Private Eye was once a great magazine, a unique British institution. I used to read it regularly as a student in the late 80’s. I loved the in-jokes about Ugandan discussions, Sir Jammy Fishpate, Captain Bob, Sir Buffon Tufton, Sid and Doris Bonkers of Neasden FC, the Grauniad, Jeffrey Barnard (“Jeff bin in?”), Beardie Branson, the Dirty Digger, Brenda and Phil. I used to love the comic strip which imitated my beloved Commando Comics with Sapper Kinnock battling a Nazi Thatcher and her Waffen DHSS, with Fatty Hefner’s “cruel Cockney humour”. They also did a Dan Dare one with Thatch the Supreme Ruler of the Universe that was just as good. It was anti-establishment and stuck up for the little man. It’s mercilessly exposed corruption.
But something happened. Perhaps that something was Brexit. All of a sudden Private Eye became The Establishment. It’s satire was now directed against Brexit and against the “stupid Little Englanders” that voted for it. It came out as fanatically pro-EU. It became dreary and boring. Cover after cover lampooned Boris Johnson and Brexit. It’s not worth the paper it’s printed on any more.
The problem is likely to be Ian Hislop. He’s a self confessed Remainer and has become part of the Establishment blob that seeks to grind us down at every opportunity. He’s a preachy intolerant bore that likes to remind us how ignorant we are compared to his own enlightened status. The result is that Private Eye has been defanged and is now a boring cunt.
https://unherd.com/2019/07/how-private-eye-lost-its-bite/
Nominated by: Marvellous Mechanical Cunting Machine
Well lot’s of papers are preachy about how great Brexit will be and some papers don’t love Brexit, you’ve got to deal with it.
Just ignore them and keep telling yourself everything’s gonna turn out alright.
7
\I can’t stand to see Hislop’s smug little face, which looks like an old dwarfs arse, or his pal Merton, arseholes wreathed in smiles on their ancient “topical news comedy” show – so topical they show repeats all the time, years later. It wasn’t even funny on the day it was made.
Hislop is such a pompous little cunt I am not surprised his organ has shrunk in value.
24
When he thinks he’s making an extra funny joke, he leans back and sinks his tiny chin into his neck to emphasise how hilarious he is.
17
HIGNFY died the death the moment those two unfunny smug cunts ousted the ‘cunt but funny’ Deayton. It’s yet another example of how ABBC perseveres with programmes that should’ve been killed off forever 20 years ago (see also Question of Sport)
As for that fat cunt Hislop, well what was once mildly subversive became the Establishment and he will no doubt at all become Knighted the next time there’s a Labour Government. It might not be as long a wait as we think.
11
I used to read Private Eye when it was relevant and funny.
They should rename it “Lefty Toff”.
Hislop needs a visit from an “uncomfortable” ethnic..
22
Agreed, I stopped buying it ages ago. Such a shame.
I welcome the fact people have different opinions than my own, but I resent being called thick by wealthy establishment figures and their mags/papers when I am, in fact, only mildly stupid. Nothing more to add really, the nominator has, with the mechanical precision their name suggests, nailed this one.
21
Private Eye is metropolitan establishment. It could well be Whitehall’s house magazine.
Even now it cant let Brexit go. Full of sneers and jibes. It is also getting woke, to be expected given it’s location and staff I suppose.
It is rarely funny, the cartoons have gone downhill and Hislop is a smug wanker.
Peter Cook must be revolving in his grave.
31
And the great Richard Ingrams. I found myself following him through Soho once. Don’t ask.
11
don’t tell
5
Why were you following Richard Ingrams through Soho Ruff Tuff?
4
I can’t remember. Must’ve bin 40 years or more ago… probably on the lookout for hard core continental jizz mags.
6
It has to be down to Hislop, HIGNFY always used to be good for a laugh as well, especially in the days of Angus Deayton, but for the last four or five years it has become completely unwatchable, much as the same way P.I. has become unreadable. Hislop is the common denominator and he is a fucking lefty snobbish cunt. The way he looks down his nose at the ordinary working class boils my piss, I hope some fucker gives him a good shoeing sometime soon.
16
The eye has changed without doubt over the last few years as has Hislop himself. He’s looking extremely well nourished nowadays with more chins than a Chinese phone book.
I still get it for the crossword but only at airports. Remember those places?
17
I think PI lost the plot when they forgot who they were satirising. Perhaps it was when they stopped sneering at the establishment, and started sneering at 52% of their readership.
24
The same happened with Viz. Suddenly it became unfunny.
9
Even the Christmas special is now mostly watery drivel.
I took the precaution of preserving several copies from 30 years ago when it was a belter.
8
Yeh the Xmas special used to be hilarious and especially Gnome’s Christmas Mail Mart.
Celeb had its moments but the peerless Ray Lowry in NME did it far better.
2
The Beano is fucked also
6
And The Dandy has gone digital! When I was a child nothing was more exciting than getting the Beano delieverd with the paper every week. The print smelt lovely. Then I graduated onto Warlord, Battle and 2000AD. These probably wouldn’t be published today – too politically incorrect and “glorifying war”. Private Eye in its heyday felt a bit like a comic for adults. It’s was printed on similar paper. That was part of its appeal.
5
I used to read 2000ad.
Slaine mac Roth.
Good stuff 👍
Hes probably a vegan now rather than a blood stained berserker.
7
He didn’t go woke, though he did turn out to be a wise and responsible ruler. he hasn’t appeared for few years so maybe if he comes back he’ll do an interview and come out as Bi and confess that Ukko was his life partner
Judge Dredd ended up campaigning for mutant rights
1
Used to watch HIGNFY regularly. Stopped due to the constant sniping at Brexit and Donald Trump. I don’t mind the occasional pisstake but it became a mouthpiece for wokes, lefties etc due to the arseholes on the programme. God I hate the BBC.
21
Time for Hislop to go, he is a classic example of Brexit Derangement Syndrome. He has turned Private Eye from a great satirical magazine into a leftie wankfest.
Who should replace him? Geoff Norcott would be my choice.
12
What about Nick Ferrari?
2
I let my 51 year subscription lapse this January. No more needs to be said.
15
I had never bought it on any regular basis but I stopped altogether about 3 years ago. I might have got one during the shortages last year but I’d already got a reasonable stock of bog roll.
6
Guzziguy@ – I trust you contacted them and told sniggering doughboy Hislop exactly why they could shove Lefty Eye up their arse?
4
Guzziguy@ – I trust you contacted them and told sn*ggering doughboy Hislop exactly why they could shove Lefty Eye up their arse?
(Modded the first time but mistake realised!😀)
1
I let them know why I was cancelling my subscription; they didn’t seem surprised.
6
In classic Eye eras passim (c) Paul Foot, there would inevitably be readers letters printed along the lines of “I have just taken out a subscription especially so I could cancel it in disgust”.
Those were the days when a bit of self-effacing humour went a long way. The po-faced cunts running it now would be far too worried about upsetting themselves to do that these days.
5
I suspect Viz think their days are numbered. The fat slags are relegated to somewhere in the middle, and the humour is massively toned-down. I wasted money on a year’s subscription, and the daft twats have forgotten to stop sending it to me.
In case they ever question it, I’m going to say that every single one sent in error must have been lost in the post. How strange.
I know I said I’ve nothing else to add, but I’ve got a really shit job to do at work and this is (marginally) preferable. Thanks for your forbearance.
7
I subscribed from 1967 until about 10 years ago.
Hislop has turned PI into a sad shadow of its former self.
That’s because Hislop is a cunt and has taken PI with him
Shame
12
I used to be a regular subscriber to the Eye back in the 80s and 90s, along with watching HIGNFY with Angus Deyton back in the day too. Both of them used great satire to make their points, especially aimed towards the Establishment. Hislop was still the smug cunt back then as he is to this day, but at least most of the show and the magazine were objective in their opinions.
But now the Eye is almost blind, probably due to to much wanking by Hislop and his writers and contributors. Similarly, HIGNFY is just a mouthpiece for the BBC/MSM, and yet the broadcasting watchdog doesn’t seem bothered at the show’s biased opinions. (In very much the same way it turned a blind eye/deaf ear to Question Time)
I hope the Eye, along with Guardian, sink without trace. They’ve been circling the plughole for too long, and now its time to see them flushed out of existence like a turd
17
Private Eye was founded by Cook, Rushton, Booker and Ingrams to subvert the Establishment. Now it props it up. It’s not even useful for bog paper as the print comes off.
13
HIGNFY died on its arse when Angus Deayton was ousted. That pair of cunts, Hislop and Merton certainly contributed towards his departure. It is now just a sad vehicle for the left Hislop, that buffoon Merton and a plethora of weak, unamusing lefty ‘comics’ to spout their anti-Brexit and anti-Boris rhetoric.
Chortle, chortle. How funny, Mr Hislop. Now just please fuck off. As Hislop ages, he looks like he has lost a couple of pairs of chromosomes along the way. Wobbly-chinned cunt.
12
i loved it too, up until Brexit. I also used to think Have I Got News For You was funny and then when the whole Brexit thing started and it instantly stopped being funny.
How things change. I don’t watch any TV now, let alone any BBC ‘comedy’. Don’t buy magazines or newspapers; might occasionally buy The Field!
10
The only print magazine I buy nowadays is ‘which?’. Stopped all papers a coupling years ago and only watch local news on TV. Found that ignorance may not be bliss but it’s certainly satisfying and not piss boiling.
8
Of course, I typed ‘couple of’ not ‘coupling’ but my phone speaks English with a South Korean accent. The cunt.
3
Just a smug fat rich cunt who thinks he knows best.
The only thing Hislop has fucked in the past decade is PI.
I hope he visits the wrong party like the Blek Loves Mansion commie Co.on.
Fuck Off.
10
Definitely fucked by Brexit and definitely down to Hislop. Same story here. Used to buy every issue until Brexit and Trump came along and Hislop decided he knows best. Then I used to flick through it at the supermarket and be bored shitless. Now I see the usual front cover slagging The Jellyfish and I don’t bother.
Gave up HIGNFY about September 2016……don’t need some fat BBC arselicker calling me a thick cunt every week.
Fuck Hislop and fuck the BBC, just Establishment cock suckers.
12
Everything that was once ‘edgy’ and new throughout history, eventually became mainstream or ‘corporate’. Rock and roll, punk rock, Viz, HIGNFY, rap music, Frankie Boyle. The list is endless, and Private Eye has gone the same way. It is a natural progression.
What the world needs is a website where cunts can express free edgy opinions without fear of restraint. And no toning it down.
Oh now, wait…..
15
Is ISAC the new Private Eye? Although there are a few good centre right leaning magazines such as Counterpoint and The Critic they are drowned out by woke liberal magazines like Prospect, New Statescrap, Private Eye (of course) and the now dreadful Economist (a shadow of its former self). There’s no edgy centre-right or anti-establishment magazines any more.
Commando is still going strong though, killing dozens of Nazi huns and slanty-eyed nips every month. Got in himmel!
9
Never read Private Eye, bit to metropolitan for me.
Bit oh so very clever.
Although I liked Peter cook and Willie Rushton (used to be able to imitate his voice but could only say ” pooh and piglet”)
But no shocker its gone woke.
Razzle Readers wives as gone the same.
And Blitzkrieg the monthly magazine for the far right now has a gay section!!
All gone to shite.
Private Eye is for pub smart Alecs always “actually, I think you’ll find”…types.
7
Used to be a regular buyer of PE.
Stopped once they informed me that in voting for Brexit I (and millions of others) was an uneducated right wing bigot.
Unfortunately educated enough though to realise they weren’t going to get any more of my hard earned money.
It surprises me to this day that with Brexit being such an emotive subject how readily companies were to come out publicly to declare whether they were supporters of either Leave or Remain, either way potentially losing close to 50% of there customer base.
13
PR companies are clearly so thick that they only push the benefits of attracting people with the same viewpoint. From the evidence so far, it appears they have never thought that by taking a position they immediately alienate those that oppose that position or, if they have, they don’t care. What makes it worse is that senior management appear to have given it no thought at all, one way or the other, as if they are actually incapable of thought. Oh, wait.
4
Once good now not.
4
Don’t forget although the funnies were great (the cover could truly be called iconic) PE was the last redoubt of investigative journalism in the UK. Across a wide range of subjects, from municipal corruption to tomfuckery in the world of music and literature, rotten doctors and even occasionally sport-based cuntery, it fearlessly shone a light into dark and murky corners. Not forgetting “In the City”, doing the job that financial journalists elsewhere shirked, probably at the behest of their paper’s bent proprietor. However, there’s no place for proper journalism in today’s ‘Gestapo khazi’ (as the late Peter Cook would have it).
Every single mainstream publication/broadcast is gatekeeping, it’s just that back then there was some space between the gateposts where genuine plurality could occur, today it’s like trying to squeeze through a gap in the hedge. If it’s not the official line it’s either conspiracy or hate, dissent is unallowed.
Boycott the mainstream fellow cuntists, don’t feed the beast, and that includes the rotting corpse of the once great Private Eye.
7
Excellent cunting 👍
I have a large collection of Private eye & Viz annuals.
Both now hopelessly woke.
I have every edition of Viz from No 1 through to the late nineties. Every single annual.
It used to be funny.😢
8
Ive got the very first Loaded magazine.
I was a fan in the 90s
1
Satire ground to a halt once it was discovered that some of these politicians and celebrities were not just shady or stupid, but were CHILD RAPISTS. There are over 300 British famous cunts on the Jeffrey Epstein flight logs. Peter Mandelson is listed in Epstein’s black book with 10 phone numbers. Where there’s power, there’s paedos. You can’t satirize evil, so Private Eye will just ignore the dark shit that goes on in the world.
2
cunt. p. 94…
3
Having given up Private Eye fifteen years ago, I wasn’t aware they had gone Brexit bonkers, so I must update my list. The Tories, Labour, LibDems, SNP, Welsh Nationalists, DUP, Sinn Fein, The Greens, the BBC, the CBI, the TUC, the Bank of England, IMF, World Bank, Barak Fucking Obama (and his charming husband Michael) and now Private Eye. What bunch of cunts!
3
spot on, I stopped buying it after Brexit as well – they’re supposed to be satirising the politicians not the MAJORITY of the British public. Wankers.
1
It should rebrand itself The New New European.
2
Stopped buying it regularly after Auberon Waugh died and Richard Ingrams moved on. Apparently it’s now even worse, how often do they get sued for libel now? Waugh was a genius, he formed “The dog lovers party” and stood against canine murderer Jeremy Thorpe in the 79 election. Can’t see smug cunt Hislop standing against Flabbott for the arithmetic party somehow.
3