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Page 94, The Private Eye

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podcast. Hello and welcome to another

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episode of Page 94. My name is Andrew Hunter-Murray

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and this week I'm joined by Adam

0:08

McQueen and Helen Lewis as always for

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our look at the week's news since the magazine

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last came out. Also later on we're going

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to be talking to Richard Brooks, long-time

0:17

veteran of the podcast, who will be talking about various

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hangovers of PPE after Covid.

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Not that Covid is over. Anyway, more

0:25

cheery news to start off with. So

0:28

one of the big stories that's broken since the last

0:30

issue of The Eye was published is that Nadine

0:32

Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire,

0:35

previously Secretary of State for Culture,

0:37

Media and Sport, has resigned and

0:39

the

0:40

exciting thing is that this is a really

0:43

huge resignation because it's such a long

0:45

resignation because it started two months ago

0:47

when she set out resigning. I was going

0:49

to say you're stretching the definition of breaking

0:51

news here aren't you? This was breaking news in June

0:54

and has been ever since. Well she hasn't actually gone

0:56

yet, we're recording this on Tuesday morning and she hasn't yet

0:59

got her letter in applying for the Chiltern

1:01

Hundreds I don't think so anything could happen. This can't

1:03

be a secondary bluff. It can't be.

1:05

It could go on forever. She'll be the the

1:07

MP for Mid Bedfordshire in perpetuity and for life.

1:10

I think what's finally driven her out is the fact that I described

1:12

her in the magazine this week as quasi-MP Nadine

1:15

Dorries. That must be it. So

1:18

it's a very interesting story because basically Dorries

1:21

has been trying to resign to

1:23

cause maximum discomfort to the

1:26

Prime Minister because she's Boris

1:28

forever and she also has been

1:31

keeping her role in Parliament.

1:33

I mean you know we slightly cynically suggested

1:35

a couple of issues ago because she still

1:37

employs her daughter as a parliamentary

1:39

researcher and you know you might not want to

1:42

put yourself out of a job but also putting one

1:44

of your children out of a job will be really annoying

1:46

around the Christmas table so

1:48

there's an argument for that as well but

1:50

she has said right fine I am actually going

1:52

to be activating the Chiltern Hundreds but

1:54

as you point out Adam she hasn't. Well I mean we have

1:56

pointed out several times in the magazine as well that she's yet to

1:58

bill talks...

1:59

TV or the Daily Mail for her

2:02

for any of her fees probably rather more lucrative

2:04

than being MP actually from there so I mean to be honest she hasn't

2:06

needed the MP's salary and I'm sure her daughter the

2:08

cash for the summer's work will have come

2:11

in not work or non work I will have come in quite handy

2:13

there as well yeah.

2:14

Can I say my favorite thing about the resignation letter

2:16

is that I imagine some executive at the Daily Mail took

2:18

it across to Boris Johnson and went this this

2:20

is what we want from your column stop it stop it

2:22

with the submarines and the zem pic this

2:24

is the good stuff

2:25

like proper proper bitching about Rishi

2:27

Sunak do it like this but as we record

2:30

on Tuesday morning it I turned as

2:32

I do every Tuesday morning eager and ready

2:34

for it so the Nadine Dorries page in the

2:36

Daily Mail she's not even there this week they're

2:39

writing that resignation letter and releasing it exclusively

2:42

to the mail on Sunday which is something of

2:44

an unprecedented thing I think when it comes to resigning as an MP

2:48

it just took it all out of her she couldn't possibly churn out another

2:50

column so we just have a big advert saying Nadine will

2:52

be back next week that's fabulous and

2:55

treating I

2:55

mean treating it as a column as well because

2:57

it okay I think we should read some extracts

2:59

and I think if possible Matt if the production

3:02

allows for this if we have the budget I think maybe

3:04

some stirring

3:05

romance novel music underneath various bits

3:07

of it might I mean it might be worth adding it might add something

3:09

mightn't it also it's very very long this

3:11

one it's about 1800 words God

3:14

it goes on she bangs on forever doesn't

3:16

she and I looked at her last contributions

3:18

in the House of Commons and less

3:20

than half this and that was when she was

3:22

actually Secretary of State for cultural media in sport

3:25

answering proper submitted questions

3:27

about the brief and about the nature of the work

3:29

I felt I felt like it took me as long

3:31

nearly as long to read it as it's taken her to

3:33

actually resign it was extraordinary

3:35

just thousands of words I know I mean

3:37

and there are bits where you think needs

3:39

an edit but it does it does hold true to the standard

3:41

ministerial resignation

3:43

letter template in lots of ways so

3:46

thing one you do you say it's been a great

3:48

honor think to I've done an enormous

3:50

amount of good work think three three

3:53

reasons that are absolutely nothing to do with me

3:55

I'm leaving and then depending on whether

3:58

you're leaving angrily or the

3:59

The PM didn't really want to get rid of you.

4:01

You then have a little wrap up at the end. But

4:04

okay, here we go.

4:07

When I arrived in mid Bedfordshire in 2005,

4:10

I inherited a conservative majority of 8,000.

4:14

Over five elections, this has increased to almost 25,000, making

4:17

it one of the safest seats in the country. A

4:19

legacy I am proud of. We'll see about that.

4:22

I mean, the interesting thing about the by-election

4:24

is that the Lib Dems have obviously been embedded

4:27

in doing their classic hardcore by-election

4:29

working for some time. But Labour

4:32

also feel like they've got a decent chance to change the seat. So

4:34

it's impossible that like kind of Laurel and Hardy getting stuck

4:36

in the door, Labour and the Lib Dems might

4:38

eat into each other's vote. And they might

4:40

actually still be a conservative safe seat at the

4:43

end of it. Can I read you my favourite

4:44

bit after you've done yours? Because I do

4:46

have a favourite bit. Hold on one minute. Okay, I'll

4:48

do my favourite bit once you're preparing yours.

4:50

The offer to continue in my cabinet role

4:53

was extended to me by your predecessor, Liz Truss,

4:56

and I am grateful for your personal phone call on the

4:58

morning you appointed your cabinet in October,

5:00

even if I declined to take the call. It's

5:03

just the greatest line ever, isn't it? It's the most perfect

5:05

thing of somehow she thinks she

5:08

is the one that comes out well from that sentence.

5:12

Rishi Sunak bothered to put in a phone call

5:14

to her, at which point she just said,

5:16

I ain't gonna take that snake's phone call. Ain't never gonna

5:18

happen. And just

5:21

how she thinks that shows her in a good light and him

5:23

in a bad light is just, wow, wow. My

5:25

favourite line is the bit where she goes into the peering about

5:28

all the terrible things that this government has done. The

5:30

bonfire of EU legislation swerved.

5:33

The Windsor framework agreement, a dead duck,

5:35

brought into existence by shady

5:38

promises of future preferment with grubby

5:40

rewards and potential gongs to MPs.

5:42

And you're like, subs, please check. Wasn't

5:45

your whole complaint the fact that you had a

5:47

shady promise of a gong to an MP and then

5:49

it didn't pay off? I mean, talking

5:51

of subs, please check the line. You hold the office

5:53

of prime minister unelected without a single

5:56

vote, not even for your own MPs.

5:59

He won! The vote of MPs

6:01

in the leadership election against Liz Truss. I went back

6:03

and checked. 137 votes for Rishi, 113 for Liz. It

6:06

was the membership that then put Liz Truss in for

6:08

that extraordinary Comedy Banana Republic 40

6:11

days or whatever it was that we had, which

6:13

now seems like some weird cheese dream, doesn't it? But

6:16

I do think with the Jean Torres, I mean,

6:18

she said, I was remembering that blog

6:20

that she used to write when she was still on the back

6:22

benches. And do you remember she was then hauled

6:24

up on it for some reason, and she said that about 40% of it was

6:27

fiction. And actually, I realized that

6:29

that's the

6:29

kind of,

6:31

the key, I think, to Nadine, is in a very

6:33

similar way to Donald Trump,

6:35

actually, and to Mohammed Fayed and Jeffrey

6:38

Archer and many of the truly great storytellers

6:40

of our time. It's not so much not caring

6:43

what the truth is. It's simply not really understanding

6:46

the difference between fiction and

6:48

truth. If you have the absolute conviction

6:50

that what you are saying at any given moment is

6:53

reality,

6:54

you can do anything. You can absolutely get away with

6:56

anything. I mean, this is not quite fermenting a revolution to

6:58

try and bring down the American state. But

7:01

still, to just come out with

7:03

things that are so obviously unprovably

7:06

wrong like that, it's a rare skill. It's

7:08

amazing.

7:08

And also just a kind of complete lack of shamelessness

7:11

at being brought up on stuff. Well, you now see

7:13

a genre person who tweets deliberately

7:15

bad takes and kind of gets dunked on. And you think,

7:17

God, I would go away and

7:18

hide in a hole and never be seen again. And they kind

7:21

of carry on remorselessly. That

7:23

vibe is also very strong in Nadine. For example,

7:25

the bit when she went on about Cameron and Osborne being posh

7:27

boys while having such a massive crush

7:29

on Boris Johnson, who also went

7:32

to Eaton. And it was just sort of, and

7:34

I wonder actually, am I the fool? Because obviously,

7:36

she's not embarrassed

7:37

by the contradiction inherent in that. And

7:39

what I've done is I've just sort of given her more attention by

7:41

pointing it out. Well, there is at the

7:43

risk of getting more bits of it. But

7:46

she asked about why we've had

7:48

five conservative prime ministers and not one of the previous

7:50

four having left office as the result of losing a general

7:52

election. That is a democratic deficit which

7:54

the mother of parliaments should be deeply ashamed

7:57

of and which, as you and I know,

7:59

interesting.

7:59

is the result of the machinations

8:02

of a small group of individuals embedded

8:04

deep at the center of the party and

8:07

Downing Street which slightly

8:09

ignores the fact that

8:10

it's not the same people who got rid of all these Prime Ministers

8:13

but

8:13

it also kind of ignores the fact that it

8:15

was hardly manoeuvres in the dark was it? I mean it was

8:17

what was it 52 ministers who unembedded

8:20

themselves from Downing Street and from government

8:23

and actually you at that point wrote resignation

8:25

letters which they didn't release exclusively to the

8:27

Mail on Sunday saying why they were going.

8:29

I mean it was extraordinary, it's slightly

8:32

been a lie down. We all seem to have sort of forgotten about Chris

8:34

Pincher and the fact that everyone,

8:37

that was the point at which everyone started resigning from

8:39

Boris Tonts' government. I mean one of the, something

8:42

is struck this morning and Nadine has finally

8:43

gone. Chris Pincher is still there. Chris Pincher is hanging

8:45

on for even longer. The committee came back right

8:47

at the end of the last parliamentary term and

8:50

recommended his suspension from

8:53

Parliament for a period of time

8:55

which could have triggered a by-election

8:57

petition. He appealed that the very last minute. So

9:00

when they all come back bright

9:02

and early in their new blazers for the new parliamentary term in a

9:04

couple of weeks, Chris Pincher

9:06

will be there even if Nadine is not.

9:09

There's also a very odd bit and again this is me

9:11

with my sort of sub-editor's hat on where

9:13

it sort of implies that she wishes that more of those Tory

9:15

Prime Ministers had lost an election

9:16

and that would have been the sort of right

9:19

and fair thing to do. None of these people even lost an election

9:21

which would be the democratic way to get rid of them and you're like,

9:23

but you're a conservative. You

9:26

don't want that to happen. I

9:29

love her. I'm sorry, but I'm going to miss her.

9:31

I'm going to miss her. Obviously I'm not going to miss her because

9:33

we're going to have to read the bloody novel. Every

9:36

Tuesday in the Daily Mail. Every Tuesday in the

9:38

Daily Mail, Helen. That's all I'm saying. No,

9:40

it is interesting because it's sort

9:43

of, as you say, it's a kind of semi-novel.

9:45

And she says, my investigation is focused initially

9:48

on the political assassination of Boris Johnson,

9:50

but then she spoke to more people and a dark

9:52

story emerged which grew ever more disturbing with

9:54

each person I spoke to. It became clear to

9:56

me as I worked that remaining as a backbencher

9:59

was incompatible.

9:59

with publishing a book which exposes how

10:02

the democratic process at the heart of our party

10:04

has been corrupted. You think? But

10:08

it's amazing, pure, moving on for the fact that

10:10

I wanted to get into the House of Lords and now I'm not. So I'm off.

10:12

It's absolutely phenomenal that America

10:15

has QAnon with people in, like, Shaimanhorns

10:18

and firing guns in pizza restaurants because

10:20

they think they're a paedophile, satanic rings being run out of the basement.

10:23

And we've got Nadine Doris being quite

10:24

upset about the 1922 committee. It

10:27

makes you proud. There's not even any snacks of any

10:29

kind involved as far as I can see, let alone satanists.

10:32

Come on, satanists, where are you? I

10:34

didn't realise just how many resignation

10:37

letters that I've read in the last year

10:39

or so, the last 18 months, because obviously

10:41

they go up on Twitter and you

10:43

know, you read them and then you move on. But

10:45

God, I've looked back. There are some really fantastic

10:48

ones out there. So Nadine Zahawi, January

10:51

this year, this is the one when he

10:54

received a letter from British New York saying, you're sacked,

10:56

basically. Thank you for your kind words. It

10:58

has been, after being blessed with my loving family,

11:00

the privilege of my life to serve in successive governments

11:03

make a tangible difference to the country I love. I

11:06

arrived in this country fleeing persecution and

11:08

speaking no English.

11:10

No mention at all of HMRC. Well,

11:14

you wonder if he's then going to go into it, this being the excuse for

11:16

why he filled in his forms wrongly to HMRC. But no, no, that's

11:18

not the story. And

11:20

then quickly mentions the vaccine rollout and my

11:23

role in the mourning period for her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, as

11:26

though he'd

11:27

done it all

11:28

done all the mourning. Did he have a role? Well,

11:30

he was the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

11:33

Right. OK, so he

11:35

had to kind of sign that over to King Charles, right? Yeah,

11:37

exactly. Was it not also him that

11:39

brought the note into the Commons? I have a memory

11:41

of him scuttling along the front bench and passing a note to Rishi.

11:44

It

11:45

was to Liz, no? If

11:47

you remember, Liz Trust will have it. I've forgotten that Liz Trust was

11:49

Prime Minister. I've got to try and remember. I think

11:51

my brain is trying to knock it out.

11:53

Liz Trust went to see the Queen, was photographed with the Queen,

11:56

and the very next day the Queen

11:58

decided she'd had enough. It was her one big achievement. as Prime

12:00

Minister in those 40 days, wasn't it, to kill the Queen? Yes, I'm

12:02

sorry, I don't know how I'd forgotten that. Can't

12:05

you, don't you remember her amazing moving

12:07

speech outside Danings Street and then again at the funeral, Adam?

12:10

It was really, really touching stuff. Anyway,

12:15

Nadine, we can't wait to read your

12:17

book. I genuinely didn't know whether or not you were trolling

12:19

me then. Helen! Is he making that up? Because

12:21

it obviously wasn't her. She

12:23

did, I think she did a reading, didn't she? She did a

12:26

fairly sort of, a bit of Galatians or something,

12:27

fairly undramatic. I am at this

12:30

point between the three of us starting to doubt that Liz Truss ever

12:32

actually existed. Have we made her up? She's

12:34

not Mandela, this is not the Mandela Syndrome. No,

12:36

no, no, she did a reading at the funeral and she

12:38

spoke outside Danings Street. Actually, an

12:41

Australian news channel misidentified her as a minor

12:43

royal as she was arriving.

12:47

So you're not the only ones who are confused.

12:49

She is real, we must remember, she's real, she's out

12:51

there, she'll be back. All right, we should move on from

12:54

Nadine now, but speaking of minor royals, actually,

12:56

Adam, you have some news about, can

12:59

we say a major royal?

13:00

Is it weird to call the king a major royal? I mean,

13:02

he is. I think probably he is kind of the top

13:04

dog, isn't he? He is as royals go,

13:06

kind of right up there, isn't he? I think you

13:09

have to say that, certainly. Yes, no,

13:11

this was Flunky, our person

13:13

in the palace reported last week that the

13:16

first anniversary of the death of Her Majesty the Queen is coming

13:18

up and

13:19

almost everything that we expected to

13:22

materialise with the reign of King Charles III has

13:25

sort of failed to happen, hasn't it? I mean, for

13:27

decades it felt like, probably felt like centuries

13:30

for him. We were getting all of these briefings about

13:32

how he was all going to be a new modern monarchy and

13:34

he was going to change everything and everything

13:36

was going to be different. Very, very little

13:38

has changed, has it? Nothing

13:41

much at all.

13:41

Something has changed, Adam, which is that I

13:43

got to go to Buckingham Palace, which was great.

13:46

Was this for an honour or were

13:48

you just... No, I got invited to go to the

13:51

International Women's Day reception in Buckingham Palace

13:53

and desperate to check out the royal

13:56

lus, I obviously instantly said yes.

13:59

And let me tell you, the royal lus...

13:59

are incredible. They're made of wood.

14:02

Like not just a wooden seat but a hole

14:04

like as if they were on a ship. There's just basically

14:06

a big wooden square with a hole in it. I

14:08

was, that was, that was a really, I mean in many ways

14:11

the highlight and the canapes were good but the the loo's were incredible.

14:13

So they're still that kind of medieval style. Do they still

14:15

long, do they actually just long drop off the edge

14:17

of the palace down into the moat? Gosh.

14:21

I hope so, yes it's very much like, it's actually very eco

14:23

to go back to 13th century toileting arrangement.

14:26

I like the way Helen that you say that this has changed

14:28

as though

14:29

there was a long-standing ban on

14:32

Helen Lewis entering the grounds or buildings

14:34

of Buckingham Palace while the Queen was alive and it's

14:36

only now. It's only now with John. Well I'm alive that

14:38

woman will never come near me. It's

14:42

true. I was literally cancelled by Elizabeth

14:44

II. Yeah and finally that has now

14:46

been overturned. Okay so I

14:49

take it back. Everything, everything has been modernised.

14:51

It's a brave new world. No, well hot on the heels of Flunky's

14:53

report, the very little was going on, came a report in

14:55

the email on Sunday this last weekend

14:58

saying that actually many things are now going to change

14:59

and that Prince Charles will

15:02

be streamlining and modernising the monarchy by

15:04

sacking loads and loads of royal servants. There

15:07

are way too many of them he has decided and this

15:09

is one of those really unenviable kind of PR jobs

15:11

because that sounds really really nice in concept but do you

15:13

remember the last time when he sacked a load of royal

15:15

servants it was it was announced that most of the Queen's

15:18

personal staff had been given their redundancy

15:20

notices during I think a memorial service

15:22

for her and everyone was up in arms about that and we never

15:25

end we never stop hearing about Backstairs

15:27

Billy who was the the the page

15:29

of the chamber who was unceremoniously booted

15:32

out of his job when the Queen Mother died back in

15:34

in I think 2001. I've

15:36

got bad news too about Backstairs

15:38

Billy and that he is going to be the subject

15:40

of a new play which is coming to the West End this

15:42

autumn. So you see 22 years

15:47

old we're still getting West End dramas about these

15:49

things so the idea that actually you're going to make

15:51

yourself look good by by booting out a load

15:53

of royal servants but I mean even

15:56

less obliging like this was a bit like

15:58

the Nadine Dorries line of where

15:59

she seemed to think it made her look better. There was a line that

16:02

was obviously brief to the mail on Sunday, which said that

16:04

Camilla this year has arrived at Balmoral with the rest of

16:06

the Royal Family, but she cannot be doing

16:08

with the royal flummory and the legions of servants

16:10

that they've got there.

16:12

So she's going to stay at one of their other castles instead.

16:14

Burkel nearby. That's handy, isn't it? They've

16:16

got another royal residence. And it keeps bringing

16:18

up that thing that you keep coming back to with

16:21

Prince Charles. Again, there's a very

16:24

nicely brief story in The Telegraph today that said that the

16:26

Prince Charles... I keep calling him Prince

16:28

Charles, don't I? I'm forgetting about that. King Prince

16:30

Charles is the proper title. King Prince Charles,

16:33

as he is now known, is

16:35

going to crack down on food waste, and that's going to be the big

16:37

kind of crusade that's going

16:39

on. But it's a bit

16:41

rich,

16:42

literally, for him to be talking

16:44

about wastage in any way. I mean, he has so

16:46

many properties, such an extraordinary

16:48

list of palaces. We have this also

16:52

extraordinary situation where we're

16:54

pretending that Buckingham Palace is still an official

16:57

royal residence, even though he doesn't live there. And

17:00

are showing no sign of moving in, because that's the only

17:02

way that can justify the fact that taxpayers, due

17:04

to a deal that

17:06

Theresa May did a few years ago, are paying out millions

17:08

and millions of pounds to refurbish that place. But there's

17:11

also these properties all over the

17:13

shop, and it's not just him as well. This

17:15

is something I learned from Flunky a little

17:17

while ago. His son has got nearly as many

17:20

houses as him. The briefing that's kind of going

17:22

on at the moment

17:22

is Prince William is going to be the man who's going to change the monarchy,

17:24

and they're going to be bicycling around

17:27

like the Dutch royal family.

17:29

But, I mean, he's going to have to divest himself

17:31

of quite a lot of his own

17:33

houses, if he really wants to look like

17:35

a man of the people as well. There

17:37

was a bit in the Canteen Report where it

17:39

said the fact that they're going to have one set of servants who are going

17:41

to cook the same food for the royals and for the staff,

17:44

which was a bit like that bit when the government announced that

17:46

the police were going to prosecute crimes

17:47

over the weekend, and you were like,

17:50

oh, I mean, that seems like you could have done that

17:52

before. But I think the other thing was it in the Flunky Report

17:54

about the fact that he was

17:56

going to go abroad to France on a state visit,

17:58

and that got cancelled because they were basically...

17:59

sort of writing out so Versailles and

18:02

traditionally that hasn't been a good sign for any monarchs

18:04

in the area. But apart from that

18:06

the only place he's been is to his other random

18:08

places in Romania. He has lots

18:11

of places in Transylvania, yeah, yeah, which I'm a bit...

18:13

who knew about that before? But

18:16

William, as I'm sorry, I've just found the list from Funky His Own. Adelaide

18:18

Cottage at Windsor, Kensington Palace Pad

18:21

and Mahaul at Sandringham.

18:23

He's got a royal retreat in Landoverie as well

18:25

and Restor Malmanna in Lost with Eel. And

18:27

I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Apologies to the Welsh

18:29

nation if I'm getting those wrong. But

18:31

that's an awful lot of houses for

18:34

a couple who are... For a millennial, for a millennial,

18:36

Adam. Yes, not many of them

18:39

that have been quite that successful in getting on the property

18:41

ladder by his age, are they? That's

18:42

what happens when you don't eat avocados.

18:45

That is the kind of property portfolio you're able to build up. Yes, absolutely.

18:47

Because the avocados are all being served to the servants instead.

18:49

They're not fit for the royal food. It's

18:52

the bank of great-great-great-great-granny

18:54

and great-great-great-great-great-granddad, isn't it? And it's,

18:57

you know,

18:58

it's just thrift. It is, but it also... it

19:00

is fundamentally at odds with this rather nice

19:02

and very successful kind of PR campaign that's

19:04

been threatened to kind of present William and

19:07

Kate as kind of the Bowdoin royals of just being these

19:09

rather nice. Something quite well off, but you know, sort of nicely

19:11

middle class kind of David Cameron-y

19:13

type of nice

19:17

people with a pad in the country. Whenever

19:20

you start talking about modernizing the monarchy, in

19:22

any way, you do come up against this fundamental problem

19:26

of what the monarchy is

19:28

and the fact that they

19:30

do by definition live a life of unimaginable

19:33

privilege to the rest of us. And it's

19:36

always going to be a challenge that royal spin doctors

19:38

have always grappled with and are

19:41

never going to be able to solve, I don't think. I love the

19:43

phrase Bowdoin royals. That's right. Like,

19:46

Farrowan orb. That's my pitch.

19:49

I did see one report saying, and this was

19:52

in the last week or so, that Charles is now

19:54

being pitched as the caretaker,

19:57

caretaker monarch.

19:59

Not by him, presumably.

20:02

I imagine that's the kind of thing that would lead to

20:04

quite an outburst if he reads that. Well,

20:06

it seemed to

20:08

be sort of semi from within his

20:10

bit of the pattern, saying, you know, he's not

20:13

going to be changing everything. You know, he's

20:15

knocking on a bit and really, William's

20:17

going to be the one who,

20:18

as Adam says, radically changes things. But

20:21

I did think caretaker is quite a thing. But

20:25

as I say, we loop back to where we started with this. And

20:28

I can remember at least 20, if not 30 years of

20:30

reading that, you know, there was going to be this radical change.

20:33

And really, we were just ticking over towards the end of the Queen's life. And

20:35

as soon as King Charles came in, everything was going to change.

20:38

And then immediately, I

20:39

mean, it was extraordinary the way that we would just

20:42

sort of bulldoze into the reign of King Charles. There was absolutely

20:44

no question arising of any of whether this was

20:46

going to happen or not. You

20:48

know, republicanism just was sort of it was it was a

20:50

few people with placards being being arrested on the day of the coronation.

20:53

But that was that was the

20:55

kind of only outlet that was that that was allowed for it. But

20:57

we just sort of went straight into what stood out to

21:00

be more and more of the same.

21:01

However, there is very exciting news on the Meghan

21:03

Markle front, which is that an Instagram account

21:06

opened the weekend with a with a peony, which

21:08

apparently is her favorite flower and immediately attracted

21:10

many, many followers. So there is the theory that

21:12

she might return to the old influencing her

21:14

and Carrie Johnson, who's I have to say Greek holiday.

21:17

I've been much

21:17

enjoying over the last week or so. She's

21:20

been eating a lot of feta, which I thoroughly approve

21:22

of.

21:22

Yeah, it could be could become

21:25

Instagram, which I would I think would be phenomenal.

21:26

I'm absolutely phenomenal. Back to what Carrie

21:29

and Meghan has influenced on with on Instagram. That would

21:31

be fantastic. But Carrie Johnson's Instagram

21:33

looks like a sort of Laura Ashley advert from the

21:35

70s. The bits of it I've seen. It's extraordinary. It's

21:39

just sort of a bit of bucolic fields

21:41

and and gentle light lighting and enormous

21:43

flowery dresses. I believe it to be

21:45

cottagecore is what we're calling that. Right.

21:47

So if you've learned nothing else today, listeners, you've got Bowdoin

21:50

Royals and cottagecore. Should we not talk

21:52

a bit about the the Met

21:54

announcing that they're not going to be investigating any

21:56

further after all the

21:58

the cash for all his inquiry.

21:59

to the King's charity.

22:02

You see, Andy, what you've said there is that

22:04

the Met aren't doing a very good job of

22:06

being police. Oh no. My brain is struggling to comprehend

22:09

or process that. Absolutely not. I'm sure they're doing a brilliant

22:11

job of investigating. It's just they've announced

22:13

that there's going to be no further action taken. They've

22:16

been looking into it for 18 months, which must have been

22:18

for a full-on 18 months for them as well. Do

22:20

you think this is what Suella Bravenman had in mind when she

22:23

said she wants the Met to investigate every single

22:25

thing? Except not

22:27

her speeding offences, clearly. That's the one thing that's

22:29

very important that no one in fact investigates. She just

22:32

quietly goes on a speeding course under an assumed

22:34

name as like Buella Savum. So

22:37

those are the royals. Now we turn to the other,

22:40

can I say Queen Across the Water? The

22:42

Queen of all our hearts, yeah. I'm

22:45

beginning to develop a segue game and I'm happy

22:47

about it. I'm talking of course

22:49

about former PM Theresa May

22:51

and she's got a book coming out. Is that right, Helen?

22:53

Yeah, it's called Abusive Parent. It's coming out in the middle

22:55

of September. So she has started to trail

22:57

the exclusive extracts from this heart-stoppingly

23:00

vivid page turner. She

23:04

had an interview in the Times and an extract of it too.

23:06

I'll be honest with you, the problem with political memoirs is

23:08

they are usually the case for the defence. He

23:11

knew he was right, or in this case she knew she was right. And

23:14

there is a lot of that about the fact that she

23:16

did claim that basically without Beasley John Burco

23:19

having put the thumb on the scales, the thing which

23:21

is true did happen, right? He was very keen to

23:23

let anybody who had any objections to Brexit have their say

23:25

in Parliament. But she claims that without that the

23:28

DUP definitely well

23:29

would have probably voted for her

23:31

deal and everything would have been fine and she'd have got Brexit. Now

23:34

it turns out I have basically wiped this entire

23:36

three-year period from my brain as some kind of protective

23:39

mechanism. So I texted someone who follows the

23:41

DUP very closely. I said, did this happen?

23:43

And their response was simply, nah. So

23:46

there we go. That's the final history's

23:48

final verdict on Theresa May's claim

23:50

that if it hadn't been for those pesky Burcos she would

23:52

definitely have got Brexit.

23:54

That's unusual, isn't it? Asking the DUP something and

23:56

them saying no. Right, but I think the

23:59

thing that's interesting about...

23:59

it is that what is the

24:02

point of writing a political memoir now? That they generally

24:04

don't sell that many copies, right? Unless

24:06

you're Tony Blair or Barack Obama. You tend to get

24:08

a small advance and I think Prime Minister's

24:10

are very attached to the idea of kind of having their say

24:13

and they see this as the vehicle

24:15

for them to kind of like put down on the historical

24:17

record what they thought they were trying to do and what

24:20

they were kind of thinking as it all happened.

24:22

And the trouble in the case of Theresa May is that the

24:24

record is just one of a failure and

24:27

to be credit to it, like everybody I know who's worked with her

24:29

has said she's a fundamentally

24:29

pretty decent person in a lot of ways.

24:32

Obviously inadequate

24:32

to the job of Prime Minister as it turned out,

24:35

but that you know she does therefore

24:37

and she doesn't have the Nadine Doris delusion.

24:39

She does acknowledge that it was all a catastrophic

24:42

cock up and she never got anything through

24:44

and then she threw away the

24:45

2017 election. So it might be promised

24:47

to be a slightly more humble book than some of

24:49

the other political memoirs that are coming

24:51

out. The magazine this week we've also written about Nicholas

24:54

Memoir which is promised to take

24:56

you inside the room where it happened unless

24:58

her husband was

24:59

also in the room in which case it didn't happen and

25:01

you're in the evented. And

25:04

a friend of the podcast

25:06

Nadim Zahawi's memoir which as promised

25:08

will chart him his journey from

25:11

from Iraq to forgetting to declare

25:13

the right amount of taxes. It's

25:15

a moving portrait of overcoming

25:17

adversity of not being able to read your tax return

25:19

properly. Just quickly on the Nadim

25:21

Zahawi thing, I think the article that we

25:23

printed said the advance you've been paid was something like £6,000 and

25:26

obviously publishing pays

25:28

you in chunks so that that might be a quarter of the overall

25:31

sum let's say you know the writing fee or

25:34

like signature and agreement whatever. For a

25:36

guy with Nadim Zahawi's money because

25:38

he is a multimillionaire, £24,000

25:40

total for the pain in the

25:43

arse of writing a book is

25:45

really not very much and so it just

25:47

goes to what you say Helen about the reason that

25:49

people write these books

25:51

it's just setting the record straight because

25:53

I don't think clearly the publishers don't think many people

25:55

are going to buy it. For a long time the established

25:57

model was run by a publisher called Biteback. which

26:00

was founded by, set up by Ian Dale. And

26:02

the idea was that you, political books didn't

26:05

sell very much, but what they would do is give you a very small advance,

26:07

you'd write it, you'd write a biography of a politician, and

26:09

you know, kind of hungry journalist on the, on

26:11

the up and up. And then you would probably find one

26:13

really great story on it, which you'd sell to the mail

26:15

on Sunday or the Sunday Times for 10, 15 grand. And

26:18

that's essentially really made, made your money.

26:21

So that, you know, some of that kind of,

26:23

not exactly vanity publishing, it's not self-publishing,

26:25

but it is certainly not, you know, you're not, it's not a

26:27

commercial book industry in quite

26:29

the same way as you go into one of the kind of big five

26:32

publishers. I know, I remember

26:34

my former news station colleague, Mehdi Hassan

26:37

wrote a co-wrote a biography of Ed Miliband, in

26:39

which I threatened to give him the puff quote, if you only

26:41

read one Ed Miliband biography this year, make

26:43

it this one.

26:45

But they did exactly that. And they had a story about David

26:47

and Ed falling out that went into the mail

26:49

on Sunday. And, you know, that has been the established

26:52

kind of political biography kind of model for quite

26:54

a long time. So, yeah, some of them do so. I mean, I

26:56

chundered my way

26:56

through the Barack Obama post

26:59

presidency one. By God,

27:01

that was boring. It didn't half go on. I

27:03

just, I just wonder if anyone in the publishing

27:05

industry is ever going to wake up and go, hang on, guys,

27:07

these don't sell at all. And no one wants

27:10

to read them. Why are we doing this? Because I

27:12

mean, it's still you said it's not quite as

27:14

funny. I mean, they are spending money, presumably.

27:16

The advances are not enormous. But

27:18

actually printing copies of these things and distributing

27:21

them and advertising them and getting that there is still money

27:23

going on. And it just feels like one of those things no one

27:25

in the publishing industry has ever stopped and said,

27:26

why are we doing this? It's a bit, you know, it's

27:28

just what you do. It's like every prime minister, Anthony

27:31

Selden, has to write an end of term report on them. And

27:33

we have to publish that. We have to pretend it's

27:35

a news story. Oh, he's not doing Liz Trust. Not

27:37

not because like me, he's forgotten that she existed, but she's

27:39

going to be an appendix. Apparently it is. Oh,

27:43

oh, that's really cool. Because what

27:45

is an appendix except for something irritating? You have

27:47

to have removed. Yes, Andy.

27:50

I think you're exactly right. I think there is an assumption that

27:52

people might do. And actually maybe, you know, what being the Deams

27:55

Ahawi's publisher has got some good long term connections

27:57

beyond the fact that you think it's going to be on board.

27:59

one and they heart but it's

28:01

gonna knock you know Reverend

28:04

Richard Coles is on yeah

28:06

Richard Osman's what was the last one

28:08

that sold it was because notoriously none

28:10

of Gordon Gordon Brandt kept writing books he was writing books throughout

28:12

his time in Downing Street and they all sold about 32 copies but Blair's

28:16

book did sell didn't it

28:18

yeah I think Blair's sold all right Obama's obviously sold

28:20

very well in the state most

28:22

of the US there's a publish called Regnery that does most

28:24

the US conservative politicians I think they sell all right because

28:27

there's lots of them Alan Johnson's sell

28:28

very well because at least two of them

28:30

that I read

28:31

were genuinely very nicely written

28:33

that's the difference isn't it yeah I mean there

28:35

are there are politicians out there who can genuinely write

28:37

he is one of them the other one is Chris Mullen who's some volumes

28:40

of diaries are absolutely brilliant and give you a really

28:42

because I think he actually called one of them a view from the foothills

28:45

he was never a very major player in government but

28:47

he was there and he was observing he was more interested

28:49

in other people than himself I think which always helps with

28:51

with authors although not necessarily with politicians so

28:54

they are they are they're a cracking read certainly

28:56

Giles Brandreth's breaking the code his

28:59

Westminster diaries are very good because

29:01

again junior whip yeah but

29:03

Matthew Paris is for the same yeah yeah

29:05

that's it so I think people who've been

29:07

on the outside and also kind of don't have

29:10

any problem about burning their bridges I think that's the other

29:12

thing isn't it now you have to really kind of leave

29:14

and sort of do the full devil wears Prada where you just

29:16

assume you're never gonna work in this industry again and you might

29:18

as well tell people exactly what you thought of it whereas I

29:21

suspect Theresa May's memoir will be a

29:23

little bit more cautious reflecting her somewhat

29:25

more cautious approach to life well maybe Theresa

29:27

May will take a leaf out of Nadine's book and

29:29

we'll get a full bridge burning exercise

29:32

why everyone else is a snake

29:35

and only Boris and I are true patriots

29:37

and I wouldn't I wouldn't mind reading that you're

29:39

gonna read it on you it's pre-ordered

29:41

I am actually I think I genuinely have

29:43

to read the Nadine I'm pretty sure I'm gonna end up reviewing

29:45

it so you'll be quizzed on that in future that's

29:47

such I'm gonna have to read

29:50

it someone's gonna pay me to Adam

29:55

McQueen there thanks to him and

29:57

Helen Lewis now for the second

29:59

half of this week's podcast we are talking

30:02

once again about fascinating companies

30:04

that sprang up or that did extremely

30:06

well during the pandemic

30:09

and then which had curious interesting

30:11

afterlives with all the the money that they successfully

30:14

made. In this case we're going to be talking

30:16

about a firm called Excalibur

30:18

Healthcare Services Limited run

30:21

by a medical entrepreneur called Chris Evans, not

30:24

that Chris Evans, all the other Chris Evans that you're

30:26

thinking of. This is Sir Chris

30:28

Evans who was at the helm of Excalibur

30:30

and whose company being a medical equipment

30:33

supplier did really well during the

30:35

pandemic as you might expect but

30:37

that is only the first half of

30:40

the story and it then became after the

30:42

initial Russian government spending much more

30:44

interesting. I started off by asking

30:46

just how he had made sure that Excalibur

30:49

did so well during 2020 and

30:53

following. Here's Richard. He got

30:55

in on two fronts, one

30:57

was the kind of bread and butter

31:00

PPE which you know

31:02

any self-respecting medical entrepreneur

31:05

cashed in on. He

31:08

supplied loads of face masks but

31:11

he's actually better known from that period

31:13

for supplying loads of ventilators.

31:16

You might remember when the pandemic broke

31:19

we were panicking that

31:21

we didn't have enough ventilators. We'd

31:24

seen the scenes from Italy

31:27

and all looked

31:30

extremely serious and there

31:32

was a big shout went out to source

31:36

ventilators or even even invent them,

31:38

even create new ones. It was like

31:41

appeals for metals for spitfires

31:44

during the Second World War. I was going

31:46

to say it's a crap people challenge. No but yours is better.

31:48

Yeah okay. I mean

31:52

in the event we didn't need them all although

31:54

to be fair they you know the

31:56

health department and the suppliers weren't

31:59

tonight that.

31:59

at the time. But what it meant was that

32:03

they bought lots of ventilators at quite

32:05

a hefty price in

32:07

their sort of desperation. And

32:10

as with PPE, there were middlemen

32:13

who stood in between suppliers

32:17

in China and the health

32:19

department. And just to say, I mean,

32:21

when you say a hefty price, that they were £50,000

32:24

each, which feels like a fair bit, especially when you're

32:26

buying 2,700 of them. Yeah, yeah.

32:29

That's the size of the contract was £135 million,

32:31

which is, I know we cover big numbers

32:35

a lot, especially whenever you're

32:37

on incredibly big numbers are thrown around. But

32:40

that that is a fair bit. Yeah, I

32:42

think it was it was several times

32:44

what the Department of Health had been paying just

32:47

a few weeks before. Right.

32:48

Now, you know, he's insist, well,

32:50

the price just went up, the Chinese started

32:53

charging a bit more. And it's

32:55

this is one of those questions from

32:57

the Covid era that's never really been properly

33:00

resolved. You know, we don't know exactly

33:03

how much he had to pay China.

33:05

We don't know whether the 50,000 was

33:08

a reasonable price. What we do know is that

33:10

the company that was his

33:12

company, this Excalibur Healthcare, made

33:15

some decent profits from it. Right.

33:17

It's 2021 accounts show

33:18

that it made 13 million

33:21

quid from these ventilators and the

33:23

PPE.

33:24

Okay. Not as much as some, to be honest.

33:27

There are people who made a lot more. But

33:31

it's still 13 million is pretty

33:33

tasty. Yeah. And so that

33:35

you mentioned the middleman, is that a component

33:38

of the price? Or is that a reason why deals

33:40

might have been done, which could have been made more efficient?

33:43

Or

33:44

what's the story there? Well,

33:46

this this is the way that the

33:48

whole Covid procurement system

33:51

worked. The government, it

33:54

almost outsourced procurement,

33:57

rather than

33:59

going to the

33:59

the Chinese, which was where

34:02

most of the stuff was coming from and

34:05

saying, look, can we do some deals with

34:07

you? We're the British government. We're

34:09

in

34:10

desperate need, as others are. Can

34:13

we get some big deals for the PPE,

34:15

for the ventilators and so on? Instead

34:17

of doing that, I think there were a lot of

34:20

political reservations

34:22

about that kind of approach. They

34:24

just handed it over to businessmen,

34:28

usually businessmen who had existing

34:32

contacts out in China through

34:35

all sorts of businesses. We've

34:38

heard a lot of them. We've written about a lot of them. They

34:40

could have been sourcing

34:43

clothes, cheap, like rag

34:45

trade type

34:46

business people. Could have been buying

34:49

pesticides. We've heard about some of those.

34:51

All kinds of things. Anybody who had any dealings

34:54

in China and knew the people, knew where to go,

34:56

knew the fixers,

34:58

they obviously

35:00

spotted this opportunity and said, okay,

35:03

we can use our contacts

35:06

to source, usually PPE,

35:10

and then flog it on to the Department of Health with

35:13

what we've seen from a number of cases

35:15

was a very, very healthy profit

35:18

for themselves. Yeah. That's

35:20

kind of the standard model that was operating.

35:22

Then as you covered in

35:24

the story of, I

35:26

was about to call it Mr Evans, Sir Chris, what

35:29

happened after this initial

35:32

rush of really good business? Well,

35:35

sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what

35:37

happened because company accounts

35:40

aren't all that informative. But what

35:42

you can see is that he

35:45

made this 13 million profit

35:47

and then

35:48

rather than paying himself a dividend,

35:51

which would have been taxable, even through

35:54

the way that he owned the company, actually

35:56

owns the company through another

35:59

I love man company which itself

36:02

is controlled by trusts by

36:04

family trusts but

36:06

rather than channeling money directly that

36:08

way as a dividend what he did was

36:11

he arranged for the Isle of Man company

36:14

to sell

36:16

the the healthcare company

36:18

that made these profits to

36:22

a

36:23

couple of people we'd never heard of and

36:26

still really haven't heard

36:28

of

36:30

and insisted that

36:33

the idea was that these people would carry

36:35

on the business they would take up the mantle under

36:39

the directorship of

36:41

somebody who just happened to be a long-term

36:44

associate of his his

36:47

his accountant finance director

36:51

for many of his businesses and

36:53

the idea

36:55

was that this was a genuine

36:57

business transfer it would you

37:01

know the business would be carried on by someone

37:03

else he'd done his bit and he was out

37:05

which

37:07

sounds plausible

37:09

but it also makes you

37:11

think well is that really what it's about

37:14

especially when the people who

37:16

bought it had no experience

37:18

in medical supply businesses

37:21

that we could see only one of them I think

37:24

could had any activities we could

37:26

trace which was a very small company

37:29

described as an exotic fruit

37:32

trader okay

37:35

so really not one not people

37:37

you might expect to pick up a major medical

37:40

supplies operation post

37:43

pandemic you know

37:45

you we did see all kinds of

37:47

weird and wonderful characters set

37:49

up medical supply businesses specifically

37:52

for the pandemic because they could get PPE

37:54

from the people they knew out in China but

37:57

after the pandemic that was a that's

37:59

bit strange. You

38:02

know, the money's been made by that stage. You

38:05

know, it's back to hard work. Yeah,

38:07

what? I'm so baffled by this,

38:09

Richard. What's going on? Well, I had

38:12

discussions with Chris Evans'

38:15

spokesman who, and they've always insisted

38:17

this was a genuine

38:19

transfer of an ongoing business, that

38:23

the finance person, woman

38:25

who's worked for Chris Evans for a long time,

38:28

wanted to sort

38:31

of go on her own. It was time for her

38:33

to run a business. But

38:36

it just,

38:37

it didn't really ring

38:41

all that true to me, frankly.

38:45

But that's what we wrote. We

38:48

said what had happened. That was last year.

38:54

And now more recently, this year, we look

38:56

at what's happened to the company,

38:58

having been transferred to these new owners.

39:02

It's been renamed International

39:04

Medical Supplies Limited.

39:06

Okay. A very original

39:08

sounding name. Nothing suspicious

39:10

there. It just really does

39:13

sound like a perfectly normal business

39:15

incorporated. Just like, almost

39:17

nothing to bounce off the surface of that one. Okay.

39:20

It's

39:21

not filed accounts for

39:24

the period you would

39:26

expect it to, but it has

39:29

gone into administration.

39:31

Oh, sorry to hear that. And

39:33

details of the administration

39:37

show that it

39:40

owes quite a bit of money to some suppliers,

39:44

not of medical equipment, but

39:47

business service suppliers, and the

39:49

largest amount

39:50

to HM

39:53

revenue and customs. The

39:55

amount is 2.1 million pounds in corporations.

39:59

tax, which

40:01

roughly corresponds to the kind

40:04

of level of corporations you tax, you

40:06

would

40:06

expected it to pay on

40:09

its 13 million profits that we talked

40:12

about earlier. Right. You

40:14

know, what we see for whatever reason

40:17

pre or whether it was contrived or

40:19

it's just not worked out, we

40:21

see someone making a lot of money

40:24

on COVID contracts. And

40:27

then

40:28

the tax not being paid, the company

40:30

going bust and tax not paid.

40:32

My concern is that without

40:34

giving any spoilers for our

40:36

next issue, it looks like there may

40:39

be other companies doing this. There

40:41

are PPE suppliers making huge amount

40:43

of money from the taxpayer on the

40:45

back of the global pandemic

40:49

and then packing it all in before it

40:51

becomes time to pay the tax bill. Okay.

40:54

Just how we understand Richard. So if I let's say I've

40:56

done this, which is always the

40:58

analogy I go with, you know, let's say I do this usual.

41:00

I'm going to get checking on company's house now.

41:02

But

41:06

if I've made all this profit, how is

41:08

it possible for the business to go bust so quickly? Is it

41:10

because the profit has just been paid out

41:13

in the form of dividends or is it gone elsewhere?

41:15

What's happened to that money that the business is now

41:17

totally insolvent?

41:21

Well, yeah. So, otherwise,

41:23

normally it will be because the money's being paid

41:25

out in some way. So

41:28

there isn't the cash left in

41:30

the company. In this case,

41:32

the story is that the company

41:34

was passed on with some debts

41:37

that had not been collected. They'd

41:39

already been kind of, they had not actually

41:42

constituted part of the profits before,

41:45

but the company had some debts

41:47

which were handed, you know, with everything

41:49

else in the company to

41:51

the new owners. And

41:54

they've written off those debts. They said they're

41:56

not recoverable.

41:57

There's no, there's no real money in the company

41:59

at all.

42:00

There's just debts owed to them

42:02

which won't be recovered and debts they owe

42:04

to HMRC

42:07

and others. So when you spoke

42:09

to the company they said then what

42:12

did they Answer in terms

42:14

of how this had come about. Do they have an answer?

42:16

Chris Evans spokesman said that You

42:19

know, he's had no involvement in the company since he

42:21

sold it that the new owners were

42:24

aware of The debt

42:26

that was recoverable and that when he sold

42:28

it the recovery process was underway but

42:31

that hasn't worked out and he says

42:33

they were also challenging whether the tax bill was

42:35

correct, although the

42:37

You know the filings at company house showed that it

42:39

was a

42:40

debt and they also

42:42

say that Chris Evans

42:45

Reinvested the profits he made in

42:48

laboratory development Wherever

42:51

that is But

42:54

it's still profits whatever you do with it as

42:56

far as I know you didn't give it away Right and

42:58

it's just one of those very sad stories of a firm

43:00

that appears to be doing brilliantly hands it over to

43:02

a couple Of people no

43:04

one's ever heard of including one exotic

43:06

fruit supplier and then it just just

43:08

goes to pieces Yeah. Yeah,

43:11

that's a real shame. Yeah, I mean the

43:14

It's kind of you know,

43:16

the pandemic was kind of awful

43:18

for most people and Things

43:20

looked up slightly afterwards For

43:23

a lot of these suppliers. It's the other way

43:25

around, you know The

43:28

golden days of the global pandemic

43:30

are over

43:31

Richard Brooks there thanks to him and to

43:33

everyone else from the first half as well Thanks

43:36

also to you for listening to this episode

43:38

of page 94 which is now over

43:41

if you've been