Have I Got Views For You

ALTHOUGH BEST known in Ireland for his captain s role on Have I Got News For You, Ian Hislop is a man whose fingers can be found poking through myriad pies and no end of Eyes. An accomplished comedy writer with numerous television and theatre credits to his name, he is also the editor of Private Eye magazine, the celebrated British literary abattoir which specialises in the ritual slaughter of fat cats, top dogs, golden calves and sacred cows.
Based just off Soho Square in West London, The Eye s offices are disturbingly similar to those of any other publishing house I ve ever visited or worked in: decidedly grotty, with an array of old photographs, magazine covers and newspaper articles haphazardly festooning those areas of the walls in particularly dire need of a fresh lick of paint.
Nostalgia abounds: there s Hislop grinning into the camera alongside his glassy-eyed old mucker, comedian Peter Cook; an Evening Standard front page depicts him standing on the courthouse steps, arm raised in victory after yet another gruelling legal battle; while photos of other Eye stalwarts journalists Francis Wheen, Paul Foot and Richard Ingrams jockey for position alongside tatty, yellowing reminders of notorious foe. The most infamous: Robert Maxwell, possibly the only rat ever to desert a sinking ship by clambering over the side of a floating one.
Despite a reputation in certain quarters as an unctuous little twerp (an opinion held by many, from some of the most powerful politicos in Britain, whose shortcomings he has exposed, to my mate Higgo who has never met him but knows him off the telly ), editor Ian Hislop seems so thrilled to meet me that I m immediately convinced he s mistaken me for someone who s come to collect first prize in a See What A Nice Bloke Ian Hislop Is competition.
His warm, friendly handshake is accompanied by that trademark beam the one normally reserved for a response to a particularly good quip from somebody, usually Paul Merton, on Have I Got News For You. Was I waiting long? Did I find the offices alright? Am I okay for coffee? Where would I like to sit? Where would I like him to sit?
His fears about my general comfort and well-being allayed, I take a sip of strong coffee from the obligatory chipped magazine office mug and set the tape wheels in motion.

Barry Glendenning: Is it true that you were offered a job at Private Eye after going out to lunch with the owner, Peter Cook?
Ian Hislop: Yes, I was a student, aged 19, and I took Peter out for lunch. I ran a student magazine called Breaking Wind at Oxford and the only way to get other students to read it was to put famous people in it, because the rest of it was jokes written by me, which nobody wanted to buy, obviously. I had a brilliant lunch with Peter. In those days, tape recorders were enormous (uses his arms to indicate the wing span of an albatross) and it transpired that mine wasn t working. So, at the end of lunch I d got no notes, no tape recordings and I was completely pissed.
Having sat in on the occasional journalistic lunch myself, I feel duty bound to ask how many days this particular one lasted?
It all took place in one day, actually, but it started quite early and went on til about four o clock. I was being stupid because I thought, as a student, that I could keep up with Peter Cook. That s just mad, it s like one of us trying to have a heavyweight fight with Muhammad Ali . . . bound to end in tragedy. But he was incredibly nice to me and told me to come back another day to do another interview. So, when I tried to get a job here, he wrote to Richard Ingrams who was then the editor and said that he d met me.
I don t know what he said about me to be honest, probably that I was completely useless (laughs), but he always maintained that he d recommended me. That s how I sort of got a job on the paper, just doing a few jokes, and then in 1986 I d been here four years, knocking about doing various things, when Richard decided he was fed up and wanted to retire. It was typical Richard, y know, he didn t bother to tell anyone or consult anyone, he just said: I m off, do you want the job? . So I said yes, and that was 13 years ago.
What did you study in college?
I read English, and because the course was fairly flexible, it just meant I could read all the people I liked. The first two years you had to do a bit of everything, but then I did George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, all the restoration playwrights . . . I mean, everyone who d sort of been funny, ever, was on my list. I actually had a terrific couple of years, which you re not supposed to say about your course you re supposed to say that it was tough and gruelling, but mine wasn t. It was very enjoyable.
What about law? Given the nature of the beast, a firm grounding in the libel laws would surely be a prerequisite for the editor s job at Private Eye?
Well, I just had to pick that up fairly quickly. I mean, everything I know I learnt on the job. I find it funny now when people write to me saying they ve got media studies degrees, because I can t imagine what they ve done. I ve been working in the media for a long time, and working for Hot Press you probably know as well as I do that you don t need a degree, because most of what you do can be picked up in an afternoon (laughs). It really can.
I mean, you see these journalism degree courses which last four years and you just wonder what the hell these people are doing! I know journalism is supposed to be a profession and all that, but at best it s a craft really. It s best picked up when you re doing it. So, I don t tend to employ those people. I just like people who ve done something else, really, or who have a view on something else. If someone comes in here and starts talking about circulation figures and ad page rates, my eyes just glaze over. So, I suppose, essentially, what I m saying is that I had no qualifications at all for the job (laughs).
How did you get offered the job on Have I Got News For You?
That came about because there was and still is a radio version called The News Quiz on BBC 4, which I used to do. Then I did a programme on television for BBC South, which fortunately no-one has ever seen, but both Paul Merton and I were on it. Certain bits of it were alright and somebody saw it and obviously thought we were a good combination. We did a pilot in 1990, which was terrible. God, the pilot was bad! Breath-taking, really. I don t know how it got on the air. Then they changed the chairman and got Angus Deayton in, who no-one had ever heard of.
Who was the original chairman?
It was John Lloyd, the producer. He s an absolutely brilliant producer he did Blackadder, among other things but not a presenter. Then they commissioned Angus and we were thinking God, who s this bloke? . Obviously, we still do think that to this day (laughs). Anyway, we did the show and thought it would probably run for a series and then we d get sacked and take the money, but it just goes on.
You seem surprised.
I know! I m always amazed it goes on.
I interviewed Paul Merton last year and he seemed surprised by its success too.
Really? That s interesting. I don t think any of us take it for granted, but it s terribly good fun to do. We don t see each other between series, so you turn up in the autumn or spring and there s an evening a week again to blather and have a go. I do think that at its best it s like really good conversation would be if you could edit it. A lot of the guests say that it s like getting on a merry-go-round and if you miss it you just can t jump aboard then because it goes so quickly. The ones who do best on the show are those who get in quite quickly.
Like who?
People like John Sergeant and John Snow, people who you wouldn t expect to be good, but they just relax and take over. I don t know if you remember Jennifer Paterson, one of the Two Fat Ladies, who s just died. When she came on the show she was just so . . . bonkers, y know. She started singing in Russian in the first round and there s just nowhere to go after that. Paul can t be more surreal than that! She was just fantastic. People like to focus on the guests who weren t any good, but often they can be just as funny when they re really useless (laughs).
Paul told me he gets quite upset if he loses, do you?
No, because I lose all the time. It s funny you should say that because I think that s one of the most extraordinary things about the show: after all this time, Paul Merton still thinks it s a quiz! If you watch closely you ll find that usually in the last two rounds he doesn t do any jokes at all, he just plays the game. I just sit there watching him, thinking You really care, don t you? . He hates losing. I remember going to see Paul s stage show once and he was saying how he thought by winning on HIGNFY he was striking a blow for the working classes. Basically, he just thinks I m a complete upper class berk, and this was his revenge.
Are you an upper class berk?
Probably! Nah, I don t think I am at all, but I think I am in Paul s world view. Snooty, he calls me.
Are you one of those media types who spends a lot of time in the Groucho club, playing pool with Stephen Fry?
Me? No, I m afraid not. I think I might have been in the Groucho Club once, about five years ago. I used to know Stephen when we first came up to London and I used to play poker with him. I ve known him a long time. I met quite a lot of people I know well from that time: Stephen, Harry Enfield . . . I think it was because we were all hanging around London hoping to get a job here or a joke there. But the trouble with Stephen was that he was very good at poker and I just got fed up of losing. I remember one night I got cleaned out by him, and even at that stage he had a lot more money than I did, so I was buggered if I was going to give him any more. But to be honest, I can t bear the media coke scene down the road (jerks his thumb in the direction of Soho Square). I m a bit too straight for that, I m afraid.
Is it true you re the brains behind Harry Enfield s charming upper class twit, Tim Nice-But-Dim?
Yes, I met Harry at the Edinburgh fringe. I went to see him performing and there were four of us in the audience. This was long before anyone knew who Harry was, so it was completely empty. But he was in this two-man show called Dusty & Dick, which I thought was really funny. And it was one of those things where, because there was only four people in the audience, you go and have a drink with the performer afterwards. So I got to know him then and he had this television show coming up and he said, y know: My characters are all working-class and they all shout a lot, do you have anyone a bit quieter, who isn t working-class? . So I told him about all the people that I was in school with.
I suppose in a way, because it was the 80s, everyone thought that public schoolboys were these really sharp, really bright blokes, y know, in the braces and the suits in the city, and I just thought: God, I ve never met any of them, who are these people? . To the best of my knowledge they were all just charming, slightly dim blokes who actually went to work in their fathers wine shops or sold water filters to each other. So I just thought I m going to put him on screen . And I have this friend, Nick Newman, who is a cartoonist that I was in school with, and he knew these guys as well. Tim Nice-But-Dim was the result. Also, Harry usually does a film parody in the middle of his shows, and we always write those. One of my favourites was The Terminator, done by Merchant Ivory, where he s sent back to Edwardian England . . .
What other television work have you done?
We ve written a lot of the Murder Most Horrids for Dawn French. For some reason we ve got quite a good reputation for writing for women, which is complete rubbish. But we ve written a play for Maureen Lipman, written for Dawn and we also had a one-hour film on, about BSC and food poisoning.
How much of your time is occupied by Private Eye?
Almost exactly half. We re a fortnightly publication, so we go seven days and then we re off for a week. It s great because everyone who works here does something else. That means that when they come back they bring things with them from outside and they re not bored. Francis Wheen, for example, who is sort of the main journalist, works on The Guardian the rest of the time, and he s just written a book on Marx. So you don t get one dimensional people. Paul Foot always worked here because he said it gave him every second week off. It meant he could go around addressing meetings about revolutionary socialism. Then you ve Nick, who s The Sunday Times cartoonist, but he works here in the week up to production. You get people here because they don t have to give you all their time and I like that kind of freelance culture.
It must also mean that there s no shortage of gossip with which to fill the pages.
Nah! I kind of got into trouble when I took over because I scrapped the Grovel column and I don t really do leg-over gossip. I could never really see the point. It s not that I m asexual or celibate or anything dramatic like that, but just endlessly reading about it was something I felt we could leave to Murdoch, really. I m very much into professional gossip and how the world works the way it does, though. If someone fucks someone and then gives them a job, then I m interested. Insider gossip is just fantastic because most of the places everyone s interested in are just really leaky. New Labour are amazing because they all hate each other so much. The BBC is great . . . y know, most of the big targets are pretty leaky which is good for us.
How often have you been sued?
(long pause) I wouldn t know, I really wouldn t know. I think in the last two weeks we ve had a writ and a threat of a writ. That s one and a half. It s a fairly consistent feature of life here, so it s not something I worry about hugely.
Are the British libel laws as draconian as the Irish ones?
They re very similar, actually, in that there s no public interest defence. I mean, we ve campaigned a lot, very boringly, about damages and all that has changed, I think in some small measure, due to ourselves. But the thing that is cripplingly expensive is lawyers fees. We took this copper in Wales on it was a really grim case of children s homes, y know and I ve only just finished paying off the legal fees. The damages were bad, but not that bad, but the whole bill was about #700,000! It took us about three years to pay it off. The whole thing is colossally expensive . . . and we had quite a good case (laughs)!
Ireland s answer to Private Eye, The Phoenix, appeals to the loyalty of its readership by jacking up its price temporarily if it s been hit particularly hard by a libel action. Would you consider doing that?
That s good thinking, but the thing about the Eye is that because our production costs are fuck all, as you ve probably noticed and on policy I try and under-pay everyone (laughs) I feel we should pay up. Years ago we used to appeal to the readers, but I feel we re sort of too successful to do that now. Unless we re bankrupt, I think we should pay because, after all, the cock-ups are ours. If we really, really screw up and are about to go down the plug-hole, then I d be the first to put my hand out. Until that arises, though, I feel we should pay. Our circulation is quite hefty, about 180,000.
The content of your letters page would suggest that you re guilty of making a lot of factual errors in your articles. A fair comment?
Yeah, yeah (laughs)! I ve always thought that the letters page should be there to slag you off, basically. So every week there s two pages of letters saying You are pathetic! You can t get anything right . People like detail, so if we re guilty of being sloppy I m all for being picked up on that. What I like to do is photocopy the letter in question and stick it up on the notice board in order to publicly humiliate the journalist in question.
To be honest, I think we re a great deal less sloppy than most other publications, I really do. But the thing is, if you re writing a feature on someone an interview with some celeb or other where you get it all wrong it doesn t really matter as long as you re fairly nice. If you re writing a news piece on the other hand and you get anything wrong, everyone s on your head. We re running about 70 pieces an issue that the people involved don t want to read and are going to be annoyed by, so to get three letters telling you you ve got something wrong . . . it s not a bad hit rate.
New Labour have provided you with no shortage of material since coming into power.
I think New Labour are very good for us, which is a very selfish view on my part. I think people were very bored at the end of the Major years; they were bored with the jokes about it, they were bored with us writing about it, they just didn t care and were fed up. But with New Labour because they had a honeymoon period and because they re so tetchy and hate criticism . . . that s one of the funniest things about them. They re so certain they re right that any criticism is just downright unhelpful and deeply hurtful.
That s quite funny because we re making the effort now and we re getting through. I think they have some worrying tendencies that the honeymoon has let them get away with: the centralising thing and the control freakery and all that, I think, is very unhelpful. I basically don t buy Blair s premise, which is that politics is finished because we ve got him now and he s above politics.
Y know, he s not left or right, he s everything! So Britain doesn t need an opposition because, hey, he knows the problems. He doesn t need to be opposed and he doesn t need newspapers telling him what to do because he s a bright guy and he knows what to do! He s Tony Blair and he s spotted the problems!
What s your view on the government s handling of the Peace Process?
The thing about Ireland is that at this stage we are so, so bored with Northern Ireland. That sounds callous, I know, but just 20 years of feeling both guilty and impotent has left most people in this country feeling an overwhelming need to get rid of it. It s like Is there a way we can get rid of it? Would the south like to take it on? . It s not a political idea, it s more an emotional thing. And the thing is that the idea of taking the north on fills most people I know in the south with as much dread as anyone else.
I mean, people seem to think there s a sympathy with the Orange men over here, which there isn t. No one can bear them! It s impossible to watch one of those parades without thinking This is 1999. They are marching along the road wearing sashes! And bowler hats! And they re not old blokes in bowlers, no! They re bloody 30! You just find yourself thinking What are they doing? . And then you watch the Sinn Fein lot, who you just cannot believe (laughs). There was that wonderful thing about Sinn Fein complaining when those two soldiers were let out of prison early after murdering someone: How dare they? (laughs). There was outrage. It s totally unbelievable.
And Tony Blair s role?
I think Blair has gone about as far as you can go with Ahern as a politician, in terms of trying to solve it, and I don t know where you end up. Unless the two communities are going to solve it themselves. In the end, in some way, it has to be done there.
I think people over here are of the opinion that if Sinn Fein had handed in two water pistols, we d have all said: That s it, decommissioning, let s get on with it, fine! . It required the smallest gesture ever and we d have bought it lock, stock and barrel. But they couldn t do it and that s incomprehensible from this end, just incomprehensible.
I understand that, years ago, Private Eye was the first publication to publicise the affair between then Taoiseach Charles Haughey and Sunday Independent gossip columnist Terry Keane.
It was, yes (laughs). Not in any grand way, though. We just sort of pointed out in a small way that the Ireland s top gossip was leaving the one bit of gossip that was of interest to everyone out of her column (laughs). It was hysterical. Haughey s an amazing figure we ve never had anyone that funny. It s incredible how sleazy it all is over in Ireland and how no-one s said anything.
I suppose because it s smaller, the media are much more in the pockets of the politicians and therefore don t like rocking the boat. But they re amazing stories ours pall into insignificance compared to the ones in Ireland. I don t know about it terribly well, but all the scandals we read about are all about priests and nuns. That seems to be what it s all about now. After all those years of being subjected to the church, the public seem to have decided that it s payback time. Now it s all care homes and bishops with children (laughs).
You re own nemesis seems to have been Robert Maxwell and you got a hard time after he died. Why?
For not expressing any remorse, believe it or not. It was very sickening, because you had all these tributes from leading politicians who were saying what a great, larger than life figure he was. Then about a year later it emerged that he was a complete crook, which is what we d been saying all along. Then everyone said Oh well, we knew he was a crook all along . That was completely untrue, because if they did know, then they were equally as culpable as he was. It was bloody infuriating, actually.
He sued us just before he died because we ran a piece on the front page saying You re stealing from your own pension fund . Everyone else said Typical Private Eye, printing utter rubbish! , and it was completely true. We d spent 10 years saying that this fellow was a crook and everyone should have known he was a crook because it was pointed out in the 1970s. A DTI report said he was unfit to run a public company. They were right, he was unfit to run anything. So, bollocks to that!
So you don t subscribe to the concept of not spreaking ill of the dead then?
There s a real sort of greasy hypocrisy which covers everyone whenever somebody dies. You re meant to suddenly forget it all. I was called a coward for attacking Maxwell after he was dead, but I d attacked him when he was alive and these other people hadn t, so they were the cowards. Launching your first broadside after the man is dead that s cowardly.
It was like with Diana, when people were saying How could you say what you said about her and the reaction to her death? . But it was hard not to see the disproportion of it all. I met Diana and I didn t dislike her. She was just this screwed up Sloane who d made the best of a bad fist of it, and to turn that into her being some sort of saint or icon just struck me as being ridiculous. I just think that we have this problem with people dying in that we can t bear it.
Do you remember John Smith, the Labour leader? As soon as he died he became Saint John Smith. He wasn t! He was a very good bloke, a very funny man, but he was not a saint. When Freddie Mercury died, everyone said he was one of the most influential rock singers of all time. Bollocks! He was in Queen, for fuck s sake! A glam rock band of the worst variety. No-one can cope with anyone dying, it s just too painful because we re such a secular society that there s no conceivable way to cope with it, so we just go mad.
On a previous occasion, when Maxwell sued Private Eye for pointing out the physical similarities between himself and Ronnie Kray, as well as accusing him of funding the Labour party in the hope of one day securing a peerage, it was left to Peter Cook to provide some light relief in the court room. Talk us through it.
Yeah, that was funny! Peter s brilliant thing as proprietor was that we wouldn t see him in here for six months or so, and then if we were in trouble he would always appear. We were in court against Maxwell and it was going very badly and I was very depressed, so Peter took me out for a very jolly lunch. I was taking it all very seriously, and Peter s view of the world meant that his obvious reaction to anyone who was in a crisis was to stop them taking it seriously.
So we were in court after this terrific lunch listening to Maxwell give evidence and Peter was very bored. He just started waving his cheque book at him. It was like he was saying Mine s bigger than yours! Whatever we lose, I can cough up! . Obviously this was totally untrue, because Maxwell was much richer than Peter, but he just did it anyway. It was incredibly funny. I mean, court is so serious your whole world bleeds away and everything is doom and gloom and there was Peter just being incredibly stupid.
Did it get a good laugh?
Out of me, yeah! (laughs) I was always a good audience.
He seemed to be an extraordinary character, did Mr Cook.
He was! And the great thing about Peter was that he had such a wonderful flourish at the end, y know, that Clive Anderson show was brilliant, after quite a long period of . . . not doing a lot.
Is it fair to say that Ian Hislop is happy with his lot.
Em, well, I suppose I ve got fuck all to complain about, really. I love this job and I certainly can t think of a better one. Obviously I can t think of anyone who d give me another job (laughs). I think I ve sort of burnt any boats or bridges there might have been. I sometimes wonder, Blimey, am I too old to do this? .
Actually, my wife found it very funny one time when Have I Got News For You had one of those promotional things on telly and the continuity announcer said The boys are back! . She said Boys? You re all bloody 40! . So, to be honest with you, I don t know how long I can go on doing it, but I m certainly going to find out. n