Hello and welcome to another episode of page 94.

We're obviously here to discuss the most important sporting event of the year,

the cage fight on the White House lawn.

Helen, you've been, oiling up.

Yeah.

Yes.

I haven't well spotted.

Better do that again.

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 Macqueen and Sarah Shannon.

We are here to discuss the most important sporting event of the year so far.

Obviously the cage fight on the White House lawn.

Helen, you've been observing these star Spangled Biceps.

What can you tell

I have.

not with the actual cage fighting bit because in a classic Trump, stitch

up the broadcast rights for that were exclusively given to not CBS

the thing that they own for that's free to air, but Paramount plus.

So you had, they were pay-per-view

what

actually, like monthly subscription fee and sure enough, the two people

who were in charge of Paramount, the Ellisons were there at the match and

are Trump donors and got his sign off for their merger with Warner Brothers.

And that is the story of the White House ca Front.

Yes.

Okay.

the main story is that the fact that it was, I've never seen a more taly

American occasion extra everything.

Imagine something that you think of as like Pique tasters American

Yeah.

Monster truck.

Yeah.

No, they had people jumping motorbikes, evil KL style of little ramps.

They had a weigh in where they flew a bald eagle over it.

They had a fly past when they were doing the national anthem.

This sounds so brilliant.

I am so subscribing to Paramount Plus now.

They had what?

the, they had the walk-in, started in the Oval Office.

So there's Yeah.

There's a great shot of one of the fighters staring at an

original copy of the Declaration of Independence, going Yeah.

Then turning around, walking past, the gold signage he's had put in the

Hall of Presidents with Biden and the Autopen, and then all the pictures

of it, and then out onto the octagon.

It was the campus thing you've ever seen.

It was amazing.

This is even before the lads were their tops

off

wrestling with each other.

Okay.

it

was, it was the most American thing you've ever seen.

Wow.

And, as and in not being for all Americans, only for those with a

particular Paramount Plus subscription.

exactly.

but for

American.

So the UFC paid for it.

So Dana White, who runs the UFC, he's a big Trump, long time Trump friend.

When that franchise was really struggling, it was banned for a long time in America

because it was seen as being too violent.

John McCain called it human cock fighting.

Who would've thought something called Ultimate fighting?

Wasn't we be violent?

But, Trump held, Trump let them hold matches in his casinos, essentially.

So he did Donna White favours

back in the day.

Donna White now said, look, we'll pay for all this.

We'll build the octagon.

We'll clean up the

octagon.

You won't have to, pay taxpayers won't have to, pay a penny.

Okay.

But essentially functioned as the most giant advert for UFC as a concept.

so it worked for him.

Trump invested in TKO holdings

after the.

Bout was announced only one of his smaller announced

TKO holdings being

the, MMA company Donna White's company.

Okay.

again, once again, I'm sure there'll be many ways in which the

Trump family will have got its beak wet as a result of about these men

cluttering seven bells out each other because that's how he rolls.

Mark Zuckerberg.

Was there another recent convert to the joys of being sweaty

and topless with other fellas?

it was allegedly part of America two 50.

Right.

But really it was America.

it was America's favourite president, Donald Trump's 80th birthday.

Right.

And someone did a great tweet, which was like, this is the

ultimate, he's Caesar maxing.

We have

Oh, I don't like that.

That makes me feel very queasy.

He had a peace deal with Persia, a gladiator fight in front of that.

The Imperial palace.

Yeah.

And then your elderly emperor and his sort of slightly useless sons all there.

Like it's that is that he has Caesar Max.

You can't take that away from him.

My god.

How did it E Caesar?

I can't remember just offhand.

Anyway,

we don't need to get too chin strokey about what does this mean about America.

but it is interesting that it comes the same within a day of the

announcement that there's a deal with Iran that's going to end the war.

supposedly with tremendous victory, although everyone

could see that it's not really

But it does tell you something very interesting about the MAGA movement.

All the posts about it were like, libs would say that they hate

this because, it's tasteless, but that's 'cause they hate America.

Trump's approval rating is bad.

Actually, only 18% of people said they thought it was an appropriate

time to be having a big cage fight on the White House lawn.

given that gas prices are so high, the economy's not doing particularly well.

So it was one of those kind of great moments like the election

night where it was just a lot of people exalting and owning the libs.

And oh, I tell you who won't like this.

which is the kind of animating glue of lots of bits of that.

And they're not happy unless they feel that someone else is upset.

Okay.

And, you can say that's, I think that's a little slightly decadent,

but it's, what makes them happy.

Andy's, and that's what we can say about the mega movement.

Apart from anything else, aside from any of the ideological occurrences.

They all just like the idea that they're upsetting.

Right.

Some tell you what this group of college professors

tell you what, this doesn't contain the Seeds of its own destruction.

Am I right Lan?

Yeah.

But, poor, Trump did go to a Knicks game and sure enough got booed at it.

fair enough.

That's in New York, which is just elected the Ramani as mare.

But, and he, once again, he looked a bit sleepy and, at the match you

could see once again the hand with the bruising covered up by my makeup.

So there is a definitely a kind of.

Elderly Caesar vibe going on.

Right.

I think he stayed awake throughout the whole of UOC, but then, they were firing

people out of cannons, stuff like that.

That's why the motorbikes and things were, it just came so

noisy that he wouldn't nod off A

bald eagle was, playing king on his shoulder the whole time.

Yeah.

And didn't they give, whopping great prizes from their

cryptocurrency firm to the fighters?

the, this comes back to actually, if you wanna look at the kind of who

actually rules the world, like the people who, sponsored this were ram trucks.

This is what I mean about it being almost like periodically

American Ram trucks and crypto.com.

And actually they had a, an advert on the side of the octagon for the Riyadh season.

Both of those sound like made up.

Yeah.

Things that they would put in the back of a film 'cause they

can't use the reel just a bit.

crypto.com.

Yeah.

Slightly more imaginative

maybe what we call a truck.

I dunno.

Big truck, hard truck.

Ram truck.

Ram truck, yeah.

Ram Truck.

Love it.

Is that

a good thing

you ram They izing the riyad season, which is the crown prince's

kind of big hoopla and having and inviting lots of cultural figures.

the Rio Comedy Festival that I went to and the Mr. Beast world and all that

kind of stuff all comes to Saudi Arabia.

So this is just, yeah, it was it, apart from anything else, it was

just a giant festival of people who've got business interests tied

up with Trump and the Trump family getting to have their big night out.

it was very hard to get a ticket.

They gave most of the tickets out to members of the military, but they

obviously had some of the Trump family there and there were some VIP packages and

then you could watch it from on the mall next to the, next to the reflecting pool,

which he's had repainted, although it's immediately covered over an algae again

'cause the drainage isn't sorted out.

But, there's, they've just announced there's gonna be an America two 50 rodeo.

Whoa.

See you better.

I love, now

we're talking.

Wow.

But they've had to cancel the series of concerts, because too

many of the singers kept pulling out because they had been sold.

It, this has been America's two 50 stuff, has been in the works for ages,

and there was a bipartisan commission that was in charge of doing it.

But then, Trump set up a competing one that was a very much a MAGA one.

and so as a result, the whole thing has become super partisan.

It hasn't so much become a celebration of America and its founding

ideals as like hail to the chief.

Basically.

The concert had some extraordinary people before they pulled out, didn't they?

they had vanilla ice who everyone forgotten existed.

And Milli Vanilli,

milli Van I know.

Which I thought

one of whom is dead and neither of whom were singers.

So it's an odd fan to it.

Find a book, isn't it?

Yeah.

Trump did this spectacularly petulant tweet, which was like, I

don't even want overpriced singers.

I'd much rather have a rally.

And then it concluded with going, I'm a bigger draw than Elvis was at his Pique.

Again, the question, how did that one end?

Yes, but it was, yeah, so he's had a little foot stomp, but this was

his, this, I think this was the one that he was really excited about,

right?

Because it was all military like guys standing around in uniforms.

The brass band, the, like everything that he loves.

bombast, pageantry and pomp.

Yeah.

We are not in a position to criticise.

'cause I watched the trooping of the colour on, Saturday just

going, what are we, what is this?

Why?

This is just extraordinary.

Yeah.

But the trooping of the colour isn't sponsored by, I don't know.

Ton's pick.

This is, or any other iconic British brand.

Still pretty camp though.

Those little gold

uniforms.

It's so funny in association.

But it had to be something really crap that was really like degrading.

It'd have to be like an association with a mode or something.

Did you really need the money guys?

Samist

Oh dear.

should we talk briefly about the Iran deal to,

tri

is he actually happening this time?

Yeah, because I feel like it's about 250 years of, Trump saying we're

gonna have a deal this weekend.

you can tell that all the European leaders are slightly, don't really

believe it until they see it.

'cause they keep saying it's very important, we must have toll free

access to the straight of poor news.

And that's one of the things that Trump has announced

will definitely be happening.

So the fact that they keep going, no, we really, what a great deal would

include would definitely be this.

Yes.

the timing of the announcement is another thing that people who specialise

in watching it do like to point out, which is that it came on Sunday night

before the markets opened, which almost every other week since the war began,

has seen Trump announcing on Sunday night, Hey, it's all over Terrific news.

This is at least a memorandum of understanding as it were, that we'll

have 60 days of further ceasefire.

even within it, Trump said this, the oil must flow immediately and then

said clarified later on, the oil's gonna flow as of Friday once the

Iranians have de mined the strait and subject to further agreements.

So again, it's a bit partial and a bit tentative and, it depends on whether

people are happy with insurance to go through the strait of ous now.

And the ceasefire so far has been one of the more shooty ceasefires,

isn't

it?

it, there's an

awful lot of sort of war stuff still going on.

Yeah.

Israel went and said, it's not, our ceasefire can't make us.

Yeah.

and, once it's, campaign in Lebanon excluded from it.

Anyway, the thing I think that's very worrying about it long term is essentially

what Iran has learned from this is that, Donald Trump doesn't have the stones

to actually put boots on the ground.

Yeah.

So he went in saying, we want regime change.

He hasn't got that.

He said, we don't want any nuclear weapons.

that was the whole point of the 2015 deal.

And actually he now doesn't have an inspection regime

as part of this necessarily.

And, he's also taught Iran that they have the most amazing bargaining chip

in the world to use against America, which is closing the straight poor news.

So what happens if in September as the midterms are coming up, they

just suddenly close it again and gas prices in America jump by a dollar

up, at the, and then at that point Trump is desperate for them to do it.

They will have the most incredible negotiating tactic.

So I, can't see this, the, if they had managed to institute

peaceful democracy and stop, Iran getting any nuclear weapons, then

that would've been good outcome.

What they essentially, to my mind have done is just wholesale advertise their

lack of commitment to a full scale war.

Yeah.

And this is the other thing we should say is that just to, to remind everyone

Trump's words at the beginning of the war, "finally to the great proud

people of Iran, I say tonight, the hour of your freedom is at hand.

When we are finished, take over your government, it will be yours to take.

This will probably be your only chance for generations."

Obviously, now the regime's in an even, it's, it suffered a lot

of damage, but it's in an even stronger position than it was.

But it's not only that, it feels like the Iranian people have rallied

behind or a lot of them in a way.

do you remember when, he made the threat about bombing them back to the

beginning of civilization or whatever it was, there were people turning

out in droves to stand on bridges and bits of infrastructure that they were

thought were gonna be targets, kinda making themselves into human shields.

It felt if you want to pull a people together, start bombing them,

especially a people that have been united against their government a

year earlier, nasa, a meany protest,

the IO to is looking

protest

the IO to is looking 40 years younger than he ever did.

we don't know, to be fair, no one's actually seen

anyway.

It's just, it is a, it's a sort of classic job result, isn't it?

Yeah.

It was a kind of, but it's interesting that people have finally learned

when he came out, when I've got this amazing piece deal, everyone went.

Alright, so we'll see how it goes.

the markets, as you say, rallied, but they've just rallied so many times.

You just, I've never seen people more enthusiastically ready to leave.

They so believe things that a mad bloke has just said to them.

the thing that's interesting is, yeah, to go back to the,

Iranian people rising up Yeah.

Is that does seem to have been something that was fed to them by Netanyahu.

We came over and did this presentation in the situation room, like a sort

of PowerPoint and he said, no, honestly, if you just do it, they're

just, they're gagging for it.

They're ready to rise up.

And that seems to have been the basis on which he's done it.

Trump's reaction was to blame the American people and to say, "I dunno

that America has the appetite to do what I would really much prefer

doing." This was a few days before the deal, such as it is, was signed.

Which is very, I'd love to new him, but, my people are cowards.

So it's,

it's really that he's just said some extraordinary things

in the last couple weeks.

He said, 'I don't care about inflation.' That was another great one.

I don't care about the economy.

'affordability is a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats.'

He's, as I say, he's, Seear maxing.

There's a new book coming out by two White House reporters, Maggie Haman

and Jonathan Swan, in which they have got essentially verbatim transcripts

of things that happen in the situation room, which is really quite cons, like a

level of leakage that is unprecedented.

Yeah.

Like word for word stuff.

So the, suspicion has to be that some people who are already looking ahead to

the post-Trump future are very keen to say that when terrible decisions were

made, they were not involved with them.

so there's a kind of meta play going on here as well.

but yeah, talking which both, Marco o Ruby and JD Vance were obviously at

the, obviously at the UFC as they're the kind of two heirs apparent as was

Did, they partake?

sadly they did not.

And Young Barron was there along with, the other sons, including the

one who got married last weekend and Trump didn't bother to go.

He'll go to this.

Forgot that.

Oh my God.

We'll, do you one way to source out the succession, wouldn't it?

Or get in the ring guys.

Barron would win.

Barron is like eight feet tall.

He take a lot of them.

He's, yeah.

But JD Vance has been looking much trimmer of late,

ah,

Helen.

We can't do Helen's pic watch every single before I of this podcast.

we should turn to the other biggest sporting engagement of the year so far.

which countries have we all picked or had forced on us in the eyes?

World Cup Sweepstake.

I'll go first.

Garner

Egypt.

Germany.

Oh,

Korea.

Who have won one match.

I see.

So

I think I'm

on my way.

if they keep going like that, they can't lose.

So we are here to talk about the World Cup, but we thought we'd

make it as Irish as possible.

So the latest, issue of the mag has, a World Cup theme.

And Sarai, you write a great deal about sport at the eye and this is a rather

unusual World Cup in that it's a lot larger, so it's a lot easier to get in,

but it's also quite a lot harder to get in to the country that's hosting it.

Is that fair?

I think that's fair.

Yes.

It's, there's never been more matches, more tickets available, but can you

actually get there to watch your team?

Iran is the sort of top story on this.

they can't actually even have their training camp in the country.

it is this extraordinary situation where the host Nation, and one of the competing

Nations is are at war with each other.

Yeah.

So Iran was supposed to be based in Tucson, Arizona, but they're now in

Tijuana, in Mexico, which is pretty much the last place any, Mexican

football team wants to be based.

'cause it's miles away from other footballing centres.

They've got really rough AstroTurf, but the local Mexicans are apparently

making them really welcome, cheering them when they come out to their hotel

and asking for autographs and so on.

Okay.

they're doing their best to make up for the lack of, welcome from the host,

but Trump said that, they couldn't come and stay in America because their

lives and safety would be in danger.

And

so,

this is element to the support staff, the training staff, the management

staff, basically, because various people have applied and not been allowed in.

Yes.

Some have reapplied

Yes.

And then got in on appeal,

but, so it's very Messi.

So the Iranian, yeah, the Iranian, football federation president,

he's not allowed in because of his, links to the IRGC.

there's lots of other support staff that couldn't be there.

they, were going to do their press conference in LA yesterday, and some of

the press team hadn't been allowed to go.

So somebody said, who's gonna be advising them on tactics,

in terms of press tactics?

And, they said, perhaps the kitman might have some advice for them.

but anyway, yeah.

So it's been a, rocky road for them to get here for sure.

their star striker, also wasn't picked for the team because he has spoken

up about women's rights in the past.

two of them matches are gonna be in Los Angeles, which is the sort of

home of the huge Iranian diaspora, about 375,000 Iranians live there.

I think there's an

area of Los Angeles that they called Terror Angelis.

'cause there's so many Wow.

Iranians that live there.

Yeah.

So they all want to go along and protest against the Iranian

government and wave their pre-revolutionary sun and lion, flags.

But that's not gonna be allowed.

because FIFA won't allow political statements to be made unless it's, Gianni

Infantino in a magaha, then it's okay.

these are not the only people who've been had their access

to the World Cup restricted?

No.

four countries are under total travel bans.

There's Iran, Haiti, ivory Coast, and Senegal.

So none of their fans can go.

And then there's other countries that have found it incredibly

difficult to get, visas to go.

countries like Ghana, Congo, Cape Verde.

And just to prove they're not only anti African countries.

Uzbekistan's also found it really difficult to get

visas to go to the World Cup.

yeah.

And then there's this, Somali referee, Omar Artan who, he had a diplomatic visa.

He had a single entry visa to get into the, the us.

He would've been the first Somalian to have, referee to World Cup game.

So it was a, big deal.

But he arrived, at Miami Airport.

He was questioned for 10 hours.

and then he was told no he had to go home.

And Andrew Giuliani's, son of Rudy, who is, leading Trump's

us World Cup task force.

Okay.

he said that

yes,

of course he is.

Yeah, of course he is.

he said that, we can't let somebody in that might have been talking to

terrorists or might even be a terrorist, but U UA for the European, football.

People who are a bit more sensible, have basically done as a kind of an FU

to, to Trump and FIFA and US customs in general have said, why don't you

come and officiate at the UA for Super Cup final, which is in August.

one

man's terrorist is another man's top referee.

Is some of this about being a very ostentatiously tough

on immigration though?

Because there was an issue with, was it the Iranian women's team?

Some of them defected and then un defected at a recent match.

Yes.

That was in Australia, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

the, I really feel for the players 'cause they're in a really lose situation I think

because if they say anything that even remotely hints at the fact that they might

not love their regime, they're gonna be in enormous trouble when they get home.

And if they say anything that's pro the regime, they're gonna have

all those Iranian Americans in the LA stadium shouting at them.

and then they've got another issue, which is that the, they've got two,

two matches in Los Angeles and then they've got one in Seattle and that's

been designated as a pride match.

and they're playing Egypt so it couldn't be more perfect.

Really

lose appropriate teams in the world.

Yeah.

And apparently they did ask that it could be undesignated a pride match,

but for once FIFA decided to do the right thing and they stuck to their guns

and it still built will be, a, pride.

Rainbow lace is all around.

settlers are very notoriously LGBT cities.

Exactly.

See where they pick that.

But presumably, my, I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say it.

We won nauseatingly sickly pre-roll video about how inclusion is great and

everybody should be like, valued Yes.

And then nothing and then no, no money to LGBT organisations.

Nothing.

Yes.

At which point the Iranian and Egyptian, teams would all stare at their shoes.

So Does any of this politics over the Visa stuff and, all, of these

different difficulties, does any of this affect whether this is

a successful World Cup or not?

And does a successful World Cup, does that definition change

depending on whether you're the USA or FIFA or Canada or Mexico?

I know,

the US definition of a successful World Cup, it's hard to say because it's not

as big a deal for them as it is for us.

it is, it's their sort of, they've got four sports that they watch more than

they would watch soccer, even with their big Hispanic communities and everything.

but making lots of money is FIFA's primary concern.

So it seems, and they're going to do that.

They're, going set to make $13 billion out of this World Cup, which

is pretty incredible considering that the Qatar World Cup in 2022,

they made I think around 7 billion.

So that's pretty good inflationary rate.

So where's, that coming from?

part of it is because they've got so many teams this time, they've

got, 48 teams instead of 32.

so there's all those extra matches to sell broadcasting

rights, sponsorship, and tickets.

and the ticket pricing has become a really controversial issue.

They're doing dynamic pricing, aren't they?

Like the big scandal with Oasis.

Yeah, exactly.

When people suddenly found that tickets were way more expensive

than they were when they first

got

on the phone call to, to Y one.

Yes.

Dynamic pricing is amazing for a business because, you've absolutely

maxed out your profit, but it's terrible for spectators because Yeah.

You just have no idea.

You know what, there's not nothing transparent about the

price that you're going to pay.

Yeah.

you just have to,

and there have actually been a lot of empty seats visible at

the early matches, haven't there?

Yes, exactly.

Infantino said that all tickets were sold in one of his typically grand statements.

Yeah.

But then where are all these empty seats coming from?

And they say, presumably it doesn't matter if they're standing in the

concourse, but I don't think so.

Presumably, it doesn't matter if the people who are in those few seats are

paying kind of $3,000 a shot for them,

Exactly.

You

make the same amount of money.

Yeah.

And across so many matches, there's 103 matches compared to 64.

So all the non-football fans have got a lot to look for.

And of course, three countries as well.

we shouldn't forget, even before the Iran stuff, this was being co-hosted

by America and one Nation that he's constantly accused of, of putting

their rapists and their criminals and their worst people, over the border.

And one which he's threatened to invade on.

Ations has he, which was quite mad to start

with.

Yes.

that's the irony of the Iranian team being based in Mexico where they are safe.

yes.

Apparently, rather than the USA where they're not.

I wonder how much of this is about sports betting, though.

So it's been a, there's been a massive success in the last few years

since the Netflix documentary Drive to Survive bringing Formula One.

Do you have to

announce it like

that

drive to survive?

I can't Watching Clarkson's farm over the weekend, sorry.

It's ruined me.

But, and at the same time, the rise of, of sports betting just huge legalised a

couple of years ago in the US and just people are raking in money from it.

Yes.

And I think that therefore the, desire to expand the number of sports.

And therefore the amount of sports betting that goes on is must be enormous.

'cause they had the Club World Cup, didn't they?

In America?

That, which was a completely random occasion

Yes.

With Trump, handing over the trophy

Yeah.

As he's intending to do for this one.

he hasn't really been, he hasn't been seen a World Cup match yet.

But he is supposed to be there.

He's been wearing for peace prize medal.

Exactly.

He's he puts get put, you know how they put a star on the, shirts when,

depending on how many World Cups you want, he can presumably add bars to

his fipa Peace prize medal for every

War

stop.

Or that he's ended and or Star,

Yeah, yeah.

But, there's a piece in the latest tie Yeah.

in the money column.

Yes.

in the back, which is all about the amount of money flooding into

the World Cup from the Middle East.

Yes.

And so this is another thing apart from Yes.

Expanding the number of matches and the number of tickets and all of this.

Yes.

The money coming in the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

Yes.

Saudi Aramco.

Qatar Airways.

Yes.

There are lots and lots of new sources, new revenue streams for FIFA.

Yes.

Predict Street, which is a Abu Dhabi based predictive trading platform.

Yeah.

they're also a sponsor.

So yeah, the Gulf money has kept pouring in.

they always talk about the legacy of sports tournaments, but I

don't think they really mean that.

the 2022, Qatar Tournament had a legacy of still waking in

a lot of money from the Gulf.

Infantino can top up the coffers with that.

So he's got the broadcasting money, the ticket money, and the sponsorship.

And there's also a, an extra little tweak that he's managed this time,

which are the hydration breaks.

No, love the hydration break.

Love the one they were having in the Canadian when the matches

that was being held in Canada, where it was genuinely like colder

than

here.

And you're like, they've just turned it into quarters.

Like an American.

Exactly.

So hydration

breaks, can you fill me in?

halfway through each half now they, they stop play.

they have a three minute break for hydration.

There used to be allowed hydration breaks at the discretion of the referee.

So if people were turning p and fainting because it was 40 degrees, then maybe

they'd let them have some water.

But now it's absolutely standard.

And they said it was easier to make it standard.

not BBC, obviously, ITVI notice stuck a quick competition for some World

Cup tickets, in their hydration break.

But on Fox Sports, it's been really annoying viewers because, the first match

at Mexico, South Africa, they actually overran the, hydration break with the ads.

They came back and two

hydrated when

they were, yes, it's got five goals.

They came back and they were, already playing.

So that was very, annoying to.

To the view it is.

I've been living in a household with someone who is expressed a

desire to watch every single game, which I think he may bail out on.

He's got to hold out a job, at least for the next couple of weeks.

But, it does stop.

It stops the run of play.

This is the kind of yes phrase that gets said in my household now and

we nod sagely about the run of play.

However, they have come up with a different role, which is about the

fact that you can't piss about with throw ins for a really long time now.

So they found another way to speed up the game.

Right.

But essentially they have made the game worse in order to

serve the needs of advertisers.

Yes.

Which is pretty much Pique

and it does change the way the game is played.

So your right momentum's stopped.

Morocco a beating Brazil, they have a hydration break.

They get some really good advice from their coach and

they go back out and score.

It's, it's not the way things are supposed to be.

Right.

You don't have the full tension of the half.

is all of this now locked in for future World Cups?

I think so.

I feel like once the genie outta the bottle, hydration

breaks will become a thing.

I,

I mean in Saudi Arabia they,

yes.

They'll have to be, it might be necessary.

Yeah.

Hell's in a hot place, but

Helen's

right.

Air conditioned stadiums, they're gonna need that.

Yeah.

Germany, Kura South the other night had, a roof and air conditioning, but it still

needed a hydration break, apparently.

And they're having a

halftime show in the final, so it'd be like a Super Bowl.

Oh, that's good.

I like that bit.

Shakira

is coming off.

Yeah, bunny was fantastic.

Yeah.

Shakira and Madonna.

I think we've got through almost a whole section without referring to any actual

football, which was always my secret aim at the start of this is to talk only

about the things surrounding football.

Does all of this sully the really good name of FIFA, as a completely

impartial and benevolent sporting body?

Or was this always gonna be the trashiest least fan friendly World Cup ever?

I think, you always hope that once the action gets underway Yeah.

And the knockouts start, yeah, the excitement builds and people get into it

and forget about all the politics, but I don't know that the time differences

really anti them in this occasion.

And I think there's so much bad taste left by the ticket prices

and all these visa exclusions.

It's, gonna be a hard one to get over this time.

I think

who's, getting it next?

so 2030 is a real mishmash.

It's Portugal, Spain, Morocco, and some centenary matches in South America.

Okay.

Which had the advantage of basically meaning that Europe, Africa, and South

America were outta contention for the 2034 World Cup on basis of the rotation system.

You're not suggesting, so some kind of grubby fix up.

Then luckily Saudi Arabia stepped forward, for the

Wow

2034 World Cup

and we should just congratulate the Saudi Public Investment Fund once again.

Yes.

For their hearty investment.

So there's a by-election coming up in Maker Field and it seems like the

Daily Mail might have started something that it can't quite control Adam.

yeah.

No, the, situation is that the latest, the latest polls in, in, in Manfield show

that it's it's basically a two horse race.

it's, Andy Burnham's labour as opposed to new labour.

That's what they're now called Andy Burnham's Labour, versus, versus Nigel

Farage's, reform but Restore are coming right in there on polling, five to 8%

in the polls, which is not gonna be enough to, get their candidate in his

mp, but it is potentially gonna split that vote on the right to take votes

away from Nigel Farage and, and, let Andy Burnham win by an even larger margin.

We dunno what's gonna happen, definitely yet, but that's, what the polls

are showing at time of recording.

Yeah.

And now this is worrying a lot of people who, specifically I'm gonna come down to

the, the, Daily Mail, who after years of serve, telling readers the country's being

swamped by immigrants and, and, wokeness.

And what's really needed is a return to firm hard line conservative values, as

suddenly surprised, fun, actually, the people might have been listening and they,

might actually wanna vote for that kind of thing as represented by Rupert Lowe.

there's been the most extraordinary coverage over the, last few

days of time of recording.

they've basically noticed something that private eye's been pointing

out about Rupert Lowe and his outfit and his acolytes for a while,

which is quite a lot of 'em are quite unpleasant, racist people.

the email on Sunday Splash last weekend was, restore activists at White, white

Supremacy Summit, reporting that, what they described as a hardened neo-Nazi

was campaigning for restore in, maker afield, also a neofascist and ethnic

cleansing extremist, someone who, not only wants mass deportations, which

is, Rupert Lowe's policy anyway, but, that to include all Jewish people

as well, or an awful lot of Jewish

people.

Oh, fashion.

Nice to see return to traditional,

old, school neo-Nazis, these people, old Nazis.

You might, we could probably take the neo off, couldn't we?

yeah.

restores, spokesman told the male on Sunday that this was totally

irrelevant and the hit piece, it was undoubtedly a hit piece.

Yeah.

but I would question the total I rece of it.

So a lot of this seems, quite relevant to me.

I might, well to, to, to male readers as well.

But, it didn't stop there.

there was an editorial right in the middle of the story, which was quite an

unusual thing in the mail and where they actually kinda box out an editorial,

whack it right in the middle of the story.

Yeah.

Said how can any reasonable person vote for Restore in Thursday's by-election?

And especially how can anyone support Restore when doing so?

Who can help propel the labour left?

Great.

Red Hope Andy Burnham into Downing Street.

So it's kind.

Yeah.

We've told you there neo-Nazis and fascists, but actually the

real worry here is getting Andy, Burnman again as the relevancy kind

of issue here, I would suggest.

So is it, that the papers have been flirting very heavily with,

Farage and with Reform UK And now they think their readers have gone

too far or taken this to heart

essentially.

I think that's it.

We talked about this before about, the slight irrelevancy anyway of newspaper

endorsements for political parties, but in this day and age, but the, both the,

the male and the Telegraph even more so have been moving very far, further to the

right Notori party and kind of lionising Nigel Farage for quite a while now.

Helped by the fact that he, turns out reams of copy for them and lots

of op-eds, for, both of those papers and anyone else that will have him.

the mail is now in a really, odd position where they've convinced

themselves that what has to be done is to unite the right as they're calling.

they, actually have that as one of their little stamps that they

put on stories unite the what like now seems to have turned into in

Charlottesville, but not those ones.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

and they, think the answer to all this is that Bay Knock and Nigel Raj should,

form a great marriage of convenience and everything we want actually bizarrely

described by Sarai Vine, male and male on Sunday columnist last weekend as

turning them into the John Travolta and Olivia Newton John of British politics,

if you can imagine such an image.

there you go.

But yes, this is something, hell, how, honestly likely do you think

a pact between the two of them is,

I'm still so stuck on Olivia Newton John and which one of

them has got the Hairpiece?

Kelly Ock spoke to Tim Shipman as the Spectator and he said, she's, she know

she's wavering, she's not ruling out.

She sub came out and said, no, I really do.

I really absolutely do.

So they have the exact same problem as if you remember the kind of

labour SMP stuff in 2015 that they, voters don't want to hear that vote

someone and you get someone else.

Yeah.

What I see that mail thing is a classic pre-election squeeze message.

So from the point of view of the mail, whether you're supporting, reform or the

Tories, what you most want to happen is you wanna max out the vote as it was,

reform a vote now, and get the Reform MP defeat Andy Burnham humiliation for him.

He's knocked out labour.

Then have to either continue an unpopular Prime Minister and Stama or

have some kind of leadership contest with other people who were also

stagger on Limp on, and then the Great victory in 2028 is won by the right.

That's their kind of game plan.

What they absolutely don't want is restore to come and nibble a huge

chunk out the side of, reform.

Yeah.

Get lay anti Burnham and then the terrible fear, not that he's too

left wing, but that he's good.

and people like it, that, and then, and therefore they reelect a labour

government again at the next election.

I think it's gonna be, this is a preview of, lots of stuff that's gonna happen in

the next general election, which is that you are just gonna have lots and lots

of squeeze messages and every race will be tried to, people will try and get it

down to such and such can't win here.

That's gonna be quite complicated in lot of seats.

It's not in this one, and it wasn't in Gorton and Denton as it turned out.

What seems quite clear is that the, papers are becoming much less relevant in this.

the whole restore phenomenon is down to Rupert Lowe's.

Extremely high popularity on all kinds of social media to a certain extent.

Twitter, where he's, he's backed by Musk very heavily

and gets an enormous income from Twitter as well.

He

gets big

income, his money from that in a big way.

Tens of thousands of pounds every year.

But we've been told for a couple of years that Nigel Farage, and

more recently Zach Polanski, are extremely good on social media.

Actually.

Rupert Lowe has, has been, surprisingly in places like Facebook and it's

where he's been pitching himself much softer than a lot of the rhetoric,

and a lot of his far right supporters would have you believe he's presented

as a kind of country squire.

He has a farm.

There are lots of interest of him, with his animals on the farm.

I think that's very telling when you read the, Daily Mail copy about Tommy Robinson.

So the backstory to this is that Tommy Robinson went to Moscow via

Turkey, where he hung out with Errol Musk, who is Elon Musk,

the even more racist musk.

very rum father.

and from there was as ever interfering in British politics.

When he came back, he was detained at the airport in question for, on the basis

that, we are essentially at war with Russia through Ukraine and the, editorial,

the Daily Mail that wrote against, who would let this manage their party ni

like Nigel Ra has always had a red line.

if you're ever a member of the bmp, you're not in my party.

I'll not let Tommy Robinson in my party.

Which is what Precipitators falling out with Elon Musk.

But Rupert Lowe did this magnificent thing where he's I'm anyone's welcome to join.

I'm not in charge of who joins my party.

what?

Of course you are.

Like, it's, that's not how parties work.

But anyway, they had the essential line of that Daily Mail article was

he's a petty mortgage fraudster and a yobo and what was the word they used?

I don the

phrase they used was a 'bigoted and deeply sinister hoodlum'.

A hoodlum!

Which, a hoodlum.

Yes.

it's thuggery.

it's, definitely a kind of class orientated thing that he's the

unacceptable face of, of, yery and extreme, whiteness, which, Rupert

Low, which is basically landed gentry.

He's got a 550 acre estate in, Gloucestershire with an awful lot

of bonds he's trying to convert for to, into very, expensive houses.

Huge shepherd's huts.

Yeah.

Bigger than Shepherd Hut.

Very

700,000 pound shepherd's huts.

so he's much more to, to, to the Daily Mail.

I think, he's, he'd always been seen as more accept.

he, was reform mp.

They certainly never objected to him at that, point.

But, yeah, I did think that was really, interesting.

The other thing that I thought was really interesting, 'cause this continued into

Monday's Daily Mail, with, we had another front page splash, which just said,

restore is the new home for neo-Nazis.

Brilliant unequivocal there, which was based on this, Rupert Low

saying, and Tommy Sso was welcome to join the party if you wanted.

they ran another, it was a very odd piece because it read like an

op-ed, it read like a, an editorial line that columnists would take.

they, it, conclude It was, basically a, kind of portrait of, of Tommy

Robinson and his, past career in always criminal convictions and things.

but it ended with, the words 'anyone on British soil with eyes in their head

and more than a couple of brain cells to rub together, can see him for the toxic

hate fueled rabble rouser that he is'.

No sort of messing around there.

But it was unsigned.

It was bizarre.

It seemed like an opinion piece.

And it literally, the byline at the top of the page read 'Daily Mail Reporter',

which is very odd, I can only think of there's, two possible reasons for this.

One is that Tommy Robinson and his supporters tend to go after people

who displeased him in the media.

cause he's a charming man like that.

so it's possible they're just trying to protect their jo.

we've talked before about how there is a, non-existent journalist on the

mail online called Melody Fletcher, who essentially does all of their reports

on people like Taylor Swift and Money.

Millie, Bobby Brown and looking old have these very, that's

what they said about it.

We just say, that's not what we're saying.

No, I'm just saying the Daily Mail

that basically people who have a kind of rabid online fan base who they

know will told individual journalists on social media and come after.

So they did, put this fake byline on it.

But, yeah.

So if it's possible, it was that, but I wonder what sort of backlash

they got on the Sunday from their readers and whether they're actually

worried about or not their readers.

Presumably, or amongst those five to 8% of people in Manfield and

elsewhere who are thinking maybe, Rupert Lowe is the way forward.

There is an, there is another interesting element, which is that,

restore seems to be doing quite well among women and they are promoting

themselves very heavily without, we want to protect British women and girls.

The subtext is pretty clear, from foreign invaders, basically from being assaulted

by foreigners and Reform have been pushing that very hard at their own conferences.

But I think, reform's candidate, with his long record of Sexist comments

has, has put women off quite a bit restorer saying, look, we've got a,

our candidate's a woman, she's called Rebecca Shepherd, and we'll do the

thing to pr to protect British women.

So I think that might be another,

I should say as well, Rupert Lowe has made that absolutely his specialism.

And ironically, I'm now talking over a woman, so I'm gonna stop.

And

I was gonna say, the irony is that Carol Borman then wrote a letter to

all the constituents, telling them that, Robert Kenyon was actually really

misogynistic and pointing out some of his past comments and saying, do

you want a sexist to represent you?

So she's boosted restores vote Among women who've gone, no, you're right Carol.

I'm gonna vote for that Restore woman.

She's a nice 53-year-old businesswoman that lives locally and

Right.

Yeah.

ripple Low is very much made that his kind of cause, called Celebra, I

guess in a way is the grooming gangs.

He's run his own supposed independent inquiry Yeah.

Into, all of that, which I think is, due to report any imminently.

yeah, he's made that very much his issue.

At the same time that Nigel Farage and others have been very nice

about Andrew Tate, who as far as I can see are mixed race Muslims

accused of running agreement gang.

Some are saying that maybe they're, they have some double standards in operations.

yeah.

Should say that Andrew Tate has denied all charges.

Thank

you.

We should note as well that all of this has very visibly and, obviously pushed

Nigel Farage further to the right.

a lot of the comments recently, the, pure cold anger after the trial of

the killer of, Henry Novak and, the essay that he wrote over the weekend.

Yeah.

He's got a substack now in which he wrote a piece and it used very,

MAGA type language about DEI and the, his big campaign is now against

the Equality Act, basically saying that there is anti-white bias.

Right.

And you hear it a lot.

and it was, the Noack case was really interesting because, he wasn't,

he was a Polish extraction, right?

It couldn't be framed in the way that Nigel Farge would normally

frame it, which is about, like this, about British identity that's,

under threat from minority groups.

It then transmuted from that into white and white European

values are under threat.

I, think this is also a response to the fact that immigration

has dropped like a stone.

So I think the latest net figures, it's down by about half.

And that's not because of British nationals leaving.

That's because of many fewer non-EU nationals arriving.

it's due to many fewer people who are studying, bringing their families

with them, this kind of thing.

So immigration's salience has dropped, and I think the focus is now moving in an even

more unpleasant way to people of different skin colour who are already here, which

is what's driven a lot of restores saying, we're gonna just kick out millions of

people, many of whom will legally be here.

And yeah, I, guess you're right in the sense of the inflow, and actually

this, we seem to have had some success with the French in stopping

or not stopping the small boat.

Small boat crossings are down 40% year on year, 40% in, a year.

That's pretty good.

But the issue that you do have is obviously that, that we are now coming off

the several years of, record immigration.

Yeah.

So there will be people still in the country.

And the other big, focus that seems to be now is about social housing.

I really understand it because it is incredibly unfair that some people

essentially get a golden ticket and get to live in central London for 650

quid a month or whatever it might be.

That is a, it's something that successive governments have failed to address.

The fact that housing is too much for young people.

But what's clearly happening is that reform and restore and

their kind of online outriders are turning that into a classic.

And because it's, all gone to foreigners essentially.

that, when in London where you do have a lot of foreign born heads of household.

That is, I think that is a, I think that is a message that could resonate

with young people because you're talking about Restore and Facebook that is

essentially targeting people 65 and over.

Yeah.

There's an attempt to find a message that will resonate with Nick 30 ons,

if the, online jargon about this.

But essentially, young people who feel locked outta opportunities

when we, at the moment we have a, younger generation who are much more

likely to be voting green, right?

If they're looking at labour and thinking there's something wrong

with them, that they're going to the left rather than to the right of them

so we're not gonna predict the outcome of the by-election, but I

believe there is going to be maybe a special episode soon afterwards.

Maybe a bonus episode of this very podcast.

Is that right?

It's

not promising anything.

Okay.

But,

could happen.

Could be an emergency,

an emergency podcast.

There is no

such thing.

It's an emergency.

No

emergency has ever occurred to which a podcast is the

solution.

No, quite right.

But there is an emergency issue of Private Eye on News stands

right now, as there always is.

So if you'd like it, you could just go into your local news agent or

supermarket and get a copy of the magazine you can also get a subscription

to the magazine@privatehypheni.co.uk.

Subscriptions are unbelievably reasonably priced.

A single issue of the magazine will set you back far less, than a month

of cage fighting on the White House lawn or whatever it is you were

saying, Helen So that's it for today.

Thank you very much to all of you for listening.

Thank you to Helen, Adam, and Sarai for participating.

and thank you to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio for producing.

Bye for now.