Page 94, The Private Eye Podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94. My name is Andrew Hunter Murray and I'm here in the eye office with Helen Lewis and Adam McQueen and we are here for our traditional, it's the second year we've done it, so it's natural additional, post Christmas pre-New Year quiz of the years news. This is hugely exciting. We've prepared a round each. There is fierce competition in the air. The rain is Adam McQueen.
OK, well, you don't need to bang on about it. Yes. No, we do. We do. We definitely do. We've got one last year's quiz. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Definitely. Yeah. OK, but now I think Helen, you're in play as well. Because you were just quiz mastering last year. Yes. And now my horrible competitive side will be able to be shown to readers so they can leave and never listen to us again. I'm just going to monster it. So we've got three rounds, all very different, but all covering various different aspects of the years news and the years news in the eye. So we're going to start with Helen's round. Helen, what's the name of your round, please?
private-eyed quiz. That's good. That's good, isn't it? It's very good, okay. I have to rename mine. No, mine is the year in politics. Oh, lovely, okay. That's my theme. And are we going to jingle our jingers? You want to jingle jingers, right? Okay, well, here we go. I can offer you. Adam has brought a side to side. This is the most exciting bit for me. You can have. Oh, that's your hat.
The sleigh bells. And he's just snatched those straight off. Terrific. We have what I like to think of as the... The sleigh bells ring are you listening. The clanging chimes of doom. The handbell. Or what I'm going to call... The holiday hooter. I'll have the teachers bell. I'm hooting. So let's go for the year in politics. Helen, take it away.
Okay, reality TV star Jacobry Smog's six child famously is called Sixtus. Name any of his other five children. Peter. Correct. That's the one that went canvassing with him. And looks like a miniature version of him. And then we put him in the magazine with a speech bubble and said, that's very, very cruel to expose that child to ridicule. We didn't do that. He did that. He took him out on the streets of Froome.
I was trying to think of any of the boys' names, because he's got, I think, five boys and one girl. And the boys are all called Peter, Dominica, Sixters, Wilfredo. The Ophyllis Fiwildbeest, I think. Yeah, and the girl is called Mary. Yes, the girl is called Mary. Shall this have said Mary? Mary, Peter, Thomas, Anselm, and Alfred. He went for a sort of saint theme. Anselm. Yeah, Anselm, a very Catholic saint. OK.
According to the reality TV show, which one of these relics does Rhysmog not claim to own? Okay. A, a fragment of the true cross. B, a fragment of the crown of thorns. C, a fragment of St Peter's foreskin. Or D, a wisp of Thomas Moore's hair shirt. Stables. I think it's the foreskin. Yes. Correct. He does claim to own all of the others. But yes, yeah, a bit of Thomas Moore's hair shirt. That's a great relic, to be fair, because that's probably actually genuine.
Yeah, and at the crown of thorns I thought was in Notre Dame.
I mean, weren't there notoriously three arms of St. James for quite a long time? There's enough rounds of thoughts to make a pretty substantial hedge, shall we? Yeah, fair enough. The hedge shed is good. Yeah, no. I would go and see if I went round to the Reese Moggs, if you're listening, Jacob. OK, next question. How many times, when you're both going to get a go at this and whoever's closest wins the point, how many times did Rachel Reeves say the phrase, working people in her budget speech, according to the official transcript,
Now, it's harder to be the one who goes first. So, reigning champion Adam is going to be handicapped by having to go first. How many times did Rachel Ruth say working people in her budget speech? I'm going to go for 14. I'm going to go higher. I'm going to say 23, please. According to the official transcript, 13. Oh! Well done, Adam. Thank you. I mean, you played that badly. If you thought it was more, you should have gone for 15, and then you'd have had all of those ones.
I know, but during my time as an economist at the Bank of England, I learned to... Following the Tory leadership race, what job does Breakout star Mel Stride hold? Two very tested. I'm going to hand it over to my man with the girls. Is he shadowed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster?
No, he's real Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. And that's what I was going to say. He's got the second most important job in the Tory party. Wow, let me down. Yeah, I knew that. That's amazing. Oh, I'm glad. I've always been a stride booster.
I also found out that his daughters are called Natasha, Ophelia and Evelyn. Lovely. Sort of a theme to this quiz so far. It's politicians' kids' names. Well, the only reason I wrote that is because Ed Balls has a joke that he often tells in private, which is that if you feel sorry for me, you should feel much more sorry for my sister Ophelia.
Oh, very good. Yeah, there we go. That probably gets aired on political currency a lot. In his conference speech in the autumn, who did Kear Starmer promise to bring home? Oh. Half-hearted honk. Football. No. Jimmy Ly.
No. Oh, can I have another? A dog for his kids and then he bought him a cat instead. No. Remember when I said before we started recording that I tested these on my husband and there was one that was so basic that I thought, well, that's real good. And that we did still didn't get without one. It was this one. He promised to bring home the sausages.
Oh, of course he did, yes. Yeah, sorry. Which of these was not a real lived emilection stunt by a Davey? A, playing We Will Rock You in a Care Home, B, visiting a safari park with a monkey supply been affected by Brexit, C, getting a summer makeover on this morning, including a Panama hat, and D, launching his manifesto on the teacups at Thought Park. Oh, I think so.
I'm going to need to jingle. I definitely saw him do the we will rock you at a care home. Yes. I feel like I've seen him dressed as the man from dumb on-tail this morning. Yeah, I remember that one. And the teacups feels very edavy, so I'm going to say he did not go to a safari park where the monkeys of play had been affected by Brexit.
Correct. Although I would say that zoos have been affected by delays in Brexit. There was a story about one of those Andean spectacle bears, the type of that Paddington is. It's been waiting for its export paperwork now for some years. Is it trying to leaf? Yeah. Is that where David draws the line? I won't work with children and animals. That might look stupid. When a reform candidate was secretly recorded making racist and homophobic comments, what was Nigel Farage's innocent explanation for the man's actions?
He was just drunk. Who among us? He claimed that he was possibly an actor hired by Channel 4 to discredit reform. From the moment he walked in, the whole thing was an act, and then he tried to get reform cancer for us as to say rude and abusive things. And when they wouldn't do it, he did it himself for us at a depressed conference. It's the only possible explanation. Absolutely.
Do you know who the actor was? Is it someone famous? Ben had it come about Olivia Coleman. It's weird that they thought you'd get away from her. Toby Jones is in everything. Last one. Why did the former SMP Health Minister Michael Matheson have his holly rude salary withdrawn for 54 days this year, losing him £11,000?
It's your favorite story, isn't it? It's the iPad that he took on holiday to Spain, was it? Morocco. Morocco. And then let his kids use the Wi-Fi on it to watch the data roaming to watch the football. Yes. And then he tried to claim it as an expense. It was a constituency business. Yeah, they, they, they, Dr. Salary, by the equivalent to the 11 grand expenses bill he put on for using a data roaming in Morocco. It's just the most dad scandal ever, isn't it? He didn't know how to switch the data roaming off. You can set limits.
Yeah, 25 per limit and it sends you a text message going. You're absolutely sure you want to carry on streaming to which his kids said yes, we do. It's not just doing that. It's just thinking, well, I'm not playing that bill. I bloody kids. Christmas, Christmas elf. What are the head of the scores? And half haunted honk has four and he has three. Oh, OK. Well, I'm going to hand over to you and you for a cultural round. That's right.
Bell. Okay, so this round is called The Culture Wars Round and I have taken 10 extracts from the diary that Private Eye publishes every fortnight as told to Craig Brown and I would like you to tell me who is speaking or rather who Craig is channeling.
I feel like this is one of those ones that is going to be a lot harder than you think from the outside. And we're going to just feel profoundly embarrassed throughout. I think that's probably true. Craig will probably complain. Craig will soon. I do read them, Craig. It's just probably quite hard. Okay, I'll start. And then, you know, we'll see how we get along. And if things are drastically difficult by question three, I'll start doing accents and giving clues. Right. Okay.
It's a crying shame that Lee Anderson never married Kate Middleton. What an amazing power couple they would make. Lee with his strong manly opinions, chiseled draw, genuine concern for others, and can do personality. God's Alison Pearson! Well done. I'll just finish it off because it's such a great line. Kate with her lustrous legs, perfect figure, and ability to charm the proverbial birds out of the trees. If there were any trees left, since the hard left councils drop them all down to make way for compulsory transclinics.
Here we go. Craving Alison. Well done, Adam. Brilliant. That sounds fair, though, because you have probably read... You are probably the only person alive who has read every Alison Pearson column. Oh, come on, all that mad. All right, here's one. It's absolutely disgusting in this day and age, and yet another sign of the unspeakable depravity of this Tory government that anyone with the courage to identify as a woman in the 21st century is being forcibly excluded from entering the so-called Garrick Club on pain of death. Willing for a left-wing firebrand.
Go on then, Helen. Helen. Helen. I'm going to say Billy Bragg. No. Adam? Little Owen Jones. It's Little Owen Jones. I knew it was Owen Jones, but I didn't want to be like, don't look like the person who's obsessed with Owen Jones. That's why I was letting you... You saw this, Billie Bragg. I was a pity one. Here's the next one. Sadly, I hadn't been long in Downing Street before I realised it was no place for a Prime Minister. I was literally being held prisoner with a gun to my head by an establishment cabal. Oh my God. Trust. It's trust.
Next up, if I could own one painting, it would be the Mona Lisa. She reminds me of myself when I was her age, quiet and thoughtful, yes, but also overflowing with youthful energy and idealism, and full of the zeal to create a truly global brand. Yep. It's a Megan. It's not Megan, it sounds very Megany. I was thinking you would guess Megan, Adam, who makes big global brands real.
I can only think of Victoria Beckham. It's Richard Branson. Did you see that recently? Victoria Beckham did a launch of something and she bought Harper along, who's the youngest of the children, the only girl. And she said, what's your Christmas wish? And Harper Beckham said, one day I would like to create an enormous brand.
Just as such a weird, only the child of those particular parents would ever say that. I hope to achieve synergy through many of my... Superb. Yeah. Okay, next up. There's an epidemic of dang fever sweeping the world, wreaking havoc. I've never succumbed to dang, touch wood, but last week I felt a slight tickle in my throat. Through a mix of determination and working-class guts, I came through, but truly I fear for today's coddled millennials.
Is that an adine? It's an adine! It was the codled millennials, but I was like, that's an adine, isn't it? Really, this is all just a declaration of how good Craig is and how good he is at channeling all of these pieces.
Stuff and nonsense. That's my reaction to the so-called stars, non-entities more like, who winge about so-called abuse on strictly come dancing. They clearly never fought in the battle of the Somme, where plucky young soldiers face the choice of death at enemy hands or drawn out misery and filthy rap-filled trenches. Ooh, that could be... The trouble is, that is a kind of whole style of colonialism. It is... It is a columnist. I'm going to go Clarkson. It's... It's... Can I... Can I forget? Older. Yeah, come on. I'm older than Clarkson. I was going to say Amanda, but it's hell.
I'd say a bit closer. I'm going to get a letter from her line, but she turns out that she's not older than Clarkson. This lady straddles the divide between columnist and politician. Oh. And is a strictly old hand herself. Anne Wetticom. It's Anne Wetticom. There we go. Well done. I feel like I was giving those clues even, Anne. Recently sacked from the Daily Express. Oh! That was so nicely ambiguous noise. Oh! That's brand new information. I continue to be appalled.
Maybe you should just leave it there. By assaults on traditional family values, reports coming through of rabid left-wing Muslim London mayor Sadiq Khan forcing a penguin at the London Aquarium to wear pink to conform with LGBTQ zoo quotas. No Sadiq, this is not politics, it is bullying, pure and simple. I'm going to go little on that one.
Not bad, but it's not little. Oh, so I know, I know. It really shows you there is a style of columnism, which is sort of Y-O-Y as everybody gay now because of work. Yeah, it's another telegraphy voice.
Alistair Heath. Cheryl Jacobs. I'm going to have to tell you. I'm going to be Alistair Heath and Alistair Heath would be like, and that's why the Doompocalypse is the funniest. Yes, it's Isabelle Oakshot. Underrated choice there, yeah. OK, here's the penultimate one.
If there is a Democratic Party victory, their stated aim is to force us to speak Mexican and wear sombreros in our homes and workplaces. Have you seen how big sombreros are? This disastrous policy would mean widening our doorways at the cost of billions so we could go in and out of our houses in this cumbersome headgear.
I remember this one, I think it had funny it was, but I'm gonna say, I know Lionel Shriver did a whole column about wearing a sombrero, so I'm gonna say Lionel Shriver. It's not Shriver. Is it mask? It's mask! Oh! Yeah, it's a mask. I knew it was a mask. Okay. And here's the final one. There's a portly bumble bee caught in my kitchen skylight. John, I just like this. It's not his length.
I want someone that's got all the adjectives in it, isn't it? I just really love it. I know because so many people contacted me for about a month before I'm just saying, please make creative, but please make creative, then I just let it be. It's fantastic. It's such a good idea. Like people wrote letters in about specifically the color. The musky, charred, cardamom scented. After a struggle, I rescue him with a long-handled feather duster from Fukuoka, a cherished present from a dear friend, and gently place him in my skillet.
He has to be cooked with me. Served with a tart gersberry puree and sogovian parsley, bumblebee fritter makes a perfect mid-morning snack. Lovely. Well, well done, everybody. Well, of course, isn't paying the big bucks for, isn't it? So Adam scores nine, but now he's out of the game because he's doing the next round. Right. So he's frozen, that's locked in. He's peaked. And he still has three. I'm telling this on two. I think we all know who's going to win this one. We all know. If you get every question right in my round,
So, it's time for my round, which is called the Year in Hackery. Are you ready? Weapons are the ready, please. Why did Mr. Justice fan court run through a catalogue of the eyes, golden oldies at the High Court, and who, as the first edition of the Iron 2024 recorded, was whinging about not being invited?
Go for it. It was a half holiday and they were like, this was their version of watching a video in court was to go through great legal stuff that we covered in Broadway. In board games. Yeah, that's my answer. That was in the line, Kate. Yeah, exactly. I'll give you a clue. It's got a royal connection and the person who was winning meant not being invited never gets seen anywhere, very much these days.
Prince Andrew. Nope. Oh. The other one. Prince Harry. That's the one! Hey! It was the case of the Duke of Sussex and others versus Mirror Group newspapers, which covered peers Morgan's boasts about having heard Paul McCartney's voicemail messages, who's then wife Heather Mills in 2011, and the occasion in 2002 when Morgan detailed exactly how easy it was to hack mobile phone messages. Do you remember who you unveiled that to?
Jeremy Paxman. Jeremy Paxman. I want to point that out. I want to point that out. I want to point that out. I want to point that out. I want to point that out. I want to point that out. I want to point that out. I want to point that out. I want to point that out. I want to point that out.
Nice next question January also saw the broadcast of Mr Bates versus the post office, which finally exploded the story that Richard Brooks had been following for the eye since 2011 into the mainstream. But which of the following long running eye investigations is not currently being dramatised for TV?
A, who was really responsible for the lockaby bombing, which the I first started covering in 1989. B, the contaminated blood scandal, which the I first reported on in 1987. Or C, the sexual abuse of Harris staff by Mohammed Fayed, which the I first gave details of in 1998. I think they're not doing tainted blood.
And I'm going to say, I think they're not doing Harrods. And I'm afraid the point goes to Andy. And that's good. As yet, no plans to dramatise the fired story. But that's only because the crown on Netflix is such a good job of dramatising exactly what he was like.
Spare, I thought for the actor Nadim Sawalo, by the way, who used to do one-man shows, pretending to be Mohammed Fayed, and has now completely lost that aspect of his enjoyment. Think about all the Queen look-alikes who no longer get any work, unless they want them to be on the grave opening a leisure centre or something. All those poor people who were doing Gary Glitter tribute acts up until about 1999. My Michael Govework has tailed off completely. It's been very sad since the election.
We should send you, put some glasses on you and send you into the spectator office. You can really cheat version of Ludwig, he can go and sort of do a bit of copy. In February the report the government commissioned into the T-side Regeneration Project, championed by Tory Mayor Ben Houchin, Lord Houchin as he's now, was published.
As the eye showed, it confirmed that dubious deals had been struck with no formal decision-making process, the Board of the South Tees Development Corporation misled, and that taxpayers were taking all the risk on the project while the businessman involved had no liability at all, but it extracted tens of millions from it. Is there a question at any point? It's more of a comment than this question. How? How did Houchun react to these findings?
He claimed it was a total vindication to report, and it was actually very supportive. Absolutely. The phrase I've got written down here is Dicty-Boo. He said everything was fine, nothing to see. The people of Teeside, Darlington and Hartley-Paul can welcome this investigation, which sets out in black and white that there is no corruption or illegality at Tees' works. And of course, because, you know, our private eye stories have such an enormous effect, they did appear to agree voting in back in as Tees Valley mayor in May. It's just a deferred retribution, that's all it is.
30 years time. Yeah, I'm loving this round of extremely boring questions. No, I was going to say vengeance concealed as quizzes. This is the aren't we great round. Yeah. OK, another long question. The questions have been lovely. That one was a little chewy. Good luck getting any points, Helen. I think you're the tip of the spear. You're the only one who can take down that. I'm throwing this match.
George Galloway won the Rochdale by-election for his workers' party of Britain, and greeted private-eyes coverage of the putinafile outpourings of some of his supporters by tweeting at us, cry more. Cry more. Cry more. Cry more. Cry more. No, very much not cry more, because then he was defeated by Paul War at the general election. That later began with it. But was Galloway's reign in Rochdale longer or shorter than Michel Barnier's equally unedifying stint as French Prime Minister?
Ooh. I mean, you're both going to get to go with this. I'm going to say, I'm going to go longer. And I'll say shorter. OK, Andy, you were just wrong. And it was very, very well done, Helen, longer. Galloway lasted 126 days as MP for Rochdale, which is approximately two and a half Liz Trusses, whereas Barney A managed to be in 90 days as French Prime Minister, which is 1.8 Liz Trusses, or 360 periods of martial law in South Korea. That's very good.
We've got these all really, really long questions. I'm trying to edit as I go. No, I like that. Other people have quizzes that are just simple questions. You always come with footnotes, like spanning diagrams. All of the questions are a statement of one length or another, followed by, but. It's no but in this one. In May, before anyone had found out what she would have really been up to, the sun declared its disgust at the BBC, keeping details of its internal investigation into what they had reported secret.
The eye pointed out that the sun was being equally quiet about its own internal investigation into its former star employee Dan Wooten and his catfishing of colleagues who allegedly tricked them into sending him compromising photos and videos of themselves. On the very day that the addition of that edition of the E.I. came out, the sun reacted, but how? It wasn't but. Hang on, we're reacting to what? Reacted to the eye coming out saying they were keeping things secret.
Oh, that was kind of joint. We'll let you go, Andy. Yeah. They completely ignored it. Amazingly, they didn't in this case. Didn't they fire it down, wouldn't they? He was long gone for the sun by this one. He didn't even find Bunchyby News by this point. No, they informed men who'd given evidence to the inquiry that they were going to continue to keep all the details secret and not even tell them what had been found out. But this hasn't since you asked, stop the sun from demanding to know why the BBC didn't do something about Greg Wallace's behaviour sooner.
A big row blew up in September after the press caught onto the fact that new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, along with his wife and plenty of his colleagues, had been taking freebies from millionaire Labour donor Lord Ali. Can I say it's very hard to concentrate with Andy? Andy has his bells of rocking in the pleasant way. I'm sorry. I'm ready with those bells, Andy. He's putting me off. Because the actual question is coming up. When did I-readers first find out who was paying for Starmer's suits and glasses?
Go on, Helen. Earlier. You want to go for a month at all? I'll say February. It was in June, a month before election day. But it was, far from the first time we'd highlighted as freebies because October 2023, we pointed out that the £4,500 bill for his family summer holiday had been picked up by, of all places, a Swansea Van Leasing Company. And we said at the point, his freeloading is starting to look rather conspicuous.
Yeah, you heard it here first. Which of the following is not a genuine headline from an Alistair Heath column in the Daily Telegraph, as featured in a hack watch of this year? We are the West's last generation before the New Dark Age. Storm has sinister plan for Britain. We'll end the country as we know it. Armageddon is upon us and Britain will never be the same again. I fear nobody can save Britain from its inevitable catastrophic collapse.
Go on. I think they're all real. Oh, it's a trick question. I think it's a trick question that all they are not all Alistair Heath Collins. OK, I'm going to go for number two, whatever that one was. No, it wasn't. It was number four, because that was his colleague, Sharelle, Jack Jacobson, 2023.
All genuine telegraph ones. Fantastic. Armageddon is upon us. I mean, amazing. It's just the way you want us to copy under those circumstances, really. That's professionalism. Yeah, absolutely. I just like the idea of Alistair Heath going about his business. His wife hasn't put the bins out. It's like, oh, my goodness, upon us, the bins have not been put out.
In August, the eye pointed out to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, that Simon Blagden, the former chairman of Fujitsu UK, who was now serving as the chair of their broadband body, building digital UK, had been misleading them about his involvement in the horizon scandal at the post office. What happened next? Oh, good. He was fired.
He was. Yeah. Well, he lost his job. They announced the DSIT announced that Simon Blagden has resigned as chair of BDUK on 18th of July 2024 with immediate effect. So a rare, quick result for their life. Terrific. Yeah. Only to however many years we can bring that stuff in scandal to actually get one of those. Also in August, one of Britain's biggest manufacturers announced a new sustainable product that we believe is both safer for both the user and the environment. Who were they and what was it? Could you give us a clue?
Is it to be used in the home? Oh, bombs, smart, but BAE? It was BAE. It was one of the big, Lockheed Martin, one of the big weapons manufacturers. They said we've got a fantastic new bomb that is going to leave much less plastic pollution in the ground of the crater. It's tough enough. It was BAE systems. It was first of their new next generation munitions, which was a 155 millimetre shell. The kind of being used heavily in Israel's warring Gaza, but it would now feature a lead-free explosive.
Oh, that's very sustainable. Very, very, very happy New Year's. So you won't be available to all warmongers, sanctions permitting from 2025.
You won't get lead poisoning, basically. That's it. You will, as you'll be dead. It won't be poisoned with lead, so that's nice. OK, this is my final question for you. In September, a claim went viral on Twitter. The social media site now known as X, because it's toxic and everyone's left it. Private I haven't printed a word about Charlotte Owen. Is this a coincidence or a super injunction? How many times had private I printed words or put them out on this very podcast about Charlotte Owen being appointed to the lords at that point?
I don't say we did it four times. And I'll say three. OK, well you're both wrong because it's five. Oh. Helen's got us way back in September 2022 and one episode of this very podcast in February in which we discussed at length how there definitely wasn't a super injunction covering the point of Charlotte Owen to the Lord. And how super injunctions really aren't a big thing anymore and happy for years. But once again, I say it didn't matter. And in proof of how journalism works, there's simply no one cared. So the winner there, definitely not the eye, except in one case, Simon Blackdon.
Brilliant. What are the scores, Chris, myself? Helen has five. Andy has eight. Oh! Thank you! Wow.
I think if you win next year, Adam, you get to take the podcast home for Keith. Well, at the school hamster Christmas holidays. You've got to feed it. Oh, well, thank you so much for playing everybody. Thank you for listening at home. We hope you've enjoyed 2024 and we hope you enjoy it 2025 even more and keep on reading the eye and listening to this wonderful podcast. We'll see you next time. Thanks, as always, to Matt Hill of Rethink Audio for producing. Bye for now and happy new year when it comes.
