173: The Antisemitism Spectrum

Uh, it seems increasingly quite hard for the conservatives in labor. Traditionally quite big missed out the Lib Dems again. I'm sorry. I'm Poor Ed, Which is the theme of the campaign. Yeah. Literally, the Lib Dems are complaining. Our polls, they were consistent. No one even mentioned us. Yeah. It's very unfair. I so I just thought I'd mention them. them.

is, is that a fair summary, Helen, or is it I think that the Greens and Zach Pilanski have taken up a vast majority of the oxygen in these campaigns for a very good reason. A lot of the seats that are being defended are labor seats that are kind of green facing. Some of them are, are reform facing. They expect to lose a huge number of seats. So that's almost been kind of factored in at this point, right?

The story, if, if Labor even do slightly better than you think, everyone will kind of fall about themselves with, with shock. I'm bracing myself for a both reform and green saying the mainstream media underrated us, but look how well we've done. This will be a lie if they say this. I would just say this. Everyone expects them to do incredibly well.

And one of the things I found most interesting, I was reading, um, Jim Warton's very good newsletter, London-centric, in which he referred to the fact they'd got their hands on last year, reforms local elections playbook, their canvassing handbook. And one of the things they'd say to their candidates are, "Let Nigel deal with the national issues. You just focus on, on Ulas or whatever it might be on potholes, on the housing estate that no one wants built, whatever it might be, that's one thing.

And the other thing is don't post anything on social media." At all. At all. don't think that this is now your time to air your thoughts about the Middle East peace process. And so, I think having been through that mega storm of lots and lots of reform candidates being found out to have unpleasant views, they, there's something the parties is very aware of as a problem. The Greens are further back on that learning curve, I would say.

So we have two people who've been arrested on allegations of antisemitism, one of them seen campaigning out for the Greens after that. You have the Greens deputy lead in Mothinalid saying to people who've been accused of antisemitism, you know, get, think about challenging the party on this, you know, we shouldn't give into these smear campaigns.

So that fight that the Corbinir Labor Party went through in the years 2015 to 19 is now happening in very much the glare of publicity for, for the Greens. we should say, of course, this is in the wake of the Goldus green stabbings and, you know, renewed focus on antisemitism in, in British public life. Well, it was prior to that as well.

I mean, it was very obvious even prior to the Stabbings and Gold's Green last week, the, the, there was a, a conserted kind of campaign of, of, of, of violence and intimidation against the Jewish community. So there were firebomb attacks on, um, most notoriously the, the, the ambulances, but also a couple of attempted arson attacks at synagogues in, in North London. So it was quite clear that that sort of stuff was going on.

And even prior to the Gold's Green stabbing, Zach Polancy came out and said one of the most idiotic things that, that, that we needed to be wary of whether this was Jewish people feeling unsafe or whether it was just a perception they had of unsafety, which, um, I mean, there's quite a lot of clear evidence in there and fire bombs attacks. I, I would feel quite unsafe. Yeah, and the, and the stabbing outside Heaton Park, uh, synagogue in Manchester as well.

I, I mean, if you look at the figures, the Jewish community in Britain is very small and it is enormously disproportionately affected by hate crimes. There isn't a synagogue or a Jewish school out there that doesn't have security around it, that doesn't have walls, you know, and I think this is a community that has felt that it has been living in fear for a, really quite a long time now. Now, every party, I would say, has had its own problems with antisemitism in, in its ranks.

I don't know about the Lib Dems actually. They, they may have managed to dodge it, I'm not sure. Uh, but certainly, uh, this was a problem in Labor under Jeremy Corbin There, there seemed to be lots of credit, credible evidence that this is now a problem, in the contemporary Green Party.

again, one shouldn't f- forget that the leader of the Reform Party had, had quite a well publicized incident, uh, during his school days, um, which 24 people gave evidence about and which has now been dismissed and it's considered bad taste to bring it up. So I thought I would. Um, but it's not entirely gone, has it? Yeah. And re- reform candidates mostly now, are being discovered to have, Islamophobic or, uh, whatever you want to call it, uh, tendencies.

But there was a period where they were pretty anti-Semitic. Yeah. I I think it's an interesting insight into the evolution of anti-Semitism in Britain is that it was the casual prejudice of choice, well, one of them, on the right in the, in the '60s and '70s, and since then it has been, yeah, there are still neo-Nazis out there, but it has also now become associated with a particular left wing form of anti-Semitism, which bleeds into some things that are legitimate.

I mean, this is always the problem with everybody draws their line in a different place, but it, it bleeds into criticisms of Israel, particularly the Gaza War, and also some of the tropes on the left about, uh, you know, a global elite or a 1% or billionaires. And some of those are perfectly legitimate.

And then some of those go into Rothschild's, uh, you know, Luminarty, protocols of the elders of Zionist control government, and then it gets closer, you know, and closer closer to overt, rank antisemitism. So I think that that is, you know, there has been an evolution in where you would imagine the prejudice would come and for the right, as you say, and the, the, the people who are now to be afraid of are, are Muslims.

And you will hear all these tropes about a Muslim invasion of Europe, you know, these idea of kind of armies of rapists overtaking us. And so the kind of polls of, of the kind of, the racism have switched. the far right are very keen on Israel now. Um, so, alongside the St. George flags, you had demonstrations where there was St. Georgia, oh, and the state of Israel. that's a long way for British fascism to move, which has been, you know, pretty solidly anti-Semitic right the way through.

Now it isn't. Tommy Robinson was invited over to Israel, wasn't he? by, I think the President's office, which is, is an extraordinary kind of fusion, uh, uh, of people. But there's another thing I've noticing that's really interesting is the sort of bandwagoning, uh, by the right onto this antisemitism and blame that all on Mus- Muslim, um, communities as well, uh, which goes along with the, you know, they are being made the scapegoat for absolutely everything by, by the right.

But the, the idea that anti-Semitism in this country has somehow been imported in on the small boats and, uh, and, and it, it's another migrant, it's a migrant community who are, who are, who are completely to blame, blame for that as well, which is sort of equally inaccurate. I mean, Keir I know is trying to make the point at the moment that this is, this is itself evidently a massive problem for society and it's something that we should all be ashamed of.

Uh, and to, kind of move it on into just trying to scapegoat someone else seems to be as useless a, a, a reaction to it as, as, as any other, really. Right. Now, I wasn't on the podcast last time, so can I just check, is this all just an attempt by you three to have another go at poor old Zach Pilanski who is doing his best under very trying circumstances to offer hope and change- Dammit. he spotted us. just facing this sort of sneering cynicism from the media, is that- Well, okay. okay.

So, uh, just to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, while you were away, um, probably doing actually something actively green rather than, uh the stuff the green party's more into these days. Um, we got criticized by Zach Polanski for not understanding the appeal of the greens. Uh, and Ian stands indicted of the crime of saying, they don't seem to talk about environmentalism very much. They are more a lefttering populist party. And I, I know.

And I remember this as the, as I live in Lewischm, which is a contest between labor and the greens, as the green leaflet, big picture of Zach Polanski on the front, dropped through my letterbox. Can you guess how many times environmentalism was mentioned in that leaflet, Andy? I'm going to say double figures at least. You're gonna say none because it was none. It was about their populist economic proposals of 15 pound minimum wage, for example.

and the way that Zach Polanski phrased this in his interview with the times essentially, well, paraphrased by decorating them for him, was everyone knows that they're in favor of green issues. That's fi- that's sort of taken as a given. Right. So actually they're gonna talk about cost of living issues instead. of the things I found quite unpleasant was the fact that, um, Rachel Millward, the green, the other green deputy leader apart from Mothin Ali was on question time.

Um, she was asked about the gold as green stabbing in the rise of 97ism, and she attributed it to the cost of living crisis. And I think that is ... Yeah, I know. Another random scape artist. But that wasn't yeah- How so? But, but it's basically like asterities made a lot of people feel, you know, very angry.

And what struck me about that is that is a mirror image of things you will hear from reform supporters who say essentially it's very hard not to be racist these days because, you know, all these people coming home and taking our jobs, right? And that in both cases, there is this idea that economic insecurity is kind of gives people a sign off essentially for finding a scapegoat.

And I was quite surprised to hear that the, the green, you know, party deputy leaders signing off that something that they would attack very heavily when the right use that same, Yeah. same language. Can I just say at this point, I would like to be unpopular on all fronts. Uh, uh, and say that, um, there is classically a, a, problem with Islamism and antisemitism.

I made a documentary about anti- semitic, precedents and ended up, you know, witnessing the Cairo Book Fair, and this is a couple of years ago, where they're actively selling Mind Camp. and, uh, a lot of cartoonists in Arab newspapers literally would not get published anywhere else um, on the grounds of antisemitic tropes. So, we can't ignore it.

and I think it is, it is worth, saying that the eye has tried, which is usually a, a failed policy, um, of saying, We are against, um, Israel's behavior in Gaza but we're not very keen on antisemitism." after our Gaza cover, there was nothing but, um, letters saying, you know, the eye is absolutely anti-Semitic.

Despite, um, the number of literally every issue we write about anti-Semitism online, um, Elon Musk, uh, all of those things, but we do run pieces saying, guess what's happening in the West Bank? It's not great. Dr. Grimm runs those pieces. So attempting nuance, is unacceptable in the new bipolar world. Um, and that makes this issue even worse because everyone deliberately, you say, you know, the, the borders between the two get confused.

I think they're deliberately confused by people who want to play in that space. and you've had experience of this a lot over the years because of the, the acid test of the letters page. Yes. You know, and whoever's complaining most. it, it's, and it's normally when someone, someone is popular, someone is new, as Zach Polanski undoubtedly is at the moment.

Someone seems to be offering something different before mass disillusionment has kicked in, as happens in every single political career, it's part of the process, uh, you, you experience that in real time, you know? Yes. And, uh, people are furious and they write letters and, and, it used to be, um, the Scotts Nats. They would, they were easily the most prolific and bad tempered letter writers about any mention of Nicholas Sturgeon at all.

Any suggestion that anything in Scotland had gone wrong in any way was just, you know. Sassinat. act whinging, Um, and, you know, sort of, uh, what you want Boris then. Yeah. Yukip originally, you've never seen so many letters. Um, Tori's briefly, the Boris Cult, any mention of him- Wow. ... particularly the overflowing laviatory suggesting that was his legacy, I think there was a staggering- number of right?

That was the cover with a literal toilet I I wanted to complain about that cover just on the grounds. it was so horrible. Yes, it was horrible. but the volume is, and the greens are out now. Yeah. Um, they are very, very offended, um, by any christism of Zach and any christism of themselves. And I think it's when you get this rush of popularity, it doesn't occur to you that the thing that comes next is accountability- Yeah. um, because you might be in.

And by the time I say this, he might well be in charge of a party that's running a lot of councils. people are gonna ask you things, and if they ask you things that you don't like or you don't particularly want to answer, that doesn't mean they're mainstream media smear merchants. I mean, you've just got to get beyond that. Otherwise, you know, you end up saying, "I don't want journalism." I, I think about all the people we've had in politics in my lifetime.

There has been a real difference between what you might call the populists and the, the mainstream. The mainstream just moan a lot less about journalism, right? And that's one of the things that is, uh, I think is very different about them. Well, there was a, there was a very fun piece, uh, last week, I think in The Economist analyzing 35,000 likes by Zach Polanski on Blue Sky, which is his social media platform of choice.

I mean, he's, he's filming all the time, he's writing all the time, and he's on it all the time, clearly, and he will like anything that mentions him positively, and he will also like quite a lot of stuff that's incredibly rude about anyone who's, who's been even slightly critical of him. Right. And it's just, I don't have time to like 35,000 things on blue sky. I don't know how someone running a major political party does. But that speaks to what he's very good at, which is content creation.

He's very, he, he's very visible. He turns up, he, you know, he, he's pushing at his mesh- message. These are the things I will give him credit for- mm-hmm. ... is that that is part of the role of party leading out, something that Keir Starmer is obviously failing at and terrible at. What does Keir Starmer think we're going or how do you think we get there? Very hard to tell you now, even. Like he's just not communicating those things.

Zach Polanski is, I mean, I think it's all completely different to what he believed 10 years ago and he's never really accounted for how he's changed his mind, but we certainly know he's apologized To Jeremy Corbin. Hmm. the one thing that he's apologized for is essentially, yeah, the Labor Party being too tough on And he was fooled By the propaganda. What the Libdem propaganda- No, the Propaganda around Corbinism. Oh, I see. The idea that there was an anti- any antisemitism in the Labor Party.

Yeah, he's, that's the bit he's apologized for. for suggesting that might have been the case. Yeah. But on, Stick your fingers in the socket, go on. gonna stick my feet in the socket because, because one of the things that has been really interesting with the Greens that they were very good at, at expelling people for was expelling gender critical feminists. So Shahar Ali, in fact, took the party to court, um, he felt that they had discriminated against his lawful views.

So I would say, yes, I would take the fact that there has been a huge intake of new candidates and their vetting has been, you know, delayed by that. However, I would say, is it also reasonable to say you've had a very bright line about what views on sex and gender, you were not perm- permitted in this, in this party, and as a political party, that is your right. There's not an imposition in free, of, of free speech.

People can hold those views, they just aren't compatible with being in the Green Party, sure. However, you are, I think, we're more reluctant to do this on views about antisemitism, and I think the rest of us are allowed to comment on that and disagree with it, actually. And when you talk about vetting, I mean, when Furage said, "I, I don't have time to vet these candidates," I thought, "Well, you could knock off two hours in the pub, um, and

read the list." Um, Um, and He's got spare time now, he's not doing his cameo videos anymore. Yeah. He he could get up at five o'clock in the morning and do a bit of vetting that, yeah. And the same with Zach, rather than dress up in green clothes and pose for the Sunday time green, photo shoot, you could have had a coffee and looked over the list. See, here's an idea. Ollie Robbins is looking for a job at the moment, isn't he? He's, he's got some experience of vetting that could get him in.

Before we move on from this bit, we should say just a, a little bit about exactly why Nigel Farach has been able to afford to give up doing videos on cameo for 75 quit a time. Hmm. Um- It's because he's on celebrity traitors. It's He's the only person who isn't. Which, which is the, the last week we've learned that he received in 2024, uh, a gift of five million pounds, uh, which was not taxed from Christopher Harbourne, who is a, a Thai based crypto businessman- Yeah. and I believe billionaire.

Uh, I did a little calculation, just in case you're interested, uh, Keir Starmer could bought, uh, 2,000 pairs of nice glasses- ... Uh, and still not come up to the level- You Surely mean Wahidali could've bought that many pairs of glasses, for Kistarma. Sorry. He He fact- In fact, that is the total in the whole glasses gate. It was, it was, it was many, many more pairs of glasses than that you could get. This does not seem to have attracted the attention that I think it ought to.

Um, Faros got in very early with a, a defense. Uh, you, you know exactly how that happened in the Ellen. Well, so the, uh, the Guardian who had this story, credit to them, um, went to them for comment on it. Yeah. Uh, and the, according to the guardian, the reform press office stalled them and said we need more time. Then they said, "Oh, you've directed it to the wrong press officer actually."

And in the meantime, a, uh, a very sympathetic piece, I think my Gordon Rainer in the telegraph appeared with the headline, I was firebombed, and this was lots and lots about- B- by Farish. By, about, by Nigel Faraj being firebombed. And this was lots and lots about Nigel Farage's security issues with then very long way down going, and in order to resolve these security issues, I accepted this gift. One problem with that, I think you, you spotted the problem, didn't you, Andy?

Yes, it's a timeline thing, which is that the, the fire, the firebombing, the, um, attempted arson attack on, on Furose's home, which we we don't need to say, probably should say is deplorable, shouldn't happen in- a- in any way. Yeah, we're all against it. That happened, uh, one year after Farah accepted a, a five million pound donation, which is apparently something to do with his security.

So either Christopher Harbourn is a psychic- or crypto really is so good that it can predict something that's gonna happen in a year's time, or that actually doesn't really stack up. And it was also a gift made when Ferrari was not an MP. So they are saying, look, this is completely irrelevant to Mr. Ferrata's political career, But I love this, this is always the argument with donations that aren't declared, isn't it, is that technically it didn't have to be declared.

And in this case, the excuse is- it was the point where he said he was never coming back as reform leader and he was done now and Richard Tyson was gonna take over. Uh, and it's just so clearly, I mean, to, to use a parliamentary term, complete bollocks, isn't it? Because if, if you're in hock to someone for five million pounds, if someone is giving you farming, clearly, on principle, that is something you need, if there is a register of interest, that is an interest.

I mean, this is the same argument that, that our old friend Peter Manilson made, first resignation time around, when he said he didn't think it was relevant that, that, that, that he owed 373,000 pounds to another cabinet minister at that point- because he'd been, he'd been lent it by Jeffrey Robinson to buy a house in Notting Hill. Clearly- Yeah. ... it's a relevant interest. You don't have to, you don't need to kind of pass it and go into accountancy terms of exact technicality.

And if it comes a few months before you announce not only that you're, you're going back into frontline politics and also that you think this crypto stuff is fantastic and there should be much lower taxes on crypto transactions. And later on, Farough has said that he's invested nearly 300 grand in a company that buy and hold Bitcoin. Yes. You're suggesting that two and two equal four. Yeah, I am. Which I'm sure in crypto world is not true due to something clever, but they do.

Yeah. And I love Nigel Frozer's phrase that he's never a- Cristo Harborne has never asked me or anything. He gave you five million pounds personally and 17 million pounds to the party. He doesn't need to ask you. You know You know You what you're doing then, You know what you do in that in that way.

And also they is the, obviously the amusing irony that the leader of a party that complains about foreign people having influence over British politics is now, you know, the largest recipient of the largest amount of money ever, um- Yeah. by someone who's resident in Thailand. He probably loves Thailand, um, but he's also there in order to run a business there without all the encumbrance of British tax and British regulation, which again, doesn't seem hugely patriotic.

Yeah, I think Nigel Farage is recreating the worst bits of MAGA. the involvement in crypto, which is just a deeply scammy industry. I, I would say any serious politician really should stay away from it. And they should stay away from prediction markets. They should say, you know, just that, they should stay away from gambling. Like it's all of And organized crime. And those sort of things, I, I would say.

a sex ring, all of these things I would, I would recommend that they often turn to shade into dodgy business and I'm against them. But, um- You're so radical. I know, right? I'm so right wing. Um, but the thing, the other thing is that Zia Yousef announced, um, on Bank Holiday Monday, this, he, he essentially this sort of like weird prisoners dilemma where he said, "We're going to do mass deportations.

We're going to build migrant hotels and we're going to put them in places that vote green to punish them. So if you don't want one in your place, vote reform." This literally comes with a website as well where you can put in your, um, postcode and it will tell you where your, it looks like you're going to vote reform, so you won't be getting one or it looks like people are going to get green in your area. You will be getting it on your doorstep.

I mean, it's, it's the ... I can't think of another situation in an election where there's been a sort of outright threat with menaces like that. Yeah. Can you? I mean, there's the usual sort of bribery and kind of we will cut your taxes and that kind of thing. But an absolute, if your area goes the wrong way, then you're trouble, Yeah. If you vote green, you're going to get more potholes and we're going to cause them, you know. But they think it's very clever, right?

They think it's a trap that the left has walked into, which is like, oh, I see, you don't like migrant hotels. I thought you thought refugees were welcome. Now that is very true of a, a tiny subset of the Green Party who do believe in completely open borders, but actually there's a lot of people voting green for a lot of other reasons, including cost of living and economic reasons, but who, who, you know, who don't feel like that. But this again, I think is the MAGA trap.

Donald Trump, no squish on immigration, has pulled back from pulling crying children out of the streets, right? Like just bundling people into cars, bundling them off to El Salvador or wherever it might be because actually it looked cruel and unpleasant and people didn't like it. Even his supporters were not, you know, Steven Miller gung ho about it as effective chief of staff, um, or his effective prime minister. But, but mostly this was not a popular place- And he sacked the person in charge.

And Greg Bevino, who was swaggering around in a very richy coat, I would say, uh, got, yeah, got his marching orders. So, you know, this just ... I, I, I, I think this is, this is a ... I think that was a really unpleasant announcement. Obviously there's a million ways in which it didn't work. You know, the places that Greens are gonna win will be inner cities. If you think you can build anything in most places that elect greens.

Also, if there's one thing that unites every part of the political spectrum in Britain, it's NIMBYism. Right. people just hate anything being built in Britain. Like, good luck with that. But it was also, it was just, it was just an odd, punitive, guess say, like a sort of punishment beating for not voting for us. And in a way that I think you're right, crossed a line that I hadn't seen cross before in British policy.

And there is a long tradition in, in British politics of, of telling the voters you're going to give them free money. Um, Hogarth Onwards, you know, our, our satirical tradition is rich with just politicians saying, "Would you like something, um, I'll give it to you. They don't usually say, "Vote for me or else." Yeah. That, that's different. right.

Now, uh, we come on to the state of the media and there's been a report about the, uh, the Press Freedom Index, which is a global, uh, report about how free the press is in all sorts of countries. Normally, you're used to seeing it if you do see it in the context of a lot more people banged up in Uzbekistan this year, uh, journalist, I mean, but obviously, Adam, it also features the UK. Yes. Because the UK is part of the global community. It is.

It is one of the 180 countries, uh, that were recorded in this report, uh, the World Press Freedom Index, uh, which is issued by reporters Son Frontier, which older reasons will remember is the international version of, um, It's a knockout, uh, one for the kids there. Um, and obviously there was an awful lot. I mean, generally it was, it, it was a bad view. Um, it was, the lowest average score they've ever recorded across the globe in terms of press freedom.

Um, a lot of that was down to, um, journalists being killed in various, uh, uh, conflict zones and other places around the world. 220 journalists more than that now, I think killed in Gaza by Israeli forces, um, a lot in Sudan and South Sudan as well, they noted. Um, but I thought, um, because we're very, very parochial, uh, we are UK based, we could have a look at what they said about the UK. Now the UK fell two places. Uh, it's still recorded as satisfactory rather than good.

It's the 18th most free press in the world, according to reporters on Frontier, which not bad. That doesn't be, sorry, coming in 18th and it's still not good. Satisfactory. Do you want to know who's good? I can tell you. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Scandinavia doing fantastically. Uh, Ireland, very good, uh, Estonia and, uh, and the Netherlands were the one, the ones who were graded as good, but we came in just as satisfactory. Is there anywhere graded outstanding? There is not.

It's not like Ofsted. No. I just want to, I'm just testing the ratings Good is as good as it can get. Okay. So satisfactory is, is- is is pretty good. It's satisfactory. good. pretty good. So why, so we flipped, did you say we slipped a couple of runs? Slipped a couple of rungs, yep, yep, yep. Uh, not as, not doing as badly as the US which has full fallen seven places, uh, specifically because of Donald Trump and his, uh, his kind of, uh, maga movements, uh, constant attacks on the media.

But the specific reasons they gave for the, uh, the, the UK deteriorating slightly all the problems with the, uh, with the UK. One of them very specific, um, attacks on exiled Iranian journalists who are broadcasting from over here and threats to their family- uh, back families back in Iran to try and stop them, um, putting out what the, uh, anti-regime, news.

Um, uh, but they also noted, uh, a few other things, uh, the rise in online abuse of journalists, um, and, uh, the government's failure to act as promised on slaps, which of course are strategic lawsuits against public participation, which, uh, any Eye reader will know. We've, we've covered in great detail along the way.

So we, we've we've gone in specifically on, um, Muhammada Mersi's, uh, extraordinary range of, uh, legal threats against, um, Charlotte Leslie, uh, the formatory MP, uh, uh, who he pursued through the courts, as I say, in, in, in several different ways over several years, uh, for having Tamarity to put a memo out to 11 people containing some information about him. Right. Uh- So those are generally rich people shutting down journalists through the courts. In a lot of cases, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Another one was Tom Burgess, who was actually the journalist doing the Guardian last week, uh, exposed the Christoph Harbourne uh, donation to Nigel Faraj, you mentioned earlier. Uh, but he put a b- a book called Kleptopia. Uh, this case was thrown out as wholly flawed by the judge in the end, but it was brought by a Kazakhstan based mining company.

Uh, so, you know, these are the sort of, you know, it's people with a lot of money behind them who really don't want any of their activities written about. So- Okay. There have been lots and lots of those. Now, the government did promise, um, ahead of the election that this was gonna be one of their priorities, that they were gonna bring in legislation to stop this kind of thing.

Uh, there was a kind of phalanx of media lawyers, the society of media law, lawyers was created, which is lots of people from, uh, firms that uh, I readers will know and love like Shillings and uh, Carter Ruck. Yep, I'll get it right. Uh, and various others who said this is absolute nonsense and this would be terrible, um, a terrible, terrible thing to, uh, restrict our, our, our client's right to, uh, legal representation. and their right to shut down journalism.

Yes. Which, um, uh, if you are a very, very rich person, it never seems to occur to you that, that, that isn't one of your fundamental human rights- ... That any criticism of yourself should stop. Um, and there's always lawyers who, who are prepared to do that.

Um, but it did look as though this battle was being won and there were brilliant books about, you know, um, Russian autocrats that managed to survive, um, you know, really good work, really good journalism, and suddenly we seem to be rowing backwards again. Right. Um, and the Labor government, which I know, I shouldn't take seriously what they wrote in the manifesto. It's silly of me, but I think I believe they might do this.

Yes. And they still say that they will do at some point, but unfortunately what's happened is that they've, uh, put in a working party which involves a lot of these same media lawyers who are lobbying very, very hard, uh, against it and, um, it's sort of got kicked into the long grass as being something that's a bit difficult. I would say it was one of the most popular things they could possibly do if they want, wanna curry favor with newspaper editors.

Um, it's, it's, it's a slam dunk, this one, isn't it? And boo foreigners, you know, it goes down pretty well. I mean, why, why not extend it to rich foreigners? Yes. Who is pro- Kasak billionaire? What is the for that in Britain? Quite small. The other thing, Adam, I wonder if it came up. Um, I was judging the poor foot awards this year and really great entries as ever, um, and we'll see you who wins.

But one of the things that struck me again was that particularly with the, the local papers, the regional press, there's been some brilliant diversification onto Substack, um, and the, you know, these sort of small startups, but it is still, people are on shoestring resources. That absolutely was one of the other things that came up in this, in this report, uh, in, in, in, in, in the press freedom interest.

Uh, they said the budgetary pressures have left many outlets forced to close their newsrooms or drastically reduce staff. Um, and at the same time, you're absolutely right. There are these sort of independent, um, uh, uh, outlets which are coming out and still doing fantastic journalism, a lot which is, is recognized every year in, in the foot awards, as you say.

I Um, so Mill Media, who is one of these, uh, independent outlets who are doing a lot of very, very good journalism, faced down all sorts of legal threats.

Most recently in the last week, uh, they, uh, had a threat from, um, uh, a spad to Shabana Mamood, the home secretary over a story they were doing about her, which were very definitely in the public interest, threatening them with an injunction on the grounds of libel, which, um, if you know anything about law, that's, that's, that's not how it works. Libel, the very principle is absolutely there published and be damned.

So uh, story went ahead anyway It stops people following up the story, right? That's, that's the reason I always think for those legal threats.

If it's someone small, does a story, they get this heavy handed legal response and everyone else who might follow it up then like backs off a little Well, there is an absolutely classic method which we've seen millions and millions of times with stories that we run in the Rotten Burris column, which then local papers try to follow up, uh, and are told by, you know, the press office or for the council concerned or, or wherever.

"Oh yes, no, that was very inaccurate and we're taking legal action against private eye. And "Occasionally they will phone up, phone us up and say," Are they? And I said," No, we haven't heard a dicky bird from them at all. "But that, that threat is- enough. Um, can I just ask, Adam, the press freedom, uh, people, do they have anything to say about who owns the telegraph? I just, I've been so worried about it. They did. Did they?

They ... Well, no, what they did point out was that one of the problems with the UK media, as far as they're concerned, is that there are just three companies who dominate the market who are of course News UK, Reach, and the Daily Mellon General Trust. Now, actually, that would have been even more of an issue because it looked for awhile like the D, uh, DMGT were gonna take over the, uh, telegraph as well.

But in fact, we have now pl- more plurality in the UK media, so we're gonna go up the 2027 index, presumably, because Axel Springer have come in from Germany and, uh, and taken over the telegraph. So yes, it was in there. So this is a win for Press Freedom. Pr- Pr- press diversity. Mm. Ah, Ah, yes, okay. Yeah, yeah, Slightly different thing. every time you said Axel Spring, my brain has supplied Axel Foley, of course, the protagonist of Beverly Hills.

who I'm choosing to believe that Eddie Murphy has taken over the telegraph. That would be- Much more entertaining. wouldn't it, Yeah. Oh, that's interesting because another thing we haven't mentioned is the BBC have just announced this huge cut of their own headcount, I mean, 2,000 people losing their jobs about a 10th of the overall workforce there, that's, that's going to have a substantial effect as well.

Yeah. You know, there, there are going to be a lot of, lot of journalists on the jobs market, basically. And there's no clear rationale for, for why these journalists have been suddenly culled- Um, during an interim between director generals, and it may just be convenience, but, uh, there was no warning, there was no build up, there was no narrative, it was just, yeah, we need the money now. we're not going to salami slice, which is the traditional BBC, uh, range, we're just going to cut.

only thing offered was, well, with, uh, the license fee, we're, you know, no one's paying it, we're not collecting it, right? I mean, there is a remedy for that. I mean, I get it. Um, attempting to lock up very, very poor people for not paying their license fee doesn't look good, but arguing um, as the government, uh, that, um, you have put this license fee in place because you believe it is worth it. Might be worth trying. Right. Do you know what?

I've never felt more pro- BC than I don't know if I've mentioned any, but I've just been to the Galapagos. Um, sorry. once again, I think that, yeah, the BBC did loads of stuff I don't agree with, but actually no one is doing work of that quality ...and so much of it.

And on, on, on the international, uh, spectrum as well, you know, there are now Starlink terminals being smuggled into Iran so that people can get the BBC World Service and the BBC Persian service because they are reaching a huge number of the adult population. And I think it's something that all of the BBC's trials and tribulations here don't really reflect is, is what the BBC is still managing to do around the world.

So I went to an event organized by Hostage International, which, um, uh, offers support to the families of those who've been kidnapped and, and tries to sort of, um, make their life better in whatever they can do and offer help and advice. And, this event was about the kidnapping of John McCarthy, who was very famously, um, kidnapped by an Iran backed group, um, in the Middle East, and he spent five years as a hostage, but he was talking.

And the number of references to the world service, um, involved in his account and the other's account, should have made everyone in the audience ashamed, um, both for the hostages, you know, um, they denied them radios when the, the Americans got a radio, John heard his friend talking about him the first time in two years he had proof that anyone cared that he was still alive, but the effect on, uh, the warders, the jailers, uh, the other people in the region listening, the

idea that, the BBC World Service is some, um, embarrassment. I mean, we've got aircraft carriers that don't work. Um, we've got, uh, a soft power radio station that works unbelievably well. We're gonna cut that. I mean, it's extraordinary. And very noticeably, that has been noticed elsewhere.

So what floods interfill the gap is, as you, you know, it is Russia today, it's Sputnik, it's those things that come to directly Kremlin front funded propaganda outlets and, you know, China has sim- similar operations of kind of news going around worldwide. So with the World Service being cut back here, Trump cutting funding for, for NPR and the Voice of America and all those kind of things, you know, this stuff does matter.

Yeah, tough times for all the people who've been funded by Victor Orban in Hungary. Like the, the people on the, on the, on the right very well aware that it is a good idea to fund friendly media organizations. Yeah. And then maybe, yeah, Britain should say, "Well, we've got some values of our own actually, and one of them is obj- this idea of objectivity, which we aim for, maybe we should fund that. " Anyway, here concludes the party political broadcast in favor of the BBC.

Is, is there any particularly, uh, uh, good journalism that, that, that could be highlighted at the moment, for instance, by looking at the, uh, at a long list on the, uh, private eye website? Will we be redoing our, our very successful series of little interviews with people? Yes, Yes. once the shortlist is out, I'm going to be, uh, interviewing the shortlist and you'll hear it on this podcast channel. Great. I'm hearing a lot of pro- journalist propaganda here. Yeah. I love it. I know.

Read Street of shame next issue to find out how awful they all are. as well. now, having been so nice about journalists- We're going to be nice about you. No, no. Oh, no. We're going to be nice about parliamentarians, aren't we? We've, yeah, I just thought it would be worth doing a little, section about, one of the bits of the British political system that works Which bit is that, Andy? It's- The canteen. team. Is it cross charging pavement solutions? Don't even get me started.

I go away on holiday for one week and the government makes a big announcement saying, "We're going to make this a permitted thing and look out for legislation coming later in the year. I'm gutted." I hear they call law. Andy's law. It is a win though, Andy, isn't it? It's ... Well, let's ... I'm not going to get too excited. I'm keeping, I'm keeping the, um, the carver on ice, but- Yeah, because if this government promises it's going to happen, boom, Yeah. it happens. Exactly.

And then there's a quick U-turn at the end of the cul-de-sac and they come right back the other way, look, it looks like it might happen. That's not what I wanted to talk about, but the bit that has been working and I think is worth highlighting is something I've been, um, trying to go along and, and look at, which is the, um, the transport select committee. So for those listening who don't know, there are all sorts of select committees on, on major issues in British public life.

They're made up of MPs whose job is to run investigations, look at the issues that are, is their particular patch and eventually come up with a report and, and recommendations. So I've been going to the transport select committee, they have, uh, one of their running investigations is called supercharging the electric vehicle transition about is it working, is it not?

So they, they take evidence and it just, for anyone whose normal experience of politics is seeing the occasional snippet of Prime Minister's questions, it, it it is a completely different side of the experience and, and so much more, uh, interesting and constructive, you know? Oh, I love a select committee. Yeah. I mean, do you remember some of the great select committees around the time of, um, the phone hacking, for example? Yeah. They were behigrama.

Um, Margaret Hodge used to do, I think the public accounts committee- Yes. ... one of the, one of the ones that scrutinizes finance and it was- That's a big, yeah, it was incendiary sometimes. Yeah. And what you tend to do is, yeah, okay, so there are some idiots who just sign up to them for whatever reason because they want to grandstand. And there is a bit of, this isn't so much a common, a question as a comment, which is the plague of public life.

Yeah. But normally you get MPs who are genuinely enthused and interested and knowledgeable about a topic and they're getting in front of them people who are also enthused and interested and knowledgeable about the topic. This is it. And the, the thing I found really interesting is the difference between the bit where it's the committee of MPs interviewing just sort of subject

experts.You might get someone from a big charging company or you might get someone from a local council and say, like, "What, what are you concerned about or what's going well?" And then the political bit, because on the, in the last session, you had, uh, the minister responsible who's, uh, Kia Mather and Pete who that, you might recognize that name. He's wild, Yes. He's 28. I mean, it's amazing like- He's not 12. He's, he's very young.

Um, he was very impressive, you know- but he chang his name to Andy soon, because he obviously- obviously, it's gonna be quite, you know- Yeah. Um, but that, that slightly changed the, the nature of Of it, but even then, I mean, this committee is mostly labor MPs because most MPs are labor MPs, Well, select committees are, um, the, the membership is reflective of the- Yeah. Yeah, it's- ...States the parties in the house, isn't it? It's reasonably proportional, you know.

There, there is a Tori, there, there were a couple of Lib Dems on this committee, But the, the interesting thing was they, they were not noticeably, kinder to him because he was a minister in their party. I mean, they, like some of the toughest questions about whether this thing is working or not came from the other labor MPs on the committee.

there wasn't too much grandstanding or party dicks, There were one or two, but mostly it was very collaborative, I mean, there are fun things about it, like the first session I went to, 10 minutes of it was completely inaudible because, uh, Angela Rippen was running a dance class outside- With the speaker of the house. Oh yeah, I saw the pictures of of that. Yes, pictures of that. That was in PortColor's face. Yeah. It was in Port Colors house.

What you didn't see was all the committee rooms around the center of Port Colors house where people were just saying, " Well, we don't know what's being said here and maybe, maybe it's rather than not that we're not getting we're not getting it. So would you say the transport committees were better than the select committees that looked into the Mandelson Gate saga? Well, I, Well, That was the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, wasn't it?

Which is chaired by Emily Thornbury, who really not very happy at not, not, not being put into the cabinet at the last election and, and, and made that quite apparent. didn't She she was giving diva, I think is the way to describe that. There was very little diva given on the transport select committee. Maybe what- when these things are a bit further from scrutiny, you know, they, they're allowed to just get on with the job.

No, because I, I felt, you know, the Foreign Affair Select Committee had identified some of the big problems such as Peter Manson shouldn't have been appointed, you know, which I wouldn't have had a clue about unless they'd had at least 12 sessions. Are those helpful those, that, that kind of- that comment, not very. I, I, I think we need to get back to travel.

No, those, those, select committees where it's, it's a big public thing or the, or the, phone hacking ones, are they doing a different thing? There is quite a lot of grandson. I mean, famously Keith has, when he was in charge of the home affairs committee, was very into a celebrity guest. So you would tend to get sort of, um, Russell brand turning up, uh, back in the day.

uh, and, and pontificating for, for several hours while, while Keith tried to get himself in the, in in the camera frame as well. Uh, so- there is, There are a lot of criticisms we made in this process as well. But there are in fact so many of these select committees that a lot of them still are doing a lot of good business. I would say just say, well, we're on this congratulatory thing, just slightly self congratulatory.

I think Gavilbasher, uh, uh, one of our parliamentary chorismologists is an absolutely brilliant job of, of not focusing on the chamber and the, and, and, and prime minister's questions and that kind of thing and getting along to a lot of these select committees and along to the House of Lords Chamber as well, which is another of the areas that's sort of overlooked and ignored by the general daily coverage.

So- Right, because the laws, as far as I see it, they were the ones who really, um, ended the the assisted dying Absolutely. Yeah. ran into the sand in, into, in, in the laws consistently. Yeah. But I think it is actually quite useful occasion to restore your faith in democracy.

In the same way that every year I find that judging the poor foot towards restores my faith in journalism, because yes, there are a lot of show ponies who are very irritating and in everything and doing much better in their careers than me, which is wrong and shouldn't be allowed. But also, there are people who are doing, like, just unglamorous, heavy lifting work, and that's what you see at the select committees too.

Yes. And it does not get less glamorous, I can tell you than maybe half an hour of questions about the electric vehicle excise duty which you you know, that you've got to be interested to be- Presumably absolutely vital in the sense that we could be having a flood of cheap Chinese electric vehicles here and they are sort of essentially barred from coming over, right? Like- they're not barred at all. They're not barred at all? No. no no. So tell us what's Yeah.

Oh, well, it's the, one of the most revealing comments made was, does the government have one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake when it comes to this, you know. They've decreed that by 2030, all new cars have to be electric in some element, whether that's full electric or with a bit of hybrid, that's coming up quite soon, you know, it's coming up within a few years. Is the country ready for it?

Are we ready for petrol taxes to drop off as people make the switch, there is a range of opinion on display in the committee, you know, experts are saying slightly different things depending on what they want. You know, someone who runs a big charge point company obviously wants more big charge points.

Someone who's trying to represent electric vehicle drivers is saying, "Well, we just want to make it convenient so maybe we just need, you know, to make home charging easier even if you don't have a driveway, all of this stuff." Yeah. That there is one MP on the committee who quite clearly has a big coach business because she only asks questions about electric coaches and whether- Yeah.

you know, coach tours are going to be able to electrify, which I would say is not the main element of the committee, but that's not, that's not for me to say, you know. And the thing of whether it's paid for is a potential stumbling block by this event, which is you're gonna be charged three P a mile to drive an electric car, that's gonna be done, it seems like in quite a laborious way with having to take it in for an MOT, declare your mileage, get that checked.

It, it sounds like FAF, the way it's currently being pitched. The government's response is, "Well, we, we think we have to replace petrol duty with something, which is true. We're giving lots of notice so people can get ready for it, and there are various projections about whether it will stop people going electric or not. of these committee sessions were happening before the evidence has come in from the war in Iran, petrol suddenly becoming very unaffordable.

So, it's quite hard to tell what, what is gonna happen next- Yeah. ... without that. your feeling was that MPs were making themselves better informed- Yeah. and increasing the amount of information about this issue they had on hand, which does sound good. It's really good.

Like 100%, you know, even, even when there were opinions being given that I you know, I disagreed with, that the MPs are asking and drilling down into the details of all of it and, you know, trying to get to the bottom of it before they issue their report. government- We've gotta get away from this drilling down metaphor. Oh yeah. It's, It's, it's not helping. Charging up, I'm not sure. Yeah. They were really plugged in. They were plugged in. There we go. yeah, can't wait to read the report.

I'll be staying up late, you know, on the night before And I can't wait to read your report Of that report in private eye. and so much more, if I can stress that, uh, including the Poor Foot Awards Shortlist and, and, and so much else in the next issue of the magazine. Uh, that will be out on Newsstand soon. You can just buy it in your local shop or you can go to private-i.co.uk and get a very reasonably priced subscription. That's it for this episode though.

We'll be back again in a fortnight with another one. Until then, it's thanks to Helen, Adam, and Ian. Thanks to you for listening and thanks to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio for producing. Bye for now.