Evening all,

Sarah here with a weekend Nerve edition overflowing with tempting reads ... We have Stewart Lee on being burned by the mainstream media, a revealing interview with her hero Meera Syal by Tara Joshi, a Reform UK news exclusive, a recipe from the king of bold flavours, Yotam Ottolenghi, and more. 

If you haven’t watched last night’s Channel 4 / Verbatim Investigations sting on Reform, make it the first thing you do after reading this newsletter. It’s got everything. An oyster lunch in Clacton. An undercover journalist cosplaying as a toff donor in orange socks and slip-on shoes. Reform’s previously mysterious head of policy, James “Christian right” Orr, unmasking himself as just another oleaginous toad (“I’m one of three reporting directly to Nigel! That gives me enormous power within the party”).

It also appears to show Reform merrily breaking the law on foreign donations and tailoring and commissioning opinion polls to be published in the mainstream press as neutral facts. You know it’s serious when the only comeback they can muster to actual filmed footage of people doing wrong is to cry “hoax!” (Orr) and “entrapment!” (Farage, who also denies Reform commissioned the polls). For more on Reform’s donor gravy train, I encourage you to dive into our long-running investigative series The Harborne Receipts.

Anyway, prior to having their soul exposed on network TV, free-speech advocates Reform UK were busy refusing journalists access to their annual conference in Birmingham (including the Nerve’s Ed Campbell):

But who needs accreditation?! Our intrepid Reform correspondent John Sweeney headed down there today to intercept delegates and catch the mood. He sends this update: “Just doorstepped Nigel Farage – he slipped out for a pint. His adoring fan club started shouting “Nige, our next prime minister”. Cutting against this mood of exhilaration and adoration, I managed to ask him: ‘What did you make of the Channel 4 News investigation?’ He paused, I think he recognised me, his face fell, and he said: ‘I've just given a big announcement about that.’” 

“So: the mood”, continues John. “There are two things on my vox pops: the vast majority of people just think the media and the establishment are out to get our Nigel. But, certainly earlier in the morning, there was a lot of anxiety scribbled on people’s faces, and it struck me that these people had signed up for the orgy, put their keys in the fruit bowl and now they're having second thoughts.”

Don’t miss our latest exclusive report on Reform – details below; alongside news of two Nerve events – the Nerve Live! on 27 September, celebrating our one-year anniversary, at the inaugural King’s Cross Vision festival; and a screening and interview with Salman Rushdie and his wife, the writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths, on 12 September. 

Oh, and here’s that undercover report. Links to our stories follow below.

Stewart has been doing the media rounds for his new book, Pea Green Boat, and DVD, and it’s reminded him that the process is less a meeting of minds and more like being “systematically betrayed like a pathetic whipped dog”. And he’s not even a politician, who would face vastly more intense scrutiny. As he writes: “I think it will be even harder for Andy Burnham to get his message across than it has been for me to flog obsolete physical media in a dignified fashion.” That’s particularly true when the new PM has dared to speak out against Brexit – in the face of billionaire press barons and bad-faith commentators. Read his column here.

To buy Stewart’s Pea Green Boat at a discount price go to the Nerve bookshop.

The keynote speech on the opening day at Reform conference yesterday was Robert Jenrick, laying out Reform’s economic plans for its first 100 days in power, including what sounds suspiciously like replacing Bank of England officials with Reform-friendly plants, or, as he puts it, “more people from the private sector”. It’s something that’s been on their agenda for a while. Reporter Ian Tucker asked experts, including a former chair of the Treasury select committee, what it could mean for the economy if a Reform government made Trump-style appointments at the top of our economic institutions. (Clue: it’s not good.) Read the report here.

Actor Meera Syal does not want to be seen as a national treasure despite being made a dame last year and with TV credits on such seminal shows as Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No. 42. “I'm really wary of the moniker … In some ways, it pushes you into some kind of ‘off you go to a retirement home!’ basket, which I hate.” She’s just published her memoir Vigilauntie, and took time out from rehearsals for a production of The Children at Hammersmith’s Lyric theatre to speak to writer Tara Joshi. It’s a wonderful conversation covering racism, role models and disapproving aunties. Read the interview here.

Alex Gibney’s new documentary Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie tells the story of the 2022 attack on the novelist Salman Rushdie and his subsequent recovery. The Nerve is hosting a screening next Saturday, 12 September, at the Curzon Mayfair in London, followed by an interview with Rushdie and his wife, the writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths, by our own Lucia Osborne-Crowley. The screening is at 6pm with the Q&A at 8pm. Tickets available to buy here. 

Later this month, on Sunday 27 September, the Nerve is bringing its journalism to the stage to celebrate our first birthday. The multi-session event is part of the new Vision Festival in King’s Cross, London and will include a chance to quiz the team; Reform correspondent John Sweeney (author of The Real Nigel Farage) will also be in conversation with our political columnist Sangita Myska. The full programme will be announced soon. Tickets are £12, but free to Nerve founder members and just £3 for paid subscribers.

”She took both my hands in hers and looked into my eyes. “Oh, Deborah,” she said, “that’s patriarchy … We had abortion before Roe. We had it during Roe in places where they made it impossible. We will have it after Roe. Because we have each other. We never let them dictate the terms. We get around whatever block or barrier they put up, because we have sisterhood.” In a moving piece, the Nerve columnist and host of the Guilty Feminist podcast remembers her friendship with the pioneering campaigner and activist Gloria Steinem, who died this week. Read her piece here.

Best known for her women’s prize-winning novel The Power, the author, video game creator and TV producer Naomi Alderman burst onto the literary scene in 2006 with her debut novel Disobedience, which drew on her experiences growing up in, and later leaving, an Orthodox Jewish community in north London. On the eve of publishing her latest novel, The Strangers, Naomi shared her current cultural favourites with us, including the action film she can’t get out of her head, a superb new novel from Fitzcarraldo and an easy-peasy hack to make your own mayo! Read her recommendations here

Willem Dafoe’s outstanding career has seen him play roles as varied as Jesus Christ, Vincent van Gogh and a kind-hearted motel manager in The Florida Project. Now, in Kent Jones’s stylish New York-set intergenerational drama Late Fame, he shines as a forgotten poet turned postal worker who is rediscovered by a group of hipster students calling themselves the "Enthusiasm Society”. It’s a “softly satirical commentary on art, identity and contending outlooks on life”, says critic Hanna Flint. Read her review here.

Over the last few decades, the writer and chef Yotam Ottolenghi has spearheaded a revolution in home kitchens – and of course supermarkets, where sales of spices such as sumac and za’atar have rocketed. His 2018 book Simple has notched up over a million sales worldwide and this week … drum roll … the sequel, Simple Too, is published. Ottolenghi shares a recipe for his delicious Iranian-inspired meatballs. Get the details here.

Thanks for reading. Have a good weekend and we’ll see you again on Tuesday.

Sarah