Steve Coogan on Thatcher, Starmer and phone hacking
The News Agents
Global
4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Few public figures have thought longer or harder about the role of the media than Steve Coogan. He lead the charge against the press barons during the Leveson inquiry, and has just starred as Brian Walden, the father of the modern British political interview - documenting Walden's complex relationship with Margaret Thatcher in the new C4 two-part show 'Brian and Maggie'.
He sat down with Emily to discuss phone hacking, press freedom, toxic masculinity, Thatcher's legacy, and his verdict on Keir Starmer's Britain.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:10.2 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.6 | If you're faced with Andrew Tate, you know, online, if you're faced with Alex Jones or whatever, online, the toxic masculinity is we probably haven't seen it like in the digital age before. |
| 0:25.4 | What is your actual response to that? |
| 0:28.3 | Well, probably a masculine one, I'd probably like to punch him. |
| 0:33.4 | Not very constructive, but it comes to someone like Andrew Tate. |
| 0:36.9 | I think he's a disgusting individual. |
| 0:38.9 | That's Steve Coogan, telling me he'd like to punch Andrew Tate. |
| 0:43.2 | To put it in context, I had just accused him of sounding like a Lib Dem. |
| 0:47.7 | But it is part of a long political conversation that we're having today about accountability, |
| 0:53.2 | about truth and lies, about phone |
| 0:55.9 | hacking and press intrusion, and about whether he still feels, as he once declared, politically |
| 1:02.5 | homeless. We're talking in the week that a new drama comes out. Coogan plays the interviewer |
| 1:08.7 | Brian Walden opposite Harriet Walter, who is Margaret Thatcher. |
| 1:13.3 | It's on Channel 4 from Wednesday. |
| 1:15.4 | And it is essentially a story of class, power and ultimately one of Thatcher's legacy. |
| 1:22.4 | And that's where we start. |
| 1:24.6 | Welcome to The Newsagents. |
| 1:29.0 | The Newsagents. Right, should we do it? Should we go for it? Are you recording? |
| 1:33.9 | Hang on, wait, wait, will I get my crib notes? Can I say that? |
| 1:41.2 | I'm joined now by Steve Coogan, who has just delayed the interview so he can check his crib notes for what he thinks is going to be the difficult questions. |
| 1:49.8 | Steve, I've never seen you looking like this. |
... |
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