‘A sectarian travesty’: The Greens’ dirty tricks in Gorton and Denton exposed

0:09The Gorton and Denton by-election is too close to call and that might explain some of the grubby tactics used by Labour and Greens in their desperate bid to stop reform. Sunday Telegraph editor Alastair Heath has called the sectarian nature of this vote abominable and warns us what might happen if the Greens win. And the former Prince Andrew has always insisted that he visited New York in December 2010 to say goodbye to his friend Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted paedophile. But emails in the Epstein files reviewed for the first time by the Telegraph reveal a very different picture of parties, exclusive dinners young women to the financiers, Manhattan Mansion.

0:53Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tominy.

1:07Tim, has Zach Polanski been in touch? Have we used the lesser spotted Polanski? I still haven't found him either. Maybe we'll find him next week or in a future week. We look forward to having him in here for a green tea. Gorton and Denton, it's on a knife edge. We're going to be bringing everybody a super emergency by-election special podcast tomorrow morning. Yes. As soon as we know the result. Unless it's a really close count, what are we going to do if it's a close count? It shouldn't go on that long because I imagine turnout will still be pretty low. Yeah. Reform has slightly talked down its chances, which is expectations management.

1:44but for Labour and Green, the battle is to persuade local voters that they are the party that is closest to reform. So vote for us if you want to win. Normally the Lib Dems are the masters of this. You know, they produce those hilarious charts which sometimes do not reflect the numbers at all but they always say only the Lib Dems can win here. Yeah, not here though. They're not even at the races, are they? Well, the Greens are accusing Labour of dirty tricks because they sent round a leaflet to people which claimed that an organisation called Tactical Choice had said that Labour is the only party that can beat reform.

2:27It said, quote, based on new predictions, we recommend voting Labour. Tactical Choice doesn't seem to exist. No, it's just a massive scam. This is literally why this is one of the dirtiest by-elections that's ever been fought, by the way. Yes. It's not far off saying Mr. Tom Studley says only Tim Stanley can win round here. Yes, that's right. Labour haven't denied it, saying they will, quote, take no lectures from the Greens about fake news and dirty tactics. Remember, they're accusing the Greens of stirring up secretarian tensions with their famous video of politicians linked to Israelis and to Indians.

3:07But let's be honest, Labour haven't got a leg to stand on on this. Do you remember some of the dirty tactics that were used during the Corbyn campaign by Corbynistas? We had that situation where Ian Duncan Smith took delivery at his constituency office of a dead rat, which they blamed on Corbynista activists. I'm not sure they ever proved it. There were some horrendous methods used there. I mean, you only have to actually have a conversation with the Labour guy that stood against Corbyn in Islington North last time round for some really sordid stories. When Corbyn was running as an independent.

3:41Exactly. What grassroots people get up to just blows the mind. And, of course, Corbynites would point out that we're currently excavating a scandal where Labour Together, the Starmerite Front Group, is accused of hiring people to dig up dirt against journalists, which they then handed on to GCHQ. Second of all, do you remember the Tories had come up with something? At the time, that was 2019, they had a go at the Conservatives because the Conservatives rebranded their Twitter account having a laugh and saying it was fact-check UK and then Labour are like, oh, you're not allowed to do this. But mud is being slung all over the shop.

4:13But actually, Tactical Choice doesn't exist. But two organisations that do exist, called Tactical.Vote and StopTheTories.Vote, have recommended voting green if you want to block reform. And meanwhile, just to complicate matters, Sir Vince Cable of the Lib Dems that you just mentioned have advocated people voting Labour. So everyone's advocating for people to not vote who they want to vote for simply to keep Nigel Farage out. We will find out in the small hours whether they've succeeded in that aim. And in this election, Labour have accused the Green Party of manipulating Muslim voters. Yes, there's a sectarian theme to this particular by-election that has proved very troubling for one of our columnists.

4:59The Sunday Telegraph's editor, Alastair Heath, has written an extremely punchy piece which is going great guns online, talking about what's happening in Gorton and Denton being a travesty of democracy. So I spoke to him earlier, Tim. As we speak, the good residents of Gorton and Denton are going to the polls, 74 ,000 of them exercising their vote in this crucial by-election. Alistair Heath, editor of the Sunday Telegraph, columnist extraordinaire, joins us. Trigger warning, you're going to hear the nostalgic sound of me turning the pages of a broadsheet. To get to your column, which is going great guns online, I only want to have a look at it physically so that I can refer to it, Alistair.

5:39You're basically saying that this by-election has been an abomination. Explain. Yes, I hate the way this by-election has ended up showing up the secretarian nature of a growing number of consistencies in the UK. I think it's a disgrace that voting is effectively taking part on the basis of race and religion, that people of different races and religions seem to be voting in different ways. Yeah. And I think that is an incredibly retrograde step. Right. We used to have sectarianism in the UK up until possibly the 1970s in some bits of Scotland and bits of England. Yes. And we thought it all gone away.

6:20And tragically, it has come back and it's been weaponised in particular by the Green Party. which is specifically appealing to demographics on the basis of what these demographics are, not about what the people in them believe. And I think that is a travesty of democracy. It's not real democracy. Democracy is about debate. It's about swing voters. It's about convincing somebody that someone else's policies are good or bad. It's about rewarding a politician that does good things and punishing them that they do bad things. There's a feedback mechanism and so on. It's not about arithmetic. It's not about counting members of one group.

7:00And, you know, if you win the demographic war, then you're elected. And if you lose, you lose. That is power sharing. And going down that road is a disaster for Britain. And I think what we've seen in this by-election is very upsetting. Tim was out in Gorton and Denton and tried to track down the Green leader, Zach Polanski, saw him. He gave many interviews to others, would not speak to the Telegraph, probably hardly surprising. Just look at some of your description of the Greens in this. So we'll talk about the Greens first of all. You're basically saying, as we have already discussed on the Daily Tea, this complete departure from the Greens from environmental policy into pro-Palestinian support.

7:41following a playbook pioneered by far-left parties worldwide. The Greens, now led by Zak Polanski, are targeting a red-green coalition of white woke progressives and the reactionary subset of the Muslim electorate. These may seem culturally incompatible, but they can be united not just by support for socialism, but they're often virulent Israelophobia and prejudice. That is what the Greens are unashamedly pandering to. So I take your point from a green perspective. You could say this is just good politics, OK? They've got a caucus of Muslim voters that they've got to win over from Labour. They've got a generation of young people who feel that the boomers and the generation Xers have had it too good for too long.

8:31They can't get on housing ladders. Bless them. They're graduates. They're saddled with debts. They can't even get jobs. Probably as Zach Polanski dances around Parliament Square singing Tax the Rich. It may well appeal. And of course, they're mopping up the Corbynistas who have failed to realign themselves with Jeremy Corbyn because of this problem facing your party, which is actually being dealt with at a committee today. Who's going to lead your party? Will it be Corbyn or will it be Zahra Sultana? So with all that in mind, Alistair, if you are hard left and of this disposition and you're virulently pro-Palestinian, Zak Polanski is the next messiah, isn't he?

9:08Yes, I mean, that's it. But I think there's a number of points here. First point is that the Green Party on extreme left party. I think they're the most extreme party to have ever broken through in British politics. I think that's deeply worrying. It's the first time we effectively have, you know, a communist style party in Britain. You know, we've seen lots of those kinds of parties in continental Europe. Every country in Europe has got these sorts of parties, far left parties, far right parties and so on. In France, you've got La France Insoumise, which is basically a revolutionary communist, woke, extremely anti-Israel party.

9:42It's a very similar party to the Green Party. We have that under Corbyn's Labour, didn't we? Yes, so right. So the first time that the dam broke and that someone's extreme views became, was projected to the front of British politics was when Corbyn took over the Labour Party, right? Yeah. He lost two elections and was booted out. And Keir Starmer, to his credit, got rid of Corbyn himself and the hardcore of Corbynites. But that did not purge the body politic of Corbynism. And they had a look around and, you know, some of them went to some of these so-called pro-Ghazan dependents. And you've got this attempt by Jeremy Corbyn to set up his own party.

10:18But really, all of that is small beer compared with the rise of the Green Party, which has been transformed and become this far left party. So we now have a far left party. That's not the Labour Party. We've got a disintegration of the left. And you've got probably 15 or 20 percent of the population in the UK who are now basically on the far left and who think that Labour and the Tories are basically the same thing. Yes. And they're not really interested in tactical voting other than on the margins. That's what people haven't realised yet. They are true believers. They are ideologues. They want to back a genuinely different party.

10:52And now you have the Green Party. By the way, in a completely non-extreme sense, you've seen also a rupture on the right, of course, with the rise of reform, which is a mainstream centre-right party, a modern Thatcher-right party, effectively. And they've also obviously led to the disintegration of the old right-wing coalition of the Conservative Party. And I want to get on to restore and advance in just a moment, by the way. But yes, stick to your thinking on the far left. Yes. So that's the far left for you. So and the far left, the demographics of the far left are united by two principal causes, even if they disagree on everything else.

11:24One cause is socialism. They basically believe in much higher taxes, redistribution and so on. And that unites young left-wing progressives with the subset of the Muslim electorate who are reactionaries, basically. So not all Muslims, but a big proportion of that electorate likes the idea of higher taxes and more redistribution. And those two completely disparate lectures are also united by something else, something deeply worrying, which is extreme anti-Israel sentiment. They both believe, or many members of both those groups, believe in the demented lie that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, that Israel occupies.

12:04And many of these people believe that Israel is illegitimate and shouldn't exist. And you've got a vote of Green Party members coming up soon on determining whether they believe that Zionism might be racism. Which is just extraordinary. Well, Zionism is racism is one of these modern blood libels, just like the forced claim about the so-called massacres by Israelis. Genocide. Genocide. and it's the kind of thing that was dreamt up by the Soviets in the 60s and 70s and rose to prominence in those days and has now become completely mainstream on the far left in Britain. It's an extremely toxic vision.

12:41It basically says that Israel is the only country in the world that should be abolished and everybody knows that if Israel is abolished there will be a massacre, a new holocaust of Jews because, you know, when you just look at the hostile forces surrounding Israel, it's completely crazy. It's an abomination. It's disgusting. It's despicable. But unfortunately, that's where it's all going. OK. And I've written extensively about, for instance, the Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali and his behaviour towards a rabbi in Leeds. And he appeared to, in part, celebrate the October the 7th attacks. He has a wife who is fully dressed in a niqab.

13:18And people have said, what have you got to do with environmentalism in his support of Zach Polanski? So there's concern about that. There's concern about the appeal of the Greens to so-called Islamists. Square this circle, though, because clearly that Green offer purely on being virulently pro-Palestinian and by implication virulently anti-Israel obviously is a draw to Muslim voters. We had Matt Goodwin, the reform candidate on here a few days ago, saying, oh, well, I have actually got some Muslim voters supporting reform. Why have right-wing parties not been able to appeal to Muslim voters who, to all intents and purposes, are socially conservative, Alistair?

14:01OK, these are people who are obviously very religious, extremely family orientated, believe in a sense of patriarchy, are opposed to, certainly, homosexuality, perhaps, gay marriage and other matters. They are people who want to be autonomous. They often run their own businesses. why hasn't the right been able to capture some voters that really should be on their side? There's a number of very interesting points that you've just raised. By the way, just one thing. The fact that the Green Party is called the Green Party is now only of historic interest. They're just simply not in favour of conservation, which was the original aim of the Green Party.

14:39But it's handy if you're trying to win over middle-class blue wallers who think they're going to clear up the rivers and the seas. Yes, but they're basically proponents of the omni-course, As we saw with Greta Thunberg, she switched right from caring about the environment to hating Israel. So, I mean, you know, there's this far left omnic cause which sort of allies every left wing cause. And the Greens are now the main representative of that cause. So, you know, it's not about the environment anymore. So that's the first point. The second point is, tragically, sectarianism is now the norm in British politics.

15:11So you ask, why do most Muslim voters not vote conservative? Obviously, some Muslim voters vote conservative. Some subgroups of the Muslim community are now very right wing. For example, the Iranian community in Britain is extremely right wing. They are entirely, they're overwhelmingly opposed to the Iranian regime. When you see demos, anti-Iranian regime demos, you see thousands of Iranians, but you also see Jews there. And you see Israeli flags and the old imperial Iranian flag together. So it's a very interesting site. They're perfectly aligned. Exactly. So you've got all that going on there.

15:44you've got all sorts of complexities. But yes, you're right. In the main, the Muslim electorate used to back Labour and that all fragmented after the Iraq war. And now probably many of them are turning to the Green Party. And of course, a lot of them backed the so-called pro-Ghaza independence of the last election. So you've got that going on. But at the same time, the Conservative Party is who would have the Hindu vote. Yes. And in areas of very high Hindu concentration, those areas are now safe Tory seats. So you've got an alignment. Why Tory and not reform out of interest? Right, I mean, because reform didn't used to exist.

16:21So I'll just come into that in a second. So you ended up in a situation where a lot of Jewish voters backed the Conservatives and a lot of Hindu voters backed the Conservatives also. And now reform are vying for those votes. But at the moment, as things currently stand, I think reform have gained a lot of Jewish votes, but still not as many as the Conservatives. And that's even more the case in the case of the Hindu vote, which I think for now at least remains largely with the Conservative Party. But that's the point, right? You've got a situation where religion and race increasingly determines how you vote.

16:53I think probably Hindu voters at the last election, probably the most conservative demographic. Also, by the way, people said they were a regular Church of England goers were pretty conservative. Yeah. So we're basically turning into Northern Ireland. It's a tragedy, I think. We're turning into Northern Ireland to a certain degree. I sort of mention in my piece semi-seriously forecasting that were things not to change and current trends were to go on for a number of decades, we would be moving towards some sort of Lebanese-type situation. Yeah. Explain that a bit further, Al. In Lebanon, and of course we're not there, right, but I'm just speculating here, but in Lebanon, the different religions are allocated different posts in the government.

17:33So, for example, the president has to be of one category, the prime minister a different category, and the head of the parliament are a third category. There are quotas for religions in parliament. You vote for religious lists effectively, depending on which religion you're part of, whether you're Christian, whether you're Muslim, etc., etc. The whole thing's formally divided up. It's a power-sharing agreement, not a real democracy, in my view. And we see that in Northern Ireland, of course. That's what we're more familiar with. It's power-sharing, not real democracy. And I'm against that. I think that's terrible.

18:06I think we should be individuals. Groups exist. Religions exist. And, you know, you can be British and part of any religion or any race. And that and that is very, very important. But I don't think that just simply looking at somebody or figuring out their religion should then tell you with a very high probability which party you vote for. I think that is very bad. I think it's very important that democracy is more than just vote counting. Right. It's about discussion, about convincing people. It's about swing voting. But, you know, in a purely sectarian system, you have no swing voters. Well, I'll give you an example of that.

18:39A Daily Tea fan, Angela, wrote in to say that she lives in the constituency and had received through her door a letter from Hope Not Hate, which is an interesting organisation. It hates organisations like ours, The Telegraph, because God forbid, Alistair, you and I might be on the right. And apparently that's a nasty, dirty, bigoted thing to do. And this leaflet basically suggests that if you vote for reform, you may as well be aligned with the devil. We must stop hate from infecting politics in Gorton and Denton. They're pointing out in this leaflet that Matt Goodwin has said all of these controversial things.

19:20They've again alluded to the idea that Tommy Robinson, currently out in America, apparently meeting with Donald Trump and others, has endorsed Goodwin. And I make the point about hope, not hate. They don't have any business involving themselves in a local election, and yet they still do. So the offer to the left from any of these parties, we heard it from Keir Starmer at PMQs, this confected situation where he can just stand up and attack Nigel Farage, Another situation where a Muslim Labour MP got up and started talking about Islamophobia. Another occasion where Keir Starmer was able to point out the Greens' mad drugs decriminalisation policy.

19:58Yeah, let's make heroin legal, everyone. We have all that in mind. We have these kind of external agencies pushing this narrative that basically, if you support a right-wing party, you are ergo a racist and shouldn't do it. That's the other layer to all this. It never used to be like that. Well, I mean, I don't know. I think British politics has been toxified for decades by a left wing hegemony, which has portrayed mainstream right wing positions as beyond the pale. And that cancelled people who are saying legitimate right wing things. And I think that lasted for several decades and was a catastrophe and is one of the reasons we never had a proper conversation about immigration or why governments were able to ignore the will of the elections on that.

20:45The BBC played a role in that, of course, but others too. So I think that was very bad. I think actually the toxification has diminished. I actually think there's now more freedom of speech than there was, say, five or ten years ago. And I think the Overton window shifted. But, of course, the danger there is that you have extremists of the right, which also spring up. Well, let's talk about that because we've got Restore Now. Scarlett Maguire, pollster, who was on this podcast this week, has said that if Rupert Lowe's party, Restore Britain, gets just 3 % of the vote, it could prevent Nigel Farage from becoming the next Prime Minister.

21:20We also have to consider that there's another political party on the right, albeit with less profile. And we can have a debate about whether Lowe's got any profile really beyond the Twittersphere and Elon Musk's support. But Ben Habib's Advance UK, now that's controversial because Robinson's also endorsed it. It helps Farage to have parties to the further right of him to make him look more moderate and therefore mop up some of the blue wall Tories, correct? I think in a small way it does help him, but it's very, very dangerous because, as you say, if those parties were to get more than a trivial amount of votes, they would cost him seats.

21:58And if you have a very close election, the left could basically win the next election because of divisions on the right. I mean, it's bad enough having reformed the Tories, you know, killing each other. A four-way split's not great. Well, I mean, there'd be the end. And then you'd end up with, you know, the Greens and the SNP and Ply Cumber and all these people in power and the most left-wing, even more radically left-wing government than we currently have. And we already have a very left-wing government. And that's the point. But you'd have an extreme left government, basically. But those righties are going to try and out-farage Farage on the issue that you've raised, the issue that sectarianism in politics is an abomination, that this by-election is, you know, exemplifies that.

22:37They're all going to be fighting for the vote of people who think that it is wrong that the Greens are standing on this pro-Palestinian Israel-hating ticket. Yes. I mean, look, there are some people around on Twitter on the far right who are basically proto-fascists, who are the British equivalent of Groypers, who are obsessed with the race. They are racist, those people. They're very bad. And I think every party should stay well clear of them. They're very toxic people. Now, they are a tiny minority of the population. Tiny. That's the important thing. And Nigel Farage in the past has managed to defang the growth of the BNP and others.

23:19Farage and reform are mainstream. They are centre-right. They are basically an alternative to the Conservative Party. That is a very important point to make. unlike a party like the Rassemblement National in France which had fascist roots, had Holocaust denying roots but has now completely moved away from that under its current management that party has never had any extreme tendencies. On the other hand there are a number of people around on Twitter who do have extreme views. That is very dangerous and it's bad enough having to deal with the far left but if you're having to deal with the far right we're in trouble.

23:53Alastair Heath, thank you very, very much indeed. Indeed, we will link your brilliant column to our show notes today. Thank you. Another story still dominating headlines is Jeffrey Epstein. There's been a lot of discussion about Peter Mandelson, but some breaking news brings us back to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and we'll discuss that next.

24:22Camilla, a key part of then Prince Andrew's defence of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein revolved around a photograph of him visiting Epstein in New York in 2010. Yes, walking through Central Park together. This was in December. It was after Epstein's conviction. And people wanted to know, what were you doing with that man at that time? When Andrew appeared on Newsnight, which he volunteered to appear on because he believed it would help to clear his name. Yes. He gave the explanation that he had gone there in order to end the relationship with Epstein. This is what he said to Emily Maitlis.

25:03I felt that doing it over the telephone was the chicken's way of doing it. I had to go and see him and talk to him. I took the decision that it was, I had to show leadership and I had to go and see him and I had to tell him that's it. That was December of 2010. Yep. He threw a party to celebrate his release and you were invited as the guest of honour. Oh, in 2010? There certainly wasn't a party to celebrate his release in December, because it was a small dinner party. There were only eight or ten of us, I think, at the dinner. If there was a party, then I'd know nothing about that. But some great investigative journalism by our colleague Poppy Wood has laid bare a rather different tale.

25:54It turns out to be a lie. Yes, as she points out, that claim is about as credible as the claim he cannot sweat, or indeed that he may have been at Pizza Express in Woking on the night that Virginia Giffray claims they had sex. Now, he denies any allegations, he denies any wrongdoing, but this email chain leading up to the meeting in New York is fascinating, Tim. It's compelling to read. It really is. And what we find is that this trip was plotted months in advance. It was not a spontaneous, I think I need to go to Geoffrey to break the news. It was a trip that took some planning and some discussion.

26:35And Andrew explicitly said that he was there because there were so many things to, quote, discuss and plot. Yeah, it reads like this was a, yippee, he's out of prison. and we can go back on the town. Isn't this great? So as you say, these emails start in the April. By the way, I'm going to give some context to this because I was in close proximity to the Duke of York while all of this was unfolding. We'll get onto that in just a minute because there's an initial joke about Prince Andrew turning 50 in February and that piqued my interest because I thought, hang on a minute. When I was at the Sunday Express, I went to Mexico with the former prince and shadowed him for his 50th birthday.

27:19And I've actually got the piece that I wrote for that newspaper, which is, I've just re-read it. Look at my photo byline. So young. How young am I? So young. I look like I'm 12 years old. We'll get into that in a minute, but there are some absolute classics in here from the Duke of York justifying himself in his trade role. Let's just get onto that in just a minute because people need to understand how this guy was behaving at the time. So concurrently with everything that Poppy Wood has revealed about what Andrew and Epstein were up to. I just want those listening and watching to picture in their mind how the former Duke is behaving in interviews with journalists like me.

27:59But anyway, back onto the timeline. So they plan it from April 2010. It gets to November 2010. And Tim, what do they get up to as Andrew is breaking off his relationship with this convicted paedophile? It is revealed that Andrew partied with the convicted paedophile, that he made dinner plans with Naomi Campbell, and he even considered a trip to the financier's private island. And that infamous photo of Andrew on all fours leaning over a young woman was taken during this trip. Yeah, he seems to be having quite a lot of fun for a man who went there very honourably wanting to cut ties. It's an interesting way to cut ties, isn't it?

28:41Epstein appears to have arranged for young women to visit his Manhattan mansion during that trip, and at one point he sent an employee to collect$5 ,000 in cash. As you do. Cash supply's running low. Can somebody pop to the ATM? This was a two-way street as well, Tim. It should be borne in mind because after his release, Epstein did visit Buckingham Palace and arranged a dinner in London with Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor as he's now known, with a woman described as, quotes, 26 Russian, clever, spelled incorrectly with an E on the end, beautiful, trustworthy. Emails later show Epstein making sure that the very best people would be present when Andrew visited New York, and he announced the then-prince's visit to those whose names have been redacted, suggesting they were probably women that he knew, and also to help him to get into business meetings.

29:33Emails show Andrew asking Epstein what kind of clothes he should bring for the trip. Quote, really looking forward to seeing you and spending some time with you after so long. Some interesting things to discuss and to plot. Signed HRH, the Duke of York. As Hannah Furness, our Royal Editor, pointed out, these emails are sent from his official palace address. Yes. During the trip, Epstein laid on an exclusive dinner party attended by Woody Allen. Which they knew would be controversial. And the political strategist George Stephanopoulos. Yeah, they were sensitive to association with Allen because of his own controversial marriage to a girl who his family had raised.

30:12The adopted daughter of his ex-wife Mia Farrow. Who accuses Woody Allen of child abuse. Yes, who Woody Allen then went on to marry. And Woody Allen denies everything. Indeed. So the infamous photograph of them walking through Central Park together, that's December 5th. The next day, December 6th, Epstein invites a woman over for lunch and planned a final dinner before Andrew left, although it's not clear if it went ahead. A female dance student would also message Epstein later that week to state that she had recently, quote, massaged somebody whose name's redacted and Andrew. So let's just go back to this piece in my old newspaper, The Sunday Express, because it is It's quite nice to revisit history.

30:56What was I doing in relation to this royal? Now we know what we know. I just think it's interesting. Yes. This is published on February the 14th, 2010. How romantic, Tim. It's headlined, Thank God I'm the Exception to the Rule. And I've revisited this and I remember the trip very well. So what happened was I had to go to Buckingham Palace and interview him in his office. And then I had to go to Mexico with him to sort of shadow him doing his quotes work. What was Andrew's office like? I mean, wood panelled and fairly nice. You know, you go down the state corridor. Yeah, pretty well ordered, well ordered.

31:34His private secretary, Amanda Thirsk, was in the room. I ask him about getting older because he's obviously turning 50. Does he have any senior moments? He turns around to Thirsk and asks, do I have them? And she, without missing a beat, says yes. But it's some of the quotes he's given me. So I say that he is known for being a pompous stickler for his HRH title, which he kind of rebuts. I find out that he goes to great lengths to carry out Jeremy Beedle-style pranks and practical jokes on his staff. Yeah, I always find that that is a sign of a psychopath. Because no one ever enjoys that, except the person doing it.

32:14He appears to be genuinely surprised when I ask if he's as extravagant as he's made out to be. Extravagant, he asks. I point out that he can't have missed the press coverage of him flying first class and playing golf. Ah, well, I think both accusations are completely unjustified, but if you're a public figure, labels follow you. He shrugs in a what-can-you-do fashion. The reality is somewhat different. I then go to point out that he's flown out to Mexico City where he's put up in the Plushes Hotel's presidential suite paid for by the British taxpayer, of course. I then say to him, do you play golf on these trips then?

32:59Occasionally I will get a game of golf in, but in most cases I'm going out for too short a period to even pack the clubs. I then ask, because he spent a lot of this trip in Mexico asking me if I was following things, and I sort of thought, probably a bit better than you, sir, actually, yes. I then ask one of his aides how good he is at absorbing a brief. His military background means that he can quickly absorb a brief and remember it. Not quite. The recollections may vary when it comes to the diplomats that worked with him. We then get on to some quite nice stuff about why he thinks he deserves his trade role.

33:36Oh, he makes no secret of his support for bankers. It was an investment rather than a bailout, he says. I have no fear that the taxpayer won't get his money back. He'll get it back with interest, just not immediately. This is the bailout of banks in the late 2000s. This is great. In light of what we now know about the alleged leaking of emails to Epstein, who, as well as being a paedophile, was, of course, a financier. 99 % of bankers are doing an incredible job. There may be just 1 % or 2 % that perhaps were doing things that may have been overly risky. Oh, thank you for your insight. And then we've got, I say...

34:15Overly risky, like they're heart surgeons. I know. Then I say, at times the Duke can even appear arrogant, declaring in our interview that he was, quotes, headhunted for the trade role and that accepting it was a no-brainer. He adds, you'll love this, being the only man that can do this, my time is actually very important to the UK. I then go on to talk... Being the only man who can do this? Yeah, what globetrot and... The only man who can play golf at the Four Seasons in Mexico City. Yeah, and eat a few Ferrero Rocher at the local embassy. I know a lot of old men who could do that. I then go on to ask him why he remains so close to Sarah Ferguson, even though they've divorced.

34:58Oh, the love story. But your ex-wife still lives in your house, I persist. So what? Why can't you remain friends with your ex-wife, he replies. I point out that they are the exception to the rule. Thank God, he exclaims, I'm an exception to the rule. then he talks about, oh God, oh no, I somewhat cheekily remind him of being called Randy Andy. My God. And ask him whether he's a romantic at heart. Define romantic. He challenges, you know, red roses and candlelit dinners, I prompt. He appears horrified at the prospect. No, not really. Wow, well, there you have it. So what was the appeal to all these women?

35:40there's a moment in the email exchange in which epstein references the fact that andrew's turning 50 and would he feel awkward at being a party full of young people and andrew replies that he's not 50 he is in fact 40 10 oh no that's like i'm not 51 i'm 50 fun all of this has reminded people of the wonderful story of the late satirist Peter Cook, who was once telephoned by David Frost and Frost said, Peter, I'm sat here with Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, who are both huge fans of yours, and ask if you'd like to join us for dinner tonight. And Peter Cook said, let me check my diary. I'm afraid, David, I'm watching television tonight.

36:29I'm so sorry, I'm busy rearranging my sock drawer. I will meet them at a quarter past Never. That's also a revelation, isn't it, by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair, who made the point that Boris Johnson had been at lunch with Prince Andrew and said, don't ever effing make me repeat that awful event again. Can we just note that poor old Andrew's been stopped from going horse riding? Which I think is bizarre because they think it's a bad look. Yeah, apparently he keeps on gurning and waving at people. Who are these well-wishers? Well, you can't ride a horse grimly. I don't blame him. You can if it's careering out of control.

37:11That I think is very unfair, banning him from riding a horse. That's silly. He hasn't been spotted since his release by police, but a member of his security staff, Tim, I didn't know he had a security team, but there you have it, has been spotted walking his dogs. We say his dogs. Don't forget he inherited, along with Fergie, the Queen's remaining corgis. I didn't know that. Yes. Right. One of them speaks health. He's not all bad. He likes horses and dogs. He's not all bad. Tim, I know you're going to go soft on another couple of royals now because we just will just quickly as we're on royalty.

37:43Can we discuss Harry and Meghan in Jordan? They've made a very brave trip to the Middle East. They've taken their lives in their hands and they've gone to Jordan. They're on what looks like a quasi-royal tour focused on humanitarian aid, mental health and support for those displaced by conflict. They have met teenage evacuees from Gaza and played football with Syrian girls in a refugee camp, and they were there at the invitation of the World Health Organization. All of which is quite honourable. You can't hold any of that against them. Try. Try to find a reason why it's irritating. Comparatively, Prince William met victims of the war in Gaza privately, without photographers.

38:24Right, OK. But why would he do it privately? I find it stranger that he would meet them privately than that Harry and Meghan would meet them publicly. There is a perception, not necessarily saying I share it, Justine Bateman made this point, sister of Jason Bateman, star of Family Ties with Michael J. Fox. Do you know who I mean when I say Justine Bateman? She lives in LA. There were wildfires. Suddenly Harry and Meghan appeared. So did the cameras. And Justine Bateman suggested they were, quote, disaster tourists. Right, OK. They do live there. They do live in that state. All right. They're doing a tour of their own home.

39:02They're doing a nice thing. OK, they're doing a nice thing because they're going to see victims of this conflict. Once you can see that people are unfair to Harry and Meghan, you can never miss it. All right. Can we also just talk about the post-it notes that the royal couple left at a rehabilitation centre in Jordan? Yes. Meghan's note, written on orange paper, said, Congratulations on your dedication to your care. Wishing you continued healing and happiness. Yes. It's written in her, do we say calligraphic script? You know, it's all very curly. Yes. This girl is somebody who uses an italic pen.

39:39Yes. Okay. She's mastered the art of fine penmanship. Again, I have nothing to be angry about here. She had previously written these motivational messages on bananas. Yeah. And Harry, not to be outdone, wrote on a yellow note, it's okay to not be okay. Trust each other. Congratulations on your recovery. Now share your courage and experience. Yes. You know when he says it's okay to not be okay? Yes. Don't you think he's writing that note to himself? I think the audience is bigger than we realise. Yes, I think it's to Harry as well. I've had some dark moments myself. Just read Spare and see what I went through.

40:22Yeah, read the book. Read the book. The bloke who wrote it for me really got me. he spent a lot of time with me and said it's really depressing mate and like also like in my darkest hour in Kensington Palace my big brother got a better room than me and it was like it just really made me feel like the spare to the air man so like I just get you and I like to think that she says to him afterwards you know it's actually not okay to not be okay yeah do you reckon or do you think you could try pulling yourself together also do you think that like in the Montecito home it's just full of post-it notes.

40:57Passive aggressive ones. Hi honey, there's no milk in the fridge. It's actually okay to be out of milk. Sorry, you haven't emptied the bins this week. I thought we agreed that that was your job because I'm really busy. I'm busy doing a full circuit because I have to do a school run. Do you remember that when she was telling about I do a full circuit in the morning which is I get up, I get my children up, I brush their teeth and I give them breakfast and then I take them to school and for that I deserve a medal. And they say... That's what mothers do everywhere, love. And they say the people of Gaza have it tough.

41:34It's too easy. He's a cute puppy and it's too easy to kick him, isn't it? All right. I'm being disingenuous. It's nice that they're doing these things, but it could be pseudo-political because... Have they been to Israel? Are they going to see hostages? We privately spent an hour going through Google, didn't we, trying to figure out what William and Kate had said about Israel and what Harry and Meghan have said about Israel. I can tell you that. William and Kate reacted to October the 7th by singling out Hamas for criticism. Yeah. Harry and Meghan responded by talking about the victims of all conflicts everywhere.

42:07All lives matter. All lives matter. Hashtag. Let's just leave it there. I think we're going to get into trouble if we do any more. But this is the problem they face. Whatever they do, someone's going to find a reason to criticise them. and we've heard nothing from them about Andrew and Epstein. Funny that. Yes. They don't have to say anything, do they? I think it speaks for itself. But whereas, you know, William is talking a lot, albeit through hints and innuendo, about his attitudes towards Andrew. Yeah, but I would be really, really careful if I was the Duke and Duchess of Sussex right now, having left the Ra family and fully commercialised.

42:48I would be careful criticising any associations that Andrew might have because we do not know who Harry and Meghan have been fraternising with since they left and what may have been committed to email or not and I'm not suggesting anything but I would just say once you are out of the orbit of the palace this all went on the Duke of York within the orbit of the palace and that's one thing you know emails do exist there is a bullying dossier against the couple that is being held against harry and megan held in a safe somewhere in buckingham palace journalists like me have agitated could we see it no there's documents have been signed and ndas and then i don't know exactly who they've been dealing with in america and thinking i say legally safely you know they They were loaned a house by Tyler Perry, a US star who is now being investigated for sexual wrongdoing.

43:53Let's put it there. So I just think glass houses and stones, let's all be careful. That's all I'm going to say. Yeah. And none of us likes the precedent of emails being shared and read out on podcasts. God, not our emails. Can you imagine? I can tell you a lot of right wing journalists are shaking in their boots right now. Let alone our WhatsApp exchanges. Heaven forbid. Right, back tomorrow, Tim, with a Gorton and Denton special. We want people to submit their questions. So once we know the result, whoever it may be, for the Greens, Reform, Labour, probably not the Tories or Lib Dems, admittedly, do get in touch and we will try and answer your questions on air.

44:31That's how reactive we are, Tim. So the email is thedailytea at telegraph.co.uk or contact us via our socials. So on X, Instagram, the Tiki Tok. I think that's all of them, isn't it? Yeah, I don't know of any more. LinkedIn, MySpace. No, that's now kaput. So just the main three, and we will attempt to make some sense of whatever happens in Greater Manchester. Back tomorrow as early as we can. Cut it, print it and run it.

45:09Thank you.