The Two Matts Q&A: On the death of Jason Arday

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1:37Hello and happy Sunday, everybody. Happy Sunday, one and all. This is the Two Matts podcast brought to you by the subscribers of the New World magazine. Thank you to them. um matt obviously pretty devastating news on uh on friday which is relevant to the first question which we should say came in before the news that jason arday had been found dead um but the question comes in from sue and i think it's right that we we answer it so um absolutely sue writes uh thank you for a brilliant discussion on jason arday and i should say by the way we've had a few emails saying similar so there's clearly a lot of interest in in this topic.

2:20Matt Dancona's insider knowledge of the process and the failures in this instance were especially valuable. How can it be right that Simon and Schuster are continuing with the publication of his book? Is this evidence that society has become shameless in this post-truth age? So like I say sent in before the news and Sue apologies if you'd have written a different question in the circumstances but still I think it's a good enough way uh for us to to discuss um what well what has become a very different topic since that email was written it has indeed yeah um so i mean in answer to the question um which is remains valid um uh jason are days memoirs great and unfortunate things i believe are still coming out although simon and schuster may may change that um and i think you know uh i don't know what you think Matt but I think we would probably have said that it was foolish of them to continue with the publication given the the whole question around the veracity of his claims and so on but you know the hot look I mean and and thank you also for very kind words about our discussion on Thursday I mean look when someone dies apparently by suicide it would appear aged only 41 um in in a sense you you you you pushed i think you you pushed the brakes and and and have a moment of thought and and and and sadness i mean i my feelings about the whole affair now are overwhelmingly just i think it's awful and sad that this has happened um you know i i also and and i think we've been talking about this a bit in the last few weeks in various contexts is that and perhaps this doesn't answer the the rage and emotions that i'm sure some people are feeling well i know because i i looked in the last couple of days on social media and elsewhere i'm personal this is personal reaction i i'm always reticent about um attributing blame in cases of suicide and and one of the reasons for that is i i dug out the um what the samaritans actually say and they say this is quoting them they say in their advice to media speculators quoting speculation about the trigger or cause of a suicide can oversimplify the issue and should be avoided suicide is extremely complex and most of the time there is no single event or factor that leads someone to take their own life and that sounds to me like a good piece of advice especially in the immediate days after someone's death um you know and i was it made me sad to see that no sooner did the news flash come up on Friday evening, which is obviously a big shock to everyone, than social media blazed with either hounded to death by the right-wing press, it was a lynch mob, or right-wing folks saying he was killed by wokeness and it's the Cambridge establishment that's to blame.

5:26And the truth is that there's an intense and terrible loneliness and privacy in such an act that I think is, A, in the end, impenetrable, and B, exercise extreme caution before turning it into a political weapon. That's really all I have to say, I think. Well, I think that's very well said, and especially thank you for reminding us all of the guidance from the Samaritans, because I've been through a period of time where that guidance was not there, and still to this day, people in the national media disregard that guidance. but let us stick to it mainly because I think you're right. I mean, there's no avoiding the fact that there will be an absolute, there is a storm around this.

6:22There is a storm around this. And I don't think we've got anything useful to add to that storm right now. No, I don't. But maybe, maybe next week, maybe next week, there will be things that we can usefully say. but I mean it is it is it is awfully sad obviously and for the family it goes without saying it's an absolute tragic turn exactly but you're right it's so complex and and the the terrible truth is that both of those sides that you say have got cogent arguments too and they're already and then make and you know there's the same social media storm that I'm not just social media we You mustn't, you know, the same storm in the media, full stop, which has ended Jason Arday's life, it would seem, will continue to rage regardless of whatever.

7:22Without question. Without question. So, yeah, like you, I think I feel a little bit disinclined to steam in at this point on anything. Absolutely. There will be a time and a place. I mean, I think I mean, one thing I think we talked about this a bit and this is a much broader thing. So it doesn't sort of violate what we just said. I think now even more that there should be a full and independent inquiry into this whole affair. And I think that it should take in not only the way in which Jason Nade's career in higher education progressed, but the media ecosphere in which it was reported and what the lessons of that are.

8:07And I don't think that can be done by press regulators or within Cambridge University. That would be my only sort of. Yeah, my thought on that is that, and I think you're absolutely right, but one of those things is the academic framework and the way that. Yes, yes, absolutely. One of those things is controllable. And my feeling is that another of those things, the reaction to it and the way that it was treated, is now uncontrollable, no matter what kind of inquiry you have. that that that's right i mean or i mean it's in a sense um and we we saw this with leveson and and other attempts to regulate you know and and regulating the online space as we all know is is so much harder but i think that um we have to keep trying and there is a value particularly if if the person heading such an inquiry was a person of you know real weight and and character and acknowledged as such that you know it's important to a civilization has to keep stating its principles or it forgets them yeah and and and I don't know if this by the way I've no reason to think this is going to happen because at the time that we're recording this the plan is still just for Cambridge to investigate it and there's no plan for any of the rest so I've no reason to think it will happen but i i simply hope it will because i think that it has to your point matt it has uh it is it is it has triggered on across the political spectrum hugely um intense emotions not all of them at all appealing or attractive and you know it has ended in in the loss of life of a 41 year old man which we all i mean surely we can all agree is a horrific way for it to end I mean, I think that's kind of common ground.

10:01Yeah, 100%. OK, let's leave it there and go on to our next question, which comes from John in Norwich. And John says, I was delighted to see that Count Binface got more than 40 % of Farage's total vote in the Clacton by-election. That was a pretty revealing result. It was even more revealing that Nige couldn't bring himself to be at the count, which I'd have thought is a basic courtesy to the voters he says he cares so much about. My question to the Mats is, is he losing his political instinct after all these years? What do you think, Matt? Great question. And I would say, yeah, because I was very surprised he didn't turn up his account because there was a speech.

10:44I mean, the whole thing's hideously embarrassing. Binface did pretty, pretty bloody well, I think. I mean, we were longing on the Thursday pod to, you know, for him to win. But, you know, sometimes it's too much to hope. but that's you know as John indicates it's the biggest result any novelty candidate has ever had which is I love that as a sort of political data point it's just wonderful and so it was a bin fire for Haraj but there was a there was an obvious speech which he kind of gave to his supporters elsewhere in the constituency which is you know I've shown these cowardly other main parties um blah blah blah but i think not to be at your count in a by-election you have caused at public cost is a real misfire of your i'm it's very it's it's a great discourtesy uh as john says but it's also it shows your political instincts aren't firing and i and and you know it was interesting on on the friday morning to note that as soon as the result came out the political inquiry into his various um you know uh issues over money and and donations have been have resumed and rightly so so that was five weeks of wasted time money and effort and it strikes me that one of the lessons of all this is that and he needs to think about this and i'm glad it's not working for him is that not all political stunts work so the political stunt in june 24 where he He, you know, he really did electrify that election by coming in and saying, actually, I'm going to lead reform and I am going to stand in Clacton.

12:20That worked, right? This one has totally failed. Yeah, I agree. I agree completely. I mean, I think the sort of demonstration that he's losing his touch was evident in calling the by-election in the first place. It was so predictably a car crash. But I think he's, the big problem he's got is he's got fairly rubbish people around him. I mean, you know, let's not delude ourselves and say that Farage is an idiot. He's not. He's anything but. And that's why he's dangerous. But he's got people around him who have an air of increasing madness, I would say. Zia Yusuf seems to have just gone off the rails.

13:00Lee Anderson. Ice. I mean, Lee Anderson, I'm sorry, not the sharpest tool in the box at all. Tice developing a sort of air of mendacity. And I don't say that lightly, you know, a real kind of bullying nature coming coming out. You don't have to scratch too far before that emerges. And I think someone like Farage, because he, you know, he is an instinct politician, but the last thing he needs really around him are wilder instincts, still just shooting from the hip. And, you know, you're so right, not to show up was a disgrace. The whole baloney about, oh, we've been told not to go by the police.

13:45Yeah, which they said was not true. That's a nonsense, so it would seem. but where Farage was right was he said I don't want to go there and be humiliated and demeaned and don't call a by-election don't call a by-election and Binface I thought I think he did brilliantly and I don't know whether you saw his little kind of video after his victory video saying that he was the most voted for candidate of those who had shown up to hear the result it was brilliantly done and he ends it by saying you know we'll do it again soon coming to a leisure center near you clacton we'll do it again because the likely result of this inquiry is that there will be another by election i think it's a not a racing certainty but it's very very likely yeah now how that tests the patience of the people of clacton yeah already lost 250 000 quid of council money on this farrago will be very interesting maybe he'll go on and do it again but the one central claim he made about the people of clackton have given a massive two-finger salute or whatever he said to the to the establishment is objective nonsense because the establishment as he sees it didn't bother showing up so yeah it didn't i don't think it's achieved anything other than to make him look more vulnerable than he did the day before yeah i agree completely i agree next question comes from billy in kent Is it just a grumpy old person thing or is our new PM's relentless social media chumminess, not to say random topics such as favourite chip shop meals, in danger of becoming a little grating anytime soon?

15:26Well, it's certainly lending itself to parody. There's no question. You know, he really does. I mean, I like him very much, but he does remind me increasingly of the fast show. Brilliant. you know aren't vat cuts brilliant you can do them whenever you like right and then you can have parliament in the north brilliant you know so um yeah look i i i think it it and i i it's interesting because i've heard this a bit around so it's obviously people are beginning to go you know enough with the t-shirts and the backs and good stuff um but you have to remember where he started from so he was succeeding a prime minister who just i'ma who had basically severed radio contact with the electorate you know he'd gone off grid right he just like there was no comms between of any consequence between his government with 166 seat majority uh facing reform and the electorate what is going on so kind of burnham has had to start from scratch and he's also coming you know he was a very effective mayor but there are lots of people who don't know that much about him um so he's got it he's got those two tasks and the other thing is that yet whether you like it or not you have to use the medium of the moment so you know with franklin roosevelt it was radio with jfk it was television with obama it was the first real wave of digital comms with trump it was podcasting you know and and burnham is because he's at ease in his skin yeah does well in these clips now if that was all there was it would be a disaster because you can't govern much less win an election on the back of you know isn't number 10 north brilliant right that that actually it is brilliant but but you know that's not enough um so the the the question and we talked a bit about this on the thursday pod when we were talking about your excellent piece about the jeffrey howe letter is does he have um the big long-term strategies to make all this worthwhile yeah and you know the the jury's out i am optimistic yeah but but billy's embedded in billy's question is that is a correct um reproach which is you do realize andy this isn't enough and I think he does realise that.

17:50I think that's fair. And also, I did a little bit of digging on maybe why he's perhaps risking a bit of cynicism from older, grumpy old folk like us. And he's trying to reach that younger audience. And by 2029, if he does ignore our calls for an early election, but if he sticks out to 2029, right now, as of now, there are 4 million more people aged from 13 to 17 who will be able to vote. There's 4 million of them. Wow, that's an amazing stat. So if, and you know, so if by 2029, you're 13 years old today, you might be able to vote for Andy Burnham at the next election. So reaching those people could be the game changer of game changers.

18:46That's the killer fact. That is such an, that is so interesting. 4 million 13 to 17 year olds now who will vote for the next general election. Many of them distributed around the country in interesting places. So suddenly they become an enormous demographic to reach. Better get on Twitch as well, haven't they? Get on whatever. We don't even know what they're called. We don't know what they're called. Anyway, get on it. All right. OK, we're going to take a very quick break.

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21:53Welcome back, dear listeners. This is the Two Matts Podcast Q &A edition brought to you by the subscribers of the New World magazine. From Dennis in Walthamstow, did you find the solar eclipse as mind-numbingly boring as I did? How was it for you? I have to say I did rather, yeah. it was i couldn't really i couldn't really understand how people were in so i well let me let me reframe it i found our solar clip yeah yeah it's boring you know i mean the one in spain where by sheer coincidence i was in uh galicia where was a place of totality sort of like three or four days before before the actual eclipse and they were going they were going nuts about it you know they were really excited about it and uh and i get that because i can remember 1999 i do remember it being yeah being you know an event a spectacular event um and this was like this had had much of that build up but without the denouement you know it was like yeah yeah right it's gone slightly dark and i was trying to explain to my kids i said there is a world of difference between a 90 % and a totality.

23:06And it was really true. I'm really, you know, I'm really pleased that people got excited about it. Someone said it was like, it reminded them of the COVID days when we all came out and banged saucepits and stuff like that. We were all, you know, waving colanders around. And the last minute desperate rush for these glasses, amusingly, you know, you can get like same day delivery on Amazon. yeah yeah and uh so i searched on the last thing and of course there's no shortage of next day delivery for solar getting them on the day was an important i went to about 30 shops couldn't get them um but anyway so the kids are excited that's great maybe it'll you know get people thinking about astronomy which is great um i was reminded of my favorite ever astronomy anecdote which was when Sir Patrick Moore, the late great astronomer, wrote in to the editor of the Daily Mirror, having had a first-person piece published.

24:06We often went to him for commentary on some great event. And the last paragraph of this thing was, so thank you, Piers, once again, for considering me for inclusion in the commentary on this event. Can you please remind your reporter, however, that I am an astronomer, not a fucking astrologer? Yours, Sir Patrick Moore. Brilliant. So, you know, I'm into cosmic stuff like that as much as anybody. But, yeah, sorry, I'm with Dennis. It was a bit of a dimps. You know, I think it's interesting because I think part of the COVID comparisons are interesting because I think there is like, because we're so disaggregated and, you know, so apart in our experiences because everything comes through phones and so on.

24:52um there is a yearning for uniculture and i've bored you endlessly about my kind of as an outsider how i get how sport has that unicultural appeal right and and i think that one of the reasons that people lost their heads about the odyssey this summer was because it was it was a unicultural event and i mean i went to it again with my kids last week and it was the place was packed it's amazing. Mate, I just looked at the, I thought, well, I've seen, I've seen it twice. I saw it in Spain with my eldest in Sunday. That was great. And I've seen it here. And I thought, well, maybe I'll go and see it at the IMAX.

25:28It's, you cannot get a ticket at the BFI IMAX until like October. It's crazy. So I think people do, I'm pleased to see people still like doing things where we're all doing the same thing. That's a good thing. However, one of the things that perhaps those of us who are old enough to remember when all of us did all the same things all the time right is that a lot of those things were rubbish I mean you know I you know anyone who grew up with crack you know cracker jack in the 1970s right or or you know not not all sporting fixtures are brilliant are they you know so so not all eclipses are fantastic it's just the way it is But I mean, to your point about the total eclipse and also Spain, that I'm right, am I not, that there's one next year.

26:16There's another one next year. And that is a total in Spain. That will be a total eclipse. So maybe that one will will in August boxes. But, you know, it's like, yeah, probably wasn't as eclipses go. Not a phrase I use very often. It probably wasn't the greatest. It's funny. I remember because I was working at the Daily Mirror when the last one happened in 99. And I think pretty much every national newspaper was so excited about it for literally weeks ahead. You know, and we bought millions of these bloody glasses and you got one free with your newspaper and all of that. I don't remember that.

26:51Nobody did it this year. And they would have honestly, I was kicking myself because I thought if we'd have bought 20 ,000 of these Clips glasses and stuck them on the front of the New World magazine, we'd have sold out. And next time in 2090. we'll do it we'll be in our prime by then we'll have been uploaded to the Matrix of course and you'll be Matt 1-0 and I'll be Matt 2-0 we'll be kind of floating around holographically but I still intend to be holding forth on things I don't know about I don't know about you 100 % I don't think we'll have to wait until 2090 before we displace That bit I've been preparing for some years, right?

27:38Right, dear listeners, that's all we've got time for. I hope you're having a wonderful weekend. I hope we've added to it in some way. And please send in your questions for next week's Q &A to twomats at tnepublishing.com. That's the number two, M-A-T-T-S, tnepublishing.com. Go out and buy a copy of the New World magazine or better still, subscribe, please. See what all the fuss is about. one of the fastest growing magazines in Europe, actually. We're doing really well and you can help us do better and it pays for all the journalism that we do, which is a good thing. I'm sure you'll agree. Go to thenewworld.co.uk forward slash two mats.

28:17That's the number two M-A-T-T-S. And there's a very special offer waiting for listeners of the Two Mats podcast just for you. It just remains to say thank you to the third mat. Matt with us for producing the show. Thank you so much. and until next, we'll be, I think we're actually going to be on Wednesday next week. We'll be on Wednesday. So look out for us a day early next week. And have a great week. Yeah, have a great week.

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30:15So your AI agents don't just handle more conversations, they get better at handling them. That's the power of Parloa. Find problems before they find your customers at Parloa. P-A-R-L-O-A dot com.