They used to say that nothing lasts forever, but that was before the 21st Century, when things curl up and die like they used to, but then just rise up and stagger on in zombie form. Formerly huge popular successes get by, somehow, on their name and their past – what creatives call ‘brand recognition’ – and the ‘just enough’ thin trickle of interest that never totally dries up. The list goes on – The Simpsons, Star Trek, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And now, most regrettably, we can add Private Eye.
I have in my hand the latest issue at the time of writing. The glorious Craig Brown diary page, brilliant as ever, aside, it is desperately thin, tame stuff.
Obviously, no one has ever read the pages between the opening gossip and the skits – the tedious investigations, the ‘Rotten Boroughs’ bits, etc. Whenever Private Eye has gone anywhere near something I knew about or was involved in, its coverage has always been laughably wide of the mark, so I never trusted a word it said about anything else. These pages are as dull as ever, still presented in the cribbed unreadable small print, typeset in boxing gloves, which seemed ancient in 1981.
But the juicy centre comedy pages, which were hilarious not so very long ago? Gags that everybody heard on Twitter two weeks before, and a general tone of weak snark and of treating the world of 2023 through the eyes of 1993.
Private Eye was very funny in 1993 and its staff and readers were so happy then they haven’t moved on. Look, I also wish it was 1993. I had hair. I believed the Labour Party were going to be great for the country. My best friend was alive.
Why did Private Eye work then, and indeed from its inception right up until the descent of the ‘Age of Stupid’ that kicked in around 2013/14? Because it was cynical and horrible about everyone and everything on an equal basis. This is the only way political satire works – the ugly angle of Thersites outside Troy or Juvenal or Peter Cook. It’s the one art form which envy, spite and misanthropy make better.
When you’ve taken a position, by contrast, you’re just performing the social bonding rites of that tribe, which is deadly. And ‘Calm down dear’-ism – I won’t call it centrism because turning a blind eye isn’t centrist – is a tribal political position. You have to be able, at the very least, to laugh at your own side. There is not a hint of that in the issue I’m reading. Not a word on the weekly Hamas hate marches in the streets of London, or the laughable police response. Not a sausage on the never-ending rise of ‘trans’.
What is Private Eye’s side? It has a palpable dread of going near anything that might make it look gauche and low status. It toed the establishment line on Covid and lockdowns. It called Graham Linehan “unhinged” for objecting to the well-documented sexualisation and drugging of kids.
There is a whiff to Private Eye that everything will be fine, and that the British institutions still just about work, or they would do if someone decent and sensible was in charge, like Rory Stewart. There is not a hint that the country has been changed immeasurably and possibly irretrievably for the worse by a combination of uncontrolled mass immigration and bourgeois academic rubbish. Private Eye thinks Britain is the same old place. In a way, I envy them that.
Unfortunately, this makes it look, at best, Carry On Up The Khyber-complacent; at worst blind. And you really can’t have a blind satirist. It has taken, very publicly, the most banal consensus position on Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocities. Its recent hit job on Triggernometry was laughable for all the wrong reasons, like an Edwardian old buffer spluttering about those damned infernal ‘orseless carriages.
The trouble with what we call ‘woke’ is that it is tedious to satirise – because it is already ridiculous. A lot of its works are deliberately goading and deliberately silly, a dare on the public – a man calling himself ‘Mandie Monroe’ taking his employer to a tribunal, ‘anti-racists’ supporting Hamas. The entire point of them is to provoke a reaction, to confirm the low status of those provoked into criticism or laughter, and thus firm up their own cultural dominance.
This is very hard for comedians and satirists to get their heads around, particularly for people like Private Eye who are of the class that prides itself on never being visibly either angry or sincere. That’s a very sensible approach to take when your civilisation is ticking more or less happily along in the background. But it’s a dead loss when your civilisation is rapidly crumbling to bits.
Far comfier to stick your head in the sand. Comfy but not funny.
Gareth Roberts is a screenwriter, novelist and columnist for the Spectator, Spiked and UnHerd. His new book, Gay Shame: The Rise of Gender Ideology and the New Homophobia, is due out 2024.
Stop Press: Ben Sixsmith makes a similar argument about the decline of Private Eye, focusing on its centrist dad editor, in the Critic. Definitely worth reading.
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I agree completely with the main thrust of this but could you explain how “the most banal consensus position on Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocities” is a pro-establishment position?
Which establishment? Last thing I saw was the UK Parliament has pretty much done what Israel has wanted from its near unanimous condemnation of Hamas to its support in both parties to Israel’s destruction of Gaza and mass killings.
If power matters, those in power, seem pretty much on your side here.
It’s a shame, but I’m toying with cancelling my subscription to their magazine…. they’ve got so politized, almost partisan. All the jokes seem to be backing up the narrative. Where’s the independent thought gone?
Cancel it mate, don’t fund ppl who are doing a Pravda role for eco Marxists.
I cancelled my subscription during the Brexit campaign as it was increasingly displaying a remainer bias, and then it just got unfunny.
For once I was on the money about Hislop’s dirty little game15 or so years ago. A real little rodent.
Hislop is a weasel who knows which side his bread is buttered. Had the regime started gassing the unvaccinated to death, Hislop would have run stories mocking ppl opposing it as COVID deniers. Hislop is a total lackey and anyone buying that magazine should cancel their subscription. Recall the attack in the eye on Hitchens for merely questioning COVID lunacy.
Right on the nail. Private Eye is not worth the cheap paper it’s printed on.
Unless I’ve missed a chapter on this rags history, Private Eye has never been anti-establishment, it’s always been anti-Conservative. It’s lefty propaganda packaged as comedy. They have what they want now, what they’ve always wanted – a far left party in power. Why would they rock the boat?
I cancelled my direct debit after the last article in DS about Private Eye. I felt justified after listening to part of their latest podcast where they were mocking those of us who believe that the current climate change hysteria is just that: nonsense!
A part of me is sad, as I have been a dedicated reader for around thirty years but I just cannot take it anymore more.
Well done spy.
The lights went out when Peter Cooke left the building:
‘All in all I’d rather have been a judge than a miner. And what’s more, being a miner, as soon as you are too old and tired and sick and stupid to do the job properly, you have to go. Well, the very opposite applies with judges.’
My favourite BTF sketch is the one parodying Bertrand Russell, which began,
“This is the BBC Third Program. We have in the studio with us this evening, Bertrand Russell – to talk to us in the series, “Sense, Perception and Nonsense: Is This A Dagger I See Before Me?” ”
Brilliant, brilliant stuff.
On Private Eye: I was enraged by Hislop’s disgraceful mockery and denunciation of those of us questioning the lockdown lunacy and everything which followed. Since then, the Private Eye elicits in me the same feeling I now get when I see the NHS logo – raw anger.
Rory Stewart? Shurely you mean Walter Mitty?
The Marx brothers!
I can’t watch ‘Have I Got News For You’ anymore. Many years ago I used to think Ian Hislop was sharp and funny, not any more. I find him embarrassing to listen to. Is it me that changed, or him? I think it is him. I cancelled my ‘Eye’ sub about a year ago. In fact, in general, any comedy is very hard to find these days on any platform (if you know different, please enlighten me). I have become a sad old person watching Morecambe and Wise replays on You Tube and dreaming about the past…
I watch old episodes of Minder!
Try watching the Sweeney.
I liked seeing the old Jags in that series.
Comedy Unleashed – live events starring cancelled comedians (i.e. real comedians).
Dominic Frisbee.
Some years back I remember asking my sister who is a hard leftie,,,,”why do you never see any right wing comedians”…..She just said, right wing comedy would just not be funny!
I’ve taken to watching the marvellous Dave Allen. Oh how the Muslims need some of his sharp wit.
Covid coverage was the nail in the coffin for Private Eye and their MD’s delight at the line taken by the Hallett inquiry is pitiful.
Worth reading in full: What is this Prejudice? My Letter to ‘Private Eye’ Magazine. – Mail Online – Peter Hitchens blog (mailonsunday.co.uk)
“ I am actually of the generation of journalists whose approach to our trade was largely formed by ‘Private Eye’ as it once was. I am, especially, sceptical of authority”
Great stuff!
It is an excellent letter – he slaughters them, which they deserve.
I was always bemused by Private Eye – I bought it a couple of times in the 70’s because I thought it was supposed to be funny and thought ????!!!! Punch was far better, especially Alan Coren, and the cartoonists were the best!
And as for comedy, Hale & Pace….They covered some dark stuff that would be full of trigger warnings today. Like when one of them was working in a mortuary and trying to get dead bodies in their location. To an onlooker he looked like he was buggering the dead!
The article p42 In The City – Dave’s Greensill ghosts is well worth the purchase price. I agree with the author that a lot of the stuff is hard work but if Private Eye won’t print the stuff about Teeside and Rishi’s Freeports and Houchen will anyone else?
Very sad that Tony Husband has died – heart attack at 70 apparently – I wonder what might have been the issue there MD?
Slow on the uptake. The Eye – and the loathsome smirking Hislop have been pillars of the establishment for years.
I’m just surprised how many {ex} subscribers to Private Eye read the DS!
“Because it was cynical and horrible about everyone and everything on an equal basis”
Reminds me of Charlie Hebdo a great satire on everyone, even the religion of peace.