Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - News Quiz 22nd October 2021

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

In the last of the current series, Andy Zaltzman and the panel take on the week's headlines.Ayesha Hazarika, Matt Winning, Geoff Norcott and Elis James join Andy in 'convivial, fraternal spirit' to look take a close look at COP26, and whether Brian Cox is right about earth's extinction leaving the galaxy bereft of meaning. They also discuss Southend's newly-minted city status, online anonymity and Sajid Javid's winter plan.The chair's script is written by Andy Zaltzman, with additional material by Alice Fraser, Mike Shephard, Hannah Platt and Rajiv Karia.Producer: Gwyn Rhys Davies Production Co-ordinator: Katie Baum Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Production.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Before we start, a warning that if you are listening to this episode of the News Quiz 100 years from now, it may contain things with which you are almost certainly unfamiliar. These may include ice caps, winter, civilised debate, walruses, hope, central heating, radio and laughter. is hope, central heating, radio and laughter. That's that. That's the kind of sound people make when they are seeing that the lighter side of it exists. OK, you wouldn't get it.

Hello to those of us listening in the presence and welcome to the News Quiz. I am Andy Zaltzman. Welcome to the first News Quiz since the BBC unveiled its new logo. Yes. Did any of you notice the difference? No. We will also be using the new BBC audio branding

that came with it on the News Quiz, or as I should now call it, the News Quiz. Almost exactly the same, but crucially, slightly more modern. Someone said it's more modern, so it must be what could be more modern than that. And just looking at our audience figures in the crucial 0 to 25 age group, we are up by 12,000% since the start of this sentence.

Amazing what these little changes can do to your audience demographic. Our teams this week, we have Team Plan B against Team Plan Not To Be. On Team Plan B, we have... CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And on Team Plan Not To Be, Geoff Norcot and comedian and professional climate researcher,

Matt Winning. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And we will go for our first question to Matt and Jeff on Team Plan Not To Be. Why might people be saying, no, that's not a fair cop? Wouldn't it be very in keeping with the standard of debate if me, not an environmental expert, just presumed to go first? I think I've got this one, Matt, actually. Yeah, we're talking about crucial climate talks that are coming up in Glasgow in

basically just over a week's time. I mean, I can't think of anywhere better in the world to hold talks than Glasgow. You know, Glasgow's a fun place to be. I think it's pretty good. I'm there myself as like an official observer for the first week of the talks. My idea is basically that if things do get a bit tense, I just take everyone out for

a night out in Glasgow. We're going to the Horseshoe Bar, we're doing karaoke, Biden's there, all the big ones are there, we get a hag of supper at the Blue Lagoon, then we get into a fight outside Central Station. Everybody's bonded for life.

We sort stuff out that way. Good bit of Scottish diplomacy, as I believe it's known. Exactly. And what a better place than Scotland to host stuff, because Scotland is, you know, weeding away with renewable energy. Scotland in 2019, for instance, had enough wind power to power two Scotland's, and nobody needs

two Scotland's. If we had two, you could have a referendum. One could stay and one could leave. Don't everybody do that? Boris is setting some fairly optimistic targets, right? We love a target. I think if I was a Prime Minister, given the average time that Prime Ministers are in power,

I'd set loads of targets because you're never going to be around for them, are you? Just go, oh, in 2030, yeah, we'll be carbon neutral. We'll have eradicated male impotence and we'll have reduced the amount of time you have to wait for a toasted panini. Britain will be a much better place. Whereas I'll be working for a hedge fund.

I mean, you have actually hit the nail on the head there as 100%, right? So the UK as a whole have got a net zero target for 2050 to be net zero. Scotland's got a net zero target of 2045, because if there's one thing Scotland likes to do, it's to get it right up the English. 2050 seems like such a long way away, and then on Christmas Day I look out of my window

and I'll see my neighbour's sort of sunflower blossoming. And I think, no, we actually have to do something about this. This is... Something must be done. I get confused by it because I like coffee and the coffee beans I'm using at the moment, on the packet it says, feel good, this is a carbon negative product. They are from Burundi.

How? Unless they're walking them over. In which case, promises about freshness made to me have not been kept. The UK is doing pretty well. You know, people always say, oh, we're only 1% of global emissions. But we are responsible for about 5% of all warming that's happened in the past. So, you know, our responsibility is like five times larger than what we talk about. If any of you are unfamiliar with the terminology that Matt's using about Britain being responsible for warming,

let me put it in terms from Boris Johnson that you might understand. We have knitted a fatal tea cosy. It's much more understandable, isn't it? I do think it's really interesting, some of the things that Boris Johnson has been saying this week. You mentioned his kind of tea cosy comments, but his actual sort of strategy about dealing with the environment has got more holes than a doily, you know.

It's like they're still planning to build loads of roads, they're still planning to do airport expansion. And the big announcement this week has been this stuff about heat pumps. And heat pumps are meant to extract the warmth from the air and the ground and the water. And I love that they're announcing this before a conference in Glasgow. With an ambient temperature of about minus 10,

and that's just if you're very lucky in the summer. And so you've got these vouchers, these government vouchers, you get a grant for £5,000, but they're only giving 90,000 grants. And there are 25 million homes that need them. So basically, this is the equivalent of net zero meets Squid Game. One of the main standards that we have for super-efficient buildings where you don't need any heating or cooling

is a thing called the passive house concept, where it's basically like it's so efficient that you don't need any heating or cooling is a thing called the passive house concept where it's basically like it's so efficient that you don't need anything and someone online actually calculated how many cats you would need to heat your home just by being in your house and it was uh 17.35 cats i think you would need 18 if you were going to do it. And you'd only ever be boiling the kettle for one person if you had that many cats. That's another... In terms of what we can do as individuals, Matt,

I mean, you can feel slightly helpless. It's like trying to stop a herd of rampaging buffaloes by holding up a stop-go sign. I mean mean it's nice to feel you're doing your bit situation slightly beyond our controls i mean what else can we do as individuals basically you need to do all of your recycling for about five years is the same as one return flight to new york um in terms of the emissions so i think making sure you understand what are the big things in your life that you have control over versus what things are, you know, like recycling, I really don't care. But people always think

because I'm an environmentalist that I really like recycling. You know, my wife's always like, what should I do with it? You know, this, and I'm like, just throw away. Is this just your excuse to not do Bindi? Yeah, pretty much. What they've failed to take into account is that when your boiler breaks, that is when you make your least rational decisions.

Because when your boiler has broken, it's like, listen, I need a shower. I had a strip wash in a sink in McDonald's before work. I don't care how expensive this boiler is or how environmentally friendly or unfriendly it may be, but I need to have a bath. If I could take advantage of Matt being on the panel, especially with the heat pump issue,

Matt, they're expensive. How do I avoid buying the Betamax of heat pumps? Because historically, in terms of new tech, I have got it wrong. Basically, I think put a date in your diary when your boiler might be coming to the end of its life and be like, right, this is, whatever it is, five years' time, it's happening.

But there's always this phrase of, like, they're going to come round and rip out your boilers. Like, nobody's ever ripped a boiler out of somebody's house. I mean, the other thing that has been really interesting is all these leaked documents that have come out about all the last-minute lobbying that all the different governments have been doing. And Saudi Arabia, I love this, it's a great one from Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia thinks pesky freezes like urgent and accelerated mitigation action at all scales should just be removed, because why not? And Australia is all like, listen, let's not jump to any conclusions about coal-fired power stations. Of course, Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest oil producers. Australia is one of the biggest coal exporters. I just love how everyone's really pulling together and everyone's really on the same page. And I kind of get the impression that going to COP is going to be a bit like turning up at a dinner party hosted by a couple who are a week away from announcing their divorce. Saudi Arabia, Australia, others are saying basically what they're trying to do is take out any references in the, you know, the IPC's report to the fact that we have to stop using fossil fuels to solve climate change, which is a bit like, I don't know, writing a report about obesity and never mentioning food in it.

It's IPCC gone mad, I'm telling you. I do think that this could be the turning point when the world finally agrees to agree that an agreement must be reached to agree on thinking about actually doing some stuff. Well, I think the fact that it's COP26, we've had 25 COPs, I've enjoyed all of them. They've had some brilliant undercards, some brilliant events. But it would be great to see some progress.

Which one, Matt, was the Paris Accord? Which COP was that? So that was COP21, which was... Oh, that was a great COP, wasn't it, Matt? That was a COP. And COP1 was when Noah decided to build an ark. Boris Johnson's been trying to highlight the amount of money people could make from green technology.

Green is good, he said this week in a tweak on the old proverb, greed is good, from the Gospel according to Gordon Gekko, the fictional Wall Street hyper-capitalist. He's mad. He said last week, and he's done this a few times, he said that he wants the UK to become the Qatar of hydrogen, and he said previously that he wants us to become the Saudi Arabia of

wind power. Now, it did get me thinking like, what is Saudi Arabia the UK of? And I thought perhaps not drinking. It's just the only way it's going to work, by saying, well, things are quite bad, but you can still make

shitloads of money out of it if you put your mind to it. Given what we've learned about ourselves over the last year and a half, can't we just claim that there's a shortage of heat pumps? If we say that, everyone's going to go into it. Guaranteed. Let's try and put this in proper perspective. Another question, this can go to both teams.

It's a multiple-choice question. Why is professional science whiz Brian Cox particularly worried about the potential demise of planet Earth? Is it A, because he really wants to learn the trombone and hasn't got time at the moment because there's too much science going on? Is it B, he's worried about the end of the world because

he is immortal but also doesn't like moving house? Or is it C, because it could eliminate meaning in our galaxy forever? It's the final one. Correct, yes. He's worried about the elimination of meaning.

Are you worried about that, Alice? I think it's putting an awful lot of pressure on me. I had no idea until this morning that I was providing meaning for the galaxy. So, yeah, because we are the intelligent life forms in this galaxy, we are providing meaning for it. I heard him on Radio 4 quite recently, and he was making a point that when we assume that there are alien life forms out there, that there are alien life forms out there. We assume that they're really, really clever and they've got amazing technology

and they can fly intergalactically and they can travel through time. And he said, they might just be really thick. LAUGHTER Very good to me. Ellis, they may well be saying the very same about us. Yeah. LAUGHTER

Brian Cox also said these amazing words. well be saying the very same about us. Yeah. Brian Cox also said these amazing words. The more I learn about biology, the more astonished I am we exist at all. You're right, Brian. It's disgusting, isn't it? All those bits going...

Yes, this is the COP26 summit. The world's leaders are set for another lock-in at last chance saloon. It starts on the 31st of October, which is also Halloween, setting this conference up as the ultimate game of trick or treat. Fork out, all bad things will happen. The costumes can be very interesting. It can be interesting to see politicians dressing up as a thing that terrifies

them the most. I mean, how do you dress up as accountability, scrutiny, or being forgotten about by history? With the summit just around the corner, leaked documents, are there any other kind of documents anymore, have revealed that countries including Japan, Australia, and the Kingdom of Newcastle, Saudi Arabia,

always getting them mixed up these days, have been pushing back against UN recommendations on things like fossil fuel use, the need for an inhabitable planet, which left back to buy in the transfer window, and whether or not to let Earth step back and let another planet do some of the donkey work for once. So the scores are 14 to Team Plan Not To Be and 2 to Team Plan B. Moving on, this goes to Team Plan B to Ayesha

and Ellis Keir Starmer this week told Boris Johnson to clean out the cesspit. But what exactly was he referring to? He was referring to social media, the way that politicians are treated, also about the sort of culture of political discourse. And this, of course, follows the tragic killing of Sir David Amess. That is correct.

Has it led to kind of reflections on the tone and content of political discourse in the country as a whole and the now traditional calls for a kind of gentler politics? Is there any chance that this may emerge this time, Aisha? No, absolutely not. I'm sorry. So everybody, like everyone always goes on about, you know, how to have a kinder politics. And of course, there's a lot of discussion now about social media

and about banning anonymous accounts. And actually, Marc Francois, the Conservative MP, is leading the charge about this, which I find brilliant because the best thing that Marc Francois ever achieved was a parody account called Je ne parle pas Marc Francois. I actually interviewed Marc Francois at The Real One, and he said he wanted to do a commercial deal with the fake one who was more popular than him at The Real One, and he said he wanted to do a commercial deal with the fake one, who was more popular than him as The Real One. And the fake one politely declined.

But listen, not all abuse is anonymous. I get a lot of abuse on social media. You know, I'm a woman of colour, I'm a woman on the left, I'm pretty political. I got this a while ago. It was very hurtful. It said, why don't you stop slagging off Jeremy Corbyn so much I'm a woman of colour, I'm a woman on the left, I'm pretty political. I got this a while ago. It was very hurtful. It said, why don't you stop slagging off Jeremy Corbyn so much and spend more time down the gym? And that was from my mum.

So how do we go about curbing hate? Let's get our panel's views on this. Now, some have suggested curbs on online anonymity, which, of course, can be a protection for people in danger to speak freely and seek help, but it can also be a cloak of irresponsibility and unaccountability for myopic bile-spewing numbskulls. So to enable our panellists to say what they really think

in their heart of hearts, we will now give them an anonymising social media handle just for this part of the show, so they can speak freely and honestly. Ellis, you become at Ivor Allchurch 58. Tribute to your favourite Welsh footballer of all time. He was involved in some of the glory days of Welsh football, wasn't he?

I think two of the four glory days of Welsh football in fact. Geoff, you are at Much Needed Political Balance. Aisha is a former Labour Party advisor. You are at where did it all go wrong 2003. Matt, you are Scottish and an environmental scientist. So you are at doomungery mcdoommunger face.

So speaking freely, what can we do to curb the scourge of online hate that is skewing our public discourse? So there's all this chat now about anonymous accounts in politics and, you know, that that would cut down abuse. But I don't know if that is really the case. Would you really want to be somebody who publicly stood up and, for example, slagged off Muslim women and called them letter boxes, maybe made fun of black people or gay people. I mean, you know, who's the kind of person that would actually do that, like actually with their real name? Can you imagine? It's difficult. I think we need to look to the past, you know, the glory days of the past of anonymity instead of, you know, nowadays it's like online death threats, whereas in the past,

it was just, you know, a sad poem about the war with a non at the end of it. It was just, you know, a sad poem about the war with Anon at the end of it. I mean, I do have sympathy for the idea about, you know, it's important to sort of provide that cloak for whistleblowers. But I have to say, in terms of most of the abuse I see online, I read it, I think, I don't think these people are involved in the Panama Papers. I've got to be honest. You know, the kind of things that they're saying.

I don't think that their main objective of being online is to shine a light on top level high ranking political inequalities is is this a sort of you know a kind of threat to the entire sort of future conduct of our politics in this country do you think or is it a phase that we're going through as we sort of learn to assimilate these kind of new technologies into an old democracy? Well, I think we've always, like, we've never had a culture of deference to politicians or authority, and that's a really important part of British democracy. We've always had this healthy disrespect for particularly our politicians, things like the show we're on now. But I do think what we have seen is you can move from like healthy disrespect through to contempt through to kind of unhinged hatred and I think that is quite a slippery slope now and it's very um I've had gigs like that I think it's very normalized now so I think I suppose

we all have a bit of responsibility and also it is very easy to constantly just lag off MPs but it does show you that they are actually on the front line a lot of the. And also, it is very easy to constantly just lag off MPs. But it does show you that they are actually on the front line a lot of the time. We often say the lazy trope is that, oh, MPs are all out of touch. But actually, the work that Sir David Amess does and lots of other constituency MPs, they are actually probably more on the front line and, you know, having to actually deal with real people than us on the news quiz. Perish the thought. In tribute to Sir David Amess, it has been announced that Southend is to become a city, something he campaigned for throughout his political career. But can you tell me exactly what defines a city these days? Anyone?

I think it's more than two branches of Pret-a-Monger. Is it that when you find out the price of a pint, you just go, Jesus. Is it that when you find out the price of a pint, you just go, Jesus. I grew up near St David's, which is the UK's smallest city. Population, 1,600. But because it's a city, it is in the same bracket as New York and Tokyo,

which I find so funny. You know when they have those clocks, Ellis, where it says New York, London, Paris, St David's? Anyway, since there's some confusion of exactly what constitutes a city, what it does need to have nowadays is an urban music scene or proof that the place was built on rock and roll. I'm going to give our panellists a quiz. Are the following places a city or not a city? We'll start with you, Matt.

Membery. Is Membery a city or not a city? No. No, it's a motorway service station. Very different. Geoff, Rochester. City or not a city? I'd go town. Well, yeah, it was sacked as a city in 1998, in fact. It had been a city for several hundred years.

It's got a great big cathedral and a natty old castle. Charles Dickens, a.k.a. Chuck D, loved it, but it was fired from the city list due to an administrative error in the late 90s, which he didn't find out before a year. Ayesha, Stirling. Is that a city or not a city? That is a city. No, I spelt it with an E. It's a currency.

Ellis, Bangor. That is a city. No, it's a sausage. The scores are now six to Team Plan B, 16 to Team Plan not to be. Moving on, this can go to Matt and Geoff, who, according to Sajid Javid, should set an example in the battle against Covid.

Tory MPs? Well, MPs, yes, MPs in general, which is extraordinary. Sajid Javid did say at this press conference that MPs should lead by example and wear these masks in the chamber. But then Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is leader of the House of Commons, said that that advice doesn't apply to Tory MPs because we on this side of the House know each other and have a convivial fraternal spirit. I mean, of course,

I mean, the virus is notoriously, like, it will not go anywhere near Freemasons, will it? So of course, like... Javid said, don't worry, there is no plan C, as if that is a good thing. Like,

I want a plan C, in case plan A and B don't work. You, I want a Plan C in case Plan A and B don't work. You don't want to riff Plan C, do you? Because by the time you've got to Plan C, you're in trouble. I don't think other governments boast about being unprepared.

Don't worry, we haven't planned for it. We won't plan for it. I've got Plan Cs for quite basic things, like putting the bins out. Plan A, a bin bag. Plan B, all right, no bin bags, a carrier bag.

Plan C, use a bag for life. Plan D, a pillowcase. Plan E, the stocking I was going to put the Christmas presents in for the kids. Plan F, roll up an old T-shirt. Plan G, I will cut my hands and I will do multiple trips. You say the government has proudly claimed that Plan C doesn't exist. It's also said there's absolutely no plan to use Plan B. And Plan A involves a brutal programme of occasionally advising people

to open the odd window and wear face coverings if they want. So it's not so much a case of do as we say, not do as we do. It's more a case of could you maybe do as we sort of sometimes say if you want or don't or do as we don't do if you can't be asked to do as we sort of say. Are we all on the same page? Hands in. Go Team GB. Plan B did sound suspiciously like Plan A, didn't it? When they said it'll be lockdowns and face masks.

That's a lot like Plan A. Plan A, but actually doing it. That's the key difference. But also the other thing that really worried me about just some of the language was that there's a new mutation of the Delta variant, which is under close watch, but the government says it's unlikely to take off in a big way. Look, they said that about Tiger King, right?

Like, I just think we've got to be very worried. i find it very hard to keep up with all these new sort of versions reinventions i guess of covid19 it feels like it's being a bowie fan or something like that you know covid's going to be doing a brian eno collaboration very soon they said there's this new delta mutation and then you have this thing where you read a news story and then you're speaking with just relatives about spike proteins. You're going, I didn't ever want to speak about this sort of thing with my relatives. It's like backstops, customs unions. I just, I mean, I would say at this point,

I still don't know the difference between a PCR and a lateral flow test. They're sort of like the COVID equivalent of stalagmites and stalactites. But this whole thing will end and I will never know the difference. Yes, as the government wheels out its now traditional fingers-crossed winter Covid strategy, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said that MPs, of all people, should finally set an example to the public in the battle against the tediously tenacious virus. Keir Starmer, the acting leader of the Labour Party, whilst Marcus Rashford is busy with the football season, has called for...

LAUGHTER ..called for 500,000 booster jabs a day to stop the wall of defence crumbling. For people who don't qualify for the booster jabs, there will be free booster comments sent by text message from the NHS, including, You look great, well done on the thing you just did, and chin up, Christmas is Overrated Anyway.

That brings us to the end of this edition of the News Quiz and indeed this series of the News Quiz. Our winners are Matt Winning and Geoff Norcott on Team Plan Not To Be. Team Plan B, Go Home, Empty Handed and Empty Hearted, Ayesha Hazarika and Ellis James. Before we go, just some breaking news reaching us in its strongest move yet to reduce the spread of COVID as winter approaches. The government has just announced the commissioning

of a new nursery rhyme concerning the disease. They're hoping it'll work like it did with the plague with the ringer ringer roses. Thank you very much for listening to this series and indeed this entire year of the news quiz. The overall result for 2021 just coming in, no score draw. We will be back in 2022

for hopefully a slightly better year from planet Earth. I've been Andy Zaltzman, goodbye. Taking part in the News Quiz where Ayesha Hazarika, Matt Winning, Geoff Norcott and Ellis Jones. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman and additional material was written by Thank you.