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.
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.
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.