130: Merry Quizmas

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 Eye Office with Helen Lewis and Adam Macqueen, and we are here for our traditional... it's the second year we've done it, so it's now traditional... post Christmas, pre New year quiz of the year's news. This is hugely exciting. We've prepared a round each, there is fierce competition in the air. The reigning is Adam Macqueen. Okay. Well you don't need to bang on about it, but Yes.

And now my horrible competitive side will be able to be shown to read it so they can uh, fantastic. Leave and never listen to us again. Now they discovered a monster out.

So we've got three rounds, all very different, but all covering various different aspects of the year's news and the year's news in the eye. So we're gonna start with Helen's round. Helen, what's the name of your round please?

Private eye quiz.

That's good. That's good, isn't it? It's very good. Okay. I have to rename mine. That's, oh no,

mine is, mine. Is the air in politics.

Oh, lovely. Okay. That's my theme. Uh, and are we going to, jingle our jingles or you onto

Jingle Dingers? Right. Okay. Well, here we go. I can offer you, Adam has brought a Santa Action action. This is, this is the most exciting bit for me. You can have,

oh, that's your hat. Okay. The s

slave s good. Andy's just snatched those straight off mention. Terrific. Right. Okay. I've met my best. We have what I like to think of as the, uh, there's the slays ring. Are you listening? The clanging chimes of doom.

Yeah.

The

hand bell. I like that. I want I, or what I'm

gonna call Oh, oh. Uh, the, the holiday hooter.

I'll have the, I'll have the teacher's bell Right. I'm,

I'm hooting.

So let's go forward the year in politics. Helen, take it away.

Okay. Reality TV star Jacob Rees Mogg's sixth child, famously is called Sixteth. Name any of his other five children.

Adam. Peter,

correct.

That's the one that went, um, canvassing with him. There we go. And it looks like a, like, like a miniature version of him. Oh. And then, and then we, we, we put him in the magazine with a speech bubble and everyone said, that's very, very cruel to expose that child to ridicule. We didn't do that. He did that. He took him out on the streets of, uh, Froom.

I was trying to think of any of the boys' names. 'cause he's got I think five boys and one girl. And the boys are all called Peter Dominicus'. That's Wil frea, the offer fee

wildebeest,

I think. And actually, and the girl is called Mary. Yes. The girl I saw Mary should have said Mary. Damn it.

Mary Peter, Thomas, Anselm and Alfred. He went for a sort of saint theme. An theme. Yeah. Anselm. Very Catholic saint. Okay. According to the reality TV show, which one of these relics does Reese Mag not claim to own? Okay. A, a fragment of the true cross. B, a fragment of the crown of thorns. CA fragment of St. Peter's foreskin or DA wisp of Thomas Moore's hair shirt Slay wells.

I think it's the foreskin

it. Yes, correct. He does claim to own all of the others. But Yes. Yeah. A bit of Thomas Moore's hair shirt. Is it? That's a great relic, to be fair. 'cause that's probably actually genuine.

Yeah. And the crown of thorns, I thought was in Notre Dame.

I mean, there was, weren't there notoriously three arms of St. James for quite a long time. There's

enough crowns of thos to make a pretty substantial hedge. I, yes.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Okay. But the hair shot is good. Yeah,

no, I, I would, I would go and see if I went round the Reese mos. If you, you know, if you're listening, Jacob Coffee, Okay, next question. How many times, and you're both gonna get a go at this, and whoever's closest wins the point. How many times did Rachel Reeves say the phrase working people in her budget speech, according to the official transcript, now it's harder to be the one who goes first. So reigning champion Adam is gonna be handicapped by having to go first.

I'm

gonna go for

14. I'm gonna go higher. I'm gonna say 23 please.

According to the official transcript, 13

oh

oh. Well done Adam. Thank you.

You, I mean, you played that badly. If you thought it was more, you should have gone for 15 and then you'd had all of those ones.

I know, but during my time as an economist at the Bank of England, uh, I learned to,

Following the Tory leadership race, what job does breakout star Mel Stride hold?

Um, that too. Very tense. I was such a hard-hearted ho. I'm gonna, I'm gonna hand

it over to my man with the bells.

Is he shadow Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster?

No, he's real shadow Chancellor of the Ex Checker. No, that's what I was gonna, he's seconder most important chop in the Tory party. Wow. Mark, let me down. Yeah. Well, I knew

that's amazing. Oh, I'm glad I've always been a stride booster.

I also found out that his daughters are called Natasha Ophelia and Elin. It's lovely. This is sort of a theme

to this quiz so far, isn't you? It politician's kids' names. Well, I just,

I, the only reason I wrote that is because Ed Balls has a joke that he often tells in private, which is that if you feel sorry for me, you should feel much more sorry for my sister of failure.

Oh, very good. Yeah.

Uh, lemme we go, that probably gets air on political currency a lot. Oh. In his conference speech in the autumn, who did Kirstan Promise to bring home?

Oh,

half-hearted. Honk

football.

No.

uh. Jimmy Ly,

no. Oh. Oh. Can have another,

uh, a dog for his kids and then he bought 'em a cat instead.

No. Remember when I said before we started recording that I tested these on my husband? There was one that was so basic that I thought, well, that's you're good. And that we did still didn't get that one. It was this one is this one. He promised to bring him the sausages. Oh, of course he did. Yes. Yeah,

yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Aw.

Which of these was not a real lib de election stunt by a Davy. A playing. We will rock you in a care home. B. Visiting a safari park with a monkey supply had been affected by Brexit. C. Getting a summer makeover on this morning, including a Panama hat and d launching his manifesto on the teacups at Thorpe Park.

Ooh. So

I'm gonna need to jingle.

I definitely saw him do the, we will rock you at a care home.

Yes.

Yeah. I feel like I've seen him dressed as the man from Del Monte on this morning. Yeah, I remember that one. Yeah. And the teacups feels very a Dave, so I'm gonna say he did not go to a safari park where the monkeys play had been affected by Brexit.

Correct. Although I would say that. Zoos have been affected by delays in Brexit. There was a story about one of those, um, andan spectacle bears. The type of that Paddington is, oh yeah, it's been waiting for its export paperwork now for some years.

Is it trying to leave?

Yeah. Is that where Ed Davey draws the line? Because I don't, I won't

work with children and animals. I might look stupid.

When a reform candidate was secretly recorded, making racist and homophobic comments, what was Nigel Farage's Innocent explanation for the man's actions. He was just drunk. Who among us? Uh, he claimed that he was possibly an actor hired by Channel Four to discredit Reform. Did? Yes. Yeah. From the moment he walked in, the whole thing was an act. And then he tried to get reform canes to say rude and abusive things.

Do we know who the actor was? Is it someone famous? BET CU Olivia Coleman. Yeah. It is it weird that they thought you'd get away with it?

Toby Jones, he's in everything. Um, last one. Why did the former SMP Health Minister Michael Matheson have his hollyood salary withdrawn for 54 days this year, losing him 11,000 pounds.

It's your favorite story, isn't it? It's the iPad that he took on holiday to Spain. Was it Morocco? Morocco, yes. And then let his kids use the wifi on it to watch the data roaming the data roaming to watch the football. Yes. And then he came and then tried to claim it as an expense. Yes. It

was constituency business. Yeah, they, they docked his salary by the equivalent to the 11 grand expenses bill he put on for using a data ro in Morocco. It's just the

most dad scandal ever, isn't it? That he didn't know how to switch the data roam.

You can set limits.

Yeah. 25 pound limit and it sends you a text message going, you absolutely sure you wanna carry on streaming the, the to witch witches kids said, yes, we do. Yeah. That is so funny. It's not just doing that, it's just thinking, well, I'm not paying that bill. Bloody kids. Christmas. That's Christmas elf. What are the, how do the scores stand?

halfhearted honk has four. And he has three.

Oh, okay.

Well, I'm gonna hand over to you, Andy, for a cultural round.

That's right. Uh,

I'm just testing the bell. Yeah. Okay.

Okay, so this round is called the Culture Wars round, and I have taken, 10 extracts from. The diary that private eye publishes every fortnight as told to Craig Brown. And I would like you to tell me who is speaking, or rather who Craig is channeling.

I feel like this is one of those ones that is gonna be a lot harder than you think from the outside. Mm-hmm. And we're gonna just feel profoundly embarrassed throughout.

I think that's probably true. Craig will probably complain. Craig will Sue.

I do read.

Okay. I'll start and then, you know, we'll see how we get along. And if, if things are drastically difficult by question three I'll start doing accents and giving clues. Okay? Right. Okay. It is a crying shame that Lee Anderson never married Kate Middleton. What an amazing power couple They would make Lee with his strong manly opinions. Chisel draw, genuine concern for others and can do personality God's

Alison Pearson. Well done.

Um. I'll just finish it off 'cause it's such a great line, Kate, with her lustrous legs. Perfect figure and ability to charm the . Proverbial birds outta the trees. If there were any trees left is the hard left. Councils lop them all down to make way for compulsory trans clinics. Okay, Craig, being add. Well done, Adam. Brilliant.

that's unfair though. 'cause you have probably read. You are probably the only person alive who has read every Allison Pearson column. Oh God, I'm not that mad.

Alright, here's one. It's absolutely disgusting in this day and age, and yet another sign of the unspeakable depravity of this Tory government that anyone with the courage to identify as a woman in the 21st century is being forcibly excluded from entering the so-called Garrick Club on pain of death, willing for a leftwing firebrand.

Go on,

Helen. Take it. Helen.

I'm gonna say Billy Bragg.

No, Adam Little Owen Jones is Little Owen Jones.

I knew it was Owen Jones, but I didn't wanna be like, don't look like the person who's obsessed with Owen Jones that's why I was letting

you have it.

That was a pity one.

Here's the next one. Sadly, I hadn't been long in Downing Street before. I realized it was no place for a Prime Minister. I was literally being held prisoner with a gun to my head by an establishment, cabal Helen. Trust it's trust.

It's gotta be trust.

next up, if I could own one painting, it would be the Mona Lisa. She reminds me of myself when I was her age. Quiet and thoughtful. Yes. But also overflowing with youthful energy and idealism and full of the zeal to create a truly global brand. Yep.

Is it Megan?

It's not Megan. It sounds very Meghan. I was thinking you would guess Megan. Adam, who makes big global brands real. I, I can only think of Victoria Beckham. It's Richard Branson. Ah,

yeah, no, recently. Do you know what I was thinking of that? Did you see that recently? That there was a, with Victoria Beckham did a launch of something and she brought Harper along, who's the youngest of the children, the only girl. And she said, what's your, what's your Christmas wish? And Harper Beckham said One day, I would like to create an enormous brand just. Such, oh, we had only the child of those particular parents would ever

say that hope to achieve synergy between many of my So veb. Yeah.

Uh, okay. Next up, there's an epidemic of de fever, sweeping the world, wreaking havoc. I've never succumbeded de touch wood, but last week I felt a slight kettle in my throat. Through a mix of determination and working class guts I came through, but truly I fear for today's coddled millennials.

Is that an Nadine?

It's an Aine. Oh, that's Nadine Dorie. It was the coddled

millennials. I was just like, that's a Nadine, isn't it? Come on.

Really? This is all just a declaration of how good Craig is or mm-hmm. How good he is at channeling all of these people. He's extraordinary. okay. Stuff and nonsense. That's my reaction to the so-called stars non-entities, more like who whinge about so-called abuse on strictly come dancing. They clearly never fought in the battle of the P som, where plucky young soldiers face the choice of death at enemy hands or drawn out misery and filthy rat filled trenches.

Oh, that could be, that's the trouble is that is a kind of whole style of colorism.

I'm gonna, it is, it is a columnist.

I'm gonna go Clarkson.

It's, can I can I guess older? Yeah, go on.

Oh, older than Clarkson. I was gonna say Amanda Patel. I'd say a bit closer. We're

gonna get a letter from her library lawyer, Sarai. It turns out that she's not older than Clarkson.

It's she, this lady straddles the divide between, uh, columnist and politician.

Oh,

and is it strictly old hand herself? Anne Whitaker. It's Anne Whitaker. There we go. Well done. I feel like I was giving those clues even handed. They

recently act from the Daily Express. Oh. That was a nicely ambiguous noise.

Oh, that's brand new information.

I continue to be appalled.

That's great. We should just leave it there

by assaults on traditional family values. Reports coming through of rabid left wing Muslim London mayor. Sad it can't forcing a penguin at the London Aquarium to wear pink to conform with L-G-B-T-Q Zoo quotas. No sik. This is not politics. It is bullying. Pure and simple.

I am gonna go little on that one.

Not bad, but it's not little.

They all sound like Alison Innocent. I know, I know, I know. It's a, it really shows you, there is a style of COism, which is like a sort of y or Y as everybody gay now because of woke.

Yeah. It's another telegraphy voice.

Alistair Heath, Sherell Jacobs, I, I'm gonna have all the crazies. I'm gonna

be Alistair Heath. Alistair Keath would be like, and that's why the Doom Apocalypse is A upon us. Yes. Yeah.

It's Isabelle Oak Shot. Oh,

underrated choice there. Yeah.

Okay, Here's the penultimate one. if there is a Democratic Party victory? Their stated aim is to force us to speak Mexican and Western sombreros in our homes and workplaces. Have you seen how big sombreros are? This disastrous policy would mean widening our doorways at the cost of billions. So we could go in and out of our houses in this cumbersome headgear.

I remember this one. I'm thinking how funny it was, but I'm gonna say, I know Lionel Shriver did a whole column about wearing a sombrero. So I'm gonna say Lionel Shriver. It's

not Shriver. Is it? Mask? It's mask. Oh, oh yeah. Done.

You knew it was mask. Oh,

okay. And here's the final one. There's a portly, bumblebee caught in my kitchen, skylight.

It's,

it's nine days later.

That one's the one that's got all the adjectives in it, isn't it? I just really love it, legislator.

I know because so many people contacted me for about a month before. I'm just saying, please make Craig do the legislator book. Please make Craig do the legislator. It's fantastic. There's,

it's such a, like, people, people wrote letters in about specifically this called the

Musky charred Cardamom scented. That's it. Yeah. After

a struggle, I rescue him with a long handled feather duster from Fukuoka, a cherished present from a dear friend and gently place him in my skillet.

Yes, he cooks the beer served, served with a

tart Gaby puree and Sego parsley. Bumblebee Fritter makes a perfect midmorning snack. Lovely. Well, well done Everbody. What Tourers are paying the big bucks for, isn't it?

So Adam scores nine, but now he's outta the game 'cause he's doing the next round. Right. So he's frozen. That's locked in. He's peaked. Andy still has three Tell is on two.

I

think we all know who's gonna win this one,

don't we? We never

know if you, if you get every question right in my round, So it's time for my round, uh, which is called The Year in Hackery. Are you ready? Weapons at the ready, please. Why did Mr. Justice Fan Court run through a catalog of the eyes? Golden oldies at the high court, and who as the first edition of the I in 2024 recorded was whinging about not being invited.

go for it. It was a half holiday and they were, this was their version of watching a video in court was to go through great legal, uh, stuff that's been covered in, in board games. Yeah, that's, that's my, that's my answer. Watching the Lion King. Yeah, exactly.

I'll give you a clue. it's got a royal connection and, uh, the person who was winding about not being invited never gets seen anywhere very much these days.

Prince Andrew?

Nope.

Oh,

the other one. Prince Harry. That's the one. Hey, it was the case of the duke of Sussex and others versus Mirror Group newspapers, which covered Mi Piers Morgan's Boose by having heard Paul McCartney's voicemail messages to his then wife had the mails in 2011 and the occasion in 2002 when Morgan detailed exactly how easy it was to hack mobile phone messages. Do you remember who he who he unveiled that to?

Jeremy Paxman.

Jeremy Paxman, Rick Johnson. And. So Victor Blank, the chairman. The chairman, Ofer group, newspapers at a lunch. Amazing, weird lunch to be having. But anyway, yes, all, all of these were stories that the I had revealed up to 13 years earlier and they all got an earring in court. Fantastic. And moron reacted by whinging.

I think they're not doing tainted blood.

And I'm gonna say

I think they're not

doing Herod's and I'm afraid the point goes to Andy. Yeah, that's good. As yet, no plans to dramatize the fired story. That's only because the, uh, crown on Netflix arranged such a good job. Yeah. Of dramatizing exactly what he was like. Um, spare of thought for the act. Nadeem Salah, by the way, who used to do one man shows. Uh, pretending to be, uh, Mohammed f Ed and has now completely lost that, that, that aspect of his enjoyment of his enjoy. Think about all the

queen lookalikes who no longer get any work. Unless you, they want them to have beyond the grave opening a leisure center or something. Well, those

poor people who were doing Gary Glitter tribute acts up until about 1999.

My Michael go work has tail off completely. It's been very sad since the election.

We should send you, put some glasses on you and send you into the Spectator office. See it takes them to you. Really cheap version of Ludwig. He

can go and sort of do edit bit of copy.

In February, the reports to the government commissioned into the T side Regeneration Project championed by Tory Mayor Ben Houchin, Lord Houchin, as he now was published. As the eye showed, it confirmed that dubious deals had been struck with no formal decision making process. The Board of the South Teas Development Corporation misled and that taxpayers were taking all the risk on the project. While the businessmen involved had no liability at all, but had extracted tens of millions from it.

of a comment, this question,

how did Houchin react to these findings?

Uh, he, he claimed it was a total of indication. The report and did it was actually very

supportive. Absolutely. It, the phrase I've got written down here is Dickie Boo. He just said everything was fine. Nothing to see. The people of Tee Side Darlington and Hartley Polk can welcome this investigation, which sets out in black and white that there is no corruption or illegality at Tea Works. And of course, because, you know, our private eye stories have such an enormous effect. They did appear to agree voting in back in as Tea Valley Mayor in May.

Yay.

It's just a deferred retribution,

that's all it is.

30 years time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just your way Come from

um, I'm loving this round of, um,

extremely boring questions. No, I

was gonna say vengeance concealed us quiz. It's brilliant. See, this is the, aren't we great? Right?

Yeah.

Oh, okay. Another long question. No, I,

no, the questions have been lovely. That one I have. That one was a little chewy. Good luck getting,

good luck getting any points. Helen. No, you're think we've ascertains. You're

the only one who can take down Adam. I'm entirely, I'm throwing this match.

George Galloway, yes. Won the Rochdale by-election for his workers Party of Britain and greeted private eyes. Coverage of Theophile, outpourings of some of his supporters by tweeting at us.

Cry more?

Cry war. Cry more. Oh, cry more. No, very much not. Not cry, cry war. 'cause then he was defeated by Paul War at the general election that as the labor candidate. But was Galloway's reign in Rochdale longer or shorter than Michelle Bar's equally? Unedifying stint as French Prime Minister. Ooh. I mean, you're both gonna get a go at this. I'm gonna

say, I'm gonna go longer.

and I'll say shorter. Okay, Andy, you was just wrong. And, uh, it was, it was very, very well done. Helen. Longer, uh, Galloway lasted 126 days as MP for Rochdale, which is approximately two and a half Liz trusses, whereas Barney managed, I mean, in 90 days as French Prime Minister, which is 1.8 Liz Trusses, or 360 periods of Martial Marshall, Lawrence, South Korea.

That's very good.

Oh God. These are all really, really long questions. Um, I try, try and edit as I go.

No, I like that. Other people have quizzes that are just simple questions. Yours come with footnotes. I love explanatory diagrams. All of the

questions are a statement of, of one length or another, followed by, but how

There's no, but in this one. in May. Before anyone had found out what Hugh Edwards had really been up to, the son declared it's disgusted at the BBC keeping details of its internal investigation into what they had reported secret. The eye pointed out the son was being equally quiet about his own internal investigation into his former star employee Dan Wooten and his cat fishing of colleagues who alleged he'd tricked them into sending him compromising photos and videos of themselves.

hang when it reacted to what Reacted. Reacted

to the eye coming out saying they were keeping things secret. Uh ooh. That was kind of joint. We'll let you go, Andy.

Yeah.

They completely ignored it. Amazingly they didn't in this case,

didn't they? Fire Dun wouldn't.

He was long gone from the sun by this one. Okay. He'd he'd been fired by GB News by this point. No. The informed men who'd given evidence to the inquiry that they were gonna continue to keep all the details a secret and not even tell them what had been found out. Uh, but this hasn't since you asked Stop the Sun from Demon to know why the BBC didn't do something about Greg Wallace's behavior sooner.

Can I say it's very hard to concentrate what Andy's Andy has. His, his, his bells are rocking. Okay. In a pleasant way. I'm sorry. I'll ready

with those bells. Andy, he's putting me off because the actual question is coming up. When did I readers first find out who was paying for Starman suit and suits and glasses? Ooh. Um, go on Helen,

earlier. You wanna

go for

a month? That's all

I'll say. February. It was in June, a month before election day. Oh, okay. I was right. You were wrong. It was far from the first time we'd highlighted his freebies because in October, 2023, we pointed out that the 4,500 pound bill for his family summer holiday had been picked up by, of all places, a Swansea Van leasing company. And we said at the that point, his freeloading is starting to look rather conspicuous. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You heard it here first.

Oh, it's a trick question. I think

it's a trick question. They're all. They are not all Alistair Heath columns. Oh

dang. Okay. I'm gonna go for number two. Whatever that one was.

No, it wasn't. It was number four because that was his colleague Sharel Jacob, December, 2023. All genuine telegraph ones though. Fantastic.

Oh my God. Is upon us. I mean, amazing. Incredible. You just, the way you file

copy under

those circumstances, really,

that's professionalism. Yeah, absolutely. I just like the idea of Alistair Heath going about his business like his, you know, his wife hasn't put the bins out and he's just like, oh my goodness. Upon us, the bins have not been put out.

In August, the eye pointed out to the department for Science, innovation and Technology that Simon Bladon, the former chairman of Fujitsu uk, who is now serving as the chair of their broadband body building digital UK, had been misleading them about his involvement in the horizon scandal at the post office. What happened next? go on.

He was fired. He was,

yeah. Oh, well, he lost his job. They, the DSIT announced that Simon Blagdon has resigned as chair of BD UK on 18th of July, 2024 with immediate effect. So a rare quick result for the terrific.

Yeah.

Only took however many years we covering office scandal to actually get one of those. Also, in August, one of Britain's biggest manufacturers announced a new sustainable product that we believe is both is safer for both the user and the environment. Who were they and what was it?

could you give us a clue? Is it to be used in the home? Oh, uh, B bombs Smart. B uh, B uh, BAE or didn't do that. It was, it was BAE. It was one of the big Lockheed Martin, one of the big weapons manufacturers. They said, we've got a fantastic new bomb that is gonna leave much less plastic pollution in the ground of the crater. It's close enough.

It was BAE systems. It was the first of their new gen, next generation munitions, which was a 155 millimeter shell, the kind being used heavily in Israel's war in Gaza, but it would now feature a lead free explosive.

Oh, that's. Very sustainable, very, very happy New

Year's. So you won't, it's gonna be available to all war mongers sanctions, permitting from 2025.

You won't get lead poisoning basically as you, uh, yeah. Yeah. That's it. You will, will be dead.

Yeah. You won't be poisoned with lead, so that's nice. Uh, okay, this is my final question for you. In September, ACC claim went viral on Twitter, the social media site, now known as x. Because it's toxic and everyone's left it private eye. Haven't printed a word about Charlotte Owen. Is this a coincidence or a super injunction? How many times had private eye printed words or put them out on this very podcast about Charlotte Owen being appointed to the Lords? At that point,

I'm gonna say we did it four times

and I'll say three. Okay, well you're both wrong 'cause it's five Oh.

Helen's first, the first

way back in September, 2022, and one episode of this very podcast in February. In which we discussed at length. Fact, there definitely wasn't a super injunction. Covering the appointment of Charlotte Owen into the Lords and her super injunctions really aren't a big thing anymore and haven't been for years. But no one,

once again, I say it didn't matter. And proof of how journalism works, simply no one cared.

So the winner there, definitely not the I, except in one case, Simon Blagdon. Brilliant one, are the schools Christmas Health.

Helen has five. Yeah, Andy has eight. Gets it with mine. Thank you. Woo.

Wow. I think if you win next year, Adam, you get to take the podcast home for kids. Well,

like the school hamster

Christmas holiday, so you gotta feed it. Um oh. Well thank you so much for playing everybody. Thank you for listening at home. We hope you've enjoyed 2024. And we hope you enjoy it 2025 even more, and keep on reading the eye and listening to this wonderful podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks as always, to Matt Hill of Ruth and Cordio for producing. Bye for now and happy New Year when it comes,