Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The Naked Week: Ep 3. Prisons, Syria, and Kemi's Catchphrase.

Episode Date: December 20, 2024

The team look at the week's news and, while trying understand how rebels took Syria so quickly, a military strategist helps us to take the Warwickshire stronghold of Nuneaton. Plus Rupert the Jorkiepoo helps solve the prison overcrowding crisis.From The Skewer’s Jon Holmes comes The Naked Week, a fresh way of dressing the week’s news in the altogether and parading it around for everyone to laugh at. Host Andrew Hunter Murray (No Such Thing As A Fish, QI Elf, Private Eye) and chief correspondent Amy Hoggart strip away the curtain and dive into not only the big stories, but also the way in which the news is packaged and presented.From award-winning writers and a crack team of contemporary satirists - and recorded in front of a live audience - The Naked Week delivers a topical news nude straight to your ears.Written by: Jon Holmes Katie Sayer Sarah Dempster Gareth Ceredig Jason Hazeley Adam Macqueen Louis MianPartial Nakedness: March Haynes Karl MinnsProduction Team: Laura Grimshaw, Tony Churnside, Jerry Peal, Katie Sayer, Phoebe Butler.Produced and Directed by Jon Holmes Executive Producer: Philip AbramsAn unusual production for BBC Radio 4

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. BBC Sounds Music radio podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Naked Week Radio 4's new topical comedy. Imagine question time if Fiona Bruce had been toppled by rebels. This week on the Naked Week, Nigel Farage has been working on his impression of a hungry baby. Want some milk. Proper bloody milk, not left wing options.

Proper milk. What's Robin B asking for that? On the Today program, Nick Robinson swallows a condom full of cocaine. If it goes through, the question then will be where it goes next. Mmm. It often is. Reforms Lee Anderson explains that his friends don't need women.

My mate's got one of these simulators in his bedroom. And wait, what did Sky News' Trevor Phillips just call Angela Rayner? Angela Rayner, the black-legged, kittawake. Leave it, Trevor, she's not worth it. And I'm beginning to suspect that politicians and journalists have a bet on to see who can squeeze the most comedy catchphrase references into their interviews. For example, here is Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride. It is a dead parrot, okay? It has ceased to exist. It is pushing up the daisies. And this was Keir Starmer channeling Only Fools and Horses.

No income tax, no VAT. No money back, no guarantee. Keir, you plonker. But they weren't the only ones going catchphrase crazy, because the Tories' wokebuster-in-chief, Cami Badenock, has been in the USA to renew links with the Republican Party, and it was there that she told the trumped-up throng... I don't like using the word woke to describe these issues.

I use progressive authoritarianism. LAUGHTER Before going on to say... But for some reason, progressive authoritarianism is not catching on. LAUGHTER No, Kemi, no, because as a catchphrase, progressive authoritarianism is not catching on. No, Kemi, no, because as a catchphrase it is hardly up there with am I bothered, is it? But we are bothered because we at The Naked Week are nothing if not supportive, and we think that with our help this time next week your new catchphrase could be on mugs, magnets, posters. Progressive authoritarianism will be on the lips of kids in playgrounds everywhere,

as they all do the progressive authoritarianism TikTok dance. LAUGHTER We say let's start the campaign now. I can tell that our studio audience is up for it. So here's how we're going to get it started. Let's do a classic catchphrase style audience call and response. So let's start with, nice to see you. To see you...

Progressive authoritarianism. Lovely. What do you... Perversive authoritarianism. Lovely. What do points make? Perversive authoritarianism. Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be... Perversive authoritarianism. This is brilliant. Our survey said... Perversive authoritarianism. BUZZER

Happy to help, Kenny. Happy to help. APPLAUSE We've all seen the extraordinary scenes in Syria this past week. Happy to help, Tammy. Happy to help. We've all seen the extraordinary scenes in Syria this past week. The downfall of a brutal, decades-long regime, and the rise of a... ...nother one. It's too soon to say. It might be fine, it might be worse. Middle Eastern politics is like jazz. It's complex, it's unpredictable, and people who are really into it are no fun to be around.

But the most striking thing about this whole story was how fast the rebels swept across the country. Two weeks ago, Aleppo taken. Islamist fighters have taken over Aleppo. Last Friday, Hama taken. Entered the city of Hama. Saturday, Homs taken. They are now in full control of the city of Homs. Sunday, Damascus taken. Entered the city of Hamer. Saturday, Homs taken. They are now in full control of the city of Homs.

Sunday, Damascus taken. Ceased control of Damascus. Monday, Liam Neeson taken. But what I do have, I have a very particular set of skills. Sorry, sorry, that was me on Netflix. But just like that, it was all over. And it was time up for Assad,

who hastily grabbed his inflatable travel pillow and anti-Novatron medication... ..and escaped to Moscow... ..to join fellow expats Edward Snowden, Steven Seagal and Gerard Depardieu in what will either be the best or worst podcast ever made. The House arrest is politics. Yes! Thank you.

APPLAUSE You are very generous people. And seeing the opposition military taking cities and towns with breathtaking speed, the Naked Week team started wondering, how do you actually do it? How do you take a town? And could it be done here? How would rebel forces go about capturing, say, Nuneaton? And that's not a random choice, by the way. Nuneaton is a crucial bellwether seat in most elections.

It's a vital strategic political stronghold. As Professor Sir John Curtis himself once said, Nuneaton is the Homs of Warwickshire. So let's talk military strategy now. Please welcome to join our chief correspondent Amy and me, former British military intelligence officer Philip Ingram. So, before we get to Nuneaton, the stuff of taking cities, how actually do you take a city? The best way to take anything is to do it without a fight.

So you want to try and put as much pressure as you can to force those that are in there to realize that it's hopeless and time for them to move on somewhere else. OK, so let's say for the sake of argument that there's a violent political and military uprising in the West Midlands. Stranger things have happened. I live in the West Midlands, so yes.

Right. And those forces are being led by firebrand Islamist rebel Amy Hoggart, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whose soldiers are, as we speak, bearing down on Nuneaton. Now, we actually have here in the room an ordinance survey map of Nuneaton town centre. Let us just game this out. Let's say I'm the sitting president.

And maybe it's been a decades long despotic reign of terror. Maybe, actually, I'm really just misunderstood. And I'm a good guy And I did actually win a hundred and forty percent in that last election. Sure Either way, I'm gonna be controlling my government forces while holed up in the ropewalk shopping center And I'm gonna be making TK Maxx my stronghold. Can we go over to the map? Yes, all I've ever wanted to do is push little things around a map and now we're here and we're doing it Let me do this here

Okay, so right. Let's let's game this out a little bit. So I have here a can of Lynx body spray with my face taped to it to represent the classic massive autocratic statue of the dictator. So I'm going to put that here. It's Lynx Syria. It's a new, OK. OK.

Now we're going to have some LEGO people to represent the armed forces, so Amy is going to be potentially coming down from Tamworth. Well, I don't want you to know. No, OK. See, she knows the plan. Yeah, it's good. She knows how to do this. You could be coming up from Wilkington.

Well, then I'm off the map. Bedworth has gone. That's the main thing. Oh, I'm off the map. Philip, what should I, President Murray, do to secure my stronghold against Amy? Right, have you got defence in depth or are you stuck in TK Maxx? We have the hide point, which is I think the old slag heath. Mount Judd.

We've got Mount Judd. OK, where should Amy be concentrating her attention and fire? Let's say I'm not going to go quietly. There's a KFC near the train station. Yes. So I just thought I'd replenish the troops, then cut off the supply. Logistics, that's brilliant. I'm quite a caring... Wars are won or lost on logistics, so tick, yes. Thank you.

I think there's a pound line on the marketplace... Yep. ..so I can stock up on artillery. And then I'm going to go down to Riversley Park. There's the Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery, so then I'll control all the state-sponsored propaganda. Where can I, former beloved misunderstood president Murray, flee? As I went to Moscow, can I make it onto the M69 and get to Leicester? Well, you might be able to, but what's in Leicester for you?

You need to get a solid... A question so many have asked. Exactly. So, Nunniton has fallen, and what we've learned is that even in a hypothetical scenario, a man has been forced out of a job to make way for a woman. Typical. So much for equality. Even war gaming is woke these days. Isn't that right, Cemi?

I use progressive authoritarianism. Thank you, Cemi. Brilliant. Thank you, Bella. Time now for a quick look through the highlights in the Christmas Brilliant. Thank you, Bella. Time now for a quick look through the highlights in the Christmas radio times that's just hit the shelves. CHEERING OK, now let's just have a little look through. Christmas Eve, there is a special episode

of Jacob Rees-Mogg's new reality show Christmas at Home with the Moggs. It says here, join former MP and spectral umbrella Jacob, as his haunted brood gather round the tree to open their trust funds and roast orphans on an open fire. That's lovely. Great. Amy, what have you found? BBC One's big family animation is The Boy, The Mold, Lawrence Fox and The Horse.

This is a heartwarming tale of friendship, respect and kindness. Completely spoiled when Lawrence Fox calls the horse a paedophile on Twitter. I'll set my recorder. Christmas Day morning, this sounds really special. Strictly Wolf Hall. Claudia Winkleman and sidekick Mark Rylant belletically execute all the on-screen talent that's embarrassed the BBC over the past year. And here on Radio 4 on Boxing Day,

it's the Christmas festive edition of Feedback. And we've got a preview. I'm sorry, but it's just not funny. Boring, boring, boring. Nevertheless, I'm outraged. We've switched off after 12 minutes. It was all so terribly feeble. And also something that sounds like intellectual snobbery.

Surely the BBC can be better than this. terribly feeble. And also something that sounds like intellectual snobbery. Surely the BBC can be better than this. And those were all messages that came into feedback about feedback. Magical. This is The Naked Week on Radio 4, and we are still trying to get Kemi Baden-Ock's call and response audience catchphrase to catch on. I don't like using the word woke. I use progressive authoritarianism. Let's just try it one more time.

Hi-dee-hi. Progressive authoritarianism. Izzy-wizzy, let's get... Progressive authoritarianism. I've started so well... Progressive authoritarianism. LAUGHTER APPLAUSE

It's time now to just take a quiet moment in the Naked Week's topical garden of contemplation. It's the news in haikus. Storms batter Britain. Christmas comes early. You've just gained a trampoline. The News in Haikus Now, throughout this series, The Naked Week has been looking at government lobbying. And as we've learned, if you stare long enough into government lobbying, something suspicious will stare back into you.

Despite our efforts, however, we have so far failed to bring down the government. Syrian rebels won, Naked Week nil. So we thought we would give it one more crack. As the old saying goes, if at first you don't succeed, you're probably Liz Truss. I'm joined once again by The Naked Week's Adam McQueen. Adam, we talked last week about think tanks and ethics and spads. Oh my. So, the Queen, Adam, we talked last week about think tanks and ethics and spads. Oh my.

Yes. And I suppose to some extent that's its own weird, grotty little ecosystem like a stagnant puddle or ITV. But people are probably more familiar with lobbying when it comes to dishing out lucrative government contracts. Is that fair? Yeah, yeah. Things like the PPE scandal during Covid.

Not Matt Hancock's finest hour. No. during Covid. Not Matt Hancock's finest hour. No. Although, when was Matt Hancock's finest hour? I mean, they all feature Matt Hancock. So anyway, PPE procurement has been back in the news, hasn't it? It has. Just this month, Rachel Reeves appointed a Covid corruption commissioner. Big moment for fans of needlessly alliterative job titles.

And to be fair to the Chancellor, cleaning up government is something she's demonstrably passionate about. Here she is wielding the opposition pressure washer back in 2021. The government chose to prioritise contracts for friends, for donors, and a handful of large companies, and the whole cabinet. They've just gone along with all of it.

Adam, what type of large companies was she railing against there? Well, those PPE companies for one. But the Conservative government also gave other contracts to companies like, say, Price Waterhouse Coopers or PwC, which is a multinational auditing and accounting firm who had donated over half a million in what they called staff costs and consultancy services

to the Tories when they were in opposition. Consultancy, costs, auditing, accounting. It's sexy talk, Adam. Pass me Martin Lewis and a cold flannel. Steady yourself, because a decade later, when the Tories were clearly heading for the exit, PricewaterhouseCoopers started donating to Labour instead. How much are we talking? Over £300,000 in staff costs between January 2021 and June 2024.

So that's shortly after Partygate, right up to the moment where Rishi Sunak dissolved both Parliament and himself in the rain outside number 10. LAUGHTER OK, but donations are perfectly fine. The Chancellor doesn't seem to object to those. Her concern was... Let's have it again, Rachel, what was it? Contracts for friends, for donors, and a handful of large companies. OK, so presumably, under a Labour government, there will be none of what to the uninitiated could look like kind like cash for contracts.

That's correct, Andy. There wasn't any of that. Terrific, but that's great. For the first month. Oh, right. And then on the 9th of August this year, the Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero awarded PricewaterhouseCoopers a contract worth up to £8 million. Well, that was...

And just four days after that, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs handed PWC another contract worth over £300,000. Okay, but if you take... And last month, the Ministry of Defence gave them yet another contract worth £270,000. So after just six months of a Labour government, a prominent Labour donating consultancy firm is already up around £9 million. Okay, so what we're saying is the Tories were hard at it and now Labour are hard at it too. Well, perhaps. But PWC isn't the only company to benefit.

There's also Ernst & Young, another multinational, covering, wait for it, mergers and acquisitions, tax services and financial auditing. Oh, Martin Lewis is going to need another flannel. Ernst & Young also gave money to Labour before the election and have subsequently received government contracts worth millions. OK, so to be clear, nobody is suggesting that Ernst & Young and PWC weren't qualified for or unable to deliver those contracts, but we know how the Chancellor felt when, Rachel? The government chose to prioritise contracts for donors.

She seems dead against it. That and pensioners heating their homes, but... Well, it's funny you should bring up Rachel Reeves again, because back in August she tried to appoint a man named Ian Caulfield to a senior civil service job in the Treasury. And that was the same Ian Caulfield who, as it happens, had previously donated £5,000 to Rachel Reeves. So do you just mean to the Labour Party? No, I mean to Rachel Reeves directly. And she would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling people who noticed. That is not

actually illegal. No, no, no, true. It's sleazy but it's not illegal which by the way is also the motto of Eton College. Apparently it sounds better in Latin. But Ian Caulfield isn't the only example by the way. There's also Emily Middleton. Before the election, the consultancy firm where she worked paid £67,000 to second her to the office of Peter Kyle MP. And when he became science secretary in Keir Starmer's government, she was coincidentally appointed to a civil service job

as a director in his department. Okay, you say coincidentally. Is there a chance it is just a complete coincidence? Yes. Right, phew, thank God for that. Oh, shortly after her new role was confirmed, the very same Peter Kyle held a meeting with the then government chief digital officer Mike Potter. A Freedom of Information request by the Naked Week has uncovered what was said in that meeting. The Secretary of State and Mike Potter

discussed Emily Middleton as an excellent addition to the department. The Secretary of State was keen to support bringing in top talent where his personal impact would help. Okay, so if it is a coincidence, it's a very big one. A thousand to one shot. Okay. Or you might say maybe a 67,000 to one shot. Very nice. So just to clarify what we have here, in addition to a private donor coming

within inches of a job in Rachel Reeves' treasury, we've got a consultancy firm cosying up to a Cabinet Minister who appears happy to directly influence civil service appointments. And the Naked Week is making no suggestion of impropriety. Has our lawyer told you to say that? No. This is all a bit like what we were talking about last week. That's right. If you remember last time we had Jess Sargen, who was a former staffer from a Labour think-tank, being wangled into a job in the Cabinet Office by obscure procedural loopholes.

So is there anyone actually scrutinising civil service appointments? Oh yes, it's an independent, executive, non-departmental public body called the Civil Service Commission. They sound fun. Crazy name, crazy guys. This is how they describe themselves. We are established by statute to provide assurance that civil servants are selected on merits on the basis of fair and open competition. And in the spirit of fair and open competition, they examine the appointment of Jess Sargent And that job was never advertised.

Yep, that's a fair and open competition of one. Got it. And they also looked at the appointment of ministers' mate Emily Middleton at the Department of Science and they concluded that they were largely satisfied with processes in place within departments. Largely satisfied? I don't know what we're all still doing here. That's fine. That's largely reassuring, isn't it?

But do we know what Keir Starmer, what Special K himself, makes of all this? Well... He certainly has views on the Civil Service. I'm trying to get it going. He's certainly got views on the Civil Service, Andy. It's just not entirely clear what they actually are. This was him during last week's milestone speech.

I do think that too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline. The tepid bath? Andy, you're thinking about Martin Lewis's flannel again, aren't you? I certainly am. Adam McQueen, everybody! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE You're listening to The Naked Week on Radio 4. In the news this week, Keir Starmer has advice for beginners

on how to join your local public toilet-cottaging group. Maybe starts online or in a stall and then goes from there. LAUGHTER The Today programme's Nick Robinson is disappointed by a sheep. I was left at the end of it thinking, not woolly. And Amal Rajan is asked to describe his ideal Christmas dinner. A cube and cigar, very small bits of rubber and turkey. While on Good Morning Britain, Richard Madeley described the suspect in the New York assassination

case while simultaneously sounding like he was trying to impress a waiter in Bella Italia. He is 26. 26-year-old Luigi Maggioni. Are you all right, Richard? Do you need us to call someone? Maybe we should refer to all assassination suspects like that. I'll have the Lee Harvey Oswald with a side of John Wilkes Booth and the bloke who shot John Lennon with olives. So, whilst Syrian prisoners were being released this week, in the UK there came news that the backlog of cases in the nation's Crown Courts

is expected to reach 100,000. There's a shortage of barristers, a shortage of prison cells, and also in the news this week, a shortage of Guinness. Which is not relevant to the first two, but we really needed three. Earlier this year, with jails at capacity, the government's decision to give prisoners early release seemed reasonable. But on Monday it was reported that a committee in the Lords found Labour completely failed to anticipate the consequences of releasing dangerous prisoners back into the country.

It's a catch-22. Not having cells available is worsening the backlog, but freeing them up by giving domestic abusers a packed lunch for the bus home isn't ideal. It's like the shortlist for BBC's Sports Personality of the Year, coming down to a choice between germane genus and a soil jockstrap. So, why are UK prisons so full, and are any of the assassins in them hot? Well one of the reasons the prisons are overcrowded is the legacy of IPPs, or indefinite detainment for public protection orders, by which minor criminals who might have otherwise only got a couple of months could be sentenced for up to 99 years.

There are thousands of examples. Here is just one. Martin Myers, who at time of recording has spent more than 18 years in prison after being given an IPP for... Attempting to steal a cigarette. Attempting! He didn't even succeed. He has been in prison for two decades for not stealing a cigarette.

Now, in 2012, the European Convention on Human Rights ruled IPPs were unlawful and abolished them. But it wasn't applied retrospectively to the 3,000 prisoners serving them at the time, and 1,000 of them are still serving IPPs today, clogging up the cells with their wanton attempted tobacco heists. with their wanton attempted tobacco heists. Another reason that this year has seen a particular lack of cell space is that Labour spent most of the summer locking up protesters left, right and centre, or, to be more accurate, right, right and far right.

Now, to be clear, many of the writers jailed a few months back deserve it. Like this man who was sentenced to 38 months for violent disorder offences in Middlesbrough, including spouting this hate-fuelled manifesto, which we have reconstructed verbatim... You can stick your chicken ticker up your arse! LAUGHTER

You can stick your chicken ticker up your arse. That is a rallying cry, if ever I heard one. To which, and I love this, the judge said, this in no way reflects the values of the decent people of Middlesbrough. So, although a lot of the writers do deserve to be in prison, or at the very least in A&E with curry-related internal injuries, the speed, the speed of Stammer's reaction does seem even more notable now,

given this week's backlog news. And the media's coverage has also been quite unhelpful. According to The Telegraph, TalkTV and the BBC, one man was even sent to prison for... Yelling at a dog. Yelling at a dog. Really? Well, no, not really. He was actually sent to prison for violent disorder,

which included shouting at a police dog. The judge said his actions were... ..as opposed to a chicken ticker box atmosphere, which is very different but equally ill-advised. But leading with Man Jailed for Shouting at Dog as the headline is classic clickbait. And if you read that, you'll think, well no wonder the prisons are full, the government has lost the plot. And to be clear, you cannot go to prison for shouting at a dog. If you could, Barbara Woodhouse would have faced the death penalty. But the stats are shocking and they haven't received much attention. The

media have been far too busy reporting on a man shouting at a dog and not busy enough reporting on the real crisis in our prisons. We were stumped. We wanted to get people to pay attention to the shocking stats but we also knew that to do that we needed to be a bit more clickbait. And then we realized the answer was staring us in the face and the snout because in a radio first, The Naked Week is going to broadcast these shocking prison statistics by shouting them at a dog.

Buckle up. Now, I should explain that due to some stupid red tape called the Performing Animals Act of 1925, we can't actually bring a dog onto the stage without a special license, we would have to apply to a court or something, what with the backlog, it wouldn't work, anyway. Long story short, we have found a workaround. We cannot have a dog on stage here. But over to my left here is this theatre's load-in door which leads to

the outside world and in the outside world crucially not on stage but certainly within earshot of the perimeter. Amy can you do the honours? I'm opening them now. Ladies and gentlemen please welcome Rupert the Dog. Hello Rupert. Hello. Oh my god people. Who's this one? Hello, Rupert. Hello. Oh, my God, my boy. There's this one. Oh.

Look at him, he's so sweet. He's a good boy. You do need to keep him outside the room. There you go. Sorry, Rupert. This feels very harsh, this. Ah. Hello.

Sorry, Rupert's owner. What's your name as well? Andrew. Hello, Andrew. How's it going? What sort of dog, Rupert's owner. What's your name as well? Andrew. Hello, Andrew. How's it going? What sort of dog is Rupert? This is a Jorky Poo. What is that? A mix of Jack Russell, Yorkshire Terrier and Poodle. Wow. A Jorky Poo. How old?

Four. And how old is Rupert? OK, Rupert, are you ready? Rupert's looking around at a bus. Okay. Amy, you've got the stats too as well, I believe. Yes. It is time for us now to call this important story to public attention. Rupert?

Rupert? Rupert, we have some... Oh! Yeah, yeah, all right. It's very cute. Yeah, yeah. We're trying to do news here guys Rupert are you ready? Amy is time to shout these facts at the dog. Let's go over the summer prisons

We're just 100 spaces away from reaching full capacity Rupert. Yes With the length of current delays the average case now takes 683 days between reporting and completion. Bad dog. Oh, no. Rupert, good dog. Good dog. Rupert, don't milk it. I'm sorry. You're a good boy. Sorry, Rupert. Rupi, over here. Over a quarter of cases wait more than a year to even be heard at all.

Yes. Almost one in five people in prison are there on remand awaiting trial. Walkies? Rupert, 16,000 people were kept in prison on remand last year, including many who were later acquitted. Rupert! Rupert! Someone serving a four-year sentence can now be released in less than ten months. No biscuits!

Guys! It's OK. It's OK, boy. But you need to know, Rupert, that the number of prisoners has been growing by 4,500 a year. Yes, and one last thing, Rupert. And this one is a bit dense, so you will need to pay attention. The National Audit Office has just released a report saying that Boris Johnson's pledge to create 20,000 extra cell spaces will not

now be met until 2031 and is already £4.2 billion over budget. In your basket! Oh, Rupert, one more thing, sorry. While we've got you, we've been trying to help out Kimmy Badenock with her new catchphrase. Just have a listen to this Rupert, see what you think of it. I don't like using the word woke to describe these issues. I use progressive authoritarianism. But for some reason, progressive authoritarianism

is not catching on. But with our help it can, and we can now get it into the canine community too. So audience, I would like us all to shout at the dog the catchphrase one, two, three. Progressive authoritarianism. I would like us all to shout at the dog the catchphrase one two three Ladies and gentlemen Rupert the dog the most statistically qualified dog brackets prisons closed brackets in the world The naked week was hosted by me Andrew Hunter Murray with chief correspondent Amy Hoggart and guests Philip Ingram and Rupert the Dog.

It was written by John Holmes, Gareth Careddy, Katie Sayer, Sarah Dempster, Jason Haisley, Adam McQueen and Louis Mian. Additional nakedness was by Mark Haynes and Carl Minns, with Ali Panting, Alice Bright, Cooper Mwini-Swert, Pete Redfern and Gavin Greenwood, with the voice of Jake Yap. The Naked Week is produced and directed by John Holmes and it's an unusual production for BBC Radio 4. Whoo!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE words and phrases used and abused by politicians. Pork barrel politics. Red state. Purple state. Sports washing. Strong and stable. Flip flopper. What do they actually mean? I'm Amanda Inucci.

And I'm Helen Lewis. And like a couple of disgraced stage magicians recently kicked out of the magic circle, we'll be revealing all the verbal tricks of the trade. And singling out the worst examples of political doublespeak. Strong message here from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds. Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by.

And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders. I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone,

I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave. World of Secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed. In this new series we're confronting the dark side of the wellness industry where the hope of a spiritual breakthrough gives way to disturbing accusations. You just get sucked in so gradually and it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. And it's like this, the secret that's there.

I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice and for other people to not be hurt for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemize some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power.

World of Secrets season 6, The Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.