Maisie: Page 94: the Private Eye Podcast.
Andy: Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94.
My name is Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here in the I studio with Helen
Lewis, Adam McQueen and Ian Hislop.
We're here to discuss the big events of the week's news, not least since the
last issue of the magazine came out.
And we should begin with the very biggest, of course, a new
day has dawned, has it not?
Or a new social media strategy.
Helen: Yeah.
Andy Burnham is our first, I say Instagram native prime minister,
which is quite yeah, an achievement.
But he has, he's done two things In his first week, one, he has done an absolute
blizzard of policy announcements.
And two, he's done a kind of blizzard of, media things.
So the most notable, okay, from an inside baseball perspective, is that
he has had every morning at 6:00 AM in lobby correspondence, inboxes, a
not embargoed policy announcement.
Now, there are probably several words in that sentence that you are
craving for me to explain to you.
So let me say, so the lobby first all policy for
Adam: a
Helen: story.
Okay,
Adam: who is this Burnham you're
Helen: talking about?
Okay.
That's not, it's not low work up.
So if you have a lobby pass, that means you are a journalist who works,
on the grounds of Westminster, the estate, the pa a parliamentary estate.
There are, in return for your greater access, you can wander around and kind
of buttonhole people in corridors.
You have to do a number of things.
Like you have to, for example, declare or interest, like where you
might have outside speaking gigs.
So it's understood that these are people with privileged special access
to politicians, and in return they have to cleave to higher standards.
They are very used to the idea that before anything gets
announced, they're told about it.
So they can, in the nicest way, go, are you gonna get the
money for that from them, mate?
Or, but you've already announced this twice, or whatever it might be.
Andy: Or, I presume just prepare a story for the next day's paper.
Okay.
Helen: Exactly.
but now, and so this is of course enormous amounts of grumbling
in the lobby, WhatsApp chat.
So Burnham has done very few traditional interviews, and also they've done this
blizzard of, media stories that have not been, they haven't played favourites
and given a bit to the Daily mail beforehand or whatever it might be.
And they've made lobby correspondence jobs harder.
Now, you may say still your tears.
Welcome to journalism where mostly people don't give you things on, a pla most
of the journalism that we do is things that other politicians particularly
would rather you didn't publish, rather things that you do want to publish.
But that has been very interesting, and it's a signal of intent, which is what you
always do as a politician in your first, a hundred days, whatever it might be.
And he's saying, actually, I think the way I'm gonna talk
to people is via social media.
You are the gatekeepers, you'll be old regime, and I
actually don't need you anymore.
Ian: and what do the new gatekeepers say?
Thank you very much for this, and then just put it up.
Helen: that, yes.
Okay.
So that's the other thing is there is another hidden reason why, for
all that politicians will complain about, oh, the lobby obsessed
with punch and duty personality.
they're all about grandstanding themselves.
There is a thing that one of the things that are very annoyed with the
lobby is that they say things like, and how are you going to pay for it?
Then Andy Vernon.
and Andy Burnham is already retreated into slightly what I think of as
small bean mode, which is for those of our internet persuasion, means
that he's a little wounded puppy dog.
And some people ask him questions about number 10 North, and he said, this
is, you being London centric critics.
And I've, the SMP of masters of doing this, this is you talking down Scotland,
you say, when you say things like, drug deaths are terrible in Scotland, or,
your educational achievement benchmarks have been com comprehensively failed.
And they say, why do you hate Scotland?
I'm gonna put that down as an early marker of something that I feel could
become annoying very quickly if it becomes, why do you hate the North?
Every time you say anything mean about Andy Burnham, but you are right.
The other problem with influencers is that they don't see their role
largely as asking hard questions.
So I've been, have you consumed any of the Odyssey Press tour?
You've been on Instagram?
I, and you'll have seen lots of it.
Yes.
But
Andy: I did reread the poem.
Helen: Yeah.
Okay.
That's a,
Andy: that's a very, that's a very old fashioned way of dealing with it.
Adam: I've consumed far too much odyssey discourse.
I've gone through the full thing in, a week.
I've gone on my own personal journey where I thought, this
actually sounds quite good.
I'd really quite like to see this to the point where I'm now
just shut up about the Odyssey.
I don't wanna hear anything more about this film.
Helen: Wow.
Okay.
I think it's a great film.
it's my very basic opinion.
I it.
Can we
Andy: get back to
Ian: the, vague reference
Andy: you had?
He had a 10 year plan as well.
Actually thinking about it now.
Nevermind.
Sorry.
Helen: Yeah.
Thank you.
Who will be the ccy of this government anyway?
Ian: Angela Rayna.
Helen: Thank you.
what's interesting about that is that the Odyssey Pretor follows the way
that now big movie Star press halls go, which is essentially, they don't
get asked questions by journalists.
Sometimes they do, but like actors always hated that because it's quite
hard to talk about acting and they don't wanna talk about their private lives.
What's now happened, and I think Bridgeton really pioneered this,
is they play games together.
So they've got the Odyssey cast to play like guess Who Together.
Or you do gimmicky things like you go on Hot Ones, which is a podcast where
you eat successively hotter chicken wings until you die, essentially.
But what's interesting about that is that's the format that
Auntie Burnham has learn from.
Because what you do is you, so the take the one of him and John Healy
eating pub snacks together, Where they had scampy fries and whatever
you might say, that's just silly.
Why am I watching two people?
The two things you get from that is we've got a policy about pubs, which
is what they were doing to talk about.
They're talking about their, business rate cut and pubs, and two, my chancellor
and I like each other enough that we can bear to be in the same room.
Yeah.
Imagine Blair and Brown eating pub snacks together.
I mean that
Adam: they did.
They do.
Do you not remember the ex cream time with the ice cream?
Ice cream where Tony had to buy an ice cream for Gordon
and pass it over with him and
Helen: tell him
Adam: ice cream and Gordon did that smile.
He was used to do it just didn't reach his eyes in any way whatsoever.
Helen: Yeah.
Yeah.
Ian: And neither mentioned the word flake at all, which I thought was very
Adam: restrained.
Andy: So is this a showmance.
Which you also get in Hollywood press tours these days.
Helen: Yes.
I think there's, for the shippers among us, they're going to ship John
Healy and Andy Burnham together.
Why you got this in my brain.
Andy: But so one of the, one of the clips that is doing exactly
the thing that you're describing, Helen is, where Andy Burnham did
a, there's a, guy called Max Manko.
He's Ukrainian.
He has a thing called the Career Ladder.
He climbs on a ladder, you climb on the other side of the ladder and he
asks you what you do for a living.
And you have, he has two minutes to guess what you do for a living.
He asks you lots of questions.
So this
Helen: was, I guess your first job actually, which is,
Andy: this, was with Burn normally with what do you do for Yes.
I think he,
Helen: that would've been quite easy
Andy: Yes.
Helen: In this.
Andy: No,
Ian: I'd quite like him.
Andy: so the answer of Andy Burnham's first job, which is probably why he
was so happy to do the, this interview, the Career Ladder one was that he
was a football pools collector going door-to-door, collecting for the football.
Helen: I know I wanna do some journalism, whether or not, 'cause it was the most
stereotypically northern thing you could, he was like, I was a, beagle in
enforcer, I was a cloth cap manufacturer.
Yeah.
Really though, Andy was it really?
Andy: some people have pointed out a lot of the comments under the video were, oh,
I didn't know we had a new Prime minister.
that is doing the job in a way.
Helen: that's what I mean.
That's why when it's thoughtful, it's
Ian: the bottom line of the job.
I know you
Andy: yeah,
Helen: he, when he talked about his cap on two pound cap on bus fairs, he went to
an influencer who's known as bus auntie.
Who's just obsessed with buses.
She, there's loads of content about buses.
whoever running this is doing quite a good job of picking opportunities
that speak to the thing, the theme of the day that they want talk about,
which is the old fashioned grid thing.
Reimagined for the new age.
Ian: But when Sunak tried to do this,
Helen: yes.
Ian: So we're talking about fuel.
He goes to a petrol station, has clearly never filled a car
before, didn't know how to do it.
He goes to a restaurant, oh, food, give it from people.
I mean it, why didn't it work for Sunak who had presumably people around
him who said, you must go on social media and it's working for Burnham.
Helen: I'm going to say the opposite of what you think I'm gonna say,
which is that Burnham is, faker than Sunak Rishi Sunak was, bless him, a
little nerd who loved playing chess and had an extraordinarily rich wife
and, was terrible at disguising that.
Andy Burnham is a man who has had an entire adult life spent in politics,
but is very, good at disguising that.
Ian: question?
So he's good at politics.
Helen: Yeah.
And the same way that Tony Blair was, he's very good at faking authenticity.
and I, that sounds incredibly pejorative, but it's a very useful, like he's,
approaching it as a profession and his profession is playing the Prime
Minister on telly essentially.
And that's hopefully you also are the actual prime Minister.
Yes.
That's the bit We'll have to wait and see whether thats true.
11-MIX-260727_1418: is
Andy: there is a, heaven forbid another war breaks out, is Bernard going to be
doing a fun thing from a cockpit saying, we're about to launch our first missiles.
what, how does this attitude of doing social media play into big, serious
policy stuff, I suppose is the question.
Helen: You say that, Iran has been putting out incredibly good inferiorly,
antisemitic bangers in order as part of its propaganda effort.
Yes.
I think there is mostly
Ian: involving Lego.
Helen: Yeah, but this, was this like you, your government's run by a paedophile.
They want you to die for Israel is one of the refrains.
and this, yeah.
Okay.
strong messaging, but
Adam: we're not advising this Randy, just to check,
Helen: are we, just to be clear on Burnham, tone it down.
But the point about that is that they have acknowledged that this is where
Iranians will be getting their news.
This is where Americans will getting in the news about Iran.
So instead of the supreme leader granting an interview to CNN, they get some 25
year olds in a bunker and they have to tear on to make Lego videos using ar
Ian: I'm not sure the supreme leader at the moment would give very good interview.
True.
I'm just saying, he has some problems.
Helen: Yes, it's true.
But in the same way that they've decided, that the, traditional sit down political
interview reaches people who already carry a huge amount about politics.
So Andy Burner was also on, he did his big first set piece interview
with Laura Kosberg on the BBC.
That's for the village.
That's for people in, the third sector who follow it.
Adam: But one thing I think is really interesting with that is they followed
the policy with that as well, because it wasn't on the whole interview I
think is going out on Monday night.
so it was, after we were recording this, but there was an extract, I think on the
Laura Kosberg show yesterday, on Sunday.
Yeah.
Dribs and drabs of that have been coming out like little packaged
up kind of social media pieces for several days now of junior Andy
Burnham on this, Andy Burnham on that.
So there is obviously a kind of real tactic.
As concentration spans, I suppose as well, isn't it?
One of these things might catch someone's eye when they're not
necessarily gonna sit and watch a full 20 minute, half an hour interview,
Ian: And she did behind the scenes.
So there was a lot of her walking about looking at the building
and seeing who else is in there and they shot it backwards.
So he and his wife walked into number 10.
So you hadn't seen for even that seemed to be calculatedly different.
Adam: Yeah,
Helen: This is a human being who exists is the message of
quite a lot of this content.
And you're exactly right.
People talk now about the clipping economy.
Most podcasts, even TV shows, they exist as clips.
they exist as 90 seconds on social media.
And he has, or his team have fully embraced that this is just a new
media environment now, which again, we can have a discussion about.
I looking at those first week's policies, I like the declaration of
intent, but it was essentially, I'm going to spend loads and loads of
money that I definitely have promise.
Absolutely.
100% I do.
And I think your point is exactly right, which is when he runs into his
first analogy of the winter fuel tax.
Or as you say, something that happens horr or one, a foreign, incursion or a
terror attack, or one of his ministers is caught with their hand in the till, then
suddenly happy, cheery let's have be on tambourine is going to feel a little bit
like, a little bit annoying at that point.
Adam: what you were saying about coming over authentically, even if that is
a political thing, Do you remember when Rich Sunna was asked whether
he preferred white or brown bread?
And his reply to that one is an example of what you're saying was, we have
all sorts of different bread in my house, which is immediately an elitist.
Oh, you're a sourdough.
Oh, you've got everything.
Who's doing your shopping for?
Andy: That was,
Adam: and the other one was Gordon Brown and Biscuits.
Do you remember Gordon Brown and the biscuits when he went on Mumsnet,
which again was one of these things that governments do periodically
where they say, we're gonna bypass the lobby, we're not gonna do that
mainstream colour political coverage.
He went on Mumsnet and was supposedly asked about what his favourite sort
of biscuit was actually, because this is so long ago and before this kind of
approach, the mums net moderator looked at that question and said, that's silly.
We're not even gonna present him with that one.
But it became an absolute part of it that he was the prime minister who couldn't
even say what sort of biscuit he liked.
Yeah.
and that became a sort of defining thing.
So it's very, dangerous.
people actually being themselves like Rishi Sunak was, can.
Very badly.
The jam joke
Andy: is just,
Adam: just sitting there, isn't it?
I can see why they do slightly avoid those things.
Andy: Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean the, the funny thing is during the Makerfield by-election, Andy Burnham
did, he went on a Reddit and he did the format, which is called Ask Me Anything.
Which is now very much the opposite of what he's doing with the press in general.
Helen: But that's interesting too.
So there was a really good piece in the New York Times by David Pluff, who was
Kamala Harris's campaign strategiser He's a former, Obama strategist.
And he said basically, you need to, if you're a politician, think of
yourself as a content creator now.
Like you are con your con like permanent campaign, create content.
And one of the things he said that was, I thought was really new was
that politicians and everyone else used to optimise for search engines.
search is basically dead, right?
Google search is now giving you an Google answers panel.
Now you have to optimise yourself for answer engine IE large language models.
So Reddit for example, signed a deal with I think ai, one of the
AI companies to licence all their content to be used as training data.
So what Andy Burnham has done by giving that Reddit ask me anything
is when you go in and you ask any of your, one of your search engines,
which are now essentially AI engines, what is Andy Burnham's bus policy?
One of the sources it will draw on is him giving you his
version of what the bus Yeah.
Andy: What
Helen: the bus policy is.
And that's why going on YouTube, which again, all of YouTube transcripts are
used to train ais, Is really important.
it was quite, it was very policy focused.
it was a hell of a lot more substantive an interview than you'd get from
the lobby who would be asked to by their news desk to go and go like,
but you hate Angela Rayna, don't you?
Or whatever it might be.
Ian: that seems to be even more of an argument to, , having a traditional
group of people who are licenced to ask questions that you get a direct
and therefore, , real answer to
Andy: some sort of gatekeepers.
You're saying some gatekeeper method might be useful.
Helen: say something that will get me in trouble with lots of my very dear
friends who are lobby correspondents who I think do a really hard job.
It's an un in many ways.
if, unless you're a polled and you are waning around on television all the
time, it's quite a hard and unglamorous job that involves a lot of nights away
from home, traipsing around to ask hard questions in the rain of, politicians.
However, it has not been a job that has broken stories about politicians.
If you can think about all the resignations that we've had, or stories
that have got politicians in trouble.
Most of 'em have come from outside the lobby.
So I'm not fully won over on the view that actually this will be terrible
for democratic accountability.
Because actually, if you think about Nigel Farage's finances, for example,
that was Gabriel Pogrond in the Sunday Times Insights team, the, the lobby
have a really important function, which is asking immediate questions.
and keeping on the ball with stuff and following things day to day.
They don't really have the time and breathing space to
do those investigative pieces.
Adam: Got to say though, they haven't excelled themselves
in recent weeks, have they?
I'm thinking back to, the who's gonna be chancellor and who's
gonna get what position in, in, in Andy Burnham's cabinet.
do you remember it was gonna be Ed Miller abandon, then it
was gonna be Shabana Mahmud.
Do you want
Andy: Shabana?
I read it in the FT and I haven't bothered
Adam: it.
Checking.
Absolutely.
Certainly.
I,
Andy: I, I haven't checked since, that story came out.
So How's she doing?
Adam: She's doing brilliantly.
She's still home secretary.
we literally, we got to the point where we had, John Reul writing an independent,
what the Choice of Shabana Mood tells us about the new PM two days before
Shabana mood wasn't made chancellor And that was after a lot of think pieces
saying that, ed Milliband was definitely gonna be the chancellor as well.
Do you remember David Milliband was gonna come back and be a
foreign secretary in the Lords?
That was a, that was a story broke and I think originally been the
Eye paper by Caroline Wheeler who followed up a week later.
Even more amazingly guess who else was coming back?
Ed Balls back on the Red benches and possibly going into the cabinet.
it felt a bit like people sticking pins in randomly.
Andy: can I check something about this?
Because the first paper to break the Shaban Mahmud will be
Chancellor's story was the ft.
And I think I, I think they had three sources all, relatively
close to place telling them this is definitely going to happen.
Ian: But those sources were not people who knew anything, which is, one of
the keys I've found with sources.
Adam: on that story about Ed Bulls I just mentioned in terms of
sourcing, the, the exact quote he had was a source said, I haven't
heard anything about Ed coming back.
Andy: Okay,
Helen: so I
Adam: make what you with of that one.
Helen: There are a couple of things going on there though, which just
speaks to how the lobby works.
So one of those is the flying a kite.
It may be at some point that somebody thought, should we have Shabana Mahmood
or Ed Milliband And they thought, let's see whether or not business
leaders vomit and throw you, like cry when we say Ed Milliband's name.
And then they go, okay, they do.
So you get used, I think to, or there is this concept of the
kind of the beat sweetener, have you heard this phrase before?
Yeah.
Which is the idea that somebody wants something from you, so you
say something nice about them.
so you remember for a long time if you used to hear a lot of things about how
amazingly insightful Michael Gove was, and I dunno if it was entirely unrelated to
the fact that Michael Gove was very happy to take journalists phone calls, right?
So a lot of the time when people are really lovely about Donald Trump,
it's also because Donald, they want Donald Trump, who let's be honest,
is a man who responds to flattery to pick up the phone to them, right?
So that one of the things that I think is difficult people outside
the lobby to understand is how much of that is a transactional business
and down payments on future stories.
And it can be very easy to feel that's working against the interest
of readers because there's all this stuff happening in the background
that you don't know about.
Adam: When your job relies entirely on access.
it's very useful.
But it's, as you say, it's a two-edged sword as well, isn't it?
Because you are, you end up being compromised on what you,
what you can write, Because of the favours you owe to people.
Ian: and we have had a run of governments whose cabinets are fantastically good
at, leaking stories about themselves, which appear as friends of Yeah.
X say, not only is he utterly brilliant, he's gonna be chancellor and the
story has one source, which is the person who wants to be chancellor.
Yes.
Helen: which is they have, which I wonder about that David Milliband story.
I wondered if David Milliband thought David Milliband should
come back as foreign equity.
I don't, I have to say, I have no insight into that.
I
Adam: mean, so the thing you also know that if David Milliband is
gonna nailed on for a job, then it's gonna go to Ed instead.
And as it happened, Milliband is now foreign secretary, so that's two down.
Can we,
Helen: you'll hear people inside the lobby say quite notoriously, if there is
a story from such and such person, it will go to such and such a journalist, Certain
people are very plugged into certain And then sometimes they go on and write
their biographies or whatever it might.
Might be.
I think you, one of the things I think people would be quite shocked
by a story, that we reported at the time was that at one point the Prime
Minister spokesman in Boris Johnson lied to the lobby about party Gate
just lied flat out to their faces.
And when he left, they got him a leaving gift.
That's quite, that's you bit chummy bit I a bit chummy.
they had the White House Correspondents dinner at the weekend, and I just,
it's one of those things that I'm just, I am, the joy killer.
I am the fun sponge.
But I just think it's really weird for him, Donald Trump, to be in the
middle of suing journalists, trying to supoenia their phone records.
And then, for lots of people to making a good living every night
going on TV and saying, this guy's trying to destroy democracy.
And then it's oh, but the Hilton, you say, oh, call Moss bros.
Ian: I thought he might arrest everyone at the end of the dinner.
Helen: Very funny.
Ian: an ice team just come in and tape them all out and
everyone goes, fair enough.
Helen: Oh, he's such a car.
Oh, he says what?
He blink, he's to laugh,
Ian: isn't he?
Andy: Can I make two points tying this together?
Helen: Yeah.
Andy: One is that it was very funny seeing an operation from the White House
saying, don't you dare make Ed Milliband Chancellor of the Exchequer only for him
to be then be made foreign secretary.
Adam: Yep.
Andy: Did think that was.
Secondly, we do know who's behind us in a way, and it ties the whole thing together
in another way, which is that the woman behind this is called Abby Tomlinson.
And if you don't remember her name, she was at the age of 17
behind the Millifandom of 2015.
She has since worked for K Starman, which probably isn't on the CV in a big way,
but she's now back in working for Burnham, doing a lot of his social media stuff.
Helen: I remember she photoshopped Ed Miller Milliband into a flower crown.
Do you remember this as a concept?
Andy: I don't recall that.
Helen: she started off with a hodge, let's make Ed Milliband
like effortlessly cool and sexy.
Yep.
So after that, Andy Burnham is a layup.
I think
Adam: someone please show that picture to Donald Trump now and
see what he thinks about Secretary.
Can I just keep, I feel like I've been really, mean about
some of my fellow journalists.
So there 2 bits of credit to give to people on the, the predictions of who
was gonna be in Andy, Burnham's cabinet.
Dan Hodges, who I know Helen is one of your favourite.
Yeah.
he, actually specified on, Sunday the 17th.
So literally the day before, Mahmood was appointed, or not appointed, he
said, that, the reason Ed Milliband was no longer going to be chancellor
was because, , Andy Burnham had decided he had a woman problem and he needed a
woman in the top job in the government.
So it went to that well known woman, John Healy the next morning.
and actually to be fair to them, the only people, it's one single mention
of the name Healy in connection with the Chancellorship, was in the Daily
Mail to give them their credit.
but unfortunately it was, Dennis Healy, and they were saying that Andy Burnham
was going to drag us back to the 1970s.
So
Ian: Can I just say on the predictions front, had anyone been cynical enough to
say all the jobs will go to people who are instrumental in getting rid of care?
, including Lordships for Unlikely People.
, straightforward rewards for people who resigned, their job and then
came straight back in again.
The very cynical view of how this would be carved up would've been better.
Helen: That's the second thing I'm gonna put down in my building
Up Trouble from the Future.
Much as we immediately poured a big bottle of Bucket of Sick on Keir Starmer
the instant that he got in by saying the freebie stuff would haunt him.
The unfunded pledges is one and the kind of revenge tour of the star rights.
Because those people are all still in parliament.
And actually, once everybody's done the raft of stories about Andy,
the TikTok King, then there's gonna be a big hunt on for disgruntled
people of whom there are many,
Adam: there already has been.
it was less than 24 hours before Darren Jones, who instantly was mooted as a
possible chancellor by the Independent, came back and, got the, knife in saying
that, the, it was the, wasn't, it was gonna be paid for by the digital id.
So that was unfunded, which was a real kind of like early out of the doors.
get, the knife in Andy's bag.
Yeah.
Andy: Jokes on you.
We didn't know how we were gonna pay for that either.
Yeah.
Helen: I have one more final quiz question.
Yes.
Which is that one of the things that he was asked, Andy Burnham
was asked in his Reddit a MA what his four favourite films are and
Andy: Oh yeah.
Helen: Can you make any stab at what, what any of them might be?
Andy: Kes.
Helen: there is a theme that runs through them actually.
Would you like to hear what they are?
Yeah.
Any, okay.
They are Goodfellas the big short Brassed Off and Pride.
Okay.
So the themes of these films are, in my view, The Big Short is bankers are Evil.
Brassed Off is people from the South, close the pits, IE Margaret Thatcher.
Evil and Pride are, Tories are evil.
Andy: Yep.
Helen: And then Goodfellas are, I'd like to put someone in the boot of a car
and bury them in a, like an underpass.
Andy: there'll be a very slick video about it when it does happen.
Yeah.
Helen: And to where the council housing is being built or where Andy Burn was from.
That's gonna mean when he gets in trouble.
Adam: Andy, I'm confused.
policy announcement that I've seen this week, I'm under the impression
that we've reopened North Sea drilling.
it's gung-ho drill, baby drill.
Yeah.
we're opening all, all those oil fills up again.
And that somehow Ed Milliband who has been against this for many, years
has not raised any objection at all.
Am I right?
Andy: Yep.
It's gonna be Texas on Sea.
frack baby Frack.
No, it's
Helen: Yeehaw.
Andy: Yeehaw.
it's a bit more complicated than that.
So the basic thing to start with is the conservatives were quite up for drilling
labour, said in their 2024 manifesto.
No more drilling is needed in the North Sea.
We think we've got, enough for the slow decline 'cause we're gonna be
moving to other sources of energy.
they won Seems unfashionable to mention it now.
Quite a big majority with that as a big policy.
since the election, there has been this big campaign, by lots of people.
lots of fossil fuel lobbyists, both paid and unpaid have been saying you
gotta get the North Sea open again.
But the idea that there's gonna be a huge reversal at
the moment seems very unlikely.
Instead, what there is, is, a campaign about, two particular
fields called Rosebank and Jackdaw.
Rosebank is oil, Jackdaw is gas,
Adam: both of which sound like lovely little retirement cottages, don't they?
Andy: Yeah.
They weren't for much longer.
so those are the two fields that are really in contention.
And part of the reason for that is that they had already received
permission, before the election.
Then when labour got in, they said, we don't think we really need them.
There was a legal challenge 'cause they hadn't taken into account
the emissions caused by actually burning stuff as opposed to producing
it, getting it outta the ground.
So that, that's the main focus.
And they've been under review.
There's a way that they could say, it's consistent with the manifesto.
Ian: So is there not a quibble over further development and development?
Andy: Yes, there is.
Yeah.
And it's quite, it's a bit angels dancing on the head of a pin.
I think it's likely that these two are at least one of these
two will happen in some way.
Really more for political reasons than because they provide big energy security
or because they do anything for bills.
'cause they, won't do anything for bills.
They might do a little bit for energy security in extremists.
The argument in favour of them is that, , they lower emissions a little
bit because the, the production methods here are a bit cleaner, maybe 15% lower.
So that's, not better.
That
Ian: sounds good, doesn't it?
Andy: Yeah.
And also we're going to need oil and gas for, some decades to come.
It is true.
even if it is declining.
So that's the argument for And probably to defang the issue, there'll
be some kind of movement on it.
The new Energy secretary is called Miatta Fahnbulleh She's already
been up to Aberdeen to make a video saying, we are transitioning, but
we'll still do a bit of this stuff.
Adam: because a lot of it's to do with employment in the northeast
of Scotland as well, isn't it?
it's what, what's going on up there?
That's,
Andy: it is, I'm gonna say something that is probably a bit
controversial to some people.
I think North Sea Oil and Gas has taken on a significance that is disproportionate
to the actual effect of it.
much in the way
Helen: that it's same thing as the steel works, or actually a bit to
the defence industry are inextricably linked with the fact that those
are jobs in Barrow in Furness
Andy: It's it is similar to fishing during Brexit.
Which became a huge flashpoint for, and that was a lot about jobs as
well, the actual number of new jobs.
Even the owner of the field has said, I think that Jackdaw
all produced 300 new jobs.
It's not massive.
Ian: well at the moment it's quite a lot.
Helen: Yeah, that's
Andy: true.
Helen: If you look at the fact the video games sector employs thousands
of, people in Britain, you never hear, you certainly don't hear about it
from Lisa Nandy who's been reappointed culturally ordinary personal beef
of mine that we can settle later.
Andy: Yeah.
so you've got this weird situation where lots of people acknowledge
we do need to get off this stuff.
But even people like say Greg Jackson of Octopus Energy, who is not a Drill
baby drill guy, is saying, if we're gonna be using it, we may as well
use the stuff that's here rather than lu it halfway around the world.
it's seen as a slightly pragmatic thing to do.
It's quite hard to square with the fact that, half of
France and Spain are on fire.
And increasingly
Ian: that is quite big news this week, isn't
Andy: it?
Yeah.
And increasingly bits of the north of England and Scotland are on fire.
Yeah.
the phrase, UK wildfire season is not a good one.
And these wildfires and heat waves are caused and exacerbated
massively by fossil fuels.
So it is quite brain breaking to say, oh, actually it's pragmatic
to have this new drilling.
I think.
The arguments for and against are relatively finely balanced, given
that we haven't got rid of all the petrol cars or gas boilers.
People are still buying them because they don't feel secure enough to go
electric or get a heat pump or whatever.
So you are going to have some kind of supply.
So that's the argument in a nutshell.
Helen: Do you think that this has been influenced by Trump and the
war in Iran and the strait of whole Mo or was it all happening before
Andy: it was all happening before?
Tony Blair had already made about 15 interventions on it well
before the strait of whole MO was.
Helen: Yeah,
Andy: okay.
A media darling as it is now.
, but there's no question that the pressure helps, I think.
Is
Ian: this an, an example of Burnham being quite capable in terms of politics
is, to realise perhaps I won't make, ed Milliband either chancellor or
leave him in energy because whatever else happens people associate him with
something going wrong with energy.
Andy: Yeah.
People think of it as hair shirtism and people think it's incredibly restrictive.
what I find is that I don't think they help the debate as in Burnham will
probably lose plenty of support to his left if he grants either of these from
people who don't want new drilling.
There has not been a, an equivalent national debate about the, main
opportunity you have, which is electrifying going electric in
a power supply, going electric in cars and home heating.
Those are the things that really will make a much bigger difference.
And I think if Burnham answered this, he will probably have to say
something along the lines of, and by the way, we are also going to get your
electricity bills down so that you can afford this stuff much more easily.
Those are the things that are really gonna cut emissions, I would hope
there will be some argument about that.
But,
Ian: by the end of September, if we have had not only a, a European wildfire,
outbreak on, the scale we haven't seen before, plus even more of a heat wave,
do you think his job will be easier then?
Andy: Yeah, I think what's that horribly cynical saying, an act a crisis is an
opportunity or the, symbol, the crisis is the same as opportunity, the idea
that this is a matter of social justice is I think quite a persuasive one.
You've, you have got lots of people who can't afford their energy bills
and also can't afford air conditioning who would quite like comfortable,
affordable homes and energy supply.
And I think there is a really good case to be made that these
newer technologies provide those.
Yeah.
Ian: And that's a better argument than you are all going to die in a fire.
Andy: Yes.
Even though that will be true for some people.
Adam: Yeah.
Cammy be meanwhile has set herself completely against it, hasn't she?
She said any anyone who supports net zero as she used to do till
reasonably recently, cannot be a conservative candidate.
Andy: Yeah.
it would knock out about half the shadow cabinet if this was
backdated even a few years.
Helen: She said something even more controversial, she said, we're not
looking for attention seekers in the, as our candidates in this party night.
they talk about raising the conservative party to the ground, starting again.
Andy: Yeah.
But she also said in an interview with Laura Konberg a week or so ago that,
our emissions nationally have gone up.
They haven't, they've come, they've halved since 1990.
I don't think she follows the debate at all.
or the, I thought
Ian: you said she doesn't follow the news which is, it's not
Andy: good.
I say I also think that, it just reminds me lots of the time when you
get a politician interviewed, say, what should we do about the environment?
If they're not engaged at all and they'll say, I recycle.
that, that's got very little to do with this man.
it is weird because the target that all Nations have accepted is that we need to
try and keep warming below two degrees.
This is what, one point, just below 1.5 is big wildfires, big environmental problems.
And at the moment we are not even on course for two, things
have got a lot better since the Paris Agreement 10 years ago.
But fundamentally we are still not on course for two that would require
emissions to come down quite quickly.
Quite a quick clip every year.
They're still not coming down.
They're still stumbling along a ridge.
so it's hard to square that with the argument that new drilling
is pragmatic and And actually in the short to medium term might,
actually slightly cut emissions.
That's a, a very odd thing to consider,
Helen: I think it's an interesting example of when you're trying to assess
this very early policy record of there a pattern emerging of Andy Burnham
talk like the vibes are very left wing.
But the actual governing is a lot more pragmatic and centrist.
I was thinking the same thing with, he just very quickly went, we're
suspending the early release of prisoner scheme until I can look at it.
which I thought was obviously he's done these big economic giveaways, which is
traditionally left wing, but it's really interesting to look at the polling because
the latest one puts Labour ahead from, for the first time in a really long time, but
he's taken a big chunk out of the greens.
Is
that
and I think that's really interesting in a kind of, is that, vibes, is
he capturing the vibes better?
And actually to go back to Zohran Mamdani similar to him actually,
he, his big latest, big announcement was about reducing, licencing
agreements on like barbershops.
So basically like some, something that Liz Truss would be massively in favour of.
Yeah.
but no one thinks of him as a kind of neoliberal anti, deregulation bro.
Yeah.
Because the vibes are so different.
So I wonder how long that will last that
Ian: saying you're not going to allow sex offenders to be let out.
It's quite a good popular win, isn't it,
Helen: generally.
But the problem is it's not like everyone else was like, hooray
more rapists on our streets.
That's what I'm in favour of.
They were dealing with the capacity crunch in prisons and I
dunno how he plans to solve that.
It's not like anyone else actively was, a fan of, restorative justice, they
just didn't have the prison places.
Adam: I did think it was interesting.
I think it went a bit unnoticed in the kind of reshuffle in new appointments.
There was James Timson who was Prisons minister under Stama, who
was a really interesting appointment.
He was brought in from outside, long term campaigner on prisons
and real kinda realistic thinker.
He stepped down quietly, said he didn't want to carry on in the job.
Helen: that's the same thing with, Patrick Vallance left government as well.
Yeah.
And the victims minister, after hearing some of, details of this
very much Giselle Pellicot like case in Britain also said that she
couldn't, didn't wanna do it anymore.
I think life has be the relentlessness of the news cycle
and the fact that it's very hard.
prisons is particularly badly affected by this.
We've had more prisons ministers and you've had hot dinners.
Yeah.
it's very hard for people to prosper in that role 'cause the
cha like it's constantly changing.
There's no money.
Andy: Yes.
same with energy secretaries.
To be fair, there's quite a lot of turnover in that brief.
I th I think the thing that Burnham is doing is trying to triangulate a bit
because trying to go with public opinion a bit, because the latest YouGov polling
is that four over 40% of people say Yeah.
A bit more drilling.
And then there's quite a heavy cadra of don't knows as well.
But I think if one of these was granted, it might defang the issue enough.
Yep.
The, the overall direction of travel hasn't changed though.
they've still got, the targets are all still in place of,
how to get off the stuff.
So yeah.
It's a bit of a watch this space.
Helen: It sounds realistic to say for as long as there are people with petrol
cars, we are going to need petrol.
Andy: But you nudge along the targets to, accelerate the
transition at the same time.
Helen: Yeah.
Andy: So we shall see,
You turn into
Ian: Chris Mason, you are rounding up by now.
We shall see.
no on this
Andy: podcast mate.
Sorry, sorry.
Helen: In summary, Andy Burnham is a land of contrast.
Andy: Another, another exciting day in British politics.
Something for
Ian: sure, it's not over yet,
Andy: so with all that in mind, Ian, how is the, I gonna make fun of Andy
Burnham because new Prime Minister is the PM's WhatsApp group going to fade away?
Is it gonna be,
Ian: we're not, going to make fun of him.
Andy.
Oh, sorry.
Andy: Okay.
Ian: He's left wing.
You must read the reader's letters from now on.
There will be no criticism at all.
The woke Libtard private eye will be giving up completely.
There will be no criticism of Andy.
for God's sake.
Give him a break.
Andy: Should say Ian's just come from a session reading reader's
correspondence for the last fortnight.
Are people convinced that you've given up on the jokes now?
Ian: yeah.
No, that's it now.
Or that we should give up on the jokes.
It's one of two.
We either have right?
Or we should
Andy: Okay.
Ian: Take your pick.
no, we will be continuing to try and assess the, new Prime Minister comically.
Andy: Yeah.
Ian: but we're not doing the WhatsApp group anymore.
partly 'cause everyone's discovered disappear function.
so they don't send WhatsApps anymore.
and also I think it was time for a, a new format ' cause I think he
is different I've had it on three sources that he's from the north.
so we thought that was quite a good start.
we did a, a version of Coronation Street last week, which is not terribly like
the Coronation Street that's going out at the moment, but it is a sort of
nostalgia retro Burnhamite seventies Coronation Street, which seems to be
quite fun and went down quite well.
So we might be continuing with
Adam: that.
That was what worried me slightly is if you make it like today's Coronation Street
as we about three murders per fortnight.
Yeah.
Ian: No.
it's like him saying he wants, an old fashioned labour party to return,
so that, that's where we are going.
So back to Albert Tatlock and ENA
Adam: Chapel.
Andy: Excellent.
Good stuff.
Helen: And also SNL uk, which turned out to be much more successful
than anyone predicted, really did well with their political parodies.
, and I think George four Akers got his key star.
I feel that's the main sadness I feel actually at the actually Departure
of Keir Starmer I thought that was a really great Keir Starmer impression.
And he's not gonna be called on to do that again very much anymore.
Ian: Even the people who did very good Keir Starmer impersonations,
people didn't like them very much.
and the more accurate they were, I think the less popular they were.
So it was quite odd.
There was a sense in which, in the old days, Harry Enfield on spitting image used
to do not very accurate impersonations of people, but they were funny.
there's an element of, surreal imagining that makes these things funnier.
on private eye.
we're, we are always looking for something that will, get the tenor of it, but
not necessarily be fiendishly accurate.
for a long time we presented Tony Blair as an evangelical vicar,
which technically he isn't.
but, there was something about his demeanour.
he felt like
Helen: one spiritually he was Vicar.
Yes.
Ian: And Theresa May ran a, a sort of not very successful girls school.
Adam: that was the most extraordinary one because that was one that
continued over, wasn't it?
the, the school was originally the coalition academy.
It was, and it was David Cameron and, then Nick Clegg's deputy head.
And somehow that one, it was like you knew Theresa May was gonna
come along who was just absolutely a head mistress, wasn't she?
Yeah.
She was bought perfect.
Slotted in perfectly.
Helen: I think it's quite sound for the politicians because I
feel like they get more like the private eye parodies of them.
I feel like it becomes a prison from which they can't escape.
Andy: I was, thinking when we talked about Tony Blair earlier, one of his
ingenious early, man of the people moves was, I'm sure you'll remember this.
He would leave the house holding a mug of tea.
And this was,
Adam: there was a lot of, this wasn't, and it had a picture of his kids on as well.
Andy: Yeah, You
Adam: remember?
Yeah.
Yeah,
Andy: And then he got into his car and you have to think, what are you
doing with the, where's the mug go?
Adam: Yeah.
Andy: Dishwasher in the car.
Like what, is this?
But it was, but it worked as long as you didn't think about it too much.
So I think
Ian: the car was full of stuff, it just pass the mug over.
Andy: Oh, I'm sure.
I'm sure.
I think we've talked about this a bit before, Ian, is there a problem that
there are fewer of these, , written formats, which everyone gets?
Ian: Yeah,
Andy: so WhatsApp was, a perfect example because everyone is
in lots of WhatsApp groups.
whereas, there are fewer in Albion Parish news, there aren't so many people.
And
Ian: traditionally on a magazine, you're looking for a literary format.
And it used to be, there were diaries.
originally there was Mrs. Wilson's diary, with John Major.
It was a parody of Adrian Mole of a book.
It was the Secret Diary.
These are literary formats.
Dear Bill was a series of letters.
People don't write letters anymore.
They don't keep diaries.
It, became more and more difficult.
there was a parish newsletter, obviously I read mine, but, I'm not sure that it's
a hugely popular medium at the moment.
And, it, has to exist in memory as well.
So it became more difficult.
WhatsApp was a bit of a saviour 'cause people were writing again.
Yeah.
and you could actually record those.
But again, that's become a bit of a cliche that everything is done by WhatsApp group.
So one one's always looking for a format and part of the joy of the
Coronation Street is it's a script.
Adam: Yeah.
Ian: You can get a lot of visual in, you get a lot of people in, but
it is basically, it's starts off.
As the written word.
So that's one of the limitations.
Adam: it gives you the leeway as well to be more surreal with it, I think as well.
Because the thing about Mrs. Wilson's diary, John Major's diary
and Dear Bill, was they were all slightly in a parallel universe.
Yeah.
Weren't they as well?
They flipped out and you could, you they, it gave you more kind of
scope to be imaginative with it and
Ian: I think it's not probably true that Yvette Cooper wears her hairnet
and looks like Ena Sharples so far.
I don't think that's sourced can
Helen: imagine her in Victoria Woods's dinner Ladies though.
Do you know what?
I can see this sort of tabard but, you know what is genuinely
a hugely popular genre.
We had a piece about it in the book section.
This, last issue Romantacy
Andy: Oh no.
Adam: Oh, the
Andy
Burnham Romantacy
Helen: You want Andy Burnham falling in love with a big Minotaur Come on.
Ian: I think Helen's personal problems getting overwhelming
Andy: my eyes.
I just don't, it's just No, I
don't, it is unbelievably popular as a genre.
You're right.
It's one of the only genres anyone's
Helen: reading on the train.
Breathe.
Think about it.
Just let it sit for a couple of weeks.
We'll revisit this.
Ian: Okay.
It's a literary format.
We should be doing it.
I've got it.
Andy: Oh God.
Okay.
Adam: I think Andy Burnham has been very clever as well in terms of cartoonists.
'cause Keir Starmer as you say, was very hard for cartoonists to get a handle on.
There wasn't anything and individual thing, Andy Burnham has already done that.
This is what he wears.
He dresses down, he wears the black t-shirts, he wears the, as we were
told by the Mail On Sunday this week.
Very, expensive jackets.
okay.
He's prime minister.
He is doing all right from something very full.
He's not got, Lord Ali buying them for him as far as we know.
so he's got that image there.
And I always think John Major, who I always think, Steve Bell, after he
did him with his underpants outside his trousers, somehow that just became
the sort of definitive visual Yeah.
version of him and actually to seize, seize the day earlier as Andy Burnham's
done and say, this is what my image is.
And there's enough to play with, he can be that Manchester Hacienda
raver or whatever for cartoonist.
Helen: Oh, it's really smart.
Like the quarter zip, the polo neck, like all of that, the black tee like
having a thing that people mock.
this is something that sad Ka famously said to lobby journalists
when he was running for Mayor Of London the first time, which is
you are all taking the piss out.
Me saying, my father's a bus driver.
Like by the time that's boring to you, a normal voter has heard it once, right?
And
the same thing as a normal voter will go, oh, prime minister's, that guy
who's in the black T-shirt, which, you know, so I think that very Smart
Donald Trump essentially has a uniform.
He has the blue suit and the red tie, like just it, he wears them.
And then Red MAGA cap Zohran Mamdani from the left always wears a suit to
the extent that when he did a video about opening public pools in New
York, he jumped in the pool in a suit and a full suit, because that's his,
he is, he says, I'm a, that's thing.
I'm a sewer socialist.
I'm like, I'm from a tradition about socialists who fix the sewers.
So I'm coming to work.
I take this very seriously.
And I think, I, you can mock it as being.
again, I just think it's professional.
You've just thought about it.
The queen always wore a block colour because people wanted to be able
to see where she was in a crowd.
Like you think about, he's not a normal person, he's prime minister, it's
Ian: okay.
And Zelensky is a war leader.
Helen: Yeah.
He always
Ian: wear, so he wears that.
Yeah.
it is great that Trump didn't understand that having failed,
Helen: to go to war.
Yeah.
Ian: Yeah.
Helen: So I know another, another tick mark in my ongoing column of Andy Burnham.
Okay.
Plus of minuses.
Andy: I guess we'll wait and see what the readers make of it.
Ian: We will.
And then do the opposite.
Andy: That's it for this episode of page 94.
Thank you so much for listening.
We hope you've enjoyed it.
If you'd like to hear more about any of the stories we've discussed and many,
more besides, they can all be found in the latest issue of Private Eye, available
not only on news stands, but also in subscription form@privatehyeneye.co.uk.
Thanks to Ian, Helen and Adam.
And thank you to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio for producing.
We'll be back in a fortnight with another one.
Bye for now.