Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast
Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94. My name is Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here in the Private Eye office with, as always, as frequently, Helen Lewis, Adam MacQueen and Ian Hislop. We are here for our special post-election stats and analysis match. We're very excited. There's been all sorts. there's been so much news.
Adam, you were saying before we started, there have been so much news concerted into one night that there's still plenty to unpack plenty that hasn't even been noticed since then.
It all happens between three o'clock and seven o'clock in the morning. I, I say space these out. I say just let them, drip through gently. One of these enormous news events every, sort of day for, a couple of months would be great. I think there should be a race to be the
slowest constituency to deliver so that your Friday afternoon late. and that's a major achievement. Keep us going.
I. So it's all over the removal. Helicopters have been to 10 Downing Street and, there's a new boss. So I thought we'd start off with, before the election we all made some predictions, so I thought we could get those out now and laugh at how wrong we all were. This was exactly a fortnight before,
election day, wasn't it, where we sat down and wrote, I would
like to point out that. I, although I'm I, Conce that mine were not spot on. Neither was the exit pole. So in anyway, me putting my finger into the wind and going, yeah, probably about that. Turns out to have been not that far off the greatest, finest pathological minds.
That's a very early concession from you, Helen. Maybe you might have forgotten, you might have got it back on, but I think it sounds like you got No, I can remember it. I auditioning
to be the next professor of John Curtis.
If the conservatives had done as well as the Live des, they'd have 2000 mps by now. Interesting stat
what boat share?
Just the number of increasing the number of mps, proportion sevenfold I trying to make out. How would that work? Here's me, Andy Predicts 2024 con 1 5 1. Not so far off.
Fine. Very respectable.
Lib Dem 48. Drastically undirected. Helen bets. How much did he put on this? Tory's 110 seats. Lib Dems 56,
roughly 15 Now, just from 17. Now on the Lib Dems. But that I made the same. I would like to put it to you that I made the same error as the exit poll to some extent. I was down on Labour, which I have to say, I, I share in common with every single person who's covered the Labour Party being in the Labour Party. You done anything with Labour Party, you were all miserable as sins throughout all of Thursday.
Well, Helen, you and I spent the whole campaign with me saying it can't be as, as, as amazing as the polls are saying there's there, there's no way the Tories are gonna go as low. and you went low. I, if you wanna open mine, let's find out moment. Oh, that's gonna be a big win at the
moment. Let's see what happens when we add Adam into the mix. Tory sees 150, very close lib Dem 67 spookily class. I thank you.
The lib dem whisperer, Adam. Very,
impressive. Okay. Wow. And finally, Ian, let's turn to yours. Just says Labour will win. Election bold. I've been here before. That's
insight you need.
What was everyone's favorite moment from the night?
I'd say one of my moments of the night, as I think I predicted a few episodes ago of this very podcast was that George Galloway lost his seat in Rochdale and didn't even bother to turn up at the count to see himself lose, as he did previously when he ran for London Mayor. Remember that in 20 16, 1 0.7% of the vote didn't turn up then either
there was a great subsidiary moment to that too, right? If you were watching the BBC, you then got to see Neil Kinnick, just Choling, I think is maybe the only name, not just
Chortling, but saying he was a repellent little man. Repulsive little man. Yeah. That was one of the most glorious moments of night actually. I was, I, didn't want to see it through a George Galloway speech, but I'm always there for hearing Neil Kinnick sl him off. That
was a very good kinnick. Yeah, I thought I was the only impressionist on here with my Rishi and my now completely irrelevant Michael Gove impression. I've got a horrible feeling that
I'm reprising that from a school talent show in about 1986. Oh gosh.
And Jay, it was a night for nostalgia for many of our listeners, Labour and Government. Two words that don't go together now, they're there.
any other moments from the night?
I enjoyed, ed Davies singing Sweet Caroline in the Lib de Headquarters, because I was on a sort of personal mission, which I think you might have been too in when, as you were doing your broadcast round, was saying, can we perhaps find to hear a bit about reform, who have performed well in terms of, votes. And that hasn't really translated seats to them, which is, sad for them. But that is first pass the post.
But actually, lib DE's also got so 3 million votes and we're not really hearing a lot about what the Tory party might wanna do to appeal to those voters as well. So actually, I, was very pleased that Ed Davies had a. Had a fun campaign. He said he had the most fun campaign out of everybody. As Adam mentioned, a previous podcast. He talked about carers, for example, something that we otherwise didn't hear a lot about in the campaign.
it was looked like his long, like center park, summer holiday was over and he was having one last lash. And before going back to his work in middle management,
it felt so right as he sang. Sweet Caroline. I, thought to myself, yeah, Davey is exactly the sort of man that would do that.
A so good, bit as well. Bob. Bob, yeah. Yeah.
Ian.
The broadcast moment I enjoyed most was almost straight after the exit poll. Nigel Farra appeared and complained that there was no one from reform on any of the mainstream media channels. and this was absolutely typical of how they reacted. I was watching the BBC where they'd had a reform man on for the previous 10 minutes talking, so there was an immediate shot of him. And then I turned over to Channel four and Anne Whittaker was there.
And I thought immediately, straight away after the poll, you have told, the public something, which isn't true, so that was a good early moment, good late moment was, Reese Mog. And I know everybody else thinks the same, but I'd been storing up the chance to shout Vox Popularly Vox Day at the television for years. Finally I got my chance,
that's an interesting point about reform in the coverage though, because when the really odd facets about election night is that all the candidates are at their counts. So actually they've always traditionally had a quite a bit of an issue filling the airwaves. And that's not what you normally do is you get aligned newspaper columnists from, a particular party, or you get the peers because they obviously don't, they don't even get to vote the peers.
But there aren't any ref there, there just isn't that infrastructure around reform,
the ridiculous thing about election night, I'm not entirely serious about them being spread out over months, but you do get that two or three hours at the front where they're desperately trying to fill time and all they've got is the exit poll, which in that case, the big story did appear to be a huge surge for reform. There was a search reform, I'm not writing that off, but it wasn't at the scale that they were saying it was. it was the most extraordinary thing.
The BBC, they spent 10 minutes at the top of it saying, we've got cameras in every sports hall around the country. And they kept splitting the screen and showing this feed of people counting votes, which isn't the most desperately exciting thing to watch. And then appeared to cut to almost none of them to see the actual bit that people wanted to see. Which was the, the reading out of the results. Yes.
cause really interesting drama, even if you don't know, the individual candidates. So to see, even if it's a seat, you dunno very well there is an interest in hearing the numbers being read out. You think, oh he got 15,000. I wonder, if she'll be able to cap that. And the, numbers being read out in not in order of number of votes just adds jeopardy and excitement to it. and that, that is the event that you are watching. Yeah, that's the problem. It's not
yeah, there are people who are just wandered in, into their living rooms at 3:30 AM in the morning and need to have electoral politics explained to them. No, these are dweebs. they know what Ashington is. It's fine.
That's why I get so excited. 'cause you get the, 'cause they're read out in alphabetical order of Canada's, not they. And that is what made my moment of the night the, because I was up for Liz Trusts. She was, last alphabetically so that every other candidate's, tally was read out. Before hers, I believe. Yes. No. So it created that, you know
what,
no.
Fabulous drama. Terrific drama. She then refused to give any comment at all and was hurried out the door by, she didn't make
a concession speech, but she was then asked some questions such as, is this your fault? Do you feel bad? What are you gonna do next? Here's this karmic justice. Yeah. Yeah.
Will you cry now? Yeah.
but it actually had some, I think, bad effects. 'cause I, they didn't show Bristol Central, which is where Labour's Thangnam Debonairre as she expected to, to the Green Party's co-leader, Carla Deya. That was an incredibly hard fought seat. It was the first time that, you know. One of four green seats, one on the night, really big moment. Genuine top
news story of the night. That one. Yeah.
Really fascinating. And, the campaign that was fought there, which are very heavily major on Gaza, very interesting in terms of Labour's kind of weakness on its left flank. And, the other thing that was, and also allowed a really nasty narrative to develop that Thangnam Debonairre in a completely graceless loser. And in fact, she'd gave a concession speech and she did a very nice tweet about Carla Deya afterwards. But it was, it, reinforced that nasty misinformation narrative.
And so surely that's one of the things that the BBC is supposed to be against, is giving you the full context rather than you seeing weird little bits of outta context clips on Twitter or Facebook or wherever it is. So I felt, that was a real, shame.
at one point I said, up on the screen it said, tum Bridge Wells Lib Dem. Which seems to me like a really quite significant moment.
Tum Bridge Wells was a significant moment. and they missed it on a lot of television coverage. And I heard it on the radio coverage, and I thought, oh, come on. We're all sitting here waiting to do our not disgusted anymore of Tum Bridge Wells jokes, and you're not even giving us the chance. I, think it is a failing not to see it. , Andy: But of the sofa, vans,
Steve Baker has fast cattleman sailed off.
Very sad.
Steve Baker, you have to say in the end, was rather a good sport about it. 'cause he turned out to the BBC right at the beginning to be told that he was definitely going to lose his seat while sat there in the studio and just laughed off and said, yes, I've accepted that. And then carried on doing Thera mean he didn't do a Galloway, did he actually, stood up there and took his medicine. So
yeah, and Jeremy Hunt did a very nice speech and said, look Kate, my kids don't be too disappointing. This is democracy. As did Rishi Sinek's speech on his way out down the street, it was unusually gracious for him. Yes, there's that
guy being for the last. 18 months. Act, I think I'd like to change my moment of the night to the Jeremy Hunt, concession speech, not concession. He'd won his seat, but he, acknowledged he was on his way out as chancellor and he was talking to his children saying, this is the magic of democracy. We're doing it all, quickly, efficiently, carefully, Yeah. Change over of power. No guns, people in guns, biking
horns, people taking a crap on the speaker's desk, doesn't take
two months to do. Like some of the major Western democracies we can
mention. and I agree, and in a lot of the coverage, there were people saying, you have to hand it to Rishi Sak. He did stabilize things after his trust and I thought. Actually Jeremy Hunt did, if you remember, he came in as unwanted chancellor, took all the immediate measures necessary for the country not to totally, implode . so he didn't get a lot of credit. And the fact that he vaguely held on, I thought was quite interesting.
He did plow a lot of his own money, I think into, that. so he really seemed very keen not to be one of the people who lost their seat in ly, where I think as Michael Gove saw the writing on the wall and was like, Mom, I'm gone. Goodbye. farewell to Andrew Brin podcast favorite Andrew Brin, who came sixth in his seat
despite issuing his own election song, which if listeners you have not heard. As soon as this podcast is finished, please go to YouTube and listen to the Mighty Andrew Bridge, his official campaign song.
can we not have a bit of it?
Andrew Bridget, the mighty the second verse is about chem trails. It honestly, it just gets better. There's, six minutes of this
That's actually the kind of thing people are gonna be using AI for in the future. Farewell to a lot of, SMP mps. They fell to nine. Yeah. Yeah. It was nine in the end, wasn't it? seats in the end. that was an extraordinary for all the people who said Labour didn't do that. actually Scotland is the counterpoint to that, right? Where they were the, way to get rid of the SMP sort of domination. People did actually vote Labour in those seats
yeah. That was an amazing bit of the coverage is watching Nicholas Sturgeon, who'd, been hired to sit there all night. What did G say? And you just thought, this is very, masochistic. She's sitting there not having a great deal to say, about the rest of the country watching her own laptop and her life and career going up in tatters.
And John Sweeney said basically conceded, maybe he should have not protected his MSP who spent 11 grand on me. Yeah. On the roaming charges to watch the football.
these things are always easier in hindsight,
can I just point out with the s and p, they'd now got about the right number of people to fill a quite substantial camper. Van. Very strong.
Another one you might have missed, Ian Paisley, Jr. Oh, lost his seat to some people who were even more right wing than him in the tv. No, I, didn't see that. But a paisley has held that seat. It was held by his father from 1970 and him from 2010. So the uninterrupted paisley rule has been broken.
That is extraordinary. Actually, that's just too much
news.
Wait, I did not realize until Helen told me this morning that, Theresa Vill. Gorn, yeah. There coffee being swept off into the sea is like a noxious substance. I did spot that one.
But, there Villa, how No, she's nimby Theresa Vill has not only been struck out, but also Im, her legacy has been mated by Rachel Reeves on day three
Can I just point out one that people might have missed as well? I'm everyone who is all about Jacob re morgue, but in the neighboring constituency of North Somerset, Liam Fox off to spend more time with Adam Warty.
reading the Stephen Crab. Oh, I forgot him. But everyone's, no one's thought about him for little, perhaps, but he's gone. south Dorsett, Richard Drax, oh, Richard, full name Richard, groves in a plunket earn Earl Drax.
God, that must have taken a while to
read out on the platform, wasn't it? Mark Harper, transport Secretary gone Britain's until the election tallest MP. Daniel Kki. Oh, is
that
Yes. Gone. he was once done for threatening and intimidating a couple of members of staff and claimed it was partly thanks to his height. He said they felt scared rather than That's right. Yeah, they were. Grant Schapp gone.
Johnny Mercer gone, a frequent eye target and, a source of great dispute over his exact payment for representing those veterans who he represented in, many ways
Miriam Cates
Mary and Kates, who has also already offered her prescription for how the Tory party can get better. it's that sort of Liz Trus list cheek, isn't it? Do you not think a period of reflection might be appropriate on your part?
is it, is it Christian social conservative? It's more babies.
Yeah. Because it's more babies. There's always
more babies than Mary and Kates. so it is quite striking. make clear that, it's very sad when anyone ever loses their seat. No, it isn't.
Okay. Except for the staff. that's the thing. I think there are a lot of people who were pretty blameless, who worked really hard, slogged, a lot of campaign volunteers who've slogged around places. and I would like to pay a tribute to all of them and the magic of democracy.
Yes. And I, I was very, taken by seeing all the candidates on, the platform. There was a moment when there was a monster raving loony man, who was up there and I thought. Are you going to say that a lot of your, candidates turned out to be monsters and raving and loony and you'd vetted them all and it wasn't your fault. And obviously you are not raving or loony or a monster. but just seeing them all, it was just such a pleasure.
There is something about the fact that there was someone dressed as Elmo standing next to K Starer as he got his declaration. And I know it's the most sort of basic opinion, but I, like the fundamental lack of respect that indicates. Not in a mean way, but just in a kind of don't get above yourself. We know you're Prime Minister now, calm. No, absolutely. Just
to mention other novelty candidates, we should note that, rod Little lost his deposit standing for the STP.
I think we have a moment's sadness for that.
Silence.
It's fine. He's still got like 15 columns, actually. Great. By,
We should talk about some of the other, smaller parties and in the case that Lib Dems not so small anymore, parties who, who had good nights. reform uk Can't get away from 'em. I think the interesting thing about them, and we've spoken a bit about this, is that they've made a very, little bit of progress in the last 10 years since they were effectively utep. I know Farris says it's a new party, but it's not really. No.
a nice party. Party. It actually is the Brexit party, isn't it? it's just got a new ban on it. It's the same setup. it was set up as the Brexit
party. It in no way. A new party.
in 2014 there were 24 Kopp meps elected to the European Parliament, it came top of those you European parliamentary elections. Would you like to guess how many of them were still kopp meps by the end of that parliamentary term,
by the end of started term 24, I'll say down, I'll say down to 12, I'll say they halved
so, so much higher than the actual number
two.
Nearly there.
Three.
I'm nearly there. Four. Four, correct. Four. Wow. So this is your, Adam, this is your Galloway point as well, that you could, or the successor parties have traditionally been okay at winning seats, in particular elections, holding onto those mps. If you remember, one of them punched someone, one of them got done for Spence Regularities, and I think I would be interested to see whether or not all five of them make it the distance. This time. I would say the odds are against, yes, we've got Far
Lee Anderson and then two others, who,
one of whom is 38, which is good Lord, which is wrong in my view. Welcome
to the world of people being younger than you. Expect.
All that's like police officers
and doctors being younger than
Reform mps. I'm feeling
great relief that the Prime Minister is finally, older than me again after the last
two. Thank you very much. I keep being told and spent the whole evening being told that, Reform is absolutely huge. on TikTok, it's particularly large with 16 to 18 year olds, so if Secure is looking for an early pledge to drop, I think the luring, the voting age would be a good one. I'm just offering that now. Interesting.
Or reintroduce national service. Teach them all, some hard lessons about what's really needed to run a democracy. I think we'll be seeing that soon.
Okay. Either or.
But
I think the problem
is that Farage basically is, this is the bit he likes running for election and getting to make speeches and having everyone look at him and the actual working with other people is the bit that he really has a serious problem with. good luck having Lee Anderson and Nigel Farage is two egos in the same room, along with Richard Tyson at some point has.
Got to get cross with having to just do all the, dirty work that Nigel can't be bothered with and stand in for him for the bits he, doesn't like doing. Nigel gets in front of the cameras instead. but there's a history of this. This is, which is what Farage does. He gets elected to things and then he falls out horribly with people. he did this with Alan scad, the, founder of uk. He did it with Nick Sinclair, he fellow u Kpp, MEP, Marty Andreason.
Do you remember the old EU auditor who inexplicably having exposed all sorts of, corruption with eu, then decided to tie her flag to UKP, then fell out horribly with Nigel Farage, Neil Hamilton, and Jar Batten, and all of those people who were left in that rump of UK, who I think was still fighting a couple of seats this time. Yes, Anabel Fuller, his former mistress and spokeswoman and speech writer who now has. Not even no good words to say about him. Really, terrible things to say about him.
and in the end, he fell out. That kept so badly. he had to set up his own party, which isn't even a party as we keep saying, it's a limited company, which is a very, odd setup. And as you were saying, you pretend it's this sort of scrappy startup, and already I see they're talking about what they're gonna do at the next election and the Labour seats they're gonna be targeting in the next election. it's not just about elections. you are actually gonna have to represent some people in Claton.
Richard Tyson is gonna have to deal with farmers in, in, in Bolton and SGNA who are saying to him, we haven't got anyone to pick our crops anymore. What are you actually going to do about that? It's a bit like, those couples who spend tens of thousands of pounds on their weddings and then realize on the first day of the honeymoon that they don't actually like each other very much and don't wanna be married to each other.
it's a very good analogy 'cause In the days before the election reform candidates, a number of them were suddenly saying, oh God, I haven't joined that party, have I? Oh, I, didn't realize they were like that.
But you are right exactly about the, The fact that they now have a little taste of power, which has classically been an issue for smaller parties. And one of the reasons I think the Greens have managed to build themselves into actually a similar situation to the Lib Dems, right? Where they often become the kind of local NIMBY party is that some of the councils that they've held, they've built up their presence there and done really quite well.
There have been, I think the Brighton experience has been slightly less happy for them, but they have become a functional party at a local level, and they're able to put grassroots, campaigners down and really embed themselves in a couple of places. And it'd be very interesting to see whether or not reform can. Can do anything like that.
would suspect that Migel Farage will now go back off to the US to go and stand next to Donald Trump for a bit, which I'm not sure the people have collected and was what they entirely wanted for mp. But,
all he said of his intentions in Parliament is that he intends to be a bloody nuisance. but he's got four other people who are down to be a bloody nuisance. So yeah, good luck whipping that operation.
But on voting for celebrity basis, maybe his constituents, if they see him in America, next to Trump, will think even better of him.
yeah, if your MP is a member of the cabinet, for example, there is normally a little boost I think that comes associated with that. And you give them an allowance for not doing maybe as many. Constituency surgeries as you might hope they do, but there's a little bit attached to it might play fine.
after all the chat about Rishi Sinek not, being worried about holding Richmond North Allan, he actually held it completely huntly. It's from one of the safest tour seats that there, there still are. Yeah. So it turns out people do just quite like having the Prime Minister as there as they handed up.
and within a month this will be interesting. we'll see what, benefits Nigel Far has received over the last year and all his current, financial interests as well. 'cause it's, retroactive by 12 months. The register. Yeah. so not earnings, not everything he's earned, but all the, benefits received. So that will be great fun.
you are, you must be bookmarking some space in the magazine for that. I'm just, a wild stab in the dark that there might be some interesting stuff in there. There will be some
room, but there was a very good piece last time just about how extraordinary the funding is. for a four, it's a set of people in Mayfair, right? It really is. About as unc Claton as you could get. And we'll see if the base gets any wider, but at the moment it isn't.
We should talk about the Lib Dems as well. speaking of parties, which got roughly the same number of votes as reform, I don't
think they're gonna be so keen on proportional representation anymore. Are they? I think the, no. He fire might have gone out on that one.
he said, today we're gonna go for it, even if it means reform win more.
But they're the only party which has got a rough proportion of seats in the house commons to share of national vote. They're party doing it properly. The extraordinary
thing about this election, I think, was that people have learned how to work the first, first pass the post system. it's all, it's, it was very much all about tactical voting, I think, and getting the anti Tory candidate into, to, to, to a lot of constituencies right. Across Britain, wasn't it?
Jacob Res Morgan's evidence of that. And the Libs didn't campaign hard for that seat. And as I say, you would've expected that it was a Southwest seat, that it would go lib dem from Tory. And it didn't. And that's because there was a kind of assumption, there was a kind of tacit ag, not exactly agreement, but people, worked out who was closest and then it overtook it. Did it go
to Labour then? Yeah. Mark seat. Yeah, I assumed it would've gone lib dem, but solely because of geography. But there has been a lot of that. I think very few of the Lib dem, there was one target seat for both Labour and the Lib Doms, which was Nick Clegg's old seat Sheffield Hallam. Yeah. And was, that's the only one where they had a proper scrap over it. Really? Yeah.
And Labour were reasonably challenging in Whitney, which, in which George Osborne old advisor, Rupert Harrison didn't win. It went, it didn't go to him. So yeah, I mean there were, and there were quite a few three-Way Marginals, and there are now small seats that are, have been subject to huge swings back and forward in the last 10 years. There's very few now, what you would call ultra ultrasafe seats. Yeah.
I think that's really interesting. There's the last few years. People have spent time telling us that, it's all about identity politics now, and people seem to have abandoned those old sort of identities. If I'm a Labour person or I'm a lib de person and I will be them till I die in the same way that they have with, I suppose with newspapers, haven't they? people, no one defines themselves by the newspaper they read anymore, that those sorts of loyalties seem to have died away completely.
That was always the red wall kind of question was if you had been somebody who voted Labour all your life and you decided to flirt with reform or Boris Johnson's sort of Brexit story party, did you then snap back to being Labour? Or at that point, are you actually a swing voter? And I'd be interested to see what the analysis of it is, but I suggest probably that may be where it is. I don't, I, think you're right.
I think some of those things, those tribal odd, have been broken and I don't think you ever really go back to them in the same way.
I think the other thing that people forget as older people who tend to be doing the analysis on this kind of thing, like us, is that every generation that comes through sees things completely differently. the thing that amazed me and my first vote was in 1997 when there was absolutely a much more enthusiastic, view than there has been in this one of we've gotta get this awful knackered government out and get Labour in.
And I was really surprised found when my nieces and nephews came up to their first vote, which was in 2010. They felt exactly the same way, in the opposite direction, that they were just, my god, we've had Labour in for 13 years. They're so knackered and sleazy and we've gotta get them out.
And that, each generation does come through differently, which suggests to me, as you were saying, Ian, that the, the 16, 17 year olds, if they get votes, may see things very differently to how we expect them to.
One of the things I did notice with in a number of the V vox pops on the night was people saying, , I'm very disillusioned with the Tories, but I literally, I cannot vote Labour, so I'm voting lib de and you wanted to say, have you noticed how left wing the Lib Dems are now? The idea of Labour in your head isn't exactly what you would be hoping with the Lib Dems.
So yes, I think there's a lot of clever tactical voting, and I think there's a lot of slightly catching up tactical voting going on as well.
It wasn't as weird as 2015 when a lot of people said, we want to punish the Lib Dems for going into coalition with the Tories, so we're gonna vote Tory instead. That was the weirdest election we ever,
So that is enough. stamping on the sins of the last government. Let's, start Gloriously brick by brick. tearing down the next one.
What was that phrase from Kiss Down with the pale Sunlight of Hope. I thought that sort of summed it up really. It wasn't kinda yeah, things gonna get better. It was like, oh yeah. Things
might, things good. Yeah. Yeah. we've got a lot of, so hello then. A couple of hundred of them to be honest. I think it's the House of Commons with the most new members. Certainly in living or recent memory. I mean about half the MPS in House of Commons have not been House of Commons before.
Very rare. And the private eye series, new boys, new girls will start next issue and we'll run as long as they're still
there. We've got about 200 issues. What's that? It's 10 years. Yeah, that's about right. Decade of national renewal. There we go.
a lot of them are lobbyists in the Labour. It is really interesting to look at the breakdown. 'cause obviously it's costs a lot of money to run as an MP and have to be quite a masochist to do it. So that, I think that new Labour intake will be really interesting to scrutinize. and I about massive lib dem new intake too. very few survivors from the coalition still left. Yes. How was
their vetting? I have no idea. We heard a lot about Labour vetting all its candidates ex you know. Scrupulously to make sure that they were centrist dads and moms, but the lib, new lib des unknown quantity. I
know some of them might be in favor of building houses. They might slip through the net, you can say.
so there, there is there, anyone new who you are especially interested in the new intake?
my new person that I thought was a really interesting one is not a new mp. He's a new Lord. and that's James Timson, who, ki Samuel was one of the first, people he announced in the cabinet as a prisons and probation minister, which I just think is a really, interesting job. And this is getting experts in basically along announced him along with, Patrick Vallance coming in as Minister for Science and the new Attorney general whose name for a moment is Escape Perma Casey.
Yeah. Who was also extremely experienced lawyer rather than being God who else have we had in that post ELA Braman, who I think had done some photocopying in a lawyer's office once on work experience. and, and Liz Truss who, I don't think he'd done anything really.
No. It was pretty tough on, Emily Thornbury, who's been a pretty dogged shadow for the entirety of the miserable opposition years. And, but I think the idea was that he wanted someone who's a very recently practicing intern given that Stan was surprised himself of being a lawyer. I dunno if he's ever mentioned that he ran the DPP, I think he wanted somebody who was really up to date with their practice. So that's why Richard Herr got picked.
another great lord will be, Rishi Sinek's, former chief of Staff, Liam Booth Smith, who's been rewarded for his exquisite judgment in deciding to have an early election by going to the Lords. So that's nice.
So are you allowed to have a sort of leather jacket, in combination? Sorry, that's a very niche joke about what he likes wearing. Leather
Mond jacket. Yes.
But soon out, having said I am not Boris all along ends up with, a totally gratuitous period, which is just as embarrassing and pathetic. He can sit next to Ross Kesel and, Charlotte. Owen can't he? It's just,
but those political appointments, I thought they were the sort of after they'd normally after the end of term as it were. Or you do those. You do. You don't do the political ones in your dissolution, honest, wait.
but again, like all sort of traditions and protocols, they go out the window as soon as anyone cares. And presumably, AK thought if I don't give it to him now. Someone will sit on this and say, this is embarrassing. Do you reckon, I mean
it feels to me like another example of what kept being trotted up before the election, which was that S isn't very good at politics. Which again, feels,
doesn't matter anymore, does it?
no.
personally, if you were good at politics, you would've waited until the polls had closed to say, yeah, I'm giving a pur to Chris Grayling, wouldn't you? Oh. Oh. It was still half an hour where people could get down to the ballot box and register their dissenter. At that one,
I did a sort of 2:00 AM tweet that's can we park this and come back to it? the man who destroyed the probation service by carving it in half, I was extensively covering private eye siding to give all the high risk cases, keep them in the public one, and then carve off what he thought would be the easy, lucrative ones. The private sector. The private sector then says, oh, actually we can't, do this. It turns out it's probation servicing quite hard actually.
They then have to sew it all back together. in a decade of terrible ministers, Chris grading is the, just the worst. And you're not even
bringing up the fairies and you're not even bringing up, him banning reading and books in cells, all of his departments. a lot of them, Michael Gove had to go in and sort out, I didn't think I'd hear myself saying that. Hooray. No, it's extraordinary. And I'm, Much as I love the idea we all move on.
Let's, not quite forget, I'm never moving on. Hillary Cass of the cash report into youth gender services got one in a peer ridge and the dissolution on us. And that's nice. I think that's the same thing as Timson, right? Which is putting in people who are in civil society who have expertise relevant to legislation that you might be considering.
And we should say the reason just for any listeners who dunno, is that James Timson runs Timson, who, shoes meed, keys cut, who employ a lot of, recent ex prisoners and, and provide a lot of pathways back into the workplace after people have done time. So yes,
and he's also involved, I think with the provision, prison Reform Trust and, various other kind of big initiatives as well as those that he's doing through Timson, who are one of those real amazing slightly Victorian era employers, a bit like William Le or Titus Salt, or someone who, and
you are literally Andy looking at a soul. On my shoe, put on Tim's. and very well too.
And I think that's really interesting 'cause people initially wanted to portray that as a Labour going soft on crime, which is combined with the fact that Shaban and Mahmud, the new Justice Secretary, is going to have to early release a lot of people. That now that was just something that was going to have to happen because the prisons are overflowing and there hasn't been any work done in the six weeks that we were, in Perter because of the election campaign.
But the thing I thought was really smart about Timson is he has quite a few rules, right? He doesn't take men under 25 'cause he thinks that those pe those people aren't ready to turn their life around. They don't take sex offenders 'cause they're often very manipulative. So that he ha he has got a hardheaded realism. He's not star. I
does he's not Mrs. Jellybean. No, he's, absolutely.
So this is something that interests me, the sort of, appointing experts because it's very. Unfamiliar territory. it's
some, it's Gordon Brand's government of all the talents, if you remember. Yes. Which didn't necessarily always work out that well.
But that was a very late new Labour idea, if you like. And I just found myself wondering, is this interesting? Because this is a big change of government as opposed to simply one conservative prime ministers of the next Is, is this unusual? Will it keep happening? Because what we found in the late years of the Conservative government is there's lots of shuffling the deck chairs. you are slowly running out of people. Who you might be able to give ministerial jobs.
There are about a hundred ministerial jobs aren't there? Is that roughly the size of the, with senior and junior ministers? All in more even than
that. And then you can have almost any number that you want unpaid. There's only a count on the number of paid ministers in the payroll vote. Yeah, but you are right. If you've
got 300 and is it 26? If you've got a small majority, one third of your mps are gonna be ministers unless you appoint from outside. So after a certain number of years, you are inevitably gonna be moving people around, which is why you see Grant shas or Michael Gover, whoever go, round and round. Lots of different departments. Whereas here it felt like these people have been, mastering their brief or certainly in a shadow position for some years and then they get posted.
Is that something that we can expect to be a lasting change or is it just the consequence of having a big changeover?
I would say historically, there is always a moment where. Governments of whatever stripe say, it's time. We had someone who's actually done something. So you get in people from business, you, Mrs. Thatcher, loved Lord Young, if you remember, you bring me problems, he brings me solutions. I mean there was all that sort of reverence for business and expertise and I think it does go in waves. There was a blairite period where it was, we must have people who've done things.
the next Tory lot you remember, they got in the man who ran Asda, they got Archie. Norman was suddenly, this is the sort of person we wanted. Then we hit gove, which was, we don't want experts anymore. And do write in and correct me and say, that's unfair and not the full quote, but instead.
It was also the fact that you have to reward more and more people in order to buy them off. And that's one of the things that's interesting about this transition is that Stama has pointed lots of people who have shattered those briefs in opposition. There's been very few changes. He obviously had to swap out Ham Debonair and Jonathan Ashworth, who both didn't win their seats.
Annalise DODs has been downgraded, to only a minister of state, but, essentially it was a kind of trying to smoothly port over. However, that does leave approximately 19 billion Labour and peace without a job and with, with, and there'll be some select committee chairships coming up. There's not a lot of ball balls that he can buy them off with. Yeah. And people say, people go, oh, it's terrible, the super majority. It'll be so undemocratic.
And I just feel that someone who's covered the Labour Party for a long time, it's very possible for them to argue amongst themselves. I really wouldn't worry about that.
this is another thing I found interesting about, the appointment of Patrick Valance. 'cause he's been brought in as a science minister. he actually appeared on a podcast in November of the Carbon Trust Podcast and he was talking about how you apply the lessons of Covid and the vaccine program to net zero. And it just gives you a bit of an indication of the, things that matter most to them.
Firstly, it's an indication of how long these things have been in the works and being planned, as in it wasn't like the election happened. And then Star Phone up, Patrick Val had said, we've just thought of this. so his message is for things like you need to have clear, objective, measurable, time bound aims of what you're trying to do, whether that's vaccines or net zero, whatever it is. And that seems to be a big thing for the Stama project is measurable, deliverable, but measurable.
They haven't given an awful lot of, concrete commitments about when things are gonna get better, but supposedly that's part of it. And the other thing he said was, bring experts into government quickly. Weeks, not months or years. So his own advice, it's has come in handy there.
It's the point you can do it as well, isn't it? When you have got that big majority and they're fresh in actually, if you are ever gonna be able to have a proper, sensible, mature conversation about prisons, which don't work and have never worked. And it's insane that we are spending so much money on putting people in prison and bring, and so they can become worse criminals and then bring them out again. now is the only possible time to do it.
And maybe you can defy all of that kind of coverage, which is gonna say, oh, soft on crime, soft on prisons and. Can do something like that.
What lags is gonna start to pay, that only appears in tabloid stories about prisons. do you want a quick, Labour Nepo watch? Yeah. Sue Gray's son is now an mp.
Okay.
Yeah. Morgan McSweeney, who is the kind of architect of Star Warism, his wife is now an MP for a Scottish constituency. But sadly for me, as I think, as I was hoping this to happen, no, Joe Dcy, who is Mr. West Streeting, I'd hope that we'd have the first pair of married men in the Commons. And that's, we haven't yet had that. Of course, we had Yvette Cooper and Ed Balls, if you remember, as the first married couple in the cabinet. But
I am looking forward to Yvette Cooper being, giving a real grilling on Good morning. It's so weird. these, boats, they haven't stopped. We're a week in Yvette. Come on. What's the plan? What's the plan? Yvette, what is the plan?
Hey,
speaking of faces from the past, just in case I myself am looking too story Eyed about James Timson and Patrick Lance and all these kind of experts coming in within 12 hours. my heart sunk when I saw a couple of old faces back in the cabinet. We've got Jackie Smith, former home secretary, and, wife, of porn user on expenses. And another man who's featured in the eye an awful lot over the years. Alan Melbourne.
Yes. Who used, he was one of those many Blair Wright people like John Reed who just used to get shuffled around different departments, didn't he? And seemed, to be the answer to everything. Let's just give it to Alan Melbourne. So go on,
tell us what you've got against Alan Melbourne.
he was health secretary from 1999 until 2003. quite instrumental during his time in health, pushing PFI into hospitals and, opening up a lot of private contracts, a lot of outsourcing, this kind of thing. And his most recent appearances in the eye have been because he's made a number of. He's written articles.
He's appeared on news night and every time he's, he's Alan Melbourne, former health secretary rather than Alan Melbourne, who is also, the chair of the advisory board at the private equity group. Bridgepoint, director of Medical Technic firm Human Therapeutics. Doesn't sound sinister at all. Director of a Spanish health giant senior advisor to PWCs UK Government and health industries. Practice lots and lots of jobs.
all you know, private health and pushing private health and saying, look, don't be afraid of it is wonderful.
Really. And the, pieces always say, could, someone point out that he has a vested interest here? And when the broadcasters have him on, could he mention he's a pretty major lobbyist either for his own interests or for other people's. And he's not just the health secretary who, from a Labour government who you'd imagine would have a particular view, but they never do. so we have to keep repeating the piece anyway, now he's back in Goman.
That's very interesting to me because I think it has been, I remember reading Barbara Castle biographies about pay beds in the, 1970s. They're like, the amount of private intrusion you have into health service is always going to be something that is a thorn in the side of the Labour government. West Street has said that he's open to it.
he'd said if he, hadn't been able to get his scan for his kidney cancer through the NHS if, he had to wait a month, he said at that point he would've gone private. So he's definitely in a different place to other people.
Yeah. I think also honestly in Islington North where Jeremy Corbin held onto his seat as an independent, the fact that he was running against a guy who ran a private chain of IVF clinics was actually something that he really made a big deal about in the campaign literature about, I'm in favor of the NHS, this is guy's a private healthcare provider.
So it's a point where actually Labour's base and, you know, all I'm say not exactly base it's campaigning base, maybe very outta tune with what they end up now doing in government. And that could be a real so spot as we go on. That's interesting.
Can I just make the point that I was try and make, whenever we get in front of one of these select committees, I don't mind people being private health providers and running businesses, do they also have to be in the government? Could, we not have people in the government who don't own large companies that are gonna benefit and then they could make the decision?
And if their decision we're treating decision is that we need more private healthcare owners, then we could appoint one that says, isn't. In the government. why can't we split these things?
Sounds very inefficient. Ian, why? just one person. I just like to bring
up one of my other bug bears as well, which is the, the, require, the requirements of the Register of Lord's interests are a lot less stringent than the ones at the House of Common. You don't have to declare, figures as, as strictly as you do. if you are an mp, which is something I've been saying for years, really, needs to be tightened up because there's no reason for it.
But if you're gonna start appointing junior ministers or even senior ministers from the House of Lords, then you know, with business interest, then you really have to have a look at that.
Is that why we didn't learn maybe as much as we could have done about David Cameron's interest? 'cause I think there was lots of interest in his, interest in China, for example, and there was the whole Green Hill. Alvaro.
Yeah. And John Prescott, we never found out exactly how much he was being paid for his Sunday Mirror column at the time when he was inveigling against, the news international newspapers, their rivals. For their involvement in phone hacking and ignoring his own newspaper groups. Yeah. There were all sorts of things.
We never found out what Nadine Dories was getting for her various talk TV and mail gigs. But that's 'cause she didn't declare, and then left. yeah. I, hope
Channel four are happy with whatever they paid her for election night.
we should wrap up. Sure. Are there any more things looking forward, any more fights that you are looking forward to or any more discussions that you're looking forward to seeing how they play out over the next couple of years?
First big Labour scandal. And I'm not gonna predict what it is, but we'll have no, you've gotta predict we'll have one before Christmas. I, remember, so I started here on work experience late 97 when it was a very odd time for the eye because readers were oh no, that's, that it's all over now. We don't want, there's no more sleeves or anything. This is this lovely, shiny new government. Give them a chance. And I remember the, do you remember the first big one, Ian was the, the tobacco donations?
Yes. Bernie Eckles, Mr. Eckles. And there was suddenly this moment, that's when Tony Blair had to
wait for younger listeners. For young listeners, please.
they were cracking down on tobacco advertising, but they were, they decided to have a loophole that would allow it them still to sponsor Formula One. proprietor Bernie Leston, who it turned out, had given I think a million pounds to Labour. Completely, coincidentally, of course. And it was that moment when Tony Blair was ordered by Alistair Campbell, who was the one giving the orders at that point, to, to go on the BBC and take a kicking.
And he said, famously, I think people know I'm a pretty straight kind of guy. And it was the moment when people were asked, maybe actually he wasn't.
No, you've just literally done that. I'm a black as white. Two plus two is fine kind of guy. which to be fair he was really good at. But that's why he went on and took the kicking 'cause Gordon Brown, who was absolutely incensed and devastated and thought, I can't believe we've got to do this. this is what I didn't want to go into politics for. he didn't,
can I nominate housing? Which, as is a pet issue of mine. And there's a really interesting thing where Rachel Reeves' first speech as chancellor was basically like build, baby build. So there's no more ban on shore wind farms, for example. She's, Angela Rainer, who will now be in charge of housing policy, essentially, is gonna call in a couple of the developments that were blocked. They're gonna try and, for example, ung, near where my parents live, Worcestershire Parkway Station.
There's bizarrely a park and ride station in the middle of nowhere. Waiting for the housing development that you always assumed would come round it and has nonetheless not appeared. So they are really determined to block what has now been called the kind of Anti-Growth Coalition. Theresa Vill was like the arch NIMBY lost her seat. And that's the interesting thing there.
And it, and I think it's particularly interesting fight because it shows the split between the kind of much older Tory voting base who are largely very worried about protecting their asset prices and communities and the Tory think tanks who are all like, but we need some economic growth. This is the only one of the only ways to do it.
So all the energy in the kind of Tory intellectual right, which is mostly people under 50, are all desperate to build some houses, whereas the Tory voters are very anti and and quite worried about it.
that was a Griselda cartoon in this very issue, which is someone with a red rosette saying, build more houses now. And someone with a blue rosette saying, build more houses somewhere else,
And my, my, my other interesting thing, I'm, I just fascinated by it. It's a very small issue, but it's the, refurbishment of parliament. Is anyone going to actually take it on? Is it because it's been kicked down the road many, years in a row and,
riddled with mice and I think at some point it might burn down. that it's the traditional way that Parliament gets rebuilt is that every, so it just burns down and we have another one.
do we just put them all in a shed with, computer links and, it'll be fine and we turn, the house bomb into a big museum or a theme park or a karaoke night or, and Davey
would love it if it was a theme park. He, he could be Mc, ed
Davies' House of Fun. He's the only MP's gonna have a space hopper instead of a green bench to sit on. that's your option. Yeah. And I think people will fight that, not on cost, which is absolutely unbelievable. But on a sort of how moth eaten are we and, is moth eaten? Okay. what traditional value is there in that, if like me or quite keen on Puget and the building as a whole, it'll be difficult.
isn't it? One of the issues is that there aren't enough seats now for all of the Labour mps on one side of the house. So if ever there
was a time, the whole thing will tilt over. it'll be unbalanced and it will just start listing. That's it from us. Thank you so much for listening. if you've enjoyed this episode, there is a magazine, actually, a related magazine called Private Eye. Go and buy it or go to private hyphen I dot go UK and get yourself a subscription which is reasonably priced, and you'll be making a long-term decision for a brighter future. thanks to Ian, Helen, and Adam. Thank you to you for listening.
Thank you to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio who as always produced this episode. Goodbye.