoPro video or whatever he does.

Adam: can I just correct you on 1.0?

Yeah.

Because it wasn't various people in Germany in 1930s.

It was one specific person.

This is a speech to the Royal United Services Institute last week.

the claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be

put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s

by realist juries in Germany, most notably Carl Schmidt, whose central

thesis was in essence the aim that state power is all that counts, not law.

So it's

one

very

specific

Nazi, which is somehow transmuted into saying everyone who

Helen: disagrees

with him is

a

Nazi.

I'm just gonna go out there and say that you probably could

have picked other examples.

I bet there are other people who, without going, do you know

what happened in Germany in 1933?

I feel like he probably knows what he was doing with that

Adam: one.

he probably does,

but

Helen: I

Adam: you heard of Carl Smith?

Helen: No,

looked

Adam: him up since Charming fellow German academic in the 1920s and thirties.

most famously he justified the night of the long knives when Hitler purged

all of his, all, lots of, his political

rivals.

Just

had them murdered as the highest form of administrative justice.

yeah, yes, it's quite, even that in itself is quite an

Helen: an, where was he on, tube ADEs?

Adam: Oh, I

don't think

Andy: he

was

keen.

He really wasn't.

Adam: wasn't.

Helen: Okay.

Andy: so this gets to a bit of a debate that's been going on about international

law and in fact domestic law.

Just the extent to which government should be keeping to the letter of the law.

as well as being against crime, Kier

is

ProLaw.

Adam: Yes.

Andy: are

not

controversial things, but for some reason, they've,

for

some reason, being in favor of governments, of preserving law has become

a bit of a wooly woke leftish thing to

say,

Adam: in this

country it's specifically about the European Court of

Human Rights in Strasburg.

And the entire Human Rights Act that, overseas,

and that's

become the bug bell.

we've left the eu and since then it's taken the place of those

unelected, eurocrats in Brussels.

the E-H-E-H-C-R is the next thing in everyone's targets, including.

whispering Bob Jenrick, Kenny

She's a bit

vague on it.

She hasn't actually said we would definitely leave yet, has she?

Kenny

Helen: Kami Ock, sorry.

Just couldn't keep it in any longer.

I

Adam: Big

but

it's certainly something

that's being pushed by.

a lot of the Tory press, the telegraph and the male are very, big on this.

They are also the ones who are most outraged, at

Herma and being compared in themselves to Nazis.

interestingly, they're, not.

opposed to using the EHCR in Strasburg when it suits them.

So the Telegraph, as recently as last, a couple of months ago, was celebrating

victory over a Philip Green, XBHS boss on this very specific point

in Strasburg where the court said.

That actually know parliament should have privilege over the judiciary

and it was fine for, Philip Green to be named as the, holder of an

injunction against the telegraph over his behavior when he was boss of BHS.

The

male also

had a case in front of the HCR on Strasburg last November.

over being obliged to pay success fees for people who sued them for libel.

and these are extra fees that are added on by lawyers.

and they managed to defeat that one as well.

So they're, not behind the scenes.

they, they do have a bit more time for the EHDR than they do on their front pages,

Andy: but when it's expedient rather than the typical use cases

that the public imagined the EHCR being for, because I think of it as

being much more about whether it's migration or sort of international

cases with big ramifications for.

British politics in terms of who gets to be here, which seems to

be the main focus for a lot of

Adam: people.

That's

their main thing that it's become supposedly a barrier to, us being

able to boot out people that we don't want in the country.

And it's part of that whole

big fervent immigration.

I would have to say actually though, the other thing with the

Mail and the Telegraph is they're not terribly keen on British court

when they go against 'em either.

you're not talking about disinterested observers here.

If you remember from a few years ago that Mail headline,

enemies of

the people.

That was

three judges at the high court who found, found against, some particular Brexit

legislation, that at the time people were saying this is quite reminiscent

of a certain time in the history of a certain country.

Helen: No one's ever keen on courts when they go against them.

Are they, that is one of the like truths of life, like death and taxes.

I was just thinking about the, Supreme Court ruling on gender.

You had a load of people who said how wonderful it was that

the Supreme Court ruled, on.

Prorogation on Brexit and you how we should never question them, how

illiberal it was to question them.

Suddenly update regarding Supreme Court think they've got this one terribly wrong.

Is it because one of the judges lives near JK Rowling in Edinburgh was genuinely a

meme?

And

I think that is the problem is that there are very, because they are wielding

authority, whenever they wield authority, you don't like, they're a really big

site for people to have a grumble.

Andy: is this part of the reason why there, there's an attempt to

depersonalize judges, the wigs, the, kind of costume, this is not

the person you're dealing with.

It's, the law as embodied by

Helen: the judge.

there's more even than that.

Adam, you'll know this better than me, but there's been a couple of cases recently

where they've applied to not reveal the judge who was presiding over them.

Because they're so worried about judges getting, on things like

terror cases or high profile cases that attract conspiracy theories.

it's, I think there, there are real concerns about judges, which have been.

Fought off so far, I have to say.

But the principle of an open judiciary is something that actually lots of

people feel quite nervous about at the moment because of the very personalized

threats of being made against

Adam: people.

and they have been for years and years.

I've, I remember speaking to, families of, of judges in the family court, who

were being targeted

by fathers for justice, turning up in their front gardens and things.

it's not a. It's not a, non-existent threat, but

also you have

absolutely got to have the principle of open justice.

And for the most part, the judicial system are very good at, holding

onto this and saying that courts do need to be open in that way.

Andy: Adam, can I say one more thing from Herman's speech and then we'll

get into the kind of The principles and why it matters, as we've already

started doing, I just found this line very interesting from what he said.

He, was talking about what happens if the framework of international law

fails, and he said it's very obvious that Russia and other maligned state

actors see the undermining of the legal based framework as a core objective.

Putin does not simply apply a Schmidt.

Carl Schmidt, Ian approached to the rule of law within the boundaries

of Russia and its proxies.

He recognizes the huge strategic advantage that would flow in undermining the

post 1945 international law framework.

So that puts a slightly different spin on what he's saying because I think people

have interpreted what he's saying as well.

Britain has to scrupulously observe all international law, even when

it's to our huge disadvantage.

Whereas what he might have been saying is actually we should preserve

the, concept of international law.

And it's, it is currently under attack from all sorts of

directions at the moment, including surprising places like the US

Adam: Yeah, it is.

and he said, I do not for one moment question.

The good faith, let alone patriotism of the, pseudo realists is what he calls

these people, but their arguments are ever adapted to provide sucker to Putin.

Andy: I know he is.

He can't stop making friends, can he?

and, we should say who he is as well.

before anything else.

he's, he was the first attorney general in a century who wasn't an MP first.

That's really unusual.

He comes from the same chambers that Kier established.

Was it Dowty Street?

Adam: Yeah.

he arrived in the job in a, slightly dodgy political way because, right up

until the election, the Shadow Attorney General had been, Emily Thornbury,

who well known figure for Islington.

South, I think, isn't it?

yeah, But knocking around in, labor politics for ages, a qualified lawyer

as you have to be in order to take one of these jobs in the government.

and then at the very last minute, almost everyone went into the brief that they'd

been shadowing, and she didn't, instead Lord Hermann was brought in, who, as

you say, is an old colleague of Kiers

and I think.

exactly.

And I don't think, I don't think

that's done in many

favors amongst certain

labor and peace, certainly judging by the, those who've been happy to

line up, give quotes anonymously on, on this latest story, did

you see

in the Times on Saturday, one of his ministerial colleagues was

quoted as saying, once a mentalist, always a mentalist, which is okay,

Andy: it,

Helen: They don't

Andy: mean

Helen: a sort of mind read way,

Adam: I

Andy: don't

think

Not the Darren Brown.

so.

they're referring to Herma there,

Adam: They're referring to Herma.

Andy: So, his

he's represented all sorts of people.

the mother of one of the Isis Beatles,

Adam: Yep.

Helen: Was he

Andy: Shaima,

Adam: he, represented her, but he weighed

in

with an opinion on it, didn't he?

Yeah.

Helen: as in the, woman who tried to go to Syria to join up.

Andy: Yes,

exactly.

You not

Helen: in something related to Jerry

Adam: He was not

the latest case where Jerry Adams has just had a, libel victory over the BBC,

and had his reputation restored as the fine, upstanding, lovely man that he is.

but a past one of that one, this is always a bit of an easy one.

It's shooting fish in a barrel, isn't it?

I shouldn't say that.

in conjunction with Jerry

Adams.

I shouldn't say shooting, should I?

Andy: they don't have any knees, no.

Adam: This is

always something

you

can do

with

lawyers, isn't it?

Because they take cases on the taxi rank principles.

So you can go through and find, a something ti or even not just make it up.

given, those online rumors that were, that were going around about, ki

Star's personal involvement somewhere in the, axle Ru Kabana case of the

representing him or representing his dad,

which turned out to be complete

nonsense south.

the South Port Kelly.

Andy: Yeah.

Yes.

And that rumor really went.

nuts on various social media

Adam: because people like to believe bad things about lawyers.

a way it, comes into the stuff we were talking about with Jenrick,

and that's specifically London.

specifically North London.

The case is one of the shorthands that gets used it's sort of general

purpose, term of abuse that can be, put in lots of directions.

I always like Islington.

that's my favorite one.

'cause famous, past residents is course include Boris Johnson and Paul Daker.

Those, those well known lefties.

Actually speaking of Boris Johnson, it was an attack line.

He used quite a successful one on Ki Stama.

Was that, oh, he's just a lawyer.

He doesn't, he's a human rights lawyer.

He doesn't really believe in anything else, which again, is quite a turnaround.

'cause I remember you go back 20 years, who was the great hunk

and fantasy man of the will?

It was Mark Darcy from Bridget Jones, who was a human rights lawyer, wasn't he?

We know we used to quite like this, as an idea.

Helen: I Still do.

Sorry, just give just gimme a moment.

I think this is comes back to why Stan is doing all the like aggressively,

sort it out you slag tweets because

he

knows that this is an attack line that has got a huge potential to work against him.

'cause I, it's not just lawyers, is it Adam?

It's, specifically if you're a human rights lawyer.

By definition, the people who need a human rights lawyer tend to be wrong,

ands in some way, who nonetheless deserve not to be like tortured or,

subjected to capital punishment in a foreign country or whatever it might

Andy: be.

Yeah.

And if you look at Hermann's history is not, I'm sure he's very capable

of doing the job in a completely disinterested fashion, but if he's,

for example, said Donald Trump was the most brazen liar ever in 2020.

He's argued there's a moral argument for reparations to

Caribbean Nations over slavery.

It's not impossible to divine.

Broadly where he comes from in political

terms.

He's

Adam: gonna be a friend of the Daily Mail, is

he?

Andy: So does this matter at all?

Adam: politically obviously, it's got some significance.

I think.

I think the really interesting thing about this is, the Nazi comparison.

it was looking into Godwin's Law, which everyone knows

Andy: can you say what it is?

Just for any listeners who

Adam: Goldman's law is, specific to internet arguments,

Helen: It's, the longer the internet argument goes on, the chance the

probability of someone being compared to a Nazi reaches, a hundred percent

Adam: and the bit that got appended to it afterwards, was that the first person to

say Nazi has lost the argument, isn't it?

But there does have to be a point, I'm looking, not particularly at this country,

but I'm looking across the ponds to where, we've got an American president who is

ruling largely by executive order, who is really in terms of personal vendettas,

going after the legal system, specific lawyers, universities, and the free press.

At some point you do need to be able to say, easy little bit Nazi, isn't it?

Without, just being shouted down and someone told that's the worst thing

you can possibly say in the world.

Mike Godwin has said this himself.

He did say in 2023, yes, it is okay to compare Trump to Hitler.

Just

Helen: to

clarify

it.

Adam: laughter,

Helen: I, don't think it's helpful actually, because I think everybody

ends up having an argument matter how offended they are, whereas if you just

say he's an authoritarian, this is Trump that's completely logical and defensible.

It's just, I, one of those things where every people end up arguing

about the word and not the actions and, I just think, I find it completely

derailing actions.

Adam: would say that because you're a Nazi.

Helen: Ah, yes, of course.

I'd forgotten.

Andy: Do the actions in question include various straight arm

salutes, made from stages at rallies?

Is are those inappropriate for Nazi

Helen: Do you know what though?

Senator Cory Booker, who is a Democrat, did something similar

where he did one of those stretching out to the, crowd salutes.

And of course, all the online writer are going, oh, you're

not calling him a Nazi, are you?

You're not calling him a Nazi.

And you say, of course, the thing is Elon Musk, there was a bit of a background,

wasn't there to you doing this?

Like saying lots of things, like I think I should have many

babies and repopulate the world,

Anyway.

you saying

Andy: context matters?

Helen: am

Adam: saying it's very

Helen: to say that on the

Andy: internet,

Helen: but I'm nonetheless insisting on it.

Adam: I,

and I'll clarify my view.

Obviously it's not helpful to just go around calling everyone Nazis, but if

we're at a point where we can't learn from specific actions and things that

happened in history without it becoming a frankly confected nonsensical thing about,

oh, he

thinks

everyone's a Nazi and now he's got to resign, then

Andy: I think this is great.

I think an update to the law changing the law, if only there

was someone who was qualified to

Adam: all that.

Andy: Oh,

Helen: but I think that's really interesting that you are talking

about the fact there's one set of people arguing about the law

at the kind of top end, right?

In its most abstract international form, versus how people feel about the

law at the bottom end, which is people committing minor petty misdemeanors that

they can see in their everyday life.

They're almost, they just, even though they're species of the same thing,

they feel so completely different.

And politically the salience of them is one's right code and one's left

coded.

Andy: Are we saying that maybe Richard Hermer should get down to Stratford

two barriers and start filming

Helen: And Robert Jenrick should take his case to the ICJ.

Andy: Yeah,

Helen: I

want some sort of job swap.

Could be

Andy: what, This

is a Channel four format.

It

is.

This is wife

swap,

but for the next generation.

Helen: Yeah.

Big

justice,

small justice.

Oh,

Andy: Oh,

that's

it.

Get

him on

the

phone.

Good

cop.

Bad

cop.

Helen: Okay, great.

I'll take two.

Andy: Now what do EJ thp the eyes resident poet Glenda Slag,

needs an FC all have in common.

They were all the brainchild of one man, Barry Fantoni, who very sadly

passed away a couple of weeks ago.

You may have seen in the latest edition of the magazine, EJ

Thp himself writing a tribute.

which began so farewell then to the man who came up with the words so farewell.

Then Barry Fantoni, was a key part of private eye for 47 years from

1963 all the way up until 2010.

He had an extraordinary tenure at the magazine.

I. Which started with cartoons.

It moved on through various other bits of art all the way into the joke writing

team, and he was a really significant figure in the life of private eye.

He was a very different kind of person.

There was a reputation in the early days That the eye was full

of stuffy ex public school boys.

Barry was Jewish, Italian from London, and he had joined art

school at the age of about 14.

So he brought a very different energy with him.

In fact, as he put it, one of his first jobs at the magazine

was literally painting the door.

Over to Ian Hislop and Nick Newman to talk about that and about all the

other aspects of Barry's long and glorious career at the I Here's Ian.

Ian: I think Barry was quite keen, , to give the impression that there was

this group of public school boys sitting in Soho without a clue about

what was going on in the real world.

And Barry came through the door and started off painting the door practically,

and then, designing the mag and then doing the cartoons and then writing it all, and

eventually just taking it over completely.

which, it's not, entirely untune.

But that was his myth.

Andy: Okay.

think,

Nick: I, my understanding was that he was brought to the attention

of the eye by this painting.

He did.

Which, was it exhibited at the Royal Academy?

the one of, Prince Philip in his underpants.

Okay.

which was a wonderful piece of pop art.

he was straight outta Campbell School of Art and, Painting was, like a sort

of thing that you'd find comic of how you dress up Prince Philip in different

outfits and naval uniform.

a sort of, Duke's uniform.

Ian: Yeah.

Colonel of the Bombardier Guard.

Nick: ba basically it's him in his underpants, which is just

very

funny.

Ian: and the Daily Express just went nuts.

Andy: Yeah.

Quite controversial, I would've thought.

even these days.

Yeah.

I know we've seen Prince Harry playing strip billiards in Las Vegas, but

Ian: I think the Express put it on the front page and said, Britain is

Andy: finished.

Ian: and

this is proof.

And I think, the then, fledgling editors of private, I thought.

We better get a

bit of

this.

Nick: Cause in the early days, Willie rushed and drew all the cartoons and

Barry came in, about the same time as Gerald Scarf and, Ralph Steadman.

And he drew not really satirical cartoons at all.

they were just gag cartoons.

And really about the sixties.

it was hippies, they were very unusual style because, he was a

consummate artist and his portrait show and stuff was just amazing.

but the cartoons themselves were like, they were drawn by a child,

which was a part of their charm.

Ian: Yes.

And Barry, who, was not a public school boy and hadn't, been to Oxford with,

the other founders, or Cambridge,

occasionally those be, brought something completely different.

I think Richard and Christopher Booker were rather appalled by the sixties,

even though

Nick: they

were

Ian: very much part of the counterculture and Barry loved it

all, and men in flares with ridiculous hair going, this book's too much

Nick: man.

Ian: cartoons of, little maps saying you are nowhere.

He was the sixties

Andy: didn't, he have a, TV show which later became the title of his

memoir, which is the most sixties title of anything ever anywhere,

which is a whole scene going.

Yeah.

it's, and he, it's a parity.

He was the voice of youth.

Nick: The Whole Scene Going the BBC's attempt to, have a pop program,

to appeal to young people, and it was an answer to ready, steady Go.

And Barry appeared in the pilot, which wasn't very good.

and he appeared as a guest to talk about pop art and Ned Shean saw it and said.

Barry fan is the face of the 1960s.

That's,

that

was

his quote

Ian: Ned Shean was the producer of, that was the week that was, okay.

So it was a small group of people saying, what is the

Andy: sixties?

Ian: oh, it must be him,

Andy: was, see him,

Nick: And Barry had Long hair and a time when you look at the, early

photographs of people at Private Eye and there's Richard wearing a tie.

Ian into

wearing a

tie as

Andy: well.

Nick: Things

haven't

changed much, but Barry was, he was an outsider and he came in with a very

different perspective and he was doing jokes about football popular culture.

the whole world of Spooky Toes, who was a sort of parody of, John Lennon and

Paul McCartney, was Barry and Spooky Toes was, had this band called The Turds and

they were

the Beatles

or

the

Rolling Stones, but it summed up sixties pop culture.

Ian: but.

when you got to know him, you realized he actually was there and he, was a

friend of Paul McCartney's the Kinks.

And you just thought, this is very bizarre.

Yes.

Nick: He advised Paul McCartney on buying a harmonium, and they drove up

to somewhere in North London where, 'cause Barry had a harmonium and

Paul McCartney liked his harmonium.

And then Paul McCartney rings him up and says, Barry, I've been

playing my harmonium all night.

Come and listen to it.

And so

Barry

trailed

up to,

St. John's Wood, where Macca had a, his house behind Lords.

And, McCartney plays him.

your mother should know,

which

he's just,

he's

written that night and then, plays I, I'm the walrus

or

something

like that.

But it's just, it was all happening.

It was a whole scene

Ian: going

on.

Andy: You've

both brought props along.

You've got a lot of stuff here.

Ian: we're basically trying to put together a, a little, tribute

to

Barry

tribute

a tribute.

he was also the voice of EJ Thib, which is, much remarked on.

And in the last issue we tried to capture a bit of, so Farwell and Barry,

because

it was

but that's about as meta as I've

ever

been

here thinking, normally you'd have been

writing this.

and now it's you.

Barry was here when Christopher Booker died, and Booker wrote a, a

very serious book called, the Seven Plots, which was all about, it was

an analysis of literature and the joke in that one was, now you are

in one.

there was some comrad, , spirit there.

Nick: You shouldn't underestimate.

How much he did for the magazine.

I edited the, 50 year, retrospective of privat eye cartoons,

privat eye, cartoon history.

Barry's there on page one, And he's there on page 293 outta 294.

With the scenes, you seldom see so.

Ian: Which was one of the last things he did before he retired, which was just,

and I think the one, one of the, one of the books was a plumber coming around and

saying, yeah, no, the guy before did a

really good

job.

very

little,

for me to do here.

And that was, the

level

of it.

he just came up with fully

Nick: formed

There's, and there's a, there is one of two dads with their, one

with their son between them and saying, yeah, Ben's not very clever.

Andy: They're such good.

That was one of the first things I liked in the mag when I was reading

it when I was much younger, was just, there's just pure observational

comedy observation.

But he was also part of the kind of initial core joke writing

trio, which was Ingram's Booker

Ian: Yeah.

they were a trio for a very long time, and they were all great

classical music lovers, so they were always talking about a trio.

collaboration was something, that I think worked particularly

well, for the eye and still does.

nearly everything is done.

with sort of lots of people trying to do things together, because everyone

brings something different to the party.

I, when I first joined the eye, I was allowed into this trio, which

Booker then said had become a quartet, which is very good of them.

they were.

Incredibly, open and, friendly.

And Barry particularly, Nick claims he taught him to draw, which I'm,

it was about time.

Someone did.

Nick: no, he was incredibly welcoming.

which we would probably, we would be very suspicious of anybody

trying

Ian: yeah.

Andy,

Andy: yeah,

Nick: their way

in.

Andy: 16 years.

I'll get there one day.

Yeah.

Nick: but I think Barry took his cue from Peter Cook really?

'cause he recounts in his book about how when he, was first working at the

eye and, Peter just arrived and nobody else was there, but Peter was just very

friendly to him and just said, oh, and Barry said, oh, I'm doing some jokes.

And he's, Peter said, oh, great.

let's do some jokes together.

And Barry was like that with, certainly with me.

it, it took a long, quite a few years to get into the writing process.

But, once we, were working together, he was a wonderful collaborator.

He'd pick up ideas, run with them, improve them, embellish them.

Yeah.

but also, just go off on cook like flights to fantasy.

which was much more his, he wasn't a very sort of political animal, was he?

Ian: No.

Richard would have ideas, would have specific jokes.

Booker always wanted to make a point.

I'm

a bit more like him.

he wanted it to make sense.

He wanted it to be logical.

Barry was like a voice.

You

said,

what does a very left wing person sound like Barry?

Go?

basically it's absolutely sickening, the attitude of everybody.

And

you'd think,

oh, that's Dave

Spa.

that's

Dave Spa.

Or, We said, royal coverage is really terrible.

it's like bad romantic novels.

And Barry would go, Charles put down his pen breathlessly.

Andy: The Sylvie Kriner, 'cause he was

Yeah.

Heavily involved in Sylvie Krinn, wasn't he?

the, for, anyone listening to this, Sylvie Cris, the Eyes, Barbara Koland, which for

younger listeners, just ask your parents.

but, those are mad.

They just go off into mad tangents of

jokes and they go round and round, the, sort of fractal puns

Ian: Another of the voices

he did was

Glenda Slag, which was, based on

Gene Rook.

It was very, opinionated.

sixties tabloid journalists who basically

wrote two.

Versions of the same thing.

And it was an attack on journalists having no particular views.

So paragraph one was, aren't you sick of him?

and

paragraph two was, don't you love

him?

Andy: And

Ian: was an incredibly funny

template about nearly all journalism about public life.

And nowadays you read, the Mirror or the Sun or the Daily Mail or any of

those papers, and day to day it's, yeah.

Aren't you sick of him?

Day two?

Yeah.

Don't you love him?

and it was

a very good observation.

Collaborating with him, you would try and say, can we get the idea in here?

And then maybe we can do this

at

the

end.

Nick: you, we, would all be discussing, the sort of issues we should be writing

about.

And it was something like conspiracy theories

and

Barry would just come out with.

A headline Moon is

fake

claims nutter,

and

it just a piece would write itself

Andy: straight

right to the

Nick: of his head.

Ian: Yes.

There was me thinking, how do we counter the fact that there's so many

conspiracies about the moon landing

and

Andy: Barry the

Ian: decides that the moon is

fake, there is no moon.

and that's what real conspiracy theories think, which is just

Nick: funny.

my

my favorite bit of collaboration with Barry was when I think back in about

2006 or oh seven, smoking was banned in pubs and we were just talking about

it and we, decided we'd write an eye witness piece It was Phil Ashtray

or somebody like that, or, Ken Fags.

it was a, I was there.

As the last cigarette was

smoked,

and

Barry

just

came out with this line, he said, I was there with tears in my eye because of the

smoke

and

a

Andy: in

my throat

' Nick: cause I

got

cancer

and

it was

so

black and I thought it was one of the

funniest

things

I'd ever heard.

I was crying with

laughter

and he just pulled.

But he does it all in his voice, 'cause

it's just, he adopted the character you just knew the journalist

that

he was.

channeling

Ian: Yes.

Both pompous and very

bad.

Like a lot of these eyewitness

accounts,

Andy: a tradition that continues.

Ian, you've got a book of, is it Nomar here?

Ian: Yes.

that was another thing Barry absolutely loved, which is fake adverts.

Yeah.

For products at Christmas.

And then we've started doing them in the summer.

but he had a, a gift for,

items, that were, entirely, ridiculous.

but some of them later.

Which was quite odd.

Turned out to, to be real, right?

So he would invent something like, a pair of Wellingtons

that had, lights in the end.

so you would never get lost going out to put your bins

out.

Yeah.

So these wellies would have lights, in both the end.

You'd never get caught in the dark.

They were welly light, electric rubber

boots.

And a couple of years later they were on the market.

Andy: did you invent sat nav?

I think

an early version of Sat Nav is, I'm sure that was in No Marta at some

point.

I think we might have

mentioned it.

Sat Nav.

Yeah.

Nick: It's something you know Barry,

but

Ian: Yeah.

He was very keen on items for your

Nick: dog

for Fido.

Why should,

your

man's best friend miss out on,

Andy: the

video?

Boom.

Nick: It's

Andy: dogs.

Ian: he did something called the dicta brawl.

This was for businessmen, and it was an umbrella that in the handle

there was a dictaphone so that you could make important speeches

while

you were in the rain.

And

that was his world where, people always needed special

gadgets

because

Nick: but we help.

we, but yeah, even after he'd, technically retired, every Christmas

we'd get in contact and say, Barry, have you got any sheaths

of,

ideas

would

come through.

And it was always, the singing ping pong

tree

of from

Thailand,

Ian: Yep.

Nick: warning, it may not

Andy: sing

Nick: or,

they

Ian: the Charles and Diana tap tops were, I

Andy: think,

Ian: a terrific idea.

pair of taps that on your bath.

one was Charles and was one was Diana.

And you they were the right royal taps.

Charles is hot

and dies cold.

and you

would just combine the perfect level of warmth.

Andy: And we should say, and if sort of Barry survives in the

magazine, if you look in the, back pages, you'll see the, in the city.

That logo?

Nick: Yes.

Andy: Is Barry any mention of th thib?

That's, Barry Originally

Nick: he was brilliant at formats, like Coleman Balls, now

Ian: commentator

Nick: Barry.

Compile the original Coleman balls any reference to Nessun is generally Barry,

Andy: I still sometimes chuck in if I'm writing a joke of reference to Nessun,

and I wasn't aware that was Barry's innovation.

There you go.

Yeah.

Nick: he brought football to the

table of the

joke.

Nobody was interested.

Booker still on, but,

Booker was

interested in cricket and he

would do jokes about cricket.

But, Barry created Den and, eey Adio and Sid and Doris Bonkers and

that, that sort of world of, dismal

Andy: North Circuit football

Ian: and the, the idea that, really big streamer hits now are about

failing English football clubs.

Barry did

have

the

idea of Nice and FC, the most useless football club ever he was

owned by a bloke who ran Laund DRTs.

he was the Launder Armor magnate.

and you just think, These jokes are quite familiar.

Yeah.

so

no, I mean he did fill in a lot of those areas.

the great thing, is when I started, was being allowed to go in and do

the voice and join in the joke.

and, obviously there are loads and loads of formats and lots of new things happen,

but there's still remnants of Barry all over the place, which is very, pleasing.

Andy: so farewell and Barry, and thanks to Ian and Nick for talking all about him.

Thanks to Helen and Adam, and to you for listening.

If you would like the edition of the Eye with the special enormous

poni tribute that's coming up, that'll be out in a few days time.

The existing edition of the magazine is still on newsstand and is also terrific.

You can subscribe at Private hyphen.

Dot co.uk.

We will be back again in a fortnight with another episode of this podcast.

Thank you for listening, and thank you to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio for producing.

Bye for now.