Bringing down Russell Brand | The News Agents

the news agents it'd be very nice to meet you one day Mr Jimmy sail just you know if you've got a sister you could meet me by bringing her along I mean I haven't got any sisters but I don't usually meet fellas but if you've got a sister that's okay I've got a personal assistant called and part of her job description is that anyone I demand she um greets meets massages she has to do it she's very attractive Jimmy well that's that's that's a good start what kind of good start you could send her along to do some research would you like her to wear anything in in particular to Jimmy I'd actually prefer her to wear nothing right so you want my assistant to meet you naked okay well that's that's not going to be that's not going to be a problem that was Jimmy Seville speaking to Russell Brand in 2007 and that is the archive for the ages isn't it one prolific dead pedophile joking about grooming with a man who this past weekend has been accused of rape and sexual assault live on Radio 2 live on the most listened to radio station in the country this wasn't 1977 or 1987 it was 2007 something that a period that we wouldn't consider to be so long ago or so different from our own time and yet if anything is becoming clear from the brand story is that it was to some extent and on today's show we're going to be talking about the brand investigation from the Sunday Times the times Channel 4 how they got to the point of being finally able to publish after 4 years the reaction to the story and what happens to Brand now welcome to the news agents it's Emily it's leis and it's worth saying that Russell Brand denies strenuously all the allegations that we are going to be talking about in today's episode a little bit later we'll be talking about Liz truss who's made her comeback speech and she strenuously denies any sense of responsibility for what happened on her her watch almost a year ago well we're going to start with the Brand Story uh extraordinary weekend uh the Sunday Times the times and channel 4 all publishing their allegations about bran in different forms there was a dispatch's documentary on Saturday the series of stories that followed uh in the two times newspapers and all of them centering on Four Women although they although they do say they've spoken to others as well four women who are to a greater or lesser extent Anonymous and who have made allegations about brand that range from rape to sexual impropriety to grooming and one of the extraordinary things about particularly the documentary on uh Channel 4 on Saturday was some of the archive that was used and used to illustrate part of the story where brand makes jokes and suggestions and talks about the sort of things that he would like to do sexually and obviously we kind of knew this story was coming on on the Friday all these rumors about it um and brand put his video out he tried to scoop them all effectively uh spiked their story uh denied all the allegations talked about you know this being a mainstream media conspiracy and all that sort of stuff um but what amazed me Emily about it was obviously the content of the stories were was shocking um what amazed me was the reaction the reaction so quickly from some people who frankly you know I mean they've got TV programs they are themselves so-called mainstream figures basically dismissing the story and coming to Bran's defense before they'd even seen the documentary or really read any of the allegations yeah and we should just for those of you who haven't seen it or who've kind of been in the whole for the last couple of days we should say that there are allegations of rape in this documentary and in the investigation by the Sunday Times and times there is allegations of sexual assault and there is also what you might call grooming behavior and for me this is where I think the whole question becomes quite complicated because you can see where a criminal prosecution would go you could see where people might want to follow up in terms of you know Finding charges to press but then there's this whole gray area which is the stuff that he talks about on stage the stuff where he you know for Wonder of a better phrase just sounds like a dick and quite an aggressive narcissistic dick but it is not illegal behavior and he talks you know right at the beginning about [ __ ] and he talks about making women gag and and and the investigation also talks about a 16-year-old who who was made to leave her school lessons to come to his house and actually in the dog the woman who you know they call Alice raises the question of why is this legal you know why is it legal for a 16-year-old to be having a relationship with a 30-year-old and should the whole age of consent change and I think it raises a lot of questions about you know these shadowy figures who we all know have been behaving appallingly because they've told us they behaved appallingly and they've spoken about you know in inversion commas sex addiction and yet the law wouldn't stop most of what Russell Brand was actually doing that's sort of an extraordinary place to be yeah and Alice who has been speaking to the BBC today has said that you know Bran's response to her allegations are insulting she says that the idea that this is a mainstream media conspiracy is laughable she's also said that a BBC chauff for driven car was used to pick her up from school and take her to Bran's house as always with any of these stories everything seems to inexorably always come back in some way to to the BBC or there's a BBC sort of element to it and there are like real questions here both at Channel 4 BBC and elsewhere other media Executives about they kind of knowing about elements of brand behavior and perhaps not the most extreme versions of it but you know as the documentary said in Channel 4 when he was doing BG brother you know producers going to talk to young women and asking them to go meet him uh back in his you know after the show and so on um so there is this inlan sight idea and that's what the the documentary um is called but I mean I suppose the thing is is that you know so many people have interviewed him you've interviewed him what were your what were your what were your impressions of him I interviewed him when he just brought out this book about addiction I think it was called recovery you know and to be fair I I went to that interview preparing to loath him um and he kept me waiting and I'm a really rigorous time 201 17 2018 end of 2017 and I remember him being late and I remember having his own makeup room and sort of thinking oh my God you know what a narcissist I hate people who do the power play thing by you know making it a sort of an interview weight for no sort of apparent reason and then in truth you know he walks into the room and he is mesmerizing you know he's funny he's smart he's linguistic his his language is is magnetic and and he's charismatic he Char you he did to some extent I mean I still found myself taking out this idea of you know oh you're a victim of addiction you're a victim of of sex you know anyone who sleeps with a hundred women a day sleeps with you know has sex with 100 women or whatever can choose not to right so let's just get past the idea that that is some some terrible malady and illness of course he wasn't addicted it's it's behavior that you can change but in the context of the interview I'd be lying if I said you know of course there isn't something about him we know that there's something about him because he sells out shows he reinvents himself I mean curious that that just when this investigation was starting he managed this whole kind of personal reinvention towards you know wellness and and wellness should kind of ring a lot of alarm bells in this day and age because it tends to mean conspiracy antiva was he getting ready you know to sort of if you like almost groom his audiences into thinking everything against him was a conspiracy was was that why he was finding the new alternative audiences let's listen to a bit of your interview when you look back at that promiscuous lifestyle do you think does that appall you do you think God I was disgusting do you look at your daughter now and think I hope she never meets Russell Brown when she grows up so worked up about it it's only a rhetorical device does it appall you no my dear I don't look back at the past and get all worked up about it like Eben a scrooge I simply think those are some things I've done I've amended for them and as for the likelihood of some sort of fouy and kick up the ass from future Russell if my daughter meets somebody who's caring and sensitive and knows how to communicate then I think that will be a good thing he sort of swatted me down like a fly there you know he sounded to me like you touched a nerve actually when particularly when you watch it when I cuz I watched it yesterday I just thought actually for the first time he looked a bit irritated and that you had touched a nerve but what do you get back you get kind of Gerta dick you know these extraordinary aidite references and what he tried to do after that bit was get it onto the I'm a great dad let me tell you some dad stories and this was really weird actually because he's sort of telling me about his his newborn and what it's like being a dad and then he accuses me of tuning out he says you're editing this as I'm speaking which was quite per yeah quite astute quite perceptive and I thought yeah I said yes you're right I am because I didn't buy it you know I've been trying to talk to him about his behavior and his past behavior and he was already kind of trying to sell himself Rebrand haha himself as this sort of cute loving dad and there are some things that as an interview just kind of like just don't stick you sort of get rid of all together but but you know if you take that interview as a whole yeah he kind of he was out to charm and I think that's what he did over and over again which is why you know we had him on news night that was a news night interview he was hired by BBC he was hired by well it was a peri he became a sort of political Sant right like completely he was you know voted one of the most intellectual Minds by Prospect magazine know it's sort of Ed millerand interviewed him all this stuff was that period in the mid you know 2015 2016 he was everywhere he was everywhere and that's how it works and that's despite the fact obviously he'd had to leave the BBC in the late 2000s over the sax gate stuff um I mean we started the show with that what I find is like jawdropping interview exchange between him and savil um and one of the problems I suppose when these sort of stories come out is that everything sometimes gets compared to savil because savil was just the most horrendous case probably in well modern British history um but it but it is amazing that they have that conversation and that that goes out on radio too and I don't know what it says I don't know to be honest does it say something about the power of celebrity and Charisma which to some extent they clearly or to a large extent they both had does it say something about shifting culture Can it have shifted that much since 2007 or does it just say something about us and the fact that actually you know what this weekend 2,000 people were still at his gig despite the fact that they knew what was coming laughing along and giving him a standing ovation also the SEL thing is really interesting because it speaks a little bit to how investigations of the kind that we're going to be talking about work and I remember at the time I was at newsight and I heard a conversation between Executives saying well have we got enough evidence on the salel stuff you know I think he's only sort of you know touched a few women's breasts right and that was how it was seen at the time like can we really go with this is it strong enough and to be fair as a journalist you are looking you know you have to have a high bar you have to know that the stuff you're highest on something like this really high because he was he was this you know hugely popular again charismatic Family Fun figure at the time right and so this idea that you be weighing up were his crimes bad enough that was essentially what you were doing were those crimes bad enough and have we got the evidence to show for them if we had known then how many more people would come out and tell us things how you know I'm going to pay tribute to Liz mcke and and minin Jones who were leading this investigation who never got to put it on air but if we had trusted them in the way clearly that the Sunday Times editor has trusted its journalist to say I know that what you're doing is touching a nerve of many many more stories these cases are all watertight but there will be many many others the whole thing would have been very differently told I think and this is what to go back to that question about the reaction what again I found amazing about it maybe I shouldn't have found it amazing but but I did this is what really wounded me up about it which is to say that you know okay you you you know Bran's got a huge following like you say it's a really interesting ter that he suddenly decided to make in 2018 2019 where he starts correcting you know attacking the mainstream media and who knows what he knew about what was coming um but you know you've got actually like genuinely kind of vaguely credible people or people within the mainstream media you know saying things like well why don't they just why didn't they go to the police these women or why have they all come forward at the same time it's like hello do you know anything at all about doing a story or working on a story and by the way maybe some of them do but nonetheless they just want to have an opinion they just want have something say why women do or don't go to the police quite so you know what and I think we in the quote mainstream media I think we will have to be extremely robust about this in sort of shooting this down and not sort of playing into it in the sense that you know what you've got here is a meticulously researched story that has got all sorts of accompanying evidence in all sorts of different ways it's been worked on for four years yes Brandon IE it and it is important to make that clear at every turn but nonetheless you know is it any surprise at all that women don't come forward when they are so comprehensively disbelieved by mainstream quote unquote media figures before by the way many of them had even seen a documentary or even read anything that was in those newspapers I found it astonishing just how quickly this became a sort of culture War cleavage and by the way I don't believe for a moment that they didn't believe the story I just don't believe that but I will just quote Nami Klein here who's a guest that actually we're going to be speaking to um in the next couple of weeks and her line is this conspiracists groom their followers to believe any attack on their hero is a conspiracy to take them down it's a closed mental Loop and I think once you put that in context you realize that you know possibly Russell Brand has found his kind of conspiracy nut jobs who are happy to go with him so that if a story like this breaks they're already on side they've bought into him they've got the happy juice they don't have to question what journalists are saying they don't have to question what many of their own papers are saying it's Trump you've already dismissed the institution whether it's the rule of law or the Department of Justice or the mainstream Media or the Civil Service whatever it is you've already dismissed them so that you're ready to go and say clearly they're just out to get me and by the way what is so utterly disgusting about some of that stuff and again you know you you can just read the report and and watch a documentary and make up your own mind about it you don't need us to tell you but when you look at the way when but you've got so many of those same people those same people who told us do you remember the BBC was a den of perverts because of the Hugh Edwards story a story which again whatever you think about it in terms of the evidential basis and what we're talking about and the allegations here we're talking about something of a potentially quite different order of magnitude so you know what like it is time with regards to these stories that people just left Stop treated them as a means of Prosecuting a either the culture war or B an attempt to sort of pedal your absurd kind of constant you know conspiracy fueled narrative and just treated them as for what they are otherwise we'll never progress or go any further yeah I I think it is all part of the democratization of media though and by that I mean that just like the interviewer doesn't necessarily hold all the cards here we saw that in the interviews with Elon Musk or with Andrew Tate where they behind the way abely both of them I think did but don't forget Russell Brand has his own following on YouTube where he took on Friday night straight away when these allegations were about to drop to talk to 6 and a half million followers right and so that is your cult that is your readymade audience who you are trying to get on side to preempt anything that may come out afterwards yeah but I mean you know absolutely which is why so-call mainstream uh organizations really ought to be more careful so you know you have like someone like Bev Turner who is a presenter on GB news tweeting out you're being attacked at Rusty Rockets i russle Brand establishment media don't know what to do with the fact you have 6 million subscribers and generate autonomous knowing and original content you're welcome on my GB news show anytime you're a he keep going this proves you're winning you're a hero and that is before she'd read any of it and indeed actually to her fellow GB news presenter Andrew Pierce's credit on GB news this morning there was this astounding exchange between the two of them because they just happen to host a show together on GB news mid morning show this is a little exchange that they had and you say you're a hero don't you think before you say someone a her hang on don't you think before you say he's a hero you should establish whether these very serious allegations are true well before the answer to that before I tweeted that I had spoken to to several sources close to Brand close to the times had you spoken to those four I was confident that there is no smoking gun in this regard right I remain confident having watched the dispatches if that is what they've got after four years of a joint investigation by the Times newspaper and channel 4 those four flimsy allegations from women who choose to stay Anonymous so there is nobody that can counter their version of events there's nobody who can say well well hang on I was there on that occasion I was reminded funly enough of the last time we covered this sort of story was with the Ft investigation to Chris binod and the fund manager in the city the hedge fund manager who was accused of rather similar things to Russell Brand and a friend of mine said oh I remember you saying at the time this is what happens when you have you know more women in editorial positions and actually if you look across now and it's not by no means only women but you have Ru khif at the ft you have Becky Barrow on the Sunday Times News editor desk you have Louisa Compton dispatches I would even say Esme Ren Jess brahmer uh at news night just somehow made these kinds of stories their priorities and they didn't feel small and I think that's really important that women have to feel that actually they might take something that doesn't look like very much at first glance but most women would realize that if that's happened once it's probably happened a hundred times and if it's happened there it's probably happened in other places and it it I I just feel that actually what you're seeing now is what happens when you just get a more balanced gender balanced editorial take on these stories they become more important well in just a moment we're going to be speaking to one of those exact women and indeed one of the women at the heart of this story rosand Irwin the media media editor at the Sunday time s who as I say was one of those who brokee the story this weekend stay with us well not welcome back and joining is now as promised is the media editor of the Sunday Times Ros irn who Ros started this investigation in 2019 I mean started four years ago maybe we should start there and just explain to our listeners why something like this can take so long yes I first started working on this in 2019 and the reason these things take so long is because when you approach people you very very rarely find someone who really desperately wants to tell their story if it is the worst thing that that has happened to them and that's what they're alleging um and obviously there is a lot of people for whom what they're alleging is the worst thing that has happened to them and you have to you have to be so careful to corroborate evidence and then the challenge is obviously finding more people because it's very very hard to do it on your own to be the woman who speaks out on your own and I know some people have done that uh and they're very very brave and I I commend them for that but I think it's very very difficult and legally unless they have exceptionally strong evidence it's almost impossible to do it on your own you are trying to encourage more women to come forward presumably so you might hear a story I'm guessing that doesn't sound that doesn't sound criminal but you think might lead to something else right I mean is this how you're sort of putting jigs oring things together yeah so obviously not every exper ience that is uh that is that it's in the public interest to report actually not everything has to be criminal for it to be in the public interest to report it um and you know there is always this question about particular I think around me too stories of you know does does a bad date story a really really bad date story but that where nothing's actually happened that you could sort of call criminal but it has been so uncomfortable and so unpleasant that it is something that that that person is really affected by and really remembers you know is that in the public interest to report it well it it may well be yes and there were stories like that that we that we that we came across and and obviously we put those allegations as well but in the end we've we've really focused on the four strongest stories where uh people are women aren't making allegations of sexual assault when did you how did you first become interested in the story what was the Genesis of it so it became known to me that there were a lot of comedian mentioning in their sets that um these allegations so they were saying things that I can't actually say um but you can get away within a standup gig where they were accusing in very blunt terms Russell Brand of sexual offenses and um as a joke it was part of their yeah as part of their set yeah so and then they sort of do mic drop you know having said uh a statement that I can't I can't broadcast you know I've got to be very careful you know we're having to talk about allegations but they're not bound by the same rules on a on a stage and they were putting their head above the par the parit because they wanted it known they wanted it out there and they were uncomfortable with that and they this is male comedians and female comedians they were uncomfortable with the fact that they felt their industry was covering up for a predator an alleged Predator so this was their way of drawing attention to the story yeah and I would I would I would say you know they were using the medium they had um and you know some of them uh were com Under Pressure to stop doing that so um you know agents get very worried when their when their clients start doing things that are difficult and controversial so um I I would I would say this was in one way a we being brave you know they was they were trying to speak out and just looking at that timeline because I interviewed Russell Brand in 2017 he just brought out this book on addiction so he was doing the whole sort of self flagellation or self- knowledge thing but then he seemed to change round about 2019 I mean just at the point where you are then doing this investigation you're just St to work on this investigation he pivots right he turns into a very different sort of being he's not doing the BBC he's not doing Channel 4 he's been I think fired or you know shoved away from both those areas and he's now kind of Reinventing as a a wellness Guru do you think that that was a coincidence uh I think for other people to decide what I would say and Emily you are one of the few people who actually asked him outright about his behavior towards women in that interview I mean I think it actually got got got that clip's gone round because you actually did ask him about this because so much of this is in the public domain there is genuinely a passage in his book where he says you know what kind of man was I treating women in this way and then he says if this is what I'm admitting to and I'm I'm paraphrasing slightly here but if this is what I'm admitting to imagine what I'm leaving out and that was in his um in his second set of Memoirs and that was published so there's a definite hiding in plain sight thing here but in terms of the pivot it is interesting to me that I began this in 2019 and by 2020 you know the antivaxer stuff all of that starts coming out and there's the second element to this which is that he wasn't getting those mainstream jobs anymore so he wasn't appearing Onan Channel 4 um sort of uh comedy programs although I should note he was appearing quite late on those shows because he went on um celebrity bake off right before this period and um baked a vagina cake I don't mean if that isn't making a mocker of things I don't quite know what is so he was still getting some work up until about that point and then it all dried up but to be clear in terms of this potential pivot and whatever his motivations were for that he he knew that you were working on this story I don't know that and but one always assumes that they know don't they because the I mean you have to as a journalist assume that they are becoming aware of it particularly as you get to people closer to someone because you're going to reach out to someone who will tell him you just know that and I don't know exact the exact moment that he became aware but I should say I wasn't the only journalist sniffing around this either so the point point being you know most of the main you know actually can I even think of I think almost every newspaper and every media Outlet has tried to do the story at some point but you and Charlotte got the women to talk and you were probably constantly aware that for every moment you get somebody to actually tell their story you're also ratcheting up a potential lawsuit if you get anything wrong uh yeah absolutely and and that you know we have an obligation obviously to do everything in a way that well one if there was a lawsuit we would be able to defend exactly what we've done but also you know I'm I'm very aware that the Sunday Times and the times you know they have very established impressive well extraordinary reputations globally and I don't want to be the idiot journalist who does some damage to that brilliant reputation you know I I'm constantly aware of the Legacy and history and obviously the same goes for Charlotte at the times that we cannot do something that would be damaging and and that would be financially damaging for the company too I mean that's always a fear for people isn't it did you think he'd come after you you always have to have that possibility in your mind yes absolutely I mean do you still think that now we'll see we'll see on that one um I am very very confident in our reporting and actually Charlotte was the game changer on that so Charlotte um waser the times came on board on this uh towards the start of this year um so she's worked on it a shorter time but in that time she has been extraordinary and she what she was able to do was find a level of evidence with this one particular woman who we've called nardia that I have a level of evidence so strong I've never seen anything like that on a me too story I've worked on a number of me too stories and almost invariably you're always scratching around saying but the problem is we can't prove this we'll really struggle let's just play the clip of nardia and she was allegedly raped by Russell Brand in his apartment and there was a text exchange after that yeah so this is back in July 2012 uh and this allegation from the woman that they are calling nardia um and the text exchange goes like this brandex I'm sorry that was crazy and selfish I hope you can forgive me I know that you're a lovely person no Tex you scared the [ __ ] out of me you're right I am a lovely person for you to take advantage of me like this is unexpectable you have a problem you need help it's dangerous you think you can get your own way all the time do you know how scary you are when that glaze look comes over you when a girl says no it means no do I have to go and get myself tested last time you asked me condom or no condom when I say condom that doesn't mean it's optional you don't have the best reputation I pride myself on being safe and trying to make the right decisions obviously this was a bad one I'm so disappointed and sometime later brand replies I'm very sorry you don't need to get tested I will make this up to you somehow with love with love and kindness not my original idea which was more sex you've been lovely to me and I'm embarrassed by my behavior sorry kiss and then sometime later again he texts will you ever forgive me and we should just say that the Sunday Times team and channel 4 have been clear that they have verified that that was indeed Russell Bran's number I mean evidentially that is profound isn't it I mean as you say Ros I mean actually it's unusual to have that level of evidence in one of these cases absolutely but I'd go further than that she didn't just provide that Charlotte you know has has built a rep a relationship obviously you know professional relationship but but she has been able to persuade this woman to hand over medical notes um you know she went to the Rape Crisis Center the very next day um so you know this body of evidence here is so profoundly strong you know photographs um so so much evidence just on that what's the latest you've heard both from the LAPD if you've heard anything at all and the Metropolitan Police uh so I think we're at a point where they're sort of saying women if they want to come forward but um but I don't but they they haven't opened an investigation but but what about more women are they reaching out to you now I mean they know where to find you and they know you're going to listen I'm wondering if since publication your inbox is now sort of filling up it is but we have to be very careful that we were so extraordinarily rigorous in terms of the coroporation of these stories you know we had to do quite intrusive things and ask incredibly intrusive questions actually um and we have to make sure that we are meeting that same incredibly high standard of reporting because as you've seen there's plenty of people online who think this is some sort of mad conspiracy and we have to prove that we have done everything right and that we continue to do everything right in our reporting and obviously that's difficult and that will take time so yes we have had a lot of a lot of people come forward but so what will you do with that we've now got to go and corroborate their stories and meet them and and some of them won't M make meet our bar I mean I I should say not every person that we spoke to who made an allegation is in the paper because there is a very high bar to publication in in terms of you know providing evidence you know what what we ask of people is is so is so much really did you have others who decided that you spoke to but who didn't want to go the whole through the whole process of yes giving their stories to the paper yes and I'm willing to say it because I think it's really important that we acknowledge that it is a difficult process for these women the idea that somebody would do this because I don't know they want attention or whatever I mean it it is an unpleasant process you have to be and obviously also we have to check that there's somebody who is Credible and that's what I mean about intrusive questions asking somebody if they've got a criminal record that type of thing um and and then you know and obviously none of our women did I I should add but you know also none of our women know each other because you can get cross-contamination of sources so that's further consideration and then additionally um you know you have to do this sort of level of coroporation text messages emails have they told their story to anyone you know dates times places dates times places and if something happened a long time ago that's very very difficult Yeah you mentioned the reaction that there's been and some of the sort of conspiracy reaction online I guess it's worth saying that for many people the first thing they heard about this story was actually Russell Bran's own Denial on that YouTube video that surfac what Friday night Friday evening did that did that surprise you or did did you kind of did you guess that was coming no we gave him 8 days to reply I mean in in in the end because we got a response on Thursday um uh of last week and we had gone to him about a week before that um and so he had actually a long time I mean it you know some people may say well that doesn't seem long enough to them but if somebody came to me with allegations like that I could immediately deny them because they wouldn't be true um so he we did get a legal response um and our lawyers replied actually incredibly quickly and then we heard nothing and my brilliant colleague from the times Paul Morgan Bentley um was in charge of that because this is that's quite a terrifying I I think that's one of the most frightening bits he going to people for right reply as a journalist um and he has done he did an exceptional job at managing it but he continued to chase um a response and we didn't get one and then we had discussed the possibility this wasn't someone who was going to play by the usual rules as we would see them and we had discussed the fact that he might release a video that did seem a logical thing to happen and to get on the FR not just release a video but almost unleash his sort of bandwagon of conspiracy supporters immediately to dismiss anything as kind of mainstream media Vendetta but that is why we wanted to be so watertight in our reporting and we wanted to be and we we met that standard but that's why we had to do everything you know everything by the book everything perfectly were you surprised by the extent of that of that sort of conspiracy fueled reaction even from some not just the usual suspects but some people who have television programs some people who have are are more quote unquote mainstream uh yeah look I find it a bit disappointing that there are journalists um it's always columnists frankly it's not it's not reporters at other papers columnists who were critiquing it without having read the story and I would point out some of those columnists were people who their own newspaper was running on the front page with all of our allegations all of our hard work you know all of Charlotte's hard work and the same time they got a columnist somewhere saying well you know have they done all the have they done all the work here you know it's just women saying it type thing and you think well hang on a minute look at look at our body of evidence here don't just but they hadn't no no no one of them admitted to me she hadn't even read the piece you talk about Alison pears here I am yeah I'm willing to say that and why do you think I mean what do you think's in it for them do you think attention I've so I used to be a columnist I've I had a very odd path as a journalist because I got a column far too young I would now note age sort of 24 23 something like that and you know no one should have heard from me at 23 or 24 bluntly I had a column for eight years columnists always have columns too long and I was one of them and I made the decision to step away from it and actually it's really relevant to this story in my reasoning my reasoning was me too and if you look when I left writing a column it was shortly after me too and the reason for that was I found it so disappointing that there were so many columnists who wrote about these things and were saying oh this is just a he said she said story and actually what had happened is you know these brilliant journalists brilliant reporters are gone away done all the hard work that instant I now know because I've just done it all um on a really difficult story and then it's just being as though you know as so sort of it's just a woman saying something and they've just published it that's not how it work Works in newspapers or or on TV you can't just publish something because someone's told it to you so I was reminded that when the Ft recently broke the story about Chris Bodi the fund manager who um they expos in a a very similar way um I'd said this is this is what happens actually when you have women in editorial positions now and I would site r khif at the ft and Becky Barrow who's been your um news editor Louisa Compton at dispatchers I'd also say as Ren and Jess brahmer who were really instrumental at news nights in just somehow making these stories a priority yeah and I wonder if you think that that that that is why we we will see more this is a sort of natural consequence of having more women in more positions of power I think it's even broader than that because we have a phenomenal legal team led by Pier uh Pi s and you know I did obviously she doesn't she's not doing you know she's she's a lawyer first you know it's not there's nothing but I think having a woman in the legal side of this was also incredibly powerful you know she we were we couldn't have done this without her and I think law help you get things over the line more and stop you from they get forgotten a bit in how important they are in the story like this but you know they're everything actually um and I would say as well you know we have a male editor um at the Sunday Times Ben Taylor and you know is about allies too and you know he's hired a lot of brilliant women and throughout his career and he he is somebody that I feel I would be able to talk to about these things and he would understand and I think that's important too so it's not it's not just women but of course it does absolutely help that we have I mean we have a a female news desk at the the four four main people on the news desk apart from our investigations editor um the the other four are women so very female L um place now particular on news where very often you know a lot of the reporters are still men but they've been incredibly supportive I should add um I couldn't asked better colleagues actually how are you how are you feeling about it now because it's weird anyone you know anyone who's worked on a story um usually not for as long nearly as long as you have but there is this kind of there's a real process to it right an arc to it a narrative to it um and when you finally publish it and you wait for the reaction it is a weird feeling isn't it how are you feeling about it now where do you think the story is going also the difficulty is you've been doing all this work to get stuff ready and then suddenly everyone else is on it too um one thing I've been has made this much easier is having Charlotte because she understands the exact same process that I've been through Charlotte was um because you know it's it is very difficult and it is very it can be very emotionally draining and I think for me it's been really helpful having somebody else um who's who's who's experienced I I was I was saying before that um films about journalism are always really anti-climatic because the culmination moment is you know you just sort of hit you hit send that's that um but so there's a weird moment when I knew we were Printing and you know it had all gone the page has gone and then charlot and I just sort of sat there and it's like I I didn't really know what my emotion was and you know you're very emotional and obviously you're very you're still very worried for the women because it's a very hard thing to go through and particularly if they're going to read stuff online about them that is untrue um that is very unpleasant do you want to see Russell bran charged and convicted it's not up to me to say that you know it's not um it's an interesting question and I think you know one of the criticisms that we get for doing stories like this is oh you should have handed this dossier over to the police well one I have no right to do that if women tell me something they are telling me they are not telling the police and I think it has to be a part of Journalism that we always you know the fundamental rule of Journalism is you protect your sources and you do what you know and that is so fundamental there sort of you know we have an industry with it aren't that many you know we're bit more relaxed about certain other rules but fundamentally that is the one thing that if you fail at you have failed as a journalist and so it has to be their decision it's nothing to do with me frankly and you know maybe maybe we we shall see on that um but but there people have good reasons for not wanting to talk to the police I would add and particular you know we've had so many stories I mean obviously Wayne and cousins being the most extreme version of that but plenty of other stories about why women wouldn't want to talk to the police and why they might instead think that journalism was a better way to get this out well you've spent four years getting inside the head of this man to some extent you know you've read everything that he said you've watched all these interviews what do you think of him this is a really good question because I've actually never met him so in 2015 I think I was asked to interview him when I was um when I was a columnist at the standard and did lots at the evening standard and did lots of interviews for them and he was the only person I ever said no to interviewing and I didn't know any of this it wasn't that I had a particular you know I didn't have any knowledge of any of this then I didn't and and in fact that it wasn't at the point where a huge number of people knew this um it wasn't that sort of open secret level that there were these allegations against him my reasoning was that I'd watched him on TV and I have a particular aversion to people who don't um respect your personal space I find it it's a a power play and I find it very unpleasant and just always I could see in in when clips of him and interviews he's always getting too close to to people and I've I just knew I didn't want to be around that I find that a very um a very manipulative thing to do and you know as a jist you don't often say no to interviewing people I mean genuinely I've never turned I mean unless I've got a conflict of interest or something uh I haven't there haven't been loads of people that I've been like I can't possibly you know I'm not picky um and um and so to for me to have felt that my colleague went and did it it was perfectly fine but um I just knew I didn't want to sit in a room with him Rosman that's fascinating thank you so much thank you now some people say we were in too much of a rush and it's certainly true that I didn't just try to fatten the pig on Market day I tried to rear the pig fatten the pig and Slaughter the pig on Market day I confess to that but the reason we were in a rush is because voters had voted for change welcome back so Liz truss has been making a speech today to commemorate if that is the right word a year on from the self-imposed financial crisis that her government created she was speaking to the institute for government in London about the importance of free market ideas and growth got to say one thing for her she's consistent it's quite interesting that in this speech she blames the political and economic reaction to her policies rather than the policies themselves and I'm guessing that if the policies had been slightly more watertight then the dare I say political and economic reaction wouldn't have been quite so Disturbed when we say economic reaction we should just remind our listeners that the bank of England actually had to step in to uphold the pension Market because the whole thing was tanking now where I think Liz truss is on slightly firmer ground is where she she basically castigates the bank of England for not raising interest rates slightly quicker and I think whether you believe that or not you can make an economic argument to say that they probably should have stepped in earlier to do that and it would have kind of created a more stable you know atmosphere in which she could then work does it stop her policies from being back [ __ ] crazy it doesn't and I think it's kind of worth noting that Mark Carney who is the former Governor of the bank of England who was speaking Montreal um over the weekend has called her a lifelong politician masquerading as a free marketeer with little experience of the private sector he's actually um suggested that she created Argentina on the channel because she turned this country into a basket case with some of the things she was trying to implement there's another interesting thing about drust right which is that she says there why were we in a hurry and and it's worth bearing in mind she's never apologized for for for what happened the only thing that she's apologized for is sort of getting some of the communication wrong um and maybe moving a bit too quickly she says that they were in a hurry because she only had two two years correct but also that people voted for Change and they voted for change in 2016 and 2019 and I think this is the point that she has never really kind of internalized or addressed all her supporters yes she's right people did clearly vote for change in 2016 and 19 uh in one form or another it has never been clear indeed if anything it is extremely clear they did not vote for the sort of libertarianism and free market approach to kind of reheated his 1980s agenda that trust was espousing the entire point of 2016 and 2019 was that it was a shift in conservative political thinking it was a shift towards the state it was a shift towards the sort of political demography and areas and seats that were not comfortable with the so-called Singapore on Tang model that Mark Carney was referring to and the problem Singapore works out Argentina was the basket case that was the 2000 crash where Singapore is meant to be the model of low taxation that does work I think is yeah it might work but the point is it may well work but the point is or it works might work for Singapore although they actually have quite a big state but anyway the point is is that that was never there was never a mandate for that there was never any kind of mandate from the public there was a mandate perhaps from conservative party members or 100 thousand of them or so there was never going to be or there was never a political mandate or appetite for a shift from Johnson ISM because Johnson to his credit kind of intuited correctly that there had been this shift in conservative thinking and the sort of people who were voting conservative but there was never a mandate to shift from that to a kind of reheated libertarianism the sort of wit that trust believes in and she should therefore have expected that there would be political counter reaction to it as well as economic counter reaction given that she is the one who is supposed to understand the markets and as we discussed many times at the time the idea that the international markets were some form of kind of you know establishment leftwing establishment Trojan Horse was always just complete nonsense look put that in in context there was never a mandate for Theresa May who inherited from David Cameron but there was in a sense because she was taking the brexit Mandate and then she tried to seek one for herself in 2017 and it didn't work yeah but that's that's what I'm saying she didn't get a mandate from the British people as their prime minister Liz trust didn't get a mandate from the British people as their prime minister RI sunk didn't get a mandate from the British people as their prime minister this is surely part of the problem isn't it that we have now had five conservative Prime Ministers only two of which have been voted into Power by the country and this is what happens you start trying to talk about change who are you trying to change from the last guy that was voted in the guy that's going to come afterwards that won't be voted in you know you don't actually know who you're trying to differentiate yourself from anymore because it's all your own party and I just want to say on this one issue she's only had a 47-day stin in office and over the weekend labor have appealed to Rishi sunak to block any potential honors list I say potential they think she's got 14 honors to give out which is about what one every three and a half days not bad going and and the and the pressure now is on rishy sunak who has to decide whether he obey convention or whether he goes you're right this is just another batshit crazy Liz trust thing can I also link these two stories that would be talking about today and and people might not expect me to say that and it is in a slightly sort of oblique way but I think it is important one of truss is the thing that truss has started to extol and talk about all the time is something that become more and more common on the mainstream kind of center right and within center right politics um in recent years it is this idea which used to find more on the old sort of left of politics this idea that there is conspiracy everywhere that there is deep state that there are forces particularly in the mainstream media we remember how often truss attacked the so-called mainstream media and the BBC and elsewhere repeatedly during the election campaign that there is a kind of leftwing cabal and agenda that is always conspiring to undo what the people really want that the mainstream media all of these sort of things they don't represent the public basically that they're lying to you well that is the agenda of brand that is exactly the kind of forces that he Taps into and has tapped into over the course of this weekend and this is why mainstream politicians of every stripe has to be really careful about their language and this this Indulgence of these kind kind of conspiracy-minded ideas that have become more and more common in politics and as I say particularly common on the right of politics in recent years are really really dangerous because it legitimizes them when you've got someone like Liz truss standing up you know who's prime minister of this country who's foreign Secretary of this country she's trade Secretary of this country she's been in politics for a long time basically saying that there are all of these forces within society that are constantly trying to conspire against me and our ideas and against the public and so on it is a dangerous set of ideas is and although power yeah we always got to be uh we've always got to have a lot of scrutiny about power and as journalists we've always got to make sure that we're scrutinizing power properly and be slightly suspicious of power this idea constantly that conspiracy becoming such a central part of our politics and culture it's not only depressing it's dangerous leis it's called populism it's how it works you set up an elite who don't understand you and the people and whether it's Russell Brown saying the elite is the mainstream media but you know my lovely followers on YouTube The Wellness Guru people will all believe in me and follow me or whether it's Liz trust saying it's the people who live in London townhous or do podcasts or have dinner parties or you know the media the political Elite whatever it's a way of saying you want to take away the institutions you want to take away if you like the standard bearers and The Gatekeepers of our institutions because you the populists just want to speak directly to the people and of course that's a trick we we've we've seen that time and time again and you're right if you're not kind of conscious of How It's Working how it's operating then everyone starts checking themselves out for the conspiracy right that's that's how it's happened it's only Monday roll on Tuesday can't wa see you tomorrow bye for now the news agents this is a global player original [Music] podcast

Channel: The News Agents

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Length: 52min 22sec (3142 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2023