Page 94: the Private Eye Podcast.

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, at Ian Hislop.

If you're watching this, you may have already voted in the local elections.

You might even know the results, But one really interesting thing about the whole

campaign is that so much of it has focused on what we would think of previously as

the edges of British politics, uh, on right and left, reform in the greens.

Uh, it seems increasingly quite hard for the conservatives in labor.

Traditionally quite big

missed out the Lib Dems again.

I'm sorry.

I'm

Poor Ed,

Which is the theme of

the campaign.

Yeah.

Literally, the Lib Dems are complaining.

Our

polls,

they were consistent.

No one even

mentioned

us.

Yeah.

It's very unfair.

I

so I just thought I'd mention them.

them.

is, is that a fair summary, Helen, or is it

I think that the Greens and Zach Pilanski have taken up a vast

majority of the oxygen in these campaigns for a very good reason.

A lot of the seats that are being defended are labor seats

that are kind of green facing.

Some of them are, are reform facing.

They expect to lose a huge number of seats.

So that's almost been kind of factored in at this point, right?

The story, if, if Labor even do slightly better than you think, everyone will kind

of fall about themselves with, with shock.

I'm bracing myself for a both reform and green saying the

mainstream media underrated us, but look how well we've done.

This will be a lie if they

say

this.

I would just say this.

Everyone expects them to do incredibly well.

And one of the things I found most interesting, I was reading, um,

Jim Warton's very good newsletter, London-centric, in which he referred

to the fact they'd got their hands on last year, reforms local elections

playbook, their canvassing handbook.

And one of the things they'd say to their candidates are, "Let Nigel

deal with the national issues.

You just focus on, on Ulas or whatever it might be on potholes, on the

housing estate that no one wants built, whatever it might be, that's one thing.

And the other thing is don't post anything on social media."

At all.

At

all.

don't think that this is now your time to air your thoughts about

the Middle East peace process.

And so, I think having been through that mega storm of lots and lots of reform

candidates being found out to have unpleasant views, they, there's something

the parties is very aware of as a problem.

The Greens are further back on that learning curve, I would say.

So we have two people who've been arrested on allegations of antisemitism,

one of them seen campaigning out for the Greens after that.

You have the Greens deputy lead in Mothinalid saying to people who've

been accused of antisemitism, you know, get, think about challenging the

party on this, you know, we shouldn't give into these smear campaigns.

So that fight that the Corbinir Labor Party went through in the years 2015

to 19 is now happening in very much the glare of publicity for, for the

Greens.

we should say, of course, this is in the wake of the Goldus green

stabbings and, you know, renewed focus on antisemitism in, in British

public life.

Well, it was prior to that as well.

I mean, it was very obvious even prior to the Stabbings and Gold's Green last week,

the, the, there was a, a conserted kind of campaign of, of, of, of violence and

intimidation against the Jewish community.

So there were firebomb attacks on, um, most notoriously the, the, the ambulances,

but also a couple of attempted arson attacks at synagogues in, in North London.

So it was quite clear that that sort of stuff was going on.

And even prior to the Gold's Green stabbing, Zach Polancy came out and

said one of the most idiotic things that, that, that we needed to be wary

of whether this was Jewish people feeling unsafe or whether it was just a

perception they had of unsafety, which, um, I mean, there's quite a lot of clear

evidence in there and fire bombs attacks.

I, I would feel quite unsafe.

Yeah, and the,

and the stabbing outside Heaton Park, uh, synagogue in Manchester as well.

I, I mean, if you look at the figures, the Jewish community in Britain is very small

and it is enormously disproportionately affected by hate crimes.

There isn't a synagogue or a Jewish school out there that doesn't have security

around it, that doesn't have walls, you know, and I think this is a community

that has felt that it has been living in fear for a, really quite a long time now.

Now, every party, I would say, has had its own problems with

antisemitism in, in its ranks.

I don't know about the Lib Dems actually.

They, they may have managed to dodge it, I'm not sure.

Uh, but certainly, uh, this was a problem in Labor under Jeremy Corbin There, there

seemed to be lots of credit, credible evidence that this is now a problem, in

the contemporary Green Party.

again, one shouldn't f- forget that the leader

of the Reform Party had,

had quite a well

publicized incident,

uh, during his school

days, um, which

24 people gave evidence about and which has now been dismissed and it's

considered bad taste to bring it up.

So I thought I would.

Um, but it's not entirely gone, has it?

Yeah.

And re- reform candidates

mostly now, are being discovered to

have,

Islamophobic or, uh, whatever you want

to call

it, uh, tendencies.

But there was a period where they were pretty anti-Semitic.

Yeah.

I

I think it's an interesting insight into the evolution of anti-Semitism in Britain

is that it was the casual prejudice of choice, well, one of them, on the right

in the, in the '60s and '70s, and since then it has been, yeah, there are still

neo-Nazis out there, but it has also now become associated with a particular left

wing form of anti-Semitism, which bleeds into some things that are legitimate.

I mean, this is always the problem with everybody draws their line in a

different place, but it, it bleeds into criticisms of Israel, particularly the

Gaza War, and also some of the tropes on the left about, uh, you know, a

global elite or a 1% or billionaires.

And some of those are perfectly legitimate.

And then some of those go into Rothschild's, uh, you know, Luminarty,

protocols of the elders of Zionist control government, and then it

gets closer, you know, and closer closer to overt, rank antisemitism.

So I think that that is, you know, there has been an evolution in where

you would imagine the prejudice would come and for the right, as you say,

and the, the, the people who are now to be afraid of are, are Muslims.

And you will hear all these tropes about a Muslim invasion of Europe,

you know, these idea of kind of armies of rapists overtaking us.

And so the kind of polls of, of the kind of, the racism have

switched.

the far right are very keen

on Israel now.

Um, so, alongside the St. George flags, you had demonstrations where there

was St. Georgia, oh, and the state

of Israel.

that's a long way for British fascism to move, which has

been, you know, pretty solidly anti-Semitic right the way through.

Now it isn't.

Tommy Robinson was invited over to Israel, wasn't he?

by, I think the President's office, which is, is an extraordinary

kind of fusion, uh, uh, of people.

But there's another thing I've noticing that's really interesting is the sort

of

bandwagoning, uh, by the right onto this antisemitism and blame that all on Mus-

Muslim, um, communities as well, uh, which goes along with the, you know,

they are being made the scapegoat for absolutely everything by, by the right.

But the, the idea that anti-Semitism in this country has somehow been imported

in on the small boats and, uh, and, and it, it's another migrant, it's a migrant

community who are, who are, who are completely to blame, blame for that as

well, which is sort of equally inaccurate.

I mean,

Keir

I know is trying to make the point at the moment

that this is,

this is itself evidently a massive problem for society and it's something

that we should all be ashamed of.

Uh, and to, kind of move it on into just trying to scapegoat someone else seems to

be as useless a, a, a reaction to it as,

as, as

any other, really.

Right.

Now, I wasn't on the podcast last time, so can I just check, is this all

just an attempt by you three to have another go at poor old Zach Pilanski

who is doing his best under very trying circumstances to offer hope and

change-

Dammit.

he spotted us.

just facing this sort of sneering cynicism from the media, is that- Well, okay.

okay.

So, uh, just to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, while you were away,

um, probably doing actually something actively green rather than, uh the

stuff the green party's more into

these days.

Um, we got criticized by Zach Polanski for not understanding

the appeal of the greens.

Uh, and Ian stands indicted of the crime of saying, they don't seem to

talk about environmentalism very much.

They are more a lefttering populist party.

And I, I know.

And I remember this as the, as I live in Lewischm, which is a contest between

labor and the greens, as the green leaflet, big picture of Zach Polanski on

the front, dropped through my letterbox.

Can you guess how many times environmentalism was mentioned

in that leaflet, Andy?

I'm going to say double figures at least.

You're gonna say none because it was none.

It was about their populist economic proposals of 15 pound

minimum wage, for example.

and the way that Zach Polanski phrased this in his interview

with the times essentially, well, paraphrased by decorating them

for him, was everyone knows that they're in favor of green issues.

That's fi- that's sort of taken as a given.

Right.

So actually they're gonna talk about cost of living issues instead.

of the things I found quite unpleasant was the fact that, um, Rachel Millward, the

green, the other green deputy leader apart from Mothin Ali was on question time.

Um, she was asked about the gold as green stabbing in the rise

of 97ism, and she attributed it to the cost of living crisis.

And I think that is ... Yeah,

I know.

Another random scape artist.

But that wasn't yeah- How so?

But, but it's basically like asterities made a lot of people

feel, you know, very angry.

And what struck me about that is that is a mirror image of things you will hear

from reform supporters who say essentially it's very hard not to be racist these

days because, you know, all these people coming home and taking our jobs, right?

And that in both cases, there is this idea that economic insecurity

is kind of gives people a sign off essentially for finding a scapegoat.

And I was quite surprised to hear that the, the green, you know, party

deputy leaders signing off that something that they would attack

very heavily when the right use that

same, Yeah.

same language.

Can I just say at this

point, I would like

to be

unpopular on

all fronts.

Uh,

uh, and

say that, um,

there is classically a,

a, problem with Islamism and antisemitism.

I made a documentary about anti-

semitic,

precedents and

ended up,

you

know, witnessing the Cairo Book Fair, and this is a couple of years ago, where

they're actively selling Mind Camp.

and, uh, a lot of cartoonists in Arab newspapers

literally would not get published anywhere

else um, on the grounds of antisemitic tropes.

So,

we can't ignore it.

and I think it is,

it is worth,

saying that

the eye has tried, which is usually a, a failed policy, um,

of saying,

We

are

against, um, Israel's behavior in Gaza but we're not very keen on antisemitism."

after our Gaza cover, there was nothing but, um, letters saying, you know,

the eye is absolutely anti-Semitic.

Despite, um, the number of literally every issue we write about anti-Semitism

online, um, Elon Musk, uh, all of those things, but we do run pieces saying,

guess what's happening in the West Bank?

It's not great.

Dr. Grimm runs those pieces.

So attempting nuance,

is unacceptable

in

the new bipolar

world.

Um, and that makes this issue even worse because everyone deliberately,

you say,

you know, the, the borders between the two get confused.

I think they're deliberately confused by people who want

to play in that space.

and you've had experience of this a lot over the years because of the,

the acid test of the letters page.

Yes.

You know, and whoever's complaining most.

it, it's, and it's normally when someone, someone is popular,

someone is new, as Zach Polanski undoubtedly is at the moment.

Someone seems to be offering something different before

mass disillusionment has kicked

in,

as happens in every single political career, it's part of the process, uh,

you, you experience that in real time,

you know?

Yes.

And,

uh, people are furious

and they write letters

and, and, it

used to be, um, the

Scotts Nats.

They would, they were easily the

most prolific

and bad tempered letter writers

about any

mention of Nicholas Sturgeon at all.

Any suggestion that anything in Scotland had gone wrong in any way was just,

you

know.

Sassinat.

act whinging, Um, and,

you know, sort of, uh, what you

want Boris then.

Yeah.

Yukip originally,

you've never seen so many letters.

Um, Tori's briefly,

the Boris

Cult,

any mention of

him-

Wow.

... particularly

the overflowing

laviatory suggesting that was his

legacy, I think there

was a

staggering- number of

right?

That was the cover with a literal toilet

I I wanted to complain about that cover just on the grounds.

it was so horrible.

Yes, it was horrible.

but the volume is, and the greens are out now.

Yeah.

Um, they are

very, very

offended, um, by any christism

of Zach and any

christism of themselves.

And I think it's when you get this rush of popularity,

it doesn't occur to you that the thing that comes next is accountability-

Yeah.

um,

because you might be in.

And by the time I say this, he might well be in charge of a party that's running

a lot of councils.

people

are gonna ask you things, and if they ask you things that you don't

like or you don't particularly

want to

answer, that doesn't mean they're mainstream media

smear merchants.

I

mean, you've

just got to get beyond that.

Otherwise, you know,

you end up

saying, "I don't want journalism."

I, I think about all the people we've had in politics in my lifetime.

There has been a real difference between what you might call the

populists and the, the mainstream.

The mainstream just moan a lot less about journalism, right?

And that's one of the things that is, uh, I think is very different

about them.

Well, there was a, there was a very fun piece, uh, last week, I

think in The Economist analyzing 35,000 likes by Zach Polanski on

Blue Sky,

which is his social media platform of choice.

I

mean, he's, he's

filming all the time, he's writing all the time, and he's on it all the time,

clearly, and he will like anything that mentions him positively, and he will

also like quite a lot of stuff that's incredibly rude about anyone who's,

who's been even slightly critical of him.

Right.

And it's just, I don't have time to like 35,000 things on blue sky.

I don't know how someone running a major political party does.

But that speaks to what he's very good at, which is content creation.

He's very, he, he's very visible.

He turns up, he, you know, he, he's pushing at his mesh- message.

These are the things I will give him credit for-

mm-hmm.

... is that that is part of the role of party leading out, something that Keir Starmer

is obviously failing at and terrible at.

What does Keir Starmer think we're going or how do you think we get there?

Very hard to tell you now, even.

Like he's just not communicating those things.

Zach Polanski is, I mean, I think it's all completely different to what

he believed 10 years ago and he's never really accounted for how he's

changed his mind, but we certainly

know he's apologized To Jeremy Corbin.

Hmm.

the one thing that he's apologized for is essentially,

yeah, the Labor Party being too

tough on And he was fooled By the propaganda.

What the Libdem

propaganda-

No, the Propaganda

around Corbinism.

Oh,

I see.

The idea that there was an anti- any antisemitism in the Labor Party.

Yeah, he's, that's the bit

he's apologized

for.

for suggesting that might have been

the case.

Yeah.

But

on,

Stick your fingers in the

socket, go on.

gonna stick my feet in the socket because, because one of the things

that has been really interesting with the Greens that they were very

good at, at expelling people for was expelling gender critical feminists.

So Shahar Ali, in fact, took the party to court, um, he felt that they had

discriminated against his lawful views.

So I would say, yes, I would take the fact that there has been a huge intake

of new candidates and their vetting has been, you know, delayed by that.

However, I would say, is it also reasonable to say you've had a very

bright line about what views on sex and gender, you were not perm- permitted

in this, in this party, and as a political party, that is your right.

There's not an imposition in free, of, of free speech.

People can hold those views, they just aren't compatible with

being in the Green Party, sure.

However, you are, I think, we're more reluctant to do this on views

about antisemitism, and I think the rest of us are allowed to

comment on that and disagree with

it, actually.

And when you talk

about

vetting, I mean, when Furage said, "I, I don't have time to vet these candidates,"

I thought, "Well, you could knock off

two hours in the

pub, um,

and

read the list." Um,

Um,

and

He's got spare time now, he's not doing his cameo videos anymore.

Yeah.

He he could get up at five o'clock in the morning and do a bit of vetting

that, yeah.

And the same with

Zach, rather

than dress up in

green clothes and pose for the Sunday time green, photo shoot, you could

have had a coffee and looked over the

list.

See, here's an idea.

Ollie Robbins is looking for a job at the moment, isn't he?

He's, he's got some experience of vetting that could

get

him

in.

Before

we move on from this bit, we should say just a, a little bit about

exactly why Nigel Farach has been able to afford to give up doing

videos on cameo for 75 quit a time.

Hmm.

Um- It's

because he's on

celebrity traitors.

It's

He's the

only

person who

isn't.

Which,

which is the, the last week we've learned that he received in 2024, uh, a gift of

five million pounds, uh, which was not taxed from Christopher Harbourne, who is

a, a Thai based crypto businessman- Yeah.

and I believe billionaire.

Uh, I did a little calculation, just in case you're interested,

uh, Keir Starmer could bought, uh, 2,000 pairs of nice glasses- ... Uh,

and still not come up to the level-

You Surely mean Wahidali

could've bought that many pairs of

glasses, for Kistarma.

Sorry.

He

He

fact- In

fact, that is the total in the whole glasses gate.

It was, it was, it was many, many more

pairs of glasses than that you could get.

This does not seem to have attracted the attention that I think it ought to.

Um, Faros got in very early with a, a defense.

Uh, you, you know exactly how that happened in the Ellen.

Well, so the, uh, the Guardian who had this story, credit to them,

um, went to them for comment on it.

Yeah.

Uh, and the, according to the guardian, the reform press office stalled

them and said we need more time.

Then they said, "Oh, you've directed it to the wrong press officer actually."

And in the meantime, a, uh, a very sympathetic piece, I think my Gordon

Rainer in the telegraph appeared with the headline, I was firebombed,

and this was lots and lots about- B-

by Farish.

By, about, by Nigel Faraj being firebombed.

And this was lots and lots about Nigel Farage's security issues with then very

long way down going, and in order to resolve these security issues, I accepted

this

gift.

One problem with that, I think you, you

spotted

the problem, didn't you, Andy?

Yes, it's a timeline thing, which is that the, the fire, the firebombing,

the, um, attempted arson attack on, on Furose's home, which we we don't need to

say, probably should say is deplorable, shouldn't happen in- a- in any way.

Yeah, we're all against it.

That happened, uh, one year after Farah accepted a, a five million

pound donation, which is apparently something to do with his security.

So either Christopher Harbourn is a psychic- or crypto really is so good

that it can predict something that's gonna happen in a year's time, or

that actually doesn't really stack up.

And it was also a gift made when Ferrari was not an MP.

So they are saying, look, this is completely irrelevant

to Mr. Ferrata's political

career,

But I love this, this is always the argument with donations that aren't

declared, isn't it, is that technically it didn't have to be declared.

And in this case, the excuse is- it was the point where he said he was

never coming back as reform leader and he was done now and Richard

Tyson was gonna take over.

Uh, and it's just so clearly, I mean, to, to use a parliamentary

term, complete bollocks, isn't it?

Because if, if you're in hock to someone for five million pounds, if someone is

giving you farming, clearly, on principle, that is something you need, if there is a

register of interest, that is an interest.

I mean, this is the same argument that, that our old friend Peter Manilson

made, first resignation time around, when he said he didn't think it was

relevant that, that, that, that he owed 373,000 pounds to another cabinet

minister at that point- because he'd been, he'd been lent it by Jeffrey

Robinson to buy a house in Notting Hill.

Clearly- Yeah.

... it's a relevant interest.

You don't have to, you don't need to kind of pass it and go into accountancy terms

of

exact technicality.

And if it comes a few months before you announce not only that you're, you're

going back into frontline politics and also that you think this crypto

stuff is fantastic and there should be

much lower taxes

on crypto transactions.

And later on, Farough has said that he's invested nearly 300

grand in a company that buy

and hold Bitcoin.

Yes.

You're suggesting that two and

two

equal four.

Yeah, I am.

Which I'm sure in crypto world

is not true due to something clever,

but

they

do.

Yeah.

And I love Nigel Frozer's phrase that he's never a- Cristo Harborne has never asked

me or anything.

He gave you five million pounds personally and 17 million pounds to the party.

He doesn't need to ask you.

You know

You know

You

what you're doing then,

You know what

you do in that

in that way.

And also they is the, obviously the amusing irony that the

leader of a party that complains

about foreign people

having influence over British

politics

is now,

you know, the largest recipient

of

the largest amount

of money ever,

um- Yeah.

by someone who's resident in Thailand.

He probably loves Thailand,

um, but he's

also there

in order to run a

business there without all the encumbrance

of British

tax and British

regulation,

which again, doesn't

seem hugely

patriotic.

Yeah, I think Nigel Farage is recreating the worst bits of MAGA.

the involvement in crypto, which is just a deeply scammy industry.

I, I would say any serious politician really should stay away from it.

And they should stay away from prediction markets.

They should say, you know, just that, they should stay away from gambling.

Like it's all of

And organized crime.

And those sort of things, I, I would say.

a sex ring, all of these things I would, I would recommend that they

often turn to shade into dodgy business and I'm against them.

But, um-

You're so

radical.

I know, right?

I'm so right wing.

Um, but the thing, the other thing is that Zia Yousef announced, um,

on Bank Holiday Monday, this, he, he essentially this sort of like weird

prisoners dilemma where he said, "We're going to do mass deportations.

We're going to build migrant hotels and we're going to put them in places

that vote green to punish them.

So if you don't want one in your place, vote

reform."

This literally comes with a website as well where you can put in your,

um, postcode and it will tell you where your, it looks like you're

going to vote reform, so you won't be getting one or it looks like people

are going to get green in your area.

You will be getting it on your doorstep.

I mean, it's, it's the ... I can't think of another situation in an

election where there's been a sort of outright threat with menaces like that.

Yeah.

Can you?

I mean, there's the usual sort of bribery

and kind

of we will cut your taxes and that kind of thing.

But an absolute, if your area goes the wrong way, then you're

trouble, Yeah.

If you vote green, you're going to get more potholes and we're

going to cause them, you know.

But they think it's very clever, right?

They think it's a trap that the left has walked into, which is like, oh,

I see, you don't like migrant hotels.

I thought you thought refugees were welcome.

Now that is very true of a, a tiny subset of the Green Party who do believe in

completely open borders, but actually there's a lot of people voting green for

a lot of other reasons, including cost of living and economic reasons, but who,

who, you know, who don't feel like that.

But this again, I think is the MAGA trap.

Donald Trump, no squish on immigration, has pulled back from pulling crying

children out of the streets, right?

Like just bundling people into cars, bundling them off to El

Salvador or wherever it might be because actually it looked cruel and

unpleasant and people didn't like it.

Even his supporters were not, you know, Steven Miller gung ho about

it as effective chief of staff, um, or his effective prime minister.

But, but mostly this was not a

popular place- And he sacked the person in charge.

And Greg Bevino, who was swaggering around in a very richy coat, I would say,

uh, got, yeah, got his marching orders.

So, you know, this just

... I,

I, I, I think this is,

this is a ... I think that was a really unpleasant announcement.

Obviously there's a million ways in which it didn't work.

You know, the places that Greens are gonna win will be inner cities.

If you think you can build anything in most places that elect greens.

Also, if there's one thing that unites every part of the political spectrum in

Britain,

it's

NIMBYism.

Right.

people just hate anything being built in Britain.

Like, good luck with that.

But it was also, it was just, it was just an odd, punitive,

guess

say, like a sort of punishment beating

for not

voting for us.

And in a way that I think you're right, crossed a line that I

hadn't seen cross before in

British policy.

And there is a long tradition

in, in British politics of,

of telling the voters you're going to give them

free money.

Um, Hogarth Onwards, you know, our,

our satirical tradition

is rich

with just politicians saying,

"Would you like

something,

um,

I'll give it to

you.

They

don't usually

say, "Vote

for

me or else." Yeah.

That, that's different.

right.

Now, uh, we come on to the state of the media and there's been a report about

the, uh, the Press Freedom Index, which is a global, uh, report about how free

the press is in all sorts of countries.

Normally, you're used to seeing it if you do see it in the context of a lot

more people banged up in Uzbekistan

this year,

uh, journalist, I mean, but obviously, Adam, it also features the UK.

Yes.

Because the UK is part

of

the

global community.

It is.

It is one of the 180 countries, uh, that were recorded in this report,

uh, the World Press Freedom Index, uh, which is issued by reporters Son

Frontier, which older reasons will remember is the international version of,

um,

It's a knockout,

uh, one for the kids there.

Um, and obviously there was an awful lot.

I mean, generally it was, it, it was a bad view.

Um, it was, the lowest average score they've ever recorded across the

globe in terms of press freedom.

Um, a lot of that was down to, um, journalists being killed in

various, uh, uh, conflict zones and other places around the world.

220 journalists more than that now, I think killed in Gaza by Israeli

forces, um, a lot in Sudan and South Sudan as well, they noted.

Um, but I thought, um, because we're very, very parochial, uh, we

are UK based, we could have a look at what they said about the UK.

Now the UK fell two places.

Uh, it's still recorded as satisfactory rather than good.

It's the 18th most free press in the world, according to reporters on Frontier,

which not

bad.

That doesn't be, sorry, coming in 18th and it's still not good.

Satisfactory.

Do

you want to know who's good?

I can tell you.

Norway, Sweden, Finland, Scandinavia doing fantastically.

Uh, Ireland, very good, uh, Estonia and, uh, and the Netherlands were the

one, the ones who were graded as good,

but

we

came in

just as satisfactory.

Is there

anywhere graded

outstanding?

There is not.

It's not like Ofsted.

No.

I just want to, I'm just testing the

ratings Good

is as good

as

it

can

get.

Okay.

So satisfactory

is, is-

is

is pretty good.

It's satisfactory.

good.

pretty good.

So

why, so we flipped, did you say we

slipped a couple of runs?

Slipped a couple of rungs, yep, yep, yep.

Uh, not as, not doing as badly as the US which has full fallen seven places, uh,

specifically because of Donald Trump and his, uh, his kind of, uh, maga movements,

uh, constant attacks on the media.

But the specific reasons they gave for the, uh, the, the UK deteriorating

slightly all the problems with the,

uh,

with the UK.

One of them very specific, um, attacks on exiled Iranian journalists who are

broadcasting from over here and threats to their family- uh, back families back

in Iran to try and stop them, um, putting out what the, uh, anti-regime, news.

Um, uh, but they also noted, uh, a few other things, uh, the rise in online

abuse of journalists, um, and, uh, the government's failure to act as promised

on slaps, which of course are strategic lawsuits against public participation,

which, uh, any Eye reader will know.

We've, we've covered in great detail along the way.

So we, we've we've gone in specifically on, um, Muhammada Mersi's, uh,

extraordinary range of, uh, legal threats against, um, Charlotte Leslie, uh, the

formatory MP, uh, uh, who he pursued through the courts, as I say, in, in, in

several different ways over several years, uh, for having Tamarity to put a memo out

to 11 people containing some information

about him.

Right.

Uh- So those

are generally rich people shutting down

journalists

through the courts.

In a lot of cases, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Another one was Tom Burgess, who was actually the journalist doing the

Guardian last week, uh, exposed the Christoph Harbourne uh, donation to

Nigel Faraj, you mentioned earlier.

Uh, but he put a b- a book called Kleptopia.

Uh, this case was thrown out as wholly flawed by the judge in

the end, but it was brought by a Kazakhstan based mining company.

Uh, so, you know, these are the sort of, you know, it's people with a

lot of money behind them who really don't want any of their activities

written about.

So- Okay.

There have been lots and lots of those.

Now, the government did promise, um, ahead of the election that this was

gonna be one of their priorities, that they were gonna bring in

legislation to stop this kind of thing.

Uh, there was a kind of phalanx of media lawyers, the society of media law, lawyers

was created, which is lots of people from, uh, firms that uh, I readers will know and

love like Shillings and uh, Carter Ruck.

Yep, I'll get it right.

Uh, and various others who said this is absolute nonsense and this

would be terrible, um, a terrible, terrible thing to, uh, restrict our,

our, our client's right to, uh, legal

representation.

and their right to shut down journalism.

Yes.

Which, um, uh, if you are a very, very rich person, it never seems

to occur to you that, that, that

isn't one of

your fundamental human rights- ... That any criticism of yourself should stop.

Um, and there's always lawyers who, who are prepared to do that.

Um, but it did look as though this battle was being won and there were

brilliant books about, you know, um, Russian autocrats that managed to

survive, um, you know, really good work, really good journalism, and suddenly

we seem to be rowing backwards again.

Right.

Um, and the Labor government, which I know, I shouldn't take seriously

what they wrote in the manifesto.

It's silly of me, but I think I believe they might do

this.

Yes.

And they still say that they will do at some point, but unfortunately

what's happened is that they've, uh, put in a working party which involves

a lot of these same media lawyers who are lobbying very, very hard, uh,

against it and, um, it's sort of got kicked into the long grass as being

something that's a bit difficult.

I would say it was one of the most popular things they could

possibly do if they want, wanna curry favor with newspaper editors.

Um, it's, it's, it's a slam dunk, this one,

isn't it?

And boo foreigners, you know, it goes down pretty well.

I mean, why, why not extend it to rich

foreigners?

Yes.

Who is pro-

Kasak billionaire?

What is the

for that in Britain?

Quite small.

The other thing, Adam, I wonder if it came up.

Um, I was judging the poor foot awards this year and really great entries as

ever, um, and we'll see you who wins.

But one of the things that struck me again was that particularly with the, the

local papers, the regional press, there's been some brilliant diversification onto

Substack, um, and the, you know, these sort of small startups, but it is still,

people are on shoestring resources.

That absolutely was one of the other things that came up in this,

in this report, uh, in, in, in, in, in the press freedom interest.

Uh, they said the budgetary pressures have left many outlets forced to close their

newsrooms or drastically reduce staff.

Um, and at the same time, you're absolutely right.

There are these sort of independent, um, uh, uh, outlets which are coming out

and still doing fantastic journalism, a lot which is, is recognized every year

in, in the foot awards, as you say.

I Um, so Mill Media, who is one of these, uh, independent outlets who are doing

a lot of very, very good journalism, faced down all sorts of legal threats.

Most recently in the last week, uh, they, uh, had a threat from, um, uh, a spad

to Shabana Mamood, the home secretary over a story they were doing about

her, which were very definitely in the public interest, threatening them with

an injunction on the grounds of libel, which, um, if you know anything about law,

that's, that's, that's not how it works.

Libel, the very principle is absolutely there published and be damned.

So uh, story went ahead

anyway

It stops people following up the story, right?

That's, that's the reason I always think for those legal threats.

If it's someone small, does a story, they get this heavy handed legal

response and everyone else who might follow it up then like backs

off a little Well, there is an absolutely classic method which we've

seen millions and millions of times with stories that we run in the Rotten

Burris column, which then local papers try to follow up, uh, and are told

by, you know, the press office or for the council concerned or, or wherever.

"Oh yes, no, that was very inaccurate and we're taking

legal action against private eye.

And "Occasionally they will phone up, phone us

up and say," Are they?

And I said," No, we haven't heard a dicky bird from them at all.

"But that, that threat is- enough.

Um, can

I just ask, Adam, the press freedom, uh, people, do they have anything to say

about

who owns the telegraph?

I just, I've

been

so

worried

about

it.

They

did.

Did they?

They ... Well, no, what they did point out was that one of the problems

with the UK media, as far as they're concerned, is that there are just

three companies who dominate the market who are of course News UK, Reach,

and the Daily Mellon General Trust.

Now, actually, that would have been even more of an issue because it looked for

awhile like the D, uh, DMGT were gonna take over the, uh, telegraph as well.

But in fact, we have now pl- more plurality in the UK media, so we're gonna

go up the 2027 index, presumably, because Axel Springer have come in from Germany

and, uh, and taken over the telegraph.

So yes,

it

was in there.

So

this

is a

win

for Press

Freedom.

Pr-

Pr- press

diversity.

Mm.

Ah,

Ah, yes,

okay.

Yeah,

yeah, Slightly different thing.

every time you said Axel Spring, my brain has supplied Axel Foley,

of course, the

protagonist

of

Beverly Hills.

who I'm choosing to believe that Eddie

Murphy has taken

over

the

telegraph.

That would

be- Much more

entertaining.

wouldn't

it,

Yeah.

Oh, that's interesting because another thing we haven't mentioned is the

BBC have just announced this huge cut

of their own headcount, I mean,

2,000 people losing their jobs about a 10th of the overall workforce

there, that's, that's going to have a substantial effect as well.

Yeah.

You know, there, there are going to be a

lot of,

lot of journalists on the jobs market,

basically.

And there's no

clear rationale for, for why these journalists have been

suddenly culled- Um, during an

interim between director generals, and

it may just

be convenience,

but,

uh, there was no warning,

there was no build up, there was no narrative,

it was just,

yeah, we need the money now.

we're not

going to salami slice, which

is the traditional BBC,

uh,

range, we're just going to cut.

only thing offered

was,

well,

with,

uh, the license fee,

we're, you know, no one's

paying it, we're not collecting

it, right?

I mean,

there is a remedy for

that.

I mean, I get it.

Um, attempting to

lock up

very, very poor people for not

paying their

license fee doesn't

look good,

but arguing

um, as the government, uh, that, um,

you have put

this license

fee in place

because you believe it is worth it.

Might be worth

trying.

Right.

Do you know what?

I've never felt more pro- BC than

I don't know if I've mentioned any, but I've just been to the Galapagos.

Um,

sorry.

once again, I think that, yeah, the BBC did loads of stuff I don't

agree with, but actually no one is doing work of that quality

...and

so

much of it.

And on, on, on the international, uh, spectrum as well, you know,

there are now Starlink terminals being smuggled into Iran so that

people can get the BBC World Service

and the BBC Persian service

because they are reaching a huge number of the adult population.

And I think it's something that all of the BBC's trials and tribulations

here don't really reflect is, is what the BBC is still managing to do around

the

world.

So

I went

to

an event organized by

Hostage

International, which, um, uh, offers support to the

families of those

who've been kidnapped

and, and tries to sort of, um, make their life better

in whatever they can

do and offer help and advice.

And, this event was about the kidnapping

of John

McCarthy, who was very

famously, um, kidnapped by

an Iran backed

group, um, in the Middle East,

and he

spent five years as

a hostage, but he was

talking.

And

the number of references

to the world

service,

um, involved in his

account and the other's account, should have made everyone in the

audience ashamed, um, both for the hostages, you know, um, they denied

them radios when the,

the Americans got a radio,

John heard his friend talking about him the

first time in two years he had proof that

anyone cared that he

was still alive, but the effect on,

uh, the warders,

the jailers,

uh,

the other people

in the region

listening,

the

idea that, the BBC World

Service is some,

um,

embarrassment.

I mean,

we've got aircraft carriers

that don't

work.

Um, we've got, uh, a

soft

power radio

station that works

unbelievably well.

We're gonna cut that.

I mean,

it's

extraordinary.

And

very noticeably, that has been noticed elsewhere.

So what floods interfill the gap is, as you, you know, it is Russia today,

it's Sputnik, it's those things that come to directly Kremlin front funded

propaganda outlets and, you know, China has sim- similar operations of

kind of news going around worldwide.

So with the World Service

being cut back

here, Trump cutting funding for, for NPR and the Voice of America and all those

kind of things, you know, this stuff

does

matter.

Yeah, tough times for all the people who've been funded

by Victor Orban in Hungary.

Like the, the people on the, on the, on the right very well aware

that it is a good idea to fund friendly media organizations.

Yeah.

And then maybe, yeah, Britain should say, "Well, we've got some values of

our own actually, and one of them is obj- this idea of objectivity, which

we aim for, maybe we should fund that.

" Anyway, here concludes

the

party political broadcast in favor of the BBC.

Is, is there any particularly, uh, uh, good journalism that, that, that could be

highlighted at the moment, for instance, by looking at the, uh, at a long list on

the,

uh,

private eye website?

Will we be redoing our,

our

very

successful series of little

interviews with people?

Yes, Yes.

once the shortlist is out, I'm going to be, uh, interviewing the shortlist and

you'll

hear it

on

this

podcast

channel.

Great.

I'm hearing a lot of pro- journalist propaganda

here.

Yeah.

I

love

it.

I know.

Read Street of

shame

next

issue

to find

out how

awful

they

all are.

as well.

now, having been so nice about journalists- We're

going to be nice about you.

No, no.

Oh,

no.

We're going to be nice

about

parliamentarians, aren't we?

We've,

yeah, I just thought it would be worth

doing a little, section about, one of the bits of the

British political system that works

Which bit is that, Andy?

It's-

The

canteen.

team.

Is

it

cross

charging

pavement solutions?

Don't even get me started.

I go away on holiday for one week and the government makes a big announcement

saying, "We're going to make this a permitted thing and look out for

legislation coming later in the year. I'm gutted." I hear they call

law.

Andy's law.

It is a

win

though, Andy, isn't it?

It's ... Well, let's ... I'm not going to get too excited.

I'm keeping, I'm keeping the, um, the carver on

ice,

but- Yeah, because if this

government promises it's going

to happen,

boom,

Yeah.

it

happens.

Exactly.

And

then

there's a quick

U-turn

at the end of the cul-de-sac and they come right back the other way,

look, it looks like it might happen.

That's not what I wanted

to talk about,

but the bit that has been working and I think is worth highlighting is

something I've been, um, trying to go along and, and look at, which is the,

um, the transport select committee.

So for those listening who don't know, there are all sorts of

select committees on, on major issues in British public life.

They're made up of MPs whose job is to run investigations, look at the

issues that are, is their particular patch and eventually come up with

a report and, and recommendations.

So I've been going to the transport select committee, they have, uh, one of

their running investigations is called supercharging the electric vehicle

transition about is it working, is it not?

So they, they take evidence and it just, for anyone whose normal

experience of politics is seeing the occasional snippet of Prime Minister's

questions,

it, it it is a completely different side of the experience and, and so much more,

uh, interesting and constructive, you

know?

Oh, I love

a select

committee.

Yeah.

I mean, do you remember some of the great select committees

around the time of, um, the

phone hacking,

for example?

Yeah.

They were behigrama.

Um, Margaret Hodge used to do, I think the public accounts committee- Yes.

... one of the, one of the ones that scrutinizes finance and it was- That's a

big, yeah, it was incendiary sometimes.

Yeah.

And what you tend to do is, yeah, okay, so there are some idiots who

just sign up to them for whatever reason because they want to grandstand.

And there is a bit of, this isn't so much a common, a question as a comment,

which is the plague of public life.

Yeah.

But normally you get MPs who are genuinely enthused and interested and knowledgeable

about a topic and they're getting in front of them people who are also

enthused and

interested and knowledgeable about the topic.

This is it.

And the, the thing I found really interesting is the difference between

the bit where it's the committee of MPs interviewing just sort of subject

experts.You might get someone from a big charging company or you might

get someone from a local council and

say, like, "What,

what are you concerned about or what's going well?"

And then the political bit, because on the, in the last session, you

had, uh, the minister responsible who's, uh, Kia Mather and Pete who

that, you might recognize that name.

He's wild, Yes.

He's 28.

I mean, it's amazing like- He's not 12.

He's,

he's very young.

Um, he was

very impressive, you know-

but he chang his name to

Andy

soon, because he

obviously-

obviously,

it's gonna

be quite, you know- Yeah.

Um, but that, that slightly changed the, the nature of Of it, but even then, I

mean, this committee is mostly labor MPs because most MPs are labor MPs,

Well, select committees are, um,

the,

the

membership

is reflective of the- Yeah.

Yeah, it's- ...States the parties in the house, isn't it?

It's reasonably proportional, you know.

There, there is a Tori, there, there were a couple of Lib Dems on this committee,

But

the, the interesting thing was they, they were not noticeably, kinder to him

because he was a minister in their party.

I mean, they, like some of the toughest

questions

about whether this thing is working or not came from the other labor MPs

on the committee.

there wasn't

too much grandstanding or party dicks, There were one or two, but

mostly it was very collaborative,

I

mean,

there are fun things about it, like the first session I

went to,

10 minutes of it was completely inaudible because, uh, Angela

Rippen was running a dance

class outside-

With

the speaker of the

house.

Oh yeah, I

saw

the pictures of

of that.

Yes,

pictures of that.

That was in PortColor's face.

Yeah.

It was in Port Colors house.

What you didn't see was all the committee rooms around the center of Port Colors

house where people were just saying,

" Well,

we don't know what's being said here and

maybe,

maybe it's

rather than not

that we're not

getting

we're not getting it.

So

would you say

the

transport committees were better than the select committees that

looked into the

Mandelson

Gate saga?

Well,

I, Well, That was the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, wasn't it?

Which is chaired by Emily Thornbury, who really not very happy at

not, not, not being put into the cabinet at the last election and,

and, and made that quite apparent.

didn't She

she was giving diva,

I

think is

the way to describe that.

There was very little diva given on the transport select committee.

Maybe what-

when these things are a bit further from scrutiny, you know,

they, they're allowed to just

get on

with the job.

No,

because I, I

felt, you know, the

Foreign Affair Select Committee had identified some

of the big problems such as Peter Manson shouldn't have been

appointed,

you know, which

I

wouldn't have had

a

clue about

unless they'd had at least 12

sessions.

Are those helpful

those, that,

that

kind

of- that

comment, not very.

I, I, I think we need to get

back to

travel.

No, those, those, select committees where it's, it's a big public thing

or the, or the,

phone

hacking ones, are they

doing

a

different

thing?

There is quite a lot of grandson.

I mean, famously Keith has, when he was in charge of the home affairs committee,

was very into a celebrity guest.

So you would tend to get sort of, um, Russell brand turning

up, uh, back in the day.

uh, and, and pontificating for, for several hours while, while

Keith tried to get himself in

the, in in

the camera

frame as

well.

Uh, so- there is, There are a lot of criticisms we made

in this process as well.

But there are in fact so many of these select committees that a lot of them

still are doing a lot of good business.

I would say just say, well, we're on this congratulatory thing,

just slightly self congratulatory.

I think Gavilbasher, uh, uh, one of our parliamentary chorismologists

is an absolutely brilliant job of, of not focusing on the chamber and

the, and, and, and prime minister's questions and that kind of thing and

getting along to a lot of these select committees and along to the House of

Lords Chamber as well, which is another of the areas that's sort of overlooked

and ignored by the general daily

coverage.

So-

Right, because the laws, as far as I see it, they were the

ones who really, um, ended the

the assisted

dying Absolutely.

Yeah.

ran into the sand in, into, in, in the laws

consistently.

Yeah.

But I think it is actually quite useful occasion to

restore your faith in democracy.

In the same way that every year I find that judging the poor foot towards

restores my faith in journalism, because yes, there are a lot of show

ponies who are very irritating and in everything and doing much better

in their careers than me, which is wrong and shouldn't be allowed.

But also, there are people who are doing, like, just

unglamorous, heavy lifting work,

and

that's what you see at the select committees too.

Yes.

And it does not get less glamorous, I can tell you than maybe half

an hour of questions about the electric vehicle excise duty

which

you

you know,

that you've got to be interested to be-

Presumably absolutely vital in the sense that we could be having a flood

of cheap Chinese electric vehicles here and they are sort of essentially barred

from coming

over, right?

Like- they're not barred at all.

They're not barred at all?

No.

no no.

So tell us what's

Yeah.

Oh,

well, it's

the, one of the most revealing comments made was, does the government

have one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake when it

comes to this, you

know.

They've decreed that by 2030, all new cars have to be

electric

in some element, whether that's full electric or with a bit of hybrid,

that's coming up quite soon, you know, it's coming up within a few years.

Is the country ready for it?

Are we ready for petrol taxes

to drop

off as people

make the switch, there is a range of opinion on display in the

committee, you know, experts are saying slightly different things

depending on what they want.

You know, someone who runs a big charge point company obviously

wants more big charge points.

Someone who's trying to represent electric vehicle drivers is saying,

"Well, we just want to make it convenient so maybe we just need, you

know, to make home charging easier even

if

you don't

have a

driveway,

all of this stuff."

Yeah.

That there is one MP on the committee who quite clearly has a big coach business

because she only asks questions about electric coaches and whether- Yeah.

you know, coach tours are going to be able to electrify, which I would say is not

the main

element of the committee, but that's not, that's not for me to say,

you know.

And the thing of whether it's paid for is a potential stumbling block by this

event, which is you're gonna be charged three P a mile to drive an electric

car, that's gonna be done, it seems like in quite a laborious way with

having to take it in for an MOT, declare

your

mileage, get that checked.

It, it

sounds like FAF,

the

way it's

currently

being pitched.

The

government's response is, "Well,

we, we think

we have to replace

petrol

duty with something, which is true.

We're giving lots of notice so people can get ready for it, and there are

various projections about whether it will stop people going electric or not.

of these committee sessions were happening before the evidence

has come in from

the war in Iran, petrol suddenly becoming very unaffordable.

So,

it's quite hard to tell what, what is

gonna

happen next- Yeah.

... without

that.

your feeling was that MPs were making themselves better informed-

Yeah.

and increasing the amount of information about this

issue they had on

hand, which does

sound good.

It's really good.

Like 100%, you know, even, even when there were opinions being given

that I you know, I disagreed with, that the MPs are asking and drilling

down into the details of all of it

and, you know,

trying to get to the bottom of it before they issue their

report.

government- We've gotta get away

from this drilling

down

metaphor.

Oh yeah.

It's,

It's,

it's not

helping.

Charging up, I'm

not

sure.

Yeah.

They

were really plugged in.

They were plugged in.

There we go.

yeah, can't wait to read the report.

I'll be staying up late,

you know,

on

the night before And I can't

wait to read your report Of that report in private

eye.

and

so much more, if I can stress that, uh, including

the

Poor Foot Awards Shortlist and, and, and so much else in the

next issue of the magazine.

Uh, that will be out on Newsstand soon.

You can just buy it in your local shop or you can go to private-i.co.uk and get

a very reasonably priced subscription.

That's it for this episode though.

We'll be back again in a fortnight with another one.

Until then, it's thanks to Helen, Adam, and Ian.

Thanks to you for listening and thanks to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio

for producing.

Bye for

now.