126: MAGA, monarchy and Welby’s woes

Adam, Ian and Helen discuss the fallout from Donald Trump’s election victory, Prince Andrew’s housing crisis and how Prince William became his dad’s landlord. Then, Francis Wheen joins the team to talk about Justin Welby’s involvement in a historic child abuse scandal.

Episode Transcript

Maisie (00:00):
Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast

Adam (00:03):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94, the Private Eye
Podcast in the absence of Andrew HunterMurray, this week, he's off with another
different podcast that we don't mentionhere, touring Australia and New Zealand.
I dunno when our tour's coming up.
But anyway, I'm here inthe Private Eye office.
I'm Adam MacQueen, and I'm joinedby Helen Lewis and Ian Hislop.
Later we're gonna be talking to FrancisWeen about the child abuse scandal

(00:24):
that led to the resignation of theArchbishop Canterbury, Justin Welby.
But first, let's talk about something elsepretty big that happened since the last
edition of the magazine, Donald Trump wonan emphatic victory in the US election.
Is that fair?

Helen (00:37):
Oh yeah.
I think that's fair enough.
I think people have been overdoing theidea that it was a surprise victory.
Actually, all of the pollingsuggested it was 50 50 and within,
a normal polling era, either way tobe a landslide in each direction.
But, definitely he won the popular vote,which he's so far never managed to do.
And actually Republicans have reallystruggled to do since the nineties.

Ian (00:58):
So the popular vote.
turns out to be a statistic thatis, is quite familiar to British.
listeners, can you tell us?

Helen (01:06):
I think Kamala Harris will end up with 48% and Donald Trump
may nudge over 51, not quite

Ian (01:12):
52.

Helen (01:13):
Not quite the cursed ratio, but it bre confused by this, but it is a Brexit.
Come on, admit it.

Adam (01:18):
They don't add up, do they?
There's a sort of almost 2% ofpeople missing at the moment.
Who are they voting for?

Helen (01:24):
they, just take a really long time to count votes, so it's mostly
Republican state legislatures have donestuff where you can't start counting
mail-in ballots until election day.
which was done with some idea about, oh,this would be great, we'll make it really
hard to work out what the results areso that Donald Trump can claim victory.
And as it turned out, theydidn't need any of that.
He's just, he just flat out won.

(01:44):
It was fine.
I was

Adam (01:44):
slightly amazed because amongst the many, predictions I was reading, a lot of
them were saying, oh, it'll won't be over.
The countings gonna go on forages, and then the court cases
are gonna go on for ages.
After that, it's gonna be like2000 with Al Gore and George W.
Bush.
And I woke up at sort of seveno'clock in the morning, had a
look at my phone and went, oh God.
Yeah, done.
They decided, already wentback to sleep at that point.

Helen (02:03):
Arizona didn't declare until the weekend.
It's just by that point he'd already wonGeorgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, Wisconsin, every and all.
The other thing that's crazy is that,the Trump swing is absolutely everywhere.
he won Beverly Hills, he didreally well in New York, you
know much better than you think.
It's not just that the redstates got redder, it's that.

(02:24):
Everywhere.
Basically, apart from the Mormons,basically the Utah was the only
one that didn't really followthat pattern, but pretty much
everywhere else swung to Trump.

Adam (02:33):
Now I had to do, have to pull you up.
We're talking about predictions.
Yeah.
And I know some listeners are gonna besaying, what did Helen say last time?
And you were, very clever.
You didn't, as, I think it's now knownin the podcasting trade, do a Rory.

Helen (02:44):
you did, you

Adam (02:44):
refused to give us an emphatic prediction of who would or wouldn't win.
But you did say you foundyourself optimistic about Kamala
Harris', chances two weeks ago.

Helen (02:51):
I did.

Adam (02:52):
you pointed out she was sneaky ahead in the polling.
that did seem to be whatwas going on at that point.
And the early votingreturns were looking good.
And you suspect there was gonnabe a big turnout by women who were
driven by the decision to overturnconstitutional right to abortion.
middle-aged women, you said are quitereliable on turning out to vote.
They are, were they, they were just,they turned out to vote for Trump, right?
They were, because they'revery reliable all along, very

(03:13):
cleverly phrased, yes,

Helen (03:15):
no, what, I got wrong.
So I was confused by the fact, Iwent to these rallies and there
was genuine enthusiasm for Harris.
And that's true, right?
Actually, in terms of raw votes,she did not do all that badly.
It's just that Donald Trump turned out aload of people, including a load of really
low engagement voters across swing states.
I think primarilymotivated by the economy.

(03:36):
So the thing is, I thought lots ofangry women were gonna turn up to
vote against him, and they didn't.
That's the bit that I, got wrong.
and one of the reasons for that mightbe, if you look at it, people not
only, there's quite a lot of reallyinteresting split ticket stuff where
they, people have voted for down ballotDemocrats, but also Trump at the top.
But actually quite a lot.
I think two thirds of the abortionmeasures, which were all aimed

(03:57):
at liberalizing, the regimein various states, all passed.
Florida's one got to, in the mid fifties,but it needs to get 60% to clear.
So what clearly happened in a lot of thosecases is that people who were motivated
by Dobbs, that judgment turned out to voteto liberalize abortion in their state....
then tick the Donald Trump box,even though he was the guy who
appointed the three Supreme Courtjustices, that it all rested on.

Adam (04:20):
That is extraordinary, isn't it?

Helen (04:23):
Voters make no sense.
I think this is one of the things that youhave to come out of it in this election.
So we're

Ian (04:27):
blaming the voters.
Are we?

Helen (04:29):
I'm not blaming them.
I'm just saying that peoplehave some wild opinions about
politics that are, very funny.
there are people...
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,who's a very socialist kind of,
somebody's very much on the left.
Like economically within the Democrats.
She did it like, a thing where sheasked people on Instagram, why did
you vote for me and Donald Trump?
Because there were plenty of those people.

(04:50):
And the answers are really interesting.
Often people would say, you are both kindof anti-establishment candidates, right?
You're both outsiders,you're both real people.
Bernie Sanders underperformed.
It looks like the democratic ticket,even though in other places you'd say
that economic populism has done quitewell for the Democrats in Arizona,
the Democratic Senate candidate,Ruben Gallego won and he won by

(05:12):
being extremely tough on the border.
His, all his ads were him witha sheriff driving on the border
going, I'm gonna close it.
I'm very, I'm, so there's all kindsof cross currents that, that went
on, but we don't see from here.
We just don't see.
So every, everybody saidyou think it's red or blue?
Yeah, everybody said all the Arab votersin, Michigan have moved towards Trump.
That may be true in a communitylevel, but the Senate candidate

(05:34):
that they've returned is a.
pro-Israeli person who usedto work as a C in the CIA.
So they're not necessarilylike super against American
foreign policy in that sense.

Ian (05:46):
I noticed in the, Trump, grand victory speech, he thanked a
specific list Americans, includingArab Americans and Muslim Americans.
He didn't mention Jewish Americans.
Does that mean anything?
Or was he just having a brain fade?

Helen (06:01):
no.
it, I, think it was more thatthose were just un unexpected.
There was a great thing of him, thepicture of him hugging an imm because
he absolutely loves that kind ofsense of, people call me racist,
people call me sexist, but actuallywomen love me, black men love me.
So I think he, he really runs against thatidea that people consider him untouchable.
So I think he really liked it.

(06:22):
The other thing he did in that speech washe called up Dana White, who was the head
of the, ultimate Fighting Championship,and he then Dana White, then shouted
out all the influencers, Logan Pauland, Joe Rogan and people like that.
So there really is a sense that,those people are on the march.
This is the new kind of MAGA monarchy,and there was a great photo from election

(06:43):
night of Mar A Largo in Florida, whichwas a Trump family photo, except Melania
had been replaced with Elon Musk.
Yes.
She wasn't in it.
He's there

Adam (06:51):
holding one of his kids.
Yeah.
The one with the weird sortof mathematical formula name.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Helen (06:55):
His eldest kid who, he basically, actually, he did a podcast
with Tucker Carlson, in which hebrought the kid on and he started
saying, mini me, you complete me.
So that kid is either gonna endup very weird or extremely normal.
I can't see which one yet as a reaction.
exactly.
Just the most normalperson you've ever seen.
Straight called rebellion.
Just like an actuary or something.

Adam (07:14):
My really depressing thought last week when I saw that photo
was, oh God, he's next, isn't he?
You know it's not gonna be Eric or Don Jr.
, That inherits the mantle from Donald.
Do you think Elon's gonna runfor president next time around?
You are depressing.
He can't.
I really are.
look, we don't get nice things anymore.
I said all the way through.
This was the result we were gonna get.

Helen (07:30):
He can't.
He was born in South Africa.
Ah,

Adam (07:32):
same

Helen (07:32):
thing that kept out Arnold Schwarzenegger.
'cause he is born in Austria.
Keep her,
I'd like to

Ian (07:36):
see that birth certificate because I, I believe he's an American

Helen (07:40):
if they were gonna appeal anything.
I think it's amendment that stopsyou running for more than two terms.
People have already been hoping thatyou'll get the 2028 election will be,
after that's repealed and then it'll beDonald Trump versus Barack Obama, which
is like the final boss match of America.
Wow.

Adam (07:57):
That would be amazing.
and then Donald just stays thereand keeps the seat warm for Barron
when he eventually gets to the ageand height, which will be about 27
stories high by that point becausehe just seems to keep on growing.

Helen (08:08):
He's huge.
Six eight.
Yeah.

Ian (08:10):
So is there any evidence that old fashioned things like
Taylor Swift or having celebritiesendorse you makes any difference?
Or is it the type ofcelebrities you now need?
Wrestlers and golfers?

Helen (08:22):
I think the trouble with their celebrities is they.
They didn't create the kind of reself-reinforcing, don't wanna say echo
chamber, but that sounds pejorativebecause the thing about all of those
podcasts is, they were just avowedpartisans who just hammered away at the
same things in the campaign messages.
Like the thing about the conservatives inthe US is there's a bigger tent, right?
And that they will just have anybody inand actually they're just much more loyal.

(08:46):
So you end up this weird situation wherethe liberal media and progressive groups
constantly criticize the Democratsand the Republicans, but what's the
counterpoint to that on the right?
There's not really so much of anindependent right wing media anymore.
I think some of the celebrities may evenhave backfired, or I think gloriously
people might have gone thanks, Beyonce foryour opinions, to stick to the singing.

Ian (09:11):
But they didn't.
Do that on the other side.
They don't say stick to the wrestlingor stick to the looking wide-eyed on
podcasts and believing stuff about aliens.
they don't do that on the right, do they?

Helen (09:21):
No.
I've been trying to work out 'causethere's been a big discourse about,
should there be a liberal Joe Rogan andI, and then everybody's been chatting
about it and I suddenly thought, Idon't think you can make the argument
that culture in the, in America hasn'tgot a lot of left leading people in it.
Hollywood is, it was mostly filledwith people who care about making a lot
of money, but that if you, insofar asit has cultural values over the last

(09:44):
10 years, they are softly liberal.

Adam (09:46):
But Joe Rogan in 2016 was backing Bernie Sanders, wasn't he?
And Elon Musk as well has switched stars.
He was very anti-Trump and, has comearound, fully on board, utterly on board.
Now is the lesson from this that peoplejust like outsiders and people who don't
fit the political mold and that, thesort of Hollywood stars endorsing the
Democrats does very much fit into that?

Helen (10:06):
I think it's hard to tell the story of either Elon Musk or
Joe Rogan without talking about thehuge misfire that kind of left wing
cancellation has been in both cases.
because the trouble with, Rogan, initiallyhe spoke out about trans women and
competing in mixed martial arts fighting.
He also had some prettywacky theories during covid.
But there was a kind oflet's keep her in a distance.
Let's cordon him off.

(10:27):
And a, real attempt to makeDemocrats not go on that show.
So yeah, he had Bernie on, he hadJohn Fetterman on the Senator from
Pennsylvania just before the election,who's this, also barren Trump's size.
Just giant ogre of a manwho only wears sweatpants.
but he just likes kind ofoutsider people, I think.
And Bernie Sanders was that, some ofRogan's opinions are very like anti

(10:49):
big pharma, really worried about moneyand politics, that kind of stuff.
And the, Democrats have justended up being painted as the.
Establishment and all the media

Ian (10:58):
suspicious of big pharma in America after the opioid scandal.
Not a bad position becausethey didn't behave very well.

Helen (11:04):
No, it is one of only two countries in the world along with
New Zealand where you're allowedto advertise medicines on tv.
a lot of the, a lot of the Americanmedical habits, do you remember the
stuff, the cake stuff from, brass eye?
Oh, yeah.
That all of the side effects, therewill just be a list of horrific side
effects for this heart medicine thatyou, have to get that you and all rattled

Adam (11:22):
off incredibly fast.
'cause they got to do the end of it.
Yeah.

Helen (11:24):
There was a whole one that just went on for ages.
It was a heart medicine about thisterrible, potentially fatal infection
of the perineum that it often caused.
And I just thought, I'm eating.
I don't

Adam (11:33):
need this.
But it is literally every advert inevery ad break as well, isn't it?
that's, almost what fills everythingAnd then if you go to Walgreens, because
every third shop in certain parts ofAmerica seems to be a Walgreens and just
the, medicines you can buy not even overthe counter, just off the shelf, things.
You would need a long consultationwith your GP to go over here.

Ian (11:50):
b and a, you're not gonna get long consultation with your gp.
That's true.
And b, that's the way.
It's heading.
If you don't have a functioning NHS

Helen (11:59):
So.
Robert f Kennedy Jr.
Was part of the kind of extendedMAGA universe he's called of Maha,
which is Make America healthy again.
Whether or not he gets a formalposition in the administration,
his views are very influential.
Now, in that, all the, we talked abit before about the kind of anti woke
vitamins that get advertised to you,but there is a difficulty because, as
you say, Ian, lots of people in Americarightly find pharma very suspicious

(12:23):
and think it's trying to sell youstuff for problems that it's created.
Or in the case of the opioidscandal, rapaciously just leads
you down a pathway to addiction.
so he gets people with that stuffand then he leads them onto ps.
Also, vaccines are bad.
and trying to defend one andnot the other is a bit that I
think people find quite hard.

Adam (12:44):
When do all of the appointments have to be taken?
When, do we find out what job RFKmight get and what job E online get?

Helen (12:50):
So they've got the transition team working at the moment.
They've already, it's, they've,it's, they've appointed a fairly
dry bureaucrat to oversee it alongwith some more spicier people.
One of the early warning signs is thatTrump has said basically he wants the
leadership in the, in Congress to beokay with him just appointing acting
secretaries for everything, which isa way of getting through the, avoiding

(13:11):
the senate confirmation process.
So that does imply that he might begiving full throttle jobs to some
people who wouldn't get confirmed ratherthan just giving them advisor jobs.
'cause everyone, he's

Adam (13:23):
got both houses as well, hasn't he?
they've both gone Republicans.
Yeah, he

Helen (13:26):
is got a pretty whopping majority.
So, someone's gonna

Adam (13:28):
have to be quite extreme if he can't get approval.
who are we talking about here?
Some of

Helen (13:33):
these people are quite extreme now.
I dunno if you've been keeping upwith Tucker Carlson, former Fox News
host, but in the closing days ofthe campaign, he claimed that he'd
been attacked in bed in asleep by aliteral demon that had clawed him.
And that's definitely notdisqualifying And Trump's gonna

Adam (13:46):
give a cabinet job to the demon.

Ian (13:50):
Yeah.
You, have to remember with TuckerCarlson that, Rupert Murdoch was
about to marry this woman, and thendidn't because she thought Tucker
Carlson was literally the messiah.
and that, yeah, it was stated atthe time that she was too right wing
for Rupert Murdoch, how we checked.
So he's pretty right wing.

Adam (14:07):
Yeah.
How have we checked where RupertMurdoch was on the night in question?
Because I can imagine him turningup in your bedroom c clause
out could be quite terrifying.

Helen (14:14):
There were so many potential other explanations not leads to the
fact that Tucker Carl, it turns out,sleeps with his four dogs, which may
provide an alternate explanation of whyhe woke up with claw marks slightly more

Ian (14:23):
likely.
Can

Helen (14:25):
I ask you, Adam, I want, I dunno why I'm making you do
this, but can you guess whatDonald Trump's favorite film is?

Adam (14:31):
I think I know this.
Go on.
Isn't it Sunset Boulevard?
It is

Helen (14:34):
Sunset Boulevard, yeah.
It's magnificent.
He used to make people come toCamp David and watch it Camp

Adam (14:39):
David.
The clue is there.
It's YMCA is Sunset Boulevard.

Helen (14:44):
it's really astonishing.
Like I just think, I can't imaginehim watching it going yes, it's
the politics that got small.

Adam (14:49):
He honestly go to YouTube and look up some old Liberace
performances and all of the nuances.
He's taken half of hismannerisms from Liberace.
I

Helen (14:56):
know.
It's, it just extraordinary.
But I think it makes it really work.
you were saying that calling him afascist doesn't work and because,
of the gleeful, the funny, thesurrealness and the calmness.
I think it really jams your brain frombeing able to go mass deportations
would be a horrible policy of peoplebeing like dragged outta their homes
at night because then it's like

(15:18):
you can't put the two thingstogether in your brain.

Ian (15:21):
Yeah.
And, people didn't.

Adam (15:22):
So that's democracy taken care of.
Yes.

Ian (15:25):
the gloom, I have to say this 'cause I'm not terribly gloomy of the
whole, is you would guess from thereaction from some of the, British
media that a hundred percent of theAmerican population had voted Trump.
And had also said.
It's not extreme enough.
Can he invade Britain?
that isn't what actually happened,

Adam (15:45):
rather than this being a not unprecedented election result and
stuff we've done before, I'm, becauseyou remember quite how hysterical
everyone was about George W.
Bush back in the day and he nowlooks like quite a sort of, no,

Helen (15:54):
I saw a verge of him talking Spanish fluently to someone.
I was like, I feel bad aboutall the things we said about
how incredibly stupid he was.
Yeah.

Ian (16:01):
can you imagine how I feel about Reagan

Helen (16:05):
that now that Reagan Mondale, now that's a landslide Mondale
ended up with what, 13 electoralcollege votes out of over 500.
But yeah, you are, right.
And I think you say it's a resoundingTrump win, but also point out
that he did lose in 2020 whenpeople directly remembered what
it was like to be governed by him.
he's a, giant figure in politicsand a very improbable success

(16:28):
story, other people really struggle.
other maga people really struggleto capitalize and do what he's done.
I think he's a real one-off in that sense.
I don't think JD Vance, muchsmarter than him, but I just has
not got the kind of camp exuberance.
And I think people really, that'sthe bit that people really like.

Adam (16:47):
They like the showmanship.
Yeah.
they like, I mean it was interest thingthis when Ken Livingston ran for mayor
in, in 2000 and would just appearedto be different to other politicians.
And it's the same appealas Nigel Farage had.
And as, Boris Johnson had, I think topeople of just someone who feels like
they're giving a sort of bloody noseto the establishment, even though a lot
of them could not be more establishmentfigures, they're just slightly eccentric
and very good at playing up to it.

(17:09):
I'm just, yeah.
I've

Ian (17:10):
got in my head of an image of, a new statue of Liberace
with his hand held outin a rather come play big

Helen (17:21):
Floy cup.
That'd be lovely.
we should petition for that to happen.

Adam (17:28):
Okay.
So we've taken care of democracy.
We're gonna go back to the alternativenow, the pre 1776 system and have a chat
about the royal family who we haven'tcovered on the podcast for a while.
whole batch of Royals, out over theweekend, at the various Remembrance
Day commemorations, King Charlesand, Princess Kate, both making
return after their, cancer treatment.
but specifically there have also beena lot of stories, in the last couple of

(17:50):
weeks about the financing of the Royalsand the various ways that is done.
first of all, we had a documentary by,Channel Four Dispatches and, it was
a joint investigation with The SundayTimes, which revealed all sorts of
details about the Dutchy of Cornwall,which is the, Prince of Wales's private
estate and the Dutchy of Lancaster,which is the Dutchy you pass on the
left hand side as you go at the M six.
There is a joke that will meansomething to people who watched Top

(18:11):
of the Pops in 1980 and no one else.
I believe it's indeed verywell done, your Honor.

Helen (18:19):
I'm I.
Only dipped into this story'cause I was in America.
But tell me what, so basically the ideais that they, because they're landowners,
they extract a lot of rents from people.

Adam (18:28):
they are enormous, landowners.
Yeah.
Awful lot of property, awful lot of land.
the Dutch of corn's name suggest mostlydown in Cornwall, Dutchy, Lancaster,
a bit more spread all over the place.
It's a.
It's a sort of traditional name that datesback to the 14th century or something,
as all of these things tend to be.
But they own all sorts of things.
Very, modern things.
a lot of the scandal or so thought tobe scandal in this was the rents they're

(18:49):
charging to public bodies, for, forthe use of both Dutchess, properties.
So Dartmore Prison belongs to thedutchy of corn, and is charged for the
Ministry of Justice for the use of that.
there's an NHS Trust in London, which, hasrented a warehouse where they're storing
lots and lots of ambulances, from theDutchy of Lancaster, I think that one was.
But there are schools as well.

(19:10):
There's the MOD has an awful lotof land, which they're paying
rent to, two and for the Navy.
Yeah, local councils, all sortsof things all across the country.
and the scandal as itis, that this is not.
What we think of as the Crown estate,which is the publicly owned Royal Estates.
These are specifically the privateestates of, as I say, Dutch of
Cornwall was, Prince of Wales.

(19:31):
So it was Prince Charles, andthen he handed it over to William,
who is now his dad's landlord.
That's a nice little fact.
He is the landlord of Highgrove,that's the millennial.
So his dad kicks off and hastoo many parties or anything.
He can kick him out, whichwould be interesting,

Helen (19:45):
but don't we get that money back?
How much of that money dothey keep for themselves?
I know there was, they keep

Adam (19:50):
all of that money for themselves.
Ah, so as I say, it's entirely differentto the, Crown Estate, which was handed
over in 1706, by George II in return four.
So that was given in, given to thepublic purse, but return for receiving
what is now called the Sovereign Grant.
Which is based on a percentage ofthat, which is the money that actually
goes towards the upkeep of the royalfamily and kind of their public duties.

Ian (20:12):
My reaction on hearing this was not huge surprise, as this story does
bubble up quite frequently, and I, agagree, we, need to know these things
and we need the transparency, butthe essential fact of this is these
two Duchess pass to the next holder.
, so they remain, , the property not of,a series of Russian oligarchs or whoever

(20:34):
else you would like to own this property.
They remain the property of twoindividuals who have to continue it, in
a line which means they can't sell it.
and it remains answerable.
in terms
Britain.

Adam (20:49):
It does, Dartmore Prison would belong to someone, as would the
Warehouse in the center of London.
So, the

Ian (20:53):
question seems to be if it's a prison, should it be paying rent?
So it's the public paying rent to itself.
the NHS I'm not quite sure what theseambulances are doing in a warehouse.
I'd be quite happy for 'em to be out.
It might be handy, but so Isee that, you could, take that.
But both of these estates are meantto, ease the public purse so that

(21:17):
we don't have to pay for Prince.
Charles.
and, Prince William.
So presumably if they're chargingrent, they use that to fund their life.
and then we don't have to pay themany more money outta taxpayers
per, is that not a consideration?

Adam (21:31):
I think so, yeah.
I don't mean, I think one of thethings that slightly shock people in
it is the amount of money involved.
So we're talking about the, Duchyof Lancaster returns 27.4 million
to the King, the Dutch of Cornwall,23.6 million to, Prince William.
And I think some of that sticksin people's calls, particularly
Prince William is trying toreposition himself and Yeah.
And doing an awful lot ofstuff around homelessness.
Yeah.
not something that people approve of.

(21:52):
the other big story about Royal Fanta isthat came up recently, was that, Prince.
Charles's not so keen on sharingany of that with his brother Andrew.
no, I think this is gonna be very popular.

Ian (22:03):
I think the first story is probably not good

Adam (22:05):
for the royal

Ian (22:06):
family.

Adam (22:06):
The second story seems to me a big PR win in terms of a PR move.
Yes.
Withdrawing funding from Prince Andrew,the disgraced Prince Andrew as we have
to call him, who having had Royal fundingfor his very lavish lifestyle in the
30 Room Royal Lodge in Windsor, is nowor has been slightly on his uppers.
reports have been that the Prince, Istill think of him as the Prince of Wales.
He's not, he's, King PrinceCharles now, isn't he?

(22:28):
King
....has withdrawn the funding.
for Andrew's, security, in an effortto try and boot him out of Royal Lodge
and persuade him to move into thatcursed address, Frogmore Cottage.
Which was 'cause a, not a cottage, anothermassive house, albeit not quite as big as
Royal Lodge, but the, former residence ofHarry and Meghan before they moved out.
And

Helen (22:47):
then Princess Beat has had, it didn't change.
Yeah.

Adam (22:49):
She was in there for a while.
But, but the, theory is that Charlesis trying to, put, Andrew in there
along with Sarai Ferguson, who is hisex-wife, divorced years and years ago,
but still lives in Royal Lodge with him.
Yes.
That's probably one need, 30bedrooms, so they can be very,
separate from each other.
A wing each or something.

Ian (23:05):
for those of you who are watching Wolf Hall, it is fantastic that.
members of the royal familyobviously cannot confront
each other and never could.
So they send into Metu trees to say,we're withdrawing your royal protection.
So you'll have to go, hecould just say, you're out.
Yeah.

Adam (23:20):
Move it.

Ian (23:20):
Yeah, move.

Adam (23:21):
that was the thing that struck me as, it's like EastEnders, isn't it?
In the, people inheriting houses aroundAlbert Square from each other and all
the Fowlers are gonna move in there.
And then Actually no.
The bales are in number 13 now, andwho's got a share of the Vic and all,
but it's not like he send us, as yousay, they don't have massive Barneys with
each other and fight it out, do they?
No.
They're terribly polite on the front.
And you get these coded referencesto, to certain, bits of money

(23:42):
being withdrawn and things.

Helen (23:43):
Yes.
They send some sort of equitywith a nickname like the Wasp

Adam (23:46):
something.
The Wasp and the Bee, wasn't it?
The Wasp and the Bee.
Yeah.
Yeah.
a fluky, our royal insider pointedout recently that it's not quite as
straightforward a story as a lot of peopleare presenting it as, because for one
thing, Andrew has actually got a leasethat runs on Royal Lodge until 2078.
So the pressure on him to moveis not enormous on that front.
he paid quite a lot of money when hewas still on, he had public duties

(24:08):
and still had money coming in from hismother, and he took the place on, and
he's paying a peppercorn rent for it.
Whereas Evie did moveinto Frogmore cottage.
He would apparently have to pay a rentof something like, 300,000 pounds a year.
And he's a lot less than that now.
So you can see why he's digginghis heels in a bit on that front.
Could we not move theambulances into Royal Lodge?
That would be more useful.

(24:29):
this is the other thing that would bea bad PR move for the King, of course,
because he's already got quite a lotof palaces, which are lying empty
for, a great many weeks of the year.
And if he moves Andrew out of RoyalLodge, that's another quite big property.
Yep.
Lying empty.
Not great for Prince Williams,campaigning on homelessness either.
But the slightly worrying thing aboutthis is that, Prince Andrew is now

(24:51):
saying that he has found the fundingto stay in Royal Lodge, although
he is declining, to tell us who

Helen (24:56):
Oh.
And given

Adam (24:56):
Andrew's Andrew and Fergie's previous sources of funding, which of
course, this is how we got here, included,Jeffrey Epstein and that, well-known
billionaire pedophile and sex trafficker.
and also the, the son-in-law of thepresident of Kazakhstan, another
handy billionaire who, bought Andrew'slast house for him for 3 million over
the Aing price, which was terrible.
The cha Wasn, wasn't it?
No, there's the chalet as well.

(25:17):
The woman, the Swiss lady who sold them.
The chalet is very cross about it.
'cause she said, she was kept waitingto be paid for years and suddenly he's
magic this money up out of somewhere.
But that is a kind of question onthis, is if we don't want to pay
for Prince Andrew, that's fine.
That's, very, justifiable.
But.
Who is then gonna pay for Prince Andrew?
'cause he's got some quitedodgy people around him.

(25:38):
I

Helen (25:38):
admit to you that we could pay for Prince Andrew to live as I
live in a two bed semi in zone three.

Ian (25:43):
Yeah.
I'll tell you what, he couldstay in Dartmore prison.

Adam (25:47):
That would be handy.
as it turns out, Dartmore Prisonis largely lying empty and not
even being used by the Ministerof Justice at the moment.
So can have as many wings as you want.
Fergie can have a whole block to herself.
If he goes there, hell

Helen (25:57):
block f

Adam (25:58):
Do you know what?
We've solved this already.
I know.
If only they'd

Ian (26:01):
asked us earlier,

Adam (26:05):
Helen has now left us, but for the final part of, this fortnight's podcast,
we are joined by journalist Emeritus ofPrivate Eye, Francis Ween, who since 2017
has been following the story of John smi.
Now, finally in the last week, anindependent review ordered by the judge
of England into this case has come out,Smythe viciously abused generations

(26:25):
of boys at evangelical summer camps.
He ran in England inthe seventies and 1980s.
and as if that wasn't horrifying enough,Justin Welby, , has admitted knowing
about SMS behavior, which he shouldhave done given he was, involved in
those summer camps back in the day.
Francis.
Thanks for joining us.

Francis (26:42):
Hello.

Adam (26:44):
take us back to the beginnings of this and tell us about John Smythe.

Francis (26:47):
the beginnings of the eye coverage were in 2017, as
you say, after Channel four.
News broke the story,but the, story was first.
Emerging in 1982 when, a chap calledthe Reverend Mark Rustin was asked
by the UN Trust, which ran theseevangelical summer camps, to, look
into the activities of John S.

(27:07):
Smith, who had been chairman ofthe trustees of this trust from
1974 to 82, who was a barrister.
He was Mary Whitehouse'sfavorite barrister.
Among other things, whenevershe took someone to court for
obscenity, he was usually thechief involved, high moral tone.
He took.
he was a, muscular evangelist.
So muscular.
He beat young men and boysviolently in the shed at the

(27:29):
bottom of his garden in Minster.
And he recruited them and groomedthem at these Yu Un Summer cramps
of the trust he was chairman of.
And it was largely run by Church ofEngland p to recruit the next generation
of evangelical muscular ChristianCler, including, the man who is now
arch for Canterbury, just in Wellbe.

(27:49):
and in fact in 1982, the year ofthis Rustin report, I think 22 of the
attendees at this youth summer camp werethemselves, church of England, vicars.
They was acting as supervisorsand of the boys and young men
who went to the camp that summer,29 went on to become clergymen.
So it was pretty goodfeeder camp for the CV,

Adam (28:11):
And the scale of it was extraordinary, wasn't it?
it was something like 130 victimsidentified, but the actual beatings,
we're not just talking aboutsort of six strokes of the cane.
It was hundreds if notthousands of of, of lashings.

Francis (28:24):
It was, it went, ran into thousands.
they could hardly stand.
They bled so much that they had to wearadult nappies for days after the beatings
and, had the scars for months afterwards.
Some of them still had the scars.
one of the victims I know who, triedto kill himself, in fact, he was some.
He'd been beaten so many thousandsof times, and John SMI then said to

(28:46):
him, it's your birthday coming up.
I'm gonna give you aspecial birthday present.
I'll give you, the beating of your life.
An extra hard beating, all justifiedin the name of Christianity.
It was all to do with, thisis to atone for your sins.
So if you've masturbated,you need a hundred lashes.
It was all dished out on a scale ofpunishments, this poor chap who I know,

(29:08):
tried to kill himself, and that was whenthe story broke, except it was immediately
suppressed because he wrote a suicidenote, sent it to a man called Reverend
David Fletcher, who succeeded smi, thechairman of the trustees of the UN Trust.
And Fletcher thought, oh God.
He says, yeah, I think he mighthave sent a copy to somebody else.
This is all gonna come out.
We better look responsible.

(29:29):
Have an inquiry into it.
And so they did.
They commissioned this chap, the ReverendMark Rustin, who was, as you said,
former housemate and close friend ofJustin Welby, the young Justin Welby

Adam (29:39):
And this is in 1982, is that
right?

Francis (29:41):
is 19 early 82.
And so he did this report and hefound, I think I spoke to about
22 victims of SMS who have beenbeaten within an inch of their life.
And there was clearlya sexual element to it.
There was a lot of fondling andstroking that went on and, and it
took place naked., He'd built a littleshed at the bottom of his garden to

(30:04):
carry out these beatings in, so the,it wouldn't be audible by his wife.
I think she must haveguessed at some point.
But anyway,

Ian (30:11):
I think she gave tea afterwards, didn't she?
in the kitchen,

Francis (30:15):
She was very solicitous.
Yes, they used to sit on thesofa, barely able to sit, frankly,
even in their adult lefties.

Adam (30:21):
so this was in 1982.
We're talking about 42years ago, aren't we?
How come it took so long forit to come out after that?
What happened then?

Francis (30:29):
wrote about it in the eye in 2017, if anyone has a strong
stomach, I strongly recommend abook called Bleeding for Jesus,

Ian (30:36):
Bleeding for Jesus.
It's quite graphic, isn't it

Francis (30:39):
Andrew Graceton the way he describes it and goes into enormous
detail about the scale of the brutalityof these beatings that this man John S.
Smith was carrying out and how he groomedthem and how the cult atmosphere, the
sort of evangelical cult-like atmosphereencouraged these boys not to blab to
anyone else and made the, led them to, tothink that if they refuse these beatings,

(31:00):
they were committing a sin againstJesus and this was what God wanted.
, the report was produced and it wascirculated to a number of clergymen
who were involved in the UN Trust.
So it was.
Became known within certain COE circlesthat this report existed and several
Vicars had actually read it, butall they did by way of taking action

(31:21):
instead of say going to the police.
'cause the report says thisis clearly criminal activity.
No argue in fact that's whatthe data two report said.
Instead of thinking, oh, criminalactivity, that's where you
go to the police, isn't this?
They said, I know, let's all clubtogether 'cause we are quite well off.
Let's raise funds to GoFundMe.
Thing, so he can carry on beatingsomewhere else away from our jurisdiction.

(31:43):
And so they packed him off to Zimbabwewhere he set up a similar thing called the
Zambezi Ministries, which had summer campsand where he carried on beating boys.
And indeed, one boy diedat one of these camps.
He was so badly beaten.
He was called Guy, I thinkhis name ought to be named.
there was an attempt to bring aprosecution for colorful homicide

(32:05):
against my over the death of Hur.
But, smiles barrister successfullypersuaded the Zimbabwean court that
there was a conflict of interest inthe case and that, it just couldn't
be brought because the lawyers for theprosecution were in some way complicit.
But anyway, the real point was friendsin high places saved his bacon...

(32:26):
up to, and including RobertMugabe, just as in England.
His activities were hushed upbecause he had, friends who
were bishops and senior clergy.

Adam (32:35):
what point does, Justin Wellbe, the Archbishop of Canby, admit to having
some knowledge of what had been going on?

Francis (32:40):
initially, when this first appeared on Channel four
News in 2017, Justin Wellby gave aninterview, to Kathy Newman of Channel
four News and said, I had no idea.
I, had no reason to think therewas any problem with John Smy.
I'm a shocker.
And he said a number of things, whichI mean, bearing in mind what the

(33:01):
Bible says than the 10 of moments.
But thou shall not bear false witness.
most of the stuff he bought inthe sense of gave as interviews
turned out to be totally untrue.
so he said I had no contact with him.
After 1978 when I moved to Paris towork in the oil industry, except that
actually 'cause he admitted he hadbeen a dormitory officer and a senior

(33:25):
figure at these camps before then.
And so had known why in the seventies.
He said after 78 it had nothing todo with him but he was there at the
79 camp when Smy was still presentand still grooming and beating.
And actually Welby was one of the peoplewho contributed to, the ministries, the
Zimbabwean operation set up by Smythe.

Ian (33:44):
I love the idea that we export sadism and pedophilia to the colonies.
That's fine.

Francis (33:51):
it's extraordinary, the mistake as well, but even, the report that
came out last week by Keith Macon,the Church of England, long delayed,
has to be said many times, delayedreview, which is damning for wellbeing.

Ian (34:03):
Yes, you've, you wrote about it a number of times and said, it's
15 times this report's been delayed.
The idea that they were actually inany way trying to get this report out.
It's just complete nonsense, isn't

Francis (34:15):
Yes, in, in his interview with Kathy Newman of Channel four News in 2017,
he said, we've got to look into this now.
It's been, now it's beendrawn to my attention, as if
he hadn't heard of it before.
What he now has to admit in this reportis he's admitted, he did know from 2013.
He says he no idea for that.
Although the report makes it fairlyclear that he should have known because,

(34:37):
in 1981 he was when, we was living inParis, working in the oil business.
He was told by Canon Petercertainty, which was at a church.
He attended a COB church in Paris,that there were concerns about smile.
'cause certainly knew that well,knew Smith who'd just passed
through Paris with a gaggle ofboys on their way to a ski trip.

(34:59):
And, I think whereas it, whatcertainly said to him was
Smy is really not a nice man.
One of the boys had a chat with meand Welby says, I wasn't know that
this meant he was abusing them all.
I just thought, he has warned me thathe warmed me off Smy and admitted
Wilby wasn't a CLER at the time.

(35:19):
So he wasn't necessarily obligedto go to the police or ask
the church to look into it.
Still when he became a clergy, whenit became, let alone, when he became
Archbishop Canterbury, you'd think at somepoint that might have, crossed his mind,
And
the reasons he's given, he said,I lost contact with him anyway.
And I was advised that there was apolice investigation going on and it

(35:42):
would be against the correct policyto do any further things until the
police investigation was, there wasno police investigation going on.
He said.
And I did write to the SouthAfrican primate, the head of
the South Africa, about this.
So I, you can't say I didn't warn him.
'cause while this went on in 2013, SMYwas still abusing boys in South Africa.

(36:03):
And he Welby claimed written letterto the, primate in South Africa
as he put it, except he didn'tactually, as it now turns out.
And as he now bits, he says, I,misremembered, I thought I'd written
a letter and actually I didn't.
In fact, he did absolutely nothing.
And then when it was the day afterthe telephone news thing went out in
2017, he was on Nick Ferrari's showon OBC and Ferrari said, did you not

(36:28):
feel as head of the Church of England?
You had some responsibilities to takeurgent action about this, given that
the guy was still around in his, indeedis around in 20 17, 4 And, Wellby
said, he wasn't an Anglican, he had noconnection with the Anglican church.
the UN Trust, which ran thesecamps had nothing to do with
the Church of England either.
It was, he was not American, except thatactually he was a licensed reader, lay

(36:51):
reader in the Church of England, licensed

Ian (36:53):
A and 22 boys became Anglican priests, so it suggests
the link was fairly clear.

Francis (37:00):
a bishop said to the I at the time, he's more of an African than I'm,

Adam (37:05):
And Francis, am I right in thinking that they use that as an excuse as well,
that this independent investigationhasn't covered the events in Zimbabwe?
It literally is just whatSmy got up to in England.

Francis (37:15):
so far, yes.
there are allusions to what wenton in and Rhodesia, but that
is still uncharted territory.
Largely.
there have been several inquirieswhile we've been waiting for the
Church of England to publish.
Its long delayed review.
the scripture Union did an inquiry, theWinchester College, the public school.
Where, a lot of these boys wererecruited from because John

(37:37):
Spike lived near Winchester.
And so he, used to hang aroundthe public school and after Sunday
services, he had a little groupapproved of by the headmaster.
Then headmaster, JohnThorne encouraged this.
And then, when it all went wrong, whenhe discovered that these boys were being
beaten and abused, thorn said, I tell youwhat, I, think perhaps you better stop,

(38:00):
Why didn't you just give me a privateunder undertaking that your mission, your
ministry will not involve this anymoreand that you will leave these boys alone?
Just a private undertaking.
We won't take it any further.
We'll say no more about it.
So Winchester College published aterrible sort of self basing report
saying, oh, God was so sorry we didn'tdo anything and we should have done.
And the Scripture Union publisheda report saying, oh dear.

(38:22):
Oh dear.
An awful lot of these people.
Seemed to have been involvedin the Scripture Union and we
didn't do anything about it.
So we should have known now at longlast the ces obvious this thing and
Wellby is still saying, I don't thinkI should have done anything about it.
I'm frankly sorry, but I don't see thatit's anything to do with me really.

Adam (38:38):
in terms of where we are now, we should just say we're recording this
on Monday afternoon and the most seniorfigure in the Church of England so far
to say that, Welby should resign overthis is Helen Ann Hartley, the Bishop of
Newcastle, but I suspect as you say, shewill be joined by others and he should
not be the only one who is resigning

Francis (38:53):
Bishop Helen is a good egg.

Adam (38:55):
for Wellby's part.
He said that he plans to remain inoffice until he reaches retirement
age in 2026 if people are happy.

Francis (39:02):
this is the same.
Justin Wellbe who thought itwould be a good idea to have
Paula Beals as Bishop of London.
talk about complete dud.
I, he's just such, such a, I'man atheist, but I'm also a church
going Church of England, atheist.
I remember my church choir.
Indeed, both my parents were laborsin the Church of England, so I do feel

(39:22):
quite attached to the Church of England,

Ian (39:24):
do you feel, Francis, that the archbishop's confession
should be accompanied bysome sort of act of penance?

Francis (39:34):
I think he should, just to use a biblical phrase, admit
that he's now a whitey ska.

Adam (39:43):
And on that note, thank you very much Francis William for joining us,

Francis (39:47):
Thank you and God bless you.

Adam (39:49):
God bless you.
Two.
That was Francis Ween speaking to uson Monday afternoon and 24 hours later
there was a development in the case whenJustin Welby resigned, which as you might
note is the first quick thing that hasactually happened in this entire case.
Welby statement said there hadbeen a conspiracy of silence to
protect sm, but he himself only tookresponsibility for the period after 2013.

(40:11):
so if you'd like to stay ahead ofstories like this and an awful lot
more, then uh, what you need to dois not only listen to this podcast,
but also to buy the magazine.
Subscriptions are available fromprivate co uk and if you take a yearly
subscription, you'll be getting it at thecover price of just one pound 73 an issue.
bargains don't come muchmore bargainy than that.
, my thanks to Francis Ween, toHelen Lewis and to Ian Hislop.

(40:35):
and also as ever to Matt Hill of RethinkAudio for producing this podcast.
we will be back with anotheredition of page 94 in a fortnight.