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.