Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Naked Week: Ep2. Spin, Milestones, and Monopoly (Qatar edition)
Episode Date: December 13, 2024We interrogate how many milestones make a mission, look at how some MPs fund their offices and with all the Gregg Wallace unpleasantness we put a crisis management expert under pressure to give celebr...ities tips on how to apologise.Host Andrew Hunter Murray, Chief Correspondent Amy Hoggart, The Skewer's Jon Holmes and The Naked Week team deliver a topical news-nude straight to your ears.The Naked Week team strip away the curtain and dive into not only the big stories, but also the way in which the news is packaged and presented.Written by: Jon Holmes Katie Sayer Sarah Dempster Gareth Ceredig Jason Hazeley Adam Macqueen Louis MianAdditional material: Marc Haynes Cornelius MendezGuests this week: Jordan Greenaway Dr Beth MaloryProduction Team: Laura Grimshaw, Tony Churnside, Jerry Peal, Katie Sayer, Phoebe ButlerProduced and Directed by Jon Holmes Executive Producer: Philip AbramsAn unusual production for BBC Radio 4
Transcript
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Hello, hello and welcome to the Naked Week Radio 4's new Friday night comedy.
Imagine Newsnight broadcast under martial law and you're halfway there.
So, political crisis in France, rebels battling Assad's forces in Syria,
continuing conflict in the Middle East, and yet all the UK media really seemed to care about this week
was a bald man who said this.
A handful of middle-class women of a certain age.
Do we have any middle-class women of a certain age in the audience?
Of course we do! Good.
Now, we all know the only time that phrase should be deployed is if it's an answer to the question,
Alexa, who goes wild swimming?
But not so much Greg Wallace, who took to Instagram with that,
in much the same way that a bullet might take itself to his own foot.
It's been a week of wall toto-wall Wallace with the accusations growing.
Earlier this week the BBC removed the MasterChef Christmas specials from the
schedules leaving only MasterChef the Professionals, MasterChef Celebrities
and MasterChef the Doubling Down Arsehole in the Glasses untouched.
Now at this point you will be unsurprised to learn that the BBC lawyer has told us
we must reiterate that Greg Wallace denies all the accusations,
and so I now have done that.
But the scandal has also thrown BBC One's other big festive plans into disarray,
as they have had to cancel Christmas Day's highlight, Greg Wallace and Gromit,
which featured Greg cooking cheese while undoing the wrong trousers,
and then shouting sexual comments at a penguin.
On the Naked Week this week, Keir Starmer announces the latest number of Brexit opportunities.
One.
That many.
And a depressed Michel Barnier breaks into an Aldi in an attempt to cheer himself up.
Spent the weekend gorging in the meat section before eventually being lured out using food
covered in honey.
LAUGHTER
And on Question Time this week, Fiona Bruce forgot how to describe clothes.
All right, lots of hands have shot up.
Let's hear from the man in the, um...
The, um... With the...
Er...
Do you know the... Er...
Oh, not to worry, she had another crack at it later on.
The man at the back... That over there. No, the man there in the clothing.
In the clothing.
But to credit for you, she had one last attempt right at the end.
I've got about ten seconds left.
The woman in there in the beige shirt, is it?
No.
Now, in the words of the great philosopher, Kylie Minogue,
I'm spinning around.
Move out of my way.
I know you're feeling me.
Because you like it, you like it like this.
But this week, the concept of spin, specifically in terms of favorable celebrity PR, was something
that no one's favorite TV chef, Greg Wallace, seemed to ignore completely when he spouted
those now infamous words.
Let's hear them one more time.
A handful of middle-class women of a certain age.
That was him on Instagram on Sunday, and then by Monday it seemed someone might have had
a word because there he was on Instagram again with a Monday post talking about his Sunday
post saying he wasn't in a good headspace when he posted the Sunday post, and he was
sorry about the Sunday post here in the Monday Post.
It is very hard being a celebrity in the modern age,
and that is even before listeners to Five Life have barged in with their own thoughts on the matter.
I think Greg Wallace is being ganged up on by humorous witchy women.
LAUGHTER
Yeah.
It's witches, isn't it?
LAUGHTER It's those witchy, witchy women. It's like, isn't it?
It's those witchy, witchy women. It's like the plot of Wicked, but with fewer munchkins
and more off-color jokes about aubergines.
But...
But all of this, this week, has genuinely left us wondering
who the hell is advising Greg Wallace?
Because when a big story like this breaks,
there are usually professionals paid to get on top of it,
like PR experts or spin doctors. Crucially, they're not professional medical doctors like Doolittle, Jekyll or
Watson. They're pretend doctors like Feelgood, Who, or And The Medics.
And it's their job to take the patient, hear a bad news story, and make it better.
So to take us behind the curtain of celebrity spin Spin, please welcome to the Naked Week,
Director of Crisis Management Company
Transmission Private, Jordan Greenaway.
Okay, so on the Wallace thing,
why do you think he did what he did?
Did he have any advice before that kind of disastrous post?
There's a fairly tried and tested way
how to manage crises.
In PR, we like to say there's lots of dark arts,
but actually it's fairly simple and fairly straightforward.
Firstly, you need to speak to the celebrity
or the individual and understand properly
what the facts are.
Secondly, we need to respond and respond quickly.
Thirdly, we need to apologize.
And fourthly, we need to act.
The key problem in this particular case with Greg
is that he forgot to apologise,
which is a key element of the strategy.
If we can move on from Wallace now and turn our attention
to the wider subject of celebrity spin in general.
Jordan, I'm going to present you with a number of bad news scenarios.
I'd like to get an insight into how media spin properly works. Okay, okay got it
All right, so I'm gonna give you some celebrity scenarios. Just tell me how you would advise the person in question. Okay, here's scenario number one
Trying to impress the Qatari royal family
David Beckham hoofs a football as hard as he can only to see it crash through the window of a nearby orphanage and
Destroy all their saucepans meaning the orphans have to go straight to bed
with no gruel.
How can we get David out of that?
Okay, firstly, start with a fulsome apology.
Mr. Beckham apologizes sincerely.
Now, contextualize.
He was trying to kick the ball into the orphanage
to improve the football skills of the young children.
Oh my God.
And finally, action.
But he recognises that he's made a mistake
and he will be buying new kitchenware for the orphanage.
LAUGHTER
God, that's very good. He is good, isn't he?
APPLAUSE
I sort of want to go and smash up an orphanage myself now, just for the PR boost.
OK, here's our next scenario.
During one of his paid engagements that he's failed to declare to the BBC,
Clive Myrie is spotted standing on the mastermind chair,
singing along to ABBA's Money, Money, Money.
Get on with that one.
Got it. Firstly, apologise.
Mr Myrie is incredibly apologetic.
Secondly, contextualize.
He was on the chair to change the light fitting.
Thirdly, take action.
In response, he's going to give a donation to a chair charity.
All right, very good responses so far.
I want to give you a slightly tricky one.
And I should probably point out to our audience
listening at home, while he's busy spinning
our celebrity scenarios, Jordan has been sitting
on a swivel chair.
So to up the jeopardy which crisis management teams
have to face every day, Jordan, I want you to answer
this one while I spin you around on it,
because for me that more accurately reflects
the kind of fast-moving,
real-life tabloid bad news spinning process.
You up for that?
Yeah, got it, got it. I'll give it a go.
Right, this is what the Today program wishes they could do with their guests,
but they cannot or will not.
LAUGHTER
OK, here's the scenario.
Lawrence Fox...
OK.
LAUGHTER
There's a man who's taken that call before.
Lawrence Fox has been photographed giving a £20 note
to a hungry homeless man who doesn't look like he was born in Britain.
What can he do to salvage his reputation?
OK, and you may answer...
Now!
Firstly, apologise.
So he apologises for supporting the homeless man.
Secondly, contextualize.
He was giving him some money to go and buy him a coffee.
Thirdly, action.
He's going to commit to never giving immigrants any money
again.
Let me go!
Well, it's all very well two middle class men of a certain age talking about this.
But we do actually have a middle class woman of a certain age on the team, Amy Hoggart.
So Amy, what do you make of this?
My first thought was, I'm so sorry to those women.
My second thought was, again? I am so sorry to those women. My second thought was, again?
I am so tired.
We've all heard this exact same story so many times
across every single industry run by men,
which is every industry
other than the individual shop fronts on Etsy.
We're only hearing about this one now because it's TV and the man is a
celebrity, albeit a celebrity greengrocer. But since it's TV, guys, could you not come
up with a more original story? A little plot twist, a nice surprising ending? I
have a few suggestions for next time. One, what about
if we had a proper apology? Not just someone saying they're sorry if it made
people uncomfortable when they happen to get their dick out. By the way, according
to the BBC, that's the only time I'm allowed to use that word, even though if
I'd been a man whipping the real thing out,
that I could get away with again and again and again.
Here's another idea.
What if the accused next time is a woman?
Because women can do anything.
We've had female prime ministers.
We've had terrible female prime ministers.
Why do we never have women?
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers.
We've had women prime ministers. We've had women prime ministers. We've had women prime ministers. We've had women prime ministers. We've had female prime ministers.
We've had terrible female prime ministers.
Why do we never hear showbiz harassment stories
with female antagonists?
Like the one about Olivia Colman intimidating Paddington
with comments about wanting to nibble
on his marmalade sandwich.
Well, he didn't hear that story because it didn't happen.
Obviously, of course, because Paddington's not real,
but also because the story is always powerful men
committing sexual harassment.
So here's my idea for the biggest plot twist of all.
Powerful men not committing sexual harassment.
That's it. The end.
And mihola, ladies and gentlemen.
CHEERING This is The Naked Week on Radio 4, That's it, the end. And we hope, ladies and gentlemen.
This is The Naked Week on Radio 4, where it's time once again for a moment of quiet contemplation. It's the news in haikus.
Barnier loses, no confidence vote.
Ah, le French are revolting.
The news in Haikouz.
On Thursday, Keir Starmer presented us his adoring public with his new milestones.
Today we publish new milestones.
We were all obviously incredibly excited when Keir first unveiled his vision,
the first time it happened.
You remember back in 2021, he called them pledges, not milestones.
He had just been elected as Labour leader and there were ten pledges.
I made pledges which reflected my values.
And doesn't he sound excited about them?
Except in February 2023, he decided pledges were out,
missions were in, and there weren't 10 now, there were five.
Five national missions.
Still pretty exciting, still pretty good.
You know, missions is better than pledges, right?
Missions is Tom Cruise, pledge is furniture polish.
So missions, like a spy or a Mormon. Missions is better than pledges, right? Missions is Tom Cruise, pledge is furniture polish.
So, missions, like a spy or a Mormon.
But then in May 2024, with pledges long since abandoned
in favor of missions, there was another reset.
And suddenly the third go at it was called steps.
Except this time there were six steps.
Six steps, a plan to change the country.
Okay, so that's six steps, which is one more than the missions, four fewer than the pledges.
They sort of had nothing in common with the pledges or the missions, but okay, whatever.
But now we fast forward to this week and we have...
Measurable milestones.
Measurable milestones.
Can you measure a milestone?
The thing is you measure with the milestone. The milestone is the measuring that it's like say that's like measuring a ruler The answer is on the ruler
Now this is about the 17th time that Stama has relaunched his various commitments, promises, visions, targets, goals, dreams, and prophecies
by resetting, reorganizing, remodeling, and reevaluating.
And yet, so far, he seems to have delivered very little, except a lot of web traffic, to thesaurus.com.
There are so many noun croutons floating in the word soup that we're all getting confused.
How many pledges make a mission? How many missions make a milestone?
What's the difference between a promise and a commitment?
Could you tell the difference between a promise
and a commitment if the lights were off?
What...
What we need is an expert.
So joining us now to strain the word soup
through a giant sieve marked help, just go with it,
is lecturer in linguistics at UCL, Dr Beth Mallory.
So, correct me if I'm wrong, you help work out what words have what meanings, how they
change over time, where the differences come in. Is that fair?
Yes, that's fair.
Okay, so let's start off with a pledge. What is a pledge?
Well, the earliest use of pledge dates back to 1371
and unlike a lot of other words it hasn't changed very much since then so it it still means basically
the same thing which is a solemn vow. What about mission? Where does mission come in? Well the
word mission has always been about strong feelings so the the earliest definitions are mostly related
to the global spread of Christianity by missionaries. Okay, so has he been kind of positioning himself as some sort of missionary?
Yes, I think it's fair to say that this is Keir Starmer in the missionary position.
Alright, you lot.
Get your heads out of the gusse, guys. Let's just end that one right there. I do not want to think
about that. Okay, let's go. What about milestone? What's the definition of a milestone?
Well, milestone is a compound noun, but nowadays it's mostly used figuratively.
So, you know, we talk about big moments like milestone birthdays.
So it seems to me that this language has been chosen really deliberately to signal departure from
the kind of hackneyed political jargon that we usually hear.
So I think this is them really moving away from that
and kind of pinning their colors to the mast
in a way that's quite brave or possibly stupid.
I would just wonder, if you were Keir Starmer,
what words would you pick for the next time he reboots?
Well, I might suggest the Labour Party
look a little bit closer to home.
To keir is actually an old Scots word,
meaning to drive off
or to drive out, as in to care all goodwill and support
that the party had before the election.
And with that, let's care Dr Beth Mallory from the stage.
Dr Mallory, everybody!
The fields of Borsigshire will run red with our enemy's blood
and Bridge Farm will be our Valhalla!
So sorry, you just caught me there declaring martial law on Ambridge.
Still to come on The Naked Week,
newsagent John Sople gave a surprising answer
when asked about his favourite type of bean.
It was Sean.
A short list is released for the new co-host of MasterChef. Pedophiles and war criminals.
And the Prime Minister unveils a new plan to house migrants in Advent calendars.
And behind every single door there's a family.
With Labour this week rebooting in safe mode, the PM has been keen to focus attention on
the future and away from the dawdling, U-turning and in-fighting that has dogged the party
since about 1900.
Clearly, our expose last week of the gambling lobby and its ties to Westminster have rattled
Stammer.
And how do we know that?
Simple.
He hasn't said a word about it.
He's terrified.
And judging by the deafening silence, he's not alone.
Angela Rayner, very scared.
Kimmy Badenok, hiding behind the sofa.
Ed Davey, leader of the Lib Dems.
So like Vladimir Putin, in any neighbouring country that ends with a vowel, we're going
back in.
Because you might think that lobbying is only about people outside government influencing
people inside government. But it's easy to forget just how huge the UK body
politic actually is. Our government is like a blue whale. It's vast, slow and hopeless
at organising compensation for victims of an infected blood scandal.
I'm joined now by The Naked Week's Adam McQueen, who has been poking around inside the whale.
So Adam, what do we need to know about internal government lobbying?
Well Andy, there are a couple of shadowy organisations that are key to this story.
You may be familiar with the first one.
It's called The Labour Party.
I've heard of it.
You haven't?
Yep.
If you're not familiar with them, however, we've got some leaked audio from their last
cabinet meeting.
You're fucked!
Aaaaaah!
I could hear Rachel Reeves in there.
OK, yeah, carry on.
So the second group you need to know about is called Labour Together.
Adam, despite the name, I'm assuming that Labour Together is not the slogan of an anti-natal class.
Although they will be relentlessly focused on delivery.
Yes. Yes!
It's good!
APPLAUSE
I must remember to shout,
it's good, after more punchlines.
LAUGHTER
Who are Labour Together?
Well, slightly more boringly, Labour Together is actually
a party political think tank established all the way back in 2015.
It's one of those weirder relics left over from the Jeremy Corbyn era.
Like Diane Abbott.
LAUGHTER
Kind of the exact opposite, actually.
OK. Come election night in 2019, the Labour Party,
much like Carrie Simmons on their wedding night,
was flattened by Boris Johnson.
LAUGHTER
Horrible. I know. I'm so, so sorry.
But in the former case, at least, it was Labour Together who picked up the pieces,
and they conducted a formal inquiry into why Jeremy Corbyn lost.
Yes, which is a bit like conducting a formal inquiry into why your child's nativity plate never transferred to the West End.
Weird.
What did they decide the answer was?
Well essentially, and it's not a phrase you hear very often these days, they said there wasn't enough Keir Starmer.
The boss of Labour Together was a chap called Morgan McSweeney.
Who is Starmer's chief of staff and the one who forced out Sue Gray.
Yes, the one. Yep.
And he also ran the leadership campaign of dangerously charismatic toolmaker's son, Keir Starmer.
He did.
But this is one think tank. There are lots of think tanks around Westminster, aren't there?
There are. But there's not that many of them that were paying the wages of Labour Party staffers
to the tune of well over half a million pounds.
Half a million?
That's a third of a Lineker.
This is big money.
So, OK, so sorry, Labour Together were paying for people to go and work in MPs' offices?
That's right, they were paying a small army of staff, seconded by Labour Together, to
work in the offices of various Labour MPs.
Obviously, those MPs are now in government.
Okay, so any particular MPs that we're talking about?
Ah, nobody important, really.
A couple of people like the Chancellor, the Deputy Prime Minister,
the Home Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary,
the Justice Secretary, the Scottish Secretary,
the Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
and the shortest-serving Cabinet Minister in future.
Pub quiz question, mobile phone fan Louise Hay.
Okay so the question I really want to understand is why, why are Labour together or were Labour together
paying for people to work in all of these MPs offices?
One word, access. The sort of access that people who might want to lobby politicians and affect
policy would dream of. And there are clues as to what they were actually up to in some
of the declarations of financial interests made by the chancellor,
home secretary, and foreign secretary.
And what kind of declarations are we talking about?
What do they say?
That this think tank was paying to provide, quote,
research and writing services for all three of them.
And this, of course, was during the period when
Labour were drawing up their policies for this year's
general election.
So as ever, we follow the money.
Sorry, Labour Together are paying for all these people to work in MPs' offices.
Who is paying for Labour Together to pay them to do that, if you see what I mean?
Mostly people who weren't keen on the party under Corbyn.
So funding Labour Together were people like Lord Sainsbury, who was a big Labour donor
during the Blair and Gordon Brown years, but had closed his wallet completely under Corbyn.
He cashed in his next appoint and gave Labour together almost £500,000.
That's good, that's good. He's done very well at the tills there, nice. Okay, anyone else?
Gary Lubner, the former boss of Autoclass, he chipped in over £300,000.
And a hedge fund manager called Martin Taylor coughed up almost £1.8 million.
Okay, but is this just typical Westminster inside-the-bubble stuff?
Well, the important and interesting thing is what all of these paid-for Labour Together staffers did after the election.
Uh, witches?
No, they didn't become witches, Andy.
No, many of them did immediately become Spants.
Special advisors.
That's right, yep. And this is the point.
Spants, who the Cabinet Office describes as fully integrated into the functioning of government and now on the public payroll.
So the point is that Labour Together paid for these people when they were being paid for by various millionaires, business owners and things like that.
But now they have kind of crossed over the barrier and they're being paid for by taxpayers.
That's right. But it's not just political advisors either.
There was one appointment which is pretty unusual.
And this is an example of why this sort of thing matters.
Before the election, there was a Labour Together employee
named Jess Sargent and she wasn't made a spad.
She went into the civil service.
Which I presume is a normal move.
Well, the civil service does of course pride itself
on remaining 100% politically neutral.
Okay, so which 100% politically neutral job
did she get in the civil service?
Well, ironically, Andy, her job is in the cabinet office team which scrutinises government ethics and the Constitution.
Even more ironically, this job scrutinising government ethics was one which was never advertised, so no one else could have applied for it.
By the way, here's a quick reminder of Keir Starmer's stance on government ethics.
What you will always get from me is someone who believes honesty and integrity matter.
And he read that through one of his many pairs of free glasses.
How did they manage to give a former Labour Together staffer a civil service job without it being advertised?
Well, they used an obscure civil service recruitment loophole known as the Exceptions Rule,
which is meant for supposedly shorter term appointments.
And would that be the kind of obscure loophole you would only definitely deploy
if you had absolutely nothing to hide and you weren't even slightly keen to avoid scrutiny?
Andy, I've just checked with the lawyers and they say that's correct.
One last thing though, this Labour insider and politically neutral civil servant Jess Sargent
is the same Labour insider Jess Sargent who co-authored an article in The Economist last year
which featured these wise words.
A wave of scandals have eroded public trust
in politicians and political institutions.
Politicians are increasingly willing
to set aside key constitutional principles
for the purpose of achieving specific policy aims.
There is a pressing need for enhanced checks on power.
The British constitution is often described
as a product of evolution. It urgently needs to evolve. there is a pressing need for enhanced checks on power. The British constitution is often described
as a product of evolution.
It urgently needs to evolve.
Now, The Naked Week contacted the British constitution
for a response, and it sent us this statement.
You're so loud!
I knew how much you're taking, man!
So what we basically have here is,
Shadowy Group, you probably haven't heard of,
funded by various business millionaires, has reshaped the Labour Party
and embedded its own staff right at the heart of the party,
and now government, and is seemingly extending its reach into the supposedly neutral civil service.
Andy, I've checked with the lawyer again, and I couldn't possibly comment.
Adam McQueen, let him get him in.
So, this week saw a state visit to our shores from His Highness the Emir of Qatar,
a country which makes Jacob Rees-Mogg seem both poor and liberal.
But the thing is these days a state visit from Qatar doesn't really mean anything,
like see it, say it, sorted or Israeli ceasefire.
Because thanks to its mind-bendingly limitless sovereign wealth fund, Qatar is already something
like the UK's 10th biggest landowner.
Britain doesn't need to host the Qatari royals because they're already here.
It's like Ireland hosting Riverdance, or hell hosting anyone who keeps going on about their
air fryer.
In fact, the Naked Week has crunched the numbers, and it turns out the Emir of Qatar owns even
more of London than the King.
So although the Crown Estate has bagzied Regent Street, Windsor Great Park, most of St James,
and a ton of homes around Regent's Park and Kensington, Qatar owns the Shard, the Ritz
Hotel, the Claridge's, and the Connacht, and at least four more hotels, and all of
Canary Wharf.
They also own Rupert Murdoch's News UK building,
home of The Times, The Sun, Virgin Radio, Talk TV,
and presumably the world's worst staff WhatsApp group.
Oh, and he also owns Harrods, but let's not even go there.
In fact, let's not, let's just not go there.
But with Christmas on the way,
we're quite lucky to have been given a preview copy
of this year's must have, a special edition game of Monopoly, Qatar Investment Authority Edition!
Yay!
Amy, you've got the playing tokens there.
Of course, in original Monopoly, you've got the little silver top hat, you've got the thimble, you've got the car.
What do we get in Qatar Monopoly?
Um, a little silver oil barrel.
Oh, very nice. A miniature David Beck barrel. Oh, very nice.
A miniature David Beckham.
Oh, lovely.
And then all the rest of the tokens
are migrant workers' confiscated passports.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Now, we wanted this to be as realistic as possible,
so Qatar has already bought everything on the board.
LAUGHTER Including all the houses and hotels, this to be as realistic as possible. So Qatar has already bought everything on the board,
including all the houses and hotels and obviously the tax squares you can just avoid.
So we're going to have a quick game now and see if it gets our coveted Naked Week recommendation.
All right, well let's have a go. You ready? Yes. I don't like to break. I'm pretty good at Monopoly. So let's just try it now okay that's a seven for me which lands
me on a chance card I'll just see what I've got here you have disrespected the
sovereign state of Qatar go directly to jail okay okay
Amy your go. Four, community chest you have won second prize in a beauty contest...
Oh!
..but did not receive permission from your husband.
Go to jail. Game over.
It is shorter, isn't it? It is shorter.
If you're the sort of person who thinks normal Monopoly drags a bit,
Monopoly Qatar Investment Authority Edition might be the game for you.
Unless you're gay, of course, in which case you'll start in jail and you'll stay there.
And the winner is Qatar!
The Naked Week was hosted by me, Andrew Hunter Murray, with chief correspondent Amy Hoggart,
and guests Jordan Greenaway and Dr Beth Mallory.
It was written by John Holmes, Gareth Carradig, Katie Sayer, Sarah Dempster, Jason Haisley,
Adam McQueen and Louis Mian.
Partial Nudity was by Mark Haynes and Cornelius Mendez
with Ali Panting, Nicky Roberts and Kevin Smith.
The Naked Week is produced and directed by John Holmes
and it's an unusual production for BBC Radio 4.
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Lives upended and long buried secrets.
I then wrote back and said,
look, the ripples from this will be enormous. What do you want to do?
The new series of The Gift with me, Jenny Kleeman from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC
Sounds.
Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by. And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises
profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space.
After the yoga classes I felt amazing.
But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker.
A journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation
across international borders.
I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have
nothing.
The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.
World of Secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed.
In this new series, we're confronting the dark side of the wellness industry, where
the hope of a spiritual breakthrough gives way to disturbing accusations.
You just get sucked in so gradually and it's done so skillfully that you don't realise.
And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever they were doing,
even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't understand.
Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network.
I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to
speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the
line. I want truth and justice and for other people to not be hurt, for things
to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemize some of that evil stuff that went on and take
back the power.
World of Secrets Season 6 The Bad Guru.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.