156: It's Your Party, Cry If You Want To

Ian, Adam, Andy and special guest Justine Smith discuss the chaos at Your Party, the scandal of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), and the ongoing perm-bloodbath at Reach Newspapers.

Episode Transcript

Page 94 (00:00):
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 the Private Eye office with Adam
McQueen, Ian Hislop and Justine Smith.
we're here to discuss a few differentstories that have been in the magazine and
in the news in the last couple of weeks.
Later on, we're going to be discussinga very exciting ombudsman, which
you may not have heard of, but whichhas been cropping up in the pages

(00:23):
of the eye, an enormous amount.
Genuinely scandalous the stuffthat's been going on there.
We'll also be talking about the ongoingmayhem, uh, reach, uh, owner of the
mirror and much else besides, but firstly,the big political news of the week I
think we need to discuss is your party.

Ian (00:42):
which is a party of the left, which they're searching for a name and they've
come up with the Judean people's front
ERs
and they've, there's been another splitand apparently the others want to call
it the people's front of Judea, butthen another group saying, you know,
mentioning Judea in the Labor Party,probably not as funny as it used to be.

Andy (01:02):
It's a fantastic story.
It glads the heart

Ian (01:05):
and it should be on a podcast called, um, page 94.
'cause literally this is going on forever.
If you want a cliche about theleft, it splits immediately, but
this time it's split before it hasa name, before it's got any funds.
they've just speeded up the news cycle.
It's incredibly annoying.

Adam (01:23):
actually managed to split even before they'd denounced, or was it Zara
Satana initially announced the formationof this party and said she was gonna
be co-leading it with Jeremy Corbin.
He said, hang on.
No, you're not.
We haven't decided whetherwe're doing this or not.
I mean, it's literally almost frombefore they'd even set up, isn't it?

Andy (01:38):
the planning for it, or the consideration started pretty soon after
Corbin was suspended from the LaborParty and it became clear he wasn't
gonna get back in and he, I thinkhe and various colleagues wanted to.
Kind of found a new movement.
They wanted it to be verygrassrootsy, very democratic.
, Enter Zara Sultana until recently alabor mp, and then she was suspended
from the party over, voting against thegovernment on the child welfare cap.

(02:01):
So she and he have beenkind of circling each other.
They're obviously verydifferent in lots of ways.

Ian (02:06):
except for not liking the other person in your party, in
which they seem to be quite similar.

Andy (02:11):
do have that in common, but they, they sort of,

Ian (02:13):
they hate each other.
That's, that's a good start,

Andy (02:16):
Ian, according to the statements that they've released, some of
them through lawyers, they'rethe closest of colleagues and
they're very, very much reconciled.

Ian (02:23):
Oh, I'm glad.
My closest colleaguesaren't quite that loyal.

Justine (02:27):
they want
you to appear on stage togetheron 9th of October, so they really
need to get it together beforethen according to the website.

Adam (02:33):
this is gonna be like those tours of like the Eagles hell
freezes over tour, isn't it?
When none of them are speaking or whenthe police got back together and they
heat each other so much, they haveto be go opposite ends of the stage
and different tour buses, isn't it?
The Oasis reunion willhave nothing on this.

Justine (02:45):
this.
Should
help sell tickets though, eh?

Andy (02:48):
the current Weeks's Mayhem is all because Sultana, she
was, uh, raisin some money.
Thank you very much.

Ian (02:55):
Uh, you are fired.

Andy (02:56):
Who

Adam (02:57):
Who else do we get to talk about current affairs

Andy (02:59):
Oh my God.

Adam (03:00):
Come on, Andy.
Read the prune.
Thank you.

Andy (03:02):
you.
So she invited supporters to sign upas, as members via an online portal.
And, and she claimed thaton the day of launch she got
20,000 new members signed up.
Now for an for any political party,that would be a great success.
That'd be a coup.
Corbin then issued a statementsaying this, you may have received
an unauthorized email urgingyou to sign up to your party.

(03:22):
Don't sign up, cancel any direct debits.
the message was co-signed bythe four independent Tempes,
who we haven't mentioned yet.
They are the independent alliance.
So that is CorbinSultana, and four others.
Some ex labor mps one.
One of them is, is just new ina newly formed constituency.
Now.
Sultana has claimed she was frozenoutta the accounts, and, and I'm

(03:43):
quoting here subjected to what can onlybe described as a sexist boys club.
I have been treated appallinglyand excluded completely.

Ian (03:49):
I know how she feels.

Andy (03:52):
And she, she said this was an attempted coup, and, and, she simply said
she was trying to, you know, get membersand that those funds would be held by
a company set up to safeguard the, themoney until the founding conference.
They haven't had astarting conference yet.
I've signed up as one of these apparently750,000 people who's declared an interest
in supporting or voting for the party.
, There are gonna be these big rallies,which we know is, is often Jeremy's.

(04:16):
Comfort zone is where he does well.
He, you know, he thrives on that.
He likes the, the mood in the room.
And,
uh mm-hmm.
Theoretically, it should bea great combination, He's
a man, she's a woman, he's

Ian (04:26):
nitrogen and glycerine,

Andy (04:28):
but you know, they should reach lots of different areas.
So he's 76, she's 31.
They're at very different endsof the political age spectrum.
he's white.
She's not like there, there shouldbe this, if not a rainbow coalition,
then certainly an attempt to reachlots of different bits of the left.
But the problem really has been so far.
Huge schisms have emergedin, in policy terms

Ian (04:49):
it's it's not even policy though, is it?
One is what should we call ourselves?
Two is, are we trusted withmoney with the economy?
Oh dear.
Um, I'll pay your direct debit back'cause I she shouldn't have emailed you.
That doesn't bode well fora party of government, it?

Andy (05:05):
but there is a already a huge policy range even within the six.
Mps who are broadly grouped together.
So for example, we haven'treally talked about the other
four much, but shock at Adam

Adam (05:14):
I love that always just sounds like the beginning of a
tabloid headline about me, doesn't
it?
Shock.

Andy (05:18):
Shock at Adam Behavior.
Um, but he's argued the new partyshouldn't be anti wealth or anti uh,
business
and it shouldn't alienate landlords.
And I think probablyCorbin and Sultana would.
Would quite like to alienate landlords.
basically Sultana has a lot of young,urban, very progressive left-wing support.
The others might have a little moresupport from potentially more socially

(05:40):
conservative supporters across the countrywho may be more interested in Palestine.
The other four out of the six areMuslim politicians and, and their,
you know, their policies on Palestineare, I think a substantial part
of what got 'em elected as mps.

Adam (05:52):
Which is I thing that an awful lot of people would agree on
now, but I mean, it's not a lot toestablish a rainbow coalition on,
especially when you've got, as you say.
Muslim blokes who in a lot of caseshave pretty socially conservative
views, which are very much at theopposite of what Zara Saltar is saying.
And it's a bit like the, the otherRainbow Coalition that was, uh, George
Galloway's Respect Party, isn't it?
Which was kind of a, an allianceof the, the Socialist Workers Party

(06:14):
and an awful lot of, kind of Bengalpoliticians, East London that they
were, they weren't kind of comfortable.
Bedfellows feels like thewrong term, doesn't it?

Andy (06:22):
Galloway has been sniffing around looking to affiliate with
your party, whatever it ends up being

Adam (06:26):
more egos.
That's definitely,definitely what they need.
More egos and, and, and peoplewho can't work with anyone else.
God brilliant.
Yeah.

Andy (06:33):
if all this wasn't enough, potential fractiousness of the ranks early on,
what I found really interesting is.
It shows the difficulty ofsetting up a new party for one.
I mean, it's just very hard.
It obviously shows something aboutthe left's love of factions and, and
you know, ever smaller divisions.
But I just love the sound of this.
I, so this is from, I now as one ofthe, as member number 750,001, I can

(06:56):
report to you what I looked up ontheir publicly available website.
They're gonna host huge regionaldeliberative meetings where thousands
of members come together to listento each other, debate and revise
the founding documents face-to-face.
All members will be able tocomment, suggest changes, and
track how each document develops.
That
is gonna be a heck of a shared document.

Justine (07:16):
If they can't decide between two of them, even the most basic policy
or how they start or whether they cancharge people yet, then it's gonna be a
bit tricky getting 680,006, doesn't bode.
Too well, does it?

Adam (07:29):
it does seem like a lot of left winging politics always seems to go back
to, they're very, very fond of ralliesand kind of people's assemblies and all
these ideas of doing things democraticallyand talking shop and things.
But actually getting things doneis a bit of a problem and it, it
used to be serious for a second.
I think it is a. Shame because there isobviously a big gap in British politics
at the moment for a kind of populousleft wing party because, I mean, Starr

(07:52):
seems to be attacking so far to theright that he's, he's took him a full
week to say it's a bad thing to have150,000 racists on the street of London.
Which you think, you know, that's,that's a sort of fairly obvious from
where, where, where labor ought tobe, uh, on, on these kind of things.
I mean, the, the problem I would suggestis if you are looking for a a, a decent
left wing party, the person to chooseas a leader might not be the one who
has proved that he's not very good atleading a party to electoral victory.

(08:15):
Twice in the past already

Ian (08:16):
he was betrayed Adam, he was betrayed and,

Adam (08:19):
forget.
I forget.
It was our fault, wasn't it?
The press?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Sorry.
Sorry about that guys.

Ian (08:24):
And Andy Glibly says, you know, it's very difficult to set up a new party.
It isn't Nigel Feragedoes it most weekends.
He
has no trouble at all.
Uh, what is it?
Friday, there's another one.
Uh, and the one he's set up at themoment is the one that's giving
everyone a massive headache.
So the idea that it is impossible toget people to abandon the old parties

(08:44):
and move to new party just isn't true.
So what is it about, say,Jeremy, that makes things very
difficult, this is a question.
I mean, Justine, you, you'vebeen on the left, uh, you've,
you've worked for the Mirror.
I've seen you, um, tellme, who would back them,

Justine (09:04):
Um, I think they're gonna have to get a long way down the line before they
get any major support from a major outlet.
I mean, if you look at Zara, Sultanawas part of, enough is enough
in 2022, if you remember that.
It was very, very short-lived.
No, no.
She joined with Mick Lynch and theGreen Party for a, a grassroots
left wing political movement.
Sound familiar?
Uh, they managed to get 700,000 peoplesigned up in a very short space of

(09:27):
time and then disappeared without.
Trace.

Andy (09:30):
and why is that?

Justine (09:31):
Um,
well
enough
was
enough.
Yes.
So they got a few rally marchestogether and then it just fizzled out.
They just couldn't getthe leadership together.
They couldn't agree on how it would work.
And then they eventually decided it wasnever going to be a parliamentary party.
and it just, yeah.
Disappeared, sank without trace.
if we're looking at your party, whatever.

(09:51):
A party is going to be called, atthe moment they've got hundreds of
thousands of people, but they, again,can't agree even how they're going,
what mechanism their party's gonnabe formed with, whether it's gonna be
an alliance, whether it's gonna be aparliamentary party, whether it's just
gonna be a grassroots kind of buildup.

Ian (10:08):
The, the discussion about saying we are not going to be a parliamentary party
given our current parliamentary system.
How does, how does that work then?
Does that mean we're notgoing to be in power ever?

Andy (10:19):
One of the beneficiaries of this is gonna be the Green Party who claimed they
got 2000 new members off the back of chaosamong your party and how that was going.
so that's one element of it.
The other thing, just as wementioned Farage, I think it's are
Farage and COR been more similarthan we've let ourselves think?
I mean, there's a big thing about.
Jeremy falling out with people.
There's a big thing aboutNigel falling out with people.

(10:41):
They're both absolutelycracking at a rally.
They're both energized, thefaithful a huge amount, but they're
very, very thin skinned in interviews and
tend to,
uh, not react well to, uh, constructive

Adam (10:49):
criticism.

Andy (10:49):
Have they been seen in the same room together?
That's all I'm saying is
You think it's a caseof beard on, beard off?
Do you, are we, is someone missesdoubt firing this whole situation?
So I think, I think theGreens will benefit.
Um, we should probably give anupdate on what the latest news
is as at time of recording.
I think that's only fair.
Salana has climbed down.

(11:09):
She said she won't be pursuing legalproceedings against the rest of her
nascent party, despite the baseless andunsubstantiated allegations against me.
This is all from herstatement I should say.
So there are just a fewcracking phrases in there.
Um, I really like this one.
I'm determined toreconcile and move forward.
She writes, I'm engaged in ongoingdiscussions with Jeremy, for whom

(11:31):
like all socialists of my generation.
I have nothing but respect.
Devastating dev, clearly very much.
Jeremy's old I'm not.
Yeah.
Um, and she finishes by saying wecan all confirm that the conference
will go ahead as planned in November.
So very sorry to everyone who's bookedthat tickets 'cause it's evidently not.
There is kind of a genuine, I mean,Zara Saltana, I have talked to young

(11:52):
people about Zara Sana, and they dofind her very, very inspirational.
And there, there is a sort ofgeneration now kind of beyond coming
through to voting age, beyond thatwhole, that whole cor night thing.
When was 2019, he stepped down.
So we're talking sixyears back, aren't we?
Um, so there is, I mean, the potentialfor a kind of Alexandra Acaia Cortes
as she, , the De Democrat in, inAmerica, a really sort of charismatic.

(12:12):
Figure to come through, um,and, and kind of inspire people.
you've gotta hope there

Adam (12:16):
might

Ian (12:16):
be, are you suggesting that Jeremy is not Bernie Saunders?
'? Um, because that, again, initself is, is is typical of you
in undermining Jeremy's position.

Adam (12:28):
more old men, be they, Bernie Saunders or Donald Trump or
Jeremy might not be what we need.
As, as going forward, really.
I mean, possibly we have one ofthese charismatic figures already.
I mean, we've got, um, Zach Polanski,the new leader of the Greens,
haven't we, who we profiled inthe last edition of Private Eye.
I mean, he's, he, he seemsquite good fun, didn't they?

Ian (12:44):
Yes, and I, I'm interested that
Andy's party or your party asI shall, I shall now call it.
I mean, you used to be quite green,but then I think you were disappointed
that the Green Party was no longerinterested in the environment.
It had moved on, uh, toother more important issues.

Andy (13:00):
there is a, a long running spate of councils, whoever controls them, which
have declared a climate emergency, whichis very easy to do and takes one meeting.
Uh, then saying, no, I don't think we'regonna have any wind turbines or Soler
panels in our, in our neck of the woods.
Thanks very much.
We get a lot of dog walkers whowant a nice view of a field.
And so, so that I think is an ongoingthing and I, I think the greens are

(13:21):
gonna come up against that, you know,and it's is when you get people who,
for whatever reason, probably verygood reasons, are unhappy with the
current government, want to registertheir disapproval in some party sense.
if your coalition expands, itsometimes expands beyond the
point at which, you are coherent.
And that's kind of the, uh,challenge that, um, that

Adam (13:38):
Polanski's got, hasn't it?
Because I mean, you're talkingabout rainbow coalitions.
We are literally, I mean, the electionresults for the Greens last time was some
in rural communities, which is very muchabout kind of no pylons and restoring the
countryside and, and, and then one in, in,in sort of inner city Bristol, which was
very much about kind of much more radicalpolitics and, and, and, and trans rights.
And, you know, it is quite difficultto kind of, these aren't things

(13:58):
that necessarily coalesce intoa, into a coalition of people who
are willing to, uh, work together.
Do they?

Ian (14:03):
if you are expecting coherence when you vote, then reform may not be for you.

Andy (14:08):
But I do notice as well that the Green Party mps who were elected are still
all in the same party and have managednot to fall out spectacularly with each
other, which is something that neither,uh, the, uh, the, where we started
off with six reform mps, aren't we?
Where, where were we at now?
Four.
But they're mostlydifferent ones, aren't they?
I
I think it's, yeah, it's much likethe sugar babes in that they'll,
the numbers will remain the
same line, but the, there's,there's one cast member who does

(14:30):
remain the playing, which, whichI, I think makes, uh, Nigel Frost.
The, the kesher of this, uh,this particular setup isn't
Right on.
We come to section number two now,as promised, it's ombudsman time.
So Justine, first of all, weshould say welcome to your first
official appearance on page 94.
'cause you were on it last year whenyou were nominated for the pool foot

(14:53):
award, shortlisted effect, talking aboutchildren's mental health provision.
But that was, you wereoutside the tempt pissing in.
And so since you've joined the eye andyou're inside the tempt, pissing out.

Ian (15:04):
What's a charming metaphor,

Andy (15:07):
you have been writing about.
lots of things in the back, predominantly,one of which is the Parliamentary
and Health Service Ombudsman.
Just for anyone who hasn't been payingattention, can you say what the PHSO is?

Justine (15:22):
Well, you wouldn't be alone if you didn't know, because I think during a
survey, something like a third of peopleknew what it was and two thirds didn't.
Now, it does serve a very, veryimportant function, people who have.
Used services, either within thehealth service or in government
services who've either had avery poor service, an unfair one.

(15:42):
Uh, if there's been maladministrationand they've gone to the service
and the service hasn't listened totheir complaint, the almost last
port of call they have is the PHSO.
now the PHSO is supposed to mediatebetween whichever organization is being.
Complained about and the complainant,it is supposed to then either

(16:04):
offer recommendations or in rarecases, financial compensation.
, It can also lay down reports before.
The government if it thinksit's really important.
this is important in two ways.
So for the people who are actuallymaking the complaint, it's
their last place they can go.
And on a second level, theybelieve that they don't want
this mistake to be made again.

(16:24):
we all accept, especially withinthe NHS, mistakes are made.
Doctors are under pressure,they're human beings.
But if the same mistakes are being made.
By the same staff in the sameunits, then that is systemic.
And if that can be picked up by thePHSO early, perhaps we wouldn't have so
many huge scandals as we keep seeing.

Andy (16:43):
one thing you point out early on is that it's a huge,
public service ombudsman.
It's the biggest in Europe.
It's got 600 staff, spends about40, 45 million quid a year.
you'd think it would be powerful,but in the case of patients like.
Alison Brian, for example,it absolutely has not been.
So, she was a 78-year-old woman.
She needed an urgent operation.

(17:04):
She was promised emergency hipreplacement surgery within a few weeks.
Then due to an administrativeerror, she didn't get the operation.
And after 10 months, her son-in-lawsaid, you know, this is ridiculous.
And he, he stumped up.
He paid 40,000 pounds for a private,operation on her knee just to help
with the, you know, chronic pain.
She was in, I mean, really, really severe.

(17:25):
Now he assumed that he mightbe able to recoup some of the
money he was spending there.
he went to the PHSO

Justine (17:31):
Well, first of all, they decided that he hadn't given the NHS
trust that was involved enough of anopportunity to come back on his complaint.
So he was told to go back to them.
They, um, obfuscated, sohe went back and said.
Uh, we haven't got an answerfrom them by that time.
He timed out.
There's a 12 months, time out,after everything's been exhausted.

(17:54):
so they actually rejected hiscomplaint on, on that basis.
they also said that if he had theoption of taking legal action,
that they wouldn't consider it.
Now legal action, as we allknow, is difficult and expensive.
Uh, and most people think the PHSOwill be an alternative to legal action.
And do you know, I don't thinkthat many people want to take
legal action against the NHS.

(18:14):
I think a lot of people feelvery protective about it.
They feel very understanding.
They just want to be heard.
They just want to know that what happenedto them won't happen to someone else.
And the PHSO should offer an alternative.
To expensive litigation, which isharrowing for people to go through.
It's difficult for, you know, it divertsresources from the front line for the NHS.
So why tell someone who's coming toyou to ask for some kind of redress

(18:38):
to then take it through the courts?
It makes, no sense, does it?

Ian (18:40):
The
idea that we we're actually paying 600people to say I'd go to court if were you,
Yeah.
uh, gives me a bit of a heart attack.
Exactly.
Um,

Andy (18:49):
I would add there in, you probably have been sued by 600 different people, so
it's a bit you, I suspect.
just while we're on the initialthing of talking about these cases,
talk about, um, Naomi Darling?
she was a cleaner from Hereford,and she went to the dentist.
She was told she neededsome root canal work.

Justine (19:03):
And it later emerged that she hadn't even had any,
uh, x-rays and may not have evenneeded the work in the first place.
She ended up losingall of her front teeth.
The Boulogne collapsed.
Got terrible stress about this as well.
She's in a lot of pain.
Terrible, terrible pain.
Ended up losing her job.
Um, so she went to the PHSOhoping they would help.
Now, the dentist had just appears, movedfrom place to place, gathering complaints

(19:28):
and just kept going to different places.
And they, they just said, you just haveto go and find the dentist pretty much.
And, um, get him to gethim to deal with it.
And they just, again,totally rejected her.
Her complaint, um, until, yeah, andthen eventually they offered her a
very small amount of compensation.
400

Andy (19:46):
pounds, 400

Justine (19:47):
pounds.
It's gonna cost her 12,000pounds to get some new teeth.
She hasn't got any front teeth.
Now, now, for anyone to have theirteeth removed and not be able to
afford to replace them, uh, youknow, the bones will disintegrated.
So it is not a question of her beingable to just replace them easily.
So she's having to go through the rest ofher life with no front teeth, a feeling.
Totally depressed.

Andy (20:07):
in the article you wrote about it, she says, it's ruined my

Justine (20:11):
she, did.
Yeah.
The whole process lefther feeling demoralized.
She spent years trying to get somekind of justice and then just gave up.
And like many people who speak tome about this, they say they come
outta the process feeling a wholelot worse than when they started.
Not only has it not helped, it'straumatized them, it's demoralized
them and it's made them feel liketheir, their problem is not important.

Andy (20:33):
And it, it is extraordinary.
I mean, the, the sort of tenacitythese people would have to have
to get things to that stage.
Because as you say, you don't even endup with p hs O until you've exhausted
all avenues of complaint and all kind ofofficial things with the initial body that
you, you, you, you are engaged with and,and their kind of complaints procedure.
Do you,
uh, and then when you get to thePHSO, I'm, I, in some of your pieces
you were saying, you know, it, it,it's sort of seven months even before

(20:54):
they assess your complaint and to seewhether it's worth pushing ahead with.
And, and the numbers of, ofcomplaints that are actually then
followed through are tiny, aren't

Justine (21:01):
they?
Yeah, they are.
They are.
So, the PHSO gets about120,000 inquiries a year.
Um, last year it accepted nearly 39,000.
To be considered okay, butit dropped three quarters
of them at the initial sift.
Just, just drops them.
It has a variety of excusesit uses to push back on them.
So it agreed to look into 10,000 of them.

(21:24):
Only 722 were given detailedinvestigations and of them,
of all of those complaints.
So down from the 38,000 orso, 464 resolved ending with
the complainant being happy.
Now that is about one in 80.
Yeah, and that's, um, you know, they'regetting 42 million pounds a year and
one in 80 people walk away from therefeeling happy with what's happened.

Ian (21:47):
And you are suggesting that you can't account for that by the 79.
Others being whingers
who just,
who are just looking for money.

Justine (21:56):
Exactly.
I think if they were lookingfor money, they'd be going to
the wrong place in the start.
Um, if they're looking forjustice, it sounds like they're
going to the wrong place.
And this has been aproblem for many years.
The patient's association looked atthe PHSO 11 years ago and, , concluded
that it was just not fit for purpose.
. It's had some internal investigations,internal reviews that have also found

(22:18):
itself not to be fit in some cases, yet.
Nothing's changed.
It seems to have got worse.
If, if anything, people are still waitingfar too long and then they're having
not getting the results they need.
I'm talking to a woman at the moment who'sbeen fighting for 13 years to get some
kind of answers as to why her father diedwith the hospital, having missed four.

(22:39):
Clear opportunities todiagnose him for lung cancer.
she has been throughfour different ombudsman.
She's just written to the new one,Paula Sussex, who has come in in August
after a crazy protracted, effort totry and replace the previous one.
And, um, she hasn't had any joy withthat either her MP's been involved.
Our mp, Rachel Maco, is really concernedabout the PHSO and its ineffectiveness

(23:04):
and says, you know, this is a safetyvalve for the NHS and it's not working.
. So there is a parliamentary committee,which is supposed to oversee it, but
they just don't seem to do anything.
They hear one problem afteranother and nothing has been done.
It feels more like people say to me thatthey feel like its job is to bat them
away, not to help them and to reducethe number of compensation claims and.

(23:28):
Instead of actually really listening tothem and taking on board the complaints
and trying to change the NHS for thebetter and ensure mistakes aren't
repeated, it's just to bat them away.

Andy (23:39):
It strikes me that by hiss very nature, I mean, he's
so huge and unwieldy, isn't it?
Because I would've thought, I meana, a a, a sort of one stop body that
deals with all complaints about thewhole of the NHS and as you say,
dental services and things as well.
It's an enormous task enough already,but it also deals with complaints
about, um, you know, the parliamentaryside of it, uh, uh, of its title,
all UK government departments, um,and other public organizations.

(24:01):
So I was looking at some ofthe sort of triumphs that, that
they're, they're talking about inthe new section of their website.
They've been looking into recentlythe Windrush compensation scheme
that came under there per.
A student loans company.
The, the, the charity commission.
All this on top of the health service.
I mean, it's just, it, it seemssort of too, too huge for a
task for any organization to

Justine (24:18):
I mean to, yeah, they brought together the health service and the
parliamentary services some time ago, andI think from that moment on, it was doomed
never to be able to do its job properly.
Really.

Andy (24:28):
And
West Street is, is is kind of abolishingvarious different, I mean, we endlessly,
whenever a new government comes in, wehave a bonfire of the wango, don't we?
But, um, he's getting rid of various,sort of, um, , lower levels in,
in, in the complaints procedure.
Is that

Justine (24:39):
Yeah.
There've been lots of layers, butthere's a lot of overlap as well.
For example, if you are.
using a service that is funded bythe local government, you have to go
to the local government ombudsman.
If you are in a care home, youdunno whether you go to the
Health Service Ombudsman or thelocal government, OMB Ombudsman.
You might wanna go to the GMC first.
The NMC, the Parliamentary Commissioner.
off com, offstead, the, you know, thereare so many different regulators that

(25:03):
just even working out where to start isthe biggest, you know, is a headache.
And once you start, you can time out.
If you go to the wrong one first andthen you get knocked about within
the system, you might end up timingout and, and not having any justice.

Andy (25:16):
is part of this due to the long tail of COVID and you, from
what you say, it sounds likethe problems go back many years.

Justine (25:22):
COVID obviously hasn't helped.
There is a backlog.
There is definitely abacklog and everything slowed
down so much during COVID.
there was also a problem, as I said,with uh, finding a new ombudsman when the
last one ended, their seven year terms.
Rob Bains was coming to the end of hisseven year term, nearly two years ago.
They'd had seven years toknow this was gonna happen.

(25:44):
But they didn't find anyone in time.
So they put an interim in who's onlyallowed to stand in for one year.
Even by the end of that year,they didn't have anyone in place.
So there were several monthswhere they had no ombudsman and
the whole thing had to freeze.
So, uh, they were alreadyrunning behind due to COVID.
And then that just createdeven more delays and people
are waiting even longer now.

Andy (26:04):
And as far as I understand it, the alternative to this hellish process
is trying to get a judicial review.
Is that right?

Justine (26:12):
you could potentially have a lawsuit if that's what you wanted,
but in terms of going through thelegal channels in order to try to
change what's happening, changepolicy, uh, have, have it looked at
so that, um, mistakes aren't repeated.
The judicial review is the next solution.
If you don't get whatyou want from the PHSO.
Um, but that, as you know,is a very unwieldy process.

(26:35):
Very expensive, prohibitivelyexpensive and, and can be quite
traumatic unless you can afford topay for very expensive, legal support.

Andy (26:43):
normally these sections where we, we sort of diving deep on one particular
Failure, I try and end up by saying,are there any prospects for improvement?
I mean, I do.
Should I bother asking?
In this

Justine (26:54):
I think you need to, we need to put that to the government,
but that's why I keep going back to,we keep going back to it, you know,
that's what we do well, isn't it?
We'll keep going back to it.
We keep talking to people and wekeep going to back to the PHSO and
saying, what are you doing about this?
Um, they'll come back to us and saythey've had, uh, an extraordinary increase
in the number of cases coming to them,but they have also had a 50% increase in

(27:15):
their funding in just the last four years.

Andy (27:17):
And lots of these cases are rejected on the grounds of, uh,
lower severity injustice, whichis quite the phrase, isn't it?

Justine (27:24):
That was only brought in, in 2021 or two.
And I think that was reallybrought in as part of an effort
to clear the backlog from COVID.
So they lifted the threshold ratherthan dealing with more cases.

Andy (27:34):
Yes, they said, um.
we have decided to focus on the moreserious complaints that people bring to
us where they may have faced a big impact.
For example, these may be about apotentially avoidable death or where
someone has suffered prolonged pain.
Surely losing your front teethand having no way of readdressing
that is a significant injusticethat causes significant pain.

Justine (27:53):
Well, she, I think she has chronic pain now from that.
Right.
As well as the, you know, theside, you know, how she feels about
herself going out, you know, foranyone to lose their front teeth
and not be able to replace them.
It's devastating.
I mean, I don't, I really think itis, it's not just cosmetic, is it?
It, it, it makes her feelthat she can't go for a job.
You know, she's embarrassedbeing at family events.

(28:15):
She thinks people would judge herand think, you know, she's been in
a, in a, in a fight or something.
So it's really affected hermentally as well as physically.

Ian (28:23):
And the other case is an avoidable death.
which is one of the things they said theywould consider and then they haven't.

Justine (28:30):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
It's just

Ian (28:32):
a detail.
Yeah.

Justine (28:33):
There'll be, there'll be more.
I've got more in the pipeline I'm afraid.
You know, I have a huge backlog of PHSOstories and behind every single one
is a story of suffering, injustice,and people not getting any kind of
audience from the body that they wentto in the first place to help them.

Ian (28:51):
So if anyone's writing in with a similar story and Justine
doesn't process it quick enough, um,I will be acting as the ombudsman
for the backlog
of

Justine (29:01):
don't expect any response at all for at least a year.
And if you do, it won't be the right one.

Andy (29:07):
so time for section number three now and, uh, it's good news caller,
we always like to end on a light note.
So Adam, what's going on at reach PLC?

Adam (29:14):
Terrible,

Andy (29:14):
terrible things yes.
Um, well, I wanna talk specifically,I mean, reach PLC for those who,
who, who don't know is an enormousnewspaper, um, publishing empire.
Uh, it.
Was, formed from the, the combination of,uh, Richard Desmond's set of papers, which
were the Daily Express, the Daily Star,and various celebrity magazines like Okay.
And Trinity Mirror, which as the namesuggests, uh, produced both the Daily

(29:35):
and Sunday Mirror, uh, and also had anawful lot of, uh, local titles as well.
So, I mean, sort of over 120different newspapers and websites
around the country kind of comeunder reach PLC and ever since 2018
when that takeover took, uh, place.
They've sort of been wicking away atit, and there've been so many rounds of
redundancies, which we've been catalogingin successive, issues of private eye.

(29:58):
And, um, it, it does feel a bit like, Imean, , the latest round of redundancies
are falling particularly hard on the dailymirror, uh, where an enormous number of
people, including a lot of their top.
And I would say best say bestjournalists are at risk of redundancy.
the news from this week, the updatefrom this week since the last edition
went to print, is that the NUJ Chapelat the Daily Mirror are saying that
nothing is off the table Now in theterms of the action they're gonna take

(30:19):
against it, uh, they said the n themirror, NUJ Chapel demands that this
six week countdown to destruction must.
Be halted.
I mean, they're not messingabout with all this.
Uh, so nothing is off the table.
Strike action is actually a possibilityon that particular paper at the moment.
So this is the mirror.
This is the mirror.
This is the paper that has survivedMegalomaniacs being in charge of it.
Like Cecil King who tried to lead anarmed coup against the government in

(30:41):
the 1960s, uh, Robert Maxwell, who, uh.
Stole most of the moneyfrom its own pensioners.
Um, and, and of course PiersMorgan, probably possibly
the worst
of them
all.
Uh,
it got through all that, but um, itreally does look to be in, or it's,
it's journalists certainly feel it'sin rather dire straits at the moment.
So in the last issue of private eye,I think you said it was something

(31:01):
like 300 roles that were going,
it's 321 roles across the whole ofreach, so, um, that's all the, all the
kind of local papers and things, buton the national titles, it's falling
disproportionately on the daily mirror.
This time around, I think it's 38people who have been, got rid of
on the mirror and only one personon the Express, which, uh, they are
understandably not very happy about.
I should stay, actually, to be fair.

(31:22):
One of the last, um, redundancyrounds back in 2018 was almost
an exact mirror image of this.
Um, there was something like 70people we got rid of on the express
and only one person on the mirror.
So maybe they're just thinkingthey're sharing things out fairly,
but um, the net result of it isthat there's hardly anyone left

Ian (31:36):
could one reason for this be that no one wants to buy any of their papers?
I, I'm just asking.

Andy (31:42):
Well, a surprisingly
large number of people still do want to go
out
and
buy
the daily mirror, and kind of moreto the point, um, even, uh, Reach's
own bosses admit that 75% of theirrevenue comes from actually selling
physical copies of newspapers every day.
People are still going out and buyingcopies of those papers, and that's the
only way they found of making things work.
I mean, the extraordinary thing aboutwe always say, oh, the internet is the

(32:04):
future and news has gone online and,and the printed press is dead except for
1 1 1 1 Plucky Fortnightly magazine,um, uh, of Indomitable goals.

Adam (32:13):
um, still,

Andy (32:14):
Um, still, still fighting away as one, one for the asterisk fans.
Um, but, um, no one has yet founda way other than just charging for
content like you do with newspapersof making money off the internet.
So there, there is notthe money in advertising.
To sustain any of these businessesand the solution at, um, at Reach
has been to keep on hiking up the,uh, cover prices of those newspapers.
They keep going, I mean, inincrementally sort of 20 p at a

(32:36):
time, uh, every six months or so.
Uh, but also reducing the stuff that'sin there and some of the decisions
that have been made over the mirror.
I mean, the Mirror has really, Ithink it's 124 years old, is it now.
It was certainly set up sortof way, way, way back at the
beginning of the last century.
Um, it's got a hell of a historybehind it as, as a campaigning
and labor supporting newspaper.
Um.

(32:56):
And it just appears to me that they,the current management just don't
seem to understand any of that at all.
I mean, this time around.
I was gobsmack to see Nick SummerLad, who's the investigations
editor on the Daily Mirror, who'sbeen bringing in scoop after scoop.
For him, it was him that broke thestory about how Nigel Farage financed
or didn't finance the sale of his house.
And, his partner's mysteriousmoney that she had to, uh,
buy and register in her name.

(33:17):
and it comes a few years after alsothey got rid of, um, Andrew Penman, who
was their brilliant kind of consumerinvestigations guy who was out there.
scam buster was how he described himself.
He was kind of out there, you know,finding people who were defrauding
pensioners on the doorstep and dodgytimeshares and all these things.
So all of the stuff that I think madeit a great paper, they just seem to have
absolutely, I mean, less than no careful,they seem to be actively opposed to it.

Adam (33:39):
Justine.
Yes, you are.
You are an expert, expert journal.
When, how do you feel?
When I,

Justine (33:42):
when I got to the mirror, I think it was in 1995, there was a team
of off diary reporters, four of themdedicated to investigations, which was
appropriate for the paper that, you know,had Hugh cud lip and, you know, private
eyes and poor foot at the heart of it.
Uh, so to get rid of their, onlyif they do get rid of their only
investigative report, you know, hehas been told his job is a threat.

(34:05):
It's, uh, not confirmed yet.
Um, but if they do get rid of that, that'sa very, very sad day for that newspaper.
And it's, it's long and,distinguished history.
I'm also very, very sad to hearthere are some, there are some
incredible talent at the mirror.
There really is, and it's been heldtogether by love and prayer, really
by, uh, some very dedicated journalistswho are ideologically committed to it,

(34:26):
which I don't think you find on allother newspapers, they could have easily
gone off and made more money elsewhere.
They're there because they respect theirreadership and they care about them.
And among them, the, some of thephotographers, Phil Coburn, Phil
Coburn's, a fantastic photographer In2010, he and colleague Rupert Harmer
were in Helman Province in Afghanistan.
The convoy they were in hit an IED andum, sadly, Rupert was killed in it.

(34:50):
Phil lost both his legs beneath the knee.
He went back to work.
He's worked ever since.
For them, he is a. Multi-awardwinning photographer, he
finds himself on the list too.
And I'm quite frankly
disgusted

Andy (35:03):
And it's also, I mean, you look at the, what the plan is for replacing all
of these people, it's effectively, um,there is an argument to be made if you
own 120 different newspapers for a certainamount of kind of sharing of resources
and, and possibly even copy between them.
But the plan at the moment seemsto be that, uh, maybe the first
15 pages of the Express and themirror will be their own stuff.
Uh, and the rest of itwill just be shared copy.

(35:23):
Um, then they're not touchingthe politics teams, so.
Mean that would be complete insanitybecause the, the express is still
really sort of rabidly Tory.
Pretty much the only rabidly Torypaper out there at the moment 'cause
the male and the, um, the, the, thetelegraph seem to be lunging more
and more in the direction of reform.
But, uh, and the mirror of course is atleast it's labor supporting a critical
friend to labor pretty coming slightly tothe left of where the Labor party is now.

(35:45):
So they have had the sense so far.
Not to try and meld those two thingstogether and just have the same political
outlook, um, a across both of them,but the rest of it is gonna be largely
shared copy across all the papers.
Can I just ask, are they deep in the red?
I know you say that lots ofpeople are still buying it, but.
I'm sure it's expensive to run.
What, what are the accounts looking like?
Pretty good if you ask

Adam (36:06):
the
shareholders.

Justine (36:07):
Indeed, uh, shareholders are paid more than 11% dividends, which
is higher than any FSE 100 company.

Ian (36:12):
and
the money sloshing around inthere is dependent on sales
of the physical product.
I just wanna make this absolutely clear.
The print version is sustaininga profitable organization.

Andy (36:25):
what is the rationale that's been given for these
300 roles under Threat 3 21?
effectively it's moremoney for shareholders.
But what have they said?
What have they said?
The reason is, is it that we are, we areintegrating and we're, you know, we're
making things better for the future.
What is it?

Justine (36:39):
they believe the future's digital and they believe the future is in video.
So they want much more video content.
Is that right, Adam?

Andy (36:45):
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was a big thing that happenedin about 2015 when a lot of newspaper
organizations, media organizations acrossthe board pivoted to video very famously
because the Facebook algorithm changedand supposedly video was the great future.
And, and no one seemed to stop to questionwhether a load of sort of print hacks,
uh, who'd been writing for a living forthe whole of their careers would actually
be the best at producing videos or maybe.

(37:06):
Maybe we could sort of leavethat to broadcasters and
people who actually do that.
Uh, but, um, as ever with a lot ofreaches um, tactics, they seem to have
caught onto this about 10 years later.
So yes, they've decided thatvideo, podcasts, I mean, I'm not
gonna snag off podcasts beingis how, how I'm here doing one.
They've decided, oh, whichobviously are a growth area.
So they're doing a lot of that, butalso a lot more video reporting rather
than concentrating on, as we say, toreiterate again, the written words

(37:29):
that bring in 75% of their income.
So

Justine (37:31):
So they are creating new jobs, aren't they, in the kind of video arena?

Andy (37:35):
They are.
And they will be much much lowerpage jobs as well for younger people,
which I'm sure is also an attraction.
But the other thing they decided isthe future is, is just the number of
clicks they get on website stories.
And that leads to what, uh, makesthe bosses at, um, at Reach Piers
North and David Hickerson verycross when we call it click bait.
But honestly, it really, reallycannot be described as anything else.

(37:55):
you any examples?

Adam (37:59):
funny

Andy (37:59):
you
should ask Ian.
I wondered whether you might likea quick reach PLC clickbait quiz.
What the hell are they talking

Adam (38:05):
about?
Yes.
Yes.

Andy (38:07):
Okay.
Question number one.
This is a recent headline whichwent across all of the uh, local
papers, uh, in reaches stable
drivers told to place conquers in carin September or face 2,500 pound fines.
Conquers, what the hell are they on about?
uh.
They deter spiders, don't they?

Adam (38:26):
We have

Andy (38:27):
winner.
This
is
incredible.
I think this is probably best expressedthe convoluted process by which someone
got to that as a clickbait headline isperhaps best explained by the correction.
They were obliged to publish exactly
a week later,
and they said, um, in fact, the potentialfine relates to dangerous driving.
If a driver should react on spottinga spider in their car while driving.

(38:50):
And experts, there's a lot of expertswho appear in stories like this.
Unnamed experts.
Experts had suggested placinga conquer in the vehicle, which
is believed to deter spiders.
And then the corker, we arehappy to clarify 'cause.
I don't really believethe thing about conquers.
I know a lot of people swear by it.
I do do it myself, and I haveactually crashed my car when
an insect landed on me, so,

Adam (39:10):
okay.
Yeah.
I mean, really?

Andy (39:11):
Yeah.
Were you fine?
Uh, no.
I did pay the damages tothe other person's car.
It was a really big insect in my defense.
Let's carry on.
Let's on.
Okay.
The next one is also apretty scary headline.
It's, if you haven't, um, yet facedyour 2,500 fines for not carrying
your conquer with you, then you shouldbe warned that Lloyd's, Barclay's,
and NatWest customers are urgedto close account within 48 hours.

(39:34):
Customers of some of the nation's,most frequented banks have been.
Issued a 48 hour noticeto close their account.
Did you get this notice?
Uh,

Justine (39:43):
no.
I am with one of thosebanks and I missed that.
Do I need to go now?

Andy (39:47):
I
think you are.
All right.
Because it turns out that actually allit is was a press release from a price
comparison website pointing out thereare some better savings rates available.
From other banks.
There is no 48 hour notice.
Nothing has been issued.
It's just complete.
And it was a very, very boringfinancial press release,
stressed up as that warning.
I do find that these stories, theydo, um, they do engage me quite a

(40:11):
lot because I read them thinking.
Wait, this isn't, this isn't atall what the headline promised me.
So maybe they're trying todrive deeper reading play.
If the headline tells youaccurately what's in the article,
you sort of know it already.
And at the end of that deeperreading, do you think, well, this is
clearly, clearly
a quality news
site that I want to read morestuff from, or do you feel slightly
cheated and like they're takingthe mickey out of you a bit?

Ian (40:31):
Well, I'm quite interested in the idea of Andy crashing a car
because
a giant insect landed on him.
I mean, if this podcast was about anythinginteresting that would be headlining it,

Andy (40:43):
it's such an embarrassing memory and it's from the last two years as well.
Let's just, let's plow on.
On we go.
Potatoes will stay sprout free for monthsand the months is an inverted commas.
I'm not sure whether that's relevantor not for months by storing them
in an unusual kitchen location.
Can you guess what that unusualkitchen location might be?

Justine (41:04):
is it

Andy (41:06):
It is the fridge.
And I, can tell you that the mirror,because this one was actually from the
mirror, the mirror was so thrilled withthis life hack that they ran it in May
and then again in June and again in July.
And presumably the potatoes fromMay are still looking fantastic
in that unusual location.

Ian (41:22):
I, I think I take things too, literally, I thought if the potatoes
are sprout free, it means you juststore them not near any sprouts

Andy (41:31):
and you're away.
just quickly.
Wasn't there a thing about.
Was this reach, it was themhaving to link to other articles,
or was that someone else?
Oh no, that was extraordinary.
That was one of the many brillianteditorial in innovations that
have been brought in by reach.
Um, they said, um, that every storythat went, every news story that went
on the website had to contain a link inthe third paragraph to another story.
Nothing unreasonable about that.
You know, you wanna keep people on yoursite, send 'em to another relevant story.

(41:54):
The word relevant, not the case.
This was not just a story that the editormight think, uh, was, was relevant.
It was one from a list that wassent out by management every day.
Didn't matter what it was, youjust had to cram it in there.
So it ended up with someextraordinary juxtapositions.
My favorite one of all of them was, astory about a family who was stopped
from boarding at East Midlands Airportbecause, uh, the passport was damaged.

(42:17):
And paragraph three began.
This comes after an octopus,climbed out an aquarium tank
and tried to eat boys six in
front of his
mom, not
at Eastern Airport,
I
think
in

Adam (42:26):
Florida.

Andy (42:26):
but but it just It just came you go.
It came after, whichliterally temporarily is

Adam (42:33):
true.

Andy (42:35):
I think journalism's safe,
they have, I would like to say,abandoned this plan now possibly because
three issues of private eye running.
We, ran examples of quitehow, how silly this was.
Uh, and it has now beenabandoned in that one
Spoil sport.
Okay, that is it for this editionof page 94, which comes after a man

(42:56):
is eaten by a Wasp in Midlothian.
Um, thank you so much for listening.
If you'd like to get, uh, morefantastic stories, mort stories like
Justine's brilliant ones about the PHSO.
The magazine can be found on newsstands.
You can either go to private hyen.couk if you're willing to, uh, make
the commitment to an extremelyreasonably priced subscription.

(43:16):
Or you can just go to your nearestnews agent and get a copy of
private eye, lots of jokes, lotsof cartoons, lots of stories.
It's great.
Go and do it now.
thanks to all of today's contributors.
Thanks to Matt Hill ofRethink Audio for producing.
And thank you to you for listening.
Bye for now.