Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - 20th May

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Topical panel quiz show, taking its questions from the week's news stories.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello. I am Andy Zaltzman. Before we start this week's news quiz, a trigger warning. This show may contain references to the gradual degradation of British democracy, which some of our more sensitive listeners may find deeply upsetting. If you think you may be offended by the current state of the United Kingdom, this week's safe word is loophole. If you say loophole, your radio will automatically retune itself to a classic 1933 episode of Bath Time with

Stanley Baldwin. Welcome now to the News Quiz. I think it's the episode where Stanley loses his duck. Welcome to the News Quiz. I'm Andy Zaltzman. We are recording with a remote audience via the internet once again this week because this is a special UK versus rest of the universe show. Our audience is drawn from all around the UK. Yay! A passionate home crowd, as you can hear. Do we have any away fans in?

Yay! Make sure we keep them segregated. We don't want this show being blighted by violence. And please, no pitch invasions at the end. Win or lose, it's just a quiz. Our teams this week, representing the rest of the universe, all the way from India, Anuvab Pal, and via a yoghurt pot and a piece of string

running directly through the Earth's core, from Australia, Alice Fraser. And from the UK, a special two for the price of two deal. Joining us from Nottingham, it's Scott Bennett and from Glasgow, Susie McCabe. And this week's news quiz takes the form of a home or home round modelled on a question of sports, popular home or away round, but, crucially, a bit more insular.

So, Scott, starting with you, home or home? Um... Home, please. Right, that's a question on the United Kingdom for Scott. Rishi Sunak warned a country that the next few months will be tough because of what? It's inflation, isn't it? Correct, yes.

Which we are now at the highest rate of inflation in any European country, which, you know, coming off the back of Eurovision, we're on a roll. It feels nice to be in the lead with something, doesn't it? We're now at 9.1, which is stronger alcohol content than a can of special brew. So I'm not an economist, economist, I can't even say it. Of course I'm not. I think when the cost of living surpasses... I mean, I've lost all credibility now, but...

You've proved your point in many ways, Scott. I think when it surpasses the special brew index, you know we've got problems. Just to say, I think it is the cost of living, obviously, that it's a terrible, it's a difficult time for everyone. I mean, myself, I've just bought a smart meter, or as I like to call it, the anxiety

portal. If anyone's listening or watching out there, just live in denial. Don't do it. You think you're going to help yourself. It's like you're getting mugged by your own house in real time. I've realised it's a sad state of affairs that my slow cooker is currently on a better hourly rate than I am.

LAUGHTER hourly rate than I am. Susie, how are you enjoying the surging inflation in Scotland? Oh, it's a laugh, let me tell you. I have thoroughly enjoyed the fact that this is all my mother talks to me about now. Like, every week I get the Eleanor McCabe

cost price index increase. Every week, you name a household item, Eleanor is there. That has went up eight pence in a week, Susan. And I'm like, how much butter do you go through in a week? Alice. Oh, I was quite excited when I heard Rishi Sunak say the next few months will be tough. That's the quote, right?

Because I thought, oh, my God, rich people have figured out how to overcook time. Time cooking joke for all of you time chefs out there. Look, everyone, I'm really confused here because I didn't know this was about inflation. Because when I read Rishi Sunak saying the next few months would be tough, I thought that meant he would only be getting a billion dollars a week

from his father-in-law. And it would be just tough for him to run his household. I thought that's what this was about. I mean, he has had to let go of one of his pool men. So it's tricky times. I think we're only a matter of months away from Rishi Sunak actually driving a Kia car.

That's where it is. That puts it all in perspective. In terms of solutions to this problem, number 10 is still resisting pressure for a windfall tax on the grounds that it would be ideologically unconservative. Do you have any solutions for how to raise more money

for the country right now? Well, you know, I think one of the main problems is that the British Foreign Office, you know, aren't doing fun events around the world to raise money. For example, the last time Boris Johnson came to India, he drove around the gateway of India and Mumbai on a unicycle as part of a trade agreement now

India should have asked for something better than Boris Johnson cycling around the gateway of India now exactly and when that happened why was that not a paid event I think you could probably go to all the global leaders in the world and say, how much would you give me collectively

for Liz Trust to do a sponsored silence? There might be quite a lot of money flying over from Brussels for that one. The governor of the Bank of England as well, he did that speech where he tried to calm down the nation. He gave a really measured statement where he used phrases like apocalyptic surge. He said that he'd run out of horsemen. He might as well have just took his top off and said,

look, guys, we're about three weeks away from this going full Mad Max. Also, I mean, it shows the extent of the fuel crisis. If the government of the Bank of England has not only run out of fuel for his car, but also his horses. Also, can I just say, 9% is high,

it's high, but there's a lot more one can aspire to when it comes to inflation. For example, Zimbabwe comes to mind. I was in Harare and they were hitting 1,400% inflation the week I was there. So my Airbnb room rate tripled in an hour that I was there. Yes, inflation has hit a 40-year high of 9% and the government is under renewed pressure to do something to help with the cost-of-living crisis. Well, technically, it's renewed, renewed, renewed, renewed pressure.

I think their current package of saying they will think about doing some things has not yet proved entirely successful. But they're not quite ready to abandon it. Boris Johnson told Parliament this week, I'm going to look at all measures in future to support people. He said that this week, suggesting that he's been caught somewhat unawares by a crisis that has been building not for days or weeks or months, but years.

The Bank of England target rate for inflation is 2%, so 9% is not so much missing the target as William Tell firing the crossbow into his own face and saying, whoops, I mistook myself for an apple. Maybe it's my lovely rosy cheeks. So the point for that round goes to Scott. Alice, home or home? I'll go with home, Andy.

OK, Alice, what famously large and sparsely populated landmass, which is increasingly prone to fire, flooding and other climate change-related inconveniences, is about to vote in a general election that may show that it is belatedly coming to the conclusion that fossil fuels might not be the way forward? Andy, you've led a horse to water here. This is the Australian election which is underway.

Correct. Scott Morrison, our Prime Minister, has accidentally tackled a child during a press event that involved a game of football, a famously not very tackle-y game. He sort of tripped over the child and then went in with the shoulder and you could just see his attempt to smooth it over with a sort of an awkward cuddle and then flinging the child away from him

lest people think he was cuddling too long and then awkwardly demanding a high-five from the child that clearly just wanted to get away and then half-following the child before realising that he could maybe style it out by not following him so people wouldn't think that he thought it was a big deal to drive your shoulder into the child before realising that he could maybe style it out by not following him so people wouldn't think that he thought it was a big deal to drive your shoulder into the child's head in front of the cameras of literally every television channel in Australia.

Is there a strategy, Andy? Is he going for the precious kids these days have it too good vote, a delicate demographic but one that can be wooed by a touch of public child tackling, as I think Boris Johnson has previously proven. Everyone in Australia of legal voting age is required to vote on Saturday on pain of a fine. And also, unfortunately, about 200,000 people in Australia are currently positive for COVID

and therefore legally required to self-isolate on Saturday. So phone voting closed on Tuesday. Let's see which law they have to break. Susie, have you voted in the Australian election yet? No, not yet. How's apathy taken to the nth degree? You know, find a way. I wonder.

Like, I've been to Australia and I've been out doing jokes in Australia and I think to myself, you've got beaches, you've got great food, you've got Kylie Minogue, that's like the holy trinity of joy. Yeah, but do you need politics? I don't think you do. I think it's amazing that voting's compulsory. I suppose, though, you have got the weather, haven't you? Because a lot of us, I think when we look out the window

and it's horizontal rain and you look at that port-a-cabin in the co-op car park and you think, nah. No. I know they're doing a terrible job, but I've just had my hair done, mate. I'm not going anywhere near that. The tricky thing about compulsory voting is you never know if you actually want to vote

or if you just want the gold coin donation sausage sizzle sandwich from the local school hall that's hosting Democracy This Weekend. Alice, I had a quick question for you. Now, Scott Morrison, it appears, is slightly in favour of fossil fuels and he's being helped by Adani, which is one of India's biggest companies in mining in Queensland for coal. And Adani has been complaining that they've been unfairly targeted by the giant powers of activists. I just want you to know, Alice, and Australians to know that they should not protest against Adani. They're a nice,

gentle Indian company with little ability to fight Greenpeace. Look, let me explain why. Because in India, all they own are all the ports, the airports, the electricity, the coal mines and the Prime Minister's schedule. So with such limited resources, it isn't a fair fight. Yes, Australians go to the polls on Saturday for the country's first election since 2019. Voters now have a wider range of choices, with the voting process having been modernised

from the traditional two choices of no worries and some worries. Incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison has proved highly effective at not being highly effective as Prime Minister and is now trailing in the polls, potentially heralding the end of nine years of Conservative Liberal Party government. Labour leader Anthony Albanese is not fully won over the public, which is all the rage amongst Labour leaders

around the world these days. And independent candidates who put the climate emergency at the top of their priority list to prove popular amongst the younger generation, who are, for whatever reason, less keen to burn to death on a suffocating planet. The point for the Australia round goes to Alice

and Anuab. It's one all. Andy, I have to say, I'm really enjoying this new trend of yours of giving me points rather than punishing me for Australia in the cricket. That will no doubt return. Moving on. Susie, home or home? Oh, home, please, Andy. OK, last weekend, a man from Kinross in Scotland broke the world record for the longest what?

And if you're thinking that at home, you have only yourself to blame. It's not that kind of show. So this chap spent 36 hours on a swing? Correct. 36 hours on a swing? Correct. Let me just explain that a swing in Kinross is like a Tesla

for everybody else. He's a 51-year-old father of three who's a Rotary Club member and likes cricket. Now, I'm very aware of the audience, but if you're Scottish and you like cricket,

there's something wrong with you. Well, that's a lifetime ban from this show for you, Susie, I'm afraid. I know. Apparently, his kids also broke the world record for the longest time standing around for some dickhead to get off a swing. LAUGHTER I think it's a bit heartwarming, though.

This story is a bit heartwarming, because it's like it was his lifelong ambition, and I think that's a really good message to his children. You know, don't dream big, just dream realistic. That's what you want to do. It's quite nice in this world. If you're 51 in Scotland, that's more than a lifelong ambition. Annabelle.

I just had a very quick question for Susie. I'm trying to understand Scottish people. One of the... Don't even try. I mean, I live in a city where half the people think they're English, another half think they're Irish, so seriously... Well, you know, I live in a country which still thinks parts of it are in the British Empire,

so, you know, it's... LAUGHTER That also applies to here. My very quick question is this, Susie. One of the things he said is that there were a lot of people watching me saying I was slowing down too much. And my question is, who are these people? down too much. And my question is, who are these people?

I think they're probably Rotary Club members. Because who else has the time or inclination? Is it on one of the sports channels? I love how I feel as if I'm being held personally responsible

for this, man. Alice, give us a commentary on the Australia election. Susie, let's talk about the bloke and a swing in your country. Yes, a Kinross man has achieved a childhood ambition to break the world record for the longest marathon on a swing. Richard Scott, 51, completed the 36-hour challenge on Sunday. Richard went back and forth an estimated

50,000 times in a day and a half in what is already being interpreted as a waspish satire on the Northern Ireland Protocol situation. And it has been a very good year for world records. We've already had world records set for most absurd pretext for war, most obviously belated realisation of the dangers

of allowing Russian money and influence to inveigle its way into top-level politics, and also world's most magnetic dog, a new record set by Barraclough, a snuttish terrier who came home from a walkies with 251 ball bearings stuck in his fur. from the walkies with 251 ball bearings stuck in his fur. While we are discussing the United Kingdom, this can go to all our panellists,

who is not happy about being trussed up? Would that, Andy, be Liz Truss talking about the Northern Ireland Agreement, which the government has decided to not honour. Yes. Well, not honour is a very negative way of putting it. I think it would provide with the even greater honour of being removed and put in a bin. I think that's the way. I mean, as a foreigner, my understanding is this.

The core of this problem seems to be that this government have broken a promise to honour an agreement. And given they've never done that before, I assume they should... LAUGHTER ..should be forgiven as a one-time offence, I would think. Also, Andy, it's 2022. Why has not honouring a signed agreement not been cancelled

yet? They were all done by people from a different era. There were different times, different values. You can't hold them accountable to the morality of today. Also, in many, many countries, the whole point of an agreement is to break it. An agreement between two dubious Indian businessmen has the clause in the agreement that the agreement will not be adhered to in any form. The one thing I did read, which was staggering, Willie, the Marks & Spencer's chairman said that the current protocol

is costing about 30 million. There's 700 pages of legislation which take eight hours, right? And they said every ingredient needs a certificate and some of them are in Latin. So right now, at this very moment, there's probably an egg and cress sandwich crossing the border which has more paperwork to its name than the person who's going to eat it, which is unreal.

It's the fact that some of the paperwork's in Latin. That's what's really upsetting the DUP. That's tipping them over the edge. Latin, it's the papacy. It shows how long these negotiations have been going on as well, the fact that this was just one of the first clauses, I think, when they started negotiating it in about 53 AD. Well, this is paradox, obviously, because you have to have an open border in one way

and in the other way you have to have a closed border because otherwise it doesn't work. But Britain is traditionally very good at just sort of drawing a line on a map. I think what we need is to move forward into the future and just sort of, in terms of cartography, just invent shading. Have a border that's just increasingly grey across the country so that the trade just sort of gets more bureaucratic as you go left. Well, it's interesting, some breaking news just reaching us. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a new compromise on the Vex Northern Ireland border issue. A homeopathic border will be put in place next week. The Prime Minister explained,

we've got a little bit of Hadrian's Wall and we've watered it down, so it should work as long as people just believe in it. Now, if the UK does break up, as people have suggested, might be a knock-on effect of the current crises. Alison, how's the feeling in Australia and India about you guys reapplying to join Team GB and get the old band back together for one last shot at the big time? Much enthusiasm?

I mean, you know, Andy, we have a little bit of experience of lines being drawn across the Indian subcontinent. It's a shading of certain kind. Yeah. I mean, if nothing else, it has created the world's greatest fast bowlers in cricket. There are advantages of lines being drawn and the way inflation is growing. of lines being drawn. And the way inflation is growing, I think there is a percentage of the Indian population hoping to write a letter to the now-deceased Queen Victoria, asking her to come back and sort it out.

Yes, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said this week that a new law would be introduced to change the post-Brexit trade deal for Northern Ireland. The European Union has been less than keen on renegotiating the protocol on the rather pedantic grounds that everyone agreed to it and knew what they were signing up for not very long ago. Bloody pedants.

Reneging on international commitments is one of the few growth sectors of the UK economy at the moment, but the government has insisted that the move would be justified under a little-known clause of the Magna Carta that states, we're Britain, we can do what we want, don't worry, we always do the right thing, read the history books. Not those history books, these history books. Thank you very much.

At the end of that round, it's two to Team UK, one to the rest of the universe. Yay! Anubhav, it's all on you now. Home or home? The other home, please, Andy. OK.

A couple in India are suing their own son because he has not done what for them? I'm not going to try to be clever about this. I'm just going to read out what the couple have done. A couple in the North Indian state of Uttarakhand are suing their only son and his wife for not giving them a grandchild after six years of marriage. We've all been there, Andy. We've all been there.

Have we? I've been married a long time. And then after year six, the invoices started showing up from my parents. voices started showing up from my parents. So Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad say they used their savings to raise their only son, paying for his pilot's training, as well as a lavish wedding. Now they're demanding compensation of nearly $650,000 if no grandchild is born within the year. Their son and wife do not appear to have commented.

It's interesting because they're moaning about the money they've spent, but I think they've still got a better deal than if they had grandkids. Because just ask my mum and dad. If you rang my mum and dad and said, that biscuit cupboard,

that's where my inheritance is in that biscuit cupboard. I know it is. There's new stuff every week. It's unbelievable. Look, Scott, I think the father seems like quite a reasonable man. He was quoting a newspaper saying, my son is useless. It's one thing that he got fired as a pilot,

but not having a child is absolutely ridiculous. One thing that he got fired as a pilot, but not having a child is absolutely ridiculous. Well, at the end of your round, Anu, grab the scores. R2 all. Well, with the scores locked at 2-all, it's time for our decider,

and this goes to everyone. Which famous clown is leaving which massive circus? Ronald McDonald and Russia, isn't it? Correct, yes. Well done, Scott. That is the correct answer. I think what's interesting is McDonald's are obviously leaving Russia, and there's quite a lot of brands who've done this recently. I think they should stay, though, because I think that's the best way we can help Ukraine win the war.

You know, supersize every meal, increase the salt on those fries and give them opponents who are a bit overweight, sluggish, you know, and can't go into battle without having a hip flask of Gaviscon. I think they'd walk it, then. But I think they'll have to do their own versions of these fast food places, Russia. You know, like the ones you see them that are like sale close to a copyright law, but not quite.

You know, so you'll have stuff like, you know, McPootins or... LAUGHTER You'll have like Tsar Books. Tsar Books would be another one. And here's a personal favourite of mine, which I reckon this could take off, Vladamamas, which I think is a...

I didn't know this, but apparently when McDonald's leaves a country, in their corporate strategy, they call it de-arching the restaurants. I guess they've removed the McDonald's arches, so it's removing its name branding. De-arching sounds like some sort of medieval torture mechanism involving wood and iron clamps, which is sort of what happens in your stomach once you've eaten a quarter pound of cheese.

I genuinely think that if this happened in the UK, that's how we would have a revolution. 100% people would be like, you're taking away the Golden Archies, I'm done. Well, yes, McDonald's is pulling out of Russia. The McDonald's chief executive, Ronald McDonald, real name Percival Stingin Cowslayer, had hoped to reach a compromise...

LAUGHTER ..had hoped to reach a compromise whereby he would be a sad clown instead of a happy clown until Putin withdraws his troops from Ukraine. However, Mr McDonald, who, despite his name, appearance and nutrition scepticism is not actually Scottish, has now announced that he is closing all 850 of his Russian burgerages and nuggeteriums

after 32 years of symbolising the failure of Soviet communism through the medium of the unnecessary gherkin. The fast food giant said it made the decision because of, quote, an unpredictable operating environment and also because, judging from the footage of him at his weirdly long dinner table,

Vladimir Putin is not a fan of the concept of the happy meal. That brings us to the end of this week's news quiz. It's a three-all draw between UK and the rest of the universe. Thanks to Alice, Anuvab, Scott and Susan. Now, that would normally be the end of the news quiz. However, due to inflation, my script for this week is actually 9% longer than normal. So I might actually even be halfway through

a joke when the show abruptly finishes. Taking part in the news quiz were Alice Fraser, Anubhav Pal, Scott Bennett and Susie McKay. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Alice Fraser, Max Davis, Aidan Fitzmaurice and Jade Gevy. The producer was Richard Morris, and it was a BBC Studios production.