Get out of the way, Gary Lineker! There’s a new podcast in town, with a pair of hip young gunslingers set to shake up the old order with an invigorating new format.
Starkey & Mogg dispenses with the traditional two-middle-aged-men-talking format, replacing it with one middle-aged man (Jacob Rees-Mogg, incredibly still just 56) and one very old man (David Starkey, 80) sat around a very small table discussing the latest in current affairs from two very different standpoints – Rees-Mogg as a social conservative and Starkey as an extreme social conservative.
Chasing the youth demographic by co-opting the name, logo and theme music of Starsky & Hutch, the hit US action series which aired as recently as 1979, it is described as “a new YouTube collaboration of two intellectual powerhouses” (rather than, say, intellectual outhouses).
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Yet another job for George Osborne (but it’s not in Washington)
The first episode, Lies, Damned Lies, and Starmerisms, sees the pair discuss “how we have got to the point where lying seems to be the default position for Labour politicians” (a reminder Rees-Mogg was one of the most fervent defenders of the biggest fabulist ever to gain high office, Boris Johnson, describing claims parties were held in Downing Street during lockdown as “fluff”).
And the second, On the technocracy, Trump and tragedy at Bondi Beach, looks at the horrific attack in Australia, which Starkey somehow manages to turn into being about his favourite topic of slavery. In 2020, he lost most of his public roles after saying slavery was not genocide because of the survival of “so many damn blacks” – possibly a sign that Huggy Bear will not be making an appearance in Starkey & Mogg.
Next stop: the O2?
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