Maisie: Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Andy: Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94.
My name's Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here in the Private Eye office with
Helen Lewis, Adam McQueen and Ian Hislop.
We are here to discuss, again, the three totally unrelated stories from the last
week's news, with the link of course, that they have all been covered or will
soon be covered in Private Eye Magazine.
So there you go.
There's the thematic link: it's Private Eye.
First we're going to go to America.
We're gonna talk about the ongoing mission to Maga, Make America Great
again... the MAGA-agggh movement as it should better be known.
So Helen, not everything is rosy in the White House Rose Garden, is it?
Helen: This is the falling out of the MAGA movement and President Trump's
appointees to the FBI and Attorney General over the death of Jeffrey Epstein.
So there's a whole cadre of people who were like radio hosts, podcasters,
maybe people who just say a lot of stuff on Twitter, like Cat Turd Two,
if you're familiar with his work.
Of course.
Elon Musk reply guys, but they are a kind of really big and influential cohort
who have essentially four people who are big fans of Donald Trump completely
replaced the mainstream media because for those people, even Fox News...
who will say things like Donald Trump lost the 2020 election are a bit soft
and weak, and to the extent they're so important that, Caroline Levit,
the White House Press secretary, had a special influencers own briefings, which
were, they made North Korea look like a kind of loose lipped confederation of
Adam: was this the one where the guy from Mumford and Sons, Peter Marshall's
son turned up and asked a mad question.
Helen: Yes he did.
He's and he did as they all did.
He's so thankful for you to being here.
Just amazing to be here.
there's also a special MAGA influencer seat at the regular press briefing.
So you have ABC and the New York Times and all of those.
And then they bring in somebody who is, host of weekly world news kind of
equivalents, who usually starts their question by going, unlike the lying legacy
media here, I want to know how great is Donald Trump Anyway, so they're, all
terribly split about Jeffrey Epstein.
Andy: Can you give us a very quick recap just for listeners
who weren't paying attention?
Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes
Helen: Disgraced financier and child sex trafficker.
He managed, lots of money.
He, portrayed himself as a billionaire, which he absolutely wasn't.
He was managing other people's money and he portrayed himself in lots of ways.
Like he, he would wear Harvard sweaters despite having not been to
Harvard... in common with many of the, I was gonna say, in no other ways for
lawyer, for the lawyer's purposes.
Jeffrey Archer used to say that he'd been to Oxford, remember?
When he'd naturally been to like a,
Ian: a teacher training college!
Yeah.
Adam: We both jumped in there in stereo.
Rapid response!
Ian: Not we could, fact did, a Mastermind round on Archer once.
Andy: Did you?
Ian: Anyway, we don't need to go into obsessive lunatics.
Helen: But there's clearly a, playbook for people who want to seem movers and
shakers and some of the things that.
Epstein did were that he would have a kind of lively social circle.
He found a few influential kind of New York society gatekeepers,
Floridian society gatekeepers, and weasel his way in with them.
But in the 2000s, he was also investigated for... a 14-year-old, said that she and
her friends had been asked to go over to his house and give him massages.
Then there was a situation in which the police found a load of evidence,
but the prosecutors convinced him to go for a really low charge.
He was only done for two counts of soliciting a minor for prostitution
and was on day release, he served a sentence... 13 months
sentence where he had a tv.
They didn't lock his cell door, and he was essentially, got away with it.
The guy who was in charge of that, the prosecutor, was later named
as... in Donald Trump's first term, his Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta.
Donald Trump himself was also a 'friend,' or at least a fellow partier of Epstein,
who was a member of Mar-a-Lago at one point, and he once gave this monstrous
quote in 2002, Donald Trump, saying 'he likes like me, he likes girls.
And I hear he likes them on the younger side', which is one of
those things, in retrospect, doesn't look as great as it did.
But there's this-
Ian: I shouldn't think it looked that great
Helen: Even in the wild back, all things very different than Ian.
In 2002, you just, people thought differently.
They wore skinny jeans.
It was terrible.
But yeah, so there's been this longstanding feeling that,
first of all, there were two.
There were two kind of Epstein very strange things.
The first is the fact that he really got away with it the first time there
was a sweetheart deal from prosecutors.
Then, a very brave journalist called Julie Brown at the Miami Herald
pursued that deal and said how unbelievably corrupt it was and
particularly linking it to that Trump's first term appointment, that this was
the guy in charge of it, at which point in the people, the Feds basically got
back involved in investigating him again.
He was arrested in 2019 and not long after that was found hanged in his cell.
And this has been at the source of many, conspiracy theories since.
Most bits of MAGA will... do not believe that he killed himself.
They believe he was either an intelligence asset or he was friends
with people who had his little client list and he would've outed them in
court and therefore he couldn't simply could not be allowed to get to trial.
again, to talk about Eye villains the past, some of the bits of this are quite
reminiscent of Maxwell 'cause there were lots of these things about Maxwell
disappearing off the back of his yacht and how unbelievably convenient that was.
The story itself, when I was reading back through, it just seems
very familiar in lots of ways.
it.
It partly plays into conspiracy theories, but it also plays into
actual conspiracies, which is the fact that very rich and powerful
men do get away with sexual abuse.
There is an actual conspiracy here, which is that lots and lots of
people went on his private jet to his island, saw things that are probably
actionable legally, and yet...
Apart from him and Ghislaine Maxwell, they procured those people.
No one has actually seen justice
Adam: And there were genuine, these, case files have now not emerged.
the American government saying, oh, they don't exist after all having
bigged them up for many years.
But there were the flight logs, weren't they?
there were some extraordinary Donald Trump featured on a lot of the flight logs of
taking flights on Epstein's private jets.
Bill Clinton did.
all
Helen: Stephen Hawking went to, yeah, went scuba diving.
I think he went scuba diving.
He went on a trip there.
There was scuba diving.
The Clintons were involved.
Jess Daly of Barclays, for example, has now been barred.
Is this right and
Adam: yeah, yeah, He was, he is the boss of Barclays actually related
to his time at JP Morgan Chase before that where he worked very
closely with with Jeffrey Epstein.
he was back in call.
He, was, he received a lifetime ban from the financial conduct
authority in 2023, which he tried to appeal earlier this year.
Interestingly, not actually for his connections with Jeffrey Epstein,
but for lying to the Board of Barclays about 'em at the time.
He said, that he, didn't have a close relationship with him.
Since then in mostly sort of self-administered, because it was in
the case he brought trying to appeal his ban by the Financial Conduct Authority.
All sorts of extraordinary, thousands of emails come out, in which the
two of them, Epstein and, Elli referred to each other as family.
It turned out Staley's student daughter, called him Uncle Jeffrey.
And he was helping out.
out with sort of university applications and all sorts of stuff like that.
there's an awful
lot of, it's causing trouble for lots of
Helen: People
still, Melinda French Gates, the ex-wife of Bill Gates.
So one of the reasons that she left Bill Gates was that she
found out his infidelities and his friendship with Epstein.
So there were a lot of people caught in this dragnet.
One of whom of course is Prince Andrew of blessed memory.
Yes.
who went to a, dinner in New York, hosted for Epstein after
he had this sweetheart plea deal, involving underage sex offenses.
Andy: Can I check?
One of the things that I have read about Epstein is that obviously his
interest was in bigging up that he knew all of these people and so that he
might have inflated these friendships.
Now obviously I know in the case of for example, Prince Andrew, we've
got photos of them walking together.
We've got records of their friendship, outside Epstein's recollection.
Is that the case with some of these others, or is, I presume these
are all quite well documented?
Helen: Yeah, otherwise you wouldn't be able to publish it.
during his life, Epstein was incredibly litigious and had a very full court press.
he did that classic strategy of just, saying, I'm gonna come after
you, and then also like astroturfing sites about him, him and he also
did that thing, which I think.
you'll know this from, the Eye.
People just appear out of nowhere and because someone that they know
is semi vouch for them, they don't do any more research themselves.
Ian: It's Bernie Madoff, isn't it?
Helen: And once crack into somewhere-
Ian: ...rich people are fantastically gullible.
it should always be remembered.
And if another rich person says he's okay, they go, he must be okay.
He's a big yoga teacher, and
Helen: Yeah.
So there, I think there was a lot of that.
He was just somebody that hung around, like he used to go
and eat in Harvard's Canteen.
He just one of those people who appeared and everybody
treated him like he was normal.
Adam: And he was, the Prince Andrew connections, he was invited to a party
at Windsor, a party at Sandringham, I think one of the daughter's...
Prince Andrew's daughter's 60th birthday parties as well, this, would
not distant relationships at all.
And actually new stuff is still emerging.
In the Jess Daily case earlier this year, it came out that even after the, , contact
with him that Prince Andrew had been forced to admit to, in that disastrous
News Night interview, there were in fact emails from about six months after that
in 2011, in which, Epstein said to Prince Andrew, keep in close touch and we'll
play some more with four exclamation marks, which... you have to hope that
we're talking about golf at that point-
Ian: Or tennis, but I don't believe either and nor do you.
So your point was that perhaps Epstein bigged up the friendships.
We are now in an area where everyone is bigging down their friendships
and saying they barely knew him.
Trump in particular is saying, hardly registered at all.
And what I want to ask, Helen is it now the fact that conspiracy
theories loved Epstein when it might, make the Democrats look terrible?
Now it's making the Republicans look bad.
Helen: he had been a, Democratic donor, he'd donated to several, but
he was one of those people who hung around sort of New York and Florida
and therefore everybody knew him.
, So it wasn't purely Democrat, but you are right.
Before this election, you get JD Vance saying, 'release the client list'.
The feeling is it's going to implicate lots of people, like lots of posh
liberals, basically in tech and the arts.
Not that it's going to implicate anybody in Republican circles, Pam Bondi, who's
the Attorney General said she had the client list on her desk earlier this
year and now says it doesn't exist.
Adam: And it was a deliberate electoral thing to deliberately exploit.
This kind of conspiracy theory, wasn't it?
'cause they were saying, we're gonna release all the JFK files,
and all the UFO files as well.
They were absolutely playing to that, that, that, kind
of, that, that marketplace.
Helen: Yeah.
Deep state essentially all of it.
So if you wanna understand Maga, one of the things you have to understand
is it's deeply anti-establishment.
It thinks it has a touching faith in the ability of the federal
Government to do stuff: coverups.
Nothing.
It doesn't believe it can do anything else.
Doesn't believe it can run veteran services or USAID or anything like that.
But it think the one thing it's actually bang up doing is
covering up assassination attacks.
Ian: Yes.
This level of competence is highly unlikely,
Helen: It's very hurtful.
but the thing is that the suicide is relatively suspicious in the
sense that lots of things happened.
So for example, there were two guards on duty, but neither of them
did the hourly checks they were supposed to be doing on the night.
Half of the cameras in the wing were down.
For example, Epstein's cellmate got moved out a day before.
But the problem is a lot of this is explicable by prisons being
poorly staffed and maintained.
Ian: If that was in a British prison, you'd think, of course the cameras don't
work, and why would anyone do the shifts?
Andy: Can I check this split that you're mentioning in the MAGA movement?
this the MAGA base?
Helen: And the influencers.
Yeah.
Andy: So base and influencers are on the same side in this...?
Helen: Almost all of them.
So people like say Mike Cernovich, who was one of the Pizzagate people,
Andy: Which we covered on this podcast, didn't we?
Yeah.
Which was,
Ian: I went and visited the, pizza place.
And there isn't a basement and the person who runs it is incredibly charming and the
whole thing was total and utter nonsense.
Helen: Yeah, he's very upset about this.
Alex Jones, not the delightful one from The One Show, but the
big walrus one from Info Wars also thinks there must be something here.
Laura Luma feature of many of my US icons because I enjoy her enormously.
Tucker Carlson is on this, Benny Johnson, fired from Buzzfeed for plagiarism
since the ideological 180 and is now a mega MAGA influencer and obviously
as previously mentioned, Cat Turd.
Ian: can I just say how Marvel it is?
You sit there going, yes.
He was a, , an online influencer and now he seems to be Secretary
of State of the entire world.
the career progression, in the United States is quite
difficult for us to cope with.
Oh,
Helen: wild, isn't it?
It's like someone going from sort of heart fm to being head of MI
Adam: But it's, it's literally, In the case of Kennedy, it's,
it is actual lunatic fringe conspiracy theorists to health
Helen: secretaries now.
Robert, FKG.
Yes,
Ian: But your point is that.
It is quite funny that all these people who were out in that
conspiracy theories are now in
office saying, look, there's no conspiracy here.
I dunno why you all think there's a conspiracy.
There isn't.
Helen: Yes.
funny.
Why won't you believe me?
It's I didn't believe anybody else.
Have you not ever had any encounters?
They wouldn't leave the last head of the FBI.
You have dented your credibility simply by becoming head of the FBI, but it does
point to the fact that, for these people,
there are so little trust in institutions like how, but it also reflects
the, oneness of the MAGA movement.
The only thing that unites it really is that belief in Trump.
And I was watching the Turning Point USA conference, which is run by Charlie Kirk.
It's one of those kind of grassroots, young Gen Z, online right Conservatives.
And I was just reflecting on the fact there's almost nobody really who.
Straightforwardly inherits the Trump mantle who can just; their word is law.
The closest I think you'll ever come is Tucker Carlson.
Now, he believes some truly bonkers things.
He, thought he was attacked by a demon in his sleep last year.
... but occasionally he says something that's also extremely cogent.
it's bad that young people can't buy a house; they've got
no investment in the future.
But, I think what this reveals is...
even Trump is.
Struggling to damp it down.
He did a slightly mad true social post that began: boys, or in some places,
gals stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein.
Andy: Oh, that'll do it:
Helen: so it's, I think it's a really interesting example of him losing control
of the base and in, in a way him not being able to shimmy into being in tune
with them, which is fascinating to me.
Ian: And is is that dangerous for him?
Helen: I think-
Ian: ...he said hopefully!
Helen: I know you think about it.
Is there a, some point, a sort of tumble moment where they go, oh,
this is what Elon Musk theory is that he's pursuing, which is, he did a
tweet, which he then deleted saying, of course Trump hasn't released the
Epstein files... 'cause he's in them.
And at some point does that nagging seed of doubt grow and grow?
And at some point, I don't think, I think this is the way around it would happen,
I'm not sure it would happen, is that Trump becomes unpopular for other reasons.
Like the economy's bad and at some point people turn and
then this is a great excuse.
An off ramp from being, 'thank you.
But now we need to send you off into the night.' This is, I think
this is how people could end up getting off the train... if
they want to for other reasons.
Adam: You can try and exploit them for political means, but when the
actual evidence doesn't turn out to be there, that's your fault.
And now your part of the conspiracy.
And that's, I think, the real danger to Trump now because it's
not hard to tie him into it.
He's on the flight logs, he's another.
A Manhattan and Florida based businessman who moved in the exact
same social circles as Jeffrey Epstein.
if you want to draw, a join, join dots between them.
it's one of the more easy ones to do, isn't it?
Helen: Yeah.
And accused of multiple sexual offenses against women and what some of which-
Adam: ...ran the mis Teen USA pageant for years and boasted about walking
into dressing rooms when, when, the girls were getting changed as well.
Helen: Yes.
There's not a, it's not a kind of... 'that would be so outta character,
he is normally so monastic.' Yeah.
I, and, but so I, think you're right Ian.
I think it is a bit hope.
Full to think that this will cause a kind of sing between the MAGA Faithful
and Trump because it is such a sort of one man faith-based movement.
But I wouldn't be surprised if it comes round again in a couple of
years when people are irritated with him for other reasons.
if the economy is flatlining, if as it seems likely he has given a
load of aid to Ukraine, for example.
Even I think people on the MAGA right are getting a bit pissed off
with his overt support for Netanyahu and everything that Netanyahu does.
I think he himself is getting pissed off with Netanyahu, hence
his great quote the other day.
But I can see this kind of, I can see this one being a kind of case
of be that just lingers around.
Ian: And will it be a an excuse for buyer's remorse in the way you'll say, I
wasn't wrong to support Trump, but then when this came
out, ...I obviously knew he was up to no good.
Helen: He got captured like everybody else.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
That's why I, if I had to place my money now, but if Trump doesn't run again for a
third term, and I think he will probably try to in some way, maybe more or less.
professionally then somebody like Tucker Carlson does feel to me like the next
evolution in that he is charismatic.
He does say some things that make sense, but he's also even
further down the path of loon.
Andy: My, question on these occasions is always, can anything be done
to, rescue the US media ecosystem?
People trusting basic statements from their governments, anything like that?
Or are people just too far gone?
Helen: Do you know, what really annoys me about this saga is the fact I went back
and read through all of the reporting.
The New York Times was reporting the original indictment of Epstein, right?
It was this reporter, Julie Brown at Miami Herald who really got the case reopened
If Epstein a bit like grooming gangs is a testament to anything, it's a
testament to a few dogged journalists keeping on at very unfashionable.
Disgusting, horrible stories, in the face of huge amounts
of legal threats and pressure.
and of course the MAGA influences nonetheless, not, just not
taking any notice of that at all.
She was anything-
She's not now a maga hero.
In fact, the year that she was, that Epstein was arrested the
first time and did his deal, she had to take a 15% pay cut 'cause
her, her newsroom was downsizing.
She's now sold this as a documentary idea, which means she's been
able to buy a house for the first time at the, in her late fifties.
be pleased about
that, but
Andy: Right now we come to part two of this week's podcast.
Helen has regenerated as Jane Mackenzie and she'll be, regen, Jane
will be regenerating back into Helen for the final part of today's show.
There's a detailed plan behind it all.
It's all working out.
but before that, just before we come to Jane, there is a
little victory for the eye.
We have to announce.
This is hugely exciting.
I'm just gonna read a line to you and then I'm gonna tell you who said it.
"You shouldn't need a driveway to own an electric car.
"My plan for change is boosting funding for infrastructure to allow cables to
run safely beneath pavements that's cheaper at home charging, putting money
back in the pockets of working people".
Not my words.
Those of the Prime Minister Keir Starmer: the gully campaign has
worked; they've announced funding for cross pavement charging,
Adam: Hey, Well done.
Congratulations.
Andy: Right.
Brief, cheerful interlude over now we come to more gloom.
Jane, what is,
Adam: it's another victory.
for the eye.
Andy: Yeah.
Quite
Adam: Jane's taken out a bishop.
Jane: i,
Adam: think
Andy: this to Jane as, how to, get a bishop defrocked
or whatever the process is.
but you, are denying all knowledge and all responsibility,
Jane: as I understand.
by the time the Eye hit the shops.
The, trustees of the Church of Wales had already put wheels in motion to,
announce they had no confidence in the bishop, he was already on the way
Andy: we're dealing with a, story about the Church in Wales.
And that's not the Church of Wales.
We'll get into that.
But this is, about the Archbishop of Wales, Andrew John, who also
doubled as the bishop for Bangal, who has taken early retirement.
He has defrocked himself.
Jane: So what, we first heard about was in particular the sort of financial
allegations, although, these were also cathedral staff were going on lovely
foreign jollies, quite expensively, using money that wasn't even the cathedrals.
So they were making use of diocese funds to take cathedral staff on lovely jollies.
They also spent an enormous amount of money.
On designer furniture for the cathedral
Adam: designer pews.
Jane: Correct.
And, I think like designer, lecterns and altars.
and... but yes, they, got some very beautiful stackable pews.
They did have very beautiful pews... before.
Ian: Yeah.
Adam: This is where Jane also comes in as the Nooks and Corners correspondent.
Ian: But you are... when you say a large amount of money.
Jane: as a £400,000
Adam: Yes.
Ian: that's, when as editor I thought, this is a church.
They don't have 400,000 pounds.
How are they spending this on pews?
Jane: And, the people of Bangor have some other needs rather than
some brand new uncomfortable seats.
there are issues of poverty in the area that maybe the
Church could be helping with.
Andy: So it was, it was 20,000 pounds on, the foreign jollies,
the trips to Rome and Dublin.
Feel like more Catholic destinations than church in Wales anyway.
400,000 pounds on designer pews.
You said this was diocese money.
What does that mean?
Where does that come from?
Jane: So these bodies are separate charities.
The Diocese is responsible for things, across the whole area.
So all the parish churches, any Church schools, anything like that
is the diocese.
The Cathedral, and its own specific employees: separate fund, separate Money.
Andy: But this was diocese money being spent on cathedral stuff on staff.
And that's money that's been donated by members of the public
Jane: Effectively, yes.
And the long term money that the church has for the
ways in which it owns things, but it's yes.
Andy: Okay.
so they were already spending like drunken sailors basically.
Jane: In fact, one of the other financial issues that came out during the process
of looking into all of this when the, Church sent people to have a look at
their accounts was the uncontrolled spending on 'refreshments after services.'
Adam: Ah, we're not talking tea, coffee...
Jane: we are not.
There was....
Ian: Or.
Or a glass of sherry?
Jane: No, it was considerably more than that.
As a sort of later emerged, and this was... the cathedral priests,
the the adult members of the choir were coing considerably
after, services and performances.
Andy: And that brings us on... the thing I really wanted to ask you about, Jane,
was the cathedral October Fest event.
Can you just run past us how that came to be?
Jane: So I believe this was in 2022.
they decided to, bring back the tradition that the Church blesses
the beer for the Harvest Festival.
and
Andy: Okay.
Therefore.
I see where this is going.
Okay.
Jane: Had a, a very drink focused event, focused around the cathedral.
So a lot of cathedral people were involved in that.
that.
Ian: I suppose the idea was that it would get involved with the community
and be part of it and try and... like a pet service or whatever, but this
turned into a... a drinking culture.
Jane: Absolutely.
Ian: I was slightly shocked when I was reading the details to see that
they were on, was it Good Friday?
Celebrating by having the seven last shots of Christ.
Which is... after every-
Adam: Which gospel's that from, is John?
Ian: As a, layman, that strikes me as quite extreme.
Yeah.
there was a tradition bishops rather Mervin Stockwood, who was a rather famous
Bishop who used to celebrate some of the religious festivals with champagne,
saying, if it's good enough, for everyone else, it's good enough for our Lord.
And there was a sort of, there was a rye observance to the slight excess.
but then this one was just straightforward... just boozing.
Andy: Who was in, who was controlling this?
Oh, it sounds like nobody who should have
Jane: who should it be?
so.
Because, the Bishop of Banga is also serving as the Bishop of Wales.
the manage day-to-day management of the cathedral is passed on to, sub deanan.
The sub dean, was suspended last year and spent much of 2024 on,
garden leave and has, since left.
While all this was gradually, little bit by little bit trickling out in
terms of, they had an inspection for their financial issues and they had an
inspection for their, safeguarding issues.
So
it, it became clear that he was the, head
man during all of this process.
But the real had.
it's still the archbishop,
he's still The top map.
Andy: And one of the things that you've found out since this story
started, as it were, is that it has led to allegations of sexual assault
Jane: Yes.
And that they had been reported
and
dealt with internally,
Andy: So the
Ian: archbishop at Bishop
Has gone,
Jane: yes.
He wa he has, taken retirement, unexpectedly soon earlier than planned.
just as
the trustees of the Church of Wales were setting out their
lack of confidence in the church leadership,
Ian: is it like the Church of England?
Do we just have
no one in charge for a
Andy: while and see what happens?
This is like the time when Belgium had no government for about two
years and it turned out everything just kept going and it was fine.
Jane: Yes.
I think there'll be, a bishops election proceedings, but it's,
very hard to recruit bishops.
These,
days.
There's,
it's quite difficult to find people willing to do the job, willing to have
their own safeguarding records raked over.
Adam: Where are we at with recruiting another Archbishop Canterbury?
'cause it's
a long time since the last one stepped down now, isn't it?
Jane: yes.
It's a much longer process than selecting a new pope.
That's for sure.
That's a, crown Commission has been formed.
Even that was quite difficult.
People on it kept having to step down.
so it has to represent the Canterbury Diocese
has
to represent.
The Church of England, it has to represent the wider Anglican communion and.
in each case, finding people who could, fill all those roles
has been quite complicated.
it's also trying to find a commission that will be able to come up with
a
candidate that fits the whole Anglican communion.
for instance.
one of the representatives of the wider world, the person representing
Africa is a Ghanaian woman.
she, she's therefore got to represent a number of countries in Africa that
she has ordained, but that wouldn't ordain her, and that certainly
wouldn't consecrate a woman bishop.
So if they were to choose
a
woman, Archbishop.
she's put in quite an interesting position.
Adam: is there a timetable for it though?
do they have
a deadline?
Jane: several months late in even getting the commission together.
So whatever deadlines were set in the first place are,
Adam: and this
commission will eventually recommend one candidate to dining Street.
to the It's two, isn't
Ian: it?
And then they choose from two, the Prime Minister.
Adam: I
think they've narrowed it down now to one.
'cause the story always wasn't
it when George Kerry was made?
Archbishop Canterbury.
that Mrs.
Thatcher had been presented with the, one that everyone in the
church could agree on, and then thought, oh, we've gotta do two.
I had no hope with George Carey and she picked him instead.
Jane: it's quite high risk, especially given how many different issues could
schism the Entire Anglican church
Ian: is that an active word now
to schism?
Jane: Well,
Ian: Eye, readers have already provided a set of alternatives
starting with Russell Brand,
going through Bear Grills.
we are trying to help.
and the fact that they're slow, I would say, is not our fault.
Andy: there have been so many stories recently about bishops taking
retirement or defrocking themselves or being defrocked, all of this.
What, why is it, is the church uniquely bedeviled by these safeguarding issues?
No, they can't be.
you were, saying, Jane, there are like, there are schools which exist
and they have, they might have potential problems, but they have
processes in place to deal with it.
What, what's missing here?
Jane: the, church has been spectacularly slow to grapple with the fact that
it needs to deal with safeguarding.
that it has, long been a place where there are
num a lot of vulnerable people who are receiving help from the church, but
are therefore
in close contact with
people
who have.
Their own, interests,
Andy: people who might turn out to be abusers
Jane: basically.
Absolutely, yes.
Yeah.
there are
plenty of other areas of life that, I don't know, society that have
managed to get on top of this earlier.
sports,
for instance,
terrible culture of abuse in sports
coaching
for.
Decades, but the
amount of training for safeguarding they now put in
is, enormous.
Ian: And that was across the board that was gymnastics for girls
and football, very heavily for
boys.
Andy: And
one of the, allegations that's been made is people being incredibly
inappropriate in front of young members of the choir in Bangal Cathedral.
Jane: Yeah.
choir has, Little foresters as well as adult foresters.
And they would be around at the end of services when everybody was heading
off
the drunk doing
drunk.
Yes.
Making it appropriate and lewd comments.
Andy: good
Lord.
So is it developing story or,
it sounds like it'll be developing for the next few hundred years at this, right?
Jane: Yes.
Ian: Can I just add an apology here?
The, story that, Jane ran, I inadvertently, illustrated with
the Church of England logo leading to our readers accusing me of
being a Disestablishment aist.
Adam: this,
Ian: Which?
okay, I am not I,
that the church in Wales is a disestablished church.
It is part of the Anglican communion, but it is not.
The church religion.
could I apologize,
Andy: I think
Adam: we
were
all
waiting
for
you
to
say
that
Andy: here.
So
Adam: Is
that the first example of anti
humanitarianism on the podcast?
I think it's on a double word
score as well, so we can Do really well.
Andy: For the final section of this week's episode, we are
going to have a summer quiz.
Yeah,
So one of the chief stories, that's been, across the British press, certainly in
the last fortnight, is that of the salt
path.
This is the memoir, or is it, by Rena Wynn, about the journey
that her and her husband took, across a sort of coastal path.
And it's about losing your home.
It's about, terrible illness.
But there have been a number of claims made in The Observer that, the
couple lost their home due basically indirectly to financial fraud And
there have even been question marks raised over the, diagnosis that, the,
hus that Erwin's husband, received.
I should say the couple have vigorously denied all this, and they've claimed it's
grotesquely unfair and highly misleading.
There have been follow-up stories in The Observer, making further claims
and bringing further evidence to light.
So
I'm sure there's plenty more to come out on this one, but I thought it
might be a jumping off point for
a
quiz.
not
about
the
salt path itself, but about other times that memoirs have been revealed to,
maybe not be 100% scrupulously accurate, slash have been exposed as containing
a few little fibs here and there.
Helen: can I just say that I want you to, I think we should all do it.
You know how Timothy and her husband is rebranded as Moth?
Yeah.
I think your rebrand, you'd have to just be
Andy: Yeah,
Helen: Yeah.
So I do.
That's of all the details that I've read about them, there are many
insane details about the story.
The idea of being a Timothy who becomes a
Adam: moss, that was a thing that irritating the most.
They were Both called Walker, and they didn't use that for
their book about walking.
Sorry,
Andy: Let's kick off the quiz about memoirs and the errors they may
contain with everyone's favorite.
the Sunday Times printed the Hitler Diaries in 1983.
Yes.
I knew it.
This would be a specialist subject for you, and I just had a hunch.
but according to the German newspapers, which bought them and
printed them first before the Sunday Times did, what was their origin?
This is multiple choice.
This quiz.
Is it A) it was stashed with all Hitler's things in a transport plane
in the final days of the war, which then crashed near the Czech border.
Is it B) Hitler had sent a copy.
To his publisher within the last days in the bunker, thinking that a tell
all memoir might turn things round,
or is it,
C), it was stolen by Eva Braun who kept it in a locked safety
deposit box in Switzerland.
Which of those was the story that was given?
Helen: Eva Braun also died in the bunker.
She
Andy: But had she sent it in advance?
Oh, okay.
So
Helen: with the, I'm gonna go with the crash plane.
Okay.
Adam: Yeah, it's the crashed plane.
I know this one.
Andy: Sorry.
It's the crash plane everyone.
Crash plane.
That's one point for everybody there.
Helen: that hit the thought.
He might go on a rehab tour, maybe go on Oprah, makes a moving Tiktoks.
Ian: instead of calling it Spare, it would be Hair
Andy: Super.
And this is the interesting thing.
This sort of comes back to what you were saying earlier, Helen,
about there, there was conspiracy, to keep Epstein outta prison.
So there was a plane, it was shot down: 10 planes had flown out of
Berlin, with lots of stuff on board.
By the time the assess and the local police got there to lock down the
site of the plane crash, lots of things had gone missing already.
Yeah.
So it's one of those perfect opportunities for someone to say, ah, yes,
Adam: this-
it was faked a guy who used to churn out all of this stuff.
he really didn't know his Nazi history and knew how to make it
seem authentic and convincing,
Andy: ...we come to two the quiz.
good.
Excellent.
So the Hitler diaries were printed with, the right kind of ink.
They were written in a period appropriate notebook and in a heavy gothic script,
which you wouldn't have put past Hitler.
in fact, they were by east German forger, Conrad Kja went to prison for, the fraud.
What did he do after coming out?
Was A, he apologized and set up a charity helping repatriate stolen Nazi goods.
Was it B?
He got a job as a fact checker at the New Yorker, or was it C?
He set up an art gallery selling fake paintings.
Ian: It's C
Helen: it's
yeah, I felt it was CI like the idea that he did it in an gothic script,
though, like one of those sort of beerkeller kind of menu fonts,
Adam: would it take an ages to write anything.
Wouldn't.
Ian: But the Sunday Times, yeah, had employed as their fact checker.
the very famous historian, Lord Dacre, and who, It later transcribed.
Couldn't actually read this script.
Helen: it Dacre,
Ian: Not Not Paul Dacre which Trevor roper.
Hugh Trevor He became Lord Dacre and then he changed his mind at the last
minute, said, I'm not sure these are real.
And Rupert Murdoch said, fuck Dacre.
and history largely because of people like ourselves, thinks
he was shouting at Paul Dacre,
but actually.
He was showing his regard for truth and accuracy in the face of
a deadline, which was about to make the Sunday times a shed load of
money,
which
it did.
Gosh,
Helen: I wonder if they regret it now.
I wonder if they now think that the credibility hit was
kind
Andy: interesting.
just to, to polish off that question, Kujo opened a gallery, Ingar, and he sold
forgeries by people like Salvador Dali.
And, And Hawaiian Miro.
but they, he did put his name on them, although he was later done for
forging driving licenses and fined last one on the Hitler Diaries.
Why should the Sunday Times have been particularly ready?
And prepared to spot the hoax.
Was it a, the editor of the paper at the time was actually
A) fluent German speaker.
Was it B) The diaries were written on the same kind of paper that the
Sunday Times itself was printed on,
or was it C) They had already fallen for and purchased the Mussolini Diaries.
Helen: Is that Andrew Neil was
editor at
the
Adam: time?
No,
it was the one before him.
It was Frank Giles.
Frank Giles.
Later, made emeritus editor.
And Asked
Helen: asked
Adam: Rupert Murdoch, what does it mean?
And he said, the e means you're out.
And emeritus means you deserved it.
Helen: That's actually
bang for from Rupert Murdoch
Adam: Have We had Oh Yeah.
written that in
Helen: Yeah.
Ian: It was an incredibly funny period, to observe a, national newspaper just
completely getting egg all over its face in all sorts of avoidable ways.
Robert Harris wrote a very funny book about it afterwards.
Andy: I did ask a question several minutes ago and we'd have all
been dancing around it first.
You think Frank Charles spoke
Adam: Charles Frank Charles' wife was German.
Okay.
Andy: Okay.
I'm afraid It's c. It's the Mussolini diaries.
In 1968 Thompson, the publisher, had spent a hundred thousand pounds, a
huge amount of money at the time on 30 volumes of Mussolini's Diaries,
and they had reasoned partly that there are 30 books of these things.
They cannot be forged.
In fact, that was a clever thing by the, for just to write 30 volumes of diaries.
It was an Italian mother and daughter
who had
Just, conned them.
And, the editor at the time, Harold Evans, made clear that he had not
known about Thompson buying those, he was incredibly irritated at the
suggestion that he had fallen for them.
Ian: but, they didn't publish them?
Andy: No, they did not.
They did not see the light of day,
Adam: But The actual, the Hitler Diaries themselves are quite tedious.
They're largely just
lists of appointments and things because you forger
by that point knew better than to put anything too sensational in them because
people would think, these must be fake.
So
Andy: We now move away from the Hitler Diaries and we're going
into other memoirs now, boo.
Helen: Yeah.
Andy: What was the biggest claim of author Misha dca, who wrote a memoir
about her time during the Second World War, which turned out to be fabricated?
So was the claim A) during North Africa, she had been romantically involved
with both Montgomery and Rommel.
Was it B?
She had invented the atomic weapon two years before America did, or was it C?
She had crossed europe on foot and been raised by a wolf pack along the way.
Helen: way.
She was raised by wolves.
I know this because I did a whole, yeah, I did a whole piece that
was about people who f like in 2020s peak social justice period.
People who faked social justice, outrageous.
And I got me reading about all the Holocaust fakers, and there's an
incredible story of a guy who claimed as a kid, he'd been in Auschwitz.
Met up and made a, did a piano concert in LA many years ago with
another woman who claimed that she'd also survived Auschwitz.
And they, were both fraudulent.
And I love to imagine the moment where they had to be like, I know
I'm, it's like pie stakes poker.
I know.
I'm bluffing.
Are you bluffing?
Wasn't it terrible in Auschwitz?
I, remember very well.
Yeah.
And she'd also, it later turned out at some point, claim that she was a
victim of the Satanic panic as well,
Andy: not only was she at a school in Brussels in 1943, she wasn't even Jewish.
she had previously won $32 million from her publisher, due
to a copyright claim or case.
Anyway, she was then ordered to pay all of that money back.
wow.
Helen: and the wolves, did they get anything?
they, nothing
Andy: for the walls I'm afraid.
Next up, one of the biggest literary hoaxes.
Of the 1950s was Tuesday Lobsang
Ramper, supposedly a top ranking Tibetan llama.
who did Ramper turn out to be in the end?
Was it A) housewife from Stoke who had a lot of bingo debts she needed to pay off?
Was it B) a surgical trust manufacturer from Devon
or was it C) A disgraced a deacon from Ayreshire.
Helen: I'm still going, Deacon.
I dunno why.
Something about the way that
Adam: two are such Andrew Hunter Murray comedy lines.
Helen: that's the problem.
You've made a rod your own back
Ian: Ian.
I would always, go for the vicar in a, in a. In a mean way.
Oh
dear.
Andy: It was the unemployed surgical trust maker from Devon.
Yes.
Cyril Hoskins.
Yeah.
Born Cyril Hoskins.
later Tuesday, Lobsang Ramper wrote a, wrote an incredibly successful
memoir about being a Tibetan lalla.
it turned out he didn't speak Tibetan.
He'd never owned a passport.
He hadn't battled the Japanese Air Force during the war.
none of it was true.
Absolutely none of it was true.
He came up with the explanation that he had been born in the body
of Cyril Hoskins, truss maker.
Truss maker.
But while leaning over out of a tree trying to photograph
an owl, he'd had a fall.
And at that point, the Soul of Tuesday, Lobsang ramp had entered his body.
Ian: And this is the reincarnation theory, but just taken to
have happened during a life.
Absolutely.
Helen: I absolutely respect that.
Have you seen that story about the Dalai Lama and the Chinese Communist Party want
to control who he reincarnates house.
Yeah.
An
Adam: Yeah.
Incredible
Helen: of a collision of religion per central bureaucracy.
Ian: Absolutely.
Andy: ramper wrote 18 more books, in his character as Tuesday Lobsang Ramper,
before moving to Ireland, for tax reasons.
I love
Helen: that.
I love that we be out to do a fraud and then they're out as a fraud and
they carry on doing it, and people just decided it was spiritually true.
Andy: Wow.
Fascinating.
And this is a little bonus question I remember... but which of his
pets did he claim had dictated his book Living With The Llama?
A) his frog B) his dog or C) his cat?
Adam: I gonna say llama!
Helen: I can't think you put a llama in there?
Andy: Who wrote this?
Yep.
One of them dictated the book, living with the Llama to him, Cat, Ian's got it.
Yeah.
Point to Ian.
It was Mrs. Fief-
Ian: Cat people: we can spot each other.
Adam: Yeah.
Because they have nine
Yeah.
We have nine very incarnated.
Andy: It
was
Adam: Mrs.
Andy: Fifi Gray Whiskers who dictated the
book.
Was
that really the name?
That was
really the name.
Helen: She born Cyril Hoskins.
Andy: she dictated it to him in Siamese Cat language and then he
translated it into, idiomatic English.
Helen: think we say Ty now.
Andy: other books included accounts of his visit to Venus, the
hidden time capsule left by the in Atlantis inhabitants and won
21 years after his death to an underground realm under the Himalayas.
So is there something in it after all?
Next up?
Ian: It makes a lot of the MAGA stuff look pity thin, doesn't it?
Andy: Naked came, the Stranger was a 1969 hit, trashy full of sex and
supposedly written, by Penelope Ash.
It was all about the erotic adventures of a radio host, but who was the real writer?
Was it A) 12 nuns from Wyoming?
Was it B) 24 writers from a US newspaper
or was it C) 200 students from Yale?
I.
Adam: I'm still stuck on erotic adventures of a radio host She's of all the sexy
Helen: professions.
Andy: She, leaves the studio, she does a lot of roving
reporting, as it were.
Yeah.
traffic.
Yeah.
Helen: I
Andy: There you go.
Nuns.
Helen: I've just got derailed by the fact that didn't Alistair Campbell have
a career writing erotica at one point?
Did he,
Adam: He did, yes.
He was the bag piping
buccaneer or
something.
All about his
adventures with his bagpipes on the, on, the, coat Azure.
Gosh,
Ian: The Rest is Filth!
This this I'd like to hear.
Helen: I'm I say 200 students, but only because I'm, my
mind is on Alistair Campbell
Andy: description.
Okay.
Anymore for, anymore the others were the nuns or the reporters?
nuns.
Okay.
Reporters
at a point for
Adam.
It simply by default, so 25 journalists, they were led by
a hack called Mike McGrady.
Mike McGrady was very irritated about the state of American literary culture.
He basically thought, oh, you can sell anything as long as
it's got enough sex in it.
He set out to prove the point.
Put together a collective of writers.
some of the chapters had to be reedited because the originals
were too well written and it sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Is the depressing
fact.
next up I, Libertine was a raunchy memoir by the Pseudonymous Frederick r
Ewing.
The book was banned in Boston, but requested by multiple
bookshops across the USA.
What was especially impressive about this hoax was A) the book's editor was
unwittingly defrauded by his own wife.
Was it B) there was no such book at all.
It didn't exist
or was it C) the entire book was a palindrome.
Helen: I'm going palindrome.
It's just
Adam: a lot of
Andy: was the title as well
isn't
it?
Adam: You've gotta write the whole thing
backwards
and forth.
My.
Andy: Libertine.
Oh, Yeah.
Adam: the title isn't,
Andy: no, but the whole book start to finish.
Adam: Yes.
But then the last words would have to be,
wouldn't they?
Andy: maybe don't pick that option.
Then Helen's,
Adam: Not the palindrome, yeah.
Helen: Yeah.
Okay.
You make a point.
I think maybe it didn't exist.
Let's defect to that
Andy: one.
It didn't exist.
I'm afraid you'd already given the answer, but... So this was A) an
American radio host called Gene Shepherd.
He was annoyed at the system because book charts were done a by sales, but
also by what was requested in bookshops.
So he said to all his listeners, let's all go and request the book.
I libertine and thousands of people across the states went into their
local book shop and said, I'd like to buy I libertine, please.
It's out soon.
and it got onto the New York Times bestseller list as a result
of that.
Yeah.
Helen: And then he actually actually did it?
Andy: Yes.
The book was then commissioned and written.
Helen: I was gonna... it's-
Adam: Fly Fishing by JR Hartley.
It became-
Andy: Yeah.
Exactly how publishing works.
Two more.
In 1998, an illustrated biography of New York artist, Nat Tate was
published full of interesting photos and details of his life.
Tate was in fact a completely fabricated artist, despite the fact
one of his paintings had been sold at auction to Ant from Anton deck.
And so Tate was completely-
Helen: That took a turn.
It took a turn.
Andy: I know!
Tate was fictional.
Which big beast author was behind the fraud?
Was it Wilber Smith, William Boyd, or Salmon Rushdie?
Ian: It was William boyd.
Andy: It was William Boyd.
Adam: It was... David Bowie was in on it, wasn't he?
Andy: David Bowie, who we haven't said was at the launch party and quotes about
how Marvel, yeah, really admire his
Helen: This has
Andy: work.
All of that.
Helen: This is, this must predate me.
When time was, when did this-
Andy: Late nineties.
Ian: I know.
Helen: Too cool and listening to-
Ian: It was a very, good scam and an inordinate amount of detail, which
like with the Hitler, forger, you just thought no one could have made up.
All this stuff about this bloke's life and they think they did.
'Cause they knew you lot would look it all up.
Andy: Yeah.
And the really nice thing is William Boyd, one of one of the friends of
Nat Tate pictured in the book, was Logan Mount Stewart, who was the
actually fictional person that Boyd then wrote his Any Human Heart about,
very detailed, but like fictional biography of a 20th century life.
Yeah.
Very clever.
Clever.
Ian: He should have done it once, so he did it again.
Andy: Yeah.
Finally, this year's summer reading list in the Chicago Sun Times and the
Philadelphia Inquiry included completely fabricated books by real authors,
including Isabel Allen Day's, Tidewater Dreams, not a real book, and Pernille
Everetts, The Rainmakers author, not a real book who had made up the fake titles.
Was it A, A recently fired Subedit?
Was it B, the editor's boyfriend who got drunk and hacked the system?
Was it C?
Nobody at all.
Helen: was nobody at all.
It was an AI.
Andy: Well done was it?
It was AI
Helen: it and they just, then some guy just plugged it in and
he was some random freelancer.
Andy: A random freelancer said it was a huge mistake on my part.
And these books had been AI generated and just ended up on the books to
read the summer list, which doesn't Percival Everetts' The Rainmaker.
Sounds like a brilliant book, from the synopsis, but it does not exist.
Helen: There's John Grisham book called The Rainmaker, which pre
presume if you had that rewritten, like he did Huckleberry Finn,
if he rewrites John Grisham's-
Rainmaker,
Ian: yeah, that.
Yeah, I'd read that.
Helen: I was hoping for JT Leroy.
That's my favorite literary fraud.
You remember that?
And they, were two women cooked up this entire author.
They just, it was, they pretended to be a sort of androgynous guy,
and it just seemed to involve one of, than wearing a hat.
And-
Andy: photos are amazingly unconvincing.
Yeah.
Helen: Just a guy a hat.
Or a woman in a a hat.
Andy: Scores at the end.
In third place.
Adam, I'm afraid.
In second place... Helen
First place: Ian!
It was the Hitler diaries, clearly on age.
Anyway, there you go.
There's your quiz about, the, greatest and least true memoirs of all time.
hope you enjoyed playing along at home.
Hope you enjoyed this whole episode of page 94.
We'll be back in a fortnight with another one.
Until then, why not go and buy the magazine private-eye.co.uk.
Thanks to Ian, Helen, Adam, and Jane of course.
And thank you to Matt Hill, of Rethink Audio, as always for producing.
Bye for now.