Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - 7th October

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Andy Zaltzman quizzes the week’s news.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Before we start this week's news quiz, we should let you know that we have been warned that power cuts could interrupt the show at any... Oh. Oh. We'd better get the emergency generator going. Can someone put Lineker on the bike, please? Right, there we go.

We should be... That should keep us going for half an hour. Someone chuck him some crisps in 15. Fingers crossed. Welcome to the News Quiz. Hello. I am Andy Zaltzman and a big thank you to all of our listeners

who entered our I reckon I could do a better job than competition, especially in the very popular Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer categories. Our judging panel made up of weeping Conservative Party backbench MPs will be announcing the 30 million shortlisted entries at the end of the show.

And bad luck to the 17 people who missed out. Time to meet our teams this week. We have Team A Little Turbulence against Team Cyclone of Unquenchable Chaos. On Team Turbulence, well, unfortunately, after advice from the government, King Charles III will not be taking part in the news quiz this week, but we've got the nearest possible replacement

from Glasgow, Susie McCabe, and with her, Athena Koblenou. Lining up against them on Team Chaos, we have Glenn Moore and, from The Spectator, Katie Balls. And this can go to Katie and Glenn on Team Chaos. Prime Minister Liz Truss gave her first party conference speech as Prime Minister this week and claimed she had three priorities for our economy. One point for each of them.

They were what, what and what. It was growth, growth and growth. Correct. Three points. Well done. Yeah, I thought it was quite a good speech. I mean, I'm saying that. I mean, I'm trying to be sort of quite sort of toilet half full about the whole thing. Many because of Tory party conferences, the bar is very, very low,

considering that it was just a few years ago that when Theresa May gave it, the set started collapsing around her like a Buster Keaton movie and she audibly had smallpox. So this was an improvement. Yeah, I think you can say it was the highlight of Liz Truss's conference, but that says more about the three days of chaos that came before.

When you say highlight, how much light was involved in... Yeah, we're quite near the ground. Right. But above the ground. I mean, that's better than it could have been. The problem was she did new material. And we wanted to hear the classics. You know, there were loads of Tories in the crowd going,

do pork markets! We wanted cheese, cheese, cheese. And what do you think of the, as professional performers, did you pick up any useful tips from Liz Truss? I did, Andy, I did, because I printed off her speech and I noticed that she was trying to hypnotise us because she listed unions and Lib Dems, SNP

and Labour memes broadcasts and podcasts and folks who vote for anti-growth growth, growth, growth, growth your income tax, your VAT your money back your guarantee black or white,

red chocolate. God bless Tufton Street. It's hard to know what to say after that. Yeah, growth, growth, growth. I mean, I guess we've got to hope she never gets hold of a genie

in a magic lamp, because it feels like she's wasted two of her threes. What did you make of it, Athena? When you give a speech, never say something that's obvious. Nothing was more obvious to me than the fact that she had a comprehensive education. Now, it was clear she was comprehensively educated because she said growth 29 times.

No thesaurus, OK? If she'd been privately educated, she'd have used the following words. Swell. Belote. Enlarge. And my favourite, bulge. Conference began with Liz Truss saying

that she was definitely sticking by her plan to abolish the 45p tax for the top earners, only to, I think, around 24 hours later, say that she had listened and she was going to get rid of it. But then 24 hours later, she gave an interview saying she still wanted to do it... ..but she wasn't going to do it. So I'm not sure what she's listening to at different times.

Right. What should she be listening to? I mean, the voices in her head don't seem to be particularly reliable. She just kept flip-flopping, so she, you know, in terms of, like, the U-turns and stuff like that, it's no point lying about something if you're going to sort of go back on the... You've got to have courage in your convictions. I mean, I'm saying this as someone who does not have courage in their convictions. Like, I wear a Che Guevara T-shirt, I couldn't name any of his songs.

I can't. I'm not one to judge. And there was other things that went wrong with the speech. Let's have another question. Just buzz in here on your non-existent buzzers. Excluding millions and millions of people in the UK, plus large parts of our own party, which people, people, did Liz Truss make angry this week? Everyone except the 81,000 that voted for her.

That's close, but I'm looking for a slightly narrower category of people. Baba Booey. That's my buzzer. Is it the apparently non-existent anti-growth coalition? No, that's not that. Is it podcasters? She didn't seem to like them. No, I don't think a single podcaster voted in the Tory leadership election. Was it Scotland? No.

Because they have a habit of it? I think we can just take that as a given now. No, the correct answer is M. She made M people very angry. Oh, yeah. No, the correct answer is M. She made M people very angry. Oh, yeah.

The... LAUGHTER An actual question with an actual answer. Have you ever thought that they'd have checked whether the band really hated them before using them? Did you see Bobby Gillespie from Primo Scream tweeted, Oh, thank God, I thought it was her moving on up. LAUGHTER I'd have chosen Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus. Personally.

I think the Tories have a bad history of doing this, though, because I think Theresa May went for Calvin Harris once, and that did not land well at all. And then I think the next time they went for Kate Bush, who was briefly a Mayite, but then I think reversed her time they went for Kate Bush, who was briefly a Mayite, but then I think reversed her position before the song played. And I think Harold Macmillan came on to a fire starter. Yes, Trust toddled on to the 1990s hit Moving On Up by M People.

Without having permission, the founder of M People and co-writer of the song Michael Pickering tweeted, he is very angry, and he said, I don't want my song being a soundtrack to lies, which means that it can never be played in nightclubs. The son of the M People lead singer Heather Small is a Labour Party councillor, and it took the internet about three steps into Truss's stage walk

to point out that the song's lyrics might not convey the image that she wants. The lyrics include lines such as, your time is up, go on, pack your bags, you're moving on out, and you have no mandates, no qualifications, and no support. Let's

move on to another question now. You have to tell me, who or what was Liz Truss talking about when she said these words? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Any suggestions? I have no suggestions, but just incorrect, inaccurate. Come on, Liz! Is it her looking round the Cabinet

and looking at the Chancellor, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary? No. Is it the anti-growth coalition? That is correct, yes. It is the anti-growth coalition. It's also what happens if you put the words Jacob Rhys Mogg through Google Translate. I mean, it's kind of a weird, confected enemy to create. I mean, are they the best kind of enemies politically,

the ones that don't actually exist? I think they have some pluses for politicians. Quite hard for them to talk back sometimes. But, yes, I think this is opposition politicians, institutions, and then I think it went from... I think people live in North London, particularly if you're in a townhouse, and also if you get a taxi to the BBC.

I wasn't offered a taxi here tonight, so... OK, so you're in the clear. I think maybe I'm not in the anti-growth parade. I'm five foot two and I've been smoking since I was 13, so I'm very anti-growth. Glenn, have you got any definition of what this mysterious... What I thought was just anyone who hasn't actively come out in support of Liz Truss would be in the anti-growth coalition

would be the easiest way of doing it, like accusing people of being a communist in the 50s. So anyone who hasn't actively shown their support for Liz Truss, so that would include, like, Ariana Grande and Mr Blobby. Huge amount of people. Are they dating? You said that as if they're a couple. Yeah, like, casual doesn't even begin to describe it

But she was seen leaving crinkly bottom on more than one occasion Athena and Susie, tell me, what was Liz Truss talking about when she said these words Let's get them removed Oh, there's a thing she's got on her butt Was it the Chancellor the Home Secretary? The Home Secretary. Not quite. Any suggestions?

Let's get them removed. This was the Greenpeace protest. It was, correct. Who took out a banner and then that banner got snatched away and then they just unfurled another banner. They're magic. They'd also managed to really nail down the Tory conference look because they had to get into the centre,

so I think they were part of a stall there, and quite quickly everyone noticed that, you know, it's a lightly coloured blazer and a collar, and you're there as long as you've also brushed your hair. Perfect. That ruled me out. Yes, it was the two Greenpeace protesters who waggled a flag, saying, who voted for this, during her speech.

The answer, as you said, is 81,000 people, one-eighth of 1% of the population of the country. I would also have accepted for what she meant when she said, let's get them removed, would be all tattoos of Rishi Sunak. And the strings that seemed to be attached to her arms during the speech. It meant the only gestures she could make made her look like a thunderbird trying to accurately remember the length of a baguette.

So, Katie, it was a kind of turbulent week for the Conservatives. Did it count as a good week for Labour, who just had a fairly solid conference the week before? You were at both of them. How do those two conferences compare? One felt quite happy. The other... I mean, Tory conference, I suppose, was like one big happy family, if you're the Sopranos. Right.

The issue is that there was so much sort of Tory infighting going on over the last sort of week, and I think the Tories in particular, more than any other party, are a group that have to sort of group together. I think if they're going to be really toxic towards the nation, I've got to do it sort of as a team. There's no iron gaslighting, and they've got to remember... LAUGHTER

..and there's not. They also need to help journalists out a bit, because I think at a Conservative Party conference, there were just so many people rebelling at the same time. It was quite hard to get a grip of. At one fringe, you'd have a cabinet minister accuse Michael Gove of staging a coup, while at the same time, you'd have others

freelancing on government policy. So that was a bit inconvenient. Right. And it seems that there's been quite a lot of quite strident criticism of the government from generally conservative-leaning media. How big a problem is that for the trust? I think she's got a few problems

at the moment. So, I mean, I think when they did, obviously, the U10 on the 45p tax rate for top earners, the way that came, which was late, after having doubled down in the morning, it also meant that a few of the more supported papers had already written leaders saying, the lady's not for turning.

Right. Only for the time anyone got their paper to find out that actually she was. Yes. So I don't think that particularly helped. I think she's playing hard to get with us. You know when you really fancy someone, you just treat them terribly.

You know, she's like, I really love the British public, but how can I show them I love them while increasing their mortgages by two grand a year? You know, then they'll be obsessed with me. There were rumours of a coup within a month, but do you think she's seen them off? I think she'll still be Prime Minister on Monday. Right.

But I think there's always a coup in the Tory party these days. They've got a bit of a taste for regicide and as much as lots of MPs at Tory conferences are saying, we can't get rid of another leader this soon, they'll be like, but do you think we could? Those are the type of conversations going back and forth in the bars in the evening. So I think people are quite worried about how that might look.

But, you know, there's different cues going on. There's Michael Gove on the Rampage who began conference, almost torpedoing this trustless conference by saying he would rebel on the budget if she didn't move. And then she had to. But then you've also got Boris Johnson supporters walking around saying, look, we might have had some problems with Prosecco,

but it was nothing on your mortgage. And then the Rishi Sunak group, obviously, also walking around a bit more smartly dressed and politely saying, we did warn you about this. So those are the different potential coups, I think. I was surprised it wasn't just the taxing that there was a U-turn on, that also she was planning on U-turning on a Boris Johnson policy or an idea from Boris Johnson that she's now considering

not increasing benefits in line with inflation. And the only conclusion I can draw from this is that Liz Truss is so lonely that she's trying to be visited by three ghosts this Christmas. Right, the scores are currently five points all. And we're moving into a missing words round. We've taken some words out of Liz Truss's speech and replaced them with noises.

You have to tell me the words you think are missing. You get one point if you get what she did actually say, but you can gamble and get two points if you can tell me what she should have said. So this first one will go to Katie and Glenn. By the end of the year, all... ..will be consigned to history. Is it footage of Holly and Phil?

LAUGHTER I'll give you two points for that. Any other suggestions? Is it footage of Holly and Phil? I'll give you two points for that. Any other suggestions? Is it Tory MPs? That's also close. Vegan cheese? Is it EU red tape?

That is correct, yes. You could also have had hope, belief in democracy, life on earth and of you. I mean, is this realistic, all EU red tape, Katie? Well, I think a lot of it technically actually expires, so the government doesn't have to do much. Right. And it just does it itself, which not everyone's clocked onto yet. So if there's no votes, that's quite good news for this government,

given the mood right now. So it's sort of like a jar of pickle in the fridge. It just kind of gradually goes off until you find a bit of EU red tape years later and you can't use that anymore. This is me finding out that jar of pickles can go off. It's got to make some calls. Sorry. Athena and Susie, here's your clip.

We're reversing the... ..from next month. The pound. Brexit. I think that's still a way off. Any other suggestions? We're reversing the what from next month? Is she reversing the Chancellor? Well, that's still a way off. Any other suggestions? We're reversing the what from next month? Is she reversing the Chancellor? Well, that's actually quite close.

Reversing the increase in national insurance is what she said. You could also have had the polarity of the nation, which has turned out to be the quickest way of levelling up, or the alphabet, which I think would... Someone whose name begins with Z, I'm very much in favour of. Either side can chip in on this next one. I am clear we cannot pave the way to sustainable economic growth

without... Is it forecasts from the OBR? Is it the unconditional support of Heather Small? It should have been that. Any other right or wrong answers? Is it what they missed out, fiscal responsibility? That is the factually correct answer.

I'm clear we cannot pave the way to sustainable economic growth without fiscal responsibility. You could also have had magic. Yes, it was a difficult week for Quarteng and Truss in the aftermath of their mini-budget when the goose of tax-slashing dogma

met the jet engine of free-market reality. In her set-piece leader speech, Truss tried to get her prime ministerial Titanic back on top of the iceberg by focusing on three things, growth, growth and growth, using three methods, lack of detail, lack of detail and lack of detail.

She talks about vested interests dressed up as think tanks as a threat to the country. Now, being lectured by a Conservative Prime Minister about vested interests is like Michelangelo telling you never to paint a ripped dude with his jingle jangles out on your ceiling.

Truss also promised to keep an iron grip on the nation's finances, and thus far she's provided the kind of iron grip offered by a walrus trying to hold a soaked rugby ball between two heavy-based frying pans. But what did she really mean in this speech? Well, the time now is to turn to technology and welcome back our old friend, my piece of politico tech the equivocax subtext recator 8000p now this is a quite a high-tech piece of kit i've got here um it interprets what people really mean when they say

something uh it comes with it got this base station i'll just get the aerial up on that, which triangulates with my laptop and it links up wirelessly with the main subtextricator through this wire. I'll just switch this on. Subtextricator on. OK, I need to calibrate it, make sure it's interpreting things correctly. So, Glenn, I'll just get something for you. How have you found the show so far?

Fairly indifferent. Right, let's find out what you really mean by that. It has been the absolute highlight of not just my comedy career, but my entire life. OK. Well, it seems to be working. So let's find out what the Prime Minister really meant in her speech, starting with when she said this.

I know what it's like to live somewhere that isn't feeling the benefits of economic growth. Let's find out what she really meant. I live in the United Kingdom under my own government. Let's have the next clip. I grew up in Paisley and in Leeds in the 80s and 90s. I've seen

the boarded up shops. I've seen people left with no hope turning to drugs. I've seen families struggling to put food on the table. What do those mysterious words actually mean? Thatcherism worked for everyone.

She continued. That is why I'm determined to take a new approach and break us out of this high-tax, low-growth cycle. And what did that mean? I will end 12 years of Conservative government by making my party completely

unelectable. And finally... Now, later on in my speech, my friends, I'm going to talk about the anti-growth coalition. And what did that mean? Error. These words have no meaning. Sometimes technology has no answer to the wit of humanity. Right, let's switch it off. Right.

Subtextricator off. Bye-bye. So, at the end of our Tory conference round, Athena and Susie have eight 8 and Katie and Glenn have 9 Moving on now, we'll finish with some quick fire questions Who seems to be expecting sea levels to rise very significantly in coming years Is it the inventor of A-levels and B-levels?

The correct answer is parents, because Noah has taken the top spot in most popular boys' names, which suggests that, yeah, our parents are getting a bit... We believe in nominative determinism in this country. If there is nominative determinism, just ask my son Ombudsman. Do you ever think about the first person ever to reuse a name? Because obviously, like, back in the day, thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago, everyone had a different name to each other

because that's how you differentiated between each other. And if you lived in a village where you're called John and then someone you know has a baby and he goes, oh, we called it John, you take him to his home and say, what do you think you're doing, man? Why have you done that? You have clearly never worked on a building site because when you work on a building site,

you've got John, young John, young John John. JJ, Johnny Johnny. Johnny John. Joe. Our next question. Liz Truss has endured an extremely frosty honeymoon period during which she disappeared from public view for some time before re-emerging.

But someone is setting out to outdo the prime minister on both of these fronts frostiness and duration who and why any suggestions frosty honeymoon period this is uh four women who've been selected to spend five months running a post office in the antctic, including the recently married Natalie Corbett, who described the trip as a solo honeymoon. It's Antarctica that they're going to, isn't it? They're going to run a post office in the middle of nowhere, but I swear, Dan, if you go there, you'll still have to wait 20 minutes because the person in front wants to get their passport checked

and they want to pay for the service, and line by line, they've got to check everything, they've forgotten birth certificate and they're like oh now i've got these dirty bags of coppers count them then a penguin comes in they're a nightmare they can't hold the biro so you've got to help them out post office isn't it like wherever you go all the same another question a letter written by an allegedly drunk queen victoria is to be auctioned off but what question did the 64 time british monarch of the year and mum of nine ask in that letter was it a how tall is that donkey b how deep is your love c how much is that doggy in the window? D. What is the airspeed of an

unladen swallow? E. How many roads must a queen walk down before you call her a queen? Or F. Are we absolutely sure this Empire thing is 100% legit? You can tell she was drunk because she wrote we are really amused.

The correct answer is how tall is that donkey? There's a letter written by Queen Victoria. Do we at least have the reply? Do we know? No, I don't think we, I think that's a mystery. There were just loads of photos of her on a really tall donkey weeks later. Wouldn't it be good if it was just like, what's the point

in being queen if I can't get a kebab at this time? Yeah, the letter's being sold along with some big old royal undies. Huge, huge undies. Victoria, as well as being a famously tough crowd at comedy gigs, absolutely loved knowing the height of donkeys. And why not?

She lived in the 19th century. She didn't have Netflix, so you got your fun where you could. Is that donkey taller or shorter than a whippet standing on its hind legs with its front paws on a snooker table? I mean, the evenings just flew by. Some have claimed that the large-scale, scrawlily illegible handwriting suggests that the Queen might have been a little bit

on the drunkled side of the sobriety seesaw. Others claim that she had poor eyesight in her later years. But let's stick with the hammered Queen queries donkey dimensions headline. Another question. Can you tell me what number 70 is? Is this the amount of cigar smoked by Therese Coffey, the Health Secretary, at the Tory party conference this year? Has a government minister ever had a less appropriate name than coffee

when you saw the entire room asleep? Yes? James Cleverley. The correct answer is Vladimir Putin's age. I'm sure all our audience here and everyone listening at home would like to join me in not wishing him a very happy birthday Finally, what do the following sports have in common? Chess, fishing and poker

Their sports were at half time, you don't want to switch sides Is this cheating? Correct And the guy apparently was using love beats to cheat at chess and I was thinking surely that would be kerplunk. Basically, I first started noticing when he started bashing the bishop. It's totally revelatory and Andy,

I don't want to point fingers, but there's a couple of people on this panel being a bit shifty on their chairs. And as soon as they shift, the there's a couple of people on this panel being a bit shifty on their chairs. Right? And as soon as they shift, the right answer comes out of their mouths. It does sound like the sort of thing you'd come up with as an excuse in a blind panic. Like if your partner's like, what are these beads for? And you're like, they're for chess.

Unzip your mask. Sorry, they're for chess. Yes, an investigation by chess.com, a website that specialises in chess, I think, concluded that it's likely that American chess whiz Hans Nieman cheated in more than 100 online games. This follows other accusations against Nieman levelled by world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, who, of course, you probably remember last seen shouting,

Oi, mate, you're only supposed to move diagonally at Justin Welby during the Queen's funeral. That concludes this week's News Quiz, and the scores are Team Turbulence, Athena and Susie, have 12, and Team Chaos, Kate and Glenn, have 10. There you go. Thank you very much for listening. I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye.

Taking part in the news quiz were Athena Cablenyu, Glenn Moore, Katie Balls and Susie McKay. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman and additional material was written by Alice Fraser, Zoe Tomalin, Carl Kazana, Davina Bentley and Jay Geby. The producer was Georgia Keating and it was a BBC Studios production.

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