Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - 8th March

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Mark Steel, Marie Le Conte, Simon Evans and Zoe Lyons join Andy Zaltzman for the last episode in the present series.This week the panel give their 2p on the budget, the battle for the White House and what it might sound like if George Galloway joined the News Quiz.Written by Andy ZaltzmanWith additional material by: Cody Dahler, Meryl O'Rourke, Molly McGuinness, Peter Tellouche and Christina Riggs.Producer: Gwyn Rhys Davies Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls Sound Editor: Marc Willcox Recorded by Marc Willcox and Neva MissirianA BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, welcome to the News Quiz. It was World Book Day this week, which we are marking here at the News Quiz by taking delivery of all the books in the world. Right, I'll just pick one out completely at random to read to you from start to finish.

Right, this one. It's called Grounds for Optimism by J. Hunt and R. Sunak. Here we go. The End. Love a short book. Welcome to the News Quiz. Hello, welcome to the News Quiz. I am Andy Zoltan. Welcome to the final News Quiz of the current series. Or the final News Quiz of the current government.

Depending on when the election is. Our teams this week. To mark Jeremy Hunt's claim of what his budget would do and his turnaround on non-dom tax status, we have Change History against Changed His Story. On Team History, we have Mark Steele and Simon Evans. On Team History, Zoe Lyons and the French-Moroccan author and freelance political journalist Marie Leconte.

Mark and Simon, you get our first question. 2p or not 2p? Why was that the question? Jeremy Hunt, he's knocked two pence off national insurance, the one where they go, well, we're going to insure, you know, against eventualities. And it does always make me wonder whether we couldn't get away with not doing it one year.

I mean, how many of us have gone, I'm not sure I'm going to renew the old house insurance this year. I've gone several years ago, I've gone away with it last year, I reckon we could do it again. And that could actually tip us back into the black. But instead of which, he's just knocked tuppence off, which, to be honest, is so unexciting. It's the sort of dividend that would be more appropriate

if your gran pressed it into your palm while your mum wasn't looking. Here you go, treat yourself. I mean, you're right, but nobody's listening to him anyway, so it doesn't make... They might as well have just had a laugh with it, mightn't they? And gone, we are announcing at this budget a £1 billion flamingo windfall. And flamingos are going to get a billion pounds. And everyone would have gone, well, because no-one's taken any notice

except Laura Koonsberg would have gone, well, this is just the sort of measure that may win back some votes in the famous pink wall. It's just pathetic. And Rishi Sunak turns up every morning and goes, what's happened today? Oh, I'm afraid that Grant Shapps has been filmed punching Dame Judi Dench in the mouth

in a fight over Brexit, and Suella Braverman was on record as having been throwing llamas off a cliff. Why don't they just give up and bugger off? So, if I was a door-to-door canvasser for the Conservative Party, would I put you down as a maybe, Mark? Very much a floating vote. Although the Labour Party will go,

we absolutely support the Flamingo tax, but we think it doesn't go far enough and should include ostriches. Marie, do you think this 2p reduction in national insurance is essentially just applying a plaster with one hand whilst the blood-splattered chainsaw is still revving in the other hand? Absolutely, and I think the problem as well is that that's going to be paid for with efficiency savings in the public sector. And I feel like when I look at the public sector in Britain in 2024,

efficient already, that is not the word I would have had in mind. So I think that it is, as you said, saving a bit of money, but also probably never seeing a GP ever again, which I feel like is not a bargain I personally signed up for. The hardest part of the budget for me was having to actually just look at Jeremy Hunt. I think he'd just flown straight back in from Transylvania, having won a staring-to-the-death competition with Nosferatu.

I would watch that on pay-per-view, to be fair. I feel like he looks like a malevolent ferret. Haven't you, in fact, said that he wants to bring a complete end to what? Oh, all of it. He's done. Just pressing the button. Is it National Insurance? Yeah. Like Mark says, why don't they just do it? I mean, they're basically... They could have absolutely gone hell for leather in this budget.

They've got absolutely nothing to lose, which makes it even more of a beige sort of budget in itself. I'd have been out the front of number 11 with a box of vapes going, right, these are going up next week, get my kids out. Who wants them? Two for a fiver, I'm robbing myself here. Come on, lads. I'll put the whole economy on a horse. Yeah.

Imagine if it come in at six to one. We're suddenly richer than Saudi Arabia. Well, let's move on to some details of what was announced in the budget. Now, news moves fast these days, which means that people who type in headlines for newspapers often have to type them quickly and get them a little bit wrong. So what I'm going to do in this round

is give our panellists a typo-ridden headline from this week's budget. They have to tell me what the headline should be. So, Mark and Simon, tell me what this headline should be. Government scraps condoms, Prime Minister's wife reportedly concerned. Well, presumably the non-dom. Correct.

Although it does work in the original as well. I think little Rishi is going to have his pocket money docked either way when he gets home. The non-dom thing is obviously spite, and I understand it. It's not going to save the British economy, but it's an understandable demonstration of vicious malevolence towards the super-rich who swan around looking like they own the place. But scrapping them does no good. It just goes away and we've got to find another scapegoat.

It would be much more entertaining to allow non-doms to stay, but every so often a steamroller runs over a Lamborghini in Knightsbridge. Everyone can stand around looking and laughing at it. Well, of course, since we left the EU, we now have the right to do that now. Yeah, this is the kind of stuff, and we haven't taken advantage of it yet. It's been very disappointing.

We haven't even invaded France. Is it going to make much difference, this non-dom change, do you think? I think it'll just annoy the Labour Party. I think that's why they did it, because it was Labour's big policy and now Labour doesn't really have one of their big policies anymore, which is essentially it. I'm not convinced it's the best basis for policy making, but also

they don't seem to have any basis at all at the moment, so, you know, why not that one? I mean, it's a bit of an issue, though, isn't it? If the Conservatives keep saying that Labour has no plan, and then they steal some of that plan they supposedly don't have? Now they have less of a plan because they've stolen it. I mean, I don't know how much this non-dom...

Apparently it'll sort of provide about £2.7 billion to the economy, but, listen, to be very honest, I sort of switched off during the budget because economics really isn't my thing. I only just realised that APR wasn't just short form for April, so... Right, your headline, Zoe and Marie. Hunt braises child in beef tin.

What is the actual headline, and that was... I sincerely have no idea. Also, because it's a very vivid image, so I think I'm not listening about that child now. Braises child in... Oh! Braises child benefit. Also, it's a very vivid image, so I think I'm not really thinking about that child now. Raises child in... Oh, raises child benefit. Correct, yes. Is this programme merging with Countdown?

I'll have two headlines from the top. Yes, he's raised the threshold to, is it £80,000 a year? You can still claim some form of child benefit to help with the child costs, or just do as I do and don't have any children, that really cuts down on the cost. Yeah, I'd rather have a ski holiday, but there you go. Is this going to shift the political dial at all, the child benefit raise, do you think?

To be honest, it's the first I've heard of it. Oh, OK. I mean, he does seem to be straying into hard labour territory. He said that the one thing that the British people were most proud of was the NHS, which has not been emblematic of Tory policy or sentiment, but, you know, what this child benefit... £80,000 you can earn and Zoe still has to pay for your kids.

That doesn't seem fair. Eating into my ski holiday. Yes, it was budget time again this week. Economics fans across the nation on tenterhooks as they waited for another thrilling clash between pre-election politics and basic mathematics. Hunt promised to change history, which is not always a desirable goal with a budget. Exhibit A, quasi-quarting. Exhibit B, also quasi-quarting. Of course, the best way to

change history is to leave schools so underfunded that they can't teach history properly. The headline measure was a 2p in the pound reduction in national insurance. 2p, by coincidence, is also the total money set aside for the arts over the next 10 years. As always with budgets, many were less disappointed, particularly in the care sector. Age UK said the picture for social care remains like a Mike Lee film about 1980s England cricket. So they didn't actually say that.

They said it's incredibly bleak. At the end of our budget round, Zoe and Marie have four, Mark and Simon have six. Well, as we've seen in the budget, it's become very trendy to run out of money, so we'll now have a couple of questions about things that have absolutely no money whatsoever. Mark and Simon, why is Brum glum?

They've run out of money. They've had to pay a huge amount of money in compensation to some people who were not given equal pay along the lines agreed previously with a union or something, and it's bankrupted them. And so Birmingham is going to be run on a much reduced budget, which is alarming, to say the least, because we've seen what fully funded Birmingham looks like.

They're massively reducing services, but also massively reducing the funding of the arts, aren't they? And I think what they have to do in that sort of situation is combine the two, very much in the same way that Tracey Emin's Unmade Bed was a recognised piece of iconic art back in the day. It's not

uncollected bins. That's just trash installation. Birmingham has had to cancel all its funding for everything this week. And of course, that's right, because it's people in Birmingham using services that have wasted all the money. It's not

the people who've said, let's build a railway that's never ever going to happen and cost 50 squillion pounds. And everyone goes, that'll never work. And they go, yes it will. And in the end they go, oh, it's actually going to cost 50 squillion pounds and everyone goes, that'll never work and they go, yes it will, and in the end they go oh it's actually going to be 60 squillion pounds and it's only going to go from Euston Station to the end of the platform at Euston Station

it's not then it's bloody people learning music in Birmingham going, oh well I can play a concerto on my violin, it's you bastards, you've used all the money, and it's not people who were bloody given £20 billion to produce PPE that you had absolutely no

idea how to make, so it all got put in the bin and then got put in the House of Lords. No, it's the Birmingham Fire Brigade. People go, oh, we've bought an extra ladder so we can get to the top floor where you can't have it! APPLAUSE APPLAUSE

I think it is worth floor where you can't have it! I think it is worth noting as well that the next Conservative Party conference this year is in Birmingham, so I think that's going to fit really well. I think them drinking champagne in the middle of the city, that no longer exists. Zoe and Marie, a question about things that have no money for you. We heard a couple

of weeks ago that a Trident missile test went plop in the Atlantic. But how did a clever lateral thinking RAF drone trial squadron avoid any similar failures? Oh, I actually really enjoyed the UK Defence Journal, very serious publication, covered this. And their headline was, new drone trials squadron has no drones. That'll be a problem. That was the issue right there. I'm no expert, but I feel like that is a problem. Well, yes and no. It's a problem that we don't have any that have been tested,

but equally, none of the tests have gone wrong. So, you know, cardboard cut-out drones is what I'm suggesting. Do we have them? Don't we have them? Wasn't there a story a couple of years ago that Gatwick Airport was closed for about four days because there was a drone, and then there wasn't even a drone?

The drone itself had been a rumour that had somehow spread, and they closed the airport. If they can harness the hypnotic ability to make you think there is a drone out there somewhere, you can just dispense with the drones entirely. So basically you're saying we can replace Trident with Derren Brown. Yeah, exactly. Yes, Birmingham, the jewel of Birmingham,

is on the verge of going out of business. Unless a buyer can be found, the renowned Midland City will be dismantled and sold off for scrap at the end of April. So other savings will have to be made, including we're just hearing that Birmingham's 25 biggest secondary schools are merging into one giant mega school with lessons given in the 42,000 capacity Villa Park by a giant inflatable sunak. For other possible savings, well, a wise man from the Midlands once told me there are more miles of canals in Birmingham than

there are in Venice, so cash-strapped Birmingham could be forced into selling off its canals to canal-strapped Saudi Arabia. Birmingham people always say that, more miles of canal in Birmingham than Venice, and I always think, oh, I know, but the thing with a canal when it comes to attracting people, it's really quality over quantity. You might as well say,

do you know there's more paint in a warehouse in Luton than there is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? A lesson in statistics, then. Meanwhile, the RAF have updated their motto per ardua ad astra, through adversity to the stars, to per ardua ad asda, through adversity to the stars, to per ardua ad asda.

Also, some schools this week, as a cost-saving measure for parents, scrapped fancy dress for World Book Day. The irony is with World Book Day is that most kids go in dressed as Harry Potter for the last 20 years. It's the one day on which they wear traditional school uniforms. Or just go in in your pyjamas. This is, like, obviously... I feel like I'm writing a paedophile's charter here, but...

LAUGHTER I see, sir. And that, to some extent... You were just taking part in World Book Day, were you? But in Simon's defence, they are encouraging kids to go in pyjamas now, so that in case they don't have costumes, it's to sort of emulate the bedtime story thing.

Well, I'm pleased to say that our panellists at the news quiz have put the effort in. I'd always assumed that Simon Evans could rock an Alice in Wonderland look, and it's nice to see that validated. Mark Steele as boxer from Animal Farm, eerily realistic. Now you've cracked the joke, can I take the corset off? Right, the scores are now eight points all.

George Galloway has promised that his party will aim to do what at the election? Oh, his party will aim to... I think this is about Angela Rayner, probably, but everything. I mean, George Galloway is, at one and the same time, appalling and hilarious. It's got a bit... In the House of Commons, however long he's in there, probably even when he's in the canteen, he's going, Let me put it to you, person who works in the canteen.

Your ignominious descent into oblivion has been rendered inviolable and inevitable by your iniquitous pricing of confectionery. The egregious and malefluous manner with which you have charged no less than 30 pence for a custard cream shall not go without consequences.

Oh, tie long. You should get him on here. I'd rather just have you pretending to be him on air. Let me put it to you, Andy Zaltzman. Your faux satirical effect question mastering is compromised fatally by your adherence to the imperialist tomfoolery that is known as cricket.

...a surrealist tomfoolery that is known as cricket... ...that no doubt serves your poppin' G-Pail masters at the BBC. I mean, I would happily have this 24 hours a day on Radio 4. Shipping forecast? Let me put it to you, South East Iceland. Traffic news? You're hungering Jerry to this this time. Well, that was unquestionably

the highlight of the series. Elsewhere in Westminster, ministers could be set to broaden the definition of extremism to cover anything that undermines the nation's institutions or British values. We've stolen the Ministry of Britishness' secret British values assessment machine that works out

exactly what British values currently are. So I'll just get it fired up. If we now input all the news from britain and all the information about britain today in a few minutes processing time it will tell us exactly what british values actually are i'll just set it to five values that should be enough it should ping when it's ready in the meantime let's pop across the pond to America now. And this question can go to Zoe and Marie. What almost 160-year-old two-headed monster

is set to rampage unchecked across America for the next eight months? Is this the combined ages of Biden and Trump? Yes. The two old duffers, the blokes on the Muppet Show in the balcony. Who, I don't know, I mean, Biden's 81, Trump's 77. I presume when

the last election happened, Biden was 77 and Trump probably banged on about him being too old. What baffles me as well is in a country of 300 million plus people, it's come down to those two. In a country where you go,

you can be whatever you want to be. And it's like, why doesn't anybody want to be president? Except the only other person that's standing is, if you don't have any notes, is JFK's nephew. And you're like, is that it? Is that it? Is there nobody else?

Anyone else? Anyone? Bruce Springsteen? Yes. Dolly Parton, she'd say. Dolly Parton! She'd win, wouldn't she? That'd do. That'd be fantastic, wouldn't it? Mark, I know you're a big snooker fan. I'd get worried in a presidential campaign

when the ages of the candidates are too much for a frame of snooker that doesn't involve a lot of fouls. 81 to 77. I'd rather see a 147-year-old and a baby today. Biden's approval ratings are currently

lower than Trump's were after the 6th of January insurrection, if that's what you want to call it. And they're literally lower. And his team go, yeah, no, he's really sharp, actually. In meetings and stuff, when we're sitting around the campaign table, you should see him. He's sharp, he's on it, he's mastered his brief. And you go, there exists reasonably plausible footage of Bigfoot.

How come there's not even camera phone footage of Biden being remotely sentient in the last three years? I reckon the Dolly Parton idea could run. That really excited me. Yeah, really excited me, that. That was great. Yeah, and you get rid of the White House and run it from Dollywood. It makes perfect sense.

Well, not so perfect sense, but more sense than what it's currently... More sense. Moving on to the real power broker in America, Taylor Swift, the self-styled George Formby of the USA. Encouraged Americans to do what this week? Vote. Correct. Not trying to encourage them to vote either way week? Vote. Correct. Yeah. Not trying to encourage them to vote either way,

just to vote fairly neutral, you know, and upstanding and civic responsibility and all the rest of it. And it was celebrated and welcomed by Democrats. She's pretty explicitly against Trump, isn't she? Yeah, I think so, yeah. She's regarded as a psy-op, in fact, by the Republican Party. They think that her dating an American football star is an attempt to kind of, like, bring the whole heartland of America over onto her side a bit.

And I've got to be fair, I mean, I've listened to quite a lot of her music over the last ten years, and that would explain a great deal, to be honest, if she was a politically-funded deep-state hypnosis programme. Bit like Bananarama here in the 80s, right be honest, if she was a politically funded deep state hypnosis program. A bit like Bananarama here in the 80s. But I do think the American right has got itself in such a weird spot, specifically on the boyfriend thing, because they've gone, okay,

so this is the most popular woman in the world, kind of like tall, blonde, beautiful, sings songs that everyone loves. She's dating, like, a very famous sports star who's very successful. And we hate that which is such a weird electoral thing to say of being like, oh no, those people who are beautiful and young and in love, no

Dolly Parton Taylor Swift We're building a better world here This would just be, my mind's blown, she'd be such a good running mate, wouldn't she? You have to be 35, don't you? How old's Taylor Swift?

She's nowhere near that. She must be. She's extremely near that. She's 34. You can get a fake ID, anyway, can't you? Yes, this is the American election. As the old American joke goes, a horse walks into a bar and the barman says, any chance you could run for president?

Please, seriously. Watching American politics, it's very much like watching Hannibal Lecter trying to eat himself for dinner, smashing himself over the head with a bottle of nice Chianti. Trumbull Stiltskin, the 77-year-old insurrection fan and Hall of Fame nation splitter, has devoured a pitiful Republican field.

And it all suggests that Trump still has his finger on the pulse of American democracy, just right there on the neck, and is pressing down harder and harder until all blood flow to the brain is cut off. Right, our British values should now be just about ready. There we go. Right. We have our official British values

out-calculated by our machine, and our British values are being rude, living unhealthily, getting cross, institutional incompetence, and a cavalier attitude towards health and safety. So our final round will be a question about one of these British values. Our teams can choose which one.

Marie and Zoe, which British value would you like a question on? I was going to go unhealthy. Which one do you want to go for? Go unhealthy. OK, we'll go unhealthy. Why are the younger generation refusing to pipe down? Oh, I'm actually thrilled about this story. So apparently Gen Z, the youths, are really enjoying smoking cigars and pipes.

So they vape a lot, but they don't smoke cigarettes. But yeah, they enjoy using cigars and pipes, which I like, perhaps controversially, because I think the new generation are massive squares, so if you look at the data, they don't really smoke, they don't really drink, they don't really do drugs, they don't really shag, I have no idea what they're doing. So I'm like, fine, fine, use a pipe, use a cigar, have a little fun, live a little.

Yeah. I mean, this is very French of me, I'm sorry. I know smoking is really really really bad for you and you really really shouldn't do it but the French do it so well I just in but while you're eating I find it fascinating to sit in French restaurants just go wow that's between mouthfuls oh you're so cool I used to smoke while riding my bike, then eventually it was like, no, I can't, I can't, that's just too much. Age four.

Ding, ding. Yes, Winston Churchill and Sherlock Holmes did not die in vain because cigars and pipes are back, particularly popular amongst the 18 to 24 age group who apparently have taken up old school smoking because if they can't have stable careers or own their own homes, they might as well experience something that their grandparents' generation... LAUGHTER

Right, so the scores are now tied at 12-all, meaning this question will decide the final show of the series. Who needs to stop being rude to whom? According to themselves. Isn't it vicars to wedding photographers? Yes, that is correct. Yeah, a rivalry as old as time itself. Which I really enjoyed as a story

because I don't want to get married and I'm not religious. It's very much alien versus predator and I'm really not taking the side. But no, so I think my understanding is that wedding photographers are very cross with vicars because they keep trying to take pictures of weddings because in many ways that's their job and what they're being paid to do, but vicars do not want them.

And actually some examples in the stories were quite funny. So some vicars would go, OK, well, you know, you're the photographer, you can stand at the very back of the church behind a pillar and don't move, which is a bit of a nod thing. So I think, yeah, they've risen up as one to say, come on, just please let us do our jobs, which, again, I'm, yeah, complete agnostic, ironically, on the story. I think the vicar should probably have a bit of a point

because it's still a church, ultimately. Don't you feel like a tabloid-style candid shot from behind a pillar at the back of the church would actually create a little bit of status elevation for the marriage as if they'd tried to keep it secret? That's the kind of candid shot that sells these days, isn't it? I think you basically... What you should really have is a vicar in a body cam, you know.

And then you have the whole thing anyway and you can select the shots afterwards. People only want shots anyway for plausible deniability afterwards. But, again, what a pathetic protest. They've just, in France, they'd have burnt the church down. What happened to Notre Dame? they'd have burnt the church down. That's probably what happened to Notre Dame.

Well, that brings us to the end of the series, and I'm happy to say that our winners have proved themselves worthy of the BBC, unlike some BBC presenters this week. Apparently Zoe and Maria finished with 14, Mark and Simon have 12. And, well, our winners stay winners until our next series. Will there be an election before the next series of the News Quiz in June? Probably not, but if this does prove to be the last News Quiz before a change of government, I would just like to place on record

the heartfelt thanks of all those involved with the News Quiz to the Conservatives for providing us with a, frankly, heroically unstoppable deluge of material over the past 14 years. Thank you very much for listening to this series of the News Quiz. I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye. Taking part in the News Quiz were Simon Evans, Zoe Lyons, Mark Steele and Marie Leconte.

In the chair was Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Cody Darla, Meryl O'Rourke, Molly McGuinness, Peter Toulouche and Christina Riggs. The producer was Gwyn Rees-Davies, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Hello, I'm Brian Cox. I'm Robin Ince, and this is the Infinite Monkey Cage trailer for our brand new series. We've got mummies, we've got magic, we've got asteroids. Mummies, magic and asteroids. What's the link? That it was an asteroid that magically went over the world

that led to Imhotep the mummy coming back to life? That's correct. I thought it would be weird scientific as ever. But the most important thing to know is that we are going to deal with the biggest scientific question we finally ask, what is better, cats or dogs? Listen first on BBC Sounds.