we should measure journalists by how many lawsuits they have had against them.

He's a jowly old prat with an agenda.

Yes, I’ve been reading Private Eye for about 50 years and the world’s so crazy now. And I think we are f’edd.

Yes, we need more privately educated Oxbridge graduates who work for the BBC, to fight the system.

He's inside.

So basically, he just sticks to the safe middle-class topics and doesn't want to get ostracised from north London, Oxbridge graduate, BBC set. I guess worrying about the mass influx of wage suppressing cheap labour, criminal gangs, traffickers, and recently converted Christians who chuck acid in the faces of women and children - or care about the mutilation of children and the threat to female spaces, is just beneath him.

Fantastic description of him, absolutely love the private eye and you can tell the guy simply does not give a f##k. He will get the truth out by any means.

He is also a lawyer

Agree - unafraid to speak truth to power and a mind like a razor.

He's like the genuine version of one of malcolm tucker's last speeches at the inquiry. He speaks against duplicity, morality and popularity at all costs in politics. And he doesn't get distracted by peripheral issues

The bloke who wants the UN to make an orbiting hard-drive recognised as a country? Give you head a wobble.

@@DirtiestDeeds tbf he never said Lembit was a good politician or good at anything - just that he was a good sport, which is fair, he took his punches better than most do!

@@DirtiestDeeds You're not very good at conversation, are you?

​@@DirtiestDeedswhere did they say his political veiws are good ????

he was a good sport, i don't know where he is today or if he's working but hignfy should have him back on as a guest presenter!

Probably because when he dies the entire political establishment will breathe such a sigh of relief that it'll be classed as a new storm by the met office

It's clever how, despite seeming like the more stern of the two, Paul is the comic relief when Ian is tearing into a reprobate and the situation isn't going anywhere. They're both quality in their own right.

@@RH11THMit’s a good bargepole to use. You know someone is really bad when even Paul doesnt makes jokes and makes blunt comments.

The two complement each other perfectly. Sure, Paul ends up with the most points at the end of the show, but it's Ian's skewering of the cold uncaring injustices that remain long in the memory.

I'm less convinced. I think it's a case of Paul cashing in on the easy laughs on the back of Ian's very hard-fought confrontations. He's predictable and does it again and again.

Thanks for admitting this is all about lefty spleen-venting and not comedy

@@jeffsimon9594lefty? Hislop is a constitutional monarchist, you muppet.

​@@jeffsimon9594 so the UK were correct to go to war based on completely fabricated evidence?

@@jeffsimon9594 he's literally tearing chunks out of a left-wing politician in the first clip, you plonker

@@jeffsimon9594he’s having a go at former Labour MP John Prescott. 🤷‍♂️ Not sure you understand who the left is.

Paul hasn't been funny in years. I'm still an avid viewer but only for Ian's continued presence.

OH MY GOD THE DAILY MAILLLLLL

It's lame and petty these days.

Carol Vordaman is also very straight to the point and sharply scathing too.

@@razor1uk610 Oh please.

@@razor1uk610 Carol Vorderman is a hypocritical moron.

@@razor1uk610I’m so so pleased she got into politics. It’s the glorious transformation of the maths goddess of after school at grandmas house turned into an angel of nemesis for the political classes and I’m flipping hyped for it

Funded from the licence fee of course

Not the biggest crowd to garner, political comedy.

@@jeffsimon9594 Education should be free.

The Hislops of this world are indeed decent and honourable ......... until they become politicians and that's when they change their views and stop becoming decent and honourable, Hislop wouldn't be any different and I think he knows it which is why he wouldn't wish to enter the political world as he wouldn't wish to change his opinions for the worse!

Do you think Marlon Brando was in Crouchin Tiger Hidden Dragon or something

@@LukasOfTheLight Are you mental?

Paul's ability to defuse the tension is always perfect. Decades mastering the art of improv comedy have served him well.

It does age though, half the politico's they had on have lost relevance and whatever Ian is grilling them about is lost to time.

I used to read Private Eye, but the truth of its contents depressed or enraged me so much, I had to stop. I now live in ignorant bliss.

It's a brilliant 'paper' but be careful, it does take you down some frustrating rabbit holes. My wife can always tell when I've read the latest edition. She calls it my 'detox period'!

I subscribe occasionally too. I only wish it had a digital edition. Much more convenient, and easier, to read on a screen. Shame Ian says it’ll never happen.

​@@JohnRCWilsonthey have a podcast now

@@JohnRCWilson I think going the 'electronic' route opens the publication up to easy digital manipulation i.e. hacking, context mis use or plagerism etc... Also, on a personal level I prefer an actual paper edition, (it's not exactly a broadsheet is it), as I do reading an actual book.

Pretty sure the fraud investigation found that money had changed hands, which would've scuppered any court case.

Strange isn't it. He's outraged by the accusation. He claims the BBC are being sued for the outrageous claims, and yet he had not filed a law suit.. I guess the accusations he strenuously denied are all true then. Typical tory.

He also left shortly after, like he said he would.

So he lied. Shock.​@@OrangeDog20

Timing wise, this was late 2019, basically about 6 months before the pandemic, that probably derailed any attempt to get any kind of litigation going, and by the time he would have been able to the matter had long since left the public eye and it likely wasn't worth him pursuing them.

What exactly would that achieve?

@@jeffsimon959434 thumbs up and the knowledge of when the episode was filmed

@@CricketEngland Only raving OCD nerds actually require that kind of useless info though

@@jeffsimon9594 28 thumbs up says otherwise

You could just look it up yourself

Did that go over Clarkson's head?

@@lizclegg7556 I hope not!

@@lizclegg7556- No, because it _is_ Clarkson’s head.

No it is not spot on, people give Clarkson a undeserved hard time because they do not like his truthful outspokenness. If we had more people like Clarkson this world would be a better place.

@@lizclegg7556 No it did not, it just in this particular instance Clarkson let it slide. Clarkson is a lot smarter than people give him credit for.

Lemsip

Scored a lovely girl friend an' all.

He hasn't because of his "enormous service to the country with his devotion to the truth and doing what journalism is required to do". Why would you throw a decent man like Hislop to that den of vipers, fossils and chinless wonders?

I've watched it from the start in 1990 .

I watched it way before then. I win.

@KellyMcDog I've watched it since episode one just couldn't remember how long it had been on for, didn't know it was a game , LOSER

Who?

@@LANCSKID Lembit Öpik, Merton’s teammate in the section beginning at 8:05

@@youdontneedtoseehisidentif4939 Well, Lembit isn’t ‘Limbic’, which is why I made the rhetorical enquiry …

To be fair, in hindsight the Paula Yates thing was not Ian's finest hour.

What bothers me isn't that people died as people can die as a consequence of a mistake - what bothers me is that it wasn't as innocent as an accidental mistake. It was at best an indifferent disregard for people or, more likely, at worst, malicious self-interest.

The story doesn't seem to have had any significant coverage after it broke a few days before this aired in 2019. I take it from that that no legal action was ever taken. I've checked Companies House and the company he was a director of went into liquidation in 2021 having lost about £400,000, so the claims about generating lots of money by placing veterans in well-paid FTSE 100 jobs were, at best, aspirational. The money they lost came from their holding company, which went into liquidation at the same time. It isn't clear where the holding company got the money from - the accounts show them having debts of more than a million pounds that disappeared from one year to the next, which I would guess was a loan from Surge (the firm that was involved with the firm that went bust) that got forgiven when it became clear it was never going to be paid back. It seems he was quite far removed from the misselling scandal, but the money he received does seem to have come indirectly from the scandal, as Ian claimed. The business he was involved in was a complete flop that lasted all of three years and never made any money.

Johnny Mercer...He released a statement tonight regarding the unexploded WW2 bomb found in his Plymouth constituency...It was this toe-curlingly excruciating Thank You declaration to all those who bravely served during this military-led operation, & dramatically listed every dept involved incl. er...Mountain Rescue...in Plymouth...?!? He remains such a military-grovelling drama queen.

@@_Ben4810 You mean his tweet? It was a pretty standard thank you from a constituency MP. Any MP would have said pretty much exactly the same thing. Why shouldn't everyone involved be included in the thank you? I really don't see what you object to in that tweet. He may be a military-grovelling drama queen, but that tweet is not part of that.

@@_Ben4810 not defending him in any way, but mountain rescue would have been involved in helping with the evacuation, knocking doors etc. I was involved in a very loose way with a similar event in Scotland and mountain rescue played a part

Thank you for your service guys

Did you see it when John Prescott had that scrap with the man in the street after he attacked him?

Eventually got fired , his company was found to be giving money for he quit the charity. Also had to pay thousands back in expenses claims but recently brought back by rishi

Nice one, cheers@@petesmart1983

Lying in court, basically

am assuming these clips were put together by Hat Trick who own the rights to HIGNFY. maybe their intern put it together.

They were that why within months he left the company which led you him being removed from government he only got brought back by rishi. Also had to pay back thousands in expenses but still allowed to use them to pay his wife as a employee. Also tried to block investigation of hundreds of civilians murdered by British troops in the middle east

@@petesmart1983 according to his written and verbal statements to the inquiry committee he was clearly mislead into making statements about the extra judicial killings. As per Wikipedia: Mercer gave oral evidence to the Afghan Unlawful Killings inquiry on 21 February 2024. Mercer had in January 2020 described, as a government minister to the House of Commons, allegations in the media of extrajudicial killings by UK Special Forces in the War in Afghanistan as untrue. This statement had been based on briefings within the Ministry of Defence, which Mercer said he subsequently discovered to be incorrect. Mercer told the inquiry he was angry that the Director Special Forces, the Chief of the General Staff and the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had "not done their job that was incumbent upon them with their rank and privileges in those organisations" in allowing him to make statements to the Commons which they knew to be untrue. As far as expenses he paid back 931 British pounds, not the thousands you claim. His wiki has that information all referenced. Please correct it to reflect all your claims so that the people know what you claim to be true. Can’t allow Wikipedia to get away with it.

@@petesmart1983 Wrong, he was reelected in the 2019 elections, and wasn't sacked until 2021 over an entirely different issue. He also wasn't forced to pay back "thousands", he paid back £931.20 for incorrect claims. He was called up for buying iMacs rather than "cheaper equivalents" but that was dropped when he revealed they were cheaper than the desktops offered by the house of commons official supplier. There's also no evidence he tried to block the unlawful killings inquiry.

Mercer was the same claimed thousands to pay to employ his wife and 5 apple imacs in 2015 and thousands on other things there all dodgy as hell

No politician, and certainly no Tory appears now. Going on HIGNFY would be far more of an ordeal than Question Time.

That says more about you. You are just out of touch. I know them all.

@@billybob-bm4mn good job billy bob. Ofcourse I'm out of touch with some has-been who lost the meager relevance they had a decade ago in a scandal nobody cares about anymore. I'm out of touch because the segment is dated.

I don't think so. His lawyer probably told him to shut up about it.

Nope he quit within a month after his company was found accepting money

… and of himself.

And civilians being killed by British army

@@petesmart1983 Yes, his arrogance is insufferable.

Worked out fine for Borris, didn't it?

All publicity is good publicity ... Doesn't work for everyone but when it does you get to be PM.

Because the only other forum where Ian could meet them to talk is Question Time, and if they raise voices and swear there then the presenter shuts them both down. Here, they can at lea argue like civilised people.

Well done to Mr mercer for telling us just what lowlife partywhips are and how the party leaders will go to get people to vote for what they want

@@DrewSavo Fiona on QT loves a bit of effing and jeffing.