Page 94: the Private Eye Podcast.

Hey everybody, and when I say, hey, hey festival everybody.

Welcome to a live episode of page 94, recorded here at hey.

So without further ado, let's get into it.

first question

all

of you.

we have, a

once loved, now hated labour.

Prime Minister came to office in a

landslide,

is now completely loathed his legacy and ruins.

Is there any way back for Tony

Blair?

I'm gonna,

I'm gonna

go first

the lonely Tony Defender on panel.

I, so

I grew up in the,

I was

teenager in

the late nineties, So I lived through

the, new dawn has broken,

has it not, I

think that

new labour record is really good, but the thing that we're

talking about tonight is the fact that,

Tony

s decided

make

one of it.

It was

described

as a rare intervention.

I

was like, I don't think, I don't think it

eases it

really.

No.

But, into

the labour leadership

where

he said a variety of things.

The thing I think

he said that

true

is that

Ki came

into that

labour leadership,

essentially painting himself

as continuity Corbin.

He

then pivoted

very hard afterwards to say,

actually, I'm gonna put the left back in the sealed tomb of Mendelssohn.

Wipe out badly.

Yeah.

and then now is

of just,

if

if anyone

can escape a sealed tomb

Peter mad Peter Max

rise.

but then essentially without

proper programme for

government, without

a governing ideology,

you will snap back into

a sort of wishy-washy,

soft left comfort zone, that is a legitimate ideology,

but you have to make a case

for it, not

just it be the kind of default that you come back to.

And I think

that's

problem.

The people around Stama

they were very clever,

that they

said,

we're not getting involved

these

labour

We're Benit

or Blairite or Wilson I or Callaghan I, or

whatever it might

castle

Light.

But

we are shy.

That's the

only I that we are,

but, as it's turned out, that's

problem, is that no

one

knows what

they

think.

Couldn't see in his arguments

any policies

that haven't already

adopted by the

conservatives and reform.

Which is interesting.

because if

wants

say hi, vote.

Tory.

a

different view from

him.

He's free to do

Yeah.

How did you feel about his thoughts on oil and

gas?

Andy

loved him, couldn't fault him.

quite

impressive on a, 35 degree day to sign off an argument

says

More oil and gas,

that's what we need.

That's the secure

future

we need.

No, it's,

his

are consistent.

He believes that we

need,

more oil and gas.

He believes we need to rip up

clean

power 2030 commitment.

proposing the

same

things

would do if

you

were a climate

denier and, which in fact, reforming the conservatives

are pitching at the moment.

there is a reason that

China are installing hundreds of gigawatts.

Basically.

One gigawatt is

a

large nuclear power station.

China's installing hundreds

gigawatts

of

Soler power every year.

They are not doing that.

'cause

had inspiring

talk from Greta Thunberg.

they're doing that for very hard-nosed reasons of their own energy security.

they're

not

on

a mad choke point

in the Middle East that can apparently be

closed at

any time.

And they're doing it for reasons

of cost.

China's

electrified more of its economy than we have

by about 35

25%.

China

has

overtaken us

the race to get things

clean and efficient.

That's, Do you know,

I can tell that I've spent too much time sitting in a room with

because as

I was reading

I thought,

it's fascinating

me that he's very

excited

ai.

Yeah.

Now,

the Tony Blair Global Institute has lots of links with,

with AI companies, and I think there is a genuine, sincere thing

there,

is

he just loves the future.

It's shiny and new and exciting.

I thought

there's a really big contrast with why is he not excited

about clean energy, incredible

strides of technology advance in the last decade that past, But that one

apparently is not, exciting to him.

'cause none

of, the

he meets at

international conferences

are going on about that.

What they are saying is AI's fantastic.

And

because he's an enthusiast, he has no

idea what AI is.

is

I

did, nor do I, but,

I know,

On

the whole, it isn't good

to encourage the

end

humanity

yourself personally.

I feel that

isn't a good policy.

And also telling people what we're gonna do

is we're

take away all your jobs,

particularly, your jobs,

the

audience,

in

return,

going to rip up

your environment

fill

it full of data centres.

How does

that

grab you?

that

if

you just like bleak future apocalypses,

then Tony's your

man

also.

I just

can't,

I'm just gonna get

it

my system.

Yeah,

go

on.

Let

it out.

Great.

Just

vent.

As soon as

you see the words, the Tony Blair Institute

for Global Change.

Yeah.

For

furthering the knowledge of

Tony Blair,

you

just

start thinking,

what's this and what

are his two main points?

Get

closer to Trump.

Even reform

want to get closer

to Trump.

Right.

wing is

Blair now

But

as you say, Helen, the point you are a fan of is that he's

identified that you need to have a

and

it, even if that means annoying people.

And that that seem to be

something

that's

people feel is lacking.

Whether or not it is people really have

identified

the lack

of a message.

We've

had

so many

sort of missions

and, what were the

the

there were the pledges, there were the

milestones.

I

believe

there were, there was

sadly

revival,

ed, Stone.

ed Stone.

yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's the thing.

I think it's quite hard to work out why Stan's

approval ratings

are

so low and he's so hated.

But I think it's the sense that there's,

it's that he's vapour, that there's nothing

there.

And I think

that's

the kind of, that is the point.

I

take your

point in

saying this stuff, but on the domestic analysis,

and I was Tony Blas only too

keen to remind

himself.

He did.

He's the only labour leader ever to run three general election

victories.

Like he does know something about making and winning a political argument.

And one of the

things that

Phillips

said in

her resignation letter

we took,

spoke, talked about in the last pod, was we don't wanna have an

argument, therefore, we don't go out and make an argument.

We're

afraid to make enemies.

And

actually, Adam,

it turns out

they're listening to

you because Ki Star's,

all the

briefing this

was

about banning social media

for under

sixteens and

actually making

villains outta the tech bosses.

Yeah.

The other thing that she said, wasn't it, was that if there was a crisis, she would

take advantage of it.

And it's

a

example

of that.

But

she

suddenly said, why

not this?

And he's jumped in and

gone.

That's his big thing,

isn't it?

But it does

feel, it just

feels like there's an absolute

sense drift

at the

top at the moment, doesn't it?

And bizarrely, they seem to think that the answer

to that is to spend six weeks having a bi-election

and then a labour

election

during

nothing get done

either.

So on we go.

But

there are, ideas

are

being discussed, which is at least, so you, whether you like the ideas or not,

that

it is forcing a

lot of the party to

have a chat with

itself about

whatever it might be, about defence, about health, about

Brexit,

what's a, what

a huge failure of their time in

opposition there, because I'm a massive nerd.

I read Philip Gould's the Unfinished Revolution.

So he was the

pollster who was

intimately involved with new labour.

And

what they did was they spent the mid nineties going away and having

all those arguments internally doing them.

That was what we were told Star was

doing.

That

what Sue

Grey was supposed

to be bringing in her like roadmap for,

Armageddon, the opposite Utopia.

And then they

got in

they were

like,

oh, it's, oh,

we're in charge.

Oh no.

Have you seen these finances?

These are terrible.

I wish someone would've said something.

And yes, so I

agree with you.

It's

good for them to have that argument.

A

better time to have that

would've been in, say, May, 2024 before

they had

a crack at running the

But

what they were doing then was the definition they defined themselves were

just saying,

I'm

not

Corbin.

I'm very definitely not Corbin, and can we just emphasise that I'm really not Corbin?

And then it never got further than the party

stuff did there

didn't

ever seem to

be a kind of like

a big idea.

And

yeah,

the Barack Obama

Hopey Changey stuff as referred to

just seems completely absent.

But,

So

Tony in, in the Blair

Institute for further Blair Ology,

he

said, why is the Labour Party,

you by

the

idea of

finding a

charismatic,

personality, it

should be

about policy.

And this is

Tony

Blair

whose

main attraction was a

charismatic personality.

He seems to have forgotten Gordon Brown.

No, I think

he thinks about Gordon

Brown a lot.

Oh,

do

you think so?

Which is

kind not as much as

Gordon Brown thinks about him.

Yes.

Yeah.

we should be dishing out some equal opportunity kickings

well.

Yes.

let's

turn

right.

what

Sironi?

Okay,

let's stay Exactly.

Okay.

Let's take exactly

where Sironi is.

because

at the time of recording,

of you

here will have seen, Nigel Farage,

a leader of

Reform UK

has, 5 million excuses for why he took

a

massive donation from a Thai

based crypto billionaire.

Yep.

the

parties

reform candidate in the by-election has,

there have

some

reputationally challenging,

things that

have emerged about him.

it's

what you mean

the,

social media

posts?

Yes.

But

in this

election,

the, really weird thing is that

reform are being out flanked on the right.

Yeah.

So Rupert

Lowe's outfit Restore,

this is gonna

be a

really interesting

test So

people who run focus

groups say that restorers being brought up in them.

It's,

always a challenge

in the first pass,

post is

it very difficult for new entrants,

very hostile

to new entrants.

So he's essentially got

backing, the

very vocal backing of

Elon

Musk

who was about as

popular as gonorrhoea in

country,

but

has a lot of money.

and

also he is

gone way,

I okay,

so you've already got a situation in which

reforms I,

Yusef is saying

we

would deport foreign nationals who've got social housing.

So that's,

already talking,

we're already in getting close to the Trumpy

mass

deportation zone.

Rupert

Lowe is bulldozed

straight beyond that.

He said something

he

wants to take all immigrants

put on a

mid infested island and leave the

to it.

We are now

at

fully far right rhetoric.

Yeah.

So the

interesting question

is,

for the

other

parties, it's

electorally useful

have

restore exists because it

will drain some reform

away

in the

way

that the BMP would've

done.

If you

think about where that

party

is,

but in

no way do you want to encourage the

growth of a far right party with that

kind of rhetoric.

So there will be this

awkward

dance where people will be slightly keeping their gloves on about

not wanting to

qu this party for electoral reasons when they

really should.

Because letting it grow

and fester

be

horrible,

make this country horrible to live in.

Adam,

did an even earlier and one of one of the points reflected on was just how

angry

Britain seems

days.

there is

a

widespread mass.

It's not irritation, it's further than that.

It is anger about

the feeling that nothing works,

that

big bits

of the state are not doing their job properly.

Lots of other people are

getting away with it and you are not,

I feel we've hit this point.

We,

it comes

to

the Hopi Changey stuff I was talking about.

it doesn't

feel like anyone

is voting for any sort of positive

reasons anymore.

Everyone is voting against things rather than voting for things.

And even within parties, the,

massive swing to the green, some of it's down to Zach Lansky being

very, charismatic and them coming out nowhere as effectively a

new party under his leadership.

But an awful lot of it

because a

lot of people in labour are absolutely Furious about where labour sit

on what Israel is doing Gaza.

And it's the single issues that people fixate on get extreme,

like, on

the right, that people fixate on that one thing,

they're

very, angry about.

And they, that

it just seems

to be they're voting

against them.

No one seems to me to be

any sort of positive

story about where Britain be.

They're telling us it's broken and it's

terrible

and it's awful.

And that's

as journalists.

It's not

Wrong politic.

But to go back

to sub blessed Toone, there was another bit where he about

the all lure of people at having him a lie in

Argentina, Mr.

Chainsaw who communes with his dead dogs.

Okay.

Through seances, as do we all

sometimes.

But,

and, Georgie

Maloney of and Trump, where he said the normal institutional

politicians, they ap

approach a wall the road and they then have

a kind of committee meeting to

see how we could round it.

And then these other, these populist right politicians

threaten

bulldoze through wall.

And that's what people are voting for.

They want something to happen

and they

feel that there are all these ways in which nothing

ever changes.

Nothing ever happens.

And I do think that does some of what you

were saying.

There was an analysis of the recent, cancel elections, which

said essentially you can break down Britain to four blocks if you are

older and financially precarious.

You're voting reform.

If you're younger and financially precarious, you're voting green.

If you're

older and financially secure,

you're

voting conservative.

And

if you're younger and financially

you're voting labour.

And

that's a huge oversimplification.

But there is an

alliance there

between people who feel that their

lives are not secure

in

way, and then they have

the,

burn it all down then what?

I've got no stake this system anyway.

that, I think is a very powerful force

in British politics right now.

But comparatively a lot,

it's like question time.

Comparatively, a

lot of those things

are driven by online

media narratives that aren't necessarily true.

Yeah.

so a

lot of anger

is generated about issues which don't

affect

hugely

and which are not quite the same issues as those presented.

So I

feel what's different

people say, what's different about the current

is that,

people are allowed to vent this anger in

very,

blatant toxic ways online.

And

then they bring it

the real world and we

haven't had that.

And

then they're suddenly shocked when someone

says, unbelievably offensive thing you wrote, it's, it was a

long time ago when you go, it

last week.

and they go, I'm a different person.

You think you're not though, are you?

and then it was banter.

I I'd have statutory, imprisonment

banter myself,

but,

how I how from banter

off on the causes

banter.

Yeah.

and, but these are just ways of saying, we've normalised a way of being angry

and Furious and about

things

that doesn't necessarily reflect happening.

And

it's part of the reason, eye satirises a lot

of the,

mainstream narratives

the writer

as well as on the thing is because

they have gone into complete lunacy.

and the Britain is broken narrative

again,

it,

sells well.

Nothing works.

Everything's

useless.

That just

isn't true.

and in a lot of spheres, this isn't

plos,

that's

not really

my thing.

but

in a

lot of spheres, all

is happening is you are hearing the noise and you

are not hearing anything else.

And that I think, becomes

problem.

It's a lot of it is down to what your

algorithm serves you

it serves you the stuff that

is making you angry,

but it serves you more

of the stuff that you liked anyway.

And There's no sort of

room

for any sort of counter narrative to come at that.

I the number of people,

Rupert

Low

is among

them who are absolutely convinced of the mainstream media

who are in

were

ignoring the child grooming scandals

for

decades until Elon Musk over it

last

year.

was

2012 that we gave the Paul Foot award investigative journalism

to Andrew Norfolk for the

work he'd done?

the reason people know about this stuff

is because the police investigations went on at the time and

the journalists who wrote about

yeah.

Just because

it's

taken that

long to

notice, it doesn't

mean

it wasn't happening.

And he

wrote in an obscure journal called The

Times

He was

on the front page, Whoa.

Oh, mainstream media,

lame stream media, I call them.

I

think

it's,

I

do think it's hard if you don't

consume a

lot of this content just

to realise how

incredibly

heightened emotionally it

is.

So if you are on, if you're watching

short form video,

you were just getting stuff

pumped at you.

There is

an established problem on

x formerly Twitter of creators sitting in other countries.

You like whether basically people who are sitting in alone at their computer

somewhere like Malaysia creating clips

about

kind of Islamic takeover

of London.

Yes.

And you have this very odd situation, I spend

a lot

time writing America, where

you have Americans who

live in with unbelievably high

homicide

rates, going, is everything okay in London?

And you're like,

yeah,

Some

bits of it are quite

nice actually,

but they're all, they,

all they get

fed is

basically

SDI Khan's, Sharia

wasteland

over

and over again.

And

they're sitting

in, Chicago and then they're, they're worrying about our safety.

And these,

you these are incredibly heightened.

There's

another thing, Jim war of London Centric

bust opener ring of this, a guy going into houses, multiple

occupation

and filming videos saying, these people are all Muslims.

None of them speak They have a halal

only house,

it's all social housing.

And there is fundamentally no sanction

on that.

The social media companies aren't investigating.

interested in

mod moderating it,

that investigation, it wasn't

true.

the,

people living in those houses

were, not,

not,

only, Al but it turned out the guy responsible was estate agent who

was letting out those houses wasn't,

yeah.

So if

that had been

case,

that would've been down to him.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

easy to find the

lp, but that's the kind of,

that's

the kind of thing.

And as, said, if you get, if you watch one of those and you

like it it made you Furious,

guess what's coming along in a minute is 400 videos.

It's

very

interesting because

I, literally only

get heat

stuff,

so I have no idea what this, I just,

I live in a fool's paradise.

I really, check.

That's all.

Helen, you said if you're feeling precarious

comfortable,

and if

you're older or younger now, you didn't mention what happens if you're feeling

precarious

comfortable and

you live in Wales or Scotland.

we've got

five cery and

we've got the smp

I

I also

didn't

mention

the Lib

Dems, because I

where

they

fit into that matrix.

So there are

many

people who are excluded

the Matrix.

Absolutely.

But I think we shouldn't,

given, the day we're

recording this song, we shouldn't miss

out the SNP and I think.

And

we know ply have done marvellously and congratulations to

them.

But,

for each

of you, what are

your favourite items

Peter Merrill's?

I'm,

I

nearly said expenses, but it's not, an expense if you've embezzled

But do,

you

have

any top picks?

This is now shopping

channel section of

the evening.

the headline one

that everybody's focused on

is

the

pound

Lile salt

and pepper shakers.

Because I just

think almost no

one

else realised that.

can you a

salt

pepper

shaker

to make it

like,

there

was, a pencil

sharpener

that was worth

about graph.

How

do you make

a pencil sharper

is worth that much

outta Diamond Outta Diamond.

Outta Diamond.

done?

My favourite one was

that he bought and he

embezzled a

copy of

his wive's book of speeches.

I,

I

I am I've absolutely got a

comp from

publisher.

Yes.

Just

that's where

I have some sympathy from.

'cause I wouldn't spend my money on Nicola Street

surgeon

speeches.

It was the coffee

machines

got me.

Did you see them?

No.

Come

If husband embezzled

copy of

your latest book, you'd

be fuming with him.

I think, to be

honest, he probably wants freebies.

I think if I made him go out and buy it,

be more fury.

Yeah.

Okay.

Fair

enough.

No, the coffee machines were amazing.

The, it's about

three, 2000 pound

coffee machines in there.

Wow.

special.

Nessun, espresso Crue, espresso

and

mugs.

A manual

espresso

maker,

a coffee Cup warmer, which

was the thing I didn't even know existed.

Oh.

But

then at the bottom of the,

that's

a hand

after all the, just

a

hand

after all the beans.

Also

two

kilogrammes of Nescafe gold blend, which were worth 81

60.

Who was

that for?

That's

just, if the builders were

that's when

journalists come round

and you have to

pretend to be

of the people.

But I

realised who years at that point.

He's the

coffee

bo.

There's one in every office

who has

a, cold compress thing that

want tell you about how

best coffee it

will

your life.

That's Peter Mull.

I,

need, I was other people's money.

mean

the timing is what I

like The,

they managed to,

conclude this investigation after the election.

in

which the SNP

very well.

And thank you

to all the,

Scotts Nat supporters who've

me abuse over the years,

for ever questioning

the, probity of the, leadership

the

SNP.

it

is extraordinary that we're talking

about 400,000 pounds.

the excuse given and a

number of people are

questioning,

whether Nicholas Sturgeon's account of this is entirely

she's

been found

innocent.

Just

making that very clear.

but

you said they

had separate

accounts.

They

were both earning

salaries.

both

earning about a hundred

grand

each.

So after tax, that's about a hundred grand.

If your joint household

goes

from 100

grand to 500 grand,

you might notice now

if you are

the

Scottish police, you launch an investigation, which

takes a very, long time.

and only comes

to its conclusion after it's far

too

late

affect

fortunes of the, politicians

of time.

This is pretty fishy.

Scottish politics is very small.

It involves a

lot of the

same people.

Some of them are married to each other, some

of them

aren't

anymore.

but the idea that

your first minister, leader

of the SNP, you

want to renegotiate

the financial situation between Scotland and England and

don't

know your husband's embezzled 400 grand

darling.

There's

a new camper Van

is

there.

That's

lovely, darling.

Let's

it

in the drive.

I it just

of

your mother.

Let's put it in your mother-in-law's

car.

The

93-year-old

mother who didn't drive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Alright.

I'm gonna

on because

can I just say that John Sweeney may have done the first and

maybe only joke of his life.

Did

see

this Inadvertently

they said, do you think Nicola Sturgeon was really cooperating with the

police when

she just said, no comment for seven hours?

And he said,

no comment.

Lovely, lovely

secret of comedy is timing.

Very

strong.

Very

Very strong.

And

then

from John Sweeney.

Alright, look,

of, terrific

crooks,

must

turn to America.

Helen,

you,

cover

lot

of,

American affairs.

we're

now

how

long, I think seven or eight years

Trump's

second term, just

by vibes

alone.

how is

it going

and where

are we in

with where

we were

the

first time around?

If

a

year

and a

got a

and a bit in

I Yeah.

Can

you

even remember what

the end of 2017, the beginning of 2018 were like?

They now the sort of

miss of time?

Trump has just, talk about

being a massive crook.

He

has absolutely

plundered

American

state.

So he's got

his sons involved in a crypto business.

he's, doing deals

with various Middle East and Gulf

monarchies

seem to be, basically his foreign policies have been

sort an extension of his hotel

business.

and the other

is

he

just has this situation now where

he will just pardon people

if they've donated

money to him,

which just seems

fairly just

obviously

crooked, but it's

apparently due to a loophole.

Absolutely

fine.

Yeah.

so the latest thing he's done is

created a huge slush fund, or the Department of Justice created a huge slush

over a billion dollars to basically pay off people like the January

6th rioters who've been victims of miscarriages of

justice.

Now you've covered

some miscarriages of justice in

time.

I would say

who turned up hit a policeman over the head with

truncheon

while dressed as

I

Who's

sort of like

Shamans.

Yeah, shamans or whatever.

And not, wouldn't be the,

I'd probably put like the post

office people slightly higher on the list than them, So I think

that

he

has, basically checked outta the

American presidency.

What happened is he came

in,

this blueprint for government from the Heritage

Foundation project 2025.

He went

through a blizzard of

executive orders, which all American presidents

come

to rely on now.

Essentially.

It's a very cheap way of getting things

without having

to do them

Congress, and

then has just

become wildly distracted by the Iran War.

There's

talk about them doing some kind

of

incursion

Cuba, but they

just don't really have

the bandwidth

it,

but they

might do it

anyway 'cause they're bonkers.

And,

he's, meanwhile just,

I think also he is,

he,

feels very lame duck in the sense that he's already got a

gold stature of himself

and he's just got a big, he's

building a huge UFC ring

on

the south

lawn of

White

House.

You

should say what UFC is.

Yes.

Oh,

I'm sure.

Everyone in the

audience

is a huge fan of mixed martial

arts.

it's ultimate fighting championship.

So

Yeah.

It's not KFC.

No.

Although give actually

he's more

of a McDonald's guy.

Give him time.

But yeah.

So the, his way

of this is almost

beyond parody.

His

way of celebrating the 250th anniversary

the founding of America is he's

gonna have some

big, burly blokes

fight each other on his lawn.

Okay.

She's

you could go

to any

weatherspoon.

a hobby

Helen.

You take everything away from,

but

But

it

it, are we seeing America's greatest

250

years in?

We've

a

war

in the Middle East.

got, a

American

invasion on the cards.

Yeah.

are we just seeing a, an action

replay?

That's

true.

What have they, what Yeah.

What have they

missed?

I thought for a second I had this

vision

of actually the, Ultimate fighting Championship is gonna be replaying.

So one of them is

be dressed as

Abraham Lincoln,

one of them dressed as sad hue.

Yeah.

One of 'em dressed as a weapon of mass destruction.

More up for

it now.

into it.

okay, so

and

how's

that,

going

down with people?

his approval

ratings

have hit the

lowest

that they have been in either

of the, two

terms

in the NYT Sienna poll.

So it's not,

it's really not

going well.

But the interesting thing is that,

I

was

gonna I was about to say the phrase, you have

to feel sorry for

staff, and then

I realised

No,

you don't

have to.

You absolutely do not have

to

hand

it to

them.

So they, they, have midterm

elections in November and

there'll be lots and lots of seats,

in the both the house

and the Senate up for grabs.

And basically he has used

as

a revenge tour.

So anybody who's crossed him, he has

endorsed

their

primary opponent

to

the extent that the Republicans might actually

about the Senate in Texas,

which

been

very red for a

very

long time.

Because the person he's endorsed there is quite criminal,

actually technically

cleared of all charges.

thank you.

yeah,

for for the lawyer,

dunno if

we'll

have to edit

out you

quite

criminal and then just cut from

you saying the person he selected is

cleared of all

That might,

mean,

that

might,

that'll

do the job, I think and

the law's

very

happy.

Happy,

yeah.

Money was just resting in his account.

But,

but

that, but,

that, that's because the incumbent senator for

Texas

sort of 99% loyal to him, but may occasionally have said things like,

Sarai, I don't think this

war in Iran is a good idea.

Or

sir, you

did lose the election.

So he's, basically

hoofed out

a load of people

that

have his critics,

but the effect of

that is also they've

six months to

run around, slagging him off.

So that might

become quite lively in their

lame duck

session.

But also they might actually lose,

you'd expect them to lose

the house might even just

about lose the Senate,

which

means,

he, which

that the

Democrats then would control all the committees so

they can just subpoena

all his people, mi him

him stuff, try

and impeach

him, all that kind of, they

just throw sand in the gears of anything

getting done and he just can't get any legislation passed,

which would be a problem if he

wanted to

get any legislation

passed.

But I think he just wants to invade things.

He's just

he's just gonna jazz hands it.

He's

d more pappy, but

three

years early is what

what

you're

saying?

Very,

yeah, very early.

Yeah.

do you think he might invade

America

in

a moment of horrible

confusion?

He is pointing the wrong way.

Him and whose Army?

Yeah.

Ian, how

do you feel

covering, the, I the eye obviously covers a

lot more British politics.

What,

how do you

feel looking at the state of American politics?

Do you ever wish to hunt that bigger game or

is it

just

so depressing

that

you can't

bear the prospect

of it?

no.

I've got Helen

writing a,

a,

us eye column every week,

so I feel we're we are very

there.

Yeah.

At

one point readers did write

in and say,

you stop

Trump

on the

cover?

It's depressing.

but then it's just too funny.

I, I take that as

red, but

say his

approval rates are low.

low.

What,

percentage is that?

37% on the,

can

you

you imagine a British leader having

37%

But then I suppose we

don't have the same kind

of

fandom

for our,

either, either

Tories labour, right?

There's no group

hardcore

star rights

who go to

all his

dressed

as

border

wall.

Yes.

I guess it

would print dressed as Hadrian's wall.

What would you dress as

a

key Starer speech?

A

serious question.

I'm not moving on until I've got

answer

from everyone.

actually.

Okay.

While you're

thinking

about this,

I'll say that

this is a real thing.

I went

to a Trump rally in Redding, Pennsylvania, and they have all the people who sit in

front row come

dressed

as Uncle Sam.

And then they also have a guy who calls himself Mr. Wall,

who has

had a whole bespoke

suit

that

looks like bricks.

That's

so

right.

Just saying, Ian, you love a

What you could

a,

you

could have a clear

star suit that looked like,

would

be free, obviously.

Oh,

what if it were,

Oh, what if it were, could

you go dressed

as

a tool?

Yes.

A double, act.

You did a tool and a tool

maker.

I think

would

be nice.

yeah,

yeah.

One of you guys

dressed as a hammer and one

you

of smith in an

apron.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's why I would go dressed

as,

Ian,

something to say

that

was interesting

about the good chap principle, which

Yes.

No, I

just noticed

that

American

commentators who for

years have said the British Constitution

is,

unworkable.

' cause

it

relies on what

the

snobbish called the good chap principle, which means that people will behave

well even if you don't write

down

to stop them.

Whereas the American

is black

and

white

checks

balances.

We don't

need this.

And I feel now

a slight sense

Chardon Freud,

in thinking,

had the good chat

principle.

You have

bonkers

lunatic,

constitutional,

checks

balances,

which don't work.

He

literally doesn't care anymore.

Yeah.

And

the

Supreme Court won't stop

him.

got six three majority on the Supreme

Court, which

the

arbiter.

Mike Johnson, the speaker

of

the

house won't,

him.

And he,

and also

got

this thing there where he plays

JD Vance and Marco Rubio.

So vice president

the

Secretary of State off each other is which

you

is my favourite son?

who

is

my bestest

child?

there?

None of

the sons

are, because

sons

are, because

their wedding

gonna their

He,

no.

I'm very busy this weekend.

He

said, I'm hanging out with Marco.

He

did nothing

week, the

weekend Yeah.

anyway.

Yes.

Sorry.

It's sad.

I feel

sorry

for them.

I

don't feel sorry for them.

No,

they did this

themselves.

They deserve to be unhappy.

Okay.

So it's,

so they do.

So it sounds

like the forecast is just

more of this

and nothing, no effective breaks on

the

plane.

is there any further he

go

that?

Not only

do you pardon everyone

else

who's ever given you money,

but you pardon

yourself for the future forever.

that's, a proposal

that

he's

yeah.

He said

that he, neither he nor his family can have their tax affairs ever investigated.

I'm just

and give us a tiny silver lining

which is, if he's

confined to

a

lot of domestic embezzlement,

much like

Peter Merrill

at a much

larger scale, wouldn't that be better for Britain than him doing mad foreign wars?

He's

looting America rather than

Yeah.

Bombing places.

Do they not go hand in hand?

Okay.

Yes.

I suppose it's possible

both.

Yes.

Yes.

He

multitask.

There is a

morning and an afternoon in the day.

Yeah.

And then there's all night

him.

Yes.

He

He

sticks

with his

phone.

because no one's

on truth social

apart

from mad maga people that

not really

understood.

And the

night

before he went to China, he,

I think he posted something like

500 times.

It was cer

certainly

in the triple digits.

Mm.

he's

obviously, he's talk about actually Tony Ble have a little word with him

discover

some of the dangers

of

ai

because he now will just post

most obvious like AI slop.

Yeah.

Hites.

He see that the

meme of

him as Jesus that actually got him

trouble was

just AI slop.

It

was one he did of, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and Joe Biden swimming in

sewage in the reflecting

pool.

he's

just

is your Facebook uncle,

but then the

things,

that you think must be AI slopped

not

to be, I mean he has genuinely put

a large

gold statue of

isn't

it?

Yeah.

A

Miami do.

Yeah.

People

are kneeling

front of,

it's Trump,

so

it's,

let's

be honest, it's

not really

gold

is

Very

gold.

It's Guilt,

guilt.

Not

a word Trump

familiar

with.

Hey.

Hey

But the irony of

up, hasn't it?

Putin goes

see

Q and Trump

is

supporters say that's pathetic.

A

guy who's

losing a war,

going begging for help.

You were there the week

before.

Yeah.

A trip.

I have to say

a triple, which absolutely nothing happened.

No,

really

an

absolutely astonishing,

the

leaders of the two world superpowers and no communica, nothing.

He got nothing out of that deal.

But

he saw

really

hall,

the People's Hall

in China and he thought,

that's

bigger than my hall.

Not hall of money, which

is.

But

and

then he goes home and

he talks

about the ballroom again.

Yeah.

He

loves

He loves the

ballroom.

It's Greek,

Coro Vegas.

Sounds like

Greek

wrestling.

But I do

hope they have him interred like Lenin in the ballroom

day.

Can it be soon?

it

was fitting tribute

we should, we should go to questions shortly 'cause we are, we're running

reasonably low on time.

so I think

there

are, gonna be

paddles,

going around

the room and

once I

see a paddle,

I'll shout out

the number attached to it.

Number

one.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello there.

I'm very glad you put

the cartoons double page 'cause I was losing

faith.

I, I couldn't read the serious stuff for quite a while,

so it was

only the cartoons that

me

a subscriber.

Excellent.

But

what do we do when we get our own bonkers loony in, in Parliament and

in the head of the executive in this

country?

Will you

need to go weekly?

I think we turfed her

out after 49

days.

Hey.

No, I, think

seriously,

we,

just emulate the

American media.

We roll over,

sell

out

to anybody with some money, sack the cartoonists,

and, retire.

' cause

American journalism at its finest.

Good.

There we go.

I

saw a

number four over here.

Oh.

how come my dad hasn't won

the private eye crossword

yet?

Ooh.

Okay.

Now that,

is

he

remembering to send his entry

in?

That's an important question

because a lot of our readers think that it's rigged.

Yeah.

they

think that some

of the names are not

genuine.

And they are.

And the repeated winner from the last

week,

last

three

issues,

Mrs. Phyllis,

his Glock

really,

is a genuine

person

who is very good at

crosswords.

So

I hope I've made

that

clear.

Okay.

Okay.

that was wonderful.

Thank

you both for the

concision of the questions.

And Brian let's

go to number two

two here, please.

you've

been disparaging

and scathing about

politicians.

Can you

cheer us up a bit?

Tell us British politicians

you

admire

and are doing a good job,

please.

Nice.

I don't want to end anyone's career.

I can name someone I

find quite in,

there's

a,

we

haven't spoken much about the Lib Dems.

There's there's

a politician,

who's

elected,

called Mike Martin,

who's

a lot

in the

Army and now he's,

he's campaigning a lot about water.

So he's,

he's interested in

third of the

stuff.

and,

the Lib Dems are filling

a funny space in British politics in that they're not really

it

at moment,

but they're

potentially

filling that space.

And,

I think

they're

weirdly

filling a role that

the conservatives might

traditionally

when Kimmie Badnock was

trying to be, rude about the Lib Dems,

said, oh,

they're

may be good

fixing

the church

roof, but, they're not really good for

anything else.

Lots of people

really, want the church

fixed.

Yeah.

In fact,

fixing the roof is a metaphor

for

doing something valuable and doing

it in a timely

fashion.

So anyway,

and

Nooks and Corners, the column that talks about

roofs

quite a lot falling

in, or we've set

on fire,

we are quite keen on.

Yeah.

Anyway,

sorry to Mike Martin

for

coming.

Oh,

Martin, held,

I think

the place to look is the Select Committees,

actually that's you people come into politics 'cause

they're interested in a specific subject.

They might not be massively ambitious in

sense

of they've always wanted to be in

cabinet.

But

actually, if

you look at the work that they're doing, I think they, we talked about it

on the podcast

before.

Some

of the stuff that

they're doing in kind of terms

of scrutiny.

even things like,

you watch the post

office drama, you'll find that the mps were very involved with that story.

There is still a lot of quite unsung work

gets

done below

the cabinet level.

I think.

Absolutely.

I would say David Davis, who,

tour, not

natural bedfellows, he

Brexit

ear, but his record on,

libertarian

issues, particularly the

post office and now on Lucy Luby, he gets up,

makes himself unpopular.

He keeps the argument going.

There are

there.

Another,

Lord

Arbaugh,

who was mentioned

earlier in, in one of the sessions I went to Member of the House and Lords who

that story all the

way.

the post

story,

I'm absolutely

fantastic.

So yes, there

are, but I try not

mention them too often.

it

ends

lives.

terrific.

Shall we,

should

to another,

I'm seeing

there's

three,

right?

Anyway, any advance.

in advance on 25 pounds, please

this wonderful

bag of

NECA Gold?

Yes.

let's go to number three.

Thank you.

Do you think Mr. Trump will cancel the midterms

and do

you think Nicola Sturgeon will

cancel her visit to Hay

on Friday?

Oh,

because

she's running in the midterms.

I

think she's gonna set up in a massive camper Van.

Yeah.

With a

load of

coffee machines in the back.

Not

right.

And

the midterm, the midterms,

to

say briefly,

I think

he will try

and do a number of things

are below

that level.

So

already the Supreme

Court has, overturned quite a few bits

the Voting Rights Act, which is

one of the things that guaranteed minority representation all

the way through this year.

The Republicans

Democrats have

fighting

about gerrymandering, essentially to create lots more districts

themselves.

The Republicans

are currently winning

that war.

They,

are lots of state houses that have flipped to

many more kind

major like

Republican friendly districts.

So whilst I

think that the splashy headline thing of him essentially

declaring martial law in himself, supreme dictator

life,

I'm not ruling it out, but I dunno if he's necessarily got the attention span

be supreme

dictator

life.

but

I think there

are lots of fundamentally anti-democratic

happening in,

in America Yeah.

That we should be, that we should be

worried about.

Yeah.

Okay.

I just

wondered if you had any thoughts

about what

the Iranians

are doing with their Lego videos

having a go at

Trump.

unfortunately they're, really

And

I,

no, and I

don't mean that in a

moral sense.

They're verily antisemitic,

in

terms of the much up there with Kanye West, actually the te at a technical

craft level, they're excellent.

And I think it's one of the things that's really interesting is that I'm not

that

the

American establishment has quite got a grip

on the fact that actually

on

social media,

Israel is

very

unpopular.

Young

people are being

and

same

way.

We talk

about older

being,

maybe on Facebook deluge

with anti-immigrant videos.

So anybody under the age

of 25, their stream is

just

a huge amount of stuff.

And so there are people

in both the establishment wings of Republicans and Democrats who

just take that alliance Absolutely.

For granted.

And actually generationally, I

it's

really gonna,

that's really going to

over.

It's,

you are already seeing the effects

of that

in American politics.

And

those Iranian propaganda videos are absolutely part

of it.

They're incredibly, don't sing it 'cause it

is incredibly catchy.

And you will be singing it

forever and

but

they are, as I say, they preach, it's all

Epstein, it's

all, antisemitic conspiracy

money,

but it is also packaged in this

way that is very Gen Z coded.

And also,

the technology, they're displaying a sense

humour

and the

thing you want with your,

deeply

unpleasant, murderous

enemy

is not

for them to be funnier than you.

Yeah.

Always

It's the,

it's there room on the joke

writing team

the

Yeah.

IRGC.

Yeah.

Oh yes.

Okay.

We're

in absolute injury

time.

Let's have one

very

final one and

briefly, if

wouldn't mind number two.

Yeah.

What's the food like?

Are

the kitchen horses

do you

go somewhere else for

lunch now?

it was,

we've moved

due to a number

of incidents,

and

we've now, got a, much, much more, tolerant,

lunch venue

who only complain

if

some of our

guests, for reasons that I don't want to explain, get locked

the

toilet for hours together

and on.

I'll leave you

with that thought.

On that

note.

I think we're ending

as

we

started

Ally.

And

it

only remains for me

Before you go,

I

just say

a round

applause for these amazing

contributors?

How about

you?