0:00

Page 94, The Private

0:01

Eye podcast. Hello and welcome to another

0:04

episode of Page 94. My name is Andrew

0:06

Hunter-Murray. We're here in the Private Eye offices.

0:08

I'm joined by Helen Lewis, Adam McQueen

0:11

and Ian Hislop. We're going to be discussing the

0:13

news of the last week and maybe the next week as

0:15

well. And in the second half of this week's

0:17

show, we're going to be talking to Solomon Hughes, who

0:19

will be giving us a long

0:22

established expert guide to party

0:24

conference from someone who's been there,

0:26

done that,

0:27

drunk the warm white wine. He'll be telling

0:29

us about that later. But first of all, we should start

0:32

with one of the biggest stories of the last week, maybe

0:34

the one that's caught most public attention. It was

0:36

on the cover of the last issue of the Mag. It's

0:38

Russell Brand. And I think

0:41

two of us here have met Brand in person.

0:44

Looking at you, Adam. Certainly not.

0:46

No, no, me neither. We're the two

0:48

who haven't. Ian and Helen, you have. I'm

0:51

guilty as charged, I'm afraid. Yeah,

0:53

and I can't comment. You'll have to speak to my

0:56

lawyers.

0:57

So I first met Russell

0:59

Brand in 2013 when he guest edited an issue

1:02

of the New Statesman, which I was then deputy

1:04

editor, I think by that point. I met him in the Savoy

1:07

Hotel and they had a sort of side room off the tea room.

1:09

And he came in looking like a sort of huge Gothic spider,

1:12

all in black and then all this clanky silver jewellery

1:14

over the top of it. And he proceeded to tell us

1:16

this anecdote about how cattle

1:19

were trammelled in by cattle grids. But

1:22

somewhere in Germany, some cattle had learned to walk

1:24

over the cattle grid, like little steps, I guess.

1:26

And then subsequently, other cows that had never met

1:28

the original cows had also learned how to do

1:31

this. And wasn't this proof that there was a gestalt

1:33

animal consciousness? And that,

1:36

in retrospect, that was the point that I should have

1:38

gone, well, it's been lovely to meet you.

1:39

But yeah, I think it's

1:42

really interesting to reflect on it. And I have been a lot this

1:44

last week. The kind of allegations

1:46

which he denies of sexual assault, I don't think were

1:48

widely known about at the time.

1:50

What we should have been more, I think,

1:53

aware of was the kind of cranky nature

1:55

of him. And I think pre Jeremy

1:58

Corbyn and that kind of some of that conspiracy. stuff

2:00

seeping into the Labour Party, pre-Trump and

2:02

the kind of banner-like QAnon stuff seeping into the US

2:04

Republican Party. There was a feeling that this

2:06

sort of stuff that was quite fringe. It was like, you

2:08

know, in the 90s when people were into dousing and ley lines,

2:10

it was kind of quirky and cute. And

2:13

then over

2:13

the course of the 2010s, metastasized into some

2:16

quite dark places that now are absolutely

2:18

in the mainstream of politics. So, Ron DeSantis, who's

2:20

one of the Republican contenders for president,

2:23

went on Russell Rand's show not a month ago.

2:26

Oh, really?

2:27

Yeah. Well, you subscribe on YouTube,

2:29

don't you? I am one of the six million awakening wonders.

2:32

I do hope everybody

2:34

else in the six million is like you and is doing

2:36

it for critical privacy. Otherwise,

2:38

it's too depressing. You also used the word metastasize,

2:41

which I last saw in Russell's statement.

2:43

I'm just saying. Before

2:46

I get all my long words, Baroque is my favourite one.

2:49

Yeah, this is morphic resonance. People all over the world

2:51

are using the word metastasize despite

2:53

having never heard of you. Well,

2:57

I think it's egregious. But

2:59

I think it's really interesting. So he was an absolute nightmare

3:02

to work with in the sense that, for example, the style

3:04

guide at the time, if you were talking about God, you had to cap

3:06

up he and his. We had a quite a delicious

3:08

chief sub who insisted on this. But

3:10

he didn't want to do that. And there was quite a long back and

3:12

forth about whether or not. And I was thinking, why am I

3:15

arguing about capping up he in the sense

3:17

of God? Does he not have anything else on? But

3:19

when he was a guardian football columnist, he was notorious

3:22

for filing very late and being

3:23

a nightmare with the subs. And

3:25

I think the thing that's interesting about that is it does actually speak

3:28

to the kind of other allegations, which is it's about

3:30

stars and what is tolerated by stars.

3:32

And like the quote, I would say of the 2010s is

3:35

that Donald Trump, you know, when you're a star, they let you

3:37

do it.

3:37

Because when you

3:38

watch that dispatches programme, you know, the idea that people

3:41

were talking about, oh, we just don't have any women

3:43

working

3:43

on the programme, we'll make sure he only works with men.

3:45

Why were these accommodations being discussed

3:47

around somebody? And it's because commercial

3:50

considerations mean if someone's a star, they

3:52

get to do all this other stuff that they would never normally get away

3:54

with.

3:54

Well, I mean, I will

3:56

admit I sat next to him on

3:59

Have I Got News For You.

3:59

I've sat next to all sorts of people,

4:02

you know, Rolf Harris, Jimmy Saville. I

4:04

don't think it means anything But

4:07

it is a notable that after he appeared on

4:09

that show and I think that was 2007 He

4:12

immediately complained to the producers

4:14

and some of them to his dressing room and said that he

4:17

hadn't been shown enough respect And

4:19

he was I thought Cranky

4:23

and sort of very very unlikable and I thought

4:25

the long words were ridiculous. He's basically

4:28

mr. Malaprop No idea

4:31

why anyone is taking this man seriously, but he

4:33

went to the toilet in the middle of the recording Which

4:36

again, you know most people think

4:38

I didn't know you were allowed to do that I know the actor

4:40

Brian Cox did it once and I was like he's 80 that's

4:43

foreseeable But I thought it was

4:44

very much that you bludgeoned through like David

4:46

Cameron in that meeting Absolutely and men

4:48

of a certain age are allowed to go to the toilet after

4:50

a long recording He

4:52

left in the middle and to be honest when

4:54

he came back the jokes about going

4:56

to the toilet in the middle Of

4:59

a recording were fairly obviously drug-related

5:01

and jolly amusing I thought But

5:04

he didn't think they were funny at all So

5:06

again, there are a lot of people are saying well,

5:08

we were all fooled. It was the noughties It was everyone

5:11

was like, but not everyone was fooled. Actually a lot of people

5:13

thought you're absolutely Insufferable.

5:17

Why did the TV work dry up? I think is an interesting

5:19

question had lots of people heard a kind of miasma But

5:21

they couldn't nail it down or

5:22

Fundamentally when you listen to that

5:24

YouTube channel the thing you always say is we in our

5:27

our show our show had to move to rumble

5:29

Yeah, this is where we do this and all

5:32

of his you proposing. He's got puppet masters

5:36

Behind the branch I

5:39

mean he records it like it is shared in any It's

5:41

very small puppet master But but it is also

5:44

I think it is I think we have to accept now that kind of cult

5:46

leaders used to be kind of in Wacko and

5:48

they had their disciples in the compound with them now

5:51

YouTube and rumble They are the compound

5:53

and the whole sense is like we're the only ones William

5:55

because I'm awakening wonders. We're the enlightened We're the

5:58

only ones who know don't listen to the others and

6:00

you set yourself up as a unique source of authority.

6:02

And then you can't be challenged. His instant

6:05

reaction to the allegations was not just denial,

6:07

but he said, oh, people have been

6:09

saying that they'll come to you eventually, Russell. You get

6:11

too close to the truth, you'll be found dead one day.

6:14

Which I mean, he's linking

6:14

himself with Jeffrey Epstein in that sense, which is not what I

6:16

think and I would necessarily recommend. I

6:19

don't know if we're not putting a bit of a generous complexion on

6:21

his career in retrospect. Because I mean,

6:24

there's brand 1.0, who's the

6:26

heroin addict who gets sacked from MTV. Then there's

6:28

brand 2.0 who comes back and does every panel show going

6:30

and all the Channel 4 big brother spinoffs

6:33

and things. My recollection is then that he went off

6:35

to Hollywood to be a massive, huge star, did

6:37

about three films that were quite big and then

6:39

left Hollywood, suddenly wasn't toast

6:42

to the town anymore. It also seems to be the point

6:44

in his career where a lot of the really serious

6:46

allegations that have been put in dispatches and in

6:48

the Sunday times seem to be coming from that point. And

6:50

people are a lot less keen

6:52

to follow those ones up and they are things

6:55

that might have happened at the BBC, I

6:57

noticed that. Again, possibly we're coming back to

6:59

very, very expensive lawyers who tend to function

7:01

in Hollywood more than they do around broadcasting house.

7:03

But the other thing I found slightly unfortunate about

7:05

the whole thing is that it became who's

7:07

to blame for Russell Brand. It is

7:09

a real problem in how it functions, right? Is that he was used

7:11

in backing all the way back in sexgate, you know, as

7:13

a way to bash the BBC and a way to bash

7:16

Jonathan Ross as the highest paid

7:18

employee of the BBC at the time in a way that kind of Gary

7:21

Linek is now. That doesn't take away from the fact that

7:23

what he did in sexgate was appalling

7:25

and abhorrent. And a lot of people did say so. A

7:27

lot of people didn't say so. He did do an inquiry and

7:29

they did sack him as well. Right, but it

7:32

is also kind of intensely tribal, right? Which is the sense

7:34

that I'm sure there are many people in equal positions

7:36

on the right with those kind of allegations around them. Or

7:38

indeed people who in comedy with those kind

7:40

of allegations don't get this kind of publicity. But

7:43

it's the use of someone as a kind of bludgeon. And

7:45

maybe that is me being too soft because I'm one of

7:47

the people who, you know, promoted him in his career. But

7:50

it does seem to me there was a lot of score settling that went

7:52

on in a slightly unpleasant way when it came out

7:55

that wasn't really about the allegations themselves who

7:58

was to blame and who could we pin this on. who was

8:00

our political enemy. But now he's on the right.

8:02

I mean, and again, I've been

8:05

fascinated by your recounting

8:07

of the truth. I mean, I want to know what truth

8:10

Russell has got close to. A lot

8:12

of people talking about the

8:15

way you tell the two, about what? Which

8:18

bits of truth has Russell

8:21

revealed in his long career?

8:23

Well, I think it's really interesting. There's a book by Naomi

8:25

Klein about her being constantly confused with Naomi

8:27

Wolf, who went from feminist author to conspiracist.

8:30

And in that, she's quite honest about the fact that some of the kind

8:32

of left-wing criticisms of power that

8:34

she does are a millimeter away from conspiracy

8:36

theories. The only thing is that, you know, obviously, there

8:39

was widespread child sexual abuse in the Catholic

8:41

Church. You know, some big conspiracies do turn out to be true and

8:43

investigative journalism proves them to be true. So

8:45

what he's doing on YouTube is a kind of simakura

8:48

of investigative journalism, right? He's asking the questions,

8:50

but never actually doing the reporting. I

8:53

watched a lot of it for my BBC series, The New Gurus, and I kept

8:55

screaming, put an FOI request in, Russell.

8:58

Go and do a bit of magistrate court. It's really

9:00

nice. It's like a cargo cult of

9:02

journalism. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, he's

9:04

leaned a lot into Covid and vaccines, as everyone

9:06

has in the alternative sphere.

9:08

15-minute cities, the Great Reset,

9:11

which is the idea that the World Economic Forum put

9:13

out a document saying, wouldn't it be nice if we built back

9:15

in a slightly better way after Covid, has now

9:17

turned into, they want to make you eat bugs. But

9:20

as you say, it does often end up in antisemitism

9:23

because of the fundamental premises that they, whoever

9:26

they

9:26

are, are controlling the narrative and

9:28

who are they, and they're a secret cabal running the world.

9:30

And so I don't think I've ever seen open antisemitism

9:33

from Brand's channel, but titles will literally

9:35

be something like, here's what they're not telling you. And

9:38

there's always that sense that there's a kind of tiny clique

9:40

that's actually controlling everything. I mean, are we

9:42

missing a trick, not doing this at the magazine? I feel

9:44

like we should

9:45

be starting our own cult. There's a built-in audience. I mean, just

9:47

the podcast. We could start with page 94 and come

9:50

up with a nickname like Awakening Wonders for everyone listening

9:52

now. You know, like Doubt

9:55

truth seekers or something. I'm just, I'm just, I'm

9:57

not getting a sleepy listener. There

10:00

you go. If you're still awake while you're listening

10:02

to this, we want you to join us. Good. Okay,

10:04

great. All right, we'll tune in next time for more of that.

10:07

Yeah, no, no. Come on, sheeple. I'm not

10:09

getting a lot of good reaction from this cult idea. I'm looking

10:11

around, I'm seeing a lot of... No, no, because obviously it's far too

10:13

close and we are

10:15

actually people who are trying to tell you the truth.

10:18

If I'm the only one on this podcast not involved in the cult, I'm

10:20

going to be really cropped. If you guys are having secret

10:22

hooded meetings without me, I'm going to be livid. Imagine

10:25

it's like in the school netball team, you're picked last for the cult.

10:28

You know about my netball record. Very upsetting.

10:32

But we find ourselves, and our readers have

10:34

written in, saying, one, Russell

10:36

Brand has not been charged, tried. You

10:38

can't just say he did it all, which

10:41

is a perfectly reasonable point. But the

10:43

second point is then Russell Brand says there's

10:45

no evidence as though three

10:47

years of journalists working to

10:50

amass statements and get this story

10:52

over the line isn't evident. So where

10:55

are we between those two positions?

10:56

One thing that's really interesting, I think, is a change. And maybe

10:58

the BBC Explaining Unit is also part of this, is

11:00

the fact that both the Channel 4,

11:03

they went and did a wide podcaster about how we

11:05

reported this. And there were several pieces in the Sunday

11:07

Times and Times as well, how we reported the story.

11:10

Like, here's how we do it. Here's how we check that

11:12

the tech phone number is actually Russell Brand's phone

11:14

number. We check contemporaneously, did anyone

11:16

make a police report? All of that kind of stuff. And

11:19

I think there is now more of a

11:22

kind of acknowledgement that you don't just hand down these tablets

11:24

for stone in journalism. And the Sunday Times

11:26

says it. There were actually not just

11:28

people who just dismissed that, but for people that

11:30

is on its face evidence that it didn't

11:32

happen. Oh, well, that's what the main, if

11:35

it's in the mainstream media, it's false. People

11:37

have got that starting assumption.

11:38

And the cows thing, the cattle grids, there's

11:40

no truth in that.

11:41

As far as I know, I don't know about you, but I've

11:43

been, it's been a decade since actually, to quite a lot

11:46

of national trust

11:46

properties where the cows seem to be well

11:49

penned still. So, was he

11:51

proposing this big idea for a cover story? It

11:54

is a well trotted out theory,

11:56

morphic resonance, about how, you know, like,

11:59

blue tech's all over. learn to peck through milk bottles left

12:01

on people's doorsteps at the same time. Anyway, because

12:03

there's milk inside them. Anyway.

12:07

No, he didn't do

12:08

that. But actually the thing that's interesting about the issue is there were

12:10

some really lovely pieces in there. There was a Rupert Everett

12:12

piece about the changes in gay life during his

12:15

time working in Hollywood. But there was also some, let's

12:17

be honest now, retrospect, flat

12:20

out kind of crankery, which

12:22

I wouldn't, I wouldn't publish now.

12:24

And I don't, and I think we'd get a lot more trouble

12:27

for publishing now. That is one thing in which the

12:29

climate has changed. Very

12:31

glad you say Helen, that the climate has changed

12:34

because it

12:35

forms a perfect bridge to

12:38

the next thing we were hoping to talk about today. Oh

12:40

man, there's a place on the one show sofa for you, isn't

12:42

there? Very good. The

12:44

Segway King is back

12:47

in town. No, I thought this was

12:49

a relevant thing to talk about that, you

12:51

know, Rishi Sunak has announced that we announced loads of things.

12:55

Number one on electric cars, very excitingly,

12:57

we're going to be aligning with Europe, which I

13:00

gather is the whole point of this whole thing

13:02

we've just all been through. So they were going

13:03

to be banned from 2030 and that's now in pushback

13:06

to 2035.

13:07

Exactly.

13:09

And the car manufacturers seem quite annoyed about

13:10

this. Loads of them are really annoyed

13:12

about it. And we should get into the whole big broad

13:15

context of Rishi Sunak's great big,

13:17

no, we can't do any of this reset in a bit.

13:19

But yes, specifically on electric

13:21

cars, the one car

13:24

found that really was happy about it was

13:26

Toyota because they haven't actually bothered

13:29

to make the running for many, many years on electric cars.

13:31

And they've said, well, going all in on hybrids

13:34

and then actually no, we'll do hydrogen, which hasn't

13:36

really come to pass yet. There are very, very few hydrogen

13:38

cars on the streets of Britain. I am

13:41

sort of team wasn't that was in the Hindenburg.

13:44

Very very. I feel bad. Yeah.

13:46

Do you not see the Zeppelin cars? There are a few of them around.

13:48

I'm not many. You've got to look up, Helen. Yeah.

13:51

So yeah, and the whole context of Sunak's

13:53

speech last week announcing a range

13:55

of different measures was basically to say these are

13:57

long term decisions. We're looking all the way

14:12

vote

16:00

in the Tory party of, you know, this is

16:02

one in the eye for the Green Zealot and we won't

16:04

be forced into doing this kind of thing. It's

16:07

not just Russell Brande, it's that everyone has latched

16:09

onto this kind of narrative of this woke

16:11

blob and this elite who are fortunate

16:13

to do things that they aren't necessarily forcing us to do. They'll be

16:15

fitting wind turbines to individual people's shoulder

16:18

blades and it's incredible and we are going to put

16:20

a stop to this nonsense.

16:21

But there is this weird energy, I mean, you were talking

16:23

about the fact that the XL Bully dog march

16:25

ran into the rejoin the EU march ran into

16:28

the Ules march, right? There are these

16:30

little issues and there was a huge

16:32

election before last about banning ivory

16:35

sales and things like that. Sometimes these tiny kind of

16:37

things that otherwise wouldn't talk about very

16:39

much become the site of intense fervour

16:42

and sort of circulate on maybe on Facebook

16:44

or other places like that. They don't rise

16:46

to the level of attention. But I wonder how much of

16:48

this is Ules post Ules, Oxbridge

16:51

by election fallout?

16:52

I think a fair bit of it is although they've

16:54

seen it as an area in which they can make

16:57

a difference. You know, they can save however

16:59

many seats they think it can save by doing it. I

17:02

don't know. Well, a number of them have been fairly honest about this

17:04

saying, you know, we're not going to win on any of the actual issues.

17:06

We'll try the culture wars. And

17:09

amazingly, clean air is now hugely

17:12

toxic issue in

17:14

Britain. Is it? Clean air

17:16

is woke. That's the problem. Yeah. Yeah, breathing's

17:19

woke. But it is the tiny policies and the huge ones.

17:21

I know I keep going on about more chess boards in parks

17:23

because I think that's the funniest thing ever to have affected prime

17:26

ministerial attention. And then HS2,

17:28

which is the future of, you know, how industry

17:30

moves around this country. I mean, it's really significant

17:33

one. But coming up with a

17:35

compromise that pleases absolutely

17:37

no one, maybe the defining characteristic.

17:40

I mean, the fact is that this train will

17:43

now go from somewhere not really

17:45

up north to somewhere outside

17:47

London and you have to get a replacement or pass

17:49

in to London. I mean, it's going to take

17:51

you longer than it would have done in 1850,

17:54

I think. No,

17:57

probably it's slightly faster.

18:00

It's just a mess, isn't it? I mean,

18:02

why not scrap the whole thing? I mean, then this probably a good case

18:04

for that. Yeah. We pulled so much

18:06

money into it already, haven't we? And then the own solution

18:08

to that, so I mean, this is, Boris Johnson literally said, the

18:11

last time, again, this is one of these stories that seems to come

18:13

around every couple of years now, are we gonna finish the HSCU? But

18:15

the last time, he literally, Johnson actually

18:17

said, we pulled so much money into the hole now, we've just

18:19

gotta keep going with it. That's where

18:22

it ends up, I mean. And there is a proposal

18:24

of delaying this next

18:26

leg, so the Birmingham to Manchester leg by seven

18:28

years, which seems even

18:30

worse than a straight yes or no, as in,

18:33

we'll take another seven years over this. It's

18:35

quite emblematic of the sort of general mood

18:37

at the moment, I'm sure you guys all saw the last week's

18:40

news about refurbishing parliament,

18:42

which. 20 billion or some insane figure,

18:45

I mean. Is now going to be punted until after the next

18:47

election. Which reminds me of every time you watch

18:48

Grand Designs and they always think, oh, we'll be under budget

18:51

and then it comes out. And I say, well, that's, 20 billion's the upfront

18:53

budget, and it's gonna cost their entire GDP

18:55

for the next seven years. I just

18:57

don't understand that. Why don't they just kick

19:00

them out of parliament and put them in one of the tunnels that they've already

19:02

dug for each other? They could just live there

19:04

for a while. The moral parliament. Well, there's actually

19:06

a rather fine cartoon in the eye recently

19:09

of a rather larger bibby stock home

19:11

moored outside parliament, where they

19:13

could equally well just do

19:15

it from there. Sure, I hear it's very luxurious.

19:17

Hot and cold running legionaries, yeah. I

19:20

was interested to read the pages of this week, depending

19:22

which one you read, you said either

19:25

poll setback for Sunak after he does

19:28

U-turn or huge bounce for Sunak

19:30

after he does U-turn. I mean, presumably time

19:33

will tell, but we're not getting a very reliable

19:35

guide as to what people

19:37

actually think about dropping the

19:39

green stuff, which as you pointed out

19:41

on previous podcast, we've been here with every

19:44

conservative government, Johnson,

19:46

Cameron, they start pretty green and then

19:48

the election comes near and they go, oh no. I

19:50

think we should move on. This is a good policy workshop

19:53

and I think we'll come back to it. There was a story

19:55

in the last issue of the magazine. I think it

19:57

was yours Adam. headline

20:00

bame game. It's just so interesting about

20:02

the way journalism works. I thought we should briefly

20:04

cover it. Yeah, journalism is inverted commas works. Yes,

20:06

yeah, yeah. Well, I

20:08

was surprised by the extent of this, but yes, it

20:11

turns out an awful lot of those YOY columns

20:13

that appear under enormous picture bylines in the Daily Mail

20:15

are not, in fact, written by the person

20:17

whose picture byline is at the top of them. And it's

20:19

emerged when a number of BAME

20:22

commentators were asked to put their names to pieces

20:25

about the Notting Hill Carnival, which actually would have been drafted

20:27

for them by a number of 60 or 70 year

20:29

old white men in the in

20:31

the mail office writing pieces that effectively began YI

20:33

as a black woman. Which

20:37

is one of those things that I don't think it had occurred to anyone

20:39

at the Daily Mail. It sounds

20:41

completely mad, doesn't it? But it's staggering.

20:44

And it was the purported

20:47

writer of one of these pieces who who blew

20:49

the whistle on it. Yeah, indeed. And then we found

20:51

two more people who'd been asked to write effectively the same piece

20:54

this year over the Notting Hill Carnival.

20:56

And the piece duly appeared, saying

20:58

exactly what the Daily Mail wanted it to say, the answer.

21:01

But this is this is not uncommon. I've discovered this

21:04

is how an awful lot of the commentary on on the Daily

21:06

Mail works. And part of that is because the the

21:08

mad kind of need for

21:11

people to have opinions very, very quickly

21:13

when close to deadline. Unfortunately,

21:15

after you told me

21:15

this story, I went, Oh, is that if

21:18

that didn't know, do people not know that's how it happened?

21:21

Not very guilty. I've been sitting on this explains the

21:23

secret since I left the Daily Mail in 2010. I

21:25

worked on the features desk there for a year. And

21:27

basically what would happen, obviously, it's different editing now,

21:29

but under Paul Daecker, there'll be a series of editorial conferences,

21:32

there was something called pre pre conference, and then there was pre

21:34

conference and then there was conference, and then there was

21:36

features conference. It's

21:39

daily.

21:40

Yeah, every day. Pre conference. How did anyone

21:42

get anything done? Can

21:46

we put your name on?

21:47

Exactly why so finally you get the features

21:49

commissioning about 11am in the morning when all of this was

21:51

done, and then you want to see copy by about three

21:53

or 4pm. And so obviously,

21:56

the regular staff writers were used to that level of churn.

21:58

But if you're a normal civilian.

23:38

Yeah,

24:00

for half an hour and then it turns out with your picture

24:02

on it. And to be fair, the headline, why I, as a 70

24:05

year old white man, don't like the Notting Hill Carnival, does

24:07

have a... it's making a slight... It's not quite a newsy,

24:10

you know? What's

24:12

up with modern music these days? We

24:15

should come on now, finally, to the so-fare-well-then,

24:18

or kind of or-of-wah

24:20

then, to Rupert Murdoch, who's

24:23

stepping down as head of Newsy

24:25

UK. And to get this right, he is transitioning. That

24:28

is huge new word. His time of life.

24:31

At the age of 92, he is transitioning

24:34

to the position of Chairman

24:36

Emeritus. Whatever the

24:38

hell that means. His new pronouns will be sir and

24:40

sir. Yeah, okay. Wow.

24:44

So-fare-well-then dirty digger, or is he, it's really. I

24:46

mean, he's moving on from the position of

24:48

Chairman of both Fox

24:50

and News Corp. And handing

24:52

over. Big surprise! It's

24:55

one of the... it's a complete outsider who just happens to have

24:57

a surname. Murdoch, it's Lachlan. Lachlan

25:00

was in pole position and takes

25:02

the Tom Wamsgowns position from

25:05

Daddy. But isn't

25:07

he actually more to carry on the succession theme? Supposedly,

25:10

the mythology is that he's more like Roman, right? And that he

25:12

is kind of chaotic. He's totally on board

25:14

with Fox News going in its freaky,

25:17

forecast direction. He's the one whose politics

25:19

are rumoured to be even further to the right

25:22

than Rupert, certainly. He's very on board

25:24

with all of that Fox stuff. The right than Rupert's

25:26

previous girlfriend. The one who thought

25:29

Tucker Colson was the Messiah. Possibly

25:32

not that far. Do you think Lachlan

25:34

was worried that she was going

25:36

to get the job at the last minute she was coming and pipping

25:38

to the post? I believe that entirely. It was

25:41

the prayer sessions over coffee and

25:43

the gun-toting former police

25:46

evangelist. I think the children thought,

25:48

you know, there's someone even more suitable

25:50

than us. Well, James Murdoch, who is the

25:52

other contender, has come out as

25:54

a sort of lefty in recent years, hasn't he? And

25:56

spoken out publicly against Fox

25:59

News's proportionate. of environmental issues

26:01

in particular. But that

26:03

seemed to coincide with the

26:05

point at which it became fairly obvious to James that he was not

26:08

going to get the job and that he needed to establish

26:10

a slightly different reputation for himself. Elizabeth,

26:12

who was the other contender, ducked out of the business a few years

26:14

ago, and it's always said to her that she decided to go her own way. She

26:16

went her own way by selling her production

26:19

company to her dad for an

26:21

enormous and eye-watering amount of money. It

26:23

was so much that the shareholders, who usually stay fairly

26:26

silent, but the shareholders whose names are not Murdoch,

26:28

of which there are a few at Newscore, objected

26:30

to it and had to come to a settlement with him over that a

26:32

few years ago. So the really

26:34

interesting division of the spoils is going

26:36

to come when Rupert is not just transitioning to

26:39

watching daytime telly with his slippers on, but

26:42

when he actually transitions to the other side. Transitions

26:45

to the other side, yes. And

26:47

there's just no sign of it. Well,

26:50

he said, didn't he, when he announced the engagement that was

26:52

then called off. He said it was great

26:54

to be entering the second half of his life. Wow!

26:59

But his mother, Elizabeth, the

27:02

older Elizabeth mother, she did live until 106. So

27:06

we could still have an awful lot of

27:08

Rupert hanging around. And it all became

27:10

a very little threat, didn't it, in the emails

27:13

to all staff. As he said, I will be in your

27:15

countries and offices on Friday afternoons,

27:17

and I will guarantee that

27:20

I will be involved every day in the contest of ideas.

27:23

Our companies are communities and I will be an active

27:25

member of our community. I will be watching our broadcasts

27:27

with a critical eye, reading our newspapers and websites

27:30

and books with much interest and reaching out

27:32

to you with thoughts, ideas and advice. How

27:34

threatening does that sound? It's

27:38

not really a resignation letter, is it? It's

27:41

a letter saying, I'm still here. And

27:43

in a sense, watching. Yeah, I think it is. This I

27:45

thought was really interesting. We talked

27:47

about Russell Brand and all the rest of it. But

27:50

the line in Rupert's

27:52

farewell note where he says, elites have

27:55

open contempt for those who are not members

27:57

of their rarefied class. Most

27:59

of the media... and cahoots for those elites peddling

28:01

political narratives rather than pursuing the truth. I

28:03

mean to talk about elites is quite something coming

28:06

from literally the

28:08

most successful and powerful

28:11

hereditary regime in the world.

28:13

I was thinking about it, is there any... The

28:15

sultans of Brunei don't have power

28:18

like the murder did. The the the

28:20

Kims in North Korea don't either.

28:22

I mean in terms of actually straddling the globe,

28:25

a business that you've inherited from your dad and that you're

28:27

now passing on to your son. To have the broth

28:29

next and then talk about elites is

28:32

just extraordinary. And to say the elites

28:34

are in cahoots with the media. You own

28:37

most of the media Rupert. The point

28:39

of your entire life has been to buy it all

28:41

up. We're the elite. We're the mainstream

28:44

media mate. That's what we are the elite. Yeah yeah yeah

28:46

okay. Where's my private jet?

28:48

Where's my helicopter? It's just a kind of

28:50

bizarre thing where people with objectively much nicer

28:52

houses with me keep telling me they are an elite. I

28:54

don't even have a shed in Henley where I can make

28:56

mad podcasts.

28:57

I don't even have a hydrogen-fueled car. I

28:59

don't. I have nothing. None of this. You can come

29:02

around and sit in my shed any time you want

29:05

to. Can I try some plant-based medicine in your

29:07

shed? Well this all goes

29:09

to prove I'm paying people about the right sort of level.

29:14

Ian, Helen and Adam there. Thanks to all of them.

29:16

Now we come to conference season

29:19

which is well underway at the moment. The Lib

29:21

Dem Conference has already happened. As we record

29:23

this the Conservative and then the Labour one are yet

29:25

to come. And one of the I's conference

29:28

veterans is Solomon Hughes who's been writing

29:30

about party conferences and what goes

29:33

on at them for the I for many years now. But

29:35

beyond all the main speeches that happen at conference I thought

29:37

it would be fun also to talk a bit about the

29:39

corporate activity. The marquees,

29:42

the presentations, the displays, the lounges

29:44

that surround the main conference

29:47

activity. And Solomon is a

29:49

particular expert on those. Here he

29:51

is. I was just looking at the

29:53

timetable just to get an idea of what they are.

29:56

I mean some of those stalls would be

29:58

political ones. You'd have conservative friends.

29:59

of the NHS would have a stall at the Conservative

30:02

Party with friends like that who

30:04

needs enemies you might think. But also

30:07

you'd find Sainsbury's, and this is what Sainsbury's

30:09

at the timetable, relive your

30:11

childhood with our farm to work scale

30:13

extracts, race around

30:15

the track to experience how we contribute to the

30:18

UK food system and our support for British farmers,

30:20

customers, colleagues and communities nationwide.

30:22

So you can play scale extracts at the,

30:24

you know, the little slot racing cars at

30:26

the Conservative and Labour

30:29

Conference, which is, I mean, that's kind of the flavour

30:31

of it is big corporates treating our

30:33

political representatives like they were childish

30:36

idiots. How it's going to

30:38

be different this year is I think the

30:40

Conservative one, well, I'm expecting it to be as

30:42

big, but I'm expecting them to

30:44

be a bit bamboozled

30:46

because there'd be a party probably

30:49

looking at themselves on

30:51

the way down and not quite sure how to scrabble

30:53

back up. And for Labour, what's

30:56

happening is all that kind

30:58

of corporate energy that we've been watching for a couple of

31:00

years since Kia Starmer became

31:02

leader, all that corporate energy seems to be reaching

31:04

some kind of crescendo. So to be

31:07

honest, not so much the corporate

31:10

trade fair, but the kind of lobbying meetings

31:13

and lounges and all that kind of kicking

31:15

caboodle around that, I'm expecting to

31:17

be a bit more intense. That's what

31:19

I'm expecting, but of course, we should see when I

31:21

get there. And is the prospective benefit for the

31:24

companies that are booking these enormous marquees,

31:26

as you say, simply to

31:29

catch the attention of the people who either

31:31

are currently or might be in government? I mean, is there anything

31:33

else to it than that? Or is it really that simple?

31:36

I just think, I mean, Heathrow,

31:38

I've always said for every year I've been

31:40

for like maybe a decade, have this kind of, they

31:43

set up the Heathrow lounge and it's if you sign

31:45

in and persuade them that you're an important enough person,

31:47

you can go in there and get three cups of tea and

31:49

sit down, which, you know, conferences really busy. That

31:51

kind of thing is at a premium. And they've been running

31:54

this as if it were a departure land,

31:56

as if it were an executive departure land, and they've been running

31:58

it for

31:59

ages. And it's sort of,

31:59

a bit weird because actually even a nice departure

32:02

lounge isn't that much fun but anyway they've been running for

32:04

years but it's just a basic level

32:06

as long as Heathrow can be have

32:08

a huge comfortable lounge offering coffee,

32:11

tea, whiskey, cake and what have you to

32:14

MPs, council leaders and

32:16

all their hangars on and a green

32:19

group can't we're not going to row back

32:21

air travel are we and we haven't done I mean maybe

32:23

that's a simplistic way of viewing it but you

32:26

know we equally we can see what's happened.

32:28

Well we also haven't got a third row where Heathrow is

32:30

so there's a sense in which it's doing limited yeah

32:32

yeah yeah I suppose so but yeah it's I suppose

32:34

a firefighting firefighting I mean um

32:37

Lloyds run the parliamentary

32:39

lounge which is a little bit more sophisticated you're

32:41

going to get their review of what they call the parliamentarian

32:43

which doesn't just mean an MP if anyone they

32:45

say is important and you can

32:47

only get into that uh it's

32:50

a kind of weird thing because the conference itself is

32:52

obviously segregated off from the country

32:54

because it's behind the ring of steel you have to be able to get a pass

32:56

get approved by the police and what have you and then when

32:59

you get in there there's kind of even other layer of

33:01

exclusion and Lloyds like

33:04

I say Lloyds bank run the parliamentary lounge now

33:06

at both parties I'm expecting I'm not 100 sure this year

33:09

but they were last year and it's just

33:11

yeah they've bought exclusive access you know so

33:13

they've they've just bought lobbying access as simple

33:15

as that you know there's a counterbalance isn't it parties

33:18

need votes uh parties need press coverage

33:20

parties need members but I mean it's they

33:23

buy their way in and not just in

33:25

they buy their way into the center

33:27

of the conference is there any kind of nest

33:29

test applied to companies who the parties

33:32

in question might not want

33:34

at the conference or not want to have a presence there

33:36

so are there any which are just a bit too

33:39

embarrassing to have I tell you what actually

33:41

I think in terms of the exhibition because the exhibition

33:44

is relatively public there is

33:46

because what happened before is uh like

33:48

some of the unions at some point have demonstrated

33:51

against people you know physically

33:53

demonstrated inside labor conference against

33:56

uh stalls that were run by people who

33:58

were anti-unions Obviously there

34:00

is a kind of embarrassment test there, but

34:02

in terms of meetings, I just don't

34:05

know that there is a reason. They've got a very

34:08

bunged up nose. I mean a

34:10

couple of issues ago we looked at, we had, you can

34:12

get early bits of the timetable, the full timetable

34:15

is now out there, but if you look in the right place you

34:17

can get early bits of the timetable. And

34:19

for both the Conservatives and

34:22

Labour, they were having the same meeting

34:24

in effect paid for by CIRCO,

34:26

the leading privatiser. The Conservatives

34:29

won, it's not so surprising. I mean, you know,

34:31

a Conservative MP's brother

34:33

chaired CIRCO for a long time. They

34:35

really were reaching out to the Conservatives,

34:38

you know, because the Conservatives believed

34:40

in privatisation and they were the party of government. But

34:42

for Labour it's perhaps a little bit more striking

34:45

because when CIRCO ran

34:47

the test and trace really, really badly, got

34:49

loads of money to run a Covid

34:52

service that was really just money down

34:54

the hole, I reckon. But nobody thought it

34:56

was great. To really attack them,

34:59

Angela Rainer said, why are CIRCO and other

35:01

outsourcing companies being rewarded for

35:03

their failure by getting more contracts, you meant.

35:05

And Rachel Reeves, so I mean, you know, Rainer

35:08

from the soft left say, but Rachel Reeves not from

35:11

the left of the party, she said test and

35:13

trace shouldn't be being outsourced to a

35:15

large private company like CIRCO, which has

35:17

a poor track record and known links to the Conservative

35:19

Party. So Rachel Reeves got very angry and

35:23

now CIRCO are going to be

35:25

having a meeting right in

35:27

inside Labour conference with

35:29

a Labour shadow spokesperson

35:33

on the platform. I don't know. I

35:35

mean, maybe I read that wrong. Maybe when Rachel Reeves said she was

35:37

angry that CIRCO had known links to

35:39

the Conservative Party, maybe she more actually

35:42

meant she was angry that they didn't have known

35:44

links to the Labour Party. And now they're going

35:46

to very much try and get them. Yeah.

35:49

So maybe that's the point. Maybe I've

35:51

just completely read that wrong. I mean, I

35:54

tell you the one that I think did

35:56

seem to cause a bit of trouble both

35:58

at Conservative and Labour was a lot of the vaping

36:00

firms said they were going to have a minister

36:03

on their platform and then the minister didn't turn

36:05

up. So maybe vaping for a while was a bit awkward.

36:08

Was this last year do you mean? Yeah,

36:11

last year maybe and maybe the year before. I do

36:13

remember turning up, hoping, I mean these weren't,

36:15

these didn't become stories in private eye because I turned

36:18

up hoping to find a minister there

36:20

with a vaping sort of lobbyist

36:23

because the vaping meetings seriously

36:25

they literally hand out vapes to

36:27

the delegates and you could see all the young delegates grabbing the

36:29

vapes and then banjaxing themselves

36:32

on nicotine afterwards. You know,

36:34

so that would have been just a particularly ridiculous one but

36:36

my memory is that the,

36:39

maybe vaping ones don't pass a

36:41

sniff test. I don't know, you know, Circo

36:43

is good, vaping is bad. But I mean, in fact now

36:46

you said that I will very much make

36:48

an effort to report on all vape related

36:51

meetings to see where they stand

36:53

on the sniff test.

36:54

So it's the idea that if you're, let's say you're having

36:57

a fringe meeting and you're running whatever

36:59

kind of company, the big prize is to get a

37:01

minister or the very least an MP to appear

37:03

at your meeting and discuss matters

37:05

and you're asking questions that your

37:08

industry and in particular your company would

37:10

like answers to. 100%, I mean

37:12

I've seen this change over time. Essentially

37:15

the corporates hire lobbyists

37:18

to get close to ministers.

37:21

The lobbyists then go to think

37:23

tanks or similar

37:24

and get them to arrange the meetings.

37:27

That's the chain. All the think tanks

37:29

hold meetings that are corporate sponsored and that's

37:31

the routine. So the Circo meeting

37:34

is held by the Institute for

37:37

Government, a kind of land

37:39

center. Well actually they seem like quite a critical think

37:42

tank of government machinery but I think

37:44

they've got a sort of rather bland kind of centrist

37:46

heart really so they kind of fold

37:49

it for that. One point I would also make is that

37:51

everything that happens in conferences, like

37:54

what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas actually.

37:57

Ministers have to have a list of who

37:59

they've met. There'll be them and so on and so

38:01

forth. Conferences exempt from that. All

38:04

the meetings they have at conference, they're not listed.

38:06

So they could be partying all night

38:08

long with a drug company.

38:11

But that, unlike their

38:14

official ministerial meetings, it is unrecorded.

38:17

Except by me if I happen to see

38:19

it. One

38:22

other question I wanted to ask you. I've

38:25

come to someone recently who's going to be going to both conferences

38:29

and who maintained that it's

38:32

going to be a money-making opportunity.

38:35

Conservatives. Even for the conservatives, even

38:37

if the corporate interest has slightly drained away, they'll

38:39

make millions of pounds out of conference. Can that be right?

38:42

Yeah, they do make money on it. Yeah, they do. I mean,

38:45

you can see that in the accounts

38:48

of the parties. They make money. You

38:50

have to pay X amount just to have a stand.

38:53

You have to pay Y amount to get...

38:56

I don't. I mean, and I'm pleased to say

38:59

after a little blip, even the conservatives do not

39:01

charge journalists for parties.

39:04

But yeah, all the

39:07

corporates and lobbyists and charities

39:09

and what have you, they have to pay to go in. They

39:12

are money-making ventures. Finally,

39:14

I suppose, I think it's possible

39:16

that plenty of listeners to this

39:19

podcast will be heading to conference. Maybe some for

39:21

the first time. What advice

39:24

would you give to

39:25

people

39:26

simply to survive conference season

39:29

with your faculties intact? I

39:31

wouldn't advise anyone to go to a conference

39:34

season and survive their faculties intact. What

39:36

is the point of going if you want to keep

39:38

your faculties? I'm going to say, hydrate.

39:42

I tell you, what I initially found, and this is,

39:44

you know, I'm 60 years old now, but

39:47

when I was younger

39:50

and hungry, I found

39:52

that if you went to the first Labour conference

39:54

in the early 2000s, that you didn't need to buy

39:57

any food because you just went to all the... If

40:00

you went to the most grotesque meetings,

40:02

the ones that were really sponsored

40:04

by someone really unpleasant, the

40:07

food would be much piled high and

40:09

it would be held in the poshest hotel and

40:11

the audience would be really small because the only people

40:13

there, none of the members were interested in this,

40:16

just the lobbyists and the poor minister who, or

40:18

shadow minister, has dragged along. So

40:20

you could feed yourself entirely on the basis

40:23

of lobbying chicken. So

40:26

that's one tip. It

40:28

doesn't necessarily work for a Conservative conference.

40:31

I would say when the Conservative is out of government, actually

40:33

the conference, Labour out of government, the conference

40:35

remains big, the Tories out of government,

40:37

which we may be about to see, the conference is still

40:40

big-ish but it shrinks down a greater

40:43

degree strangely. I

40:45

guess Conservatives are just more interested in power,

40:47

so a party out of power loses

40:49

its thrill more whereas Labour people are more interested

40:52

in a cause, possibly a losing

40:54

cause. They still turn up

40:56

even when they aren't getting anywhere. You

40:58

can have a factional argument at

41:01

a conference no matter what your governmental status.

41:03

I tell you what actually,

41:06

if you go to the Liberal Democrat conference, I don't

41:08

go too often but there's a reasonably

41:11

large number, it's not as big as far as not as many,

41:13

but there's quite a lot of people and

41:16

there isn't anything like the lobbying, so

41:19

there you just have a lot of people talking with

41:21

very weak catering indeed. My

41:25

tip is go to awful meetings with good catering

41:27

to sustain yourself, hydrate,

41:29

do lose your mind

41:32

because I

41:34

went to a festival and I came back as sensible

41:36

as I went before, that's not

41:39

the spirit is it?

41:42

Troubles all round for Solomon, thanks very much to

41:44

him for that and we hope he

41:46

brings his faculties back after conference season.

41:49

That's it for this episode of Page 94, we hope you've

41:51

enjoyed it. We will be back again in a fortnight

41:53

with another one. Until then, go and

41:56

buy Private Eye magazine. I

41:58

think

41:59

I've made myself clear.

41:59

there. There are copies on

42:02

newsstands and there are subscriptions available online.

42:04

Avail yourself of either of those and you'll be doing

42:07

a wonderful job for yourself and

42:09

for us. Thanks again for listening. This

42:11

episode was as ever produced by Matt

42:13

Hill of Reading Audio. Bye bye.