How can you satirise a government as farcical as the current one? If Labour wins the next election, how mockable will Keir Starmer be? Alan Rusbridger is joined by actor and comedian Rosie Holt—whose impersonation of a Tory MP set the internet on fire during the lockdowns—and comedian and producer Josh Berry, who in December 2019 created the fictional character of Rafe Hubris, an Eton-educated, impossibly self-confident special advisor to Boris Johnson.
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The following is a transcript of the episode:
Alan Rusbridger: Hello and welcome back to the Prospect Podcast, where we speak to the brightest minds and talk about the ideas that matter in politics, arts, and society. I'm Alan Rusbridger, the editor of Prospect magazine, and today I'm delighted to be joined by two amazing guests, the actor and comedian Rosie Holt, who's impersonation of Tory MPs have set the internet on fire during lockdown, and the comedian and producer Josh Berry who in December 2019 created the fictional character of Rafe Hubris, an Eton educated implacably self-confident special advisor to Boris Johnson.
And today in the wake of Rosie writing a really lovely diary column for the current issue of Prospect magazine, we’re going to be talking about the state of British satire and the challenge of being a satirist with a government that is as incompetent as the current one, and how if Labour wins the next election, you can take the piss out of Keir Starmer. But first just to test your ability to get into character. Rosie, you are an MP, and you've been following the events with Nadhim Zahawi and I mean this just shows, doesn't it, that your party is mired in sleaze and can't get out of it.
Rosie Holt: Well, no, I don't think so. I think Rishi Sunak took action as soon as he was told to take action and that shows, you know, we are… we are willing to sort these things out as soon as possible.
Rusbridger: But the truth is that it was all in the papers a year ago and he didn't take any action.
Holt: Yes, but that was, before, you know. When it’s in the papers, it’s in the papers. It’s not something that's happened. It, it’s like any crime, you know, you may see a crime being committed, but until that person is arrested, then you are not going to judge that person.
Rusbridger: And Josh, you are the PR advisor to Nadhim Zahawi.
Josh Berry: Yeah. Yeah. Big time. Big time.
Rusbridger: His career is in tatters. What are you going to say to him? As he faces the wreck of the rest of his life.
Berry: I mean, to be honest, just obviously just sack it off and go to the Cayman Islands, you know, any sort of tax haven is probably the best, but honestly just lay low for sort of six months or whatever. You know, there are members of the royal family who have done that and then just sort of reaggregate into life. People will forget, you know, people seem to have sort of semi-forgiven Matt Hancock. So if they've done that, then he'll be fine. Yeah, it’s just a bit of tax money. Fine. You haven't avoided bit of tax over the years? I certainly have.
Rusbridger: So, the thing that intrigues me with listening to both of you speaking, and presumably this is the problem that you face, is that Rosie, your answer to the question was sort of 10 degrees more implausible, but only 10 degrees. I mean when you play in character, do you have that sort of, this is what they say, and I'm just going to ramp it up a tiny bit. Is that your technique?
Holt: Yes. I mean, I think, because to me what's funny about the current crop of, ministers who, who go on, This Morning or whatever, to defend their position is that they don't really know. They don't look like they really know what they're about to say. There's a kind of improvisation to what they're saying, which I think's really funny. So therefore, I never want to go too outlandish because I think there's a lot of comedy in, in that subtlety of it really.
Rusbridger: Do you think they're all so media trained that in a sense they can go to in any studio and answer any question about anything by sort of blathering on in the way that you just did? Have you ever talked to one of them about it?
Holt: I haven't talked to one of them. I mean they must get some sort of training, didn't they? I mean, talking of Matt Hancock when he was on I’m a celebrity, he was talking about how to pivot from a question—did you see that? —yeah, which was really interesting and he was quite proud of it. He was basically quite proud of how you can deflect, from a journalist's question. So there is definitely a kind of playbook that they are following, but they're doing it quite badly, I think.
Rusbridger: I did media training once. And when I was editing the Guardian and the, the bloke who media trained me exactly to do that. He said you go into the studio with your answer and whatever the question is, you get rid of that within seven seconds. ‘Well, that's a very interesting question, but what I really wanted to talk about’, but you do it in a way that is less subtle than that, but yeah. But you sound as though you spent a lot of your life listening to the Today Programme or phone-ins in order to attune your ear to what's happening.
Holt: It’s certainly a lot of watching the news rounds in the morning.
Rusbridger: And your character, Rafe Hubris was at his peak, if you don't mind me saying so, at the time of Boris Johnson. And is he struggling a bit since?
Berry: Yeah. I think Rafe is kind of, reinventing himself somewhere. Kind of having a bit of a sort of quarter-life crisis, I think, yeah, it’s more difficult with Sunak because …in the Truss era, it kind of made sense to have Rafe around ‘cause she seems so sort of spectacularly bad. Whereas Sunak for all his faults, seems a little bit more competent, right? And a little bit less sort of preposterous. But yeah, I mean that was the joy with Boris Johnson. It was so insane. All these stories coming out every single week, like something that would be implausible if it hadn't happened, if you wrote it. So that character that just is sort of like flying by the seat of his pants and doesn't care about any of it and just views it all as kind of like a great big thought experiment, coming up with strategy and all of that seemed incredible.
Rusbridger: You seem to me where, whereas Rosie is sort of 10 per cent dialled up, you are about 25 per cent. Is that right?
Berry: Yeah. Well, it’s weird though because I think sometimes, what I would find kind of in the peak of the Boris Johnson era is that if you can pre-empt a PR line that they were going to follow, then you got real points for that. So maybe sometimes it was over exaggerated, but actually other times it was kind of like 0 per cent dialled up, if that makes sense.
Rusbridger: So you’re do you mind telling me how old are you both?
Berry: Sure. I'm 26.
Holt: I’m in my thirties.
Berry: All right.
Rusbridger: But you're of a sort of, you're of a sort of…you’re same generation. Can you talk about-
Berry: Rosie looks young, I look older than I am.
Rusbridger: Can you talk about the medium. I mean, just before we came on, we were talking about, you know…30 years ago, the route to stardom was through BBC Four or Radio 4, but now you've got ready made platforms. You can, with no technology at all, go on and be funny 10 times a day to an audience of hundreds of thousands, if not larger. So, I suppose the question is, how did you develop those characters in these media?
Holt: Well, with me it started over lockdown. I was a bit of a frustrated performer, like…well like a lot frustrated performers over lockdown. I was about to go on tour in America for six months on a show, and then that fell through because of Covid. So I was sitting at home, like everyone, sort of avidly reading the news. And, and then when the Black Lives Matter protest started, I posted a video and it went viral. And so, it went from there.
Rusbridger: What video was it?
Holt: It was a woman—a talking head basically—getting angry about the statues being pulled down and saying they were erasing history just like Stalin did. Who incidentally, I have a statue of in my garden. And, and then I had lots of angry people saying, ‘you shouldn't have Stalin in your garden’. So for me, it kind of went from there. And it is insane because, I'm about to go on tour and certainly ticket sales and things like that are solely because I've built up a platform online—which is crazy.
Rusbridger: And sometimes the production values are quite high. You’re in a studio and with Robert Peston or whoever…but sometimes you can do it literally from your living room.
Holt: Yes. Yeah And even the ones where I'm in a studio-
Rusbridger: Are also in your living room?
Holt: Not actually, but still made on my phone.
Rusbridger: And Josh, what was the story of how you developed your character?
Berry: So, I remember, it was around the time of the, the 2019 election and Stormzy had critiqued Boris Johnson and then Michael Grove responded to Stormzy with, I think, tweeting his own lyrics back at him. And I just remember thinking, ‘Lord, that is…that seems quite tone deaf. Who on Earth would advise that kind of thing?’ And then kind of, ‘oh yes, the sort of hubristic, big public school Oxbridge type person that I've been around a fair amount of my life.’ And so it seemed like a kind of good explanation for a lot of the sort of behaviour of the, of the Tory party. And then, and then through again, like with Rosie, like through lockdown, that just kept coming back and was like, Rafe seems like a good explanation for this kind of behaviour. But I think also, you know, there does seem to be a real demand for topical comedy now, and the character was sort of born from just that quite kind of reactionary, take on, on stuff that, that, that people found funny sort of in the moment, kind of before they'd even had a chance to sort of make their own minds up about a lot of the news.
Rusbridger: And is there something liberating…. again, before we started recording, we were talking about whether, if you're doing comedy for the BBC, you are sort of…you feel a bit high bounded by notions of balance? I mean, you can take it wherever you want, can't you? Is there, is there something about the medium in which you can do something? The moment you have the idea you can do it and you can post it away and you don't -
Holt: Yeah, yeah. I love that freedom of it because especially in the last two years… politics has been so fast moving, so it’s great to be able to react to something very quickly: write something, film it, and not have to go through any kind of process and all. Should you be saying this, should you be showing more of this? That complete creative freedom is I think one of the best things about…
Rusbridger: But, but as performers in this space, yeah. You are very vulnerable to changes in politics itself. And part of what you write about in your diary, Rosie, is so, it’s been like a sort of [inaudible] for the last, if you'll forget the phrase for the last year, because there's just so much material. Whereas now you think with the Sunak government, it’s a bit more disciplined, isn't it? So I assume you've had to, I mean this is partly what you're writing, but you're not having to sort of get in the skin of tory MPs under the sort of Sunak regime as opposed to the Truss or the Johnson regime.
Holt: Yeah. It’s like Josh was saying, I think, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss was a gift really where Rishi Sunak is a bit trickier mm-hmm, because I do think, I do think he's realized that it’s not a good idea to get a lot of his ministers out on TV explaining themselves because they are incompetent. I mean, Suella hasn't been on any TV show in months, has she?
Rusbridger: You couldn't let her out. But the, but the technique with, with Johnson seemed to be just the sort of the infantry fodder who sort of pushed out into studios in order to face the gun back.
Berry: It’s official. Matt Hancock is doing it now all the time. He clearly gets some sort of thrill out of it, you know, no one's pushing him out. Right. There's something not right in there.
Holt: There's something masochistic about, I don't understand.
Berry: There must be. Does he have a humiliation kink? I don’t know what it is. Yeah, with Susanna Reed yesterday, I don't know.
Holt: Yeah. That was painful. Because I really felt, with, during the Boris Johnson, government with Matt Hancock. I thought, oh, it’s because, you know, he, he's been, because Boris Johnson was always, always about praising loyalty and because Matt Hancock had actually gone against Johnson and the election, I thought this is his penance. He's having to be wheeled out and defend all these terrible things.
Berry: But wasn't he a lot more sort of conservative vis-a-vis lockdown? Right. He was actually probably, even though he's been sort of monstered PR wise, he was probably a lot more in line with what a lot of people thought and that the idea was that Boris Johnson was like very antsy about. So maybe there was a sense of him being like, well, Hancock, if you are so, you know, pro this, yougo out and defend it, or, do you know what I mean? Yeah. Maybe there was a bit of that. Yeah.
Rusbridger: So just to go back to 2022, I mean, we, we all know that the famous Tom Lehrer. You know, when Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Prize, satire died. I think he actually, Lehrer, did give up at that point. He just thought, there's nothing more I can say. But, there must have been periods during the last year of 3 prime ministers and however many chancellors and, and, and the, just the craziness of the Truss regime where you sort of thought, there's nothing left for us to say, that they're doing such a good job themselves. Or is that not how it works?
Berry: I don’t know. I think, I always feel like Chris Morris is a really good kind of reference point to stuff like this cause he, he talks about like finding the farce and I think as long as you can find the farce that is funny to people, right? And maybe sometimes that's just pointing it out. But, or maybe sometimes that's not even necessarily dependent on a kind of conventional news cycle. Maybe it' sort of, suppose like, imagining, like a reaction to something that's happened in the news or something that just sort of feels slightly outside or parodying the news itself as obviously you did in The Day Today. I think there's always an area to find something to ridicule, I'd say even if politicians are doing crazy things, I actually think that's a gift.
Holt: Yes. I think it’s a gift too. I didn't, when people go, oh, oh, I feel sorry for the satirists, I was thinking why? This is great. Yeah, there's something to, also, not just because there was so much to talk about, but I think people were so invested in what was going on in a way they haven't been in years. I think there has been a real appetite for, mocking the government at the moment. So I think people are angry,
Berry: But, but also I think it isn't necessarily just political, right? Like some of my favourite stuff I would say is satirical, but kind of outside the political domain like you know, like mocking the music industry or like Sacha Baron Cohen does so much good stuff on like fashion through Bruno. Like, so I think even if the government enters a bit more of a fallow period for satirist, there's still plenty of stuff to kind of point out.
Rusbridger: 1 there seems to sense in your, your recent work, your, you’re broadening out from just politics I used.
Berry: Yeah. I've always wanted to sort of, to be honest, I find that the most interesting doing kind of satire like outside of that. Yeah, I'm such a big like Sacha Baron Cohen fan and, and I like that whole kind of area. so yeah, I, and, and yeah, it does feel hard. I can't think of a kind of way in with Sunak as much. I think Starmer will be difficult as well.
Rusbridger: I was going to say Sunak and Starmer, you know, everyone says of them. The, you know, this is great. We're back to the age of boring. The public is ready for two boring technocrats. And, well, that's not great for you, is it?
Holt: No, it, it will be interesting to see what happens if, if Starmer gets in in two years. but it, it is a sort of terrible thing though where you'll starting to think, you start thinking of your career in terms of, oh, hopefully politics will be terrible so that my career will thrive. I do think though, that it’s always important whether, whether it’s through comedy or anything, or journalism that we hold whatever government's in charge up to a, you know, we hold them to account. And, I think what's made, a lot of people angry about the, the sort of the, the current government is a feeling that they don't really care about the people and they don't have their best interests at heart. But I think even if you've got a government who are trying to do right, if they are messing up and then they are not delivering, then that also deserves to be looked at, and potentially mocked.
Rusbridger: What, what, what were the funniest moments of last year? I mean, what, what was the time when you just felt this is bliss to be alive and to be a satirist?
Holt: I think the whole dealing of the Sue Gray report, farcical.
Berry: Was that last year? That was last year, wasn't it? Yeah. That was mad. It was the person who was. Did you hear about that? They were like, they were sick at like 3 in the morning or it just sounded like an insane-
Holt: Oh yes. Yeah. The crazy party.
Berry: Well I think someone-
Rusbridger: The person who visited on the night of the night before Prince Philip’s-
Berry: That's right. And then there was a swing that two people broke, which I think had some sort of like sexual implication.
Holt: Wilfred, they broke Wilfred's.
Berry: Oh Wilfred’s swing, wasn't it? Yeah, mental. It was just so, oh, it was inane. Yeah, those were the days.
Holt: Those were the days. Defending debaucherous parties. Yeah.
Rusbridger: So, I mean you've talked about some of the people you admire. I mean, do you both sort of study British satire and its roots, do you have your personal favourites that you think are the sort of stand-out satirists of all time?
Holt: I mean, I don't, no, I don't study, but there are certain people who I think are brilliant. I think Chris Morris is great. Amandando Ianucci, his writing's incredible. And, Sacha Baron Cohen . I mean, as far as, actually studying, no. I don’t know if I should be
Rusbridger: And Josh?
Berry: Yeah, I mean, I got sort of really obsessed with The Day Today I'm really into Chris Morrison, Sacha Baron Cohen. I kind of started doing stand-up watching like Bo Burnham in America, who I would say is kind of satirizing, like the digital age and kind of young people's experience of social media, which I think is really interesting. But yeah, I mean, I would say those two. I just, I just think it’s so good the way that, you know, some people kind of critique what's going on within the news, but the idea that Chris Morris is like taking it from a kind of perspective even above that I think is really like critically, interesting and important I think. Cause I don't think you should rely on kind of anything as guaranteed if you're doing satire.
Rusbridger: Rosie, I think more than Josh, one of the things that, I suppose funny the people who are fooled by you, can you tell us about some of the times when you're on Twitter and you post something and people get genuinely cross cause they don't spot it.
Holt: Yeah. I get a lot of people thinking I'm really a Tory MP.
Berry: Very famous people. Famous, supposedly intelligent people.
Rusbridger: It would be unkind to name them. But there have been some. And how often does that happen? Does that happen regularly? Every time you've posted?
Holt: It does happen regularly. I keep expecting it to sort of stop and it doesn't, sometimes a particular, video we'll do will get a lot of anger and attention. I did one, it was talking about heating. I was talking about heating my stables, the importance of heating my stables. And two teenagers sent me this voice note on . Rosie Holt, you are disgusting, and we hope you and your stables burn down. But yeah, lots of people going who voted for her, she's appalling. Or, my favourite was someone going, well, I've always voted Tory, but on the basis of your interview, I'm never going to vote for you people again.
Berry: Amazing. Amazing.
Rusbridger: And does that give you special satisfaction? Do you sort of punch the air and think yes , that's a big win if somebody-
Holt: Yes, I quite like that. I mean, someone then did tweet me telling me I was responsible for fake news. But yes I like that. I think where I'd be worried is if someone was tweeting me saying, good job , well doneWe'll keep supporting this government on the basis of-
Rusbridger: I was going to ask about the fake news point, cause that's sort of a comedy killer, but I mean, in an age where we don't know who to believe or what to believe nowadays. There's a fine line isn't there? Between comedy and straight fake news. I mean, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night worrying about that? Or do you think-
Holt: Well, I, I guess the way I look at it is, I definitely didn't set out with the character to hoodwink people. And also on my profile, it’s clear that I'm a comedian and I'm tweeting it from my account. And so I kind of think if people are going to run with it and think I'm a Tory MP, then that's their fault. I mean, I, I think I would feel worried if I had lots of people thinking, that I was doing a great job, but also in what I'm doing, I am trying to expose what they're saying is inherently quite ridiculous, comes from a place of truth.
Rusbridger: And Josh, presumably less of a problem with you, people don’t often believe that you actually are real.
Berry: Yeah, I think my stuff is. Yeah. I mean, I'm less subtle than Rosie. I'd say I'm a bit more of a sort of heightened caricature type . Harry Enfield's another person who I think is good in that sort of domain. So I've tried to kind of model it a bit more on that. But, yeah, I don’t know. Well, I was going to say, I feel we've got to give people credit for being discerning, but evidently from all the people that message Rosie.
Rusbridger: Including very intelligent people.
Berry: Yeah. But, no, I wouldn't say it worries me too much. I feel like this on stage as well. I think people can sort of read between the lines and, and understand, and of course sometimes people are going to misunderstand what you say, but I think there's a lot that can be done to kind of communicate clearly. But yeah, if I didn't believe that, maybe I wouldn't say anything. So I kind of have to.
Rusbridger: Because I haven't seen either of you on stage. But I will. Cause Rosie, you’ve got a tour on at the moment?
Holt: Yes, yeah. I start in March.
Rusbridger: And it comes to London when?
Holt: The 23rd and 24th of March, I think. Or either the 22nd or 23rd. I think it’s the 23rd and 24th.
Rusbridger: And how does that work? I mean, you've got a series of sort of 45 second clips. How do you stitch that into a stage play, a stage film?
Holt: I don't really. It’s a different beast. I have my Tory MP character on stage talking to the audience and explaining why the government's doing a wonderful job. And then I have another character who's a sort of GB News, Talk Radio type host who comes on and rips off various segments to the audience. So it is very much a one woman stage show in that respect.
Rusbridger: With a lot of audience involvement.
Holt: There is a bit of audience involvement.
Rusbridger: Okay. And Josh, how do you take your characters onto the stage?
Berry: Yeah, So the show I'm about to tour in the spring is basically, it’s just kind of me doing stand-up but throwing in lots of different characters over the course of the hour So yeah, I guess it’s probably a bit closer to the sort of stuff I do online. Yeah. But with kind of bridging jokes and a narrative.
Rusbridger: Can I be very grubby and ask about the business model of being a comedian these days?
Berry: I'm making a lot of my money from oil.
Holt: I have a private funder and I can't remember who it is.
Rusbridger: You’ve got an £800,000 line of credit from. but, doyou make money off Twitter or is Twitter just as a marketing thing?
Holt: I do make some money off Twitter. It’s certainly not money I can rely on, I have a sort of online tip jar, and sometimes, people are really generous with that. And then sometimes I don't get much at all. But yes, I do certainly make money from that.
Rusbridger: But the stage version of it is the money maker.
Holt: Yeah. And then also sort of bits and bobs, you know, I was doing things for the radio earlier this week and things like that. Yeah
Rusbridger: Same for you?
Berry: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of how I view it. Like you try and get as many followers as you can so you can play bigger venues on tour and that, and that brings in more stuff. , There’s stuff with sort of brand deals I don't really like to do cause I feel a bit cringe about that. But I mean, if that is going to fund someone who can produce your videos to a better quality then it’s sometimes worth it. And yeah, like Rosie's, I mean, other opportunities like voiceover bits and pieces. If you're a bit more of a profile, those people might know you and then book you all that kind of stuff.
Rusbridger: Does it matter what your personal politics are? I mean.
Berry: I don't know what my personal politics are.
Rusbridger: I don’t know what your personal politics are either.
Berry: I sit in a sort of, no, I mean, I sit in-
Holt: You are right-wing, aren't you?
Berry: Yeah, I'm right-wing. Yeah. I sit like, probably like most kind of naval, naval gazing, left-leaning liberals. I sit in a sort of puddle of incision and doubt. I remember one of the, one of the biggest things I learned at university is one of my tutors was like, you've got to be willing to trade any opinion you have in if better evidence comes along. So I try and kind of live by that principle, but I feel like it’s kind of clear where it’s coming from. I feel like you can discern what I think, like I think my stuff comes from a centre left perspective. Even the stuff mocking the hard left, I think you can tell it’s not coming from a right-wing perspective.
Rusbridger: And the critique that people do raise a bit about the BBC that they're in the no right-wing comedians. I mean that's true to a point isn’t it?
Holt: Well, I don’t know. I'm not terribly impressed with that critique because there are some good right-wing comedians. I feel bad saying this, but there's not many. I mean both me and Josh before we started doing these characters, we did the odd comedy circuit in London and the fringe andthe majority of comedians are left leaning. So there are just less right-wing comedians anyway. And I think the problem is at the moment, what I think is interesting is you have quite a few right-wing comedians who seem to have traded in being funny for going and presenting on GB News, which is-
Berry: Not being funny. But that's the thing. I feel like you can kind of let your politics get in the way of being funny, right? Yeah. And that is a bit of a problem. I feel like what you can say can come from a left leaning perspective, but occasionally you might do a joke that is maybe not quite totally within that. Kind of wheelhouse. I don’t know. I just feel like the priority should be funniness Yeah. Rather than kind of-
Holt: And I think there are comedians on both sides of the political divide who sometimes forget that and end up standing more like activists rather than comedians.
Rusbridger: I know we've touched on this before, but just to sort of develop it a bit more, I mean, in two years, let's say there is a Starmer government and whether you think Starmer is boring or not. We might think, well, this is an improvement on what went before.
Holt: Yeah.
Rusbridger: To what extent do you feel a bit inhibited by that, that you think, well, I, you know, give the guy a chance. I don't want to start mocking him immediately. Do you think there's going to be a little of you that's going to find that harder to deal with, either of you?
Holt: Probably.
Berry: Yeah. I think your heart's got to be in it, you know? I think you have to sort of-
Holt: You've got to slightly believe in what you're doing.
Berry: Yeah Well I've thought about this, I've observed it, and I really feel strongly about this because if your heart isn't in it, people will probably be able to tell as well.
Holt: Yeah. You don't wanna take the piss up of someone for just for the sake of it.
Berry: But that was the gift of Boris Johnson, you know, it was so egregious. But I think, you know, if Starmer gets in, it'll probably divide people a bit more, cause a lot of people might be quite pro. And so, whereas with Boris Johnson, it felt like there was a much more of a consensus. Everyone was like, oh he's woeful. And so that made it easier. Cause I do think like satire and populism are quite close. They're much closer than we would think. You can say stuff that's satirical that really goes against the grain of public opinion. And I don't think it will get you as, that far. I don’t know what you think about that, Rosie.
Holt: Yeah. Yeah.
Berry: Unless you do it brilliantly and kind of show people why they're wrong, but yeah, I don’t know.
Rusbridger: Yeah. We’re close to finishing, but we started with, a little scenario which I asked you to react to. So let's let’s finish with… so Zahawi, we is now gone, but Josh, you are the advisor to Dominic Raab. He’s facing a lot of serious charges. How would you advise him to play this.
Berry: This? To be honest, you know what I would say about bullying, one man's bullying is another man's classic chat, basically. So I, you know, I don't think we should get into kind of what, what it is that did or didn't go on, but just, I think just sort of tell people to just stop being, you know, wet flannels.
Rusbridger: And Rosie, you must feel uncomfortable to be in the party the deputy Prime Minister himself accused by multiple women. I mean, how can you possibly defend that?
Holt: Well, I think, you know, it, bullying is, quite a, strong word. It’s often being robust and passionate. And that's, something that is, you know, a lot of people in the Tory party. It’s a tradition, it’s a tradition that we have continued for years and years, and it’s important that that doesn't get misconstrued. And, you know, Dominic Raab is welcoming all investigations into his passionate behavior.
Rusbridger: I think I heard you say that bullying is a Tory party tradition. Is it? You can't have meant that.
Holt: Well, no. I didn't mean, I, I don't want you to misconstrue my, my words there, Alan. I think it’s important people know that I, in no way, think bullying is a good thing, but I also think that, bullying can be a good thing. It just depends. Depends how, how you look at it. and. Andsometimes it can be a great incentive. And Dominic Raab is a good man.
Berry: And, and how do we know he wasn't on holiday when a lot of these people made claims, he love holidays.
Holt: Exactly. He does love holidays. Yeah. And I think that's something that we have to really take into account.
Berry: Yeah. 100 per cent. Yeah.
Rusbridger: On that bombshell. Thank you so much Rosie and Josh for joining us. And if you enjoyed this podcast, get a copy of the current issue of Prospect magazine, which has got Rosie's, excellent diary in it, as well as some even more serious material, including a very good essay by Jonathan Powell on the negotiations that will eventually happen in Ukraine and what they would look like. If you're here, why not subscribe to something slightly different? Prospect Lives is a monthly series of audio diary entries from a family of seven writers, including Sheila Hancock, Alice Goodman, who's a librettist and Anglican priest and the former England Cricket captain Mike Brearley. They are sometimes serious, sometimes they're very funny, like our guests today. But they'll give you a snapshot of lives of people who probably live quite different lives to you. So just search Prospect lives wherever you get your podcast or click on the link below, and we look forward to seeing you again next week.
