About a particular subject or have not covered it well, i try and leave it out. I mean, were exhaustive, but the idea is to be entertaining. Youve been personally committed, havent you, to trying to reverse the decline of the english cartoonist . Yes. Why have you and private eye kept up with your investment in cartoons . Um, because, um, people like them and the mag sells. No, obviously, its a much more elevated reason than that. No, i love cartoons and i think that one of the things that print can do is reproduce sort of beautiful drawings that are funny. And english cartooning tradition is very old and i think absolutely remarkable. So i am basically i doubled the number of cartoons um, and people said, well, you know, there arent any young cartoonists. You wont get anyone. It is funny if you offer money, people become cartoonists its amazing. We have got a brilliant raft of young cartoonists. I mean, this is a genuine skill and there are lots of people who do it really well. I mentioned politics, which is what most of your covers are about. Now, we seem to be in an age of polarisation, dont we . And genuine differences. Why has that happened, do you think . Is is the delayed effect of a financial crash . Um, i think the referendum was a question about, you know, whether you are essentially happy with the way britain is or not, whether you think it is too unequal, whether you think you have been left behind by the International World that has come into business, whether you would rather your life was structured in different ways. In the end, for me, it wasnt really about europe at all. I mean, the question that people answered was a question about themselves. Its perfectly reasonable, but it did not have anything to do with the eu. So we managed to politicise, essentially, a cultural divide. Which is why we have ended up with three years of people shouting at each other. And interestingly, the last three years has furnished your covers with some very loud characters. What does that do for satire, though . Does satire become easier or harder when you have the stranger than life characters . I mean, it does two things. One is everybody says to you satire is over now because you cannot satirize trump hes doing it to himself. Or, you know, boris is funny, you know . Theres nothing more to add. Which is not true. But you have to work harder. Because you have to find the areas where they are vulnerable, the areas where they genuinely are funny and where you can get under their skin. Obviously, its incredibly flattering where we have done some joke about trump which turned up in a tweet, saying, this was unfunny and not clever and not funny and that is the ultimate prize. And to find that boris is furious by something, thats what you want. Does he still get does he ever get in touch . Do his people ever get in touch . I mean, hes blessed your cover many, many, many times. Do you think boris is still cheesed off when he sees himself, perhaps with jennifer arcuri, on your front page . Oh, i do hope so chuckles whats your technique for dealing with people who are readily offended online . Well, im not online, which helps. Have you found that thats hard to sustain over the course of the development of the internet . Youve two children in their 20s i mean, what do they think with the fact that dad is not online . Ive no idea, presumably because i havent looked online no, its very restful. I do recommend it i think i could get used to that idea. Unfortunately, the bbcs media editor may not be allowed to do that. One of the things about the age which we live is that the truth seems up for grabs in a way that it has not been for a long time maybe not ever in the course of your career. Do you think it is fair to say that these days, the penalty or sanction faced by those caught lying has almost disappeared . There are people getting away with lying as never before. I mean, i do think it is a real problem now, the idea of fake news, and that is one of the things that is why i dont spend a lot of time online, because im infuriated by, you know, perfectly reasonable people who say to me, pfft i notice you did not run that story about Hillary Clinton murdering everybody. And i said i did not run it because it is not true. And they said i read it online and these are people who, they say to you, the mainstream media, ian, is just full of lies and then they believe the biggest and stupidest lie that someone in a bedroom has written up on the internet and sent out as a blog. I mean, theres a real divide between the sort of supposedly scepticism, a sort of fierce refusal to believe anything you read in the normal media, and then believing almost anything you read online. And this is weird and it makes it it makes the idea of truth polluted, which, as we know from the history of fake news, this is what the original putin doctrine was and this is what trump wants. He does not want you to believe this rubbish he pumps out. He wants you to believe nothing. And yet, i know that people watching this on bbc or listening to this via a bbc podcast will think that, actually, the bbc is part of the problem. That there is, you know these days, if you want to go viral, you say, there is a conspiracy of silence at the bbc. Whether or not there is one or not, why are people so keen to believe conspiracy theories about a cover up by journalists . In other words, why is trust injournalism so low . Well, i mean, we have not distinguished ourselves over past 20 years you know, the phone hacking thing was not good. The levison enquiry was not marvellous. So, i mean i mean, there is a reason for people to be slightly sceptical about journalism. But it is in much the same way as the, you know, the expenses scandal made people very sceptical about politicians. What i believe and i have said this before but that being sceptical is not the same as being cynical. It does not mean you believe in nothing, you try and assess and evaluate. There is plenty of really Good Journalism going on. The alternative is literally sitting at home thinking i wonder what i believe. Is the really striking about the Election Campaign that we saw at the end of 2019 that a lot of the fake news was actually pumped out by official channels . It was coming from the main parties. Is that not really what fake news is, and is that notjust Old Fashioned political spin . I think the thing that really shocked everyone in that Political Campaign was not the idea that hidden on the internet somewhere, there were messages going out that were being paid for and we did not know about. I mean, it is reasonable to criticise. It was the fact that Political Parties were pretending they were Fact Checking outputs or pretending they were another outfit in order to pump out their own messages. The Old Fashioned political spin is we are the tory party and we promise you 80,000 more trees, houses, nurses whatever it is. We are labour party, we have 80,000 and another 80,000 nurses, trees, whatever. That is Old Fashioned political spin thats what people know about. The fake messaging and then when you get caught out and you say, oh, it was a joke. It is satire. No, it is not satire. We are doing bloody satire. Get the tory party out of it. You said in the past you dont talk much about your voting habits but you said you were a democrat and believe in democracy. As you look around the world, do you think we are in this sort of period of democratic recession which is a correction that has been readjusted but democracy will survive, or do you have to think we are entering a darker, post democratic age . No, i dont believe that, but i am on the whole quite optimistic. I mean, we are in the middle of a cult of the strongman and a lot of leadership around the world is very autocratic. And populist movements have, i think, done democracy no favours in forgetting the normal checks and balances and the structures and sort of boring sets of standards and values that allow democracy to function. None of that is very encouraging. But essentially, i think most periods and one of the good things about getting older think this is a terrible time and british politics has never been so divisive. And i think poll tax, riots, the miners strike that was not a cohesive period. In british politics. And you know, i always quote my mother in law who said to me i have never been so worried as i am now about the world. And i said you were a teenager in 1939. And she said, so i was. I do think that you have to keep a certain amount of perspective. Im conscious, as i say, that behind you, there a re endless letters. In terms of threats you have had this year, legal and otherwise you have had many legal threats over the year how does this year rank in terms of the threats to ruin you and your familys welfare . Interesting, because i think that something about brexit, people must be a bit more depressed. We have had quite a lot of very rich people suing. What sort of stuff . Mostly russian or thereabouts. About money and why its in london, where it is going to, so weve had quite a lot of that. Is there ever any danger that these cases are going to end up bankrupting you and private eye . Thats why i have a wooden table. We will see. We survive on the favour of our readers. They pay up and that is where our money comes from. And, you know, most of our stories are about unexplained wealth. You know where ours is from and we dont know where theirs is from. So thats the difference. Ian hislop, thank you very much indeed. The christmas week is looking fairly mixed. We are going to continue with further showers and longer spells of rain in the run up to Christmas Day, and then on Christmas Day looks like it will be largely dry, quite chilly, but a lot of sunshine around. No pressure today, bringing further showers. This feature moving up further showers. This feature moving up from the south west will bring outbreaks of rain to england and wales as we had to tonight. Most of the showers for the rest of this afternoon will tend to be confined to one scotland and northern england, the odd heavy one mixed in there. Generally light ones although it will be breezy across parts of scotland. Further south, widespread sunshine, top temperatures io iid. Single figures in the north. The showers continue in the north overnight, this area of rain pushes across england and wales. A heavy burst as it continues to push eastwards, dry two perhaps one or two showers following as we head into Christmas Eve morning. This is how it is looking for a Christmas Eve, low pressure to the north east of the country. These weather fronts enhancing the share activity across the south west. It will be fairly damp to start across eastern areas. We will see a cluster of heavy thundery showers moving into sideways and the midlands, with thunderstorms mixing to that was strong and gusty winds. Further north, a slow improvement, increasing amounts of sunshine, a bit breezy across the south. Top temperatures ii izd. Again, single figure values in the north. As we head to Christmas Eve, the latter pa rt head to Christmas Eve, the latter part of the day into the night, you should start in turn drive the showers easing weight. That is because we have this ridge of High Pressure building on for the big day itself. A settled one, a chilly start to Christmas Day with a touch of frost, may be a little bit of mist and fog too. As you can see on the map, light winds and plenty of sunshine around, so not a White Christmas unfortunately this year, but it will be fine and settled. Temperatures of 6 10 degrees, in the south. The next area of low pressure comes hurtling and for boxing day, a little mist and fog across eastern areas to be in with, but as they win bills from the south it will clear the mist and fog. There will be some snow over the high ground of the pennines and scotland as it moves eastward. Temperatures a little bit cooler, 7 10d. Good afternoon. The professional footballers assocation has called for a government inquiry into racism in the sport after the Chelsea PlayerAntonio Rudiger complained of hearing monkey noises from the crowd during yesterdays premier league match at tottenham. Our sports correspondentjoe wilson is at tottenhams stadium for us this lunchtime. Joe. The stadium behind me is a gleaming addition to the british sporting landscape and itself is an advertisement for the strength and power of the premier league. But