Ian, people are very excited about the prospect of another series of page 94, they're desperate for more of this stuff. Can we have another series?

Is that the will of the people? Yes. Then I better say no.

Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast.

Hello and welcome back to page 94.

My name is Andrew Hunter Murray, and this week we are going to be talking to two different people.

Firstly, Paul Vickers, privatized military correspondent.

We're going to be talking to him about military recruitment, about military

procurement, and about the increasingly strained and complex relationship

between the military and the private companies which do massive amounts of the

military's work, build the machines and are running them too. We'll also be talking to Craig Brown,

privateised resident diarist about the challenges and the joys of President Trump.

But first, Paul Vickers. Now at the moment we are halfway

through a 10-year contract which the government has awarded to Capita a private firm better known in the pages of the eye as

Crapeter and that contract worth 440 million pounds hands over a responsibility

for recruitment in the army to Capita. But how is that going?

We asked Paul.

They were expected to increase the number and improve the quality of recruits joining the

army, but after five years neither of these

objectives has actually been achieved since the last SDSR the strategic

defense review the army is expected to actually decrease in number. So you've got two systems potentially

working against each other. The Army needs to cut numbers at the front line, in fact, across

the whole board,

...