The podcastocracy is surprisingly quiet on the bombshell revelations in the Casey review. The News Agents – which promises “astute analysis and explanation of the day’s news” by “three of the country’s top journalists” – published a juicy 43-minute episode yesterday on the Middle East, with a lengthy discussion on Trump’s game plan and what comes next for Iran and Israel. They even found time to interview Stella Creasy about abortion. Not a word about the rape gangs scandal which splashed virtually every front page this morning…
At the time of going to pixel, neither Emily Maitlis nor Jon Sopel has tweeted a word about it. Guido even checked Sopel’s Bluesky account, just in case. It is still collecting cobwebs. The ‘centrist-dad’ audio torture that is The Rest is Politics is also yet to trigger the ’emergency podcast’ alarm over one of the biggest political coverups in decades…
In fairness to Lewis Goodall, he discussed the topic on his Sunday LBC slot. But why is his co-host Maitlis so reluctant to wade in? Anything to do with her Rupert Lowe tirade ageing like milk?
Emily Maitlis’ tirade at Rupert Lowe on her The News Agents podcast is looking less wise by the day. Worth a rewatch…
Lowe says today she was “trying to get out of a rabbit hole” in her cringrworthy interview with the former Reform MP. Maitlis also raised questions over reporting of Pakistani men operating grooming gangs…
Fresh polling from YouGov finds 87% of Britons support a national independent inquiry into the sexual abuse and rape of children by rape gangs. Casey’s review has a whole section called “Denial.” Maitlis may want to have a flick through…
It begins:
“Despite reviews, reports and inquiries raising questions about men from Asian or Pakistani ethnic backgrounds grooming and sexually exploiting young White girls, the system has consistently failed to fully acknowledge this or collect accurate data so the issue can be examined effectively.
Instead, flawed data is used repeatedly to dismiss claims about ‘Asian grooming gangs’ as sensationalised, biased or untrue. This does a disservice to victims and indeed all law-abiding people in Asian communities.”
Yikes…
The reactions are coming in – Emily Maitlis and fellow News Agents presenter Jon Sopel have been discussing Starmer’s migration speech. They’re coming to terms with it in their own way…
Maitlis was aghast at Starmer’s use of Brexity language and said she would be “terrified” by the changes:
“I think you can go in and talk about control and contribution i.e ‘we need to have these controls and we need to recognise the contribution’ – He has opted certainly in this speech just to talk about control and the language of taking back control… If I had elderly parents that were going into a care home right now I’d be absolutely terrified, I would be absolutely terrified because what you’re doing is you’re turning off the tap of people who are qualified.”
Sopel weighed in with his own contribution: “The question of the lab and the experiment as if as if – it sounds like Frankenstein’s monster doesn’t it?” Cheers for that….
Maitlis finally found her line: “Maybe you have to ask yourself if you had to have a hardline immigration system from any party would it be the party that traditionally veers towards compassion but is hardening up or the party like Reform that traditionally veers towards a lack of compassion and probably incompetence when they actually get into power?” At least it’s Labour, thank God…
This month Maitlis declared Runcorn a victory for Labour. The zingers keep coming…
Here come the takes on Runcorn. Maitlis has gone for it:
“I wonder if losing Runcorn might end up being the best thing that could happen to Labour right now. The clamouring for a wake up call is coming from many different directions. If this liberates the government to be bolder and faster and less scared of its own shadow that’s no bad thing.”
A classic of the genre…
International media has picked up on Emily Maitlis’ on-air meltdown during Channel 4’s election night coverage. Krishnan Guru-Murthy himself had to tell her to stop swearing about Donald in front of shocked guests…
Variety has run the story on her rant:
“When Donald Trump talked about the eating cats and dogs, half of America was just thinking ‘This is batsh*t, I can’t believe what he’s saying, this is gonna be the end of him’”
She then refused to back down after Guru-Murthy told her off and said: “I don’t know what else, how else, you would describe it.” She left the studio soon after…
Mate-less has been posting positive articles about herself on Twitter. She got praise from the Independent for accusing Boris of “importing some of that Trump-like behaviour in Britain.” Yawn…
Variety notes “Ofcom, which classes the word ‘sh*t’ as a moderately offensive word, has the power to investigate and even sanction networks where the broadcasting code has been flouted.” It’s probably too busy fining GB News for letting the public interview the Prime Minister…
Hardline centrist hacks are struggling to have as much fun with Free Gear Keir, Labour Cronygate, and Sue Gray’s whopping salary as they did with similar (and often fabricated) stories about the Tories. The hypocrisy of Labour promising to “clean up politics” and then swiftly being exposed for doing the opposite within 100 days of being in power, splashing across most of the front pages. Though some have decided that a more pressing story is… James O’Brien’s unhinged rant about Nigel Farage:
It’s rare that James O’Brien and Nigel Farage are in the same room.
So when the Reform UK leader was leaving the LBC studios after his phone-in with Nick Ferrari, @mrjamesob delivered a one-of-a-kind handover. pic.twitter.com/owIDJUce9q
— LBC (@LBC) September 19, 2024
Emily Maitlis took to X to deliver her original thought on the show: “Just your normal studio handover. Like a throw to the weather really … except ….”. Pippa Crerar followed suit, tweeting: , while Jon Sopel reposted with a simple string of shocked faced emojis. Not like there’s anything more pressing to be tweeting about…
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”
