Newspaper Endorsements and Political Strategy

Hello and welcome to another episode of Page ninety four. We're obviously here to discuss the most important sporting event of the year, the cage fight on the White House lawn, Helen been u Oiling up. Yes I haven't. spoted B better do that again. Page ninety four, the Private Eye podcast Hello and welcome to another episode of Page ninety four. My name is Andrew Hunterarary, and I'm here in the I stududio with Helen Lewis, Adam McQueen and Sarah Shannon We're here to discuss the most important sporting event of the year so far, obviously the cage fight on the White House lawn. Helen, you've been observing these star spangled biceps. What can you tell us? I have. I mean, not with the actual cage fighting, but because in classic Trump stitch up Broadcast rights for that were exclusively given to not CBS, I think that they own for it's free to Air, but Paramount plus. So had they were pay per view. actually like a monthly subscription fee. And sure enough, the two people who were in charge of Paramount, the Ellersons, were there at the match and are Trump donors and got his sign off for their merger with Warner Brrosers And that is the story of the White House K front. Yes, okay. The main story is that the fact that I've never seen a more tastelessly American Extord everything. Imagine something that you think of as like peak tasteless American. Yeah Mult trruck. Yeah. No. They had people jumping motorbikes, evil caneal style off little ramps. They had a way in where they flew a boald eagle over it. They had a fly past when they were doing the national anthem. This sounds so brilliant. I am so subscribing to Paraman Blask. the They had the walk in started in the Oval Office. So there yeah, there's a great shot of one of the fighters staring at an original copy of the Declaration of Iependence sort of going Yeah, then turning around, walking past you know, the gold signage he's had put in The Hll of Presidents with Biden and the autop pen and then all the pictures of it, and then out into the octagon It was the campest thing you've ever seen. It was amazing. This is even before the labs with their tops off wrestling with each other. rightight? it was the most American thing you've ever seen. Wow. And and in not being for all Americans, only for those with particular paramount plus subscription. Right, exactly. Buts American. So the UFC paid for it. So Dana White who runs the UFC, he is a big trum long time trrump friend. When that franchise was really struggling, it was banned for a long time in America because it was seen as being too violent. John McCain called it human cockfighting Who would have thought something called ultimate fighting must be violent? Right. But Trump Trump let them hold matches in his casinos, essentially. So he did Darner White favourors back in the day. Darna White now said,, that we'll p for all this. We'll build the octagon, We'll clean up the octagon. You won't have to pay taxpayers won't have to pay penny. O. But essentially functioned as the most giant advert for UFC as a concept So it worked for him. Trump invested in TKO holdings after the bout was announced. Only one of his smaller announced. TKO holdings being. The MMA company, Darna White's company So you know, once again, I'm sure there will be many ways in which the Trump family will have got its beak wet as a result of these men clattering seven bells out of each other because that's how he rolls Mark Zuckerberg was there, another recent convert to the joys of being sweaty and topless with other fellas. It was allegedly part of America two hundred fifty. Right. But really it was America's favourite president, Donald Trump's eightieth birthday And someone did a great tweet, which was like, this is the ultimate here is Caesar maxing, right? We have Well, I don't like that. That makes me feel very queasy. We had a peace deal with Persia A gladiator fight in front of the immperial Palace Yeah, and then your elderly emperor and his sort of slightly useless sons all there. that he has Caesar maxed. You can't take that away from him. Right. go. How did it end for Caesar? I can't remember just off handand. Anyway, So I mean we don't need to get too chinstokey about what does this mean about America? But it is interesting that it comes the same within a day of the announcement that there's a deal with Iran that's going to end the war Sosedly, with tremendous victory, although everyone could see that it's not really Right, but it does tell you something very interesting about the MAGa movement. All the posts about it were like, Libbs would say that they hate this because you know, it's tasteless, but that's because they hate America. Trump's approval rating is bad, right? Actually only eighteen percent of people said they thought it was an appropriate time to be having a big cage fight on the right House lawn given that gas prices are so high, like you know the economy is not doing particularly well. So it was one of those kind of great moments like the election night where it was just a lot of people exulting and owning the libs And like, o, I tell you who won't like this. you know, which is the kind of animating glue of lots of bits of that. And they're not happy unless they feel that someone else is upset. Okay. And you know, you can say that that's I think that's slightly decadent, but it's That's what makes them happy and. And that's what we can say about the Mga movement. Apart from anything else, aside from many of the ideological occurrences, they all just like the idea that they're upsetting of college professors. T tell you what this doesn't contain the seeds of its own destruction. Am I right, anwer ye. But you know po I mean, Trump did go to a N game and sure enough got booed at it. I, fairly enough that's in New York which was just elected Mamdani as mayor. But they once again looked a bit sleepy. And you know at the match you could see once again the hand with the bruis and covered up by my makeu. So there is definitely a kind of elderly Caesar vibe going on R I think he stayed awake throughout the whole of the UC, but then you they were firing people out of cannons That' why the motorbikes and things just keep so noisy that he wouldn't nod off. B the Eagle wasking on his shoulder the whole time. Yeah. And didn't they give whopping greatrape prizes from their cryptocurrency firm to the fighters? Well, this comes back to actually if you want to look at the kind of who actually rules the world The people who sponsored this were RAM trucks. This is what I mean about it being almost like perodically American RAM trucks and crypto dot com And actually they had an advert on the side of the octagon for the Riad season. Both of those sound like made up things that they would put in the back of a film because they can't use the real. Just a bit crypto. com slightly more imaginative way.aybe we call that truck. I don't know, big truck, hard truck, c truck Ram Yeahah Ram truck, Well big thing. They Rvertising the Riad season, which is the crrown Prince is kind of big hoopplar and having and like inviting lots of cultural figures. You know, like the Re comedy Festival that I went to and the Mr. Beast worldor and all that kind of stuff all comes to Saudi Arabia. So this is just yeah, it was apart from anything else, it was just a giant festival of people who've got business interests tied up with and the Trump family getting to have their big night out It was very hard to get a ticket. They gave most the tickets out to members of the military but obviously had some of the Trump family there and there were some VIP packages. and then you could watch it from on the mall next to the reflecting pool which he had repainted, although it's immediately covered over in algae again it isn't sorted out. But's they've just announced there's going to be an Amera two hundred fifty rodeo See you talk I love we're talking. Yeah. But they've had to cancel the series of concerts because too many of the singers kept pulling out because they had been sold at You, this has been America'sy fififty Stuff has been in the works for ages and there was a bipartisan commission that was in charge of doing it But then Trump set up a competing one that was very much a MAGA one And so as a result, the whole thing has become super partisan. It hasn't so much become a celebration of America and its found idedals as like Hail to the Chief, basically. The concert had some extraordinary people before they pulled out, didnn't they? I mean they had vanilla eyes who everyoneort had forgotten existed And Mill One of them is dead, and neither of whom were singers. It's an odd f to kind of book, isn't it? Yeah Trump did this spectacularly petulant tweet, which was like, I don't even want overpriced singers. I'd much rather have a rally. And then it concluded with going, I'm a bigger draw than Elvis was at his peak. Again, the question, how did that one end? But was yeah, so he's had a little foot stomp But this was kind of his I think this was the one that he was really excited about. R because it was all military like The guy standing around in uniforms, the brass band, you know, like everything that he loves. Bombasted. Bombasted Pagantry and pomp We're not in a position to criticise because I watched the Trooping of the Color on Saturday just going What are we What is this? This is just extraordinary? Yeah the Trooping of the Color isn't sponsored by I don't know Fron P This is or any other iconic British brand. Yeah. still pretty camp though. thoseose little golds uniforms. ansociation it had to be something really crap that was really like degrading. It'd to be like an associumcation with a mododium or something. O did you really need the money? Sam' there. Oh dear Should we talk briefly about the Iran deal to you know Is this actually happening this time? Be I feel like it's about two hundred and fifty years of Trump saying we're going to have a deal this weekend. You can tell that all the European leaders slightly don't really believe it until they see it because they keep saying it's very important we must have toll free access to the strait of Hormuz. And that's one of the things that Trump has announced would definitely be happening. So the fact that they keep going, No, we really what a great deal would include would definitely be this Yes. I mean, the timing of the announcement is another thing that people who specialize in watching it do like to point out, which is that it came on Sunday night before the market's opened, which almost every other week since the war began has seen Trump announcing on Sunday night. it's all over. terrific news. This is at least a memorandum of understanding, as it were that we'll have sixty days of further ceasefire. You know, even within it, I mean, Trump said the oil must flow immediately and then said clarified later on well, the is going to flow as of Friday once the Iranians have demined the strait and subject to further agreements. So again, it's a bit partial and a bit tentative, and you know it depends on whether people are happy with insurance to go through the Strait of Hormuz now. And the ceasefire so far has been one of the more shooty ceasefires, isn't it? Well there' an awful lot of sort of war stuff still going on. Israel went and said,, it's not our ceasefire can't make us and wants its campaign in Lebanon excluded from it anyway. The thing I think that's very worrying about it long term is essentially what Iran has learned from this is that Donald Trump doesn't have the stones to actually put boots on the ground. So he went in saying, we want regime change. He hasn't got that. He said, we don't want any nuclear weapons. Well, that was the whole point of the twenty fifteen deal and actually He now doesn't have an inspection regime as part of this necessarily And he's also taught Iran that they have the most amazing bargaining chip in the world to use against America, which is closing the straight up poor moves So what happens if in September as the midterms are coming up, they just suddenly close it again and gas prices in America jump by a dollar you know And then at that point, Trump is desperate desperate for them to do it, they will have the most incredible negotiating tactic So I can't see this You know, if they had managed to institute a peaceful democracy and stop Iran getting any nuclear weapons, then that would have been good outcome. What they essentially too my mind I've done is just wholesale advertise their lack of commitment to a ull scale war. And this is the other thing we should say is that just to remind everyone Trump's words at the beginning of the war, finally to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight the hour of your freedom is at hand. When we are finished, take over your government, it will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations.biously The regimes didn't even It's suffered a lot damage but it's an even stronger position than it. But it's not only in that, it feels like Iranian people have kind of rallied behind or a lot ofed them in a way. I mean, when he made the threat about bombing them back to the beginning of civilization or whatever it was, there were people turning out in droves to of standand on bridges and bit of infrastructure that they were thought were to be tar. It's kind of making themselves into human shields. it feel like. I mean, if you want to kind of pull a people together, you' bombing them. Especially people that have been united against their government a year earlier Nasa Armini. The Ayatller looking. The Ayotoller is looking forty years younger than he ever did. I mean we don't know, to be fair. No one's actually seen. So anyway, it's a sort of classic dump result, isn't it Yeah, it was a kind of, but it's interesting that people have finally, finally learned when he came out when I've got this amazing pace deal, everyone went Right so we'll see we go. I mean the markets, as you say, rallied, but they've just rallied so many times. just I've never seen people more enthusiastically re the believe things that a mad blk has just said to them. The thing that's interesting is yeah to go back to the Iranian people rising up, that does seem to have been something that was fed to them by Netanyahu. We came over and did this presentation in the situation room like a sort of powerPoint. and he said, no, honestly, if you just do it, they're gagging for it, they're ready to rise up. and that seems to have been the basis on which he's done it. Trump's reaction was to blame the American people to say, I don't know that America has the appetite to do what I would really much prefer doing. This was a few days before the deal. suchort as it is was signed which is very I'd love to Newcom, but you know, my people are cowards. So 's really He's just said some extraordinary things in the last couple of weeks. He said, I don't care about inflation. That was another gu I don't care about the economy Affordability is a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats. Right. As I say, he's seesar maxing.. There's a new book coming out by two White House reporters Maggie Habman and Jonathan Swan in which they have got essentially verbatim transcripts of things that happen in the situation room which is really quite like a level of leakage that is kind of unprecedented like word for word stuff. So the suspicion has to be that some people who are already looking ahead to the post Trump future are very keen to say that when terrible decisions were made, they were not involved with them Um so there's a kind of meta Meta play going on here as well But yeah talking talking br, both Marco Ruby and JD Vance were obviously at the obviously at the UFC They're there kind of two heirs apparent as Did they partake? Exactly, they did not. And young Barron was there along with the other sons, including the one who got married last weekend and Trump didn't bother to go. You go to this.ot that Oh my go. It's you one way to source out the succession, wouldn't it? All get in the wing guys. Baron would win. Barron is like eight feet tall. take a lot of him.'s very, but JD Vance has been looking much Treimmer of late. Helen, we can't do Helen's Zempic wasash every single time I of that proast We should turn to the other biggest sporting engagement of the year so far Which countries have we all picked or had forced on us in the Ies World Cup sweepstake? I'll go first, Ghana Egypt Gany Korea. who have won one match? I see. I think it' if they keep going like that. they can't. Right so we're here to talk about the World Cup. but we thought we'd make it as ish as possible. So the latest issue of the Mag has a World Cup theme. and Sarah, you write a great deal about sport at the Iye. and this is a rather unusual World Cup in that It's a lot larger, so it's a lot easier to get in also quite a lot harder to get in to the country that's hosted it, Is that fair? I think that's fair. Yes, There's never been more matches, more tickets available, but can you actually get there to watch your team? Iran is the sort of top story on this. They can't actually even have their training camp in the country. I mean, is this extraordinary situation whether host nation and one of the competing nations is are at war with each other. Yeah. So Iran was supposed to be based in Tucson, Arizona, but they're now in Tijuana in Mexico, which is pretty much the last place any Mexican football team wants to be based because it's miles away from other footballing centres. They've got really sort of rough astrooturf The local Mexicans are apparently making them really welcome, cheering them when they come out of their hotel and asking for autographs and so on. They're doing their best to make up for the lack of welcome from the host. But Trump said that they couldn't come and stay in America because their lives and safety would be in danger So this is elements of the support staff, the training staff, the management staff, basically. because various people have applied and not been allowed in Yes. Some have reapplied and then got in on appeal. But So the ye, the Iranian football Federation president, he's not allowed in because of his links to the IRGC there's lots of other support staff that couldn't be there. They were going to do their press conference in LA Yesterday, and some of the press team haven't been allowed to go. So somebody said, well, who's going to be advising them on tactics in terms of press tactics? And they said, well, perhaps the kitman might have some advice for them. But anyway, yes, it's been a rocky road for them to get here for sure. Their star striker also wasn't picked for the team because he has spoken up about women's rights in the past Two of their matches are going to be in Los Angeles, which is sort of home of the huge Iranian diaspora, about three hundred seventy five thousand Iranians live there. I think there's an area of Los Angeles that they called Terra Angelles because there's so many Iranians that live there. Yeah. so they all want to go along and protest against the Iranian government and wave their pre revolutionary Sal and lion flags, but that's not going to be allowed. because FIFA won't allow political statements to be made unless it's Janni and Fantino and a Maga hat, and then it's okay.. These are not the only people who've had their access to the World Cup restricted. No, I mean, four countries are under total travel bans. There's Iran, Haiti, Ivory Coast and Senegal So none of their fans can go. And then there's other countries that have found it incredibly difficult to get visas to go. Countries like Ghana, Congo, Cape Verde and just approve they're not only anti African countries. Uzbekistan has also found it really difficult to get visas to go to the World Cup Um yeah, and then there's this u Sali referee Omar Atan who u He had a diplomatic visa. He had a single entry visa to get into the U.S. He would have been the first Somalian to have refereed a World Cup game. So it was a big deal. But he arrived at Miami airport. He was questioned for ten hours. and then he was told no, he had to go home and Andrew Giuliani's son of Rudy who is leading Trump's U. S. World Cup Task Force He said of course he has of course is. He said that you know, we can't let somebody in that might have been talking to terrorists or might even be a terrorist UAF for the European football who are bit more sensible have basically done as a kind of an Fw to Trump and FIVver and US customs in general have said why don't you come and officiate at the UAA Super Cup Final, which is in August. One man's terrorist is another man's top referee. Is some of this about being very ostentatiously tough on immigration though? Because there was an issue with wasn't the Iranian women's team? some of them defected and then undefected at a recent match? Yes, that was in Australia, wasn't it? Yeah. I mean, I really feel for the players because they're in a really lose lose situation, I think if they say anything that even remotely hints at the fact that they might not love their regime they're going to be in enormous trouble when they get home. And if they say anything that's pro the regime, they're going to have all those Iranian Americans in the LA stadium shouting at them And then they've got another issue, which is that the They've got two matches in Los Angeles and then they've got one in Seattle and that's been designated as a pride match They're playing Egypt, so it couldn't be more perfect Re apppriate teams in the world. And apparently they did ask that it could be undesignated a pride match, but for once, FIFA decided to do the right thing and they stuck to their guns and it still will be a pride Rainbowaceide all around. I mean, Settles is a very notoriously LGBT cities. Eactly where they pick that But presumably, I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and say up with one sort of nauseatingly sickly pre roll video about how inclusion is great and everybody should be like valued again And there no no wantoney need to LGBT organizations at which point the Iranian and Egyptian teams would will stare at their shoes. So does any of this politics over the visa stuff And you know, all of these different difficulties, does any of this affect whether this is A successful World Cup or not? And does a successful World Cup? does that definition change depending on whether you're the USA or FIFA O Canada and Meico, I know Well, the U.S definition of a successful World Cup It's hard to say because It's not as big a deal for them as it is for us, you know, it's their sort of they've got four sports that they watch more than they would watch soccer even with their big Hispanic communities and everything But making lots of money is FIFA's primary concern, so it seems, and they're going to do that. They're set to make thirteen billion dollars out of this World Cup Which is pretty incredible considering that the Qatar World Cup in twenty twenty two, they made, I think around seven billion So that's Pre prettytty good inflationary rate. Where's that coming from? Well, part of it is because they've got so many teams this time. They've got forty eight teams instead of thirty two. So there's all those extra matches to sell broadcasting rights, sponsorship and tickets And the ticket pricing has become a really controversial They're doing dyamic pricing aren't they? likeike the big scandal with OSasis Yeahople suddenly found that tickets were way way more expensive than they were when they first got on the vehicle to buy one. Dynamic pricing is amazing for a business because you know you've absolutely maxed out your profit, but it's terrible for ators because you just have no idea, you know what there's nothing transparent about the price that you're going to pay, you know, you just have to I mean, how have actually been a lot of empty seat visible at the early matches, haven't they? Yes, exactly. I mean, Infantino said that all tickets were sold in one of his typically grand statements. But then where are all these empty seats coming from? And they say you know they standanding in the concourse, but I don't think It doesn't matter if the people who are in those few seats are paying kind of three thousand dollars a shot for them, I guess. Exactly the sameount money Yeah, and across so many matches, you know, there's one hundred and three matches compared to sixty four. So all you non football fans have got a lot to look for. And across three countries as well. mean we shouldn't forget looking before the around stuff. This was being co hosted by America and one nation that he's constantly accused of putting their rapists and their criminals and their worst people over the border, and one which he's threatened to invade on cver occasions It was quite mad to start. Well, that's the irony of the Iranian team being based in Mexico where they are safe apparently rather than the USA where they're not I wonder how much of this is about sports betting though, so there's been a massive success in the last few years since the Netflix documentary dririve to survive, bringing Formula one you have to announce it that to survive. much in Carks the farm over the weekend. sorry, it's rin me. And at the same time, the rise of sports betting, just huge, legalized a couple of years ago in the U.S and just people are raking in money from it Yeah. And I think that therefore the desire to expand the number of sports And therefore the amount of sports betting that goes on must be enormous. because they had the club W cupped didn't there in America. That was a completely random occasion. Yes with Trump handing over the trophy as he's intending to do for this one. I mean, he hasn't really he hasn't been seen as a World Cup match yet, but he is supposed to be there like a peace Prize medal.s got like he put know how they put a star on the shirts depending on how manyorld Cups you w want. He can presumably add bars to his pap of Pace Prize medal for every war that he's ended and or. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. But there's a piece in the latest tie in the money column in the back, which is all about the amount of money flooding into the World Cup from the Middle East. And so this is another thing apart from expanding the number of matches and the number of tickets and all of this.. The money coming in the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Saudi Aramco, Qatar Airways, there are lots and lots of new sources, newew revenue streams for FIA. Predict Street, which is an Au Dhabi based predictive trading platform Yeah they're also a sponsor. So yeah, the golf money has kept pouring in. I mean, they always talk about the legacy of sports tournaments, but I don't think they really mean that the twenty twenty two Qatar tournament had a legacy of still raaking in a lot of money from the golf.. Infantino can top up the coffers with that. So he's got the broadcasting money, the ticket money And the sponsorship And there's also an extra little tweak that he's managed this time, which are the hydration breakes. Love the hydration break. Love the one they were having in the Can, when the matchtes that was being held in Canada where it was genuinely like colder than here. and you're like Yes, they' just turned it into quarters like an Americanact hydration breaks. Can you fil me in? So halfway through each half now they they stop play They have a three minute break for hydration. There used to be allowed hydration breaks at the discretion of the referees. So if people were sort of turning puce and fainting because it was forty degrees, then maybe they'd let them have some water. But now it's absolutely standard. And they said it was easier to make it standard I mean, not BBC, obviously. ITV I notice stuck a quick competition for some World Cups tickets in their hydration break. But on Fox sports it's been really annoying viewers because I mean the first match Mexico, South Africa, they actually overran the hydration break with the ads. So they came back they were hydrated theyes They f goals. They came back and they were you know already playing. so that was very, very annoying to the viewers. I mean, I've been living in a house home with someone who has expressed a desire to watch every single game, which I think he may bail out on because he's got to hold a job for the next couple of weeks But it does it stops the run of play. This is the kind of phrase that gets said in my household now we nod saggely about the run of play. However, they have come up with a different rule, which is about the fact that you can't piss about with throw ins for a really long time now. So theyve found another way to speed up the game But essentially they have made the game worse in order to serve the needs of adocers, which is pretty much peak and it does change the way the game is played. So your momentum stopped. So you know, Morocco are beating Brazil They have a hydration break They get some really good advice from their coach and they go back out and score. you know, it's not the way things are supposed to be. Right, Rightight. You don't have the full tension of the half Is all of this now locked in for future World Cups I think so, I feel like once the genie's out of the bottle Hydration braks will become a thing. I mean in Saudi Arabia, I mean yes, they'll have to be might be necessary. Yeah yeah on a hot place. Hellen's renition stadium secondcondly but. Yeah. Germany Kuraao the other night had, you know, a roof and air conditioning, but it still needed a hydration brake And they have a halfime show in the final so it a su Well, that's good, I like that bit. Shakira Yeah' was fantastic Shakira and Madonna. I think we've got through almost a whole section without referring to any actual football, which was always my secret aim at the start of this is talk only about the things surrounding football Does all of this sully the really good name of FIFA as a completely impartial and benevolent sporting body? Or was this always going to be The trashiest, least fan friendly world cub ever I think, I mean, you always hope that once the action gets underway and the knockouts start, the excitement builds and people get into it and forget about all the politics. But I don't know that the time difference is really anti them in this occasion and I think there's so much sort of taste left by the ticket prices and all these visa exclusions.'s It's going to be a hard one to get over this time, I think. Who's getting it next? So twenty thirty is a real mishmash. It's Portugal, Spain Morocco and some centenie matches in South America. Okay which had the advantage of basically meaning that Europe, Africa and South America were out of contention for the twenty thirty four. World Cup. O the basis of the rotation system. You're noting Some kind of double fix up then luckily Saudi Arabia stepped forward for the Wow. twenty thirty four World Cup. We should just congratulate the Saudi Rublic Investment Fund once again. Yes, for their hearty investment So there's a by election coming up in Makerfield and it seems like the Daily Mail might have started something that it can't quite control. Adam? Yeah, yeah, no, I mean the situation is that latest the latest polls in Makerfield show that it's kind it's basically a two horse race It's Andy Burnham's labour, as opposed to new labour, That's what they're now called Andy Burnham's labour versus Nigel Farage's reform. But restore are coming right in there and polling sort of fivecent to eight percent in the polls, which He's not going to be enough to get their candidate in his MP, but it is potentially going to split that vote on the right to take votes away from Nigel Farage and let Andy Burnham win by an even larger margin. We don't know what's going to happen for definitely yet, but that's of what the polls are show at the time of recording. Yeah. And now this is worrying a lot of people who well specifically, I'm going to come down to the daily Mail who After years of serve telling readers the country is being swamped by immigrants and wokeness and what's really needed is a return to kind of firm, hardline conservative values, suddenly surprised fun actually, the people might have be listening and they might actually want to vote for that kind of thing as represented by Rupert Low. So there's been the most extraordinary coverage over the last few days at times recording. They basically noticed something that Private Ey' has been pointing out about Rupert Lowe and his outfit and his accoltes for for a while, which is quite a lot of them are quite unpleasant racist people So the mail on Sunday Slash last weekend was Restore activists at white suupremacy suummit, reporting that what they described as a harden neo Nazi was campaigning for Rore in Maker Field, also a neo fascist and ethnic cleansing extremist, someone who not only wants mass deportations, which is Rupert Lowe's policy anyway But that to include all Jewish people as well, an awful lot of Jewish people. It's nice to see return to traditional. oldld school neo Nazis, these people Nazis you might even we probably take the neo of't we? Yeah. Ristore's spokesman told the mail on Sunday that this was totally irrelevant and the hit piece. It was undoubtedly a hit piece. but I would question the total rerelevance of it. S a lot of this seems quite relevant to me, I might well to male readers as well But it didn't stop there. There was an editorial right in the middle of the story, which was quite an unusual thing in the mail where they actually kind of box out an editorial and whack it right in the middle of the story. said How can any reasonable person vote for Rore in Thursday's by election? And especially, especially, how can anyone support Rore when doing so can help propel the Labour leftft, Great Red Hope, Andy Burnham into Downing Street So calling ye Yeah, we'veld you' ne Nazis and fascists, but actually the real worry here is getting Andy Berermitt. again, this is relevancy kind of issue here, I would suggest. So is it that Papers have been flirting very heavily with Farage and with reform, UK. And now they think their readers have gone too far or taken this to heart. Essentially, I think that's. We've talked about this before about I mean the slight irrelevancy anyway of newspaper endorsements for political parties, in this day and age. But both the mail and the telegraph, even more so have been moving very, very far further to the right the Tory partarty and kind of lionising Nigel Farge for quite a while now, helped by the fact that he turns out reams of copy for them and lots and lots of opheads for both of those papers and kind of anyone else that will have him The mail is now in a really, really odd position where they've convinced themselves that what has to be done is to unite the right as they're calling. They actually have that as one of their little stamps that they put on storage. Unite the right. What now seems to have turned into unite the right, but not those ones. Right, O, oK. And they think the answer to all this is that Kenny Baynoock and Niiggeah Farage should form a great Marriage of convenience and everything we want bizarrely described by Sarah Vine, male and male on Sunday columnist last weekend as Turning them into the John Travolta and Olivia Nton Joh of British politics. if you can imagine. Such an image. There you go. But yes, I mean, this is something, I mean, Helen, how honestly likely do you think a pack between the two of them is? I'm still so stuck on Olivia Newn Wh whichich one of them's got the hairpiece? Tammy Badnock spoke to Tim Shipman and the spectator and he said, well, she know, she's wavering or she's not rolling out She subly came out and said, No, I really do, I really absolutely do They have the exact same problem as if you remember the kind of labour SMP stuff in twenty fifteen, that voters don't want to hear that vote someone and you get someone else. Yeah. What I see that mail thing is is a classic pre by election squeeze message. So from the point of view of the mail, whether you're supporting reform or the Tories, what you most want to happen is you want to max out the UKIP vote as it was, reform vote now and get the reform MP, defeat Andy Berham, humiliation for him. He's knocked out. Labour then have to either continue with an unpopular prrime Minister in Stalmer or have some kind of leadership contest with other people who are also stagger on limp on. And then the great victory in twenty twenty eight is won by the right. That's their kind of game planan. What they absolutely don't want is Rore to come and nibble a huge chunk out of the side of reform, get Andy Burnham. And then the terrible fear, not that he's too left wing, but that he's good Right And people like it. You know and and therefore they re elect a labour government again at the next election. So You know, I think it's going to be this is a preview of lots of stuff that's going to happen in the next general election, which is that you are just going to have lots and lots of squeeze messages. in every race will be tried to people will try and get it down to like such and such can't win here That can be quite complicated in a lot of seats. It's not in this one and it wasn't in Gorton and Denton as it turned out. Right. Well it seems clear is that the papers are becoming much less relevant in this. I mean the whole restore phenomenon is down to Rupert Lowe's extremely high popularity on all kinds of social media To a certain extent Twitter where he you know he's backed by Musk very heavily. and he gets an enormous income from Twitter as well. He gets bigoney in a big way, tens of thousands of pounds every year. But we've been told for a couple of years that Niter Farage and more recently Akolensky are extremely good on social media. Actually, Rupert Low has been surprisingly bigger on places like Facebook And it's where he's been pitching himself much softer than a lot of the rhetoric and a lot of his far right supporters would have you believe. He's presented as a kind of country squire. He has a farm. there are lots of pictures of him know with his animals on the farm I think that's very telling when you read the Daily Mail copy about Tommy Robinson. So the backstory to this is that Tommy Robinson went to Moscow via Turkey, where he hung out with Erl Musk, who is Elon Musk. The even more racist Musk. Right. They're very rum father And from there was kind of as ever, interferring Eritish politics. When he came back, he was detained at the airport in question for onn the basis that you know we are sort of essentially at war with Russia through Ukraine And the editorial, the Daily Mail that wrote against like who would let this man into their party?ike Nigel Farge has always had a red line. If you' ever a remmember the BMP, you're not in my party. I will not let Tommy Robinson in my party, which is what precipitors is falling out with Elon Musk Rupert load did this magnificent thing he wass like,m anyone's welcome to join like, I'm not in charge of who joins my party y Well, of course you are, that's not how parties work. But anyway the essential line of that Daily Mail article was he's a petty mortgage fraudster and a Yobo. And what was the word they used that? Phrase they used was a bigoted and deeply sinister hoodlm. A hoodlm. Which a hoodlm? Yes. I mean, it's thug great. It's definitely a kind of class oriented thing that he's the unacceptable face of of kind of yobberry andrem extremeight wingness, which Ruperalow, you know he's basically landed gentry. He's got a five hundred and fifty acre estate in Gloucestershire with an awful lot of barns he's trying to convert into very, very expensive houses. Huge Shepherd's huts. Yeah. bigger hundred hundred thousand Sepherd's huts.. So he's much more to the Daily Mail. I think. he'd always been seen as a sort of more accept mean he was a reform MP. They certainly never objected to him at that point. I did think that was really, really interesting. The other thing that I thought was really really interesting because this continued into Monday's Daily Mail. We had another front page splash which just said Restore is the new home for No Nazis, pretty unequivocal there, whichich was based on this, you Ru Los saying and Tommy Robson was welcome to join the party if he wanted. They ran another well, it was a very, very odd piece because it read like an oped He read like an editorial line that a columnist would take. I mean itluded it was basically a kind of portrait of Tommy Robinson and his past career in all his crimineral convictions and things. But it ended with the words Anyone on British soil with eyes in their head and more than a couple of brain cells to rub together can see him for the toxic, hate fueled rabble rouser that he is No sort of messing around there. But it was unsigned. It was bizarre. It seemed like an opinion piece and it literally the by line at the top of the page read Daily Mail Reporter Which is very horrible. I can only think of there's two possible reasons for this. One is that Tommy Robinson and his supporters tend to go after people who displease him in the media, because he's a charming man like that. So it's possible. they're just trying to protect their job. I mean we've talked before about how there is a non existent journalist on the mail online called Melody Fletcher, who essentially does all of their reports on people like Taylor Swift, Mill Millie Bobby Brown Looking at these very, very that's what they said about it. We should say that's all we're saying. I saying the d mail. Bically people who have a kind of rabid online fan base who they know will told individual journalists on social media and come after. so they they did put this fake byline on it But some Yeah, so if it's possible that it was that, but I wonder what sort of backlash they got on the Sunday from their readers and whether they're actually worried about and not of their readers who presumably you're amongst those five to eight percent of people Mlefield and elsewhere who are kind of thinking may maybe Rupert Lowe is life forward. There is another interesting element, which is that Rore seems to be doing quite well among women and they are promoting themselves very heavily with that We want to protect British women and girls The subtext is pretty clear you know from foreign invaders basically, from being assaulted by foreigners And Reform have been pushing that very hard at their own conferences, but I think Reform's candidate, you know, with his long record of sexist comments. has has put women off quite a bit restores saying, well, look, we've got a, you know, our candidate's a woman. She's called Rebecca Shepherard. and We'll do the thing to protect British women. So I think that might be Richard says, Well, Rup Lo has made the absolutely his specialism. and ronically I'm now talking over a woman, so I'm going stop and. I' going to say the irony is that Carol Borderman then wrote a letter to all the constituents telling them that know Robert Kenyon was actually really misogynistic pointing out some of his past comments and saying, Do you want a sexist to represent you? So she's boosted Rores vote. among women who've gone, No you're right, Carol. I'm going to vote for that restore woman. She's a nice fifty three year old businesswan that lives locally Right. Yeah. I mean, Ripolo is very much made that he's kind of calls celebr, I gu in a, is the grooming gangs. He's run his own supposed independent inquiry into all of that, which I think is due to report imminently. So yeah, he's made that very much his issue. At the same time that Nigel Farage and others have been very nice about Andrew Tate, who as far as I can see, mixed race Muslim accused of running a greeman gang Some are saying that maybe there are some double standards in operation. Yeah. Yeah. I should say that Autator has denied all charges. Thank you. You should note as well that all of this has very visibly and obviously pushed Nigel Farage further to the right. I mean, a lot of the comments recently, the pure cold anger after the trial of the killer of Henry Novak and The essay that he wrote over the weekend. Yeah, he's got a substat now in which he wrote a piece and it used very maga type language about DI and his big campaign is now against the Equality Act basically saying that there is anti white bias. R. And you hear it a lot, you And was the Noak case was really interesting because because he wasn't he was a Polish extraction, right? It couldn't be framed in the way Nigel Frus would normally frame it, which is about kind of like this about British identity under threat from minority groups. It then transmuted from that into white and white European. and wh European values are under threat. I think this is also a response to the fact that immigration has dropped like a stone. So I think the latest net figures is down by about half And that's not because of British nationals leaving, that's because many fewer non EU nationals arriving is due to many fewer people who are studying, bringing their families with them, this kind of thing. So immigration salience has dropped. and I think the fooccus is now moving in an even moreore unpleasant way to people of different skin colour who are already here, whichich is what's driven a lot of restores saying we're going to just kick out millions of people, many of whom will legally be here Right. And yeah, I guess you're right. and in the sense of the inflow. and actually we seem to have had some success with the French in stopping or not stopping the small boats. Small boat crossings are down forty percent year on year, forty percent in a year. That's pretty good. But the issue that you do have is obviously that we are now coming off the several years of record immigration. So there will be people still in the country. other fooccus that seems to be now is about social housing. I really understand it because it is incredibly unfair that some people essentially get a golden ticket and get to live in Central London for six hundred and fifty quid a month or whatever it might be That is something that successive governments have failed to address. The fact that housing is too much for young people. But what's clearly happening is that reform and restore and their kind of online outriders are turning that into a classic And because it's all gone to foreigners essentially That yeah. in London where you do have a lot of foreign born heads of household. I think that is I think that is a message that can resonate with young people because you're talking about Rore and Facebook, that is essentially targeting people sixty five and old There's an attempt to find a message that will resonate with NC thirty Os, if you know the online jargon about this, but it essentially young people who feel locked out of opportunities. When we at the moment, we have a younger generation who are much more likely to be voting green, right? If they're looking at laborour and thinking there's something wrong with them, they're going to the left rather than to the right of them So we're not going to predict the outcome of the election, but I believe there is going to be maybe a special episode soon afterwards, maybe a bonus episode of this very podcast. Is that right? Not promising anything. Okay, you know, could happen It could be an emergency An emergency podcast There is no such thing. No emergency has ever occurred to which a podcast is the solution. No, quite right. But there is an emergency issue of private eye on newsstands right now as there always is. So if you'd like it, you could just go into your local news agent or supermarket and get a copy of the magazine You can also get a subscription to the magazine at privatehyphen. co. uk. Subscriptions are unbelievably reasonably priced. The singleher of the magazine will set you back far less than a month of cage fighting on the White House lawn or whatever it is you were saying, Helen So that's it for today. Thank you very much to all of you for listening. Thank you to Helen Adam and Sarah for participating. and thank you to Matt Hill of Rhink Audio for producing. Bye for now