155: Re-shuffle, Re-signation, Re-form

Adam, Helen, Ian and Andy discuss the Re-shuffle, the Re-signation of Angela Rayner, and the Re-form government we’re told is inevitable. Plus, ‘Free Speech Corner’ returns - this time about the arrest of Graham Linehan and the difficulties with policing the internet.

Episode Transcript

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

Andy (00:03):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94.
My name's Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'mhere in an undisclosed location, with Adam
MacQueen, Helen Lewis, and Ian Hislop.
We are here to discuss the news ofthe last two weeks, give or take,
maybe even the next two weeks.
And, we start off with the fact thatwe've got a completely new government.

(00:23):
We've had a reshuffle, new....?

Adam (00:26):
Well largely new.
Yeah.

Andy (00:27):
Yes, sorry, new.

Ian (00:28):
I thought it was largely the same... with different desks.

Adam (00:32):
Funny thing was... last press day, so we're going back to, Monday,
the 1st of September at about, 10 30.
Once we thought everything was prettymuch done and we knew what copy was
coming in, nothing else was happening.
There's suddenly a big BBC breakingnews thing saying, Reshuffle Kicks Off.
And I thought, oh my God, we'regonna have to pull apart the entire
magazine and redo it completely.
And that turned out to be the Ministerfor Paperclips was swapped with the

(00:53):
Minister for nice biscuits with teaand coffee after cabinet meetings.
And that was pretty muchit, as far as I could see.
So I thought we were safe at that point.
At which point I, I disappeared offon holiday for a couple of days.
And a message from Helen, tosay, have you seen the news?
And it, Angela Rainham resigned.
And as you say, we'd had a lot, wehad a largely new cabinet suddenly.
So...

Andy (01:10):
yeah, quite a lot of changes.
New, what is it?
New Home secretary, new foreign

Helen (01:14):
new Deputy prime Minister, and then loads of changes.
The two ones that have been gone a bitunder the radar is Pat McFadden, who is
the kind of last surviving Blairite andKeir Starmer's big fixer and straight back
player on political shows has ended upat the Department of Work and Pensions.
And Johnny Reynolds who was abusiness has gone to be Chief Whip.
And the really interesting thingabout that is that suggests that

(01:35):
they're going to try and put welfare.
Cuts through again, because essentiallythey tried to put through changes
to personal independence paymentscompletely failed to do so because
of a huge back bench rebellion.
I think that they still know thatis a big target, a lot of money.
They eventually end up making changesthat look like they'll be net costing them
money now on the welfare bill and it'smoney that they don't feel that they have.

(01:55):
So there's.... that's part of it.
And then the other part of it, I thinkis a, feeling that they wanted Shabana
Mahmood in at Home because she's themost hard line on immigration and boats
Every day they wake up andthinking about how they're going
to lose to Reform basically.
And so they know that's the oneissue that they've absolutely gotta
get a grip on is asylum, hotels

Ian (02:12):
I couldn't see what new weapons, as Chief Whip, Reynolds has that
the previous Chief Whip didn't have.
Is it personality alone?
what, why should the back benchersput through any reforms this time
that they didn't want last time?

Helen (02:26):
Johnny Reynolds is famously very nice.
For many years he used to send mea Christmas card with all of his
adorable children in matching sweaters.
I think the labrador may even alsohave been in a matching sweater.

Adam (02:35):
you think they've basically gone from bad cop to good

Helen (02:37):
I think they may try in good cop, but I agree with you.
the way I see it is that lots ofthese people think, I was elected in
a Northern English seat or, street.
I don't think I'm gonna win it next time.
Do I want the one thing to come out ofmy five years in parliament to have been
taken money away from disabled people?
So I think they will still struggleto make that case with back benchers,
but they obviously are trying to.

(02:59):
Put people in that theyabsolutely feel they can trust.
There's been a lot of stuffhappening in the back room as well,
actually as well, just to try andmake that Number 10 operation.
And yeah, they brought back, TimAllen, I'm sure friend of the magazine.
Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah.
you're a dictator, then therewas only, for a time, there was
only really one person to call.
which is interesting to me because Ithink one of the problems that this
government has is they don't reallyunderstand what the media is now.

(03:22):
They're still wedded to the ideaof the six o'clock news bulletin or
getting something on page one of theTelegraph or whatever it might be.
I think they're beginning torealize that they really need to
be on places like TikTok, whereNigel Farage is absolutely massive.
And James Lyons, who, has left asrecently as government communications
advisor, said this in a LinkedIn post.
He said, it's changed massivelyeven in the time I was there.

(03:43):
And I still don't think we've reallygot to grips with what it's like
to try and make our case in this,

Adam (03:48):
That was something that struck me with Shabana Mahmood as well, who
as, as well as being the, most, hardline and, socially conservative person.
It was also, in terms of effectiveness, Iwas thinking the last really big success
they had in selling a story to the publicwas the very awkward situation they were
left with the massive prison populationthat was, that was gonna explode.

(04:09):
And she very successfully, asjustice secretary, managed to
sell that back as this is a mess.
We were left by the Toriesand this is what we're gonna
have to do to get over it.
It is not ideal for anyone.
That was the last time I canremember these government feeling
quite surefooted on somethingand, communicating it quite well

Ian (04:22):
And using an amazing technique known as honesty.

Adam (04:24):
Mm.

Ian (04:25):
Which, is worth a try, occasionally.
We have to let these people out'cause there isn't room for them.
We don't want to, we hatethem as much as you do.
We don't wanna see them coming outand being picked up in Jags by their
old mates and having a glass ofchampagne, but we haven't got any cells.
That sort of worked.

Adam (04:41):
Yeah.
I mean it was a potentiallygovernment ending moment, wasn't it?
The, that sort of imagery.
And, somehow did pass and pavedaway for new disasters thereafter.

Helen (04:50):
The other interesting one is that Steve Reed has ended up going to housing.
Now he is, music to my ears, a littlebit on the build baby build side.
And I think they realize that target1.5 million homes is something
that they're going to be judged on.
there is a housing theory of everythingabout what's wrong with British politics.
And if you look at somethinglike asylum hotels, that's a
very good example of it, right?
Actually, where are we gonnaput people while they wait for

(05:11):
their claims to be processed?

There's two problems there (05:12):
no places to put them, and it's huge
backlogs in Home Office processing.
So anything that can addresshousing is, going to be, is gonna
make everything else across alltheir other policy areas easier.
The massive fall from the Boris wave ofimmigration to this year's immigration
because it's something close to hared.
I mean it's, they haveactually gone oh no.

(05:33):
And I'm trying to work out whyBoris Johnson let that happen.
Was that an ideological thing or didhe just.... be ready to be shocked
here, simply just do somethingHe didn't really understand the

Ian (05:43):
What you mean carelessness and inattention to detail?

Helen (05:45):
It seems unlikely.
I know.

Ian (05:46):
I don't think so.

Andy (05:47):
But it was always gonna be a lump in it, as it were.
'cause of Ukraine and Hong Kong.
Yeah.
Which both addedsubstantially to the stat.
And I believe I'm right in saying that thebacklog, people waiting for their claims
to be processed is substantially down.

Helen (05:58):
Yeah.
And NHS waiting list have fallena bit and they have seen off a
reasonable number of strike threats,not the tube strike threats that are
happening as we're recording this.
But it isn't actually quite as bleak apicture as you might initially think.
Although I'm currently feelingquite pessimistic about it all.

Andy (06:14):
if that backlog has come down... and I think it's by a decent chunk in
what have they had now 14 months, thequestion then becomes, does that matter?
Or is the debate about immigrationboats, housing flags, all of that
now so dominant and so toxic thateven results don't make a difference.

Helen (06:33):
Also they just lack the ability to punch Nigel Farage.
Stephen Bush, my former colleague,The New Statesman said this, they're
planning to run the next electionagainst Nigel Farage as a fear message.
Do you really want thisguy to be Prime Minister?
'cause lots of people, foreveryone that does are someone
that doesn't, but they won't tellyou what you should be afraid of.
And so there's this mad situationwhen he said, look, I'm gonna
return people 'cause we'll get outthe EHCR and I'll return them to

(06:53):
Afghanistan and I'll, I'll pay them.
And people went, you'regoing to pay the Taliban.
You're going to give money to the Taliban.
and they couldn't really land that point.
That this guy is so irresponsible.
He'll give money to people we've said arejihadists and terrorists and misogynists

Ian (07:08):
And it's worse than that.
You'll, pay money to the Taliban to murderpeople who were on our side briefly.
Yeah.
During the war.

Helen (07:16):
And this is the kind of thing I think that a kind of Government
comms operation ought to be able to
make a little bit of hay out of.
But they can't, they just, they, they just can't quite get there on

Ian (07:24):
But the problem with blaming the government comms office, just a way of...
as is always true in British polls...of saying, the advisors aren't much, the
comms aren't, could the leaders do it?
The members of the cabinet?
I dunno...
I suppose we shouldsay what's brought this

Andy (07:38):
whole reshuffle on in the first place, and, say a sound
farewell to Angela Rayner.
Probably on au reviour.
I imagine.

Adam (07:45):
Can she stand again for Deputy Leader?
That's something I haven't seen anyway.
Could she just, I know I was talkingabout the threat from the left and
who might stand for deputy leader.
Could she just put herself upfor it again, having resigned?

Helen (07:54):
I think technically she could, you have to get a certain number of,
either CLPs or trade unions and MPs.There's this kind of two step process
to show you've got a reasonableamount of support to winow people out.
There may be some bit in the rule bookthat says you can't do it immediately.
In the same way that Kemi Badenoch'smost favored line in the conservative
rule book is that you can't have aleadership challenge within a year
of the new Tory leader getting in.

(08:15):
There are a lot of people who are showinga suspiciously high level of interest
in the Gaza situation in a way thatsuggests that they are about to imminently
announce deputy two leadership bids.
I'm looking at you, EmilyThornbury and Stella Creasy

Adam (08:25):
Remember Suella Braverman resigning from Liz Truss's Government, and then
coming back immediately to the samejob as Home Secretary in Rishi Sunak's,
just like a couple of weeks later.

Ian (08:33):
But are we saying A, that people's memories are short or
B, that they just don't care?
So if, you are judged to havebehaved very badly and badly enough
to have to resign from the secondhighest job in the country, that
doesn't mean you can't come back.
it suggests you've donesomething wrong in the first
place, the record, which youhaven't obviously, because
no
one
has ever done anythingwrong at any point in any

Adam (08:54):
The
record on people being broughtback is not a brilliant one, is it?
you might remember both Peter Mandelsonand David Bunker had resigned from
Blair's government, and were both broughtback fairly rapidly to other jobs.
Do you remember what happened next?
Oh, yes.
Both of them then had toresign again, didn't they?

Ian (09:08):
But Lord Mandelson is now with us,

Adam (09:11):
like
the poor.
He is always with us, isn't he?
Yeah, no, he's, he does just keepbobbing bad up back up to the, the
surfers of the pan, doesn't he?
It's extraordinary.

Helen (09:18):
I'm gonna say that I'm quite sympathetic to Angela Rayna on the basis
of someone who has to do a, a tax return.
I don't understand any of it.
I don't think anyone can

Adam (09:26):
that.
I'm not sure anyone does.
I was thinking about this isit the most boring reason for
a political resignation ever?
I absolutely She had to go, she'd goneagainst the ministerial code of ethics.
I'm, not disputing that
at

Andy (09:37):
all.
So what
was it?

Adam (09:38):
It was
so
technical, As I understand it, she wentbecause she'd failed to seek further tax
advice as recommended by lawyers on herstamp duty obligation on buying a second
home.

Ian (09:49):
Yeah.
And then lied about it andthen tried to throw the local
convincing firm under a bus.
she was the ministerresponsible for housing.
So when for the second time, in sixmonths, you are involved in a housing
purchase scandal, you might think, youjust might think, I better ask someone

(10:10):
who knows about this, or I'd bettertake the safe route and pay the maximum
amount of tax rather than the minimum.
just

Helen (10:19):
No, but also this is the government of the ironic resignation, isn't it?
And you get your anti-corruptionperson, having to resign for
corruption and ones going through.
and

Adam (10:26):
in terms of absolute slam dunks, they do stay on topic with all
of their resignations, don't they?
So we lost, R Han Alley justa couple of weeks earlier.
the homelessness Minister, she hadto resign after evicting tenants and
putting the rent up while specificallytrying to push through the renter's
rights bill, through Parliament, whichbanned exactly that sort of behavior.
We had Tulip Sadik, who was the treasuryminister, who was responsible for,

(10:47):
fighting financial corruption accused,and now in fact on trial incent in
Bangladesh for financial corruptionconnected to her aunt over there.

Ian (10:54):
Yeah.
Aren't she Corruption was her, brief.

Adam (10:57):
We had Louis Hague, that was an undisclosed conviction for fraud.
when her mobile phone turned out notto have been stolen, and she'd just
gone an upgrade to an iPhone instead.
Now, that wasn't connected.
She was Minister for Transport, sothat wasn't entirely connected to her
brief, but slight iron in the factthat she was working for an insurance
company at
the
time.
So

Ian (11:11):
but wouldn't
say you were Deputy Prime Minister andthere'd been all these series of scandals
and enforced resignations going on.
Wouldn't that make youslightly more careful?

Adam (11:21):
You would think so, wouldn't you?

Ian (11:22):
Yeah.
and
the charge of recklessnessdoes that not hold?

Adam (11:26):
Oh, I think it absolutely does.
Hold.
I'm just saying it's the technicalities.
It gets slightly lost in the weed.
the fact that it took, kind of twoweeks, it was more than two weeks.
'cause we had the scandallast year, didn't we?
Weren't we had the o over thehome in Stockport or Stockton

Ian (11:39):
was
it?
Yeah, the original.

Adam (11:40):
yeah.
And the, I remember the mail on Sundaygoing into two pages of forensic
dissection of Instagram photos ofher sofa cushions, which was supposed
to prove whether or not it was the,that's the thing with s it's quite hard
when, they're very, straightforward,like the ones we've just mentioned.
It's really nice andeasy to make them stick.
But some of them, it's just alot more complicated, isn't it?

Ian (11:58):
But again, the overall optics, which I believe comms departments call
this, is
someone who shouts Tory scum andspent a huge amount of time having a
go at the other side for corruption.
and tax avoidance justshould be a bit more careful.

Helen (12:14):
That's the what da.
Yeah.
Damned it.
You're right.
She, he was straight out the traps onsomeone like Madam Za Howie, for example.
And there was a lethal moment, a primeminister's question when, Kerry Barock
said there was some dimension of her beingthe minister and responsible for housing.
And everyone groaned.
And as soon as you become that sort ofpunchline, the government would never
be able to say anything about housingas on, if, the second thing is everyone
groans that I, and I thought, that's,that's, that, just that exemplifies

(12:38):
why she just had, she did have

Andy (12:40):
now all this is leading up to a very exciting thing, which
I know you've prepared Adam.
Which is a brief quiz about some ofthe most technical and obstru reasons
ministers have ever had to resign.
Is that right?

Adam (12:51):
Yes.
We are not doing thebig sex scandals here.
We are doing the really slightly
tedious workmanlike

Helen (12:56):
ones.
Can I say that Ian islooking very confident about

Adam (12:59):
These

Ian (12:59):
These are the ones I

Helen (13:00):
like.
Yeah.

Adam (13:02):
We have mentioned Peter Mandelson already.
So not the first resignation.
That was an absolute slamdunker, if you remember.
He, he failed to disclose itwas housing again, wasn't he?
He failed to disclose something thatmight seem relevant to certain people.
He, he owed 373,000 to another cabinetminister who he was working with across
the table, which he'd used to buy avery, expensive house in Notting Hill.

(13:24):
that's why he went that time.
But as I say, he was thenbrought back to the cabinet.
Can you remember why hehad to resign the second
time?

Helen (13:31):
he's rather passports, right?
He got, he was involved in helping to getpassports for a couple of people who were
Labour donors and industrial tycoons.

Adam (13:37):
And at this point, ahead of the private eye lawyer, I jump in to
say that at the inquiry into it, hewas cleared of improper involvement
in trying to, source that passport.
But yes, it was, and it was all turned up.
Do you remember why it was felt thathe owed a favor to the Hinduja family?

Andy (13:50):
There

Ian (13:50):
Had they set up a, a Mushy P factory in Hartley Pool?

Adam (13:57):
No, I'm a friend.
He's even more time than that.
He was the Millennium Dome.
They were sponsors
of the Millennium Dome or azone in the Millennium Dome.
Yeah, indeed.
Boris Johnson, promised to liedown in front of bulldozers to
stop Heathrow's third runway.
Yes.

Helen (14:10):
Mm-hmm.

Adam (14:11):
so ahead of a parliamentary vote on exactly that subject, which
minister resigned from Teresa deMA's government on principle so
that they could vote against the
third runway.

Helen (14:21):
Was it Zack Goldsmith?

Adam (14:22):
it was not.

Helen (14:23):
Oh.
I've now got views in my brain withthe time that Michael gave either
locked himself or got himself lockedin the toilet on his first day as
chief whip, which I just is a wayto get out of a vote that you don't
wanna

Adam (14:32):
vote.
But

Ian (14:33):
Boris Johnson flew to Afghanistan.

Adam (14:37):
He did indeed.

Ian (14:38):
in order to have a meeting, in order to not

Adam (14:40):
be in the country so he wouldn't have to vote.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Ian (14:43):
Who resigned?

Adam (14:45):
I'll give you a clue.

Helen (14:48):
for audio listeners.
Adam is doing

Adam (14:52):
jazz hands.
His brother, poor old Greg Han,no one remembers him at all.
Do they

Helen (14:56):
Nope.
Still

Adam (14:57):
be for Chelsea And Fullham

Ian (14:58):
full.
I would never have got Greg Hans
from

Helen (15:01):
Jazz
hands.
I was thinking like, was there someonewho was in a cabaret at one point?
Yeah,

Andy (15:06):
I was thinking he's the Jazziest member of Theresa Mae's

Helen (15:08):
in the Dean.
Doris.
She seems like she might have done

Adam (15:10):
would be Penny

Ian (15:11):
jazz.
if this section does actuallymake it onto a visual one.
Can I say this?
That's the worst charades
I've ever seen.

Helen (15:18):
Now do Greg, do the concept of

Adam (15:21):
Sounds

Helen (15:22):
like
egg.
Oh, that's

Ian (15:23):
very good.
Yeah.
no, we'd go

Helen (15:24):
Oh, we, could have done that.
Yeah.

Ian (15:25):
okay.
So he resigned on

Adam (15:27):
Yeah, he went ahead of the vote.
And Boris.
Boris Johnson just scuttled offto Afghanistan giving rise to
a memorable private eye cover.
Can you remember?

Ian (15:34):
It was with a translator.
And
I think the joke was that it wasn't thethird runway, it was a turd runaway.

Adam (15:40):
That's the one,

Andy (15:41):
brilliant,

Helen (15:43):
It's in the finest tradition of cat.

Ian (15:48):
can someone explain to me why, this dramatic reshuffle in which,
Yvette Cooper, becomes foreignsecretary and David Lamie becomes,
vice president or no, that's his
friend.
but
is this going to help?

Helen (16:02):
it changes as good as a
rest.
Oh,
I know the answer to this, which isbecause if you, listen to the Key
Star interview with Matt, Charlie,this, we are now in phase two.
This is it, phase two ofthe Star of government.
You may have not noticed the passageof phase one, but that the idea is that
basically they're now gonna try and putpeople into, do things that people like.
I, yeah, I know.
I don't think it's gonna

Adam (16:23):
work
If that was the plan for this tobe phase two though, I come back
to again, that reshuffle thatthey had a few days before it.
Why didn't they do it then if this was thegrand plan all along to, to move everyone

Helen (16:32):
round
My hunch is that they had all this readyand they planted it after party conference
because everyone will be preparingtheir speeches to party conference.
And now you've got a load of people just,who are going to have to give the biggest
speech of their life as a minister.
and something they onlyswatted up on 10 minutes ago.
So I think this was alllike in the offering.
And then in a way they decided totake the advantage of the crisis

Ian (16:52):
In terms of resignations though, A lot of the speculation before,
he had to do another reshuffle was,yes, the minister for paperclips had
changed, but he'd put in all thesesort of very good, economically minded
people to undermine Rachel Reeves.
So there appeared to be some point to thatprocedure and then suddenly we're told no.

(17:14):
Yvette Cooper, who's beingjust in the hope she's going
to foreign affairs, is she.

Helen (17:18):
but I think that was a kind of face saving thing because actually
she was being moved out because theynever really got along with her.
I think they followed the,you can't say anything nice.
Don't say anything
at

Adam (17:27):
but it does seem an
odd move then to put her in chargeof the foreign affairs of the
entire country, doesn't
it?
that's, traditionally one of the big jobs,
isn't it?

Helen (17:33):
It's not anymore though.
'cause the Prime Minister just does it.
Who flew over to the White Houseto sort out the Ukraine situation
and it was K Stama last week.
That's the thing.
And that's why David Lammy Hass gotDPM is so, that he, as you reference
here, and he can continue his fishingbased bromance with, JD Vance.
But basically she's got a kind of ajob that involves her going and shaking
hands at boring summits and, notreally driving a department in the same

Andy (17:55):
It's not like it was on the good old days when Liz Trus was foreign secretary

, Helen (17:58):
Think of those trade deals.
Think of all those great trade deals we
made.

Andy (18:03):
so
Reform had their conference, they'reannual conference they had at the
huge, Birmingham, NEC, massivegreat conference center, very big.
It all happened over the weekend.
I'd just like to know from the three ofyou where we are on the ancient timeline
of first they ignore you, then they laughat you, then they fight you, then you win.
'cause I think we've had theignoring and the laughing at

Helen (18:25):
I
think the laughing act cancoexist with the winning.
Unfortunately, that's what my mainly tookaway from that conference is that, f has
been spending a lot of time with DonaldTrump, and he's obviously learned a lot
about the American right wing style, whichis campers absolute knickers, but also
incredibly successful in electoral termsand, enacting a lot of its policy agenda.
So you get a situation in which, yes,it is objectively very funny that Andrea

(18:47):
Jenkins comes out in a catsuit and singsa song that she has composed herself,
which you'd normally think was theattitude of a fringes to fringe parties.
But it was a heavenlyprofessionalized conference.
It really was, as you say, a big audience.
Big attendance, loads of bodyguardssweeping around the place, stalls,
all the exhibitors things, allthe things you'd associate with a
main party conference were there.

Adam (19:09):
And the fireworks, I saw a quote from a reform member this
morning saying, we had fireworks.
You only see Labour or conservativeshaving fireworks on stage, will
you?
And I thought, Oh good.
Clearly you're ready
for

Andy (19:17):
government.

Adam (19:18):
then.

Helen (19:18):
But that's what Trump has learned.
Like those rallies are slightlylike WE cage matches, right?
There's a whole, and there's all peoplelike dressed up in stuff and there's
a whole kind of pageanty aspect to it.
And I have to say, as someone who'sattended many party conferences, it's
not unwelcome that someone might tryand make them slightly entertaining
do you remember that Thereon Mayspeech where everything went wrong and
the thing fell off the back and shegot the throat suite and the person

(19:39):
got the P 45 reforms conference.
Although it was objectively ulu insome ways was a lot more professional.
Than that Tory camp party conferencewhen they were in government.
So I think you can overegg the laughing at them.
We might have to one day laugh atthem as they do stuff and they win.

Adam (19:56):
and
they unveiled Nadine, Dorisas their secret weapon.
Their new recruit architect of theonline safety bill, which they are now
hugely against,

Ian (20:06):
but no one's interested in consistency, Adam.
RAs literally said, we'regonna deport everybody.
And someone said, you did say a fewmonths ago that wasn't possible.
He said, no, I
didn't.

Helen (20:17):
Mm

Ian (20:18):
and he did.
he's literally there inblack and white in the last
issue,

Adam (20:22):
as we said.
The Trump playbook, isn't it?
Yeah.
You just go, fake

Helen (20:26):
But fess up Adam, because you secretly love Nadine
Doris and her column in the
mail.

Adam (20:29):
she's a magnificent daily male columnist.
I'm not gonna knock herabilities at that at all.
what I was interested, the justificationfor, bringing in, 'cause a few people
are, there's some rumblings going onin reform aren't there, about bringing
in lots and lots of ex Tories whensupposedly they're saying they're
useless and they're gonna replace them.
the justification was that they actuallyneed people who've got experience
in government and know how to do it.
Which is an odd justification gettingNadine Doris in 'cause she wasn't exactly

(20:51):
the, sort of greatest performer in,

Ian (20:53):
in, and
she wasn't home secretary as I remember.
No.
Or Chancellor.
She was minister of culture.
No.
Was she

Adam (20:58):
No, not
in, during which her big quest wasto privatize Channel four, something
that was abandoned and hasn't
happened.

Ian (21:03):
Yeah.
And she
didn't know the detailsof who owned Channel
four,

Adam (21:06):
which
she may exactly all over her

Andy (21:08):
brain.
Was she Okay.
I thought she had alreadygone to reform, so I
dunno what they've, what's

Ian (21:13):
of the
news,

Adam (21:14):
she definitely left the Torries.
I mean she's written two entirebooks, which poor old Helen has,
read, about how awful the Toriesare and how they're being run by an
unelected cabal of rabbit murderers.

Helen (21:25):
don't you think that Boris Johnson at some point might go reform
or try and go reform, which will be

Adam (21:29):
fascinating.

Ian (21:29):
but Ferras denied it today.

Helen (21:31):
but they's 'cause this town ain't big enough for the both of us.
that's the thing that's fascinating to me.
If you're Boris Johnson knew stillharbor some hoax for comeback.
You've just gotta think where,could I just pop up back again?
Where's what I just felt aboutthat reform conference is that the,
political momentum is all with them.
So they've now got a, DailyMail columnist on their side.
They've got GB news on their side.
They've got the telegraph ontheir side for their voting base.

(21:52):
Those are the places that you would want.
Who still likes the Tory party brand?
Absolutely

Adam (21:58):
terrifying.
Terrify Vine.
Paige in the mail on Sunday saying,although I deeply respect Nadine in
that way, that all daily male economistsactually absolutely, definitely do.
'cause they're all best friends.
she said she thinks she's wrongabout this and the conservative
party still has some life in it.
And Canmy beg knock is, is amarvelous she will be sticking
with the party of the man.
She

Helen (22:19):
Someone wants a peer ridge from the Tory party, is what I'm hearing there.

Ian (22:21):
well, like Nadine.

Andy (22:24):
But the aim, is, as far as I understand it, of the
conference this weekend was toshow firstly that it's inevitable.
This is just going to
happen.
Yeah.
To
get
used
to it.
but fight
it.
Maybe
in two years.
Maybe in two years.
If there's an election for no reason,that I can fathom there will be.
Okay.
And the other was to show that this isno longer the Nigel show and we've got
lots of talent waiting in the wings.
And this is a party you can seeputting in a cabinet of 20, mps.

Helen (22:48):
20 human beings.
Real
human
beings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The second one is a lie though.
It is still the Nigel show.
It's always this is, I mean it's not, no.
Basically that party does well whenit's got Nigel Farage, it's front man
and doesn't when it, when it hasn't.
And I don't really see that's changedjust 'cause Anne Whitaker is now sitting
in a big hall rather than a small hall.

Ian (23:06):
Adam's earlier point is right.
when confronted by some anomaly betweenspending and tax that someone had
turned up in the list of, wishes on theback of a fag packet, which Nigel have
presented as some
sort of agenda.
he was questioned about and hesaid, I can't answer that now.
We haven't got the senior peoplewith experience in, but we will have.
And then the first person withsenior experience is Nadine.

(23:29):
Doris.
I mean that, that's not a big
hitter.

Adam (23:32):
don't forget they've got your mate Jake Berry in there as well, haven't they?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You famously had a bit ofa run in with, didn't you?
I

Ian (23:38):
I did,
I had a bit of a shout up.

Adam (23:42):
okay.
in,
this is the creme de la creme, isn't it?
This is the real top Tories of the
last,

Ian (23:48):
listeners.
I, confess, I had an argument with himabout, the re remuneration for the post
office scandal victims, whichI wasn't terribly, temperate

Helen (23:59):
about.
you can continue thatwhen he is in government.
That'll be another select committeeappearance to look forward to
As for the inevitability, I think it'sone that's worth taking seriously,
because they are high in the polls.
The thing about is some first passthe post who we always say this
notoriously hostile to new entrants.
The mountain they have toclimb is absolutely incredible.
Can they do that in one electoralcycle when, Nigel Farage's,

(24:21):
it's so dependent on him.
Or can you see Nigel Farage sticking withthis as a 10 year project and building
that momentum through the next parliament?
That to me is the kind of,don't get ahead of yourself.
Bit of, a bit of this piece.

Adam (24:33):
That to me seems the biggest hurdle they've got.
It's not just that they've gottaget 20 people in who could sit in a
cabinet and know what they're doing.
They've also gotta get atleast 320 electable people in
different constituencies aroundthe country to get that majority.
And given, as we've been noting in bothrotten boroughs and HP pages of private,
I recent weeks, the record of the peoplewho did get elected on that wave in the

(24:54):
local elections and what's happened since.
And the number of them that havehad to resign or have been caught
up in really quite extreme kindof cases of racism recorded in
the last issue and, other things.
That seems to be a big insurmountablehill that no amount of fireworks and opera
singing, ex Tories is gonna, surmount

Ian (25:11):
some
of the people in the local councils.
It's just boils down to theycan't be bothered to do the job,
didn't think they were going toelect and don't want to very much.
And that is the other problem aboutgovernment is it's quite boring.
and reform will have tolearn how to do the boring
bits.

Andy (25:27):
that was one of the other pieces on the roundup page in HP
last issue was they've, I believe,loosened their vetting criteria.
Which for a party that's hadas many problems with vetting,
you would think might be quite,Why am I being so diplomatic?

Adam (25:44):
that's

Ian (25:45):
no, you've gone

Andy (25:45):
No, you've done all
but they've gone bananas.
if they're genuinely loosening thecriteria, they said, they wrote it
to their members saying, look, if yougot rejected last time, have another,

Adam (25:54):
pop.
But
I think that's genuine fear that theyneed 650 warm bodies and you're gonna
have to take in the fruitcakes and looniesand closet racists and not so closet
racists just to have bums on seats.

Helen (26:04):
Why?
I just think that the obvious playfor the is to try and eat alive
the remnants of the Tory party withall its institutional machinery.
'cause the Torry party has got,lots of people with huge amounts of
experience of running associations.
But a dwindling membership reform hasgot a growing membership, but almost
no institutional campaigning memory.
And, fair enough, like Nigel Friday isvery good at things like TikTok, but you
do still need stuff like boring stuff likecontact sheets, to find out who you've

(26:26):
been around, who you like to go knockingup doors, all of that kind of stuff still
does actually matter in closely for seats.

Ian (26:32):
as soon as you get in, you have that moment, which they're finding
in the council is saying, , what isyour, policy on special needs potholes?
yeah.
Libraries.
we're gonna stop the boats.
Yep.
And after that,

Helen (26:46):
yeah.
And
that matters more in a national election.
'cause local elections are oftenlike, do you hate the government?
Yes.
No.
Whereas, it's going to be, doyou think this reform MP is gonna
be good for your constituency?
Is are they actually gonna turn up to

Ian (26:57):
Westminster?
can I ask a question then?
Is it a mistake for the lead party tobe so furiously obsessed by Farage in
the same, is it a mistake for private
eye to vote
any further coverage to fraud?
Is this helping him out?

Helen (27:13):
It's a very good question is why are we playing all of British politics
on the terrain that he has decided?
I don't, immigration is obviouslycome, something that comes up again and
again, but people also really worriedabout the economy, really worried
about the NHS and public services.
I think the reason that Labour are beinglured onto this is that they don't have
a great story themselves to tell aboutthe things they'd like to talk about.
And their devout hope is thatin three years time, they will

(27:36):
be able to say, stick with us.
We're halfway through this plan.
And you'll begin to see signs ofit happening, but they don't really
think there's anything they canpoint to at the moment to make.
That case.
And they, therefore theyjust keep being dragged.
And again, I say as a media environmentthat follows the right wing papers
and the BBC follows that bulletin.
And you always end up with that.
we had a new, green leader.
No one gives a toss even thoughthey've got a similar number of mps.

(27:59):
And actually there's lots ofpeople who are disillusioned with
Labour from the left and be easilypeeled away to a different party.

Ian (28:05):
And, the backstory of both the new green leader and the
deputy are wow, are pretty fruity.
at least as good as thestories about reform.
But no one cares.

Andy (28:15):
but I think we are slightly disregarding the extent of the talent,
which reform does have at its disposal.
So I, for example, vi count,Christopher Moncton, I'm sure
you're all familiar with him.

Adam (28:26):
once wrote to private eye to deny that he had a pointy
head, and that was

Helen (28:28):
wore
all

Adam (28:29):
hat.

Andy (28:30):
interesting.
a few years ago he, he made a speechwhere he, warned that homosexuality is
one of the four sins crying out to heavenfor vengeance in traditional theology.
He had
it, he's doing it wrong.

Helen (28:41):
I'm
so
wanna know what the
other three are, but we'llhave to come back to that.
Okay.

Andy (28:45):
he also called for cigarette style warnings about the dangers of being gay.

Helen (28:49):
what
gay
people,

Adam (28:50):
people.
He

Andy (28:52):
say what you put the warnings on.
No, you're right.
I Where would you put the warnings?
the
front.

Adam (28:57):
You wouldn't be able to,
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just Plain
packaging and a big,

Helen (29:00):
I know that instead of Yeah.
No, in photo disease, likesome people doing YMCA or just
having like a fabulous talk.

Andy (29:07):
Okay.
there.
What about Asim Malhotra advisorto the US Health Secretary?
No less?
Yes.
Who made the very sensible point thatmaybe the royal family got cancer because
they'd taken their COVID jabs and that,it's all Bill Gates' fault and that the
COVID vaccine is more harmful than COVID?

Ian (29:21):
Dr. Hammond who is also a doctor, but I would
suggest one that it might be worthlistening to slightly more of seriously.
He will be addressing the subjectof reform's, new brilliant
medical experts.

Adam (29:33):
And that was a great moment
of, for Artism as well, wasn't it?
Because afterwards he said, hewas just a guest at the conference
that was a, and actually he'd beenintroduced as the man who was helping
to draft reforms health policies.
Slightly awkward.

Andy (29:43):
Yes.
Reform said they don't endorse whathe said, but they do believe in free

Adam (29:47):
speech.
And to be fair, he's not the onlyone working on the health policies.
'cause there's also Dr. DavidBoulogne, who is the guy
that was strangled by Ghost.
So you know, that said he'll be bringing
the

Andy (29:54):
censor and he

Ian (29:55):
And he followed Lucy Connolly, is that
right?

Adam (29:58):
Yes.
Yeah.
The convicted criminal who had, whopleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred,

Ian (30:02):
and she's helping them with their justice policies.

Adam (30:05):
Oh

Andy (30:06):
yes,
Her policy is, released prisoners,particularly women prisoners.
which,
and you can
make quite a

Helen (30:12):
of

Adam (30:12):
that's a very sensible policy.

Ian (30:13):
you

Andy (30:14):
Can make,
a good case for lots of that.
But it does, slightly clash with

Adam (30:17):
I think you'd probably find some other people to make
that point though, couldn't
you?

Andy (30:22):
Now we swivel inevitably towards Free Speech Corner, which is a section
of the podcast that we've been runningon and off, not under that name, but,
we covered Palestine action recently.
Yeah.
and, John Farley, I reader, whowas arrested after after foolishly
taking a private eye joke to a
protest.

Ian (30:36):
Your joke.

Andy (30:37):
Yeah.
so now we come to Graham Linehan.
Yes.
Now, and I, and we should saythere is a trial on at the moment.

Helen (30:44):
no, we have to be circumscribed in what we can say,
but there are two different casesthat are being discussed here.

Andy (30:48):
can you just say who Graham Linehan

Helen (30:50):
Gremlin is a comedy writer best named for things
like Father Ted and Black Books.
And in recent years, a very prolifictweeter and gender critical campaigner.
Now, he arrived in Britain from Arizonawhere he's been living, working on a
new sitcom and was arrested by fivearmed police, with the explanation being
that all police at Heathrow were armed.
And there were lots of them.
They didn't really have a lotto do, so they, a couple of them
just wing maned it and turned up.

(31:11):
Anyway, this wasn't a totalitarianshow of force according to police,
but these were for, they didn't tellhim exactly what it was for, but they
said it's from some of your tweetson this particular date in April.
And he went back and looked at those.
And essentially it seems to have been,if you see a trans identified man, that's
what he would call a trans woman in awomen's bathroom, punch em in the balls.
And this is being apparently treatedby the police as incitement to

(31:31):
violence against a protected group.
Now he was in town anyway inorder to, as you say, attend.
he's a defendant in a different trialof a harassment trial that is related
to a charge of, he grabbed someone'sphone up their hand and threw on the
road and had called them a scumbag andvarious other things that's ongoing.
And we won't hear back

Andy (31:48):
until
he's a shouting match forthe trans woman on the road.
And
that

Helen (31:50):
yeah, there was a teenage transgender activist with
whom he had an altercation.
let's put that one, aside fromit 'cause that is ongoing, but no
until at least October about that.
But I do think that arrest forthose tweets is symptomatic of
something that the police have gottenthemselves dragged into, which is.
Basically trying to adjudicate onextremely fine lines of things that

(32:11):
are now, quote unquote hate speech orharassment or whatever it might be.
and, just work that they are ill-equippedfor, and they are overwhelmed by.
So I went and looked up the figures,hate speech reports, England and
Wales, 20 13, 40 1000 of them by2023 that had gone up to 145,000.
So it's tripled.
the guy who's the head of thepolice officer association

(32:31):
said, we just can't cope.
We're just swamp.
Perhaps swamped in the first.
There was a report in the first coupleof months that came in that neo-Nazis
were making vexatious complaints, right?
It's just a system that is setup for people who are either
motivated by whatever reason ornot, or having an online barney to
try and get the police involved.
And it's, puts 'em in exactly thesame difficult situation as their
policing a protest, which is they'retrying to pass what words mean in

(32:56):
very contextual, febrile situations.

Ian (32:58):
Like
I,
I did feel that having complained about,someone holding up a private eye joke
and get arrested, the fact that GrahamLinehan had made a joke is a joke.
and was arrested, by armed policeofficers when he touched, and that is
outrageous and that is police overreach.
And Gremlin doesn't like meat all and feels I've failed

(33:18):
him in any number of ways.
But, on this occasion, itdid seem a Voltaire moment.
, I find the whole, grotesquely rudeand toxic, shouting matches between,
the various extremes on this hideous,but these are not arrestable offenses.
and when, the senior police officersays, we are obliged to do this.

(33:41):
We all know this isn't true.
we all know that this can'tbe true because when we report
other offenses, they don't feelobliged to do anything at all.
And this involves nearly allcrimes that I can think of.
Yeah.

Helen (33:54):
this West Treatings line.

Ian (33:56):
it is a reasonable point to make.
A is, the police shouldn't bethere, to adjudicate in what
seems to be a, an online spat.
and B, they should bedoing something else.
I don't think either of thosepoints are terribly contentious.

Andy (34:09):
if you're saying.
If you see a member of a protectedgroup in a, in this environment,
punch them in the balls, isn'tthat incitement to violence?

Helen (34:16):
The thing is, it's a deeply hypothetical situation.
There's not a named person.
It's not go around ex's house at whateverwire dress and punched him in the face.
And we know that there's case lawprecedent on this because there was a
hearing for a trans activist called Sarai,Jane Baker, who was out on license for
attempted murder at the time, who gavea speech, at a protest who said, if you
see a turf, a trans exclusionary, radicalfeminist, punch 'em in the fucking face.

(34:38):
And this went to magistrate's court.
And the magistrate court said, no,you didn't seriously mean this.
You were just seeking publicity.
Which I think comes back to Ian's point.
Everybody involved inthis is seeking publicity.
It's not a serious threat, not guilty.
And I think with that precedent inhand, you would say, what are the
realistic chances of prosecutingsomeone, airing a general belief that
people who in their sense are doinga bad thing should be punched for it.

(35:00):
It just doesn't seem very likelyto lead to a to prosecution.
And the problem is that it leadsto these accusations of two tier
justice, that different favoredgroups are treated differently.
And also the thing that we're treatingsaid, which is the police should be out
policing the streets, not policing tweets

Andy (35:14):
and.
which rhymes.
So it must
be

Helen (35:16):
true,
very
corny, but I think it speaks to, asyou say, what everybody thinks is,
I saw that arrest and I thought,have you solved every murder?
Have you solved every bike theft?
At this

Adam (35:25):
But there is also this very simplistic kind of argument
that's being put, that anythingthat's said online doesn't count.
And actually, there are people, innaming no names, who are running very,
vicious campaigns online against specificpeople and targeting them and, making
what, could well be considered to bethings beyond the criminal threshold.
So this idea that somehow.

(35:46):
Putting
something on Twitter is differentto shouting it in someone's face.
I is not always the case.
these are, there are nuances in all these
things,

Andy (35:53):
We have
to, we've already mentioned Lucy Connolly,this, we've mentioned Lucy Connolly, this
episode who's, who got sent to 31 monthsfor saying, set fire to asylum hotels.
Was that general,

Ian (36:03):
not a specific person.

Andy (36:04):
a specific person.

Helen (36:06):
In her case, the VECA sentence is because she pleaded
guilty and also because ithappened at the time of the riot.
So that's the thing.
If you're saying it in this generalcontext of things being set on
fire, saying Please set somethingon fire that said, I think the
sentence was disproportionate.
It's higher than the sentenceyou'd get for an actual assault.

Adam (36:20):
yeah.
The sentencing I thought was crazy,but it was, I want you pleaded
guilty to it as well, didn't it?
So the court courtsstuck in that position.

Helen (36:26):
Yeah.
But you are right Adam, behindall this is a lot of the fact that
the police are struggling to catchup with the volume of commentary.
Things that people would've once said totheir mate in a pub now being said online
or people who have got mental healthissues or don't have enough hobbies or
whatever it might be turning into sortof online obsessives and, so I think
when I was at the Daily Mail, we used tohave a long strand of Leland eye feuds.

(36:47):
Do you remember this?
A great thing?
Which people would get obsessed withboundary wall disputes and it would start
off as a minor argument about a hedge.
And then 20 years later theywere people putting dead cats
on each other's doorsteps.
All of that has moved online andthat's the bit that the police, I
think are really struggling to cope
with.

Ian (37:02):
There
is a problem here.
in the last, copy of Private Eye,we had an angle sea counselor saying
All Tories should be shot Now,he said that was a Welsh idiom.
was his

Adam (37:14):
so bad as convincing as Elon Musk and the PTO guy being a safe
African
traditional insult.
That's,
yeah.

Ian (37:20):
but I think it is historically the sort of thing that people could say,
and it wouldn't be taken seriously then.
But then various mps did get killed.
and suddenly the difference betweenusing Oh, string them all up.
I hate 'em.
I wish they'd all die, suddenly becamesomething that happened in the real world.
Yeah.
So I think there was a problem, forhow do you police the new world where

(37:45):
these things merge into each other.
and that creates, as Helen says,a huge problem from police.
But as I'm trying to agree with bothof you, but on the precedence we have,
there is no specific, resolute line.
But, individual police surelymust be able to use their judgment
into saying, is this actuallyan incitement to violence

(38:06):
that we have to, worry about?
Or is it someone beinghotheaded and ridiculous?

Andy (38:10):
I
think it's between 16 and 70% of transpeople have reported either violence or
harassment as a result of being trans.
So to them I imaginethat judgment would feel
very differently to-and as a

Adam (38:20):
characteristic,

Andy (38:21):
Yeah.
So you know, to, so then thatjudgment would be substantially
different.

Helen (38:26):
It's very tricky though, because the Scottish law and the same thing
has happened here, does not have sexas a protected characteristic is one
of the things they said they weregonna bring in a separate misogyny law.
I've always suspected it's becausemisogyny is just so widespread and
one person's, you get called a bitch.
Is that now actionable misogyny or not?
It's just something that happens allthe time and I think that speaks to
the difficulty of working out what thegeneral consensus in the population is.

(38:49):
So the, example of translatorswould be, is misgendering
somebody a hate crime or not?
Some people would say yes, but itwas, came up as an issue at the
trial about whether or not referringsomeone using sex-based pronouns was
an acceptable thing to do or not.
People have wildly differentviews and the police are in the
situation of trying to find a medianground that everyone can agree on.
When very obviously people cannotagree on what is offensive and

(39:10):
what is hate speech and what isn't.

Andy (39:13):
I think we've cleared that one
up.
That's all sorted man.
Yeah.
And thus concludes this week'stour of Free Speech Corner.
We'll be back next time with anotherlook at some people you really don't
wanna have to support, but the freespeech calls means you have to.
Anyway, that's it forthis episode of page 94.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you've enjoyed it, then why not goand get your subscription to Private Eye

(39:34):
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your gateway, to a wonderful world offantastic investigative journalism.
Fantastic jokes, fantasticcartoons, all of it.
That's your local news agent.
Look up where it is and then gothere and we'll be back again in a
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and thanks to Matt Hill ofRethink Audio for producing.
Bye for now.