John Cleese - In Conversation with Graham Johnson & John Ford

thank you and I've got a couple of very entertaining fellas for you to chat to but I just want to talk to a three minutes first because over a long period of time I've become very disturbed at the British press not just as its dishonesty but of the utter ruthlessness with which it can sense the news that's unfavorable to itself I don't think people realize how much this is going on and also I think the point of view of the writing and the content it's become tabloid everything's become tabloid and there's only so much you can do about that but if I criticize the press then the danger is that the Daily Mail's this world will say in an extraordinary outburst do you know what I mean so I want to show you it's not that extraordinary and they put they put there now the European broadcasting Union which is a reasonably sensible bunch of people they do a poll every year it's to do is to finding out people's level of trust in the printed press in their country now it's just produced a report this year it asks 1,000 people in 33 different European countries whether they trust their printed media that's the question and you might be surprised to know that this year England or rather sorry the UK came 33rd out of 33 countries and the same is true the year before and the year before and the year before that so for four years our printed press by people in this country a thousand people in this country the lowest level of trust in printed media in Europe so we're way way behind Macedonia and Cyprus you know now I think that's pretty shocking because the hilarious thing is I don't think any of you would have heard of this with does anyone heard of it you see that is their power that if there's something going on but they don't want people to know about they just censor him and the weapon is fear you know I heard three weeks ago about a reporter who has an extraordinary story this reputable story about Rebecca Brooks and he was simply told if this story goes out you will never work in British newspapers again so that's what we're up against and it's not easy to combat it because they are completely ruthless I mean my experience of the British press is that you can almost never talk to them without feeling soiled afterwards you know and this is only in Britain because I have very nice relationships with British press everyone with us with the press everywhere else the United States Canada Australia New Zealand Northern Europe Germany Austria Belgium all these places there's no problem at all because they're actually interested in what you've got to say do you see what I mean I've heard Americans certainly German reporters saying I asked to interview you because I've always liked it but if this was a British reporter that would be the reason to disqualify him do you see what I mean because they're not really interested in what you're going to say they're going to find an angle and they agree it before you do the interview with the reporter that did the the the editor and the reporter agree that and then they asked very odd questions that don't quite make sense because they're looking for one or two things that will confirm the angle that they want to take you know so it's all nonsense it's malicious and trivial but it's all fundamentally nonsense now we've got to my friends gonna come up Bram Johnson come on up here now Brad was a great chap he's going to talk about all the nefarious deeds he did when he was working on a tabloid this is Bram Johnson how are you now this guy this guy's a scouser and he talks pretty fast so I wanted me to talk slowly so they can figure out what the you're saying Bram you were a tabloid reporter where when how long so I worked at the news of the world and the Sunday Mirror for ten years 5h roughly to two years at the news of the world and eight years Sunday mayor all right and what were you what would you say what are the one of the pros what are the good things about being a tabloid reporter well the upside is that it's quite exciting you get to fly around the world it's a nice places no more often because there's plenty of money in these stories for the of course of course you have a bottomless pit of cash to use so for example I remember buying a videotape of Wayne Rooney in a brothel for 250,000 pounds and the managing director of the mirror he signed the check like he was signing a parcel how much did he realize what he was signing I mean if it was a casual was that did he know what that it was a of course he'd seen the video you've seen the video yes reading because one's always hearing all the people at the top saying they don't know what's going on and I think an awful lot of people like me no longer believe it at all you know one one rotten apple was the original stirrer Murdoch defense yeah the one rogue reporter defense report well that isn't true the editors the editors and the executives on the board and the lawyers they know everything what goes on including the organized crime including tell me more what do you mean including I mean to get through the day at a tabloid newspaper you've got to commit a lot of crimes very simple folks a lot of crack go to do this to be part of this organized crime operation the the bosses and the boss of bosses you wind up in organized crime they you know they've done well you know if the editor so you know one of the ways you have power as a tabloid newspaper is to have private detectives who can get access to medical records bank statements tax accounts any confidential data you want but this cost afford unit costs you know because the the private investigator expensive they're very expensive so you know if you want someone's phone bill if I if I want to you know and we know that's true so one of the ways you can prove it is to prove that you're making late-night phone calls to each other so I pull your bill I pulled your mobile phone bill I pull mr. Palin's bill John Cleese's he's calling in for five minutes and that's it that's one way of proving the story or getting so but that'll cost you 500 quid now if you're doing know ten times a week that's five grand you know all right so tell me more about the apps there's lots of money you get to travel yeah it's quite exciting yeah I think it's like me giving it a Spitfire Oh free tank of petrol okay now what are the downsides I mean it all sounds as though it could make you feel well the downsides are and you gotta feel sorry for me now is uh if you're on the crippling pressure constant pressure to come up with stories fear is the lifeblood of fear is the lifeblood for the reporters for the reporters yeah because they're being made to do things they'd really rather not do well yeah you do a lot of things you you don't really want to do but the end of the day you've got to get you've got to come up with stories enemy don't I actually I used to think of it it was like going to work at the Death Star in Star Wars because if you didn't deliver you would get liquidated and that story I told early on about the story about Rebecca Brooks that the guy would not work in Fleet Street if that story came out again is that is that even minor slights against people like Rebecca Brooks but why not all the newspapers are like do they have sort of does Rebecca Brooks have power over the Telegraph well yeah I mean all all newspapers are the same whether it's it's the the broadsheets or the tabloids and all the people who work in these places they go from one paper to another so you're on this somewhat one year then you have the Guardian Nosa and then you're on the mirror so it's all the same old faces in the same ol and that works so yes you know they someone like Rebecca Brooks will have Paul right across Fleet Street and far beyond but just because she's a powerful powerful person so she would have power of their power brutally brutally does she does she scare the people at the Guardian oh yes yes of course you know because because well she's got that she's got the she's got the power to do them damage is that financial power yes financial power but also also industrial power you know people Guardian journalists most Guardian journalist will not will not want to upset Rebecca Brooks there's a few map Mavericks like Nick day yeah Alan rushbridger who but they don't want to upset it because it could mean no more jobs well I'll give you proof of I'll give you evidence so for instance the the the the the story this this story start the phone hacking story started off as a media story a quite a niche story in the mid-2000s when Glenn Walker was arrested then it became a news story when Milly Dowler was expose and now it's an organized crime story because if you go to the High Court now the son on the news of the world are being sued in the High Court and from it organized crime it's it's phone hacking and bragging and all of these things are far more widespread and deeper than is known to the public but you won't in the in the Guardian or very really you'll see a few court reports now and again you'll you'll meet John Ford in a few moments time his story and it's no surprise that the Guardian have recently done an advertising deal so tell me what one of the things that began to surprise me you know way back I mean in the seventies I thought the papers were really quite decent and I didn't mind doing interviews with them then I began to realize there was a huge change going on I did the Michael Aspel show how a year how long ago is there 35 years and I was I was off with Norman Tebbit and a spanish singer and his name but he's very famous and I was very surprised because I actually made a little speech out of the blue that I hadn't planned saying that I was very worried about the way the British press was was behaving and to my surprise it got a considerable enthusiastic applause from the audience and I thought oh I'm not just the only one who knows and I was very keen to watch the program when he went out two days later after being edited and when I did it has been edited out what I'd said in the audience response was just energy found that was when I first realized that the power the one extended you make stories up well fake news I was really surprised when when Donald Trump made fake news identifiable but fake news happens all the time and when I was a tabloid reporter I would make stories of lots of stories did you did you see something in the paper about story yeah so I remember I want you to go around the world know what happens if you say no if you say no you would yes they do she won't you would you'd end up with no job you know few months so just go to Cornwall track down the Beast of Bodmin Moor so me and the chief investigative photographer who was kind of a high status guy at the news that I went down we knew it didn't exist so we went to Dartmouth Zoo we took a picture of a Puma in a cage somebody says a lot this monster is probably a pupa you know I would have thought I mean basically she wants to she would have wanted a picture of the Loch Ness monster yeah recenter I sent the picture of the story saying thank you we made some footprints we ended up getting the sack over this you did yeah but I thought it was I thought it was a small injustice cause they're accusing new to the world reporters of making up stories is like accusing an apple tree but in this case this was Rebecca Brooks escape all right so she had to be protected and that was very loser of a grooming care for a top slot in the corporation's wonderful let's have a couple of questions from the audience for Graham yes oh good is the young fellow again stand up stand up thank you what made you stop becoming a tabloid journalist and what do you do now yes I'm still reports are now I work for byline now but ironically it was when I left as I became what you would call a good reporter I stopped making up stories and I became an organized you know I became a organized crime reporter which is still what I do now I must against organized crime so what qualities you have to have to be a tabloid reporter well but when it was a tabloid reporter you had to be fast and resourceful but you also had to be a good liar there's no doubt about that because a lot of what you do is based on subterfuge and deception mmm and when they put this kind of pressure on you to do stories do a lot of journalists feel uneasy about what they're doing or are they just used to it well a lot of journalists do feel uneasy about doing but you know you do get used to it and lots of journalists fake stories and in Mazama mood the fake shake you know he used to fake stories quite regularly there was a there's a guy called Gary Jones used to work at the news of the world and he used to make up stories and now he's the is the editor-in-chief of the mirror and the Express so it was a good system you know it did pay to fake news but I'm wondering he's yeah I know a BBC producer and I asked him about the Daily Mail reporters what they will like as people because always wonder are they basically very snide envious people or are they doing it because their editors told them I think some of them are snotty nambian and and you do you do go dark if you work and if the too long yeah no so but a lot of them are under under pressure and it is the bosses who ask them to do these stories you know most people go into journalism to do good stories yeah I know you want to do investigations and well Andy was bringing the microphone so it actually did course in communications that University was taught entirely by ex British journalists all of whom said you can't really do decent journalism in Britain now this is what is it's tutors were telling him I think we've got a question here yes yes we've got a mic coming this is Andy oh good let's have that one first and then we'll come to this guy yes this evening is great thank you everybody you know hear what you say it's really interesting very thought-provoking but I want to know why this just isn't out there in the mainstream you know we're sort of talking about that people don't know about this this is great this event is fantastic hacked off is fantastic you're talking to two men and their dog in a shed why isn't this just wall-to-wall why are we jumping on the back of Trump when it's fake news it just put it out there in and on the BBC I just kind of feel you know the BBC is like the British bland corporation who is controlling this news not getting out it doesn't get out for the same reason the graph if the new story that you've got doesn't serve the powerful interest of the papers all the BBC or it's not gonna get out but by line I work a byline now and I do the investigations there and we do these stories week in week out you know we go to court to cover the phone hacking trial at the Sun or the phone hacking case at the soliton it's in a case it's in like a pre trial so one of those stories a day right pieces jokes who runs my line is here with these great power you remember with the storage today in the court case there were 50 that's a good example so today we publish the story above the top 50 journalists employed or previously employed by murdoch have all been involved in criminal activity but you won't you you won't read that you only read that in The Guardian you know because they will publish it under and they went they went there on the day in court the BBC were were there that day but I haven't seen it on their website either well I mean I've been told I've seen the original invoice is sent to the Daily Mail for bragging activities and those have been with panorama for two years oh yeah we went to panorama with the invoices yeah like you just and they don't want to run the story you know I'm four for two years they just they they just sat on it you know and then they said no and now this is a good time to bring in John John Ford come on down here because about two months ago he came out of the woodwork and he started telling people that for 15 years John Taylor I love this guy's from the West Country went to the same school I did Clifton College he lives in Burnham on see where I used to live and he wanted to be an actor right but that training came in very useful I did actually I was following in the steps of okhla thorny and John Cleese unfortunately I wasn't successful life was pretty tough doing a bit of stand-up comedy failing to really make the attraction I wanted as an actor and I got a call from a friend of mine but I'd been at college with who said John can you still do voices and I said sure I can and he said well I've got a way for you to make a lot of money and that's the beginning so that was the beginning of it so what happened he said you have got a way to make you a lot of money so what happened so then I developed a way of using or developing the pretext call the blag call blagging is essentially using deception ringing people up using vocal skills ingress to get into people's minds so that they can reveal confidential information about politicians celebrity so who do you have to pretend to be you have to pretend to be from a hospital or from a bank or just I mean I was following the news cycle so a story would break and generally they were looking for a kill of fact the journalist knew what they wanted to write they would say for example is it true that John Cleese is having an affair with Michael Palin so I'd say the first thing to do would be pull his phone records so I'd be straight on his phone recover his X directory phone number which was very simple cuz I phone up British Gas pretending to be John Cleese I didn't need to even pretend to be John Cleese I was just mr. Jake Lee's I'd know his home address and then they would ask me for my as a security measure of my actually my telephone number to which I'd say something along the lines of have you got the two three seven eight five owner and they say no we've got a different number I would do that I broke the law for the Sunday Times for 15 years X directory this is what I was talking about just now you for 15 years in collaboration with John with the RO who was 15 years and he's now the editor of the morning the the the the daily time the the the the old Thunder are the the newspaper of record the times indeed he is the and he was the gang master under whom I worked for 15 years and who ultimately I was under his instructions was arrested and faced the faced well faced I was arrested and charged with three counts of fraud and finally was cautioned during the Leveson inquiry was all hushed up they paid my legal fees I was cautioned who paid them the Sunday Times it was hushed up put under the carpet I was then cut loose hung out to dry and that was that I was unemployed unemployable in a very lonely place for 15 years John wither Oh was quite aware of what you were up to absolutely yeah indeed I was I was the secret weapon at the Sunday Times when a story broke if there was a killer fact that was missing who would they call they call John Ford we need to know so I was getting bank information I was getting I was getting telephone information I was getting medical record information tax information I was stealing people rut people's rubbish so there was a campaign that I operated which is called Operation George where I stole the rubbish of the entire cabinet along with the governor of the Bank of England and a number of other important people and collected the rubbish and that then went into a load of front-page splashes along with other I mean the list was endless I was breaking the law usually the instructions would come in on a Tuesday that was the day that the Sundays began their week so I maybe break the law five or six times on Tuesday and by the time of Friday it would be an orgy of criminality where I'd be I'd be breaking the law 510 times did you did you hack I did into email but it was mainly bragging and you told me something lovely when we first met that the key to bragging people is to make them think that you stupid yes what are the key to blogging is to establish reciprocity one of the things that you do is well in fact one of the key things to do is to offer a carrot so you give someone you say usually I would start abused an accent or I've used a voice of some description and you were actors do well for example one of my favorite was to be mr. Kham so I would telephone as mr. Karnes surrounding a patina I would play into people as racist assumptions about you know mr. car and I'd say oh I have a little problem and if you can helping me please and generally speaking people think and a new play into that and you play stupid you have a keyboard which isn't connected in front of him you tap in the keyboard presenting a problem and people then feed you information often it was the pregnant pause where the information was delivered back so it's a game of pregnant pause give an example well for example it's very difficult so you you you might be looking for information you know that it's there and you'll be charming them so often it was distraction it's the techniques that reduce distraction techniques and also lots and lots of compliments people loved reciprocity so you'd say you're very helpful you're very good at your job you're very kind I love your English you speak very good Italian etc now what interested me is that you may use the phrase came out of the woodwork about two months ago I did yeah and you said that you've been carrying out for 15 years at the behest of John whither of you now the editor of The Times illegal activities you know can I just ask how many people in this room just wave a hand had heard about this well that tells you that what happened I mean Fleet Street censored this story they didn't want it coming out because they didn't want to annoy the mail and they didn't want to annoy murder and murder was coming up for two reasons Leverson - yeah and the sky bid absolutely and both of these would have affected his chances because their signs that people in his organization of criminals it is yeah yep so they managed to sense of the story so that about four people in this audience out of 250 heard it so how did they do that well it's a very good question they did that was sitting on the story The Guardian was initially interested I was on the 10 o'clock news you were I was the BBC ran the store The Guardian ran the story they sent two leading reporters in fact one of the reporters was the guy who'd interviewed Snowden and it was said that he had commented that my story had some relevance to the Snowden account and that it was very exciting and so forth the next day my story came out in The Guardian Online not in the printed news pay in the print division and I was wait I was given a telephone so that I was expecting of course lots of phone calls from journalists who weren't following up the story and I was told to watch out for being stalked doorstepped and and there was nothing there was just effectively a news blackout do you think they bothered to talk to each other and say we will would let's not do this one or do you think they just knew to do that I can't speak I mean I did hear some gossip I hear that Rupert Murdoch who's mysteriously reinvented himself some even say he's a body double I don't know but he's reportedly I know that this we know Erik idols joke about him and Jerry Hall no they called them Gerry and the Pacemakers well I can I can tell you that this evening he is in the South of France sunning himself with none other than the young British artist who's not so old anymore Tracey Emin is celebrating her 50th birthday and Rupert Murdoch is running around with the fast set in the South of France and he's reported that he is actually misunderstood I read a racy rock chick and he's reinventing himself he's managed to dodge the the Leveson bullet and he's selling Fox News for billions and he's yeah it's got a racy rock chick and if he is a body double I don't know but he's clearly controls or his tentacles and control the news media as Graham was reporting there's now a tie-in between the Telegraph the news international the using current and news international carnation and the Guardian to sell advertising so it's the thin end of the wedge how long we have what before we have one consolidated news platform I'm afraid that the revelation that I came I came for I came forward having sat in a darkened room for nearly six years it got darker and darker and I lived with the shame and the self-loathing and the hatred that came from knowing what was a shame that you broke the law well yeah I think I broke the law and I thought that I was working in the public interest my family thought that I work for their Sunday Times I was known as John the journalist but actually the truth was that I I wasn't working in the public interest I wasn't working in my interest I was working in the interest of selling copies of The Sunday Times and when I was no longer useful I was dispensable and I went back to Somerset where I was left to drink myself to death which I very nearly did in fact I nearly preempted that by taking my own life on a number of occasions something that I will actually say if anyone I just want to say that were it not for the Samaritans so Graham you got any comments somebody - did you spark off any thoughts because when John came forward he came forward - by lying about it about a year ago sentence of this astonishing put in a plug for byline because a lot of people you probably don't know it Peter jokes who runs it is here it's where I go for you are they are it's where I go for what's really going on I go to by line first then I go sometimes to 0 Street open democracy where do you guys go to get the Daily Star what are the dates Peter it's quite an event I'm going to do some court of speech on the Saturday I think but and these guys are going to be there and I just want to tell you it's great fun it's a huge field and tents and lots of entertainment and lovely people it's all right let's have some questions yes are good and just a question when you were talking earlier you said about sugar being hidden as the problem that we now know that it is and it's deliberately been hidden partly because of the issue with Tate & Lyle giving so much money to art galleries and science museums was this also part of what your journalist friends up there were involved in this corporate stuff as well as the political everyday news that you were dealing with I just say that from my point of view the interesting thing was that you don't get funding to challenge the current paradigm and that's not about something not firstly about about corporate funding that's firstly about groupthink and the extraordinary tenacity with which scientists cling to their theories and paradigms that's the point I was making but tell us about the commercial pressures I mean Peter Oh born I think is a very good writer more right wing than me but very he left the Telegraph group about 18 months ago because of the pressure on the editorial department that was coming from the advertising department yeah that was a that was to do with a bank if I remember correct I think it was yeah well it's I mean certainly newspapers will do everything not to write about the big corporations ooh by all the adverts that is true which is why so that shouldn't affect the BBC or does it well I don't know because I you know I don't do you know of where can BBC for only many stories for them I think the bottom line is is what's put in its place you know they fill the paper with celebrity stories and they fill that full of paper with crime stories but you don't see many investigations into big corporations you know so you know and the reason is because they're they pay the wages you know I was I also worked at the Sunday Times for 15 years but I it wasn't I I was constantly trying to get out it was it was a difficult position to be in our children a mortgage to pay under a lot of pressure so I got head hunted for a job in a hedge fund to run their research department I was this was ten years ago and so I was thrilled my mother was delighted I was interviewed in New York I was paid a handsome salary first-class travel it was all very glamorous and I got into the hedge fund and my job was to brag and to cheat and to steal and do everything I was FS a regulated SEO SEC regulators and my job was to do exactly what I was doing at the Sunday Times and I realized that I was in trouble of really severe trouble because I was playing the market and they were trading on this information so I tried to blow the whistle and it's a really hard thing to do so I spoke to a friend of mine at the Sunday Times and I said look this is going on he said well this is an amazing story so I I download the information a front page story is prepared about the this skullduggery in the in in in hedge fund and then the story was pulled the reason the story was pulled is that the hedge fund was a major investor in News International and I ended up another court case that lasted for a year where I signed an NDA and was the Sunday Times paid my legal fees and I was lent on very heavily to to take a settlement and went back into the folder The Sunday Times to survive so it's vested interests and Rupert Murdoch has got a lot of tentacles and if the law has long arms then Rupert Murdoch has long legs long toes long fingers and and a long beard okay I think we're coming to the end let's have one more question from a girlie provola no it's okay you'll do that's good to know just wondering how much do you think we can trust the circle like revelations papers like private iron so and people like that because private right yeah well that's what I was talking about earlier my line just seriously by line up and democracies illustrate I like a lot c0 street is great yeah I mean you you John's right you've got a search out for the sites which give you good news you know or good quality news how good is Private Eye well they were good enough to write about a recent event that we ambushed that was the launch of les Hinton who's a Rupert Murdoch's number-two and byline organized an ambush of his book launch that was very effective and they tell you it's available on the Internet yeah by Lancome and it's well worth watching because hinter there's no idea that there are people out there who know where the skeletons are someone tweeted in fact that he came along to flog a few books and he ended up with a mini Levison so it's it's quite entertaining to watch and there's wonderful pictures of him looking absolutely astounded when he recognized you for the first time because he's a crafty bastard he hid behind someone in the audience so that hinted Christmas who he was and he started off with you Welsh accent oh there's a love your book I thought it was really enjoyable I'm one day less I hope I can have a white suit just like you and then being the Raffles of the private investigation industry I switched into myself and my charming middle-class Clifton College turns and revealed my true identity I will point out John in fact that when you notice that your wallet is missing in the dressing room won't be the Scali that had it wasn't that the the dying to us one last question yes oh it's not a girly it's another chat okay last one oh we got a woman over here yes yes [Music] thanks very much I wonder if you're aware that's in November last year the foreign secretary announced an award of 1 million pounds to support freedom of expression journalism overseas and if you are aware perhaps you should applies for some of that money to address the lack of freedom of expression for the press and for whistleblowing journalists like yourself in this country yeah that's a very good idea well ladies and gentlemen if anybody here thinks that there's any hope put your hand up oh oh we've got some rebels there's 20 optimists in the room thank you ladies and you have to run that was [Applause]

Channel: John Cleese

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Id: vC45L3ARnZA

Length: 43min 26sec (2606 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 14 2018