Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - 24th February

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

Andy is joined by Ian Smith, Holly Walsh, Andy Parsons and from The Spectator, Kate Andrews. This week the panel discuss the war in Ukraine one year on, Keir Starmer's missions, and the editing of Dahl.Hosted and written by Andy Zaltzman with additional material from Alice Fraser, Catherine Brinkworth, Jade Gebbie, and Will Hall.Producer: Sam Holmes Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Co-ordinator: Becky Carewe-Jeffries Sound Editor: Marc Willcox

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Welcome to the News Quiz! Hello, rationing is back this week in our supermarkets and I'm only allowed to use the letters Q and Z twice each in this week's show. I am Andy Zaltzman. Oh.

I'll be asking the questions. This is going to be really quite difficult. Anyway, this is the news. Our teams this week, well, in a week where not only have vegetables been disappearing from the supermarket shelves, but rumours of a Beatles-Roll have vegetables been disappearing from the supermarket shelves, but rumours of a Beatles-Rolling Stones collaboration have been sweeping the internet,

we have Team Sergeant Last Remaining Pepper against Team I Can't Get No Salads Action. On Team Pepper, we have Andy Parsons and, from the spectator, Kate Andrews. And on Team Salads's Holly Walsh. And joining Holly, it's Ian Smith. Our first question goes to Andy and Kate. Who this week popped on the karaoke machine

and belted out a frankly appalling rendition of the classic number one hit, It's My Party, and I'll ramble on deludedly for almost two hours if I want to. I believe this was Vladimir Putin. Correct. Who said he was going to suspend the New START nuclear treaty and then very shortly afterwards Biden made a speech in Kiev.

I was obviously, you know, after John Kennedy had gone to Berlin and said, Ich bin ein Berliner, which apparently means I'm a donut. I was very surprised that Biden actually made quite a good speech and didn't actually say that he was himself a chicken coated in breadcrumbs. We were very lucky. I'm speaking as an American because, you know, Biden had one job and that was to show up and remember where he was and remember what side he was on. and he really did rise to the occasion this of course marks

the one-year anniversary of Russia's war against Ukraine and you had these competing speeches within you know a matter of hours and so yes I'm delighted to say this time the answer was Putin in terms of a rambling speech and not the president of the United States. One of them had a very different view of how the war started than the other one i mean biden thought it was russia's fault and russia felt that it was very much the west's fault so it was kind of like jeremy kyle but done on the world stage biden said in his speech um we will not tire but it was funny because it visibly wore him out just to say that.

So Zelensky's still there, one year on, and he was, of course, he was the number one target for the Russians and they wanted to eliminate him to sap the morale of the Ukrainian people. I was thinking that, of course, it had been Britain that had been attacked rather than Ukraine. I'm not sure the Russians would have targeted Boris Johnson or Liz Truss in quite the same way because they'd have worried it would have had the opposite effect on our morale.

I was just going to note the difference between watching UK and American coverage of these speeches. You know, here we were basically trusted to watch the speech and know who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. But in America, where people have been a bit more misbehaved, that little insurrection and all, it was interesting to watch the news presenters because they would play the Putin speech and then they jump in and be like, this is a lie. This is not true. Please do not storm the Capitol again. I do think Biden did say quite a lot in the speech that was wrong because he said Putin thought the world would roll over

and he was wrong. But the world is rolling over constantly. This is like every day, almost daily. Can someone tell me how Joe Biden got to Kiev? Bus pass. Close. I think he might have delivered the actual speech from Warsaw. Yes.

Because the Polish government was putting a lot of pressure on Joe Biden, of course, to defend NATO, and they want to sign Ukraine up to a different kind of security level. But, you know, there's a lot of pressure being put on the president. So, again, the fact that he was able to keep it all in line and show up for the occasion was very impressive. It was a 10-hour train journey, wasn't it? That's correct. So for any British listeners,

that's equivalent of a day single from Hull to Liverpool. As you mentioned, the START treaty. So this is the last nuclear pact between Russia and America. Do we need to keep things in perspective?

Because thanks to the success of various nuclear treaties over the years, there are now only enough nukes in the superpowers respective arsenals to wipe out all life on earth 10 to 20 times whereas it used to be 20 to 30 so actually yeah no it's decreased significantly and so reminder as well that politicians can never win because if you you know are promoting keeping your nuclear weapons everyone says well no we need nuclear disarmament and ukraine learned that the hard way. But then if you're saying, no, we should really scale back or we're going to scale back, everyone's like, more weapons now.

There's just, there's no winning. But it's been brilliant in some ways. Putin thought he was going to win in two weeks. And a year later, it's not worked out how he had hoped. And Britain, one of the biggest supporters of the Ukraine, weapons, loads of marches. And, you know, it's been incredible, everybody wearing blue and yellow on the marches.

I did see one bloke wearing all green, and the only thing I could assume was he'd actually put his blue and yellow stuff in the wash. I mean, there was a story this week, there was a protest, the campaign group led by donkeys had a protest outside the Russian embassy in London. They painted the street yellow and blue, the colours of the Ukrainian flag.

But unfortunately, the Just Stop Oil then came along with some red paint, leaving passers-by terrified that Putin had just invaded Ecuador. Yes, one year on from the start of the Ukraine war, Vladimir Putin gave a formless and incoherent hour-and-45-minute-long whinge ramble, celebre justifying his floundering Russian fluncupation of Ukraine, whilst simultaneously blaming

the West for making him do it. Now, obviously, tantrums at birthday parties are nothing new, but when it's a scripted 105 minute strop before you even got to the parcel phase, you know things are not going well. And some senior officials, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, were seen to fall

asleep during Putin's speech. Now, look, all of us on this panel have had people fall asleep during our gigs. Putin also said that the West intends to transform a local conflict into a global confrontation. Well, let me assure you, Vladimir, we do not intend to do that. We can barely get through an unedited Roald Dahl book without profound emotional damage. I really don't think we're looking at another world war. I know as a species we're obsessed with sequels, but two world wars was frankly more than enough. Right, at the end of our Ukraine round,

the scores are two to Team Pepper and one to Team Salads. Are we Pepper or Salads? You're Salads. Are we? Yes. Sorry, you're losing. Holly and Ian, since they're behind, can take our next question. Who tried to prove this week that he is not just a man on a mission, but a man

on five missions? Is this Keir Starmer? Correct. Oh, God. This is... LAUGHTER Did you listen to what he had to say? He's decided he's got five missions that he's set out because, you know, Rishi had five things,

so he's going to have five things. And they're basically economy, health, climate crisis, education, justice. That's it. They're just the most vague things ever. I mean, you might as well just bought a tea towel on Etsy, you know, with like five things. And like, what are your five missions?

Just live, life, love, dance like nobody's watching, and Prosecco o'clock. Like, that's how... Completely pointless saying those five things were. That sounds like an election-winning manifesto. Well, thank you. The economy one is quite weird. He said that he wanted the UK to achieve

the highest economic growth in the G7, which is such a... The G7, I always think, is a weird group anyway. Do you know who's in the G7? Does anyone know who's in the G7? Yes. Just four patronising men said, yes. Yes, I do, thank you.

It's the most advanced and richest economies. Did they do Reach for the Stars? Yeah. I completely agree that they're vague. My favourite one was breaking down barriers to opportunity at every stage. I mean, that literally means nothing. It's like a fill-in-the-blank option. Like, what does labour mean to you?

Did I not say it? Fill it in here. And it strikes me that none of the ideas were particularly new that um they sounded a lot like tory pledges with a splash of red and that does seem to be the labor tactic these days just move as far to the right as possible without totally giving it away but i think i was most relieved that this time the missions or the pledges weren't put on a tombstone like ed Miliband did. I think he should have tucked them into a dream catcher or something like that. For all we know, he did. He's home right now, you know, manifesting the election. It's totally possible. Manifesting his manifesto. Exactly. I'm sad we missed the bits where he's presented

with the missions and asked if he chooses to accept them. where he's presented with the missions and asked if he chooses to accept them. Nobody's bothered about pledges anymore. We've seen them too often, haven't we? He might have just said, you know, one, bullshit, two, waffle, three, fantasy, four, not going to happen, five, hopefully nobody will remember this one in two years' time.

And if he did want people to remember them, he should just have had one at the end, which is something like three tomatoes, and people would have gone, oh, crikey! Can I say, I've got some missions, that if I was Prime Minister, what my pledges would be, change April Fool's Day to the 1st of June. Just like the ultimate sort of prank.

Right. Double thumbs up in your passports allowed. That is a good one. That is very good. Show a bit of pride. This is a very happy manifesto and something Labour voters haven't felt for 13 years now. So maybe this is...

Well, you say that, but my next one is bring back a surname-based clan system. So it's basically me trying to get power for the Smiths. I think they should just do one pledge, and I think they should stick to it. What would your one pledge be, then? Well, mine would be to convince the British public to stop using the word jet ski and use the word motorcycle.

But I don't know... Well, I mean, Starmer said he wanted a green tech superpower. That was one of the pledges, wasn't it? And it'd be nice if we could get our energy sector, right, wouldn't it? At the moment, they're saying, oh, green tech, well, more nuclear power. Eight nuclear power stations, that's what they're trying to build at the moment, isn't it? And we're struggling to build one,

because we don't build the technology, do we? They're getting the Chinese to build it. The Chinese, of course, who we, you know, we're not going to let them have any sort of part of our 5G mobile phone networks because they're a security threat, aren't they? But we're quite happy to let them build a 3,200 megawatt nuclear reactor on the Somerset coast.

Well, they might be able to cause a nuclear core meltdown, but they will know nothing of the survivors' WhatsApp group we've set up after this. meltdown but they will know nothing of the survivors whatsapp group we've set up after yes kirsten has unveiled five missions for the uk mission one is to flesh out what the other missions are in a bit at some point maybe with a bit more detail and starmer pledged zero carbon power by 2030 which looks easily achievable as long as they just drop the word carbon he also said he wants to give britain its future back but was not specific about how we will do by 2030, which looks easily achievable as long as they just drop the word carbon. He also said he wants to give Britain its future back but was not specific about how we will do that.

But given that he also mentioned energy, I assume it consists of a vial of plutonium, a wild-haired scientist and a DeLorean going at exactly 88 miles an hour. At the end of that round, Kate and Andy have four, Holly and Ian have three. For our next round, we have a home or home round,

rather than home or away. But you have to choose one of the home nations of the United Kingdom to receive a question about. Kate, which nation are you going to go for? I'm going to choose Northern Ireland. Good choice this week. Now, here's your question on Northern Ireland. Some cons are pro the pro. Some cons say the pro is a con. There's been some to and fro. Who are the cons? What's the pro? And what are the pros

and cons? Protocol? Did I hear that in there? So this is quite triggering because I had just got to the point where I had stopped having nightmares about very specific Brexit terms, like alternative arrangements, non-tariff trade barriers. Jean-Claude Juncker had just stopped haunting my dreams and now it's all flooding back. But the Northern Ireland Protocol, which was supposed to solve the border issue between Northern Ireland and the Republic, has not been working. Residents feel cut off from Great Britain because there's essentially a trade barrier now between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Republic has not been working. Residents feel cut off from Great Britain because there's essentially a trade barrier now between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So some MPs, to be specific, Boris Johnson, is insisting that the UK just press on with this bill that he crafted, which would give the government the right to essentially rip up

parts of the protocol that they don't like. And Rishi Sunak thinks that it maybe isn't such a great idea just to unilaterally rip up international agreements. So he's put that protocol back on the table, and the hope is that they can get the Northern Ireland Assembly back up and running. It's been suspended on and off for three years now. So just like last time, we can cancel all of our holidays. We can kiss our loved ones goodbye

because we are back to the all-consuming Brexit negotiations. Yes! Yay! And really, basically, as far as I can work out, the background, isn't it, is that Boris Johnson, he promised the DUP that there'd be no checks, then he signed the Brexit agreement that said there would be checks, then he complained when it turned out there were checks, so then he said he wanted to introduce the protocol bill

so as he could then unilaterally ignore any checks. And then he got kicked out of office because he was lying, wasn't he? And now he's re-entered the fray, saying that, in fact, Rishi Sunak should do exactly what he had been doing because it was working so well. Ian, I know you're a massive fan of the Northern Ireland Protocol. Well, they're one of my favourite prog rock bands. Basically, it looks like it's very difficult to solve

and we need to celebrate the small wins. Apparently, the EU are willing to negotiate on reducing the amount of paperwork. We've really just got to sell that as, like, there's a bit less paperwork! Yes! We've done it. And just sort of lean into that sort of thing. They've proposed green and red lanes.

And I'm going to try and explain that now, having not really read about it. So, if what you're trying to import is green, it can go straight through. If anything is red, that needs more checks, which is going to cause a civil war amongst peppers. Isn't that like when you go through customs and it says anything to declare,

and you think, no, I just walk straight through? Like, who bothers? Yeah, it's an honesty box system. Yeah, it's a really stupid system. Yeah, only the honest drug dealers get caught out by that the uk is desperate for an honesty box system but the eu is not feeling so trustworthy once when i went for the airport and the anything to declare thing i shouted out um i once ironed my shirt before a rectal exam. I like these stories because I like the term Eurosceptic MPs because it makes it sound like they're flat earthers who don't believe Switzerland exists.

Wouldn't necessarily be that far from the truth for someone. Well, if you describe Switzerland to someone, it doesn't sound real. It's like a mountainous land full of banks where all people can go and legally kill themselves. Yes, this week Rishi Sunak has been seeking an agreement with the EU on the post-Brexit rules. But I think it's fair to say at this point that Brexit remains the

magic goose that will surely one day produce something from its arse that looks at least a bit more golden and a bit more egg-like. But thus far it's had a bit of golden and a bit more egg-like but thus far it's had a bit of a tough time but as a young nation fracturing process just starting out on its career you can't expect miracles and it has been hindered brexit by things beyond its control for example a global economic downturn a pandemic a war dysfunctional parents and of course the unexpected discovery of northern ireland andy which nation from the UK would you like your question on?

I'm going to go Scotland, please. OK. Who in Scotland this week said she had given a straight answer to a straight question but was then criticised for that answer being, well, too straight? So I think this is going to be the SNP election and it's a lady called Kate Forbes, and a lot of discussion about the views of the three candidates,

particularly about the gender self-ID, and if nothing else, the whole transgender debate. It has made me very confident of what a pronoun is, and I'm very grateful for that, because I never actually got taught grammar at my state school. Kate Forbes is a member of the Free Church of Scotland and they tend to take very conservative viewpoints so in addition to trans rights she's also being asked questions about gay marriage and even what she thinks about women having children outside of being married and I think it's actually

a real test of stated versus revealed preferences on our part, the public's, because ever since Partygate and Boris Johnson's resignation, it's been all about integrity, right? Rishi Sunak promised to bring integrity back to the Tory party. Keir Starmer says, no, I'll be honest with voters. And Kate Forbes is the first one to really, you know, try answering very directly these questions that she's being asked. And everyone is like, no, thank you. Please be a little bit less honest. Roll that back.

Can you, like, make up some beliefs? Because we'd feel a lot more comfortable if you lied right now. But she did kind of roll it back, though, didn't she? She did an apology. A non-apology apology. Yeah. It was one of those apologies where it's like I'm sorry that I'm right it's so funny isn't the SNP is basically a party that's there for Scottish independence

and they've been completely sucked into this trans issue that's now it's like UKIP sort of like falling apart because no one could have agreed that it was a blue or a gold dress you know like it's completely pointless. I mean, what I love about Kate Forbes with this trans stuff is that the irony being that Kate Forbes identifies as a potential SNP leader, and yet no-one else agrees with her. They've got into an argument about what constitutes a woman. It's very controversial at the moment.

Obviously, JK Rowling, very offended, along with a lot of other people, that often she's now no longer referred to as a woman, but referred to as sometimes different phrases, such as people with vulvas. And I think if blokes do have to be described eventually as people with

penises, I think most blokes are going to be fairly comfortable with that, I'll be honest with you. You know, yes, yes, I've got a penis, so I'll show you if you like. Obviously, I won't, because I know that that can constitute harassment, because not only have I got a penis,

I've also got a brain. But I'm afraid I can't show you that either, because it happens to be in the same place as my penis. Kate Forbes as well, she said that she's got these views, but she wouldn't, like, repeal anything. She wouldn't change the laws. And she said it's because she's a servant of democracy and not a dictator. I always feel like when someone goes,

I'm not a dictator, you're like, I feel more suspicious that you might be a dictator. Now, like, no-one would assume that the leader of the SNP is going to go on to be a dictator. It's got Naked Man In A Bush going, I'm not a weirdo, kind of vibe. Right, at the end of our UK round, the scores are, let's call it 10-all. We're calling it 10-all as we enter our final round,

and our final round is a picture round. Yes. I think it could be the first picture round in radio quiz history. I'm going to describe a picture, and our panellists have to tell me what news story it's from. So, Ian and Holly, your picture is this. An empty shelf in a supermarket with a parent comforting a small child who is weeping,

but you promised me I could have extra broccoli. Is it the food shortage? The vegetable shortage? Aldi and Asda and Morrison's, they're all rationing the amount of vegetables, but M&S and Waitrose aren't, mainly because they're going in to Aldi and Morrison's and buying the vegetables, and then they can still make a massive profit

back at M&S and Waitrose. So the reason we're having these shortages is because there have been harvest problems in Spain and North Africa, where we import a lot of this food from. So it's not just the UK, other countries are having issues. And it's an important reminder that anyone can be the problem because, you know, we have a war going on, we have trade tensions rising around the world, but this time it's the holiday destinations that are giving us the headache. Somewhat unexpected. But people keep sending photographs of French supermarkets with loads of salad in it, As though to taunt us. As I eat my quiche with no garnish. And I drink my Pimms with nothing but swede in it. I think we just need to start utilising

some of the less popular but still readily available vegetables. And it's finally happening. A resurgence of cress. We use it in primary school to teach kids, I don't know, that life is shit. You grow it and then you don't use it again. Now it's time to get some

recipes going. Cress surprise. And our final picture question. This can go to uh ian and holly the picture is a marker pen scrawling all over gene wilder's face what is the story oh this is the roald dahl story yes correct course which i find disgusting you know i just think it's about making changes doing edits and woking up roald dahl books which is just awful because you know you make little changes here little changes there and then before you know it's not a roald dahl book is it it's a david walliams book so everybody's getting very excited about this but i mean in fact roald Dahl rewrote Roald Dahl didn't he it was Charlie and

the Chocolate Factory originally the impalumpas they were black pygmies from deepest darkest Africa who were happy to be slaves only working for chocolate because their actual diet had been eating the bark of the bonbon tree and then Roald Dahl read this and thought, oh, sensitivity, read my own work, realised where he was going wrong and actually he went completely woke, Roald Dahl, back in 1973. So, you know, he was the woke leader. A lot of people would struggle to believe that. A lot of this audience is struggling to believe that. But it seems, yeah, he was actually, he wasn't just a gobbler funker,

he was woke curious before that was even a thing. The difficulty, of course, Andy, is that if you are going to make changes to text, you have to be confident that they're good ones. So I think the one you just described is a really great example of a good change. But, you know, I read Roald Dahl as a kid. I'm sure we all did. And I was curious as to what these new edits were from the publisher, because they were insisting they were very small. And I also went back to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and they've addressed the Oompa Loompas again, and this time they've

changed them from small men to small people. And I'm just wondering what woman felt excluded from that group? Like, I've heard women say to me before, you know, I really want to be a part of this boys' club or that boys' club, but no one's ever said I'm desperate to be an Oompa Loompa. And we're called enough names already, I would have thought we could have left Oompa Loompa off the list. I think the changes haven't been the best. I think that's fair to say.

Because they changed... Augustus Clip is no longer fat. He's enormous. Now, I'm not sure that that is much better. Kids being bullied at school and, you know, somebody's been called fat and you have a kid going, no, no, no, you can't call them fat. They're not fat. They're enormous!

In all seriousness, it was done by the publishers, wasn't it? It was done by Puffin and they did it because there's a certain amount of people who felt uncomfortable reading those books to their kids because they had difficult words that they felt was outdated. So really it's just a money thing, isn't it? It's just to sell more books to more people. It's very much to sell more books to more people,

and there's two ways of doing it. Obviously, you know, one is to try and make everybody feel more inclusive and then they've got a bigger audience, and the other way, of course, is to change, completely unnecessarily, a couple of words and then everybody thinks, well, that is completely ridiculous. I'm going to go online and see if I can get one of the old editions and generate sales that way round.

And those prices are going to spike because demand is going to be high. And they probably bought loads of the copies early. So they were working the system from the inside. Oh, my God, this is like Ocean's Eleven all over again! I can't believe they haven't got rid of it. The creepiest bit in China Chocolate Factory is those wife-swapping grandparents who share a bed. To give them separate beds, we all know what's going on there.

They're at it 24-7, and Charlie Bucket's sleeping with his hands over his ears and the wonder is out looking for chocolate bars all the time. He's just trying to get away from that sex fest that's going on in there.

There's a reference in the BFG of Mary going as white as a sheet and they've changed that to as white as a sheet, and they've changed that to as white as a farmer's market. Yes. Indeed, the publisher of Roald Dahl's books has been changing some of the wording in his books. Roald Dahl remains one of Britain's most popular anti-Semitic children's authors, and it's important to keep his work accessible for all anti-Semites today.

Dahl himself made revisions, as Andy said, to his texts, and some of these revisions made now are sensible and some are probably unnecessary. Is it progress? Is it regress? Is it destroying literature? Is it saving it? And above all, do we need to take a more nuanced view of these things and stop seeing them as simple binary choices? Well, do we? Come on! Yes or no?

And that concludes this week's News Quiz. Our winners, going home with a luxury cucumber for two and an all-inclusive lettuce... ..are Holly and Ian on Team Salads with 14. Kate and Andy finish on 12. Thank you for listening to this week's News Quiz. I've been Andy Altman. Goodbye. Taking part in the News Quiz were Ian Smith,

Holly Walsh, Kate Andrews and Andy Parsons. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Alice Frazier, Catherine Brinkworth, William Hall and Jade Gevy. The producer was Sam Holmes. It was a BBC Studios production. Introducing Gaslight. I think there's something peculiar about this house.

A new drama from BBC Radio 4. The gaslight's over there above the fireplace. Yes? I wonder if Mummy might be trying to get in touch. Is the light playing tricks on you? Or is it just your mind? What if we both sold this place and you got a job in one of those little colleges that we'd be pleased to have for you?

You don't really believe that, do you? I'm trying to be kind. Like you were with the dog. How much do we really know about the person we love? Is there something I should know about, Jack? No. I didn't put a foot wrong. And how much can we rely?

Quite a bit younger than you appear to be on screen. On the kindness of strangers. And you look like you've been crying. Gaslight. You can't talk to me like that. I don't even know who you are. Available on BBC Sounds.