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 studio with
Helen Lewis, Ian Hislop and Adam McQueen.
We are here to discuss everything that's happened, uh, since the last issue
of the magazine came out a week ago.
And let's start with, uh, a phone call that's happening right now,
which is gonna be K Starer speaking to Donald Trump, begging him not
to sue the BBC for $5 billion or whatever figure he's reached now.
Helen, can you explain?
Helen: I think.
And I wrote in this Speaks magazine that I think this is the one that the
BBC are happiest talking about, because essentially they'd rather like to have an
argument with Donald Trump if anyone else given his broad unpopularity in Britain.
Although actually polling did suggest that most people think that they were
wrong to edit the, they basically edited two bits of the speech from
January the sixth, 2021, when he said like, let's all go down to the capitol.
And then there's a bit where they cut out where he said, and just
have a lovely, peaceful protest and definitely nobody shout, hang Mike
Pence and bring in a load of zip ties.
And then a bit later in the speech where he says, you know, you go down
there and we're gonna fight like hell.
Ian: yeah.
One of our readers said, can you make it absolutely clear that by the
time he said fight, fight, fight, his supporters were actually fighting.
So what he was doing was placating the crowd.
Right.
Which I think is a good point from a reader.
And I'm going to pass it to the BBC's lawyers in case that helps.
Adam: That's the point.
The bit they cut out was, he said, we're gonna go down to the capital.
I will be with you.
Then he wasn't crazy.
He didn't, so actually in a way, they were making him look better by that cart,
Andy: weren't
and can I check why they were all there in the first place?
Was it 'cause Trump had spent weeks denying the legitimacy
of the election result
Ian: no, you, you Trump
Andy: Oh,
got it.
Okay.
Ian: And probably worked for the BBC.
Sorry, I'm just summarizing the rest of the letters that have come in.
Helen: Yeah, it was a certification of the 2020 election results.
But what ended up happening is, as you will have seen from the, the, the
footage at the time, lots of people stormed into the capitol building
in Washington, DC A protestor was shot trying to climb through a door.
And since then
Adam: Oh, and he was, impeached subsequently, wasn't he?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there was enough kind of evidence to make him look bad that the BBC didn't
need to do an absolutely idiotic edit.
Helen: And he pardoned.
Violent protestors in that whilst constantly quacking on about Antifa,
uh, and how they're the real threat to America, threatening to certify 'em
as a domestic terrorist organization.
But yeah, so they, you are right.
Basically Donald Trump didn't say exactly what the BBC accused him of saying.
There is a larger context to that, which is that we may think he said some
things that were nonetheless quite bad.
Ian: Legally, the fact that you are all offering common
sense views is of no interest.
Um, can we get down to what the law in America will allow him to do?
Helen: Well, luckily we've got massive florid legal expert, Adam McQueen.
Adam: Yeah, I've been on Wikipedia.
No, I'm gonna slightly further than Wikipedia.
Yeah, no.
sort of standard thing that we say in the media in Britain is
that American law is much, much better than, uh, than British law.
When it comes, to libel, you know, is because they've got free speech and,
you know, they're much, much more, I suspect in this case, actually it's
one of these cases where Britain comes off rather better because there's a
statute of limitations in Britain, which says that you can only sue for
libel for a year after the broadcast or the publication took place, uh, on
the sort of very good grounds that.
If you've been horribly damaged by something and had your reputation
introduced, you probably would've noticed before 12 months were
out in this case, Trump didn't.
He had to have pointed out to him by the Daily Telegraph.
Quite an, an awful thing had been done to him in October, 2024.
Uh, but he's still nevertheless claiming that his reputation was
damaged so horribly that he has a case for libel he's gonna sue in Florida.
Andy: far could he have gone if he hadn't had his reputation damaged by this?
I know.
Could he have become where, what's the promotion that he thinks he's missed
Adam: out
on there?
This, you would think is kind of the key problem with this, is
that you have to prove that harm has been done to your reputation.
And the fact that he then went on to win the election and be elected
as president of the USA does kind of suggest that it didn't have an
enormous material, uh, effect on things.
I mean, it was very, very unlikely that it was going to, given this was
broadcast a panorama, which was only made in Britain, uh, and not on BBC America.
Andy: was it screened there?
Adam: It was never been screened.
There it is.
Apparently,
Ian: It was screened in Britain.
Um, though no one noticed.
Um,
Andy: Um, but what if accidentally, several million American tourists
had come over here, watched it in the hotel rooms gone home for him,
Ian: him, aren't you?
Andy: Yeah.
Um, deep
Adam: that is about the one case you come.
I suppose you could also say if people have downloaded VPNs then
presumably they would've been able to log into the BBC iPlay.
But I think even then you are getting into some quite sort of um Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rope ropey kind of issues.
there was a case where the Barkley Brothers, do you remember this?
Ian sued John Sweeney over an article that appeared in The Observer,
but they sued in the French court.
And it turns out, you know, there are one or two copies of the Observer that
kind of taken over and sold at Guardian Nord on Monday morning or something.
So that was, ground enough for them to be able to sue there.
Ian: Yachting magazines used to be a good, a good thing for these sort of oligarchs.
Um, and they would say that the story had been picked up in some magazine that
they read when they were buying a yacht.
I mean, there are, there are a couple of really spurious cases, but in this one
it looks like he'll end up in Florida.
Adam: In Florida.
Yeah.
That's where he is gonna bring it, which is where of course he, he, he is resident,
he's a, he's a voter in Florida, isn't he?
'cause he
re-registered
Helen: New York.
Yeah.
From new
Adam: New York down to Florida.
Yeah.
that is a slight problem because in Florida they have one other thing, which
we don't have to, our advantage in the British system anymore, which is liable.
Cases there are heard by jury, which has not been the case in this country.
For a very long time.
And just to clarify that, it is still possible you can't apply for a
libel case to be heard by jury here.
The last case where someone tried to do that, that I know is, um,
Lawrence Fox, um, famously, uh, actor turned lunatic, uh, who was, um,
sued by three people who on Twitter, he had decided to call pedophiles.
He countersued and said that they'd called him racist and
said that was libelous of him.
He wanted that to be heard by a jury.
on the grounds.
And this is the sort of thing, I don't need to give you any advice
on this and things that don't go down well with judges, but he said
it on, on the grounds that the judge was bound to show involuntary bias.
Uh, so could he please have a jury trial and said.
Didn't go down well with Mr. Justice Nicklin.
He said, no, no, no, actually I'm not biased at all.
I'm can hear this.
And, and, and Lawrence Fox did, I'm afraid, lose that case and had
to pay damages for calling people.
Peter Falls.
He is currently appealing the other half of the case, which is, um, the
bit about where he was called racist.
So that, part of the case is still got ongoing, but in this country,
other than that we do not have, um, jury trials, hearing libel cases,
certainly in England and Wales.
Case is different.
And I know private is come up against this in a case in, uh, Northern
Ireland where you still do get
Ian: you, You do.
And , sometimes the makeup of the jury say on religious or
denominational basis has some bearing.
On the outcome of the case.
I felt perhaps unfairly that that was the reason that we lost so spectacularly
in, in some of the cases there.
But I, I don't feel we need to go into that.
Right.
What, what I'm interested in is, can Trump find the equivalent process where Elon
Musk can happily call someone a pedo man,
um,
and get off?
Is there a reverse where they'll say, yes, Trump will, was obviously given
a very, very bad time by the B, BC and we should give him 5 billion pounds.
Well, part, is it
Adam: is, yeah.
Yeah.
But, and I think that's where the jury come in because the jury of
Floridians are as likely to be biased in a particular political direction.
As, as say your, your, your hypothetical jury in Northern Ireland might be, had
to, had, had one, when written about a politician on either side there.
Andy: They could be huge.
Gavin and Stacey fans in Florida, we don't know.
They might be devout Beeb defenders.
Adam: It's very possible.
Helen: I interject?
You know, I love, um, Florida after having gone there to report on uh, governor
DeSantis, but do you wanna know the thing that's happened in Florida this
week that might give you an indication of what the makeup of this jewelry pool
might be like in Florida, very recently, Russell brand baptized someone to
Christianity in a penguin pool at the.
Andy: With penguins.
Helen: I dunno, it wasn't a penguin, it was a human.
Ian: Yeah, no, the penguins were just witnesses, godparents, um,
members of the congregation,
Adam: it's, it's only about a year since he was baptized in the river.
Thas by bear
Helen: Bear
grills.
Yes.
No.
And now he's
Adam: friends.
So now he's allowed to baptize people himself.
Is this how it usually works in
it?
It's,
Ian: it's an apostolic succession.
Surely you, you've got the hang of this.
Adam: This is celebrity Christianity, isn't it?
It's, a specific sect.
Helen: Was also just quite unsanitary.
I mean, I dunno what diseases Penguin have, but I wouldn't
really testify that you would want to
Ian: Dunno what diseases Russell Brand
Adam: come, you'd come out pretty fishy, wouldn't you?
Helen: Russ Brands gave a penguin chlamydia.
No, that's, that's not true.
Adam: would be an example of a libelist comment on which Russ
Brown will be justified ensuing.
Ian: And we were always told that it was much, much better in America 'cause you
had to prove, particularly with public figures, that the intent was malicious.
And if you couldn't prove malice, which in America traditionally
was a high bar, then you'd failed.
Whereas in Britain, you don't have to prove malice.
They sort of assume it, particularly when they're suing the eye.
They
Helen: They just look at your face and they think, yeah, you meant it.
Ian: well, I come a look at you
Helen: lot.
Adam: You're absolutely right.
That is an obligation in Florida, particularly for public officials.
They have to prove actual malice in it.
I would've thought actually in that point, he has something of a case which comes in
the Prescott memo, which was raising, you know, the idea not just of one particular
bit of, of bad editing, but you know, an actual bias by the entire newsroom of
the BBC, um, against Trump in general.
Uh, which they have.
I mean the, the, you know, they've apologized specifically for that
particular edit, haven't they?
But, um,
Helen: the problem is that Trump does more bad things.
I mean, I've had, as you know, many criticisms of Joe Biden and the Democrats.
But if you look at Donald Trump's record of losing lawsuits and having criminal
charges impeachments against him, it if you weigh that in the balance against
the things that Kamala Harris is supposed to do, this is one of the allegations
in the Prescott report is that there was just a lot more on his rap sheet.
The other thing to mention, I think, is the fact that none of these lawsuits
that Trump ever raises against the media.
Ever gets a judgment in his favor.
I went looking and I, and, and I'm sure readers, listeners can write in with one
'cause I've just, I just can't find one.
So let's go through a couple of them.
Wall Street Journal, that's ongoing.
That's the signature and the birthday card in the Epstein birthday book.
10 billion.
He wants off them.
For,
Andy: What?
for
Helen: For
saying
that he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein.
'cause he, which he was, which he obviously was.
And there's a whole huge tra of new emails reminding everyone
just how friendly they were at one
Adam: point.
And
extraordinary with that case, still ongoing, who was one of the
guests of honor at Trump's state banquet, uh, at Windsor, last month.
Rupert
Murdoch, who he, who is, is named , in the suit as being specifically sued.
And they're trying to bring forward his witness statements in case he's not around
Helen: Nice to see that they can put that aside to get
together in the state banquet.
That's a real lesson to all in the age of cancel culture.
So that one's going on.
The Wall Street Journal basically said we are not folding at which point he's,
you know, where, where's it gonna go?
The New York Times.
Similarly, he tried to keep them for 15 billion saying that
they'd said very mean things and endorsed Kamala and they just went.
Are called press drum on him, basically.
And And the ones that he actually has ended up getting a pair out with, so
Paramount and A B, C, paramount was over the editing of the 60 Minutes documentary
on CBS Kamala Harris's answers, which was another misleading edit.
And they just basically folded some of the team at 60 Minutes resigned.
They've now put Barry Weiser, the free press in charge of CBSA more Trump
friendly voice because essentially they want to navigate the new media environment
in which he's the president and source of all kind of access and power.
And the same thing with a, b, c, uh, parent company, Disney.
George Stephanopoulos, the anchor on that said Trump had been found
liable and a court for rape.
He had merely, as I've said before, he'd merely been found liable for sexual abuse.
They gave him some money to the presidential library, basically
to make him go away and to get their corporate goals back on
Andy: So
this is a clear modus operay.
It's
Helen: shakedowns.
It's always
a
Adam: shakedown.
It's, it's absolutely, and actually extends way before his
time as, as, as president already.
I mean, he was engaged in all his time as a, as a New York kind of real estate mug.
He was engaged in, in countless lawsuits.
I mean, his, his thing then was to get, get contractors in to do work and then
query the work and say, wasn't gonna pay the full bill and tie people up in kind
of legal costs, which, if you are a, you know, a, a small building firm in New York
going up against the Trump organization, you know, that that's the, that's even if
you think you're gonna win the case, it's, it's, it's tying you up in huge new cases.
The, the, the journalist found this was ahead of the 2016 election,
um, 3,500 lawsuits, which have been brought in cases like that with
businesses trying to sue the Trump organization for unpaid fees and things.
So he's always been a man who uses the law to his own ends.
Not necessarily, as we were saying, in cases that get all the way to court,
but in cases where, where just at the.
The, the sheer kind of terror and cost of, fighting a case makes people back down.
And this is the bit that worries me about the BBC because the BBC
do have quite a lot of form on, uh, bricking it and pulling out of
Ian: And there is a, a problem in that.
he is a, very wealthy private individual as well as being the
president of the United States.
And the BBC is a state funded licensed payer funded organization, which is
supposed to be responsible with money.
So they are terrified about being seen to waste licensed payers money.
And there were two stories in the press.
One was a warning from, , various sources, IE the usual suspects
that you'd better not be using licensed payers money for this case.
And now I'm thinking.
That's the only money they have.
If they sell a program or a building or a, a picture, it's because a
license payer paid for it originally.
There is no other source.
And the other story said, well, maybe the insurance will pay.
Well, I have to say that, during my history of fighting liable occasionally
private eye fought an action in tandem with someone who had libel insurance.
Suffice to say we never had libel insurance and still don't.
but if you are, if you are in tandem with people who have libel insurance,
there comes a moment where the people you've been sitting next to
saying, yeah, we're gonna fight this.
We're gonna fight this.
They suddenly say, Ian, we were, we were thinking of settling.
And that's because their insurers have said, you're settling now.
and they get the say so.
It is,
Helen: God, Wouldn't
that be something though if the BBC ends up basically donating money, sort
of giving him a jet like the Qataris or donating to his the question then becomes
what leverage does he have over them?
Because what he's used in American media organizations is, I'll kick you
out the White House press, Paul, you won't travel on Air Force one anymore.
I'll block your merger with another organization.
You know, I'll set the regulators on you.
None of that really applies to the BBC.
I mean, he could be beastly to Gary Donahue, uh, you know, sort like some,
someone in Sarai Smith to just say sort of mean things about her appearance.
But, you know, that's, there's not a lot of, he hasn't got a lot of what can he do
to the BBC, or he can, as you said at the start, he can moan to ki and say, no one
from Britain has ever allowed a visa again
Adam: in terms of access.
He's already, giving first questions at press conferences to GB news
and singing the praises of, um, Beverly Turner at all times.
So, you know, then they're, they're not, there's not a lot more that
he can, he can come take away
Helen: them.
Have you watched the GB news interview with Beverly Turner and Trump?
'cause I haven't yet.
And I thought you may be the only person I know who would
voluntarily do that to themselves.
Adam: I'm gonna rush back to the office and watch it without doing that much.
Helen: Would you say you're a great president or the greatest president?
It's gonna be like
Adam: That is the sort of, uh, coverage he likes, isn't it?
Ian: Yeah.
Well, I, I'm hoping someone will come up with a statistic about the number
of times that off com have ruled already against GB news in a very
short history of broadcasting and the number of times against the BBC.
It's in its entire history.
I mean, that there are
Helen: very biased, very biased of you, Ian.
Very
Andy: It's no, it's, it's, it's genuinely outrageous.
And also the, spectacle of various British political figures falling over
themselves to criticize the B BBC and say, well, this is a clear argument
that BBC shouldn't exist anymore.
These people have no idea what exists in a country where you don't, where
even the sort of fragmented version of the b BBC we've got where the people
who work in the newsroom have to do endless layers of checks and compliance
and referencing things upwards.
Once that's taken away, you will really miss it.
You will really miss it.
Adam: How is your Radio Four show, Andy?
Is it going well?
Yeah.
no,
Helen: I went, I did, I went on um, uh, various bits of the BBC to say I
think some of the criticisms in the Prescott report are worth reflecting on.
I think the BBC made mistakes in both directions on Israel, Gaza,
I think on gender its felt really found difficult to kind of hold
the space in for a discussion.
But equally well as somebody who spends a lot of time in American
covering the American media, the BBC's sort of squatting on the
center of British public life.
That means people from very different political persuasions have to be
represented on the same shows.
And what you've got in America is you've got Fox and all the things now beyond Fox
and you've got M-S-N-B-C now rebranded as Ms Now, and all the things beyond that.
And then there's just this cavernous space in the middle.
And that's the bit that the BBC is, is holding us together as a society.
Yeah.
Genuinely don't,
Andy: don't get versions of the World Service on Fox, where they hire Russian
dissident journalists who've had to flee Russia to try and report some of
the truth to people inside Russia who are brave enough to listen via A VPN.
You just don't get it.
Adam: Well, the closest equivalence to that were Voice of America
and NPR, which he's already withdrawn funding for, hasn't he?
know, that's, that's
Ian: direct.
I mean, and again, for those of us who, who were brought up on an older
generation American journalist, you know, like Ed Morrow, I mean, talking
about impartiality said, you have to remember when you're talking about,
um, putting both sides of the case.
Sometimes there isn't another side.
And obviously I would try and use that, with drug.
Adam: What I would just say about the BBC is that you should
never, ever underestimate their ability to turn a crisis into
a full scale, 100 story flaming
clusterfuck.
Um, they will make, I mean it, this is a case of it, Michael Prescott put that,
kind of dossier into the b BBC board, did he not in, in, in June last year.
and it was, it was ignored or not acted upon, nothing done
about it to his satisfaction.
Then mysteriously somehow ends up with the daily telegraph and causes
this, kind of enormous crisis.
Ian: not very mysteriously if you read last issue,
Adam: we've lost, um, we've lost a director of news.
We've lost a director general.
traditionally what the BBC tends to do is lurch in the opposite direction to
the mistakes it was making last time.
Overcompensate horribly.
I mean, you remember this with, when they failed to expose Jimmy savi on
Newsnight, then they lurched straight into exposing someone who wasn't a pedophile.
and, and, and that we lost, we lost a director, another director
general over that one, didn't it?
It, it tends to be a case of, going
madly in one direction, then madly in another.
And what worries me is that they, they urged to prove that they
are not biased against Trump.
And that actually they don't have this kind of left-wing bias, is that now
they will do everything they can to compensate him and, and will come up
with, because of those other financial pressures that we're mentioning as well.
Some sort of settlement, uh, uh, out of court, which then, um.
essentially makes them the loser, doesn't
Ian: my worry is my understanding of the, the, the American judicial system
is that he obviously has no case.
He brings it.
He might get a jury, they might say, yes, you can have 5 billion
pounds, or they might not, even if he loses, he goes to a higher court.
If he loses in there despite not having a case that goes to our Ohio,
we end up in the Supreme Court.
Guess what?
Donald wins into the BBC.
Another 5 billion is the black hole Britain bankrupt.
Adam: Well, that's true and that he has got a form for that.
I mean the Eugene Carroll case where, he was found guilty in civil court
in New York of, uh, both sexual assault and of defamation of her.
The defamation aspect of that is still, is right up there before the Supreme Court.
Now he's trying to bring that case and that's, that's two years afterwards.
So this could go on forever.
And as we were saying, the pressure then from insurers and license fee payers and
the government to just settle and get out of this becomes ever the greater Can
I just tell you the one fact I've been getting there, which is that Florida still
has a criminal libel law, but specifically only if you harm a bank's reputation
or accuse a female of being unchained.
So it's lucky the BBC didn't do that.
Helen: That must be a big problem in Florida from the people that I met.
Andy: They
Adam: also have a
Andy: as we are recording this, there is an exciting array of announcements made by
Shaba ud, uh, who has decided that we're going to really stop the right this time.
Is that, is that a fair summary, Helen?
Helen: is.
Um, as I say, we're recording this as she's actually speaking.
Um, I know people only have got the documents, but it was fairly heavily
trailed in both the Guardian and the son.
, and she's the new home secretary and she's determined to make our
migration regime much tougher.
But the reason I wanted to talk about this, I think I'm gonna confidently
predict this is not going to go well.
Uh, I just, Some of the stuff in there is, is relatively sensible and, uh,
would command when you poll it commands majority support, but as a package, I
think it looks a little bit grotesque.
So there's a suggestion about whether or not you would take asylum seekers
wealth off them, and this has kind of been rendered as, would you take
people's jewelry off them or, but at least they get to keep their wedding
rings and anything of sentimental value, which the point when you say that a lot
of people instantly recoil from that.
It just feels very, very mean and cheap and small.
But, and then there's other stuff about whether or not.
Refugees, for example, would now, if they arrive illegally, so through
boats, have to wait 20 years before they could get a path to indefinite
leave to remain, and that will be reassessed every two and a half years.
So the idea being if somewhere if you come from somewhere like Syria and
there's a change in government, basad falls, then you say, well actually now
you a dissident against that regime.
Maybe it's safe for you to go back.
So not a completely crazy idea in in essence, but it is the idea
that we've got enough capacity to interview people every two and a
half years is again, already worrying
Adam: How big is the backlog already?
I mean, that's one of the main problems is the years behind with it.
If you're suddenly gonna add in all these extra levels of bureaucracy.
Andy: Yeah, it is shrinking.
I mean, the backlog has come
Adam: Well, It's
gonna go straight up again if they've gotta do it again.
Every two and a half years, isn't it?
Helen: But yeah.
But so I, I think it's interesting 'cause it's obviously a very
big policy announcement.
It is a, a big, um, challenge to reform in the conservatives and an
attempt to own the issue of immigration and stop the kind of what they call
the pull factors that are, meaning people are getting on those boats.
Stephen Bush and the FT had a good column this morning saying that the reason that
the boats become such an issue is that, first of all, we made it harder for people
to get visas and have come here legally as refugees through orthodox channels.
And then we've essentially managed to stop people getting
on the underneath of lorries.
So this is the only method that's, that's left, but people are still willing to
make that, that journey because it's still the p uh, you know, the chance of
a life in Britain is still the prize.
It's worth a risk of, I think a 2% chance of dying in the, in the extraordinary.
Andy: And is the idea that even though lots of these proposals do command a
kind of majority of opinion, that doesn't overlap very neatly with labor supporters?
Helen: Yeah.
I thought the most interesting intervention was by Tony Vaughn,
who's the MP for folkston.
So two things.
That's the place where obviously most of the small boats land and a very
reform exposed seat you would say.
And he came straight outta the gate and said, aren't we trying to make
refugees integrate rather than keeping them in this perpetual limbo of
whether or not they'll be sent home?
Isn't that what people want from immigration?
And by the time we're recording this, I think nearly two dozen labor mps will also
come out and And to me, that has therefore given an echoes of pip, the personal
independence payment, this attempt to reform welfare, which labor you'd think
have this massive majority, but actually they couldn't get their signature welfare
reform through because over a hundred labor mps were ready to rebel on that.
And this has got this feeling, which is on the surface, you think neighbors
should be able to put through really big.
Changes, but they just some, something about it is just not happening.
And I think it's possibly because, and we can talk a bit more about this last
week's sense of ki is now a sort of temporary leader, you know, or, or the
other thing you might say is a lack of feeling of the direction of travel
and the story that laborer telling.
You know, I think that's what was the mps felt over Pip was they were being asked,
I think you said this, Adam, they were being asked essentially to take money
away from disabled people, which was not what they'd got into politics to do.
And they just didn't want to do it.
And then some of them said they were signed up for it reluctantly
and then it got pulled anyway.
And then they felt really duped and cheated.
And this used to happen a lot with Victorian Peas under Boris
Johnson where he would just reverse their policies after everybody
had had to go out and defend them.
And so it's, it is part of this general roiling sense that 15 months
or whatever it is now, after the labor election victory, the wheels are already
Ian: coming
back.
But is, is this part of a national desire for psychodrama that, I
mean, 15 months of the same PM
boring.
Yeah.
Well, I, why is he still there?
Can't we have
someone else?
It just seems to be not a, a very useful thing to be
inherited from the conservatives.
Is a desire to decapitate your own party every year or so?
Andy: Yeah.
I mean, if, if the de decapitation has the effect of changing the
underlying structural problems that the country's been wrestling with for
years and years and years, then great.
But there's a chance it might maybe not achieve everything if you just get Wes in.
Is that
Helen: Well, it comes back to the idea that they didn't really campaign
on a manifesto that was truthful in the sense that we all spoke about
this on the last podcast, the, the kind of fse about the budget,
about, am I gonna raise income tax?
Am I not?
What they could have done is come in, won the argument, made the argument,
and won the argument, and come in on a, and actually we're gonna have
to increase the tax base of the uk.
That's gonna require some hard sacrifices, but they just wanted to squeak over
the line with an anti Tory vote.
And sure enough they did.
But now there's no, you know, there's no kind of mandate really for the things
that they've been thinking about doing.
Ian: Do you think they could get anything through, at all?
Helen: Well, so then the other new proposals come in for this tourist
tax, which they're gonna tag onto the devolution bill and something like that,
which is essentially charged people who aren't British, a couple of quid a night
in order to give money to metro mayors.
Ian: but immediately
the hospitality industry has said, no, no, this will stop people coming to Britain.
Stop, stop this now.
Adam: I don't believe that one.
I
mean, the number of hotel bills I've
had,
which
have
had, you know, a, a few euros added on for a tourist tax and you're just
kinda go, what the hell's this for?
But it's not,
Ian: But is that going to raise 94 billion pounds
to fill the black.
Andy: Come
on,
Helen: It's gonna raise
money.
I think they
Ian: figure is not
Helen: accurate.
No.
Right.
Ian: so they could get that one through, but you don't think they can get any
of these other big things through?
Helen: Well, I dunno.
The income tax climb down is really interesting.
So Rachel Reeves summoned everybody to into a press conference in November
the third, fourth, and sort of went, well, things aren't looking good guys.
What are we gonna do about it?
she even submitted though that plan to the OBR, the office for budget responsibility.
Yeah.
So it was really seriously far down
Andy: road.
Everyone was, everyone was prepped for, oh, will it be one p?
Will it be two P?
Oh, you know what's
Helen: Yeah.
And then she went, oh no, the guilt yields actually look much better.
We won't, we won't do it.
But then now is, is poised to keep the tax thresholds for higher an
additional rate where they were.
So she's essentially putting a huge tax rise on a lot of people.
If those had gone up in line with inflation, yeah, they'd be
much, much higher than they are.
So she's kind of managing in the same way that putting employers national
insurance up, she's keeping to the vaguely to this letter of no tax on working
Ian: people,
well, so it's fiscal drag rather than putting your tax
Helen: Yeah.
Rather than
Adam: But people don't look, I mean, yeah, it absolutely is.
People, you know, they're either paying more money in tax or they're not.
Then that's the way that people look at it.
They go, well, it's right.
No, it's in this tax.
So that, that, that's absolutely fine.
Andy: I do sometimes quite want labor to be, this is a funny phrase, more unpopular
and I know they can't get much more unpopular, but what I mean is they kept,
they kept saying before the election, we are gonna have to make hard choices.
And you keep seeing these choices being swerved.
is that because of press screaming?
Is it because of,
Helen: I think it's because they've got seats that are
facing in all different ways.
They're vulnerable to a load of seats, to the Lib Dems, load of
seats to reform, load of seats.
Probably now a couple of seats to the more seats to the greens, maybe
some to the Gaza independence.
So they're just trying to face in all directions at once.
And in Zach Polanski, the new green leader, new-ish green leader is
just going, I tax the rich more.
That's his answer to everything.
Yeah.
And you can get into a dry debate about explaining, there aren't that many,
additional rate tax payers, right?
So the top 1% of our income ban pay 29% of the income tax.
We have a good progressive tax
system
already.
that's, Like
that's, good.
I support that.
That's a very good idea.
Yeah.
But the idea that you can just find, you know, our, our seven billionaires
to fight for the NHS is unfortunately silly, but they can't articulate.
That's not right.
Well, who, who is, who are the people who should pay more tax?
Adam: The bit that really, really amuses me is how many of these problems are
just of their own unnecessary making.
I mean, Rachel Reeves, if you, if you're gonna end up not raising income
tax, don't go out and do a speech in which you say, well, I might have to
make a manifesto promise, by the way.
'cause everyone goes, oh, she's breaking manifesto promise.
And don't do it.
The whole stuff over Wes treating and the leadership was literally Ki Thomas's
number 10 going, oh, he is very weak.
You know, he is in a very weak position, but he's gonna fight on, he's gonna take
on anyone who's gonna challenge him.
And you hear, oh, he's weak and he's being ch he's gonna
Andy: challenged.
Yeah.
Can we explain the context of that, how that
Adam: all No, because he made no sense whatsoever.
Andy: ever.
Helen: Um, so on Tuesday,
uh,
um, lobby, um, journalists began to get briefings, basically saying
there's a plot for a coup against K Starer, but he's, well, gonna
fight them in the carpark, right?
And that came from, who can say who, but almost everybody's agreed that
it's from sources close to Morgan McSweeney, the number 10 chief of staff
and Star's key, election strategist.
And then where's Streeting?
Who's the health secretary?
Then went.
For a media round the next morning in which he actually knocked it out the park.
This is a, which is a huge problem for Stama.
He essentially said, you're attacking one of the most loyal faithfuls like they
did to Joe on Traitors and everyone, oh, we watch his television, he's just like
Andy: us.
because people, people, people had all the briefings had
included the fact that treating
Helen: the treating was the kind of,
Ian: you know,
I thought you were gonna explain what
Helen: was
Ian: there,
which I thought would've been really helpful.
But no, you two just assume
Helen: everyone
a popular BBC one show in which people vote out the traitors.
But, um,
Andy: people have briefed that Streeting was
Helen: behind
this.
Yeah, street team was behind this and he got 50 mps ready, um, to go.
And he's denied it all.
But, probably, he he Yeah.
I don't think anyone wants, be surprised to hear that we're
Street would like to be leader of Labor Party has ambitions in that
Adam: direction.
The other thing that intrigued me in my slightly conspiracy theory mindset
was that the other person who was then talked about if it wasn't gonna be
wars, it was gonna be Shaman Mahmud.
Shaman Mahmud, as we've been discussing then comes out with this sort of oven
ready policy that looks very kind of, um, conservative reform facing.
Is that a coincidence, do you think?
I mean, she's been, she's only been in the job about five minutes, hasn't she?
As home secretary.
So she's come up with that pretty
Helen: Mm. I'm just wondering whether or not that was pre-baked
for Yvette Cooper, her predecessor, and she's just become the face of it.
I think the thing that's very true is that she's very happy to be quite hard line.
she was offered, um, chemically, castrating rapists.
I mean, you know, she say things that lots of people in labor simply
wouldn't be okay with saying.
So.
I, it's interesting that it's under her because I think she
does genuinely believe the stuff
Ian: If you are looking for.
For people who would like to fight a leadership contest.
Now, I would've thought West Streeting, he's quite young, he can be leader
later when everything isn't a shit show.
And he's just winning over the, doctor, the resident doctor
strikes, he's on a bit of a role.
I think he might just stay where he is at the moment.
Shabana Mahmud, you are introducing something that most
labor back pensioners don't like.
I think you need a bit of time to wait until that's played out
and then maybe you'll do it.
So my guess is that the, the appetite for either of those two people to be leader
at the moment is very, very small among
for number 10 to make a fuss is crazy.
Helen: Yeah, certainly among labor members, the problem that both of them
have is that they are on the center right of the party and that the, what our
evidence from leadership elections have passed is this, is that it's not the same
constituency that selected Jeremy Corbin.
Lots of those people have left to go to your party or the Greens,
but Ki Star's pitch in 2020 was Exactly, I'm continuity Corbin, but I
wouldn't have done, I would've been, you know, stronger in Europe and I
would've been tougher on antisemitism.
It certainly wasn't bury this man's leadership in a big hole.
So I think you are a absolutely right on that, is that actually both of those
could probably benefit from cooking a bit longer to try and convince the members.
West Streeting came out and said, I welcome the election of Zidane
Ani, a Democratic socialist.
Very, a very left wing mayor in New York.
And I was like, oh, okay.
You know, after somebody who would, you know, would've agreed
with Morgan McSweeney and.
Peter Mandelson and Street urinate, Peter Mandelson, that the left
should be locked into a sealed
tomb.
Please Google
that.
Andy: If
you dunno the context it is,
Helen: there is
a I've nothing but someone with a
Adam: done a
wee on John George Osborne's
Helen: house.
Nothing but sympathy for Peter Mandelson's small bladder.
There'd be no condemnation here.
But anyway, but there, but he once said the left should be like put
into a sealed tomb and that is essentially Morgan MCs Sweeney's view.
It was where Street's view, but where Streeting has clearly reminded
himself that the other way you could sort of describe the left is
labor, selection, contest voters.
And he should probably start being nice to them.
Andy: Yes.
I think it's One of
the very last popular labor ministers is now Ed Miller Band, who has, he
said the other day in an interview, I've been thoroughly inoculated against
wanting the labor leadership job.
Thank you very much.
Adam: That
would be, a hell of a comeback.
The only thing that can make that more spectacular would be if his brother stood
Helen: against
him.
Adam: it again.
I lost one now.
Andy: Right now we come on to the lighthearted third story.
The end of the
world
The
End of the world,
uh, is ni neither than ever before.
Uh, and to do something about it where the world is now having
the 30th Cop Climate Summit.
Uh, this one is in Brazil, which is quite circular 'cause this
is where, where it all began.
The Earth Summit in 1992 was in Rio.
Helen: are we doomed?
Andy?
Come on.
Cut to Chase.
Are we doomed?
Andy: I mean, yeah, definitely.
But, the question people are asking a lot this year is.
Is cop fit for purpose anymore?
Is there a point this is the 30th we've had of these annual conferences.
Now, emissions are still rising.
So the problem is getting worse, faster.
Helen: What is the point of cop?
Andy: it's really interesting, all leaders.
Assemble for a couple of days at the start.
There's a summit, there are photo ops, there are all of that.
There are speeches they leave for a couple of weeks.
Uh, and then each country's climate teams, you know, negotiators, diplomats, all
of that thrash out this huge number of subjects about things like finance, about
things like emissions, about, you know, there's, there's so much about forests,
about whatever it is about biodiversity.
and at the end of it, you have this statement that is meant
to be kind of gaveled through.
It doesn't have to be exactly unanimous, but it does have to be consensus, which
basically means almost everyone and various things have been gaveled through
with a few objections in the past.
You know, when, when, like the, the small island Nations have nipped out for a
cigarette or whatever they say, right?
Right.
That'll do for this year.
You know, so it's not a perfect process by any means, but
that's what you end up with.
You end up with this statement of intent and you end up with a load of
very, very complicated language that any normal person observing this.
Thinks very baffling and confusing.
'cause it is, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Ian: there is a very, very good play called Kto, which I would
recommend everyone go and see which recreates one of these conferences,
including representatives from the small islands, the failure of
the Saudis, uh, the Chinese, the Americans to agree anything at all.
and the attempts to use really the powers of.
Persuasion and punctuation.
Um, yeah.
To get through clauses that might mean something.
I only say that because it, if you can get hold of it, it is a completely brilliant
analysis of how the progress works.
But that was a long time
Andy: ago,
Yeah.
Okay.
the language is, is insane.
You get these Nations debating furiously, are we gonna phase out
fossil fuels or phase down fossil fuels?
And you know, that was a huge sticking point at Glasgow a few years ago, all
of this can be said to not have a huge amount of impact on the real world,
but despite all of this, despite the fact you're inviting every country,
and a lot of them are petro states and want absolutely nothing to do with this
process, nonetheless, progress has been made in very, very big and significant
ways that have massively bent to the curve of future climate change from
four degrees, which is, you know, a
profoundly toasty situation for the world.
This is by 2100 I, I mean, really disastrous down to 2.6,
which is still really bad.
You know, we're at about 1.3 at the moment, so all the kind of extra
droughts and, you know, ask any British farmer how they're harvest
doing all of that is down to 1.3.
We're on course for 2.6, but the curve has been bent and the Brazilian host
of cop this year have said, we want this to be the cop of implementation.
they already have a target.
It was set at Paris 10 years ago.
They have a framework that was set at Glasgow.
We now need to speed this up.
And so you are seeing the co process change from one where everyone agrees
something and then we all go away and do it to one where there are lots of
little bilateral processes going on.
There's the Powering Past Coal Alliance, there's the International
Soler Group, you know, all of these different little mini coalitions of the
willing who are forming their own path,
Helen: So it's not just the case that China or the Petros
just can block things like that.
Has that problem been overcome?
Andy: no, I wouldn't say so.
the Guardian wrote a brilliant piece outlining how Saudi Arabia have
behaved over the last 30 years, and their position is very much, look, we
know this transition is gonna happen eventually, but we're gonna sell the
last barrel of oil on the planet because.
we stop burning oil quickly, they're, they're, they're stuffed, you know, I
was about to say, they're toast, but if they keep burning oil, they are toast.
individual countries have been able to stymie to slow down, to throw sand in the
gears of the negotiations, all of that.
It still happens a lot.
Ian: even the, resolutions that are agreed make people pretend to behave.
So even Saudi has a sort of green policy now and talks about building green
cities, which obviously aren't gonna happen, but, uh, it becomes performative
in a sense That's quite useful.
Andy: The weirdly, the innovation behind the Paris agreement, which was in 2015
and which is the most significant of any of these 30 things, was to say
these are now gonna be voluntary.
Instead of everyone arguing, saying, how much are you gonna cut your emissions?
The, the basis of Parises countries come up with an NDC.
A nationally determined contribution.
basically you set a line in the sand of let's say 2050 or 2060, whenever
that is your destination point.
And the way you get there is left up to you.
Now again, voluntary, but there's a lot of evidence that Paris in
particular hugely changed the course of things like Soler power.
Mm-hmm.
You know, in 2015, Soler was 1% of the world's electricity.
It was nothing.
You know, the one in a hundred cars was electric.
Today, I think it's almost 9% of electricity is Soler.
One in five cars Yeah.
Is fully electric, actually.
that has changed things a lot.
It's quite hard to perceive in this absolute mess of,
Ian: you
know,
well when the populous narrative is drill, baby drill, uh,
climate change isn't happening.
I think that floods the media and underneath that isn't the story.
Andy: One of the main things that I think has slowed down America's path
in particular is that, people are not asking for this change to happen.
China has made huge strides, partly because they've had big riots
over things like air quality and the Chinese leadership are quite
nervous of further protest riots.
So they've acted and they've acted partly through, uh, that and partly
through the massive economic opportunity.
You know, if you are producing the thing that powers the world in 50 years time
and you've secured 80% of the supply chain and you make 90% of the panels and you've
got all the critical mineral stitched up,
you're in, you're amazingly
You're, you are in a very good
position.
Green stuff.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Whereas in America, there, there simply isn't that.
demand, at enough of a population level, you know?
Helen: Yeah.
It's a shame that Elon Musk's brain melted because actually
he had a Soler energy company.
He had battery works.
He obviously had Tesla making electric cars until he decided
it was all woke nonsense.
And that model that you are talking about, which is, let's tech our way outta this.
he
Andy: He was
a America had a big lead and they absolutely threw it away.
Yeah, and there's a, there's a terrific line of, I think it's Bill McKibben
who writes about this a lot there.
There's a chance that America will become a kind of colonial
Williamsburg of fossil fuels.
You know, you'll
go there as a kind of
quaint, oh my God, they're still
doing this.
When we have something that's four times as efficient.
How amazing.
Helen: You
know, not like they did that with checks where they were the last place
in the world that was still using checks 20 years after everyone else.
Andy: So the process is ongoing at the moment, the, the, the cop is
happening and, you know, we will see what's produced at the end.
But this, this idea that there's gonna be a single document at the end of
it, that it, that magically helps, I think is becoming more old fashioned.
And I think lots of, lots of voices are starting to say, this isn't working.
We need to find other ways forward,
Ian: do they have any effect encountering the populist view that you go as far as
you can towards saying it's all nonsense without quite making yourself look an
Adam: well, the argument now is, obviously I'm not a climate deni, but I don't think
we should spend any money whatsoever on
Andy: it's that, I mean the reform line is, well, we're not climate
deniers, but there's nothing we can do about it, you know?
I think the places where it's proving a persuasive argument to, to adopt this
new stuff, whether it's Soler or wind, whatever, is where people are looking
at their bills for the next 50 years.
So, you know, Ethiopia has, a couple of years ago, banned
the import of petrol cars,
Helen: Kenya's banned, banned plastic bags.
I mean, they've, some
of the
African countries
have
just done quite big Yeah, Ballsy things.
But you are right, in a way, they don't have to make an argument in the sense
that people looked at the prices of electric cars and how much they would
cost to run, and the fact there was now infrastructure to run them and they
went, well, I don't, this isn't making a statement about me or my values.
It's just that's, that's a very good value car.
Andy: Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And that's why Ethiopia did it.
You know, they were spending a lot on importing oil.
I mean, most of the countries in the world import rather than export oil.
I, it's part of the reason China's doing all this is they, only produce, I
think about a quarter of their own oil.
So they would really like to find a way forward, which doesn't
involve being incredibly reliant on the world's oil market.
And it's weird that, because we talked about the Saudis earlier, even they have,
announced big, new Soler developments that I think actually will happen unlike the a
hundred mile long city in the desert that
Ian: Nessun,
Andy: I know.
Helen: Yeah.
But it's currently 38 degrees and sunny over, over there in
Adam: Saudi.
Yeah, I was gonna
say,
that's the other thing.
They've got quite a lot
of, as well as oil,
oil down
there,
Andy: sun
up
there, Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
. I think they want to get 50% of their power through Soler by 2030,
which again is extremely rapid.
So there are
Helen: these
but presumably then they could then sell all of their oil to other
people.
Right?
If you can produce it domestically and export internationally,
that works as an economic model.
That's
Andy: The, the Norwegian model,
Helen: as I
believe
it's
known, Yeah, right.
Andy: Norway does a great deal of that.
and they just want to keep selling until they can sell no more.
Ian: But your point, climate change means increased immigration,
um Oh yeah.
From countries that are getting too hot.
that level of self-interest surely should register, with
some of the larger blocks at
Andy: COP back to the whole sort of Soler nationalism thing.
Good old fashioned British sunshine hitting good old fashioned British
land, it hasn't quite taken off.
You know, the reform attitude is very much, we don't want
any large Soler developments.
they've claimed a lot of their efficiency savings in the councils.
They run through things like cutting electric car, charging schemes and,
I don't think there's a bright green bit of the reform movement yet.
Helen: as a result of watching Cop, have you become more or less optimistic?
cop,
Yeah.
let's play
Andy: good
cop
bad cop.
Adam: We
have to go for that headline.
That's why they call it cop.
Really?
Andy: Cop.
we
Adam: do that headline and they could say cop out as
well.
Oh, when people don't agree something.
Yeah.
Say cop.
It's a subeditors title, isn't it?
Helen: Up to a Point Or
Adam: Cop.
Andy: it's really hard to say because it's such a huge thing.
I mean, it's, it is amazing that you're getting 190 odd countries
saying, right, we're gonna try and regulate the temperature of the planet.
we've been kind of in essay crisis mode for a long time saying, look,
if we're gonna keep the rise to 1.5 degrees, we're gonna have to cut by,
oh gosh, 40% of our emissions by 2035.
And then we don't do it.
And then we say, oh, well we, right now I think we've gotta cut 45% by 2030.
And you start to realize in true essay crisis mode, this is not gonna happen.
No, that, that is pretty much baked in.
I think we've got about four years of current emissions before 1.5
is, is pretty well nailed on.
But when Paris was passed 10, 10 years ago, there simply wasn't
the infrastructure to build six or 700 gigawatts of Soler energy
a year, which is what we have now.
One gigawatt is roughly a, a coal fired power plant.
You know, it's, it's pretty big.
Adam: Hmm.
Andy: And back in 2004, it took a year to install one gigawatt of Soler.
It now takes about a day.
There are now entire days where I think we're installing two
gigawatts of power globally.
So as long as renewable keeps outpacing the rise in energy demand,
as long as clean energy keeps outpacing the rise, you will just
see fossils forced off the system.
It won't be in time for 1.5.
This the seems to be the consensus that's emerging, but it could probably
be in time for two, two degrees of warming if you keep things rising.
So I think that's the bit that does provide the optimism.
Helen: Yeah.
I think that's very optimistic.
I mean, also the fact that Gavin Newsom governor of California was there.
Obviously the Trump administration didn't send anyone, but he as the, uh, governor
of whatever it is, the fifth largest economy in the world, and the place
that is home to lots of this technology went along and met people that if there
is a non-Trump president in the White House after the 2028 election, again,
that might be something that begin that that tech our way out of its solution
begins to look more plausible again.
I, I, I think two degrees sounds terrifying and I'm sure will
involve a lot of human misery, but it does also sound less terrifying
than Four Degrees, which is broil
Andy: Absolutely.
Broil
Helen: territory.
Yes.
Andy: Let's, can we, let's try and set it for simmer, uh, not broil.
What, what an optimistic message to end on, you know?
Can I say, Helen, you've had an amazing number of baking, analogies
all the way through the show today, and what is on your mind?
We've had, what were these policies baked in by Shaban Mood or
Ian: by
Vancouver
Andy: we had,
Helen: you know, you know, fine.
Well, it's because you made an amazing cake this morning, of which
I've already had two slices and
I'm just thinking, can I go.
back to the
office
and have a
third or is that
Andy: Alright.
The, uh, the private eye bake off will be taking place later in the year.
Uh, back your horse now.
Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you to Ian, Helen, and Adam for coming and playing.
Uh, and we'll be back again in a fortnight with another of these.
Uh, before then.
If you like private eye, just go into your nearest news agent and buy one.
Or if you've already bought one and you think, oh, I'd love to
get this delivered to me, get a subscription@privatehypheni.co uk.
That's all for now.
The only remaining thanks is to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio for producing.
Bye for now.