Three Old Hacks

The Three Old Hacks discuss this week whether or not the prime minister has lost it. He appears to be “teetering on the edge of appearing out of control” they think. It’s hard to bluster your way through a speech when someone else has written it for you and you clearly haven’t read it, especially as you’re just got to the “and here’s what we’re going to do about it” bit.

There’s a distinct sound of knives being sharpened in the Tory party. “The moment he’s not a winner, he’s a goner” they say.

Listen to former BBC News sports editor Mihir Bose, Economics editor of the Sunday Times David Smith and political commentator Nigel Dudley on the events of the past week.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

Writer and broadcaster Mihir Bose, Economics editor of the Sunday Times David Smith and political commentator Nigel Dudley, aka The Three Old Hacks, discuss the week's events, including reactions to the fatal attack on Sir David Amess at his constituency Surgery.

Should MPs get more protection and does this change the nature of their relationship with the public?

Newcastle United and their new Saudi owners come up for discussion, with Mihir taking the line that foreign ownership should not be allowed.

And they discuss the public's low opinion of the media.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

Writer and broadcaster Mihir Bose, Economics editor of the Sunday Times David Smith and political commentator Nigel Dudley, aka The Three Old Hacks, discuss Afghanistan in their podcast this week.

“The great opinion makers and intellectuals have once again failed us” says Mihir.

“When the West intervened in Afghanistan two decades ago they were all for it and made no critical examination whatsoever.

“Now, apart from blaming Joe Biden… they have not really examined why the West has failed…”

“The West has squandered billions propping up corrupt Afghan politicians who can then build villas in the Middle East… The US diplomatic cables which have emerged from Afghanistan show how corrupt the regime was”.

“The fact is we have not done a regime change, we have not built anything there”.

The whole sorry adventure was, he says, just “a rehash of imperialism”.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

The Three Old Hacks are old enough to remember the 1964 Olympics, the last time Tokyo hosted the Games. There were fewer events and so the people who won medals stayed in the memory longer, like long jumper Lynn Davies, whose local council paid tribute to him in a way which was to become more irritating than celebratory.

Writer and broadcaster Mihir Bose, Economics Editor of the Sunday Times David Smith and political commentator Nigel Dudley have known each other since they first started in journalism and have much to compare and contrast. They all agree that the BBC’s coverage of this year’s Games has become nationalistic in a way it never has been before and they regret the the narrow focus on sports in which British competitors are likely to win medals at the expense of ‘proper’ coverage of the whole event.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

Mihir Bose, David Smith and Nigel Dudley – aka the Three Old Hacks – are old enough to remember 1966 and all that. It comes as no surprise to them therefore that politicians should be falling over themselves to haul themselves aboard the football bandwagon. Football and politics, bread and circuses…

Writer and broadcaster Mihir Bose, Economics Editor of the Sunday Times David Smith and political commentator Nigel Dudley add their particular brand of wit and wisdom to the debate.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

Mihir Bose, writer and broadcaster, writes primarily on sport. In the seventies he was always the only non-white reporter in the press box and often the only non-white spectator in the whole football ground, so he is well placed to comment on the current controversy over the booing of football players who take the knee at the beginning of matches in support of Black Lives Matter.

He shares with old friends David Smith, Economics Editor of the Sunday Times and political commentator Nigel Dudley, how he was abused by football hooligans on a train and decided he would drive everywhere for his own safety.

The Three Old Hacks discuss taking the knee and whether it’s now becoming an empty gesture, and the disastrous launch of GB News in this week’s Three Old Hacks podcast.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

Incompetence and chaos at the heart of government is the theme of this week’s podcast from the Three Old Hacks.

Dominic Cummings’ seven hour session in front of a parliamentary committee, pouring bile on the heads of both Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock, has given them plenty to talk about.

The Three Old Hacks, aka  writer and broadcaster Mihir Bose, Economics Editor of the Sunday Times David Smith and political commentator Nigel Dudley have worked with both politicians in their long careers as journalists, and for them the Cummings testimony has the distinct ring of truth.

Meanwhile Nigel’s dog Alfie is getting jealous of all the attention Britain’s first dog Dilyn has been attracting.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

Mihir Bose, former BBC Sports News Editor, sets the world to rights with journalist mates David Smith, Economics Editor of the Sunday Times, and political commentator Nigel Dudley.

The cost of decorating Boris Johnson’s Downing St flat and who is paying for it is exercising them this week (£200,000 and it looks ‘like an Ottoman brothel’ according to one wag).

Maybe people aren’t bothered about who paid for it, but will Carrie Symonds’ comment that she couldn’t live with Theresa May’s “John Lewis nightmare” lose them the votes of Middle England?

Also the scandal of the sub post office managers whose lives have been ruined by the disastrous failure of a computer system. After some have served time in prison and others have been vilified in their communities, for financial losses that were not their fault, the Three Old Hacks demand to know who is responsible.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

The Three Old Hacks discuss the one day wonder that was The Super League. It took from Sunday night till Tuesday morning for six top English football clubs to announce their membership and then withdraw, leaving the plan in tatters in the face of opposition from the British Government.

Mihir Bose, former BBC sports news editor at the BBC, David Smith, Economics Editor of the Sunday Times and Nigel Dudley, political commentator, examine the debacle, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new found interest in the game, in the middle of a local and regional election campaign, and decry the state of affairs where the dominance of global TV interests means the fans who actually turn up to the matches no longer matter.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!

This week the Three Old Hacks discuss a year of the pandemic and how it is that the Government is still popular in the polls.

They talk about the fall out from the Meghan and Harry interview; sexual abuse in boarding schools and flags on government buildings – “ridiculous, insecure and pathetic”.

Join former BBC Sports News editor Mihir Bose, Economics Editor of the Sunday Times David Smith and political commentator Nigel Dudley for this week’s podcast.

Get in contact with the podcast by emailing [email protected], we’d love to hear from you!