no, i love cartoons! and i think that one of the things that print can do is reproduce sort of beautiful drawings that are funny. and english cartooning tradition is very old and i think absolutely remarkable. so i basically — i doubled the number of cartoons, and people said, "well, you know, there aren't any young cartoonists. you won't get anyone." it is funny — if you offer money, people become cartoonists! it's amazing. we have got a brilliant raft of young cartoonists. i mean, this is a genuine skill and there are lots of people who do it really well. i mentioned politics, which is what most of your covers are about. now, we seem to be in an age of polarisation, don't we? and genuine differences. why has that happened, do you think? is it the delayed effect of a financial crash? um, i think the referendum was a question about, you know, whether you are essentially happy with the way britain is or not, whether you think it is too unequal, whether you think you have been left

behind by the international world that has come into business, whether you would rather your life was structured in different ways. in the end, for me, it wasn't really about europe at all. i mean, the question that people answered was a question about themselves. it's perfectly reasonable, but it did not have anything to do with the eu. so we managed to politicise, essentially, a cultural divide. which is why we have ended up with three years of people shouting at each other. and interestingly, the last three years has furnished your covers with some very loud characters. what does that do for satire, though? does satire become easier or harder when you have the stranger—than—life characters? i mean, it does two things. one is everybody says to you "satire is over now because you cannot satirize trump — he's doing it to himself". or, you know, "boris is funny," you know? "there's nothing more to add." which is not true. but you have to work harder. because you have to find the areas where they are vulnerable,

the areas where they genuinely are funny and where you can get under their skin. obviously, it's incredibly flattering where we have done some joke about trump which turned up in a tweet, saying, "this was unfunny and not clever and not funny" and that is the ultimate prize. and to find that boris is furious by something, that's what you want. does he still get — does he ever get in touch? do his people ever get in touch? i mean, he's blessed your cover many, many, many times. do you think boris is still cheesed off when he sees himself, perhaps with jennifer arcuri, on your front page? oh, i do hope so! chuckles. what's your technique for dealing with people who are readily offended online? well, i'm not online, which helps. have you found that that's hard to sustain over the course of the development of the internet? you've two children in their 20s — i mean, what do they think with the fact that dad is not online? i've no idea, presumably because i haven't looked online! no, it's very restful. i do recommend it!

i think i could get used to that idea. unfortunately, the bbc‘s media editor may not be allowed to do that. one of the things about the age which we live is that the truth seems up for grabs in a way that it has not been for a long time — maybe not ever in the course of your career. do you think it is fair to say that these days, the penalty or sanction faced by those caught lying has almost disappeared ? there are people getting away with lying as never before. i mean, i do think it is a real problem now, the idea of fake news, and that is one of the things that is why i don't spend a lot of time online, because i'm infuriated by, you know, perfectly reasonable people who say to me, "pfft! i notice you did not run that story about hillary clinton murdering everybody". and i said "i did not run it because it is not true". and they said "i read it online!" and these are people who, they say to you, "the mainstream media, ian, is just full of lies" and then they believe the biggest and stupidest lie that someone in a bedroom has written up on the internet and sent out as a blog.

i mean, there's a real divide between the sort of supposedly scepticism, a sort of fierce refusal to believe anything you read in the normal media, and then believing almost anything you read online. and this is weird and it makes it — it makes the idea of truth polluted, which, as we know from the history of fake news, this is what the original putin doctrine was and this is what trump wants. he does not want you to believe this rubbish he pumps out. he wants you to believe nothing. and yet, i know that people watching this on bbc or listening to this via a bbc podcast will think that, "actually, the bbc is part of the problem". that there is, you know — these days, if you want to go viral, you say, "there is a conspiracy of silence at the bbc". whether or not there is one or not, why are people so keen to believe conspiracy theories about a cover—up byjournalists? in other words, why is trust injournalism so low? well, i mean, we have not distinguished ourselves over past 20 years!

you know, the phone hacking thing was not good. the levison enquiry was not marvellous. so, i mean — i mean, there is a reason for people to be slightly sceptical about journalism. but it is in much the same way as the, you know, the expenses scandal made people very sceptical about politicians. what i believe — and i have said this before — but that being sceptical is not the same as being cynical. it does not mean you believe in nothing, you try and assess and evaluate. there is plenty of really good journalism going on. the alternative is literally sitting at home thinking "i wonder what i believe". is the really striking about the election campaign that we saw at the end of 2019 that a lot of the fake news was actually pumped out by official channels? it was coming from the main parties. is that not really what fake news is, and is that notjust old—fashioned political spin? i think the thing that really shocked everyone in that political

campaign was not the idea that hidden on the internet somewhere, there were messages going out that were being paid for and we did not know about. i mean, it is reasonable to criticise. it was the fact that political parties were pretending they were fact—checking outputs or pretending they were another outfit in order to pump out their own messages. the old —fashioned political spin is "we are the tory party and we promise you 80,000 more trees, houses, nurses" whatever it is. "we are labour party, we have 80,000 and another 80,000 nurses, trees," whatever. that is old—fashioned political spin — that's what people know about. the fake messaging and then when you get caught out and you say, "oh, it was a joke". it is satire. no, it is not satire. we are doing bloody satire. get the tory party out of it. you said in the past you don't talk much about your voting habits but you said you were a democrat and believe in democracy.

as you look around the world, do you think we are in this sort of period of democratic recession which is a correction that has been readjusted but democracy will survive, or do you think we are entering a darker, a post—democratic age? no, i don't believe that, but i am on the whole quite optimistic. i mean, we are in the middle of a cult of the strongman and a lot of leadership around the world is very autocratic. and populist movements have, i think, done democracy no favours in forgetting the normal checks and balances and the structures and sort of boring sets of standards and values that allow democracy to function. none of that is very encouraging. but essentially, i think most periods — and one of the good things about getting older — think "this is a terrible time" and "british politics has never been so divisive." and i think "poll tax, riots, the miners‘ strike" —

that was not a cohesive period. in british politics. and you know, i always quote my mother—in—law who said to me "i have never been so worried as i am now about the world". and i said "you were a teenager in 1939". and she said, "so i was". i do think that you have to keep a certain amount of perspective. i'm conscious, as i say, that behind you, there a re endless letters. in terms of threats you have had this year, legal and otherwise — you have had many legal threats over the year — how does this year rank in terms of the threats to ruin you and your family's welfare? interesting, because i think that something about brexit, people must be a bit more depressed. we have had quite a lot of very rich people suing. what sort of stuff?

mostly russian or thereabouts. about money and why it's in london, where it is going to, so we've had quite a lot of that. is there ever any danger that these cases are going to end up bankrupting you and private eye? that's why i have a wooden table. we will see. we survive on the favour of our readers. they pay up and that is where our money comes from. and, you know, most of our stories are about unexplained wealth. you know where ours is from and we don't know where theirs is from. so that's the difference. ian hislop, thank you very much indeed. the forecast is not festive if you wa nt

the forecast is not festive if you want snow but there will be a break from the rain. that is courtesy of this ridge of high pressure time for christmas day. there is still some showers around this evening. it has been a wet day for some but the showers are slowly fading. there will still be some around overnight. but for many the skies are clearing and it is turning colder overnight. already well below freezing in parts of highland scotland but most of us close to freezing with some ground frost. that takes us onto christmas day. a chilly start but a fine day, mostly sunny as well. in the north of scotla nd mostly sunny as well. in the north of scotland are still the chance of some showers but these will fade. high cloud pulling in towards south—west england, wales and northern ireland. but for most it is

blue skies for christmas, feeling colder especially across england and wales compared with today. and after dark we do expect some fog to develop which looks to be most problematic through northern, central and eastern parts of england. in the west, the breeze picks up and we see some rain moving in as the next area of low pressure arrives. that brings the temperatures up towards the west of the uk, we still expect frost going into boxing day morning in parts of scotland. boxing day looking very different, more cloud around and the rain spreading north and east across the uk. then we have a break and then another spell of wet weather later. temperatures are heading up but quite a chilly day to the north

and east of the uk. going into next week it is looking very mild. any wet weather mostly towards northern ireland and scotland. england and wales looking mainly dry. so not a white christmas but you may appreciate a blue skies christmas. more details available on the website.

this is bbc news, i'm julian worricker. the headlines at 6... prince philip is discharged from hospital after 4 days. the duke is now spending christmas with the queen in sandringham. the queen will use her christmas day message to say the past year has been "quite bumpy", adding that "small steps" can heal divisions. the wildlife victims of australia's bushfires — helped by the firefighters working around the clock. five children are amongst eight people killed in air strikes in syria, after a week—long government offensive in the mainly rebel—held province of idlib. pilgrims from around the world are in bethlehem for christmas eve celebrations. ben stokes misses training for england, because his father