Private Eye - England

What I'm wondering is who still reads Private Eye? It started about 40 years ago, part of the satire boom that engulfed England in the early 60's. The post-war austerity was behind us and the situation was ripe for a bit of a revolution. Media attitudes towards the supposedly great and good, especially towards the monarchy, were deferential not to say obsequious, a characteristic still known in America as `respect'. Something had to give, and the dam burst with sudden and total ruin. The howls of outrage that the new mood provoked were among the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard in my life. To my dying day I shall remember a picture of Her Majesty at Wimbledon accompanied by her Secretary of State for Defence, the Right Honourable Fred Mulley MP. Mr Mulley had nodded off in his chair, and Private Eye printed the picture with the caption `Cabinet Minister Sleeps With the Queen'.

One notable point was that the new satirists were not particularly leftish in their politics. Peter Cook and William Rushton are dead by now, but Christopher Booker went on to help establish the Festival of Light, a muscular-Christian orgy of family values, and David Frost, now Sir David, is a stately pillar of the broadcasting establishment. Richard Ingrams, founding editor of The Oldie Magazine, has retained something of the oldie spirit but all from a rather erratic and personal standpoint and Private Eye goes marching on. It's not what it started as. Something like its original spirit can be seen today in the film, apparently controversial in America but not in England, Fahrenheit 9/11. It has settled into a steady format these days, with some brilliant cartoons and photo-montages, particularly on the front cover. This cover is the magazine's main link with its past and is always of a topical nature, but most of the cartoons inside are of a perfectly standard kind that you might find in regular newspapers. There are excellent book and media reviews, there is a very difficult crossword of a slightly adult and naughty type, there is still a prime ministerial spoof sometimes purportedly written by spouses (Mrs Wilson, Mr Thatcher) and sometimes by the incumbent himself as with John Major or the current pm as the with-it guitar-playing vicar of St Albion's writing in his parish magazine and usually with a contribution from the Rev Dubya of the Church of Latter-day Morons. However the focus has changed from satire to whistle-blowing. It is very good whistle-blowing and very necessary I should say, anonymous in the main but written by mainstream journalists who can't publish certain stories in their regular outlets. What I wonder is who are its reading-public these days?

I suspect it's mainly a loyalty readership 60'sish people in both senses of the term like myself. It certainly used to be available in America and I suppose it still is, but I think its base is subscribers rather than casual purchasers. The focus is mainly on Britain, but not exclusively. My guess would be that a high percentage of its American readers are Rhodes scholars and anglophiles of various kinds, but there is always a very interesting and hard-hitting `Letter from...' some part of the globe, always written in the same style. I get my subscription to it as a Christmas present each year, and I shall be interested to see which of us succumbs first the donor, the magazine, or myself. Long may all of us live, and long may Private Eye outlast us. The genie is out of the bottle and I hope not all the Queen's horses nor all the President's men can put it together again, to mix my literary allusions.

My introduction to Private Eye was in the '70s, when, as an American provincial, I studied in Britain. I still find its sense of humor gently wicked. It is satirical, and we all know that satire appeals only to those people who can discern it. But the contributors to Private Eye also do good work as investigative journalists, without partisan favoritism. (Things we sorely lack in American journalism, both intelligent satire and non-partisan reporting.) As a subscriber, I read my copy of Private Eye cover to cover and then I put it in the bathroom as toilet reading. Often my copy goes missing, to what purpose I truly cannot say. But Private Eye helps me to remember, in my senile rage, that it is still "a funny old world."

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My wife is from the UK and I lived there for a few years. We're both political and a little 'left of centre' (Canadian perspective).

This magazine is wonderful.. If you don't have any incite as to what is going on world wide this might not be the magazine for you. If you have a good sense of political humour, up to date politically re: UK, the world, etc. you'll love this magazine. And you'll read it from cover to cover.

We both spend hours reading each issue. Good perspective of British / World politics without getting depressing.

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British people, do you want to laugh at your government? Do you want to laugh at the American government? Do you want to laugh? this is topical satire at its finest. Do you know Have I Got News For You? It's like that in a magazine.

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