i mean, it is fantastic. i mean, he does thejoke for us. this i mean, he does thejoke for us. was a smart this i mean, he does the joke for us. was a smart speci there this was a smart special because there was a proper public interest in this story, and the public money had gone to this woman who dances around a dancing pole. essentially thejoke around a dancing pole. essentially the joke was that boris had yet again been caught out. he is saying, i need some technology lessons and she is saying, floppy disk or hard drive. there is a properjoke here. boris is saying to his new girlfriend, i don't lie to women anymore and she is saying, except the queen, obviously. and that is not a legal problem. that is the judgement. anyway, this is ourjob. and you sometimes jump

judgement. anyway, this is ourjob. and you sometimesjump on anniversaries as well. yes, this is when boris became prime minister. which many people equate with an event as unlikely as landing on the moon. but he did, and there's this brilliant picture of him just going into number 10, so we did it as the lunar landing, a souvenir issue — one small step for man and a giant leap in the dark for mankind! and put it in black and white. and in terms of your annual, when you've got a year to get through — you've done many of these annuals, of course — when you've got to curate a year, which is what you were saying a moment ago is whatjournalism is about, what is your starting point with thinking about how we deal with this? do you just think, "let's get the bestjokes" or do you think, "we really to reflect the yea r"? i try and get the bestjokes and if we've been dull about a particular subject or have not covered it well, i try and leave it out. i mean, we're exhaustive, but the idea is to be entertaining. you've been personally committed, haven't you, to trying to reverse the decline of the english cartoonist. yes.

why have you and private eye kept up your investment in cartoons? um, because, um, people like them and the mag sells. no, obviously, it's a much more elevated reason than that. 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 am basically — i dobled the number of cartoons um, 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 diffeences. why has that happened, do oyu think? —— do you think? is is 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've 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 these 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're 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's 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. how 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's not online? i've no idea, presumably because i haven't not looked online! no, it's very restful. i do recommend it! i think i could get used to that idea. u nfortu nately, 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 been for a long time — maybe not ever in the course of your career. do you think it's fair to say that these days, the penalty or sanction faced by those caught lying has almost disappeared ? there are people are getting away with lying as never before. i mean, i do think it's a real problem now, the idea of fake news, and that's 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 didn't 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, you know, as we know from the history of fake news, this is what the original putin doctrine was and this is what trump wants. he doesn't 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 in journalism so low? well, i mean, we haven't distinguished ourselves over past 20 years! you know, the phone hacking thing wasn't 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. but i believe is that — and i have said this before — but that being sceptical is not the same as being cynical. it doesn't mean you believe in nothing. you try and assess and evaluate. there is really good journalism going on. the alternative is literally sitting at home, thinking, "i wonder what i believe?" isn't 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 actually 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, that's perfectly reasonable to criticise. it was the fact that political parties were pretending they were fact—checking outputs or were pretending they were another outfit in orderjust to pump out their own messages. now, old—fashioned political spin is, "we're the tory party, we're going to promise you 80,000 more trees, houses, nurses" whatever it is. "we are labour party. no, we have 80,000 and another 80,000 nurses, trees," etc. that is old—fashioned political spin, that's what people know about. the fake messaging and then when you get caught out,

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 you 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 in order to survive, or do you have to think we are entering a darker, a post—democratic age? no, i don't believe that, but then 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 round 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. so, none of that is very encouraging. but, essentially, i think most periods —

and it's 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. and you know, i was quite naive, and my mother—in—law said to me, "i've never been so worried as i am now about the world." and i said, "you were a teenager in 1939." and she said, "oh, yes, so i was." i do think that you have to keep a certain amount of perspective. conscious as i say is that behind you, there are endless letters. in terms of threats that you've 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? it's interesting.

i think that's another thing 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 and where it's 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? well, i have a wooden table. no idea. we will see. we survive on the favour of our readers. they pay up, that's where our money comes from. and, you know, most of our stories are about unexplained wealth. you know where ours is from. we don't know where theirs is from. so that's the difference. ian hislop, thank you very much indeed. hello there. it doesn't look like we're going to see any snowfall

on christmas day, but with it being cold, there could be a little bit of early frost, which might make you feel a little bit festive for a while. the reason for the cold weather with the sunshine as well as this ridge of high pressure for christmas day, which will be short—lived because it will be replaced during boxing day with this area of low pressure to bring us a spell of wet and windy weather. it will push the christmas day cold air away from our shores and be replaced by the orange and yellow indicating very mild conditions particular to end the week and head on into the weekend. as we start christmas day very early on there will be one or two showers early on but these will fade as a high—pressure moves in. it will settle down with clearing skies. it will turn quite cold. temperatures close to freezing in many places with a touch of frost in places, may bea with a touch of frost in places, may be a bit of mist and fog as well. christmas day is looking cold but dry, bright, plenty of sunshine and this will have a little bit of festive rosters to saturday in places. a dry and sunny day for

most, a bit of patchy cloud for north—west england, perhaps northern and western scotland where they could be the odd shower. sunshine will be fading across the far west. most will be fading across the far west. m ost pla ces will be fading across the far west. most places will see the sunshine continue but it will be a chilly day particularly in the south. damages in single figures for most. as a averages fall away, later in the day looks like fog could become a problem across central, northern and eastern england. that in mind if you are heading out on the roads. it won't last long because the winds pick up ahead of this weather system, the fog will tend to live. 20 wet and windy by the end of the night across western areas. damages also rising. it will be a chilly one across the north and east of uk. very different feel to the weather for boxing day. we are back to the u nsettled for boxing day. we are back to the unsettled theme. this area of low pressure bringing rain and strong winds to northern ireland, south—west england pushing north and east across the country through the

day. good start quite chilly but dry across the north and east with the rain arriving here. we could see transient snow on the higher ground of northern england and into the scottish mountains. those temperatures climbing into double figures in the south, white chilly in the north and the east. as we head through the week into friday andindeed head through the week into friday and indeed the weekend, it is set to turn much milder thanks to southerly winds and those temperatures close to the mid— teens celsius in places. merry christmas.

this is bbc news. i'm samantha simmonds. our top stories: hundreds of families are spending christmas day in emergency shelters as australia's bushfires continue to burn out of control. communities rally round those fighting the flames. christmas shopping or anything for my daughter. just about the 11th. just thank you. thank you very much. police in hong kong clash with pro—democracy protesters during demonstrations in shopping centres popular with christmas tourists. reports say five children are among the dead after a week—long offensive by syrian government forces in the mainly rebel—held province of idlib. bells toll. pilgrims from around the world join

locals in bethlehem to celebrate