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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Page 94, the Private Eye podcast. Hey, everybody. And when I say hey, I mean, hey, festival, everybody. Welcome to a live episode of Page 94 recorded here at Hay. So without further ado, let's get into it. First question for all of you. We have a once loved, now hated, Labour Prime Minister, came to office in a landslide, is now completely loathed, his legacy in ruins.
Is there any way back for Tony Blair?
I'm going to go first as the lonely Tony defender on the panel. So I grew up in the... Well, I was a teenager in the late 90s, right? So I lived through the kind of a new dawn has broken, has it not? I still think that new Labour record is really good. But the thing that we're talking about tonight is the fact that Tony Blair has decided to make one of... It was described as a rare intervention.
I was like, I don't think it eases it, really. But into the Labour leadership contest where he said a variety of things. The thing I think he said that was true is that Keir Starmer came into that Labour leadership essentially painting himself as continuity Corbyn. He then pivoted very hard afterwards to say, actually, I'm going to put the left back in the sealed tomb of Mandelson.
Watch out badly.
And then now it's kind of just... If anyone can escape a sealed tomb, it's Peter Max.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of Tony Blair's legacy in modern politics?
It's Peter Max.
Rise. But then essentially, without a proper programme for government, without a governing ideology, you will snap back into a sort of wishy-washy soft left comfort zone. You know, that is a legitimate ideology, but you have to kind of make a case for it, not just it be the kind of default that you come back to. And I think that's the problem.
The people around Starmer thought they were very clever that they said, well, we're not getting involved in these labour wars. We're not Benite or Blairite or Wilsonite or Callahanite or whatever it might be.
But we are shite.
That's the only ite that we are. But as it's turned out, that's the problem, is that no one knows what they think.
Yeah. I couldn't see in his arguments any policies that haven't already been adopted by the Conservatives and reform.
LAUGHTER
Which is interesting because if he wants to say, hi, vote Tory, that's a different view from him. It's free to do so, yeah.
How did you feel about his thoughts on oil and gas, Andy?
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Chapter 3: How has Keir Starmer's leadership impacted the Labour Party?
He believes we need to rip up the Clean Power 2030 commitment. He's proposing the same things you would do if you were a climate denier, and which, in fact, Reform and the Conservatives... are pitching at the moment. There is a reason that China are installing hundreds of gigawatts. Basically, one gigawatt is a large nuclear power station.
China's installing hundreds of gigawatts of solar power every year. They are not doing that because they've had a really inspiring talk from Greta Thunberg. They're doing that for very hard-nosed reasons of their own energy security. They are not dependent on a mad choke point in the Middle East that can apparently be closed at any time. And they're doing it for reasons of cost.
China's electrified more of its economy than we have by about... 35% to 25%. China has overtaken us in the race to get things clean and efficient.
I can tell that I've spent too much time sitting in a room with you because as I was reading it, I thought it's fascinating to me that he's very excited about AI. Now, the Tony Blair Global Institute has lots of links with AI companies, and I think there is a genuine sincere thing there, which is he just loves the future. It's shiny and new and exciting.
And I thought there's a really big contrast with why is he not excited about clean energy? Incredible strides of technological advance in the last decade. But that one apparently is not exciting to him.
Well, because none of the people he meets at international conferences are going on about that. What they are saying is AI is fantastic, and because he's an enthusiast, he has no idea what AI is. I mean, nor do I. I know on the whole it isn't good to encourage the end of humanity yourself, personally. I feel that isn't a good policy.
And also telling people what we're going to do is we're going to take away all your jobs, particularly, you know, your jobs in the audience and in return we're going to rip up your environment and fill it full of data centers. How does that grab you? I mean, if you just like bleak future apocalypses, then Tony's your man. Also, I just can't... I'm just going to get it out of my system.
Yeah, go on.
Let it out.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of Nigel Farage's recent political moves?
Hello there. I'm very glad you put the cartoons double page, because I was losing faith. I couldn't read the serious stuff for quite a while, so it was only the cartoons that kept me a subscriber. Excellent. But what do we do when we get our own bonkers loony in Parliament and in the head of the executive in this country? Will you need to go weekly?
LAUGHTER I think we turfed her out after 49 days.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE
No, I mean, I think seriously, we just emulate the American media. We roll over, sell out to anybody with some money, sack the cartoonists, and retire. Because that's American journalism at its finest. Good, there we go.
I saw a number four over here. Oh, how come my dad hasn't won the private eye crossword yet? Ooh, okay.
Is he remembering to send his entry in? That's an important question because a lot of our readers think that it's rigged and they think that some of the names are not genuine. And they are. And the repeated winner from the last three issues, Mrs. Phyllis Hisglock, is a genuine person who is very, very good at crosswords. So I hope I've made that clear.
That was wonderful. Thank you both for the fantastic consideration of your questions. Let's go to number two here, please. You've been disparaging and scathing about politicians. Can you cheer us up a bit? Tell us British politicians that you admire and are doing a good job, please.
Nice. I don't want to end anyone's career.
I mean, I can name someone. Yeah. I mean, we haven't spoken much about the Lib Dems. There's a politician who's recently elected called Mike Martin who's spent a lot of time in the army and now he's campaigning a lot about water. So he's interested in third of the week stuff.
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