Ian Hislop & Jolyon Rubinstein - Post-truth & Satire: Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017

hello Sheffield so it is my great great pleasure to welcome to Sheffield documentary festival for the first time the Diane of British satire Ian Hislop [Applause] goodness me goodness me you should think about running for I just apologized first for not wearing my label I arrived at the station I thought my god Sheffield's being taken over by the orange or BUP friend through here mate so in what's the naughtiest thing you've ever done I called an election early yeah didn't go quite as planned they did not really no no so I'm let's go back to the very very beginning and when I wasn't there I know well we're not going to talk about the LSD trip soon on the balance just to be clear alien has never done in the state the the time when you were creating a satirical magazine called passing wind Oxford University yes it was a subtle title it was a very bad when it came to selling advertising hahahahaha going shots in the high stood saying you want to take out an ad we're very classy what's the types of your student publication its parting wind no thank you and you started collaborating Newman yes we're we're a pretty diverse background Nick and I we were at school together minor public school on the south coast which I think covers all the bases absolute sprit II much the entire politically servicemen listen thank you but you and when you were doing that you had an interview with Richard Ingram's who at the time was the editor of private eye yes my my plan when I was editor of the student magazine was to interview all my heroes and then asked them for a job it's not the the primary function of publications but I thought that would work for me and I interviewed Peter Cook which was incredibly exciting he owned Private Eye he was the major contributor and then Richard Ingram's at first when I came in someone asked to see my bag and didn't know who I was which is very kind and I was I was about to say Do You Know Who I am but then I remember I went to a club in Soho with Peter Cook and there was a man in front of us neat and he said Do You Know Who I am and Peter grab the tannoy and said there's a man here who doesn't know who he is if anyone's got I don't know if anyone's got any idea is quite short quite fat so that was my proprietor who was an extraordinary man yeah let's talk about that what was the relationship like I mean that's an amazing thing for such a you know a stalwart of satirical me that the times have been owning a magazine like that how was your relationship with him as proprietor and editor how did that work well um Peter was the ideal proprietor in that he owned the magazine but had no say at all in how it was run his only function was to provide money and then turn up at court cases and take you out to lunch and Peter's idea of lunch never involved any food so if he turned up to a case once and Robert Maxwell who some of you may remember used to own the the mirror and Peter turned up and we were being sued and it was quite serious and Peter's idea of helping the court case was the standard the backhand wave his checkbook at Maxwell amazing so is it true that the first article that you wrote that appeared in 1980 was a parody of The Observer magazines room of my own where it described an IRA prisoner on a dirty protest decorating his cell in a fetching Brown yes that was the first yet bad taste always worth a try what's important is that I mean what is in bad taste nowadays in your mind well again I thought that it was a very liberal newspaper and it was the middle of all that and it was the idea that you would have a feature in which usually a room of one's own someone had brought in an interior designer and you would just have a picture of someone doing the walls in a sort of lovely shade of tall and yes it got that sort of reaction at the time people were never sure but I think Ingram's decided that there was something old about me and maybe he would try and put in some more of my stuff it is incredible though I mean you became editor of private 26 I did and a lot of middle-aged men were very very cross and were I there now I would be one of them I would be incredibly cross and think what on earth was he doing it must have been mad John Lloyd said to me once that as a young man's going to agree no obviously I think it's very much someone of a you know their late 50s is is is the perfect maturity I think you've got to be sort of I think you've got to have a slightly youthful sense of humor possibly a mental age of eight helps no I I think it's sort of young men are very good at it and there's lots of really brilliant young people doing satire at the moment you know which is annoying obviously but I mean I don't think it's something you lose Satar isn't it's more of an attitude of mind you essentially see the world in a particular way and most status will say you're told what the official version of events is and you say I'm not sure that's true I mean it doesn't amount to a huge amount more than that but it's very helpful and there are times when socially I think it's very very useful so can we bring up the image to which the the brexit title what's going on there then I think that was an outbreak of little Englander ISM over Gibraltar of all the things we could be worried about with brexit and suddenly Gibraltar hadn't been included in the piece of paper largely because I mean the that current administration which is no longer current didn't seem to have much of an eye for detail you may have noticed things kept appearing in manifestos or not appearing you know conservative manifesto point one pensioners let's take their money away again as Tory policies go that's not very effective unless you do it after the election yeah when you haven't told people which is traditional Tory policy again they don't seem to be very good at the politics and that was Boris I mean the thought that he's coming back is just so extraordinary oh don't worry he's going to be with Michael Gove I'm totally fine well I think Michael Gove has been appointed as a sort of firewall is there anyone who hates Boris more than I do let's have him in the cabinet strong and stable strong and stable yes and so you sort of decried the ferocity with which some people have tried to defend the brexit results yes let's talk about it I just I felt the the discourse had become toxic and that seemed to me one of the the failings of that period of politics is essentially to say well anyone who voted leave is a racist bigoted and anyone who voted remain is a you know metropolitan elite late 50 year old public school wanker which is partly true well that I felt the the the characterization of the two campuses he was incredibly unhelpful and just the level of fury and part of my problem was that I am blatantly a Ramona I'm not pretending I'm anything other there were a number of people on the leave side for whom this was their first engagement with politics and it was very difficult for them to come to the realization that in politics other people don't always agree with you so by saying it again more loudly doesn't make it true and you don't win the argument by saying Hitler Ken Livingstone take notes yeah and so this I mean that was I think became a real problem but I mean I'm satirically it was incredibly funny because private eye found itself under attack from all camps for not a hundred percent adhering to other people's point of view and I'm he came to the fore with with tourism a saying she had a problem in that Westminster was divided if it's the houses of parliament it's meant to be divided there's the government and then the opposition parties and that that is the point of it and she seemed to have forgotten that and then she said Westminster was divided in the country was United which is a unique perception by incredible so didn't a vicar write to you vicars are always writing to me particularly to bemoan the coverage prospective oh yes I mean he was a very nice speaker he wrote me a letter saying you know the victims of the referendum result don't you understand suck it up your he said the majority one get over it so I wrote him a letter saying dear Reverend lovely to get your letter I do think members of a church who began with a minority of 12 should be careful about defending the majority votes entirely particularly when this minority vote shrunk to one and good friday occasionally my church background helps anyway he wrote me a very contrite letter but people got absolutely furious and I did I did try and point out that the level of this was mad I mean it was privatised particularly susceptible to readers who suddenly find that their point of view is being challenged and they're very keen on other people's views because they're wrong but there's so we first we had the Scots announce who again one issue people who are quite new to the idea of debate they didn't like it much the you kippers you know late in life had come to the idea that Brussels runs everything's well yes not entirely then the korbinites a loss of sick form politics there how dare you question Jeremy well that is sort of the point that is allowed so they were furious then the Lib Dems and now the Tories they're really cross they are and there was some time came up to in the street and said I've seen a lot of your covers which are pretty disgusting but when there were floods in Somerset I mean you know people lost their homes and I said right we renounce but war death famine and terrorism but not floods in the Home Counties it's a it's assumed right here in please yeah yeah - we must we must move forward with limited time and you said after Trump was elected one is unsure whether to feel relieved at the sense of deja vu or worried about the possibility of history repeating itself not as a farce but as a tragedy again what did you mean um well I think that comment came off the back of a joke I could have a look-alike of Donald Trump and Mussolini can we have that cover please is that okay Trump cover still of mr. Leedy I mean I don't think so he could be Italian know that that was another cover seamless seamless seamless now this is I've made the point that when Mussolini writes about all well had pointed out that a he never tells the truth he makes the FRP attacks the mainstream media he's incapable and consistency and everyone thought he was a joke you know he was known as the clown before he took power and started killing people so I was saying that it is not as though we have never been here before but trying to learn lessons from history it's either let's be careful let's not be too pessimistic but let's not assume what's funny doesn't turn into something worse hmm so that was the point I was trying to make there the point I was trying to make there is more obvious I don't know it's it's brilliant okay I'm not sure I'm getting it but that I mean again that coverage it's a small pleasure but it was reproduced and much circulated in America and his press spokesman said he thought it was offensive so that was a small victory and I don't know he may well have thought it was a proper newspaper I mean he probably did we were banned in America for a wild private eye we were lifted by one of the University departments as fake news and we haven't we had to bring up this academic and say some of this stuff that you've accused dissolve is a joke well they played they famously felt of the thing in the onion as well yes they Lea have the Denver well they had a picture we put up of the Queen signing a book in which we'd said she was signing the protest against Trump and they said well you know the Queen didn't sign that protest this is faked news so private eyes doing pretty well I read this since launching fifty five years ago it's got its highest circulation figures yes which is extraordinary which I'm very pleased max I love print and I think print can do things that other media can't do it's fantastic with cartoons it's fantastic with the serendipity of finding a piece and then finding another piece and then reading both of them and putting them together and we we continually survive I'm private I does two things we essentially make jokes about things you know about and try and tell you things you don't know jokes and journalism it's a very very simple format um the late great Paul foot who's my great friend and the great journalist said essentially people read private eye to the jokes and then later on the toilet they read my pieces which again was typically self-deprecating but that that's what we do in the combination I think particularly now in an era where people are very uncertain what to believe to find somewhere I mean the idea of privatize a journal of record is sort of hysterical but there is a desire for unfiltered news and and for fairly detailed stories about things that would normally can be considered boring but I think this election if anything has shown that the fact that we run you know two thousand words about the health service every issue is not boring it's quite interesting and that one of the great I topics I mean which is the change really from when I took over is money is what is interesting sex is less so particularly in terms of politics or in terms of people's lives absolutely and vadym again making quite complex financial stories interesting I mean this is what documentary makers face all the time it's this is a subject which is not sexy there aren't any pictures what we've got a picture of a pound note again this is a limited partnership how do we illustrate that sexy limited partnership but I mean really it's it's it's all in the skill of the craft really in writing it and finding it out in making the research sing and then as soon as it's out there I'm you can do jokes about it I mean you know there's me banging on about you know Wahhabi Salafi ISM again a bit of a special subject for some years but the Saudi contribution to the spread of a particular form of Islam is a really interesting and B in the way they behave incredibly funny they've essentially dumped a vast amount of toxic waste on the rest of the world and said us what not here it's cool as long as we can keep selling them planes whether it's not a problem no or indeed anything else and so the the issue I think sometimes that I sort of see more and more clearly that Private Eye seems to provide is getting ahead of the news whether it was the expensive scandal or corporate tax avoidance yeah you were years ahead of it becoming a story why do you think that is is it because you employ so many more investigative journalists because other papers don't no other papers are much richer than us I think don't mind if you get sued by a they're much more cautious now people don't like investigative journalism I mean on the whole employers it takes too long sometimes nothing happens someone says I've got a great story and then two months later they happen it didn't work out so you've got nothing and you've got no copy and you've spent a lot of money if the story does work out it's really good someone Sue's you and then you lose money to the lawyers I mean it's essentially not what proprietors who were to make money do so you need essentially liberal newspapers which are covered by profits elsewhere or a desire to do it and one of the things that private I can always do is repeat people say for me you ran that tax story about thirty five times when I said yeah and finally you read it and and essentially be the idea of corporate tax evasion there was a very brilliant man called Richard Brooks who was quite a senior official in Her Majesty's Customs Department we lured him over to the dark side he started off as a whistleblower and then turned into a fantastic journalist and uniquely for our profession Richard understands balance sheet he's very very good at detail and from being an idea that he was obsessed by in his bedroom five years later it was the top of the g20 agenda yeah and that is what you can achieve by saying I think this is interesting you know I really do think these people should pay some tax and they don't and they don't pay a little they don't pay anything yeah and the amounts involved are absolutely enormous it is and by banging on about that it comes into the public agenda and as soon as it's half in you can make jokes about absolutely I mean without private I would have been reported in the other papers without that the revolution we televised when we've been able to talk about Starbucks animals and Vodafone and Jeremy Corbyn was literally running on that as part of his platform which I'm sure you're over the moon around you were like I was I was fascinated to see in the Labour Party manifesto there was a credit to private eye to some of the research and I want it to come to a sorry past it has it has when that's your source of information we've got we've got relative little time so much going to skip over talking about spitting image but I must ask well no I'm are you got a choice spitting image and have I got news for you but a bit less yeah good right spitting image will going like splitting image is it true that in spitting image there was a puppet of yourself that used to appear in the back of sketches yes amazing and so much is the loyalty between satirist that after I left the program it immediately appeared in the starring role can we get the the Thatcher clip boxes oh wow so let's talk about Swift image how did you first get involved in the project um I've been working on private I've with my friend Nick Newman for a while and done a little bit of television and got employed by John Lloyd and Nick and I were almost the only writers who were interested in politics so we got that bit of it too right and it was I mean again we were in a sort of late 20s and it was the early twenties actually you can see I mean that sketching entirely about being at school I mean we'd barely left and it was incredibly good fun to write for but also as a writer you realized that in the end the script wasn't that vital what was the pleasure was of Puppets hitting each other yeah and as the years went on we just started putting at the end of sketches poverty business in which the puppeteers would just smack each other in the face and that would be it I mean the best sketch who ever wrote was Norman Tebbit his idea for liquid izing the unemployed and he sort of there was a fantastic scene later but his own arm in it and it just all went in this blender was an idea I stole from Swift which is quite literally just taken from his solution to the unemployed entire and what was brilliant about it though was the the form of it and the fact that the the puppets were the people but they weren't so they could do anything it wasn't like actors doing it when you might think that support a store I'm not sure that would happen you could just do anything and I mean we left Nick and I left on the night of the last election and we did a fine our final sketch was tomorrow belongs to me sung by the entire cabinet an angelic schoolboy in a bowler hat which again I mean it was live I'm quite sure he wouldn't go out there listener I mean it's you know I mean I for one certainly want it back do you want it back come on oh yeah spitting image coming back be great so let's talk about that little-known show have I got news for you yet anyone heard of that time bit of a small deal just won a BAFTA recently no biggie so let's talk it's true you are the only person to have appeared in every single episode yes even filming the seventh series despite suffering from appendicitis yes I I had appendicitis and I went to some George's in Tooting and they put me on a trolley in a corridor you know which is fairly standard but I stand in policy now yes Stan policy now I was lucky to get a trolley yeah it easily have been in an orange box um so I was there too about four hours and I thought nothing's happening no one's gonna and I'm going to miss the recording so i discharged myself I went back to the studio and I sat there and no one noticed I was about to grumpy at Aunt Polly am laugh and I did the show and then it suddenly hit me and I ran back got a cabin and went back to Tooting where I went into A&E this time and they did an emergency operation good lads weird lows terrific and up I've always said that's a mark of my dedication to the show and for months that is because you're so desperate you'll be replaced when we have a clip seven probably three so in a wonderful cartoon in this issue my man called Stokoe which is of a bin with Teresa upside down outside Samba Ted and her husband just we Philip Philip who they failed to look at at all in that interview and say do you happen to represent a lot of taxability companies there are trillions of dollars on profits now they let him hang themselves he's very funny Josh Widdecombe and the last legs very good yeah so I mean then there's quite a lot of really quite good Saturn what else do you like I mean I'm a big fan of John Oliver yeah I mean again I am not that bothered by those American shows because I just think we'll in America you need to get almost all your news and all your interviews yeah from those shows in Britain you know you think well we've got people who interview people well we've got quite good documentary makers we've got quite good news programs so I'm I don't feel I see them occasionally but again I think their take on Britain is never I'm very parochial and that's what I'm interested in is how Britain works are we in a citizen anything are telling on once and someone saying so you guys I mean you're discussing buses you think yeah local bus is quite important quite a lot of people in Britain so yes we are yeah what you're discussing trains that there's sort of parochialism that goes both sides of Atlantic but it feels to me like there is a lack of new satirical formats they're coming out of the broadcasters I'm not sure actually I keep seeing things that I think are really really good what do you like so um I liked the the thing that came out of queue I know such things the news yes I was very very good yeah you know I think that's quite a lot of it I think it's a sort of slightly boring old man's thing as you say well as nothing any good in our day yeah and I suppose one of the benefits of my education is is the first time I read a piece saying that um there's nothing any good anymore and actors are paid too much and teachers don't make any money was in the works of Juvenal writing in 100 AD who rate exactly that and you have got to be careful that it's all going to the dogs well often it isn't most good I mean you know we're sitting here today in Sheffield documentary festival discussing it now you said once sapphire is bringing a ridic you'll or vice folly and humbug all the negatives imply a set of positives certainly in this country you don't you go around saying that's wrong that's corrupt if you have some feeling that it should be better than that people say you satirist attack everything well we don't actually that's the whole point yes I mean I was I was great at Alexander Pope yeah who was a great English satirist who again he he set a lot of the parameters of what's worth doing and essentially it's finding your targets targeting the strong rather than the witan and he raped the people who were in his world safe from the bar the pulpit and the throne yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone I mean this is a long time ago but the principle holds and I think people say and people OFF said to me I will you're such a cynic we implies I don't believe in anything I'm not I'm a skeptic I like to look at things and say is that true and if it is true fine um and also I mean why would you spend as much time as if journalist documentary makers satirist do trying to point out things that are wrong if you didn't think it was worth getting them writing you just wouldn't do it what is it in our program about abuse in your hair Holmes yeah I mean you don't produce that because you think it doesn't really matter what happens in care homes I don't care I mean you know the negative does imply positive what are the things that you think are the most pressing issues that we're facing now of this election um so things you're getting through brexit in them in the least damaging possible way but then I would say that but it does seem almost impossible with the house so divided that you could possibly negotiate anything in a strong and stable way are we going to be seeing another election and I think there will be on our election unfortunately I'm not sure people are very thrilled over all things I mean obviously it's good for us but whereas this is quite funny I'm you know Gophers been reappointed what you want over most another Game of Thrones video for me I'm a big fan of Teresa's I mean that that isn't even an exaggeration and a lie so a new film that you're making is about immigration yes yes sorry this is my only credentials for being here is it I have made a documentary yeah I have made a couple I'm let's err because we've got them in some not gonna show both which lets show clip ten with the wonderful Katie Hopkins Oh Ian so she's your fault I knew it yep my favorite part of that what's that four times today my version of true what do you think she means by my version of true I mean the terrible thing about making documentaries is you have to listen to people look did you see highways throughout that documentary I much prefer it when I talk that seems to be much better television but anyway the point of that is the documentary is is looking at the first big immigration scare in this country the first time mass immigration blew up into the national debate and I asked Katie Hopkins specifically because there was a scare about Chinese immigrants the Yellow Peril and a lot of the tabloid and popular newspapers had just started and this was an enormous story for them the Chinese were going to come over here in absolute hordes and they were going to turn all women into white slaves they were opium themes and they had criminal gangs and the newspapers loved it and there was one piece which was a particular expose day of this which I asked her to read because it contained the phrase that the Chinese were a festering sore which was exactly the phrase that she had used describing immigrants X hundred years later and I was trying to get her to see that the Yellow Peril scare and some of what she had written were quite similar and this backfired in that she loved the piece and thought it had really got it on the head and what I was what I am trying to do in this documentary which again takes a fairly short timeframe from a period when Britain had no immigration restrictions at all nothing there were no border controls the Victorians thought anyone could come here with nothing no visa passport job application letter nothing anyone could come here because Britain was so marvelous why wouldn't you want to come here and if you came here you'd probably contribute in the end and it would be martyrs that was the Victorian position then there was a wave of emigration 1890s onwards and a wave of scares the Yellow Peril was the worst example of the scare there was a report commissioned into the Chinese straight after the big scare and it was found out that the the local police commissioner could find it no crime at all there wasn't any reported they were working in laundries and a number of laundry owners said we can't get any local labor no one wants to work in the laundry so we've employed Chinese people and almost everything that was hyped up was untrue and then Winston Churchill who comes out extremely well in this documentary he was a great fan of immigration and open door policies he asked in Parliament and we'd read a lot about the Yellow Peril you know that's coming over here how many Chinese people are there in Britain and it was a couple of hundred amazing not hundred thousand hundred and this was I mean again I mean the point of making historical documentaries is if possible to try and anticipate and rehearse some of the same things that turn up again and again at the Yellow Peril was was I think the most I mean foo manchu arose as a character out of this the idea of the mysterious East coming over to take over Britain when it was a few laundries is amazing that was it and then the speeches came up as they always do their British jobs being lost I mean they were mostly Irish chops actually and they just come in the 10 years before I mean the immigrant waves are particularly at this point very very obvious in what they do so that's what the documentary is about when is it out it's it's out in about Thursday the 22nd of June on BBC 2 on BBC Two and I'm glad you pick that bit no I'm not but I mean that there are Allen Johnson is in the film talking about labor and the immigration policies to Eastern Europe Baroness Marcy is in the film talking about how loyal do you have to be as an immigrant and which again is is is always the second thing they undercut jobs they're a pressure on infrastructure and they're not loyal I mean the Jews that basically loyal to a force outside and every succeeding wave and these arguments come up she's very good on that she said at one point both my fathers fought for Britain in the Indian Army how loyal to what right is we're going to throw open to questions so I'm going to take three at a time I'm sorry we don't have longer for questions as usual we've gone a little over so if you put your hand up there are people in the orange tops they will come round ok see I can see one this gentleman here any other questions this side okay that hand that is just situating to me hugely are there any ladies in any any anyways this this lady up here so we'll take all three of those questions and then you know we will we will respond okay my your excellent podcast so infrequent yes wondering the whole idea sort of push stressed to me some seems to come from a sort of food court in archaeology of history can radio and obvious answer to that would seem to be ironically ethically in panel acadia but do you think there's like a better less invasive way dee dee lewis kind of course twist that and sort of a universal fanatic i don't know that means okay i'm not there okay those are bond to jump out of a cake hahaha okay so we have trans birthday's podcasts and yes add the panoptic yeah the podcast is produced by a young person amazing I don't have a huge amount to do with it and that's probably why it's very good it's just a question of privatize a pretty small team so if we're doing one about health or if we're doing one about export finance or if we're doing one about social care it will be the same voice it is the same person and essentially I don't want and them doing podcasts when they should be filling the magazine so we ask it is a question of resources and because we are we are a pretty tight unit and as you know my approach to digital media is fairly rigid there's a French magazine called la canal chinaís which the eye is essentially modelled on and their website website says in French go and buy the magazine and if I were a bit braver that's what I do as it is we have a few things but that's it so I think the podcasts are great and it it's our journalists talking in depth about stories that they run but we haven't got that many of them so we don't do it that often and we're trying not to dilute the quality so I'm sorry about that let's go on to the special words and then post true yes um it was it was I'm afraid I didn't really follow that it was what what approach do we need to deal with post truth is that basically oh yeah basically is there a better way of doing it than essentially sort of having everybody monitor each other all the time for us I'm sort of unified versions room okay I guess yes um no I I think I think crowdsourcing the truth is probably the way to do it I obviously because I come from a tradition where you have a few authoritative sources it is good if they take on for example Trump all the time but the American newspapers and I have some friends on the New York Times got to a point where they said we don't know what to say anymore traditionally as a journalist you say well you said that then and now you say that and Trump goes yeah or you go you said that and it's absolutely untrue and he goes no it isn't so maybe that's the end of that I'm going to take two more quick questions both from women please because you have to go to this lady here up there and maybe grab your third one down here so do it relatively quickly if I can and then we have to if you were played what else might you do it okay if you were braver interesting question we've literally got two or three minutes so I'm going to wrap up quickly if there is another election and Jeremy Corbyn wins yeah and he has to meet Donald Trump most of what do you think would happen that's an amazing question and then up here quick quick quick can just shout it if you want oh you thought they write off two young men that were good at soccer do you think it's a male domain all right a big shower yeah okay I'm being pointed that loudly it's good bonsly it is it is a good point and join me start with that or yeah I mean literally we're going to be um okay certainly from I think both perspectives no it is not just a male domain so you're going to answer it well you tell me you tell me tell me where I was our have we got time to answer these these very shouting minutes but we'll do quickly well right okay no it's not exclusively but young men are more conditioned and better at putting themselves if I say I would like some new cartoonists I get a shedload of men and almost no women on have I got news for you every woman more or less who you would imagine has been invited has a lot of them say no because they don't think they'd be any good all men say yes and often they are terrible right and on that note chef bill can you thank in his lot for being here much good we've still got five minutes I literally can't see what that says what does that say really oh my god they're just given us loads more time all right okay we could have fun for questions okay so very nice we'll do say if it's boring or if you've got something else to go go can he like shout alike again ask a good question yeah from the lady there which was but it is important is that what they're more sort of female cetera see um um there are em and I mean we have um I think four really good female Carson is Catherine lamb you know that Griselda who I think almost the funniest we have I mean it's not that they can't do it is that they don't do it and people on the whole who end up doing this stuff have been doing it for a very long time people tend to start at school you get a chance to get slightly better at university because no one's looking you can run terrible magazines like I did and eventually you get to a point where it's it's polished enough to go in and it's getting to that point which I think is easier for young men so you're quite right to pick me up on that what would happen if Jeremy Corbyn was elected well we we've had an example in front of us of what happens if you have an adults in charge of your country with mrs. Merkel dealing with the Prime Minister the first thing she says is you've behaved appallingly and the second thing she says is we don't support you on the following items then you turn your back it was a fantastic summit and there is nothing he can do about it so I would imagine you there's no point in refusing to engage one of the again problems but people who've never thought or been involved in politics before is the idea that you can entirely retreat to your own country and sit there feeling good you know not even Norway and Sweden do that they engage they meet people who aren't very nice I mean that is part of it you don't have to sell them weapons you don't have to do what they say we do have to meet them I mean as Jeremy knows he's met a lot of very not nice people are some more questions okay sir hands flailing up the top here I'm glad you brought that up because it's what we call preventative journalism my job was to bring out the anti may vote and by suggesting that it was going to be a triumphal process of her in a gilded carriage I think I did the job pretty bloody well tonight can I just read something out it's which for me is is the funniest bit of the election there's a roundup of people's predictions in this issue of private eye which is very very enjoyable as the exit poll looms I repeat my prediction conservatives will win by a 90 to 100 seat majority that was peers boy ha ha ha ha ah there it does how he should look so foolish yes this gentleman here is really yes ok this turns me here anymore ladies I really want to have a split you see they don't want to ask a question ok 18 it ok yeah yes I'm there to you so we could start with you sir ok can we assume that the term pause truth indicated the presence of truth beforehand great questions yes I think we can I think again oh well did use it and he used it particularly about the group of dictators in the 30s and 40s who were trying to move from an era where there was such a thing as an absolute truth I mean difficult in political terms but you know what he meant to an era where truth was whatever they said and that for him was what had to be resisted which is why he wrote 1984 why he wrote those one of the things about black is white white is black to us to equals 5 all of those reversals of truth and the whole sort of characterization of telling lies so often that they get believed indicated for him and and this absolutely Orwell believed that there was a truth a version this did happen and whether you said it didn't or not he did happen so I think as long as we're talking about post truth it means we Begley remember that there was something that was - hmm when we give up and we talk about my truth and it becomes an emotional reaction to the world I'm cross so therefore this is true I mean that's when it goes lady up here hello oh hello so I kinda know in that of the documentary with the lovely Katie Hopkins yes was it difficult to kind of keep your call when she was speaking such crap I asked as I'm a psychologist working on my dissertation on brexit what the remain I I'm gonna have to kind of be careful of what I say when I our sleeve dated so that's why yes I'm asking and also she is she's that much for I [Laughter] mean I mean that appeared to be a statement of fact it is a good question but um I work with a very very good outfit of documentary makers called wingspan who said we think you should interview someone who takes a very robust view from the other side and they didn't tell me who they had in mind the other thing they're very good at pointing out in documentaries which is again I've worked in a lot of cognitive median where you are essentially trying to confront people or get something out of people or you know make them change their view was that the way to approach that form of interviewing was to let the person talk and the longer the person talked the more they would reveal about themselves so by the time we got to the end Katie had got it into her head that I was probably the worst sort of liberal Ramona that ever been she asked me at one point whether I'd ever been on the tube and because I'd suggested that um the London that she presented after the first the Waterloo Bridge that was locked down reeling and cowed didn't seem to be very like the London I was one prick out and so but those sort of challenges in observational documentary or those of document and not very helpful what you need is someone to tell you what they want so yes I did find it difficult but actually luckily I work for people who know what they're doing what did you make a person ain't man that you that she is you know Frankenstein's child and that you are professor what do you make him that well that was hurtful I can imagine the idea of a first in Katie Hopkins it's quite terrible um again I mean you what I thought was interesting about that and it was interesting about all of the sort of overblown press coverage historically is it all starts with the kernel of truth there weren't no Chinese people who came here there weren't no Jews there were a hundred thousand who came into the West End and occupied the West End at the East End and occupied a tiny proportion of land the sweatshops did employ people cheaper and they did longer hours baroness vajjis parents worked double shifts and people didn't like lee because they wanted to work single shifts there is always something to start with that you can blow and that's why these people are dangerous and for her to say you've invented me by not talking openly about immigration by allowing any discourse about immigration only to come from the right was an error so even again I've got I hate acknowledging the people who produce my shows but even then you had to allow the kernel of truth and and and that's why that thing when she said it makes you think just a little bit yeah I'm telling those some more questions this gentleman here and then we'll take another lady please okay it's that lady there and then we'll come on to you sir so do you think how we're sourcing our information is changing away from the traditional so away from newspapers if it had any impact on the election and you seen it benefit in the private eye yeah I think we definitely are I mean this was not a great election for traditional newspapers I mean the Sun didn't win it you know the headline we put it in this time it was the Sun what had no effect at all you know said it's a new thing Murdock is reportedly absolutely incensed and he's always backed a winner before and he's always called it I mean you know mrs. Mae did win and but he had no idea and I think there was there is a sense in which you know the Daily Mail ran nine pages and I think even their readers were going oh yes Corbin is the new leader of Hamas yes right there's a Caliphate established in Sheffield and just you know went on to the bit about you know health matters and whether broccoli gives you cancer you know which is the core bit of the Daily Mail really so that I mean the the the press did not distinguish itself in this election and I think it showed a you know a lack of reporting skills to start with and then follow and that's always followed by lack of influence because if you don't know what's going on you start commenting on not knowing what's going on so I mean as I said you know essentially most of the political commentators in this country knew nothing and were way behind what was actually going on I do think that sorry you mentioned sourcing of it I do think that's a problem because you do need to have authority of sources of information social media for all its virtues can create extraordinary bollocks incredibly fast you know you may think that's absurd having just talked about the mail or the Sun or whatever but I mean it is it is incredible how fast it works and how fast it sticks and people online I think don't tend to say where is that coming from should I believe that you know I have a huge number of friends and middle-aged people are just as bad as young people and saying I read online that some Hillary Clinton murders her lawyer which you know I didn't know and we're not being told this and I'm saying it may be that you're not being told this because it isn't true and you should look at this stuff because I mean in the American election and you know in the brexit and not so much in this elation but in the French election there was an enormous amount of stuff on social media which is unbelievable the stuff about macron that got planted which a huge number of people looked and was convincingly damning but entirely unsourced so all I'm saying is yes I think there is a shift but I do think that you have to be very careful about where this stuff comes from so take this lady they're all live until there's a microphone that's their right hi hello and I'm just interested basically in them you've obviously voted and what your actual how Dave perfect think he's a voter oh no no yeah and how much I guess I would imagine that you should have kind of be partially what you're reporting because you're sat officially good of it then the key out of any party but it's a favorite party that you've got they're getting to power how do you deal with that I've been beating tire have no idea once a 500 among the raising roads only path I mean I baked the party who I disagree with least which I you know I think it's perfectly reasonable Democratic absolutely and I do that every time and I do it in my constituency and I do it on major issues and I don't have a problem with it I really like voting I mean I went down and voted in sitting Hearst which is village in Kent he was just me 7 o'clock in the morning in the Churchill but I just um it's a very very special process I don't pretend I don't enjoy it or think it's valuable and I do it every time and one of the first things Jolyon asked because he's always been engaged with getting out the youth vote one of the first documentaries I ever did for channel 4 they said we're trying to get the youth vote on I said well the major issues in this election are education and employment and if young people aren't interested in that well they bloody well should be and then I walked off and the producer said that's not what we want we were hoping you'd say something about a failure of your generation to engage and trying new compromises so I was cut how very dare though but I mean the revolution will be televised my favorite sketch ever did was the two of them on top of the bus shouting out to young people saying don't vote slow in bed don't vote it's much better for us we'll carry on running everything don't vote I don't which again I mean it sort of it's what satire can do it was absolutely crystallized a problem and you know on my limited take on on the election I think that a lot of people didn't turn up and vote for brexit were very cross of themselves as much as anything else and then turned up this time and that changed a lot of the patterns of voting that we've seen right where do we have the next microphone something right I have one here yep one there and then we'll have those someone's feverishly wait until they we will come up up there next yes down here mate we're going on so up here hi how you doing oh hang on sorry sorry you're next go on that we've got cartoonish figures like jump on the global stage and there are things happening which you couldn't really make up do you think that makes it more difficult to produce that sorry at the moment are they making it easy for you know is it more difficult yourself no I think it's a very slightly more difficult when you have a character like Trump because he's so obviously absurd but that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people so you have to find out what the weaknesses are and if you say to Donald Trump you're very rich and stupid that doesn't bother if you say to him nearly all your businesses lost money and you must be the only man in history who's run a casino where the house loses you are clearly a total incompetent loser that hurts you have to find the bit that's underneath the you know the the grotesquerie and for satirist that's that's what you should be doing really and with Trump I think you know be the Saturday Night Live has been particularly good because they've they've really upped their game and they don't just do Trump they did that his press spokesman which is a very very good analysis of why questions aren't asked and aren't aren't answered I mean you just have to be better but I don't I don't think anyone ever said you know in the 30s or 40s when all was writing I wouldn't bother with any of those novels good you can't make it up you know he did and again often I'm I find in English literature I mean when we had Mosley in the black shirts our best comic writer PG Woodhouse took him on by inventing a character who wore brown trousers and had a brown trouser movement in which grown men ran about in shorts and it was incredibly funny and incredibly damaging and they were furious the fascists because what the one thing fascists want to be is taken seriously you know they're very very serious thing about serious group life and the suggestion that you're not and you make people laugh I mean you know Mosley was so cross so I mean there is a way there is a way I think we've only got five minutes left I'm gonna do three questions at once this gentleman the lady up there and we're of the other microphone in so I guess still got a nice Jovie movies foot okay we'll go over here we have one there one there and one there and a strange type of proportional representation system [Music] okay sorry who's been horribly nice do you think you're being naive Oh young people for Corbin all right wise wise Corbin soap up to the young people over there I think he's incredibly public because he offers an alternative to project fear which we've had three times and I do think you know young people in particular but I think you know you're not unique get bored with being told it's all going to be terrible that's it that's the promise of the future it's going to be terrible and Corbin and you were mentioning earlier unleashing an energy by saying well I don't think it will be it might not be it might be quite good which is what Mac Ron is saying I mean there are other ways of harnessing people's enthusiasm other than saying it's going to be terrible which i think was you know what the conservative had completely forgot you know both after the brexit the Cameron victory and the Trump victory they look to that and thought the lesson is you scare people but even the Trump victory was about telling very poor disadvantaged people that it wouldn't always be you know and that there was a possibility that he would make it better I mean ludicrous and transparent and you know sort of but that was what was sorry more about macro oh right sorry Wow goodness vain well we've only got two more minutes mate so we've got to get two more questions in this gentleman down here has been waiting Don I I would do think the bombing is affected there the election this year and how do you think what's your opinion on sorry I'm a bit nervous well they always take that one bombing stats don't worry the most important thing is to say macro yeah throw on my collar crawl I'm sorry like how did the bombing affect the election well I I think everybody imagined that normally when there's a terrorist incident that it would be the government in power comes up to the microphone and says it's been terrible but we will sort this out usually it's either neutral or it helps the government in power in this case we had the Prime Minister was the Home Secretary who had been there for six years this was on her watch I mean I think it made it difficult for her to say what on earth has been going on when she was there it made it difficult further to say this shouldn't have happened when the police numbers had been cut it made it difficult for her to resist criticism and that oddly made her weak what should or what the conventional wisdom was I'm given Corbin's attitude to terrorism I mean literally saying that there shouldn't be a shoot-to-kill policy amongst before changing his mind and saying now they should those sorts of you terms didn't register people did not punish him for that they punished her for what they considered a failure to spot this I mean and then that is I think what we tried to do I mean the bombing is very very difficult to handle but I mean you know these situations always are but and people say there's no humor in it and then you get to a point where you're saying well the security services saying you know these people are under the radar they're very very difficult to detect I mean they just just have Isis flags in their garden and put the bins out shouting death to the West and then in the last one they're so difficult to spot they're on channel 4 in a documentary called my jihadi neighbor I mean who doesn't who don't know I mean so I'm sorry I said earlier it's a habit of mind it's a way of looking at the world but it is still funny there is still humor there and I do think that finding things funny is one of the ways you rebel and I and a friend wrote a play about the First World War which is about two officers and the middle of first world war creating a satirical trench newspaper which is incredibly black and incredibly funny they used to run fake adverts and one of them was for the Flaman Bertha it said as as your child got a mechanical mind by him one of these wonderful little toys they call and this was the flamethrower which had just been introduced on the western front a horrific losses on the British side these two they put it in as an ad and it was their version of saying I will not be scared I will still be funny and those two are my heroes yeah don't be scared be funny chef bill can we thank in his loss [Applause]

Channel: Sheffield DocFest

Views: 59,253

Rating: 4.5999999 out of 5

Keywords: ian hislop, private eye, sheffield doc/fest, jolyon rubinstein

Id: QX9p2XcWgKw

Length: 65min 10sec (3910 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2017