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 I Studio with Helen
Lewis, Adam McQueen and Ian Hislop.
Today we are asking the most important question in world politics.
Who is Andy
Adam: burnham
Ian: and what does he
Helen: want?
and how can
Ian: can he be stopped?
Helen: Maybe
Adam: Anything I should explain exactly why we're talking about this now.
'cause at time of writing, he's been banned by Keir Starmer and
Andy and the Labour NEC from standing as an MP.
He's currently Mayor of Greater Manchester, and he would've to resign
from that post in order to do it.
Now, I would say we did have a number crunch in the last issue, which
was the number of U-turns by Keir Starmer, until going to press, and
we did have to change that several times in the course of the week as
we were putting the pages together.
But that's currently the situation.
So yeah.
Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester...
i... incredible poll numbers, elected three times as mayor of Manchester.
he got 63.4% in 20 17, 67 0.3% in 2021 It's going up.
It's quite A rarity.
that The incumbent goes up and then 63.4% again in May, 2024, last time he stood.
So you can see why people are thinking, Ooh, someone who actually the public
seems to like and who might actually win some votes might be a good thing for the
Ian: Labour
Party.
Has he been effective?
Has he done a good job in Manchester?
Oh, see,
Adam: I, I tried to work out what the best measure of this was.
I looked in the, Private Eye archive.
He's barely appeared in Rotten Boroughs
in all of
his time
in charge of greater Manchester.
So I think that does give you a level of, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
he's
been
Andy: pretty
good.
So when this by-election was announced, he suggested he would
like to stand for the seat.
He has been blocked from standing by the sort of high command
council, the Jedi Council of the
Labour
Adam: Party, That's the one,
Ian: Yes.
Andy: Yes.
Yeah.
By, a thumping majority of about eight to one.
So as I understand it, their reasoning, and I know there are other reasons
apart from what they suggested, but their reasoning was you've
just been elected or recently been elected Mayor of Greater Manchester.
If we let you stand in this by-election to become an MP again.
We'll have to have another election in Greater Manchester.
That seems like a bad use of
Adam: party
resources.
And if we know there's one
thing they're Not keen on, they don't like having local
elections if they can possibly
get
away.
with it,
Andy: But if, he left the greater Manchester
Ty,
they'd
Ian: probably
lose
that.
Yeah.
the argument that,
oh no reform will win a significant victory.
Will they win either way,
don't
they?
Yeah, surely, I hate to sound as though, I think
Keir Starmer might have been right.
He's done two years, has he as mayor, he's got another duty to go.
one.
Why not finish the term?
Why not indicate that Labour's there for the long term?
It can stick to what it says it's gonna do, rather than a man saying,
oh look, it's a chance for me to
be
leader.
the whole stick of the Labour party was these terrible Tories.
They changed their leader every five minutes.
Why can't they grow up?
They all said psychodrama a lot.
That was written into all Labour speeches, all to psychodrama, and what have we got?
We've got a Labour psychodrama.
with Burnham just turning up.
I looked at a previous cover.
we had Andy Burnham saying, I'd like to lead, the Labour Party in Kiss Thomas
saying So would give him a chance.
Yeah, In
a very, but we, have done this a lot.
Haven't.
we?
Helen: Yeah.
In a very real sense, Andy Burnham has been running to be Labour
leader since at least 2010.
That was his first crack
Adam: at
it,
right?
he,
stood it officially twice.
Yeah.
2010 and 2015.
He
ran, and lost.
Helen: Yeah.
So he lost to Ed Milliband.
He lost to Jeremy Corbin.
I remember I went to the first Labour Party conference after the pandemic that
won in, that had in person, so 2021.
I was on a panel about de about devolution with him and he was late
because he was being stopped for
autographs
and selfies
Yeah.
because at the time Ki Arm was in trouble and he was peacocking around guy and
going, do you know who else is available?
Me,
Adam: Andy
Burnham.
Helen: And he'd
got his little uniforms, he's got these little polo this little
Fred Perry polo shirts and stuff.
And then he did exactly the same at last year's party conference.
He gave a big interview to the new statesman, in which he said, I don't
really agree with the financial markets dictating our policy.
I dunno what that's all about.
Which spooked
the
Adam: market.
Ian: And
Andy: then
Helen: It was quite a deal of, for all that there are some
people who really, love him.
There are also quite a lot of people who think.
cool, Give over.
Can I, what's
that great line that I always think of, Mr. Bennett, let the other young ladies
Andy: have
a chance
Adam: to
Helen: exhibit.
You have been doing this now for 16 years.
Adam: Andy.
I think there is a really strong feeling in the Labour Party and country now
that sort of anyone book here would
be better.
and it's, there is,
there's an argument possibly to be made for that.
Helen: Maybe
even a
Adam: woman,
Adam,
Yes.
Helen: time in
Adam: something Labour have never been terribly keen on, have they?
know?
No.
Might be better.
Ian: Didn't
Keir have the choice this time of the newspapers and the media saying, oh,
you're so pathetic, you're gonna let him run, or, oh, you're so pathetic.
You've stopped him.
Yeah, you are pathetic.
here.
Yeah, either way,
it didn't really matter which, way he went, did it.
The narrative is still, you are
Helen: useless.
I think the thing it reveals to me, and this is very nerdy, I'm sorry, is that
One of the key things if you wanna run the Labour Party is you've got to have control
of the National Executive Committee,
which
sounds extraordinarily boring,
but is extraordinary.
True.
Corbin never really got a grip on the party until he had installed Carrie
Murphy, his choice, to run the party.
Same thing happened with Stama.
He had to get his own person in control before he could.
'cause then you get a huge amount of control over, for example, selections,
Right, So there is the la the way you are right that LA to have this kind of
sidal appetite, the way to win in Labour is just to seize
control of the bureaucracy and just hold it in advice like grip
and thereby see off all your opponents through grinding
Ian: procedural
motions.
Adam: And that's what Stan has been really
good at, isn't it?
yeah.
It's absolute control of the party And
yeah.
Which is it?
It was what they felt they needed after the chaos of the Corbin years,
I But
uh,
Ian: yeah.
Yeah.
do
you have a prediction?
Will this.
Helen: Work.
Adam: I don't think he's going to be allowed to stand this time around.
he's gonna be, he's the king across the water, isn't he?
Whatever happens, it's, he's gonna go, this, term runs through till 2028.
We'll probably have got through several other prime ministers
by then, weren't we?
But,
he clearly is coming back from another, bar.
there, there is no pretense about this.
He's not pret pretending anything other than that.
He wants to take over the leadership of the Labour party.
He wrote, the, week before he announced he was standing for the, for the by-election,
a Piece for the Guardian about, it was basically his kind of political pot.
philosophy, which turns out to be
Manchester
Yes.
Which means not taking a coat off
and going down the hacienda.
No, it doesn't.
sorry.
it,
he made the point about, and he, the various things he has done for
Manchester, he's, they, brought the bus and tram system back into public
control, which is a big problem anywhere outside of London because
privatization meant that, everything disconnected and, run for profit.
Run down completely.
He's been brilliant on the, the Hillsborough campaigning on behalf of
the Hillsborough families and pushing for the Hillsborough law, which incidentally
was kissed on Uta number 14, one of the ones we had to update last week.
he swerved very cleverly the Corbin years by standing as a he, he
did actually serve under Corbin.
He was first shadow home secretary under Corbin.
And then 2017 Parliament to stand for, Manchester Mayor.
But ever since then, he's defined himself against Westminster.
This is him in a 2019 interview.
He said, Westminster is a bizarre place with a deeply dysfunctional atmosphere.
I don't miss it in the slightest.
It's just poisonous.
Now try it
six
years
on
from
that.
And then last, this struck me
la last
week in The Guardian.
He, kicked off by, by having a pop reform and saying, oh,
all these Tories coming up.
Some, it's hardly the stuff of a political insurgency.
Suddenly Britain's newest political force doesn't look quite so potent or relevant.
Instead, it seems old
Says Cabinet minister in 2007.
So
they're not, neither of these from Andy Burnham are
brilliant arguments for bringing
him
back.
into Westins for becoming leader.
Ian: I like the fact that he's named this movement, manism.
as opposed to Burnham,
which is
Adam: what he
Helen: means.
Ian: it's a sort of faux modesty,
Andy: isn't it?
there's surely a lot of advantage to be made about being anti
Westminster at the moment.
the number of That's reforms whole pitch as
Adam: well,
isn't
it?
Is
there Absolutely is.
But then it does get difficult when you get into Westminster.
doesn't
it?
Yes.
one reforms
thing at the moment is saying, we are no good at it, so we're just gonna get
in
Andy: and loads of
Adam: Torries.
I mean as we write,
So Gravelman has just affected to reform.
She's the latest one.
which Does actually now mean they've got more.
Reform mps who used to be to mps, than they've got of their own now, doesn't it?
Ian: Which
And it's now a party full of people who the electorate rejected, last time,
which again, may not be promising.
And so,
Ella Bra, she hesitated for so long.
I assume she thought that reform weren't right wing enough and
she's
just waiting.
but now seems
Andy: to be
the moment.
It
is a bit weird.
Recording this podcast, two weeks after we had a big discussion about
ice, having just killed a civilian with no justification and Adeem
Zahar, just having defected two
Ian: reform,
Adam: It's
a
repeat
Andy: Yeah.
Forever.
Helen: I
Adam: It's Andrew Rossendale, I feel sorry for, there's no impact whatsoever.
Andy: Two
days
after,
I'm just gonna say on behalf of lots
of listeners
who,
Adam: yes.
exactly.
He was the one who went two days after Robert Genrich and said, by the
way, I'm protecting reform as well.
And Everyone did go,
who?
Helen: Yeah, but he, for
a long time he wasn't allowed on the commons estate while various
allegations were investigated.
So he may not have had the chance to
Andy: the biggest
Helen: biggest Impact.
Did you watch the Robert Genrich?
Nigel
Raj?
Press conference I
Andy: on
holiday.
Oh god, Ellen,
Adam: God.
Oh, you
know
Helen: Hannah.
Adam: have fun.
Helen: The best thing was Nigel Frost saying, if you like the, basic, the
door is closing on May the fifth.
You like,
act now
to
secure
your place in reform.
I won't let any of you jump.
You know the rats must leave the sinking
Andy: Now
I get this, with Instagram adverts all the time though.
we're having a last ever closing down sale of 50% off.
It never is.
No,
Helen: No, it
never it was just a truly bizarre.
con.
And they sat, both of them sat there behind that little table as various
journalists read out, disabling
quotes they'd said about each other and
they went, ha.
When I said he was a tt, I meant in a sort of jokey
Andy: way.
I like the sort of, shame confessional that Nigel will now make you read out.
If you do defect, you have to say.
Robert's very ashamed of having been in
the conservatives,
aren't you, Robert?
Yes.
Yes
I
am.
Ian: Nigel.
Yes, And you have to say Britain
is broken.
It's broken, and it's broken partly 'cause
I was
in
government
and I broke it.
But I have now
seen
the
light.
That's why I'm
so
Andy: huge asset
Ian: Elman had to say,
I now feel at home as opposed to send
Adam: everyone
else
Andy: home.
Adam: I
Ian: it's just,
what,
are we watching?
I ran a
cover last time.
People were worried that she was about to defect.
and, it was exactly the same sentiment.
She said, I'm throwing my hate
into the
ring,
and,
she's doing it again.
Yeah.
Presumably.
Helen, does Farage think these people are a threat
Andy: or
not?
Helen: I think he specifically thinks they're not a threat, which
is why he's allowing them to have it.
Because
I
think you, the bit that he lacks is any organizational infrastructure, right?
Like he just, he needs that mechanics of running things and also.
I think he's genuinely preparing to be Prime Minister next time round.
And he might say So Ella Braman
Ian: kept
Helen: sacked from
the home office.
But she did, she does have cabinet level experience.
That is true.
And and he just, he really has never had that.
as we've
described on this podcast before, it'd be interesting to
Adam: see whether or
not,
Andy: or not,
Helen: you
know they, do they do the full stretch The bit that fascinating about that
Emmerich Press conference was a bit where Robert Emmerich was forced
to say, I haven't been promised any
kind
of job.
And I thought,
if that's true then you are
Ian: stupid, so I
don't
believe
you.
Helen: You are really gonna hang around and just, having had all this
ambition, you surely have gotta be thinking, Nigel smokes quite a lot.
I'm quite young and on
the ozempic I can wait
Ian: this
one
out.
you.
Adam: But
I
think
they're also gonna have a problem and the they've got so many people
who are gonna want the same jobs, should they come into government.
Richard
Tyson has obviously always assumed he's going
to be chancellor.
I think Za Yusef thinks he might
Helen: be
chancellor.
Madam Za Howie
Ian: thinks he's
Adam: Zhi Zaha definitely thinks he could come back and do it.
again.
declaring
All his tax
Andy: this
time
hopefully.
no one's desperately pitching for the Dutchy of Lancaster.
Adam: Are
they,
Andy: wants
and what do
Adam: of jobs, but Even
more to the point it's so top heavy.
what they really need to have people defecting now is the kind of
the practical ground level stuff.
Are they getting the constituency associations and the kind of.
Electoral
agents and things, are they defecting from the Tories?
'cause that's where you really need the experience on the
ground to get people out.
It's people who are gonna, you don't need a lot of preening ex cabinet ministers.
What you need is a lot of people who are gonna go onto doorsteps in the rain and
shove, in leaflets through people's letter
Helen: boxes.
And That
they probably do have.
because they're membership, although quite opaque, I think it's now bigger
than
the
Torries and
bigger even than Labour.
But you are right.
that Those would be the people I, would, if I was 94, I'd be
trying to bring on board is the constituency chairman and women.
Who are the people who can run a selection process?
Who can,
Adam: Yeah.
And the most that
we've heard from them is, generics, constituency, people saying,
we are ab, we are outraged.
He always said he wasn't gonna do this.
He promised to
us.
So
Ian: They all,
when they defect, say I've always been conservative, it's in my DNA, but as of
yesterday
I've
noticed I'm gonna lose my seat.
they all do this big loyalty number.
Whereas I think from my experiences, the people in the
constituencies are conservative.
and that's why they've pushed leaflets through doors for years.
They are more likely to be loyal.
So I'll be really interested to see whether that Army of people.
Actually do
Adam: defect.
because the real challenge
is gonna be getting the vote out in individual constituencies.
They've still got in a first pass the post system a
hell of a hill to, climb, 320 whatever hills to climb.
and that's gonna be where the real difficulty for them lies,
Ian: I think.
Adam: Okay,
Can
I just
give,
Ian: you
my top
facts about,
yeah.
Helen: yeah.
Andy
Ian: Burnham.
Adam: Again, he's an ex-journalist very, briefly.
He worked for Trade Mags, including Tank
Ian: World,
Adam: which.
Amazingly isn't as exciting
Ian: as it
Adam: sounds.
Oh no.
Because it is the world's premier bulk liquid transportation
publication.
Oh, that kind of
tank.
Yeah.
Andy: That
sort
of
tank.
I'm as interested, I'm
Adam: afraid.
Andy: Donald Trump has finally recommitted to the multilateral
process, the rules based order.
He has set up an organization called The Board of Peace.
I, for one, can't wait to find out how it's gonna work, how much peace
it's gonna be bringing to the world.
Helen, you've been reading a bit more about it, right?
Helen: So much peace.
He had the
Andy: signing, his person too.
Helen: he had the signing ceremony for it at Davos, accompanied by some
of the people who have signed up.
Now, he has previously said that the United Nations is useless, not least
when he appeared at the United Nations.
If you remembered not that escalator didn't work, which
upset him an enormous amount.
So he turned up at Davos and said, we might work with it, but this is the kind
of new kid in town So Do you wanna hear about the rules for the board of peace?
Ian: Okay,
Helen: Anyone can join any, I'll say anyone can join.
I don't think you can join personally, but any country
can join for a three year term.
But if you wanna be a permanent member, a billion dollars.
Guess who the founding director and chair of the Board of pieces.
indeed, lifetime chair of the Board de post.
I think
Andy: I think I can guess his surname.
Helen: It's Donald
Andy: Trump.
Yeah.
Helen: yeah, he, the,
only way he can be removed is if he steps down, or is voted out by unanimous
vote of the board whom he's appointed.
Andy: This is after his presidency ends.
Helen: Oh, yeah.
No, he's, he gets to keep
it after.
he stopped being president.
Yeah.
If he ever stops.
being
Andy: Yeah.
Yeah.
Ian: and
is there any suggestion as to where this money is going?
Helen: good if unanswered question.
So he said it won't be run with a huge amount of executive bloat.
But given that Trump has, and the Trump family generally have a lot
of crypto interests where it's not entirely clear where some of their
foreign, trading and stuff like that, where that money ends up, I would
love to see a paper trail for where
Ian: this,
Helen: if the, money ever gets handed.
the
whole thing just looked like
a sort of weird,
not a
bit like the sort of sealed knot reenactments of battles.
It was like a sort of reenactment of the un, but with,
a, or
like a school nativity play version of the un, I just don't
know how real it actually will be.
So it started off as a Gaza thing,
Adam: right?
Andy: right?
Helen: And so there's a couple of different boards.
There's the executive board, there's the Gaza executive board, and then there's a
board of actual Palestinians who I think are actually gonna have to do any of the
Adam: because it started, the first we heard about this was
Tony Blair was gonna sit on it?
Helen: He is, And he's on,
Adam: is he on the main one or is he on the Gaza one or
Helen: he's on the executive board and there was a great moment
Adam: so is he poi up a billion.
not
Helen: don't think
Ian: even,
Helen: what are they called?
The company's fire rush and Windrush, his, His, sort of dictator
Ian: Bums rush being
the, main one.
Helen: he's sitting on one of the boards as an individual alongside like
Steve Woff, the Middle East envoy, Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, the
Adam: porcelain doll.
Yes.
Helen: Yeah.
Yes.
Adam: porcelain doll that is his son-in-law.
Helen: If someone needs to have a word with esthetician, I think about
just dialing back the Botox a bit.
Then again, not being very easily surprised is
probably when you work in the Trump orbit.
Ian: you
don't want to register any emotions.
Helen: Sounds
like a great idea.
sir. Let's get
Andy: on.
Adam: immediately.
Ian: Um.
Helen: Anyway, so that, that's the personal bit.
And there was a great bit in the ceremony when, Trump was introducing people
and he said, we've got people on the board, some popular, some less popular.
He said, looking at Tony Blair, it was quite harsh, I felt.
And then he brought them all up to sign.
So Jer Malay, his big.
Andy: big
Helen: Muled friend,
of
Andy: chainsaw Tina, Mr. Chainsaw,
Helen: Mr.
Chainsaw's on the Victor Orban of Hungary.
who's a big.
Trump Lackey was obviously
Ian: he's representing the Liberal
wing,
Adam: you say he brought them all up to sign.
actually two of the members of the Border piece couldn't attend
because they're under international arrest warrants, aren't they?
In the form of Alexander Lukashenko and,
Helen: Vladimir Putin has only been invited.
He's still quibbling over whether or not he will in.
fact, join up or not.
Adam: but Benjamin Netanyahu as well has got a bit of bother with
the, international criminal court,
Helen: Yes.
Bit of a legal issue there.
And also the, but one of Putin's things that he's as ever trolling
about is whether or not his billion could come from seized Russian assets.
So essentially money he doesn't currently have access to.
Ian: and then he could use it to pay his entry fee.
Andy: Okay.
But I'm hearing a lot of skepticism frankly, guys, and I don't like it.
I can we, let's focus on the piece.
Yes.
Because we know Trump's already ended eight wars.
So
are there really any more left to end?
Helen: actually
a very, good point.
There was a moment, a particularly haunting moment when, Jared Cushner
was brought up to do what I can only describe as actually, to use your
word, a sort of haunted McKinsey
keynote
quarter two presentation about his plan for Gaza, which was quite heavy
on sort of little diagrams about arrows of stuff going to each other.
And then there was a plan for what he's gonna do to wrap a City.
So in Gaza, 80% of the buildings have been destroyed.
It's a huge rebuilding project.
But it was here are some skyscraper, almost, you were expecting to see
like little flying cars around the
AI generated
images, but that's, that's where some of the money could go.
This is a question like, who's gonna pay to rebuild Gaza?
Trump keeps saying it should be the surrounding Muslim countries.
Obviously Israel not very keen to pay maybe some of this
money in the best possible.
If I was gonna be able to give you the best, most generous assessment,
other countries could chip in.
But essentially the
Ian: But they could do that anyway.
Yeah.
They don't have to do it via some
fatuous body that Trump has just invented.
Helen: Yes.
and there I would always worry in this situation that he's going to invent like
Gaza Coin and for everybody to put their money into some sort of special meme
coin that for the rebuilding of Gaza money's later never to be seen again.
Andy: I, believe that the Board of Peace has been accepted or endorsed somehow
by the, is it the UN Security Council?
Helen: the UN has got a resolution about the rebuilding of Gaza, which
they're working in accordance with.
And that's Trump's 20 point plan.
But the UN has done kind of what I would expect 'em to do, which sounds is gone.
Great.
Get on with it lads, let's all see, when raffle, when it's rebuilt, you crack on.
But it struck
Ian: But it
struck me that Trump's, initiative to have an alternative un like
nearly all his decisions hinges on one moment where he felt slighted.
So it's the speech where Obama was mildly rude to him.
This is his visit to the UN and
he thinks that the UN slighted him 'cause he said, you are a collection
of shithole countries that don't work.
I dunno what I'm doing.
here.
I
could do it much better.
And the Teleprompt doesn't work.
And he's decided to set up an alternative un.
How long this will last is anyone's guess?
anyone who guess is less
than five minutes.
but essentially all he's doing is attempting to replace something he
hates with something with him in charge.
Yeah, that's, the modus operandi.
Helen: running it like Mara Larga, Right?
He's running it like a golf club or a private members club, which
is you have an entry fee and
then you had all
these fabulous benefits, which mostly are
Hanging
around with the president of the United States.
The interesting thing is I was surprised that, maybe I wasn't surprised
that Victor Orban signed up to it.
I guess a lot of those leaders are thinking, we'll never
have to pony up this money.
This is Ill, he'll have forgotten about it.
In 10 minutes it'll be, or we'll say, it's gonna be in special bonds
or something bollocks like that.
But The European Union would.
just Hard no, Macron, France said, we're not joining this.
And then he said, I'm gonna put Trump said I'm gonna put 200% tariffs on champagne,
which was just a kind of great, what's the most French thing I can think of?
I'm gonna attack strikes and yellow
Adam: small mustaches
Ian: and bess.
Adam: tops,
Andy: french
fries.
But.
Ian: he's got a
history.
Helen: And then Mark Carney of Canada gave a very good speech at Davos, which was
about what he called the middle powers.
He said, when we are now entering this era again of the great power
rivalry, America, China, Russia,
and then
where does that leave the second tier countries?
And he said, we, if we're not gonna be subservient.
We have got to work together.
And he talked about the fact that Canada has obviously got, is contributing
to the war in Ukraine, for example.
And that was the kind of actually one of the most interesting things that
might come out of Trump at Davos.
And the border piece is a kind of.
Not like a super European Union, but actually the,
sort of border piece, which will be what I think of as sane countries,
basically
Ian: part of the problem for Trump is that his criticism
of the UN was, it's sclerotic.
Nothing ever happens because you've got all these conflicting.
Voices like say, having Russia on the same panel as, China or
America, and he's replicated that.
So
how he thinks this is an alternative model in which there will be easily,
arranged accords between major powers, which will sort everything out.
Isn't that what he objected to in the
un?
Andy: it, seems that a lot of it is government by announcement.
Trump is very nervous about any kind of sustained military engagement
anywhere clearly, but loves a, big raid strike on somewhere.
We've gone in, we've sorted out Venezuela,
Ian: we've gone out again.
Andy: Yeah,
exactly that and this, it seemed a bit like that to me.
Adam: I
suspect the answer to it will be that there isn't a lot of debate and
a lot of voting between different people who disagree on things.
So I had a look at the opening charter of the board piece says decisions
should be made by a majority of the member states present by voting.
Subject to the approval of the chairman.
it's not even like a deciding vote.
It's actually like whether he wanted to go ahead or not.
Isn't
Helen: reckon first order of business will be instituting some sort of board of peace
Andy: that
they
Helen: then awarded
Adam: give to him.
Ian: maybe,
Helen: that actually may be the plan behind all of it.
Yeah,
I think that's why, I mean, about how, I dunno how seriously to take it.
And the interesting thing is.
about
Something
about the way that the Trump admin is currently operating is every
unbelievable Lib 2004 opinion.
So you know that kind of Michael Moore strand of the left that said
Iraq was all about oil and you were that was supposed to be a very
unsophisticated thing to think.
And then with Venezuela, they just went, it's of course, it's all about oil,
isn't it?
Yeah.
And then this presentation for the Board of Peace was essentially
pitching, particularly Steve Wick coffin, Jared Kushner, pitching
to a room full of businessmen.
This, you're gonna make a load of money.
Right.
Which is always the criticism of Dick Cheney Halliburton, that the
Iraq war was incredibly good for American military contractors, not
so much for the people of Iraq.
And then they were just doing this.
So it
was basically like you lad can make a load of money running the hotel
industry in the newly revitalized Gaza.
And just
a straightforward, like this is an investment opportunity
for you
Ian: and this is meant to be a strength, this is realism.
in that all government is essentially, financial transaction.
Which it clearly isn't.
That's one
of the
few things History teaches
Adam: financial
transactions is The benefit of the Trump organization as well, isn't it?
what struck me with this is that they're, obliged under the terms of this,
charter to meet at least once a year.
And on other, ad hoc meetings.
those sort of things tend to take place at Mar Largo
or
nice Trump golf resorts where suddenly.
The hotels are sold out and all of the security details have gotta
be put up and things as well.
And the money goes directly back into, into the commercial
interest of the president as well.
That's the one thing that might keep this going, I think.
Helen: Yeah.
that's why I think I, my most.
Favorite option for what happens is essentially this is a once
a year meeting at the Miami
Doral Trump Golf course.
or maybe, what's the Scottish one that he owns?
We Yeah, exactly.
We can have a bid for it so that we can have
Vladimir Putin come and talk about peace in
Ian: having said that, this was going to be an in international body that
sorted out, the problems of the world.
He
has previously said that there is no such thing as international law.
There is only his own morality.
He needs no other guide.
So the entire world now, according to Donald Trump, only needs his personal
set of, morals in order to sort itself
out.
Andy: I for one, feel safer already.
Ian: should we
just
pretend it's a joke then?
Adam: if it was a joke, and I mean, if you were writing this up for the
joke pages a pro I mean, you, once the members of the Board of Peace, would
you go as far as Alexander Lukashenko and Malay and Benjamin Netanyahu?
it's quite,
Ian: no, I'd
add them in for effect afterwards
Adam: as
Ian: sort of
exaggerated overstatement.
Adam: It's
Helen: Yeah, I think the thing that's interesting about that is
that Trump reversed on Greenland.
And as ever,
it was really the financial markets just turning.
He, that is still a rebuke that he, worries about, he did fold
Andy: on that.
Helen: Whereas what's very interesting that's currently also happening,
we talked last episode about Minnesota and ICE and border patrol.
Ian: is slightly ironic, isn't it, establishing a border peace when you are.
Helen: are,
Andy: are.
Um.
Ian: Promulgating civil war
at home.
you can't even keep peace in one of your own cities.
Not, even trying to keep peace.
You are actually
destabilizing
the city in order to create non peace.
Andy: Yeah.
Helen: I think that's what's happening in, Minneapolis, is that
these,
non-police forces that have been told by Stephen Miller, who is
essentially the kind of, I guess you'd call him, Trump's prime minister.
he hasn't got a very impressive title, but he's essentially running.
The White House domestically has said, they've got immunity.
our federal agents are doing a really important job cracking down
on rapists and domestic abusers.
And actually, we shouldn't, no one should be standing in their
way of them doing anything.
And if they, and if people get killed, then tough luck.
And what happened with the latest killing is that the White House came
out immediately and just lied, just straight up, like Christy Nome of Homeland
Security said this guy who was killed.
was a domestic terrorist who turned up trying to kill
ice
Adam: agents.
Brandishing the gun.
Yeah.
and attempting to, take out several ice agents.
Yeah.
which
was just so obvious from the footage that wasn't the case.
And what was clear from the footage as well was the, gun that the guy was
carrying had been taken off him at the point before he was shot 10 times.
So even under that justification,
Andy: The press do seem to be having quite a hard time covering it.
certainly
in America as other than anything but a war of words.
Oh.
there seemed to be a lot of conflicting narratives about this shooting
of a
civilian who'd just been disarmed of a gun He appears to have been carrying legally,
Helen: well,
Andy: very hard to say.
Who's right
Ian: here?
Yeah.
as opposed to saying, why do you think, he was shot then?
Yeah.
and does that matter?
it seems to me the focus on
Trump's
assault on truth, which he's been doing for a long time, and it is grotesque
and really offends people, but It does mask, it creates a huge amount of
flack, which I'm sure is deliberate.
rather than the event itself, which is American citizens being
shot dead in a city for doing
nothing.
Adam: One
aspect, which I thought was really interesting was, the, that Trump
came out himself and said on truth social, he was carrying a gun.
And anyone who carries a gun to a protest can be vegetable.
that is an absolute enshrined thing in the Second Amendment, isn't it?
the Second, Amendment, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not brilliant on American
history, but it's specifically about setting up militias to defend yourself
from an overreaching government, isn't it?
that, that is what is happening.
And that
is, it
seems to me that more and more Trump
is going complete opposition to the sort of traditional Republican ideas, a lot
of traditional American ideas like that.
He seems to have lost as
you
were saying,
that his
appeal was supposedly that he, spoke directly to a base that, that kind of,
he really got their concerns and things.
He, he seems to have lost that now completely.
Helen: I think there will be still some people who are in information
environments where they're just not hearing any of that.
But if you look at his headline poll numbers on, this, it's clear
that quite a big chunk of America actually doesn't like what the, what
ICE and the border Patrol are doing.
So I wouldn't,
it's, I think it's, I genuinely, said this last time, I do think
it is genuinely really concerning.
'cause Ian, exactly as you were saying, there is a deliberate level of
provocation here, going out and getting.
Never deescalating getting into these very difficult and dangerous situations.
And then as soon as
and in this case, it looks to be like a complete,
it
was just a complete cockup of miscommunication and then extremely
trigger happy, badly trained, clearly panicked agents again,
like Goode, just start firing and in this case firing and firing
Andy: and
Helen: but that's.
That is
what's gonna happen if you put people out into, do deliberately
aggressive in your face immigration
Andy: enforcement
and you tell them they're, they've got impunity.
Helen: Yeah.
And you say it's like Trump's always going on about that film, the Purge, just about
the idea that it, what if you just had a time where some like tough men were just
allowed to do exactly what they wanted
Ian: and presumably at some stage this, counters any appreciation
of the American military.
And I think that's why he got into trouble.
By saying that NATO forces had not stepped up to the mark and hadn't been on the
front line and essentially said everyone else was cowardly, because that's not
what the American military thought.
That's not what anyone else in NATO thought.
And it suggested that that tradition of a sort of vaguely supervised and
legal entity IE an Army, was better than a group of people in masks going
around shooting your own citizens.
And I think that, again is, somewhere where
he's gone wrong.
and the fact that he climbed down on that I thought was partly
due to reaction in America.
Adam: But
again, it's one of those things that's absolutely quintessential American
value is respect for veterans, isn't it?
Helen: Yeah.
But he already blew through that.
Remember?
He said, the people in the Cemetery at Arlington were suckers and losers.
Why would anyone go
and
die for their country?
what's in it
Adam: for you?
And John
McCain as well.
Helen: John McCain.
I like people who
Adam: I like people who
aren't,
captured.
Helen: I like people who aren't captured.
He said about a guy who couldn't raise his arms above his head 'cause
he'd been tortured so badly in
Adam: Vietnam
and this coming from a man who does the draft five times for
Vietnam himself, didn't they?
It's
Andy: just,
Helen: that's the thing I felt actually, one of the emotions I felt looking
at the kind of maga commentators trying to defend it, was I just felt
profound embarrassment on their behalf.
Just the kind of They clearly can't feel shame, so it's good that someone's
feeling it on their behalf, but every day they're forced into these new mad
Andy: contortions.
It's very,
comical alley for those with long memories,
Ian: it?
Helen: It's very comical alley.
yeah.
but at least he was getting
paid.
Adam: the speech last week at Davos where he said Iceland three times
when he was referring to Greenland.
Christina,
Helen: it?
was Carolyn leave at the White House.
Adam: just said,
no, he
didn't.
Helen: didn't.
she said actually he was talking about Greenland, which is a land of ice,
You like, right.
Okay.
Yeah,
Andy: sure.
Another, the
Adam: stroke, you still have ice three times.
It's right there on the video, but it's just this extraordinary thing.
Now you can just say, no, it isn't.
No.
Helen: No,
Andy: we'll
have to wait and see how the Board of Peace plays out.
Of course.
Can anyone think of another wise council?
Maybe a group of informed individuals who might be able to solve the
world's problems better than the
Board of
Ian: Peace are, are,
we talking about the Jedi High Council?
Yep.
Yes, I
noticed that
as soon as I go on holiday,
a
lookalike appears in the magazine of this very scene.
In which I appear to have been cast as Yoda.
Adam: And one of us got to be Samuel Lau Jackson, so I wonder if anyone
can work out who was editing letters page last week in Ian's absence,
Ian: I
have to say the letter from the supposed reader
a Mr.
Madam
McQueen
was
entirely
unconvincing.
It
Adam: genuinely
based on a comment on this very, podcast, YouTube channel.
Helen: Can I just say that Madam McQueen should be your
Adam: drag name.
Helen: That's
phenomenal.
Drag
name,
Andy: There's been a really interesting story in the eye, this
latest issue of the eye, all about the fact that times journalists
are going to face some compulsory retraining, coming up very soon.
They're going to be expected to attend in person, at least one, quite lengthy
session about the proper use of ai.
And this is off the back of some really funny things, which
happened at the times last year.
firstly, they, ran a, lengthy interview with a cleaner at Buckingham Palace.
a lady called Anne Simmons, who'd been there many years and had
lots of interesting things to say.
Who it turned out did not exist.
She, she had been, I think fabricated by, a, tile company and a press release.
And so she, she was a, an AI person.
Adam: and secondly, there was a, she was, I should say, photographed as well.
There
was a, photograph along
Helen: with
the interview.
Adam: of who, of this
Andy: non-existent
person
Helen: but an
AI generated image of
Andy: the
Adam: AI
person.
Yeah, A woman who looked a bit like she might've been a cleaner at
Buckingham Palace sitting on a very nice
Andy: sofa.
Yeah.
and the other one was slightly better known, it was the, Builder
de Blassio story, which I would say is not really an AI screw up.
the, there was a hack who was asked to get some quotes from the former mayor of
New York builder Blassio, and wrote to the wrong builder, Blassio, got, the wrong
email address and wrote to wine merchant from Long Island who then used chat GPT to
come up with a load of quotes, which were sent back to the times and then printed.
Helen: I, dunno how
has that ever happened to you and the other
Andy
Andy: Murray.
Helen: No, it
hasn't because you should pitch.
you
should
start pitch
Ian: for more business.
Helen: I
Andy: would like that.
Andy Burnham's name, his middle name is Murray.
He's technically fully known as Andrew Murray Burnham.
Adam: What's going on
Andy: there?
you are everywhere.
Oh, yeah,
Ian: Anyway,
Andy: so the, times are doing this, they're trying to u use
AI more effectively or at least not get gold by AI stories.
And it's it's
a very, interesting, facet of the AI story because it turns out journalists
are not automatically better at spotting ai, slop and fabrications than the rest of
Ian: us.
particularly if,
there aren't many of them and they don't have much time.
Yes.
Which presumably.
the answer to most of the things is hire some human
Andy: beings, isn't it?
Pretty much.
And, but this is a growing problem, and I, in preparation for this sort of discussion
of like how AI is affecting the media.
I listened back to the chat from a couple of years ago when we, had Matt
Muir on talking then about what this amazing new thing called chat GPT
was, and any risks and opportunities it might present, and basically
everything's got worse since then.
Is the shortcut?
Adam: Is the shortcut some of the reason why it's got
worse is that it's got better.
the AI is improving hugely all the time.
So things are a lot more convincing.
you can now generate photos
of
supposed Buckingham palace cleaners who don't have seven fingers on each hand,
Andy: or,
Adam: like that.
So it is getting more difficult to spot this stuff.
Definitely.
but that is certainly being taken advantage of, isn't it?
Have you seen the Press Gazette,
Andy: investigation into this?
Yeah.
Go on.
Ian: No,
Adam: You
say, So, pres gat.
I've got, Rob War who's a longstanding, Tech journalist, does a lot of
stuff for the Den, also writes a lot of their kind of like woo UFOs
and, witchcraft kind of stories,
for the dead, all that woo stuff.
So
he featured in a hack watch recently, but, but, a good journalist nonetheless,
who's compiling list for Pres gat, which is a trade Mag for journalists.
he came up with, 50 apparently fake experts, who, which doesn't
sound that impressive, but 50 apparently fake experts who's.
comments have been quoted more than a thousand times
in the media in recent years.
So these are completely people that there is no evidence that they actually exist,
but who've been provided to journalists on, various kind of websites and local
papers as well as national papers, with sort of case studies of, I, this,
happened to me, or supposedly, their academics, nutritionists, that kind of
thing, who've got ad advice for people, none of whom appear to actually exist.
and obviously if you are a massively overworked journalist on a local website
and you've gotta churn out 30, 40, a hundred stories every day, and you
are handed a press release, which has.
A case study in it with someone remind me, even a nice photo
of them that you can use.
Then you you don't have, you, you're not gonna have the time to phone them up and
check, yourself that I still, God, that
your
first question would be, do you actually exist?
Yeah.
Helen: So
the, what
the thing I think is
very worrying is that the guardrails have come off and, not just in the media,
been in a number of different places.
So one
of the things that the West Midlands police chief had to admit was that
his report on Tel Aviv Maccabee and their fans included an invented
match, essentially, which they was deemed to have been hooligans.
That was an AI hallucination.
The Trump administration is all the time pumping out fake AI bollocks on
Twitter and X. you just cannot now trust.
A government handout photo not to have been altered.
Yeah.
I think that, I always think the metaphor for it is a bit like,
essentially like there's been pollution in the, information stream.
Right.
And it's very hard to get that
Andy: out
once it's in there.
Yes.
There was a report last year about, the potential,
I, I think It's a problem.
It's not clear yet that it's a disastrous problem for, let's say the Russian
government to, as it were, go upstream, fill the web with slop text, pushing
Pravda, talking points, and then wait for those to be picked up by, AI
crawlers, bots that look around the web, searching for new material to harvest.
I think it's not.
Disastrous problem because they are trying to work out which
sources are most trustworthy
and to prioritize those.
But it can
still
Helen: be
a problem,
they, the Russian government's also just doing some really old fashioned stuff.
If you remember
last,
the year before last, they just turned out to have been paying
a load of American culture war influencers like Temple and Dave Rubin
Andy: through an
Helen: intermediary.
Yes.
in order, just basically, 'cause what Russia wants is just people pumping out
most divisive possible cultural content
in America.
And they all said, oh, we had no idea that this.
Extremely, attractive woman with, a very thin c again, probably AI
generated CV that no, they just, they took the money and didn't look.
Into, that's the problem.
The cost of generating bullshit is now essentially zero.
And all that was stopping people from filling the information
sphere with bullshit before was the fact it was just too much work.
And now it isn't
Adam: much work at all.
Whereas the cost of getting journalists to check that things aren't bullshit is
now prohibitive for an awful lot of news
Ian: organizations.
But this is
the third phase.
this is McQueen's
law of journalism.
He started off trying
to break stories.
Then he spent the second half of his career trying to say
These stories aren't true.
Phase
three seems to be no one
Adam: cares
Helen: Adam.
Yeah.
Ian: too many
of them,
Andy: get a life.
hit.
I'll, give you some numbers 'cause I
find
this
really interesting.
So the number of adults in the UK who say they've used tools like Chat PT
and Google Gemini to better understand
current
events.
Any
guesses?
Helen: 30%.
Andy: 47.
Quite high.
in terms of people in senior jobs in the uk, senior management positions, it's 81.
Ian: Wow.
Andy: So it's
much higher.
However,
there, there are questions of trust over it still.
So when, surveyed, 4% of people said that they thought AI summaries
were the most trustworthy source.
That compares with 44% saying a news website is the most trustworthy source.
So a factor of 10 difference.
And that there is still a lot more trust associated with
Ian: news
websites.
I
went to see Jimmy Wales give a
speech, the founder of Wikipedia.
Who said, and he's very impressive nowadays.
He said, when we started, we were a joke.
now we are a standard of extraordinary, authority, in terms of fact.
And his basic pitches.
I
have human beings still as moderators and a consensus
of
diligent and altruistic human beings.
And he says, there still are some.
They're not working obviously for the other,
tech pros, but they are working for him.
create, a version of truth which is much nearer to truth than the
massed forces of everyone else.
So I think it is still possible and that is still part of the job is to say.
this
stuff is not
nearly
Andy: good enough
Ian: we should
Andy: again.
Put the slightly positive case.
It's, AI is very useful for things like data journalism.
it is very good at crunching together large amounts of information if you
are well trained on it and you know what you're trying to pull out of it.
there's, there are lots of positive uses and lots of media organizations
are trying to use it effectively now.
Now, normally private eye covers the cases where people are not using it
effectively, Reach, which I dunno if it's you who've been, who's been
Adam: writing the stories
about, I have quite a lot of them.
yeah, yeah.
that, that is the other side of it is the use of AI by the media as well.
reach have been absolutely open about using this tool that they
slightly presently called Guten after Gutenberg,
the inventor of the printing press, which allows them to do
a.
multiple versions
of what is effectively the same story, and then pump them out across their
network of, websites across the uk.
The most effective journalist at this, I have to say, is a guy called James
Is he really?
It's my rule again
that you should never trust
a man.
with two first names
Andy: Andrew
Hunter Murray.
Adam: three first names, he's on Birmingham Live.
he has been known to churn out, up to a hundred
pieces under his byline every single day.
I had a look this morning.
As we're recording, just from today, we've got, met office names, all of the 27
areas facing 17 hours of snow on Tuesday.
That was at 10 52
Met
office names all the UK areas set to escape snow on Tuesday, full list 10
57. All Of
the Midlands towns set for 17 hours of snow.
On Tuesday, full list, 1101 UK Snow bomb brought forward and
to new date as West Weinland's.
verdict confirmed.
1128 Met off his names all of the UK areas who have to pack
emergency kit before Tuesday.
Full list.
Spoiler alert on that one.
You don't have to back an emergency
Helen: kit.
But the thing that's interesting when you read out all of those headlines is those
headlines are written for Google, like
jam
Adam: full of
a hundred
Helen: engine keywords.
So you've essentially got robots writing copy for
Andy: robots for other robots
with a brief intermediary of a human having to
human's the thin
Helen: paste
in the middle of the sand.
But the other thing is that most news organizations are preparing
for Google search to deliver them no traffic by the end of this year.
Yeah.
Because Google now puts in a Google Gemini AI Things.
there's always been this tension with, in Australia there's been cases
about Google news paying journalists.
'cause essentially it's like using, harvesting their content
and putting their headlines.
Now the thing is that Google will now just, essentially has just
cut off that spigot of directing anybody to news, websites.
It would rather them just see a little
Andy: at the top of their Google result.
And this, is where you get the argument about what media
organizations should do about that.
So there is a case that I've seen made that, for example, rather than, the
Guardian striking a deal with open ai.
So that OpenAI can inhale all the Guardian's archive,
which, good sourced stuff.
Few typos, no problem.
But basically, OpenAI is getting a huge new source of, decent news in exchange
for a financial deal with OpenAI.
That is a way that the power is handed to open ai.
the, consumer is getting their news from OpenAI.
It happens to come originally from The Guardian.
What if instead of that, let's say the B, B, C or whoever.
Had their own AI engine, which can produce results based on everything
the B, the BBC has produced over the last hundred odd years.
that is a, that's a way that AI could
Ian: be used
Andy: deliver trustworthy, reliable results to people
who
Helen: want
to know
what they're getting.
I think more people are gonna do essentially a version of the like
longstanding private eye gambit, right?
Which is you can only consume our content on our source.
Like
we call it the
magazine,
but no, like lots of people you know, are saying that come to our app, you know,
that, trying to keep you on their particular platform.
And the other thing that delivers an absolute boatload of traffic is
Apple News, which is essentially what everybody's been trying
to make work forever, which is the Micropayment system, right?
You play a flat
fee and then you get
access to loads and loads of places.
But I think there is a real, there's a real divergence between people who've
decided to go, we are worth paying for and you're gonna have to pay for us.
And Like
you
say, the reaches of the world who've gone pile 'em
Adam: high, sell 'em cheap,
let's
not make
Helen: anything worth paying
for.
Yeah.
And let's run this
business down until, until it
goes under.
'cause there's just not enough
Ian: money
left in anymore.
But I did read a, very good analysis, of the trajectory of, nearly all
organizations and AI is following.
them, in that it's not making any money.
No one's making any money.
It costs far too much money,
to do videos.
There aren't enough deserts full of data centers, being sprayed by empty
reservoirs to actually finance this.
So what do they do?
There are two ways out.
The first way is advertising, which they said they wouldn't do,
which they're now considering.
And the second way is
porn.
which again, this was meant to be ai.
It was meant to be.
for, the good of humankind and all those really reliable tech bros
sitting around telling each other, they were doing this for the public good.
the public good seems to be taking money from other commercial
enterprises and, running porn.
So that's, a
positive future.
Andy: Progress.
Yep.
Adam: It's
Andy: But for Elon
Adam: Mask,
Andy: That's a suitably depressing note to end on.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Helen: No,
You tried to be upbeat for
a
Andy: brief
flicker of time.
Ian: I know.
Andy: that's it for this episode of page 94.
thank you so much for listening.
If you would like to get hold of proper human produced journalism,
it's available in the magazine.
It's available on Newstands, and it's available@privatehypheni.co uk.
There are subscriptions available for very reasonable prices.
We'll be back again in a fortnight with another of these.
until then, there's any time to say thank you once again for listening.
And thank you to Matt Hill.
Of Rethink audio
Helen: for
Ian: producing.
Andy: Bye
for
Adam: now.