Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - Best Of The News Quiz 2025

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

A satirical smorgasbord of The News Quiz's best bits of the year, covering local elections, flag fever, Starmer's struggles, Trump's travails, and a very special meeting between King Charles and Pope Leo XIV. Written and presented by Andy Zaltzman.Producer: Rajiv Karia Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Production Coordinator: Giulia Lopes MazzuA BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4 An Eco-Audio certified Production

Hello, I am Andy Zaltzman, and this is the official News Quiz Review of the Year for 2025, a mind-waping, retina-burning, history-shreading, predictably chaotic 12 months of not particularly merry mayhem. Fair to say that 2025 did not score too highly out of 10 in the calm, global happiness and mutually respectful dialogue categories, but it racked up some serious numbers in political disenchantment, existential panic about AI taking over the planet, worldwide use of the phrase, he's done what now? The news quiz year began with one of British politics most frequently overbaked hot potatoes,

as the organisation that has to cure our ills was itself ill, still. And our first question can go to Paul and Angela Prime Minister Kirstearner this week announced a new partnership between what and what? Is it Angela Barnes and Paul Sin? This is his plan to basically save the NHS from privatisation by using the private sector?

Yes. Clever that, isn't it? It's very clever. He's laid out his plan for the NHS. That's what's happened to cut waiting times. It was quite interesting. He said he wants more treatment outside of hospitals. Presumably still in a medical setting, though. I don't think we're quite at a stage of getting appendectomy

at Claire's accessories. Well, as you hope you know by now, I have skin in this game on two fronts. Number one, I used to be a doctor, and it's estimated I save the lives of over 5,000 patients by giving up a career in medicine. I see my dreams of comedy. But secondly, I've not been a well man.

I mean, I've already had Parkinson's disease, but since I was last doing the news quiz, I've had two heart attacks, two angiograms, two MRIs, ultrasounds, seven x-rays, a cardiac bypass operation, and let me tell you now you have not lived that you've been sat in a bed on a ward in St George's Hospital and heard a man ring his wife and her on speakerphone,

and you hear her bellow at the top of a voice across the ward, odd thing is he's the chaser I've always hated. The other way back across the Atlantic now, and in February, just over six months into their government, there were more suggestions that Labour had hit the ground, stumbling, slipped on their own pack lunch, which they dropped whilst trying to fight off a non-existent bear, ruptured a cruciate ligament,

and fallen into a wheelbarrow, which then plummeted down a bobsled run, because Nigel Farage's Reform UK topped a national opinion poll for the first time. I mean, reform, it's understandable why they do... I don't know what their policies are, but when you've got like, the party that were in 14 years, no one likes them.

The other lot come in, and there was some hope, and then that's been dashed. But the problem is reform. They're sort of like UKIP, if you feed them after midnight, aren't they? They're manifestos, the last thing we really know anything about, right? And it was kind of like right-wing fantasy football, wasn't it? They just threw every single right-wing idea,

they put Messi, Renaldo. probably should be doing cricket references. They put Cowder and Gower in the same team. But their agenda, no one knows what it is, right? It's a sentiment at this point, but they do have Farage, right? And for all people might not like about him, he could talk. The problem is, he doesn't have anything to sell. Sort of like a doctor who is all diagnosis and no prescription.

He'll tell you, you go, well, you've got a cyst on your arm, your legs hanging off, and your head is broken. They go, what do I do about it? Well, it's a farce. You go, yeah, I get it, yeah. It's a farce, it's a disgrace, it's calamitous. What he really is, is he's a phesaurus. Problems with maths teaching over the centuries

have led to us having an economy where the sums simply don't add up, and the government was being told to find more ways of spending more of the no money that's available on defence, when we haven't even used our nukes yet. How does that work out? Following the Trumpian onslaught, Kea Starmer has been encouraged to do what faster and further?

Is it doing a nude calendar? It's defence spending, though, isn't it? We do need to sort of dramatically increase our defence spending, but I don't know if we're going to increase it enough to make up for not being the size of America, so I don't know if that's necessarily going to help as much. Also, we need to have, you know, more people in the army. We've only got about six people in the army.

And we increase it to 12. We're still in quite a lot of trouble. I'm at that point where I'd probably sign up. Yeah? Yeah. I think if we do end up going to war, I think it's foolish and foolhardy to send our young and hopeful and ambitious. I think we should send people like me who are really menopausal.

And I'll be honest, up for a fight. I mean, I know my limits. I will need a leg over the wall, but once I'm there, I'll be like a Jack Russell. I won't let it go. Yes, indeed, throughout the year, we've seen the rather unsettling spectacle of the world's news pundits earnestly discussing how other people, political leaders should deal with the President of America as if he is some kind of cross between a potentially lethal zoo animal, an alien who could destroy the world and an overindulged

toddler. And the DNA tests that we've had done that have just come back on him suggest that he is all three of those things. In February, it was Keir Stama's turn to face up to the challenge. Keir Stama, the Prime Minister this week, chose for whatever reason, not to come to Yorkshire to speak to one of the many great people from this county. But where, out of all the other places in the world, did he go instead? And who is he meeting right now as we record? I believe he's gone to meet Donald Trump

in the USA. And everybody's been on Tent Hooks, will they get on? And I think they should, because they've both spent a lot of time in courtrooms. And obviously, Keir Starmer, being a barrister, would have had to wear a ridiculous wig. I think, in fairness to Keir's armor, it is a difficult

position he's in, because he's got to explain what's going on to someone who's got very very little knowledge of British politics. But then he does practice every week with Kemi Baden up. I suppose it's the killing with kindness route, in it really? I mean, I sort of quite liked Macron. I watched Macron the way he dealt with him. I don't know if you noticed.

He'll let him sort of speak. And then he did that thing that my wife does quite a lot when we're out. You know, when you're out and you're having a dinner party and you're thinking I'm doing really well. And the feedback's going to be good in the car on the way home. And then her hand will come out. I'll say, and it'll go down my shoulder and I'm such a moron.

I think it's affectionate. It goes out and then she'll squeeze. He did the squeeze on Donald. It did the squeeze as if to say, come on, pal. We've all had a drink. And then what my wife will do is just lean in and she'll just go,

I think that's you done now. We also found ourselves wondering exactly what national resources are still actually national resources. I think currently on the list is Prince George, but he might be sold off to Saudi Arabia before the next budget,

the gaps between the stones at Stonehenge and a bench somewhere. Outside works up, I think. What is left? Is there anything that's left? Nothing left. I mean, does any of this is a surprise? Who could have foreseen this happening us selling off our biggest commodities to communist China and then? I mean, some would say,

sort of deliberately trying to turn off the furnaces so that we'd have to buy their cheaper Chinese steel because the arse has fallen out of the Chinese property markets. I mean, I'm just speculating, but it just seemed like that's what was sort of on their minds, doesn't it? Apparently, if you turn these blast furnaces into ones that can create steel in a more environmentally friendly way, this is a good thing, but they take 80% less labour,

so you have to make redundancies. Now, on the surface, you can think that's a terrible thing. People won't work, but people can be retrained, they can get other jobs. can't breathe nitrogen. So if any of our listeners do own a blast furnace, please. And also this is the kind of defeatist attitude saying that we can't breathe nitrogen.

Well, it's holding this country back. We can dry. I mean, there's quite a lot of methane too that comes out of this furnace. I haven't discovered that I'm recently lactose intolerant. I can tell you, actually, you can tolerate quite a high level of methane. It's for years. For years.

I mean, the budgie's dead, but they're like... So brighton to be tolerant of everything except for lactose. April was also local election season, and I do hope you've all calmed down since then. Traditionally, for the sitting government, local elections function as something between a sad haddock in the face and a medieval mace to the groin, and Labour were looking worriedly at both the fishmonger

and the mounted knight in shining armour with a purposeful look in his eye. How excited are you by the local elections? Yeah, I'm absolutely giddy. Yeah, fizzing. Fizzing. Reform is saying they're going to clean up. Hard to tell with reform, whether they mean get lots of votes or ethnically. Well, I think it's difficult, given that when you look at what Labour are doing,

you know, not scrapping the two-child benefit, taking away disability benefits from people, you might look at it and think, well, what's the difference between these two parties anyway? Which I probably think is the reason why people are going, well, why not give the other guys a chance? It's just a shame who the other guys happen to be. It's interesting that they look at it and go There's no difference between these two guys

I want an even meaner part Yeah but you say that It's like reforms the only choice If you don't want the two big two Let's not forget Somewhere out there, Ed Davies on a bounty castle Yeah It is like the Lib Dems wished on a cursed monkey paw

That we'd go back to three-party politics And it's sort of curled And Najafranj sat bolt upright in bed somewhere I love every time I see Ed Davy on the news going down a log flume or just having the time of his life, I just have this image of just a monster-raving loony party candidate in their house just throwing their enormous clown shoe at the television. Whilst the Labour government may have been metaphorically fumbling around in darkness,

hoping for power to work, waiting for a shaft of light, Spain and Portugal took it one step further. For all of this week's starter questions, the answer could be about Trump but isn't. So the first of our not Trump starter questions This can go to Ed and Lucy Where in the world this week Has found itself fumbling around

In an enveloping darkness With the pillars of civilisation crumbling Almost taken backwards to a bygone age Leaving people desperately wondering How on earth what's happened has happened About Trump? What is that about? If it's not Trump then I think it's Spain Where they had a power outage

And no one could do any work for a whole afternoon Which luckily had no impact on the other people I think it wasn't a cyber attack. My guess is the Spanish energy minister simply pulled out the plug marked Portugal so he could charge his phone. People were stuck in lifts, the trains weren't working,

blackouts. Obviously in a Spanish blackout, very important to keep a pin between your teeth in case a football official tries to kiss you. It's difficult to report on something like this without being really boring. You read about it in the paper and it was a massive power coach.

Yeah, there was a massive power coach. Yeah, some people were stuck in lifts. Yep, that's what happens in a massive power cut, all right? Some people reported, ATMs weren't working. Yep, that tracks. That might be the sort of thing. Some hospitals had to shut some stuff, but other hospitals had power generators.

Yes, it's very much sounds like a power cut. With the year muddling onwards through its troublesome middle months, Labour found itself at odds with an old enemy, and I mean literally old. The problem is, you know, Labor have taken on people whose very names have positive connotations, right? Farmers, people like farmers. Pensioners. People like pensioners. But they're minted pensioners.

Because the problem is, I say pensioner, and even now I'm thinking of some little old deer with that trolley they push in front of them. But what's in the trolley, Eiffle? Gold. Gold and 90% of the cod stocks from the North Sea. You're the reason, therefore, that we're all in Pollock is you're off on another Viking River cruise. So this is what Labor should have done, built up the hatred, you see? But it felt like what happened was they just announced the winter fuel policy, and the next thing I saw

was Angela Rainer doing shots with David Gouethe. It was quite a leap. I'm really confused. No, I can't tell if you were for or against labour policies at this point in time. I think when I come on shows like this, I'm the one defending them. That's how right-wing Labor had got.

It's very weird, because the Labor campaign as getting in real trouble on the doorstep. They say the cuts are only going to affect wealthier pensioners. And I think they've made a real miscalculation there because in this country you can say what you want about immigrants or trans people or disabled people. But if you come for pensioners who've got a little bit of money put by,

they will tear you apart like a Jack Russell eating a pasty. Those people have served our country. They haven't fought in a war, but don't tell them that. In this week of all weeks It does make me think of a generation That absolutely did fight in a war And my granddad You know, like it was just normal bloke

And he ended up holding a gun Which he never should have done But you know, did he moan about it? No He had the common decency to become a lifelong alcoholic And I respect that Well, we're sitting here really awkwardly Because your granddad was Italian

And mine was German Yeah And mine was Jewish So that was... But That just shows how far we've moved on in the last 80 years. Back across now to our estranged former imperial partners in America. Donald Trump was trying to deal with the slightly awkward Fourth and a half

Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states, you can break some of the laws all of the time, all of the laws, some of the time, but you can't break all of the laws all of the time. Which of President Donald Trump's actions has been ruled and or deruled illegal by judges this week, apart from all the other things he's already been convicted for. Yes. It is everything, isn't it?

Yeah, how much time do you have? Deportations. Tariffs. Tariffs. Tariffs, specifically this week, yes. His favourite word? Yeah. He's terrible... The thing about Trump.

That's very neatly summarised there. He thinks if you just say you've done it that it's happened. And life doesn't work like that. So it turns out he doesn't have the power to... order tariffs, that's with Congress. Right. In the same way that he doesn't really understand how Ukraine and Russia works, but he says, we've done a deal and they haven't.

But in his head he has. And, you know, he thinks he will solve global warming by doing a deal with this son. I've got the words here. He said, judges must understand the nation is not here for them. They're here for the nation. I shall remove from office those judges who don't understand the demands of the hour.

Oh no, that's Hitler. Spring turned to summer, which seemed a very good time to take a summer hiatus, which we did. When we returned in September, the under-pressure Labour Party was coming under-increasing pressure as the pressure grew on under-pressure deputy leader

Angela Rainer over something or other that should have been done or not done in some other way. Lucy and Coco, you can take the first question. Now, for this question, for the sake of impartialism, I'm going to use source material from all sides of the political

swamp. So here we go. Which prominence politician this week made an honest mistake in an act of shameless hypocrisy relating to a complex technical matter of tax law that showed typical out-of-touch politicians' arrogance resulting from a series of difficult personal family issues that should prompt immediate resignation, if not some kind of public walk of shame through every city in the land, having dealt with a problem swiftly and openly, bringing immutable, unclensible shame upon the government that ought to blow over quite quickly if we're being objective about it, and will rightly surely bring down the Starma regime by, oh, I reckon. the end of this show, if not already.

Well, I think this is Angela Rainer, who apparently paid the wrong amount of tax on her flat. She said she consulted three people before buying the flat. Those people were Jimmy Carr, Gary Barlow, and the ghost of Ken Dodd. So, yeah, we don't know at the time of recording whether she is going or not, but it's the housing minister,

and she's messed up by in a house. This comes after their homelessness minister was accused of making people homeless. You're going to what next? The Chancellor of the Exchequer Owing five million pounds in tax to HMRC. Oh no, that was Nadineas a high. Yeah, so she's paid the wrong amount of tax. She says it was a genuine mistake.

She has referred herself to the government ethics advisor who said he couldn't help because the flat isn't in ethics. It's in eth ethics. I feel like I should explain then for younger listeners who might not be familiar with stamp duty in the olden days when I was a boy

if a man and woman loved each other very much they could get a mortgage and they could use that to buy a house whilst a house nobody knows because the secret of building them has been lost but basically depending on the cost of the house you might have to pay a tax called stamp duty to an ogre I think I'm not sure

Angela Rainer is probably my generation's John Prescott, the millennial John Prescott, the working class sidekick to a sociopathic prime minister. And I think that's very progressive. I think it's great that Britain has its first female John Prescott. Fantastic. But I don't think she has Prescott's jurg. You know, he had proper scandals.

He'd be out there driving two jags, punching someone, you know? Like fun, interesting scandals that you'd want to talk about on a topical, humorous show where you don't have to look at what stamp duty is. I think that's the problem with Labour today. Like, John Prescott, you may not have agreed with his politics, you might not have liked him, you might have liked him, whatever. You can't argue, the man was a top shagger.

He was an epic lad, he was a character. In 2001, if you'd seen a headline that said, John Prescott found naked in London Zoo, you'd go, which enclosure? Next up, England flags, a terse but largely accurate description of the last few decades. Oh, sorry, I hadn't seen the rest of the sentence. England flags were making the news as autumn toddled along, and as the nation continued to struggle with the two conflicting statements,

this country wants immigrants to move here, and this country does not want immigrants to move here. As always, it was proving hard to find a compromise point somewhere in the middle. This can go to Andrew and Alistair. It's going to end in 2029, said Kirste Starmer about what this week? There won't be migrants in hotels. Yes, correct. They will be in restaurants.

They will then fully be on holiday. They'll have got their bags in, they'll have settled in, they'll have charged their devices, and they'll just be on holiday. That's the plan. And then phase two is the water, parks. But the point is that there's been migrants in hotels. Some of them

are quite frankly not very desirable people. And the people who live near the hotel were expecting tourists or business travellers to be in the hotel. This has created disappointment. Verging on anger. Some people have taken the streets

and there's been some civil disputes. But mostly, people have decided to live like Northern Ireland. and just put flags everywhere. It's the exact opposite of how we thought the Troubles was going to play out. We thought Northern Ireland would become like the rest of the world. But instead, you've become like Northern Ireland.

But it's all happening in Ireland as well. There's an enormous amount of flags going up around Council of States in Dublin. I was only home, working back home. I'm at Dublin, I'm from the north side, the working glass side of the city. There was somebody at home with this massive dry colour, the Irish flag, outside their house,

but they had hung it the wrong way around, which I don't want to notice, but the flag of the Irish Republic the other way around is the flag of the Ivory Coast. You know what I mean? When you're a comedian, you're always like,

I just couldn't help myself. I knocked on his door. I shouldn't have done, I'm a busy body and a comedian, and so I knocked on this dude's door just to see what would happen. The guy answers the door, and he was from the Ivory Coast. As sure as night follows day, and as sure as crushing disappointment follows start of an Ashes series away from home in Australia, October sneaked in after September emotionally resigned as a month.

With polling suggesting her party remained about as popular with the public as a shark at a vegan swimming gala, Kemi Badenock delivered her first party conference speech since the Conservative members voted her their least unelectable candidate at 2024. thrilling leadership election. Kemi Badenock at the Conservative Conference said that the delegates at the conference could feel the what? The invisible hand of the free market. Feel the temptation to defect to reform.

I watched too much of that conference than he's acceptable. Because he started off bad, didn't it? He had the energy of a speed awareness course. Anyone going to have another stab at the correct answer? They could feel the what? It will just be something about the pure sexual energy in the room. Closer. It was the buzz.

They can feel the buzz. Everyone is telling me about the buzz they can feel. Is that something in someone's handbag that's gone off? That they shouldn't have at a Tory conference. Mind you, though, yeah, break up the day, wasn't it? Kevin Beggen also pledged that the Conservative Party would do what to help people afford what? Is it tax the mega rich

to help people afford the basic things that they need? Incorrect. Is it pray for a miracle to help people afford a Tory government again? They would remove stamp duty to help people afford houses.

I just sort of think if scrapping stamp duty was such a good idea, why did they not do it when they were in power? And just think of all the things we could have saved loads of money, loads of lawyers' fees,

Angela Rainer's career. like, no... She did a little tease with the stamp duty thing as well in the speech, where she said, she's looked at all the figures and was wondering if she'd be able to reduce stamp duty and she went, and I've decided we can't. We're gonna abolish it!

And everyone's like, wah! Everyone's jumping up, it's euphoric because if ever there's a room full of people who are desperate to get on the property ladder, um... Irreconcilable divisions were all the rage by this stage of the year. King Charles, the second longest reigning monarch we've had since the 1950s, of course, is no stranger to the rift.

But in October he took a few days off from family squabledges that go back decades in order to try to heal a schism that goes back half of a whole millennium. Charles and Leo the 14th, I mean, what do you think they should have been praying? What do you hope they were praying for in this historic meeting of churches? I like to think that the Pope prays for pretty much. mundane things on the day to day. Because if you were fully the Pope, like you'd worked up to becoming the Pope, and every night you prayed for world peace, and it didn't happen, you would start to think, well, this doesn't seem to work at all. And given I am the Pope, you'd think

it had work unless... And so, I'm the Pope. You'd think it'd work. Unless... And so, I'm the Pope. And so I'm reckon to play it safe, he just goes with, I hope Liverpool break their losing streak, and then 5-1 in Frankfurt, the Lord's with us. Probably also they're praying that Prince Andrew doesn't seek sanctuary in the Vatican. They wouldn't really be able to make up much of an excuse, right? Because the crime would fit in there, right? I'm Jewish, so this is fine. I'll do you one.

better, I'm Catholic, so it really is funny. Charles has always been kind of progressive on this, because he always said that he wanted to be the defender of faiths, not the defender of the faith. And in a post-Brexit world, I kind of think this is our way back into Europe. If the king

converts to Catholicism, I'm quite excited, frankly, because let's be honest, Anglicanism, it's had a good run, but it never really kicked in as a religion for me, you know? It's a bit like Paul McCartney's wings, It's fine, but...

What's it about? Cucumbar sandwiches, tombolas. When was the last time anybody caught a witch? Come on. Full Catholicism now. That would be so exciting. I'm not saying I grew up really sheltered, but I met my first Catholic at 13,

and that was the most racially diverse person I'd ever met. I grew up in Somerset in a very small house. And it was, if we all went Catholic now and we could do like spicy church, that would be so exciting. Spicy church is actually what my people call it. So there we are. Another year done. I don't know how we'll reflect on it in future, or indeed,

if we'll reflect on it in future, we probably won't have time, and reflection will be banned at some point in 2026 anyway for being bad for the soul and even worse for the economy. Under 975 years left in this millennium now, which might be enough time to pull things around and sort things out, but it is started to look like we are cutting it fine. Thank you to all our panellists and writers. in 2025. On now to

2006, which a little bird tells me is going to be a year of unremitting peace, harmony and happiness. Or it might have been telling me how much it loves eating insects. I don't speak bird. To find out if I was right and it was right, join us next week with the first news quiz of 2026. Until then, happy new year. The News Quiz Best of 2025 compilation was written and hosted by me, Andy Zaltzman.

The producer was Rajiv. Karia and it was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4. Hi, I'm Phil Wang, and this is a podcast to podcast trailer for a different podcast than this podcast that you've listened to or are going to listen to.

But nonetheless, I'm talking about another podcast that you should also definitely listen to. The podcast I'm talking about is Comedy of the Week, which takes choice episodes from BBC sitcoms, sketch shows, podcasts, and panel shows, including my own show unspeakable and puts them all into one podcast maybe I'll trail this podcast

on that podcast who's to say I'll do what I like listen to comedy of the week now on BBC sounds podcast