November 27, 2024 • 34 mins
Ian recounts his impolite encounter with Justin Welby, before the team discuss the Observer strikes, the Telegraph sale and the latest developments in Murdochworld.
Plus, an AI-voiced Bio Waste-Spreader reports back from the farmers’ inheritance tax protests.
Plus, an AI-voiced Bio Waste-Spreader reports back from the farmers’ inheritance tax protests.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Maisie (00:00):
Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Helen (00:03):
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast.
I'm a very gravelly Helen Lewissitting in for Andy this week as
he recovers from being savagelyattacked by a pack of wild koalas.
And with me are Adam MacQueen,Ian Hislop and Jane McKenzie.
First off, as we were recording ourlast episode, Justin Welby resigned
as Archbishop of Canterbury over hisfailure to follow up allegations of
(00:23):
sadistic abuse at a Christian summercamp by a man called John Smythe.
Ian, we're gonna have to start withyou on this one because you took the
unusual step of writing an editor'snote about your encounter with
Wellby and the last print magazine.
Is that the first such editor'snote that you have issued?
Ian (00:38):
no.
I did it once before when I had a verystrange phone call from Julian Assange.
It was so bizarre, that I thoughtI, I can't not write this on the
whole, I try not to be, the personwho puts themselves in his own paper.
One reader kindly said this week,oh God, you turned into Lev.
(00:59):
And I thought, okay, fair enough.
So that's what I was worried about.
But I did, I asked FrancisWeen who'd written all.
The stuff immediately and,he said, this happened.
You've got to put this in.
So I, tried to write it up without beingtoo self-serving, and just, register
my complete amazement that he shouldbe there the day after he resigned.
(01:20):
At a public event, smiling, pretendingnothing had happened, and literally making
a beeline towards me and saying hello.
And, I just, I couldn't do the politeness.
Adam (01:30):
so I got a tip off last issue, and I came in very excited
to the office the next day.
I said to Ian, you'renot gonna believe this.
Guess who turned up at the trusteesmeeting at the British Museum last night?
Completely shamelessly?
Only Justin Welby, the bloodyArchbishop of Canterbury resigned
yesterday and Ian said to me.
Oh, about that.
Helen (01:49):
Yes.
Ian (01:49):
That, that, certainly prompted me to think about, doing some journalism.
Helen (01:54):
And was there a big response from readers?
Ian (01:56):
yes.
I mean they have overwhelmingly,written in, which is very kind to
them and there are a lot of vicars.
and there are a lot of Anglicans andthey are very pleased, , that someone
has pointed out that they have to go on.
I.
day after day, including Sundaysobviously, doing this job and
they feel very let down, by thepeople, supposedly in charge.
Helen (02:18):
Jane, I wanted to ask you a bit about the fallout from this.
It's obviously a story that the eye hasbeen covering for quite a long time,
but there does seem to been somethingthat's happened in the wake of the
report and actually broader fallout.
Can you tell us what that'sbeen since the last episode?
Jane (02:31):
so yes, since the Macon report named a number of people who had
known for a considerable amount oftime, That, what Smythe had been
up to and had failed to act on itor failed to act, properly on it.
so a number of people who wenamed last issue have, now had
their permission to officiate.
(02:52):
Removed, which is a kind of Church ofEngland way of suspending people 'cause
they're not suspended as employees, buttheir ability to hold a service or sort of
Helen (03:01):
Like having the WIP removed as an mp, I guess
Jane (03:03):
It is.
It is similar, yes.
so a number of those people whowe named last time have had their
permission to officiate removed.
Helen (03:10):
Do you think that's where it ends?
Is there any sign of anythingelse that might possibly happen?
Jane (03:16):
there's, a number of recommendations in the report itself that they, certainly
need to follow up on in terms of, makingsure that people involved in this case
aren't involved in decisions aboutfuture safeguarding issues , and that
they do a better job in the future.
There's a lot of people who are named inthe reporters failing terribly, who will
(03:37):
get away with it by virtue of being dead.
It has taken so long to reach thispoint where we finally identified.
Who knew things back in the 1980sand covered it up that all a lot
of the people involved in thatfirst coverup in the early eighties
have evaded justice altogether.
Helen (03:56):
There was an interesting piece of followup in the, The Times actually, which
reported that in 2007 well beat allowedCanon John Roberts to continue officiating
despite being told he was convictedfor sex offenses committed in 1989.
Now that, Ian, that wouldn't havebeen news to Eye readers though
this was another Francis story.
Ian (04:13):
Yes.
No, it was, one of those revelationsthat, unlike the ones in the
Bible happened very, frequently.
and yes, Francis had written this storyabout, and it was the same problem,
a refusal to take seriously the issueof, a pedophile amongst your midsts.
And, a desire to, forgive,which I know is, part of the
(04:35):
Christian mission statement.
know, I was there, I've sat in the pews.
I know that bit, but there, therewas other bits about penance and
going away and sinning no more.
And, there are usuallyother bits that go with it.
And I think.
The response of a lot of people inthis, a lot of Anglicans was, they
were too keen to forgive and notfast enough to administer justice.
Adam (04:59):
in that particular case, there was extraordinary dear hell of Wellby
actually writing to the convictedpedophile in question to apologize to
him and say how awful it must be thatone of his victims kept turning up at
the cathedral to hassle him, wasn't it?
It was an immediatejumping to his defense.
Helen (05:12):
It was an assumption that I think the way it was reported was that Welby
had thought that the man had been thevictim of a miscarriage of justice before.
And so had said to him, obviously, youmustn't officiate any services involving
children because it would be too easyfor people to make more accusations.
And I think this goes to the heartof the, big debate, Which is.
Can, Wellby been assumed notto have known before 2013?
(05:32):
He admits that post 2013 there was more hecould have done, but he says before then
nothing but this case, this can, and JohnRoberts case this guy had been convicted
of a sexual offense and then someone elsemade another similar accusation and that
didn't apparently ring any bells that.
Oh, hang a minute, maybe thatdidn't seem such a miscarriage
of justice in retrospect.
It's an
Adam (05:50):
extraordinary thing that it, either goes in one direction or another.
'cause the other case I was remembering,which I think we also wrote about,
was the case of Alan Griffin, who wasthe, the Church of England priest died
by suicide in 2020, after a year whenhe knew he was under investigation.
And that turned out to be basednot on any sort of accusation.
There was no accuser,there was no complainant.
It was just a bit of priestlygossip that had someone said
at their retirement interview.
Jane (06:11):
Yes.
one of the interesting features ofwhat went on with Smith after the
sort of 19, early 1980s investigationis that a lot of the people who
knew or knew a little bit had heardabout it through priestly gossip.
There'd been, there was an awfullot of quietly on the side saying.
(06:33):
You just wanna watch out for him.
But people didn't ask the question why,or it was hinted, that he was a bit
kinky rather than that he was abusingdozens and dozens of teenage boys.
And people must have thought,that's what he does in his
private life, rather than that's.
(06:56):
Appalling and we
Helen (06:57):
have to act The bit that, yeah, sorry.
The bit that I found hard to believehaving grown up is, my dad's a,
deacon in the Catholic church.
Mom was eucharistic ministerfor a long time, Like priestly
gossip is a thing, right?
Ian (07:08):
It just is.
And so is gossip amongst 16-year-oldboys, even Christian boys at
camps, even boys who are, fully,convinced, by the, the rightness
of the people who are doing this.
They do talk, they do say things.
So I found that period of nounknowing particularly difficult.
(07:29):
To excuse, and small details.
someone write a letter saying, yes,after these boys have left school,
they carry on confessing, to Smythe.
if they're in a relationship with,say, their girlfriends and they confess
to him, and then he takes appropriateaction beating them if they've
had any sexual design, you think.
Th this is the most appalling,interfering in young men's heads.
(07:52):
trying to convince them that any sortof sexual contact, is deeply sinful.
whereas the man, smashingthem, around the bum, that in
itself is not of any interest.
Helen (08:04):
But it also speaks to the one, the weirdness of this story, which is
that he didn't have an official position.
He wasn't ordained, he was a lay read.
This is...
it wasn't like he was taking any kindof official confession or anything
that had any official pastoral role.
He was a sort of freelance flogger.
Ian (08:18):
Yes.
And the, denials by a lot of people,including the Archbishop at one
point, saying, he wasn't a member ofthe Church and he wasn't, C of E...
he was on specific camps, which wasdesigned to create, , leaders of the
future for the Church of England.
Adam (08:32):
and the knowledge must have been so widespread because those 16-year-old
boys was this 27, 29 of them went on tobe priests within the Church of England.
They obviously had absolute knowledge.
it cannot have been.
That secret.
Jane (08:44):
Yeah.
Internationally known about too, at onepoint, there's messages going between
a church in Paris and, , there's seniorpeople in the church saying somebody
had made a disclosure to them and thatpeople ought to keep an eye on this.
But again, keep an eye on it is notthe same as taking proper measures.
Helen (09:03):
Can I
Adam (09:04):
just ask one question?
Helen (09:05):
Yes.
Adam (09:05):
Which is, why is Justin Wellby still the Archbishop country?
it's very obvious from your interventionthat he doesn't understand the disgrace
part of resigning in disgrace, buthe doesn't seem to have got his head
around the resigning part either.
He's sticking aroundtill January, isn't it?
He's just been on aninternational visit, in his role.
this is not what happens whenyou step down from a roll,
can I reiterate, in disgrace,
(09:26):
you don't get to stick around to Christmas'cause that's when you get to wear the
really nice frocks and do the service.
And the bit on the telly
, Ian (09:31):
Is he going to be doing that bit at Christmas?
I.
Adam (09:34):
as he said, he's not at the moment?
who, who else stands in?
Do we get the Archbishop of York instead?
The only thing
I've heard is that one of the newspapersthen approached, the Archbishop of
Country's office for a statement afterthe Eye's stuff appeared and it said he
doesn't comment on personal conversations.
And I thought may maybehe should have done.
It also just does strike me thatthis is the week in which we're gonna
(09:56):
see the Assisted Dying Bill in thecomments, if there ever was a time
that certain people might be lookingfor some sort of moral guidance from
the head of the Church of England.
This would be it.
And he's not in a position to offer it.
Helen (10:08):
that's the other side of this, is relevant to us, which is I felt
some of the slightly knee jerk defensesof him were on political grounds.
he's intervened on austerity,he's intervened on refugees and
therefore anybody coming fromhis sort of part of a, Tory plot,
and I think there's an unwelcome new.
Not exactly new entrant to ourpolitics, but it's something you
see all the time in America, right?
(10:28):
That everything is now just so polarizedthat no one ever does anything wrong.
It's always just a plotfrom the other side.
And that's become an easytool to reach for clearly on
this side of the Atlantic too.
Ian (10:37):
And a basic failure to understand anything about the Church of England
and to what, the term evangelicalmeans, what the term conservative means.
The fact that the Archbishop, intervenedabout refugees does not mean he was not
part of the conservative evangelical wing.
the muscular Christianity, all ofthat, particular lot are one group
(10:57):
in the Church of England and they...
They are not on the whole very liberal.
it's, a confusion.
and a desire not to be interested inthe CofE, which I, I get, I understand
it may not interest anyone andthere'll probably be people out there
saying, are they wanging on about it?
But if lots of problem people
Helen (11:15):
At the moment, they still sit in the House of Lords, right?
CofE is an established churchwith a law making capacity for us.
I know that labor trying to removethat, but that is, we all have a
vested interest in the CofE at themoment 'cause they rule over us.
Anyway,
Let's turn our gaze inward next,because there is a smorgasbord of
stories about the media this week.
this is like gonna be aquick fire, Adam Round.
(11:36):
I'm quite excited.
Plenty developments sincethe last Street of Shame.
, Adam, first of all, let's do The Observer.
Two strikes called since welast spoke, over the sale of The
Observer potentially to Tortoise.
Adam (11:46):
Indeed, and not just strikes by Observer staff, but the
whole of the Guardian, as well.
the NUJ chapel at the Guardianhave voted by, 93% of them that
the east strikes you go ahead onthe fourth and 5th of December,
and the 12th and 13th of December.
So it's gonna be a case of the Armybeing deployed in green goddesses with,
emergency, Yotam Ottelenghi recipes,people stockpiling Zoe Williams columns to
read by candlelight, that kind of thing.
Helen (12:07):
you can't make me laugh when I've got a cold.
This is gonna sound terrible fit.
Adam (12:11):
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
This of course is over the,
Helen (12:13):
hobbled around their braziers burning only ethically approved charcoal.
Yeah.
Adam (12:20):
Singing old folk songs about Owen Jones.
Oh, yes.
Ian (12:24):
Can you get onto the detail, Adam?!
Adam (12:27):
this of course is over...
We've talked about thison the podcast before.
We've written, quite a fewpieces in, the magazine about it.
The proposed sale of the Observerby the Guardian Media Group.
Tortoise which is the startup...
sort of new media startupturned podcast factory turned.
Apparently now want to be, print newspaperpublisher, run by James Harding, former.
Times editor and former boss of BBCnews, , and he's got absolutely everyone
(12:51):
up in arms across The Observer andthe Guardian who haven't traditionally
been particularly something is broughtthem together, united together.
Yeah.
But on this case, they absolutely are.
and the latest that has been saidby Anna Bateson who is the CEO of
Guardian Media Group, is that shouldthis sale to Tortoise not go through,
which seems to be what people at theObserver want it not to go through,
there will be 'difficult decisions' tobe taken about the future of that paper.
(13:13):
So it's a bit.
Devil in the deep blue seaat that point, isn't it?
Whether they're better off going withsomeone who does want to own them or
someone who's made it very clear thatthey definitely don't want to own them.
Ian (13:22):
That's a strange thing to be striking for; the right
to be sacked by the Guardian.
Adam (13:26):
I think that is one of the issues in it.
It's, is the, rights tobe sacked by the Guardian.
They actually extraordinarily.
for, I was gonna say for any newspaper,for any workplace in this country,
the agreed current agreement betweenthe Guardian and the NUJ Chapel is
that there can never be any compulsoryredundancies under any circumstances,
which is an extraordinary perk
Jane (13:44):
Not sure even many trade unions have that an agreement for their staff.
Adam (13:48):
It's an amazing deal that they've managed to get signed.
So the idea, certainly amongst Guardianstaff, is that, if they can write off
The Observer, which they always thoughtwas part of the family and was as
controlled by the Scott Trust, kind ofagreement to keep the Guardian going.
It's 0.3 billion perpetuity, and it's 1.3billion that it's got sitting in the bank.
or in a large basement.
Like Scrooge McDuck in coins isalways how I always imagine it.
that yeah, they, don't get any part butpart of that, but, Guardian stuff I think
(14:11):
are very concerned about, other rightsand other longstanding understandings
being a whittled away as well.
What can you use the 1.3 billion for?
To keep the Guardian going in perpetuity.
That's what it is specifically for.
So it's been built up by allsorts of other businesses.
they used to own Autotrader.
Do you remember we wrote an awful lotof stuff about the, the deals they did
over buying and selling that, which werequite interestingly channeled financially.
(14:34):
I think Emap, the magazine group, theyhave been all sorts of investments
in the past and they've owned thingslike the Manchester Evening News,
which have come and gone and theybuilt up this kind of war chest there.
But that is there, has been madevery, clear now to The Observer
staff and to everyone else is justfor the Guardian's own personal use.
Helen (14:49):
But the thing that's hard about it is it has been quite a lot
of integration between the two papersrule that they, have sometimes ended up
with very divergent, editorial views,for example, on Iraq or on gender.
But things like the foreign deskand the sports desk are integrated.
So it's not entirely clearhow you unweave that.
That rainbow, basically.
It's not
Adam (15:05):
just that.
The Observer has never been allowedby the Guardian to stand as a brand
on its own, except in paper form.
So it has no, website.
So exactly what Tortoise are buying.
They're buying a print newspaper.
They don't have the abilityto print it themselves.
They'd have to negotiate that with,now, I think it's now printed on the
Trinity Mirror presses, so it's noteven something in there that's the
whole separate deal they'd have to doto actually print it and distribute it.
But also it's got no website of its own.
So they're gonna have tostart that from scratch.
(15:27):
James Harding is apparently very surehe's gonna get lots of investment in
from all sorts of people, and lots ofpeople will be keen to hand him the,
tens of millions, if not hundreds ofmillions that will be necessary to,
keep this going in the long term.
But, could the Guardian invest in it?
the Guardian have said they willretain, as part of this deal,
a financial interest in it.
So they will still have some, kindof say in the Observer, but it's the
(15:47):
details of, or if you talk to anyone atThe Observer or the Guardian, everyone
feels the details are still very, murky.
The Scott Trust apparently who oversee theGuardian, were meeting this week to have a
say whether or not this is the final say.
I'm not sure on the, on, on the dealand whether it goes ahead, but at
time of recording, we don't knowexactly where that one's going.
Jane, this is genuinely, watchthis large space in the front.
Helen (16:08):
Jane, have you ever been on strike?
Because it used to be like a riteof passage that all journalists at
some point had been warming their,fingers over a brazier at some point.
But I think,
Jane (16:15):
I just don't know whether or not I've been at private eye a very long time.
Yeah.
we've never, had a work as we
Helen (16:22):
should
Jane (16:22):
work to rule over Ian's
Adam (16:24):
tyranny.
no.
Famously there's those photos of,Michael Gove when he was on, was it the
Aberdeen Press Journal or something inhis younger days, out on the picket line?
Warming, literally warming hisf his fingers over a brace era.
It was bloody colder.
The picket line in
Helen (16:36):
Aberdeen.
tell us also, things are notexactly happy in Murdoch land
Adam (16:41):
either.
I dunno.
it, there is an extraordinary, justthought we do this roundup of kind
of, all these different newspapersthat are in flux at the moment.
Murdoch land, the biggest flux that'sgoing on we talked about before is.
secret and went on in a Nevadacourtroom, and we don't yet have
a judgment on that, which is whathappens over the Murdoch family Trust.
When Rupert departs this mortal coil, hewants everything to go to Lachlan, who is
his most right winging and trustworthy,progeny who will keep the fox and
(17:05):
NewsCorp Empires going on in the waythat Rupert has always intended them to.
Rest of the family not so happy about it.
But also, they're not the only oneswho are unhappy because last week
at the News Corp, a GM, , a bunchof shareholders started kicking up a
first, not for the first time eitherabout the way that News Corp is set up
But if you asked mostpeople who owned NewsCorp.
They would say to you, RupertMurdoch, do you know how much
(17:27):
of the shares in, in NewsCorp isactually held by the Murdoch family?
Helen (17:31):
Have they got what the tech companies often do, which is they got two
tier shares, so they get special, extragood shares, and then other people get
crappy shares that are just of like a,like in the crystal maze, they get the
gold ones and everyone else gets, thesilver ones actually deduct power from it.
Adam (17:44):
That is exactly it.
They have 14% of the shares in thecompany, which is a tiny, amount.
But when it comes to the votingshares, the ones that actually give
'em the right, and the way that the,company gets managed, they have 41%.
So they've got a much smallernumber of Sharehold...
other shareholders that they've gottakeep online in order for Rupert or.
In the future, Lachlan to get their way.
Now this was the bit that was challengedby shareholders, institutional
(18:06):
shareholders in Newscorp lastweek, and not for the first time.
So they are quite restless.
The kinda shareholders, they, in 2015they challenged this as well and said,
we want a bit more, say we want toget rid of this, dual class capital
structure, which is what it's called.
2012, they had a go at it as well.
They were particularly exercisedat that point over the handling of
phone hacking, on the British papers.
And that's when James Murdoch wasin charge and proved himself perhaps
(18:29):
not the best heir, which is why heseems to be quite out of the picture.
And of course, in 2011, they actuallyhad to settle, at a cost of 91
million pounds, $91 million rather, a.
Lawsuit from shareholders overRupert treating the company to
quote a wholly owned family candystore.' and 'indulging in rampant
nepotism', which of course was when hepaid, , $675 million for a TV company,
(18:53):
which just happened to belong to...
yes!
Yet another Murdoch.
That one was Elizabeth.
and shareholders argue that this wasenormously overvalued and absolutely
shameless profiteering within the family.
And, it led to a court case
Helen (19:04):
On one level.
I'm sympathetic to them on another level.
It's a bit like when people buy cryptoand then get scammed and you think,
what did you think you were buying?
Adam (19:12):
What, you were getting involved in Rupert Murdoch's business.
He's not a newcomer to this,you know what he's about.
You think you were doing here?
Ian (19:17):
For many listeners.
It just feels like I've, been watchingthis for the last three years.
It's naturally succession, isn't it?
Adam (19:25):
Absolutely the most pleasing, detail that came out after the divorce from Jerry
Hall is that one of the conditions of thatdivorce was that she wasn't allowed to
speak to the script writers on Successionand pass on any insight to gossip.
But to be honest, this actslike she really didn't need to.
Helen (19:38):
gonna give you one sentence to tell me what's up with David
Montgomery, that little Scamp.
Adam (19:43):
and as ever trying to, destroy journalism in all its forms as he has been
doing ever since his days at The Mirror.
for someone with a pathological hatredof journalists and journalism, it's
a very odd career choice he's madeto keep owning newspaper companies.
his latest one is National World.
He's being challenged by shareholdersin that, specifically a company
called Media Concierge, which ownsa load of Irish papers but owns 24%
of the shares in the National World.
(20:04):
They're now challenging him.
They want to take fullcontrol of National World.
this may be because he actually sackedMedia Concierge from their job doing
all the ad sales on the newspapers.
So their nose is a bita joint on that one.
Helen (20:14):
Okay.
And final question, what's thelatest on the sale of a Telegraph?
Another, oh God, another sagathat seems like he's been
dragging on for about three years.
Adam (20:23):
we've now got to the point in the Telegraph where so many people have been
involved there recycling them becausethe latest, exciting new name is...
Nadhim Zahawi!
Former chancellor, another person whohad to resign in disgrace, didn't he?
Yes, he did,
Ian (20:33):
but not for long.
Adam (20:34):
First of all, he was, on the Barkley family's side as a front man in the,
the debt payoff they did with the UnitedArab Emirates backed, company, which then
wasn't allowed to take over The Telegraph.
Then he reinvented himself alongthe way, getting a job as chair
of a Very, which is another one ofthe Barclay, families companies.
Then he tried to put together hisown bid, so that 600 million that
was wanted for, at that point,The Telegraph and The Spectator.
(20:57):
Got knocked out of therunning in that one.
And Dovid Eon, who is the owner of theNew York Sun and the all minor journal,
started putting together his own bit,some of his funding's fallen through.
But guess who's just arrived?
Like a white knight on a charter?
Yes, it's Nadhim Zahawi.
And this time he's brought along anotherTory Treasurer with him, a friend of
the Eye, Mohamed Mansour, who we'vewritten about on a number of occasions.
(21:19):
Gimme
Helen (21:19):
the, the one line Wikipedia on Mohamed Mansour?
Adam (21:22):
Tory Treasurer, knighted by Rishi Sunak, extensive
business interests in Egypt.
some of them down to the factthat he was in the cabinet of
Hosni Mubarak, notoriously corruptand autocratic Egyptian leader.
and also extensive business interests,and dealings with Russia, which
went on for at least 18 monthsafter the invasion of Ukraine.
So a lovely, savory crowd.
Helen (21:45):
Is there any, small spark of joy happening in the British media at all?
Adam (21:51):
the Christmas edition of private Eyes coming out in a couple of weeks,
Helen (21:57):
talking about another group of people who aren't happy.
See what I did there?
Angry farmers.
So currently, I wish I'd not hadto learn about these different
types of tax, but I had to.
Currently farms and farmland are eligiblefor two types of inheritance, tax relief,
agricultural property relief, or a PRand business property relief or BPR.
But in the budget, Rachel Reeves announcedthat these be scrapped from 2026.
Were farms worth over a millionpounds or sometimes more.
(22:20):
there's been a quite alittle backlash against this.
Ian, do you have any sympathy with theNational Farmers Union position against
these changes to inheritance tax?
Ian (22:28):
I, take the line of our correspondent, used to be Muck
Spreader, our new Bio WasteSpreader, who's been writing about
these things for a long time.
And, he's been fairly consistent inpointing out the problems of farming.
and it's a very, tough business to be in.
And he continually.
Tells you the things that arevery difficult for farmers.
starting with Brexit and, theslowing up of the payments, the
(22:49):
squeeze from the supermarkets.
the Eye has been fairly sympathetic.
despite being described as a woke blobby,liberal North London Elite, both the
magazine staff and it's readers are fullof people who live in the countryside
and they're quite interested in it.
, Helen (23:03):
Jane, I wanna ask you something about this as kind of
resident nooks and therefore, inmy view, Space and land expert.
It's a good thing to be an expert in.
I was surprised.
Jane (23:13):
Geography...
Helen (23:13):
I wonder, I was kinda interested like, how many farmers are there, right?
There are 209,000 farm holdingsin the UK according to government.
Average size of 82 hectares,but half are smaller than 20.
So I thought that really complicated myversion of it, which is there must be
some absolutely whoppers of farms thatdistort the average upwards, then you
were saying also that also lots of peoplewho farm don't even own their farms.
(23:35):
Absolutely.
So there still are, around, 15%of farmers are tenant farming.
They don't own the land.
and they're paying, to be able to work it.
They're families will not beinheriting, because they don't
donate in the first place.
and that's more common in the north.
(23:56):
also where land in itselfis, less expensive.
And then you, some of these very largefarms are, those farms in the north,
doing what's called LFA farming, whichis not large fluffy animals, even
though it is mainly sheep farming.
It's, less favored areas.
So the land per hectare is, Wortha lot less it'd be very hard to do
(24:19):
much gel with it other than farmsort of large, fluffy animals.
So build loads of lovely houses.
if you can persuade lots andlots of people to move to North
Ambria, yes, you make a fair point.
The transport links probablywould've to precede that.
Ian (24:34):
So there, there are 50% of people who none of these
inheritance things applies to anyway.
then there's a large percentage of themwho, are just well below these thresholds.
Jane (24:44):
And the people who, are Using farms in order to avoid inheritance tax, have
bought sort of lovely tracks of beautifulkind of arable farmland that's worth.
Lots of money in orderto store their money.
but they're not, the people we wouldtraditionally think as farmers and the
(25:04):
vast majority of them, I'm sure are allpaying farm managers to do the farming,
not doing the farming, their ownselves.
on an
Helen (25:12):
entirely unrelated note, Adam, I wanted to ask you about Jeremy Clarkson.
Cool.
he lived his life like acandle in the wind on this one.
Having gone through becoming, I'mgonna be the face of this to then
being basically told by the NFU,could you not be the face of this?
did you appreciate how the, papersuddenly decided that protest was good?
Actually, disruptiveprotests are actually great.
Yes.
Adam (25:31):
yeah.
We, like some people comingdown white hall, don't we?
When they're on toy tractorsor they're wearing the right
Barbour jackets and Wellingtons.
Clarkson was extraordinary.
The thing that really struck me with that.
Interview that he did with,Victoria Derbyshire from the
BBC, outside Downing street was.
Quite how Trumpish he was, themoment when he tried to tell.
And talked to me a lot about being overand covering Trump rallies and the way
that he turns things back on the media.
(25:52):
oh, if
Helen (25:52):
Jeremy Clarkson wanted to be our Trump, he absolutely could be
Adam (25:55):
but the moment when he said, that's just typical BBC, and when she
pointed out she was quoting his ownwords back from him literally, that
he'd written in the Sunday Times.
Yes.
Because he's written everythinghe's ever thought in one of
his newspaper columns, he said,
Helen (26:06):
facts, This is typical BBC saying things are facts.
And she said.
You, said them.
Adam (26:11):
But then he turned to the crowd and just said to them, to
these crowd, slightly hostile crowdaround him, are you hearing this?
And I thought, that'sthe moment, isn't it?
That's the Trump thing whereyou just say, I've been asked
a question I don't like, I.
Biased media and turn the supporterswho probably didn't even hear
the question but are quite happyto go along and boo with it.
that, that really didstrike me as a moment.
And I thought, oh my God, we arelooking at President Clarkson now.
(26:32):
He's just, one of his last columnsat the Sunday Times was about how
he thinks we're gonna get rid ofthe Monarchy and, have a president.
And he was warning how awful itwould be have President Blair.
I thought, oh my God.
They, no they'd electClarkson, wouldn't they?
It would be, and I just hadthis sudden horrible moment.
Ian (26:43):
But he Do a fairly rapid reverse ferret, didn't he?
after he saw how his appearance had gonedown, he then said, it was terrible.
I was on painkillers.
Helen (26:55):
Yes, he'd had, some back injury and he'd, therefore
he was slightly spaced out.
But also that he then said that actuallyAndy Willman, his long-term producer
on Top Gear had said that he had to gomake a speech at this rally in order to
quote, have an ending for the episode.
Which is a great way, it's an almost LizJones approach to your life, isn't it?
Just make things happen inmy personal life for content.
Ian (27:15):
he then wrote, in one of the columns afterwards that,
do I want to be a politician?
and he said, I, suddenly realizedI don't, I'm a journalist, I
like throwing things at people.
I don't wanna be the personwho gets thrown at them.
And then I think he must havewatched himself with a journalist,
IE Victoria Dobish saying, look,you've, you said this, and now you
(27:36):
are saying something different.
, and blaming me for bringing it up.
And I think part of himmust have thought I.
I was a journalist for most of my life.
I do realize what she's doing.
I am now the person who is having thingsthrown at him for talking nonsense.
he said, I originallybought this land for tax.
Then he said, oh, I was lying.
Then I didn't buy it.
(27:57):
to avoid tax, I bought it to have a shoot,but I thought it would be better to tell a
lie and say I was buying it to avoid tax.
So you just think, how do we knowwhether you're telling the truth now?
It, there are too many reverse, theferret disappears, and also it's not
necessarily, there's a farming metaphor,
Helen (28:15):
that's good.
Adam (28:16):
it's not necessarily the thing that you want to hear either as a farmer who
has turned out in Whitehall concernedrightly or notley, whatever the statistics
day about losing your livelihood and notbeing able to pass it on to your kids.
To read in the Sunday Times thatactually you are just a bit part in
an episode of Clarkson's Farm in theend, that he actually did just need
a kind of end of episode crescendo.
Does it?
You wouldn't speak.
But speaking
Helen (28:35):
of somebody who read the last Diddly squat book, I did my time in
those minds, I think the great tragedyof Clarkson is that he's putting it on.
He's basically a kind of sweet, herecycles And he has to work himself
up into this kind of, ooh, Brussels.
I, just, he voted to remain.
His friends are all media lovies.
I guess the person mostly in the US hereminds me of is Tucker Carlson, who's the
(28:58):
same, he wears like loafers without anysocks and preppy drag and then has to hang
around with people talking about how he'sbeen attacked by demons because that's
what he thinks the crowd wants to hear.
And.
I don't, to be clear, I don't feelsorry for either of these people on the
basis they built large and expensivehouses on the back of playing these
caricatures, but I sometimes wonderif the reason that they're so angry
with journalists is because theyknow fine that the person is pointing
(29:20):
out something that they're aware of.
And that's when they getvery defensive about it.
Adam (29:24):
I just think when it comes to the farmers as well, I mean there are so many
other financial things that the governmentis not showing any sign of tackling.
the, kind of elephant in theroom, the large un fluffy
animal in the room, I guess is.
The fact that they are vastly,underpaid by supermarkets for
the food that they are producing.
And that's another really difficultconversation with the government.
'cause in the end, that's gonna meanhigher food prices than the supermarkets
for the rest of us as consumers.
(29:45):
But it's also, I mean that's themain problem with farming that
makes it financially unviable.
Jane (29:50):
another issue that's facing farming is it's massively aging.
So more than half of farmers are over 55.
Ian (29:59):
And bio waste spreader, points out that the inheritance tax,
relief put up the price of farms,which meant, buying your own farm.
Was outta the question for anyyounger person who wanted to
enter the farming business.
Helen (30:17):
a new departure for Page 94, we are going to hear from an ai, are
we gonna hear from an AI correspondentor is this going to be terrible?
I'm very excited by this.
Ian (30:25):
it's not an AI correspondent, it's an EI.
Did you see what I did there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Correspondent, we've donethis, the whole segment, making
the joke and work backwards.
I spoke to our producer and he said,you need something to end the episode.
Helen (30:40):
these are the thoughts of Bio Waste Spreader brought to you via
the magic of artificial intelligence.
Tell us, what did you see at the protests
' AI 'Bio Waste Spreader' (30:48):
Starmer, the Farmer Hammer,' read the banners attached
to the front of tractors in Whitehall,some of which had been driven from
as far away as Yorkshire, but makingsuch long journeys with such slow
moving vehicles should have given thedrivers time to question whether they
shouldn't be addressing the broaderchallenges facing British farmers post
Brexit, rather than simply wailingabout a tax that everyone else pays.
(31:11):
More than 250,000 people have nowsigned a petition to overturn the
family farm tax as the NationalFarmers Union has labeled it.
But did it not strike the mast ranks ofgreen tweed or brushed cotton gille ver
clad farmers that it would be disastrousto allow professional petrolhead.
Jeremy Clarkson, To grab thelion's share of media attention
(31:33):
surrounding the protest.
Do they not see it?
Clarkson is not their white knight savior.
He's a public relations disasterand arguably, at least partly
responsible for the tax exemption.
Helen (31:45):
I just suddenly reminded me halfway through of the weird period
in British history where you weren'tallowed to hear Jerry Adams' voice.
Yeah.
And they're simply worried that Bio WasteSpreader is gonna radicalize people if
we're actually allowed to hear his voice.
so I have another question for you.
AI Bio Waste Spreader, whichis what, issues is this
actually a distraction from?
There's a whole raft of them.
(32:06):
The accelerated loss of the old EUsubsidies will be tough on tenant
farmers, many of whom will not beable to renegotiate their rents with
their landlords for several years.
The hike to the minimum wagewill impact heavily on an
industry notorious for low pay.
Then there are the significant increasesin employers', national insurance
payments, and the proposals to imposecarbon taxes on goods like imported
(32:30):
fertilizer and steel, which will increasethe cost of farm machinery and the cost
of fertilizer by 50 pounds per ton.
The London protest could have broughtall of these issues to public attention.
It could also have asked how farmers aresupposed to meet such cost increases when
trade deals bringing in imported food.
Signed by then trade secretary Liz Truss.
(32:51):
Don't require equivalent animalwelfare or environmental standards.
One final question for you, AI Bio Waste Spreader, which is, what do you
think the outcome of all this will be?
AI 'Bio Waste Spreader' (33:02):
Post Brexit, UK farmers' interests are no longer protected
by the common agricultural policy, so theyneed to be extremely careful about the
issues they choose to protest and who isinvited to voice those concerns for them.
Your correspondent wascrossing Westminster Bridge.
Soon after the farmers had departedCentral London Streets and pubs, two
(33:22):
young men picked up a discarded placardthat read Bullocks to the budget.
No farmers, no food, no future.
Where have they all gone now?
Said one back to their big countryestates, I guess laughed the other.
Helen (33:38):
and that's slightly bizarre way to end it.
Next, I'm not sure that AI is goingto replace us yet, Ian, I think
we've got another couple of, podcastsin US before we're all replaced
Ian (33:45):
Yeah, this is my secret agenda but I think, Bio Waste Spreader, but it is
very, worried, that, he might, be outed.
as someone who's not entirely,uncritical about Jeremy
Clarkson, which quite an offense.
Helen (34:00):
Okay, then he won't be seen that the local ferret wrangling again.
That is all for this episode of Page 94.
My thanks to Adam, Jane and Ian,as well as AI BioWaste Spreader.
If you like this sort of thing,then you can head over to
private-eye.co.Uk and subscribe.
The Private Eye Annual is also in theshops why not pick a copy up for that
for yourself or a loved one as ever.
Our thanks to Matt Hill at RethinkAudio for producing and editing.
(34:22):
See you next time.
AI 'Bio Waste Spreader' (34:24):
I have been asked by the editor to assure
listeners that we won't be usingEI or indeed AI voices again and
will in future employ live actors.
I am fired.
Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Helen (00:03):
Hello and welcome to a new episode of Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast.
I'm a very gravelly Helen Lewissitting in for Andy this week as
he recovers from being savagelyattacked by a pack of wild koalas.
And with me are Adam MacQueen,Ian Hislop and Jane McKenzie.
First off, as we were recording ourlast episode, Justin Welby resigned
as Archbishop of Canterbury over hisfailure to follow up allegations of
(00:23):
sadistic abuse at a Christian summercamp by a man called John Smythe.
Ian, we're gonna have to start withyou on this one because you took the
unusual step of writing an editor'snote about your encounter with
Wellby and the last print magazine.
Is that the first such editor'snote that you have issued?
Ian (00:38):
no.
I did it once before when I had a verystrange phone call from Julian Assange.
It was so bizarre, that I thoughtI, I can't not write this on the
whole, I try not to be, the personwho puts themselves in his own paper.
One reader kindly said this week,oh God, you turned into Lev.
(00:59):
And I thought, okay, fair enough.
So that's what I was worried about.
But I did, I asked FrancisWeen who'd written all.
The stuff immediately and,he said, this happened.
You've got to put this in.
So I, tried to write it up without beingtoo self-serving, and just, register
my complete amazement that he shouldbe there the day after he resigned.
(01:20):
At a public event, smiling, pretendingnothing had happened, and literally making
a beeline towards me and saying hello.
And, I just, I couldn't do the politeness.
Adam (01:30):
so I got a tip off last issue, and I came in very excited
to the office the next day.
I said to Ian, you'renot gonna believe this.
Guess who turned up at the trusteesmeeting at the British Museum last night?
Completely shamelessly?
Only Justin Welby, the bloodyArchbishop of Canterbury resigned
yesterday and Ian said to me.
Oh, about that.
Helen (01:49):
Yes.
Ian (01:49):
That, that, certainly prompted me to think about, doing some journalism.
Helen (01:54):
And was there a big response from readers?
Ian (01:56):
yes.
I mean they have overwhelmingly,written in, which is very kind to
them and there are a lot of vicars.
and there are a lot of Anglicans andthey are very pleased, , that someone
has pointed out that they have to go on.
I.
day after day, including Sundaysobviously, doing this job and
they feel very let down, by thepeople, supposedly in charge.
Helen (02:18):
Jane, I wanted to ask you a bit about the fallout from this.
It's obviously a story that the eye hasbeen covering for quite a long time,
but there does seem to been somethingthat's happened in the wake of the
report and actually broader fallout.
Can you tell us what that'sbeen since the last episode?
Jane (02:31):
so yes, since the Macon report named a number of people who had
known for a considerable amount oftime, That, what Smythe had been
up to and had failed to act on itor failed to act, properly on it.
so a number of people who wenamed last issue have, now had
their permission to officiate.
(02:52):
Removed, which is a kind of Church ofEngland way of suspending people 'cause
they're not suspended as employees, buttheir ability to hold a service or sort of
Helen (03:01):
Like having the WIP removed as an mp, I guess
Jane (03:03):
It is.
It is similar, yes.
so a number of those people whowe named last time have had their
permission to officiate removed.
Helen (03:10):
Do you think that's where it ends?
Is there any sign of anythingelse that might possibly happen?
Jane (03:16):
there's, a number of recommendations in the report itself that they, certainly
need to follow up on in terms of, makingsure that people involved in this case
aren't involved in decisions aboutfuture safeguarding issues , and that
they do a better job in the future.
There's a lot of people who are named inthe reporters failing terribly, who will
(03:37):
get away with it by virtue of being dead.
It has taken so long to reach thispoint where we finally identified.
Who knew things back in the 1980sand covered it up that all a lot
of the people involved in thatfirst coverup in the early eighties
have evaded justice altogether.
Helen (03:56):
There was an interesting piece of followup in the, The Times actually, which
reported that in 2007 well beat allowedCanon John Roberts to continue officiating
despite being told he was convictedfor sex offenses committed in 1989.
Now that, Ian, that wouldn't havebeen news to Eye readers though
this was another Francis story.
Ian (04:13):
Yes.
No, it was, one of those revelationsthat, unlike the ones in the
Bible happened very, frequently.
and yes, Francis had written this storyabout, and it was the same problem,
a refusal to take seriously the issueof, a pedophile amongst your midsts.
And, a desire to, forgive,which I know is, part of the
(04:35):
Christian mission statement.
know, I was there, I've sat in the pews.
I know that bit, but there, therewas other bits about penance and
going away and sinning no more.
And, there are usuallyother bits that go with it.
And I think.
The response of a lot of people inthis, a lot of Anglicans was, they
were too keen to forgive and notfast enough to administer justice.
Adam (04:59):
in that particular case, there was extraordinary dear hell of Wellby
actually writing to the convictedpedophile in question to apologize to
him and say how awful it must be thatone of his victims kept turning up at
the cathedral to hassle him, wasn't it?
It was an immediatejumping to his defense.
Helen (05:12):
It was an assumption that I think the way it was reported was that Welby
had thought that the man had been thevictim of a miscarriage of justice before.
And so had said to him, obviously, youmustn't officiate any services involving
children because it would be too easyfor people to make more accusations.
And I think this goes to the heartof the, big debate, Which is.
Can, Wellby been assumed notto have known before 2013?
(05:32):
He admits that post 2013 there was more hecould have done, but he says before then
nothing but this case, this can, and JohnRoberts case this guy had been convicted
of a sexual offense and then someone elsemade another similar accusation and that
didn't apparently ring any bells that.
Oh, hang a minute, maybe thatdidn't seem such a miscarriage
of justice in retrospect.
It's an
Adam (05:50):
extraordinary thing that it, either goes in one direction or another.
'cause the other case I was remembering,which I think we also wrote about,
was the case of Alan Griffin, who wasthe, the Church of England priest died
by suicide in 2020, after a year whenhe knew he was under investigation.
And that turned out to be basednot on any sort of accusation.
There was no accuser,there was no complainant.
It was just a bit of priestlygossip that had someone said
at their retirement interview.
Jane (06:11):
Yes.
one of the interesting features ofwhat went on with Smith after the
sort of 19, early 1980s investigationis that a lot of the people who
knew or knew a little bit had heardabout it through priestly gossip.
There'd been, there was an awfullot of quietly on the side saying.
(06:33):
You just wanna watch out for him.
But people didn't ask the question why,or it was hinted, that he was a bit
kinky rather than that he was abusingdozens and dozens of teenage boys.
And people must have thought,that's what he does in his
private life, rather than that's.
(06:56):
Appalling and we
Helen (06:57):
have to act The bit that, yeah, sorry.
The bit that I found hard to believehaving grown up is, my dad's a,
deacon in the Catholic church.
Mom was eucharistic ministerfor a long time, Like priestly
gossip is a thing, right?
Ian (07:08):
It just is.
And so is gossip amongst 16-year-oldboys, even Christian boys at
camps, even boys who are, fully,convinced, by the, the rightness
of the people who are doing this.
They do talk, they do say things.
So I found that period of nounknowing particularly difficult.
(07:29):
To excuse, and small details.
someone write a letter saying, yes,after these boys have left school,
they carry on confessing, to Smythe.
if they're in a relationship with,say, their girlfriends and they confess
to him, and then he takes appropriateaction beating them if they've
had any sexual design, you think.
Th this is the most appalling,interfering in young men's heads.
(07:52):
trying to convince them that any sortof sexual contact, is deeply sinful.
whereas the man, smashingthem, around the bum, that in
itself is not of any interest.
Helen (08:04):
But it also speaks to the one, the weirdness of this story, which is
that he didn't have an official position.
He wasn't ordained, he was a lay read.
This is...
it wasn't like he was taking any kindof official confession or anything
that had any official pastoral role.
He was a sort of freelance flogger.
Ian (08:18):
Yes.
And the, denials by a lot of people,including the Archbishop at one
point, saying, he wasn't a member ofthe Church and he wasn't, C of E...
he was on specific camps, which wasdesigned to create, , leaders of the
future for the Church of England.
Adam (08:32):
and the knowledge must have been so widespread because those 16-year-old
boys was this 27, 29 of them went on tobe priests within the Church of England.
They obviously had absolute knowledge.
it cannot have been.
That secret.
Jane (08:44):
Yeah.
Internationally known about too, at onepoint, there's messages going between
a church in Paris and, , there's seniorpeople in the church saying somebody
had made a disclosure to them and thatpeople ought to keep an eye on this.
But again, keep an eye on it is notthe same as taking proper measures.
Helen (09:03):
Can I
Adam (09:04):
just ask one question?
Helen (09:05):
Yes.
Adam (09:05):
Which is, why is Justin Wellby still the Archbishop country?
it's very obvious from your interventionthat he doesn't understand the disgrace
part of resigning in disgrace, buthe doesn't seem to have got his head
around the resigning part either.
He's sticking aroundtill January, isn't it?
He's just been on aninternational visit, in his role.
this is not what happens whenyou step down from a roll,
can I reiterate, in disgrace,
(09:26):
you don't get to stick around to Christmas'cause that's when you get to wear the
really nice frocks and do the service.
And the bit on the telly
, Ian (09:31):
Is he going to be doing that bit at Christmas?
I.
Adam (09:34):
as he said, he's not at the moment?
who, who else stands in?
Do we get the Archbishop of York instead?
The only thing
I've heard is that one of the newspapersthen approached, the Archbishop of
Country's office for a statement afterthe Eye's stuff appeared and it said he
doesn't comment on personal conversations.
And I thought may maybehe should have done.
It also just does strike me thatthis is the week in which we're gonna
(09:56):
see the Assisted Dying Bill in thecomments, if there ever was a time
that certain people might be lookingfor some sort of moral guidance from
the head of the Church of England.
This would be it.
And he's not in a position to offer it.
Helen (10:08):
that's the other side of this, is relevant to us, which is I felt
some of the slightly knee jerk defensesof him were on political grounds.
he's intervened on austerity,he's intervened on refugees and
therefore anybody coming fromhis sort of part of a, Tory plot,
and I think there's an unwelcome new.
Not exactly new entrant to ourpolitics, but it's something you
see all the time in America, right?
(10:28):
That everything is now just so polarizedthat no one ever does anything wrong.
It's always just a plotfrom the other side.
And that's become an easytool to reach for clearly on
this side of the Atlantic too.
Ian (10:37):
And a basic failure to understand anything about the Church of England
and to what, the term evangelicalmeans, what the term conservative means.
The fact that the Archbishop, intervenedabout refugees does not mean he was not
part of the conservative evangelical wing.
the muscular Christianity, all ofthat, particular lot are one group
(10:57):
in the Church of England and they...
They are not on the whole very liberal.
it's, a confusion.
and a desire not to be interested inthe CofE, which I, I get, I understand
it may not interest anyone andthere'll probably be people out there
saying, are they wanging on about it?
But if lots of problem people
Helen (11:15):
At the moment, they still sit in the House of Lords, right?
CofE is an established churchwith a law making capacity for us.
I know that labor trying to removethat, but that is, we all have a
vested interest in the CofE at themoment 'cause they rule over us.
Anyway,
Let's turn our gaze inward next,because there is a smorgasbord of
stories about the media this week.
this is like gonna be aquick fire, Adam Round.
(11:36):
I'm quite excited.
Plenty developments sincethe last Street of Shame.
, Adam, first of all, let's do The Observer.
Two strikes called since welast spoke, over the sale of The
Observer potentially to Tortoise.
Adam (11:46):
Indeed, and not just strikes by Observer staff, but the
whole of the Guardian, as well.
the NUJ chapel at the Guardianhave voted by, 93% of them that
the east strikes you go ahead onthe fourth and 5th of December,
and the 12th and 13th of December.
So it's gonna be a case of the Armybeing deployed in green goddesses with,
emergency, Yotam Ottelenghi recipes,people stockpiling Zoe Williams columns to
read by candlelight, that kind of thing.
Helen (12:07):
you can't make me laugh when I've got a cold.
This is gonna sound terrible fit.
Adam (12:11):
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
This of course is over the,
Helen (12:13):
hobbled around their braziers burning only ethically approved charcoal.
Yeah.
Adam (12:20):
Singing old folk songs about Owen Jones.
Oh, yes.
Ian (12:24):
Can you get onto the detail, Adam?!
Adam (12:27):
this of course is over...
We've talked about thison the podcast before.
We've written, quite a fewpieces in, the magazine about it.
The proposed sale of the Observerby the Guardian Media Group.
Tortoise which is the startup...
sort of new media startupturned podcast factory turned.
Apparently now want to be, print newspaperpublisher, run by James Harding, former.
Times editor and former boss of BBCnews, , and he's got absolutely everyone
(12:51):
up in arms across The Observer andthe Guardian who haven't traditionally
been particularly something is broughtthem together, united together.
Yeah.
But on this case, they absolutely are.
and the latest that has been saidby Anna Bateson who is the CEO of
Guardian Media Group, is that shouldthis sale to Tortoise not go through,
which seems to be what people at theObserver want it not to go through,
there will be 'difficult decisions' tobe taken about the future of that paper.
(13:13):
So it's a bit.
Devil in the deep blue seaat that point, isn't it?
Whether they're better off going withsomeone who does want to own them or
someone who's made it very clear thatthey definitely don't want to own them.
Ian (13:22):
That's a strange thing to be striking for; the right
to be sacked by the Guardian.
Adam (13:26):
I think that is one of the issues in it.
It's, is the, rights tobe sacked by the Guardian.
They actually extraordinarily.
for, I was gonna say for any newspaper,for any workplace in this country,
the agreed current agreement betweenthe Guardian and the NUJ Chapel is
that there can never be any compulsoryredundancies under any circumstances,
which is an extraordinary perk
Jane (13:44):
Not sure even many trade unions have that an agreement for their staff.
Adam (13:48):
It's an amazing deal that they've managed to get signed.
So the idea, certainly amongst Guardianstaff, is that, if they can write off
The Observer, which they always thoughtwas part of the family and was as
controlled by the Scott Trust, kind ofagreement to keep the Guardian going.
It's 0.3 billion perpetuity, and it's 1.3billion that it's got sitting in the bank.
or in a large basement.
Like Scrooge McDuck in coins isalways how I always imagine it.
that yeah, they, don't get any part butpart of that, but, Guardian stuff I think
(14:11):
are very concerned about, other rightsand other longstanding understandings
being a whittled away as well.
What can you use the 1.3 billion for?
To keep the Guardian going in perpetuity.
That's what it is specifically for.
So it's been built up by allsorts of other businesses.
they used to own Autotrader.
Do you remember we wrote an awful lotof stuff about the, the deals they did
over buying and selling that, which werequite interestingly channeled financially.
(14:34):
I think Emap, the magazine group, theyhave been all sorts of investments
in the past and they've owned thingslike the Manchester Evening News,
which have come and gone and theybuilt up this kind of war chest there.
But that is there, has been madevery, clear now to The Observer
staff and to everyone else is justfor the Guardian's own personal use.
Helen (14:49):
But the thing that's hard about it is it has been quite a lot
of integration between the two papersrule that they, have sometimes ended up
with very divergent, editorial views,for example, on Iraq or on gender.
But things like the foreign deskand the sports desk are integrated.
So it's not entirely clearhow you unweave that.
That rainbow, basically.
It's not
Adam (15:05):
just that.
The Observer has never been allowedby the Guardian to stand as a brand
on its own, except in paper form.
So it has no, website.
So exactly what Tortoise are buying.
They're buying a print newspaper.
They don't have the abilityto print it themselves.
They'd have to negotiate that with,now, I think it's now printed on the
Trinity Mirror presses, so it's noteven something in there that's the
whole separate deal they'd have to doto actually print it and distribute it.
But also it's got no website of its own.
So they're gonna have tostart that from scratch.
(15:27):
James Harding is apparently very surehe's gonna get lots of investment in
from all sorts of people, and lots ofpeople will be keen to hand him the,
tens of millions, if not hundreds ofmillions that will be necessary to,
keep this going in the long term.
But, could the Guardian invest in it?
the Guardian have said they willretain, as part of this deal,
a financial interest in it.
So they will still have some, kindof say in the Observer, but it's the
(15:47):
details of, or if you talk to anyone atThe Observer or the Guardian, everyone
feels the details are still very, murky.
The Scott Trust apparently who oversee theGuardian, were meeting this week to have a
say whether or not this is the final say.
I'm not sure on the, on, on the dealand whether it goes ahead, but at
time of recording, we don't knowexactly where that one's going.
Jane, this is genuinely, watchthis large space in the front.
Helen (16:08):
Jane, have you ever been on strike?
Because it used to be like a riteof passage that all journalists at
some point had been warming their,fingers over a brazier at some point.
But I think,
Jane (16:15):
I just don't know whether or not I've been at private eye a very long time.
Yeah.
we've never, had a work as we
Helen (16:22):
should
Jane (16:22):
work to rule over Ian's
Adam (16:24):
tyranny.
no.
Famously there's those photos of,Michael Gove when he was on, was it the
Aberdeen Press Journal or something inhis younger days, out on the picket line?
Warming, literally warming hisf his fingers over a brace era.
It was bloody colder.
The picket line in
Helen (16:36):
Aberdeen.
tell us also, things are notexactly happy in Murdoch land
Adam (16:41):
either.
I dunno.
it, there is an extraordinary, justthought we do this roundup of kind
of, all these different newspapersthat are in flux at the moment.
Murdoch land, the biggest flux that'sgoing on we talked about before is.
secret and went on in a Nevadacourtroom, and we don't yet have
a judgment on that, which is whathappens over the Murdoch family Trust.
When Rupert departs this mortal coil, hewants everything to go to Lachlan, who is
his most right winging and trustworthy,progeny who will keep the fox and
(17:05):
NewsCorp Empires going on in the waythat Rupert has always intended them to.
Rest of the family not so happy about it.
But also, they're not the only oneswho are unhappy because last week
at the News Corp, a GM, , a bunchof shareholders started kicking up a
first, not for the first time eitherabout the way that News Corp is set up
But if you asked mostpeople who owned NewsCorp.
They would say to you, RupertMurdoch, do you know how much
(17:27):
of the shares in, in NewsCorp isactually held by the Murdoch family?
Helen (17:31):
Have they got what the tech companies often do, which is they got two
tier shares, so they get special, extragood shares, and then other people get
crappy shares that are just of like a,like in the crystal maze, they get the
gold ones and everyone else gets, thesilver ones actually deduct power from it.
Adam (17:44):
That is exactly it.
They have 14% of the shares in thecompany, which is a tiny, amount.
But when it comes to the votingshares, the ones that actually give
'em the right, and the way that the,company gets managed, they have 41%.
So they've got a much smallernumber of Sharehold...
other shareholders that they've gottakeep online in order for Rupert or.
In the future, Lachlan to get their way.
Now this was the bit that was challengedby shareholders, institutional
(18:06):
shareholders in Newscorp lastweek, and not for the first time.
So they are quite restless.
The kinda shareholders, they, in 2015they challenged this as well and said,
we want a bit more, say we want toget rid of this, dual class capital
structure, which is what it's called.
2012, they had a go at it as well.
They were particularly exercisedat that point over the handling of
phone hacking, on the British papers.
And that's when James Murdoch wasin charge and proved himself perhaps
(18:29):
not the best heir, which is why heseems to be quite out of the picture.
And of course, in 2011, they actuallyhad to settle, at a cost of 91
million pounds, $91 million rather, a.
Lawsuit from shareholders overRupert treating the company to
quote a wholly owned family candystore.' and 'indulging in rampant
nepotism', which of course was when hepaid, , $675 million for a TV company,
(18:53):
which just happened to belong to...
yes!
Yet another Murdoch.
That one was Elizabeth.
and shareholders argue that this wasenormously overvalued and absolutely
shameless profiteering within the family.
And, it led to a court case
Helen (19:04):
On one level.
I'm sympathetic to them on another level.
It's a bit like when people buy cryptoand then get scammed and you think,
what did you think you were buying?
Adam (19:12):
What, you were getting involved in Rupert Murdoch's business.
He's not a newcomer to this,you know what he's about.
You think you were doing here?
Ian (19:17):
For many listeners.
It just feels like I've, been watchingthis for the last three years.
It's naturally succession, isn't it?
Adam (19:25):
Absolutely the most pleasing, detail that came out after the divorce from Jerry
Hall is that one of the conditions of thatdivorce was that she wasn't allowed to
speak to the script writers on Successionand pass on any insight to gossip.
But to be honest, this actslike she really didn't need to.
Helen (19:38):
gonna give you one sentence to tell me what's up with David
Montgomery, that little Scamp.
Adam (19:43):
and as ever trying to, destroy journalism in all its forms as he has been
doing ever since his days at The Mirror.
for someone with a pathological hatredof journalists and journalism, it's
a very odd career choice he's madeto keep owning newspaper companies.
his latest one is National World.
He's being challenged by shareholdersin that, specifically a company
called Media Concierge, which ownsa load of Irish papers but owns 24%
of the shares in the National World.
(20:04):
They're now challenging him.
They want to take fullcontrol of National World.
this may be because he actually sackedMedia Concierge from their job doing
all the ad sales on the newspapers.
So their nose is a bita joint on that one.
Helen (20:14):
Okay.
And final question, what's thelatest on the sale of a Telegraph?
Another, oh God, another sagathat seems like he's been
dragging on for about three years.
Adam (20:23):
we've now got to the point in the Telegraph where so many people have been
involved there recycling them becausethe latest, exciting new name is...
Nadhim Zahawi!
Former chancellor, another person whohad to resign in disgrace, didn't he?
Yes, he did,
Ian (20:33):
but not for long.
Adam (20:34):
First of all, he was, on the Barkley family's side as a front man in the,
the debt payoff they did with the UnitedArab Emirates backed, company, which then
wasn't allowed to take over The Telegraph.
Then he reinvented himself alongthe way, getting a job as chair
of a Very, which is another one ofthe Barclay, families companies.
Then he tried to put together hisown bid, so that 600 million that
was wanted for, at that point,The Telegraph and The Spectator.
(20:57):
Got knocked out of therunning in that one.
And Dovid Eon, who is the owner of theNew York Sun and the all minor journal,
started putting together his own bit,some of his funding's fallen through.
But guess who's just arrived?
Like a white knight on a charter?
Yes, it's Nadhim Zahawi.
And this time he's brought along anotherTory Treasurer with him, a friend of
the Eye, Mohamed Mansour, who we'vewritten about on a number of occasions.
(21:19):
Gimme
Helen (21:19):
the, the one line Wikipedia on Mohamed Mansour?
Adam (21:22):
Tory Treasurer, knighted by Rishi Sunak, extensive
business interests in Egypt.
some of them down to the factthat he was in the cabinet of
Hosni Mubarak, notoriously corruptand autocratic Egyptian leader.
and also extensive business interests,and dealings with Russia, which
went on for at least 18 monthsafter the invasion of Ukraine.
So a lovely, savory crowd.
Helen (21:45):
Is there any, small spark of joy happening in the British media at all?
Adam (21:51):
the Christmas edition of private Eyes coming out in a couple of weeks,
Helen (21:57):
talking about another group of people who aren't happy.
See what I did there?
Angry farmers.
So currently, I wish I'd not hadto learn about these different
types of tax, but I had to.
Currently farms and farmland are eligiblefor two types of inheritance, tax relief,
agricultural property relief, or a PRand business property relief or BPR.
But in the budget, Rachel Reeves announcedthat these be scrapped from 2026.
Were farms worth over a millionpounds or sometimes more.
(22:20):
there's been a quite alittle backlash against this.
Ian, do you have any sympathy with theNational Farmers Union position against
these changes to inheritance tax?
Ian (22:28):
I, take the line of our correspondent, used to be Muck
Spreader, our new Bio WasteSpreader, who's been writing about
these things for a long time.
And, he's been fairly consistent inpointing out the problems of farming.
and it's a very, tough business to be in.
And he continually.
Tells you the things that arevery difficult for farmers.
starting with Brexit and, theslowing up of the payments, the
(22:49):
squeeze from the supermarkets.
the Eye has been fairly sympathetic.
despite being described as a woke blobby,liberal North London Elite, both the
magazine staff and it's readers are fullof people who live in the countryside
and they're quite interested in it.
, Helen (23:03):
Jane, I wanna ask you something about this as kind of
resident nooks and therefore, inmy view, Space and land expert.
It's a good thing to be an expert in.
I was surprised.
Jane (23:13):
Geography...
Helen (23:13):
I wonder, I was kinda interested like, how many farmers are there, right?
There are 209,000 farm holdingsin the UK according to government.
Average size of 82 hectares,but half are smaller than 20.
So I thought that really complicated myversion of it, which is there must be
some absolutely whoppers of farms thatdistort the average upwards, then you
were saying also that also lots of peoplewho farm don't even own their farms.
(23:35):
Absolutely.
So there still are, around, 15%of farmers are tenant farming.
They don't own the land.
and they're paying, to be able to work it.
They're families will not beinheriting, because they don't
donate in the first place.
and that's more common in the north.
(23:56):
also where land in itselfis, less expensive.
And then you, some of these very largefarms are, those farms in the north,
doing what's called LFA farming, whichis not large fluffy animals, even
though it is mainly sheep farming.
It's, less favored areas.
So the land per hectare is, Wortha lot less it'd be very hard to do
(24:19):
much gel with it other than farmsort of large, fluffy animals.
So build loads of lovely houses.
if you can persuade lots andlots of people to move to North
Ambria, yes, you make a fair point.
The transport links probablywould've to precede that.
Ian (24:34):
So there, there are 50% of people who none of these
inheritance things applies to anyway.
then there's a large percentage of themwho, are just well below these thresholds.
Jane (24:44):
And the people who, are Using farms in order to avoid inheritance tax, have
bought sort of lovely tracks of beautifulkind of arable farmland that's worth.
Lots of money in orderto store their money.
but they're not, the people we wouldtraditionally think as farmers and the
(25:04):
vast majority of them, I'm sure are allpaying farm managers to do the farming,
not doing the farming, their ownselves.
on an
Helen (25:12):
entirely unrelated note, Adam, I wanted to ask you about Jeremy Clarkson.
Cool.
he lived his life like acandle in the wind on this one.
Having gone through becoming, I'mgonna be the face of this to then
being basically told by the NFU,could you not be the face of this?
did you appreciate how the, papersuddenly decided that protest was good?
Actually, disruptiveprotests are actually great.
Yes.
Adam (25:31):
yeah.
We, like some people comingdown white hall, don't we?
When they're on toy tractorsor they're wearing the right
Barbour jackets and Wellingtons.
Clarkson was extraordinary.
The thing that really struck me with that.
Interview that he did with,Victoria Derbyshire from the
BBC, outside Downing street was.
Quite how Trumpish he was, themoment when he tried to tell.
And talked to me a lot about being overand covering Trump rallies and the way
that he turns things back on the media.
(25:52):
oh, if
Helen (25:52):
Jeremy Clarkson wanted to be our Trump, he absolutely could be
Adam (25:55):
but the moment when he said, that's just typical BBC, and when she
pointed out she was quoting his ownwords back from him literally, that
he'd written in the Sunday Times.
Yes.
Because he's written everythinghe's ever thought in one of
his newspaper columns, he said,
Helen (26:06):
facts, This is typical BBC saying things are facts.
And she said.
You, said them.
Adam (26:11):
But then he turned to the crowd and just said to them, to
these crowd, slightly hostile crowdaround him, are you hearing this?
And I thought, that'sthe moment, isn't it?
That's the Trump thing whereyou just say, I've been asked
a question I don't like, I.
Biased media and turn the supporterswho probably didn't even hear
the question but are quite happyto go along and boo with it.
that, that really didstrike me as a moment.
And I thought, oh my God, we arelooking at President Clarkson now.
(26:32):
He's just, one of his last columnsat the Sunday Times was about how
he thinks we're gonna get rid ofthe Monarchy and, have a president.
And he was warning how awful itwould be have President Blair.
I thought, oh my God.
They, no they'd electClarkson, wouldn't they?
It would be, and I just hadthis sudden horrible moment.
Ian (26:43):
But he Do a fairly rapid reverse ferret, didn't he?
after he saw how his appearance had gonedown, he then said, it was terrible.
I was on painkillers.
Helen (26:55):
Yes, he'd had, some back injury and he'd, therefore
he was slightly spaced out.
But also that he then said that actuallyAndy Willman, his long-term producer
on Top Gear had said that he had to gomake a speech at this rally in order to
quote, have an ending for the episode.
Which is a great way, it's an almost LizJones approach to your life, isn't it?
Just make things happen inmy personal life for content.
Ian (27:15):
he then wrote, in one of the columns afterwards that,
do I want to be a politician?
and he said, I, suddenly realizedI don't, I'm a journalist, I
like throwing things at people.
I don't wanna be the personwho gets thrown at them.
And then I think he must havewatched himself with a journalist,
IE Victoria Dobish saying, look,you've, you said this, and now you
(27:36):
are saying something different.
, and blaming me for bringing it up.
And I think part of himmust have thought I.
I was a journalist for most of my life.
I do realize what she's doing.
I am now the person who is having thingsthrown at him for talking nonsense.
he said, I originallybought this land for tax.
Then he said, oh, I was lying.
Then I didn't buy it.
(27:57):
to avoid tax, I bought it to have a shoot,but I thought it would be better to tell a
lie and say I was buying it to avoid tax.
So you just think, how do we knowwhether you're telling the truth now?
It, there are too many reverse, theferret disappears, and also it's not
necessarily, there's a farming metaphor,
Helen (28:15):
that's good.
Adam (28:16):
it's not necessarily the thing that you want to hear either as a farmer who
has turned out in Whitehall concernedrightly or notley, whatever the statistics
day about losing your livelihood and notbeing able to pass it on to your kids.
To read in the Sunday Times thatactually you are just a bit part in
an episode of Clarkson's Farm in theend, that he actually did just need
a kind of end of episode crescendo.
Does it?
You wouldn't speak.
But speaking
Helen (28:35):
of somebody who read the last Diddly squat book, I did my time in
those minds, I think the great tragedyof Clarkson is that he's putting it on.
He's basically a kind of sweet, herecycles And he has to work himself
up into this kind of, ooh, Brussels.
I, just, he voted to remain.
His friends are all media lovies.
I guess the person mostly in the US hereminds me of is Tucker Carlson, who's the
(28:58):
same, he wears like loafers without anysocks and preppy drag and then has to hang
around with people talking about how he'sbeen attacked by demons because that's
what he thinks the crowd wants to hear.
And.
I don't, to be clear, I don't feelsorry for either of these people on the
basis they built large and expensivehouses on the back of playing these
caricatures, but I sometimes wonderif the reason that they're so angry
with journalists is because theyknow fine that the person is pointing
(29:20):
out something that they're aware of.
And that's when they getvery defensive about it.
Adam (29:24):
I just think when it comes to the farmers as well, I mean there are so many
other financial things that the governmentis not showing any sign of tackling.
the, kind of elephant in theroom, the large un fluffy
animal in the room, I guess is.
The fact that they are vastly,underpaid by supermarkets for
the food that they are producing.
And that's another really difficultconversation with the government.
'cause in the end, that's gonna meanhigher food prices than the supermarkets
for the rest of us as consumers.
(29:45):
But it's also, I mean that's themain problem with farming that
makes it financially unviable.
Jane (29:50):
another issue that's facing farming is it's massively aging.
So more than half of farmers are over 55.
Ian (29:59):
And bio waste spreader, points out that the inheritance tax,
relief put up the price of farms,which meant, buying your own farm.
Was outta the question for anyyounger person who wanted to
enter the farming business.
Helen (30:17):
a new departure for Page 94, we are going to hear from an ai, are
we gonna hear from an AI correspondentor is this going to be terrible?
I'm very excited by this.
Ian (30:25):
it's not an AI correspondent, it's an EI.
Did you see what I did there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Correspondent, we've donethis, the whole segment, making
the joke and work backwards.
I spoke to our producer and he said,you need something to end the episode.
Helen (30:40):
these are the thoughts of Bio Waste Spreader brought to you via
the magic of artificial intelligence.
Tell us, what did you see at the protests
' AI 'Bio Waste Spreader' (30:48):
Starmer, the Farmer Hammer,' read the banners attached
to the front of tractors in Whitehall,some of which had been driven from
as far away as Yorkshire, but makingsuch long journeys with such slow
moving vehicles should have given thedrivers time to question whether they
shouldn't be addressing the broaderchallenges facing British farmers post
Brexit, rather than simply wailingabout a tax that everyone else pays.
(31:11):
More than 250,000 people have nowsigned a petition to overturn the
family farm tax as the NationalFarmers Union has labeled it.
But did it not strike the mast ranks ofgreen tweed or brushed cotton gille ver
clad farmers that it would be disastrousto allow professional petrolhead.
Jeremy Clarkson, To grab thelion's share of media attention
(31:33):
surrounding the protest.
Do they not see it?
Clarkson is not their white knight savior.
He's a public relations disasterand arguably, at least partly
responsible for the tax exemption.
Helen (31:45):
I just suddenly reminded me halfway through of the weird period
in British history where you weren'tallowed to hear Jerry Adams' voice.
Yeah.
And they're simply worried that Bio WasteSpreader is gonna radicalize people if
we're actually allowed to hear his voice.
so I have another question for you.
AI Bio Waste Spreader, whichis what, issues is this
actually a distraction from?
There's a whole raft of them.
(32:06):
The accelerated loss of the old EUsubsidies will be tough on tenant
farmers, many of whom will not beable to renegotiate their rents with
their landlords for several years.
The hike to the minimum wagewill impact heavily on an
industry notorious for low pay.
Then there are the significant increasesin employers', national insurance
payments, and the proposals to imposecarbon taxes on goods like imported
(32:30):
fertilizer and steel, which will increasethe cost of farm machinery and the cost
of fertilizer by 50 pounds per ton.
The London protest could have broughtall of these issues to public attention.
It could also have asked how farmers aresupposed to meet such cost increases when
trade deals bringing in imported food.
Signed by then trade secretary Liz Truss.
(32:51):
Don't require equivalent animalwelfare or environmental standards.
One final question for you, AI Bio Waste Spreader, which is, what do you
think the outcome of all this will be?
AI 'Bio Waste Spreader' (33:02):
Post Brexit, UK farmers' interests are no longer protected
by the common agricultural policy, so theyneed to be extremely careful about the
issues they choose to protest and who isinvited to voice those concerns for them.
Your correspondent wascrossing Westminster Bridge.
Soon after the farmers had departedCentral London Streets and pubs, two
(33:22):
young men picked up a discarded placardthat read Bullocks to the budget.
No farmers, no food, no future.
Where have they all gone now?
Said one back to their big countryestates, I guess laughed the other.
Helen (33:38):
and that's slightly bizarre way to end it.
Next, I'm not sure that AI is goingto replace us yet, Ian, I think
we've got another couple of, podcastsin US before we're all replaced
Ian (33:45):
Yeah, this is my secret agenda but I think, Bio Waste Spreader, but it is
very, worried, that, he might, be outed.
as someone who's not entirely,uncritical about Jeremy
Clarkson, which quite an offense.
Helen (34:00):
Okay, then he won't be seen that the local ferret wrangling again.
That is all for this episode of Page 94.
My thanks to Adam, Jane and Ian,as well as AI BioWaste Spreader.
If you like this sort of thing,then you can head over to
private-eye.co.Uk and subscribe.
The Private Eye Annual is also in theshops why not pick a copy up for that
for yourself or a loved one as ever.
Our thanks to Matt Hill at RethinkAudio for producing and editing.
(34:22):
See you next time.
AI 'Bio Waste Spreader' (34:24):
I have been asked by the editor to assure
listeners that we won't be usingEI or indeed AI voices again and
will in future employ live actors.
I am fired.
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