Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep 1. Flags out, stamp duty. Stamped out, off duty.

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Andy Zaltzman is joined by Alasdair Beckett-King, Andrew Maxwell, Lucy Porter and Coco Khan to break down the week in news. Topics include Angela Rayner skipping out on stamp duty, Xi Jinping's summit, the decline in cement, a new leader for the Green Party, and the rapid multiplication of St George's flags. Written by Andy Zaltzman. With additional material by: Rebecca Bain, Milo Edwards, Ruth Husko and Mike Shephard. Producer: Rajiv Karia Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Coordinator: Jodie Charman Sound Editor: Marc Willcox A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4

Welcome back to the News Quiz. Before we get started on this new series, I'm going to quickly catch up on the three months of news that we've missed using the new BBC News Condenser AI Robot. I'll just programme it in June to August. All the News Go. Right. Well, it's just printed off this.

An exact copy of Edvard Monk's smash-hit platinum-selling, painting the scream. This AI technology has got seriously good now. Now we've wrapped up the summer. It's autumn time, so welcome to this new series of the news quiz. Hello.

Our teams this week as we recommenced after a summer not overly burdened with joy and optimism around the world. We have team glass half empty against team glass also half smashed, but we're still drinking out of it, because that's what we do. On Team Empty, we have Cocoa Kahn and Lucy Porter.

And Team Smashed, Alistair Beckett King and Andrew Maxwell. Right, Lucy and Coco, you can take the first question. Now, for this question, for the sake of impartialism, I'm going to use source material from all sides of the political swamp. So here we go. Which prominence politician this week made an honest mistake in an act of shameless hypocrisy relating to a complex technical matter of tax law that showed typical out-of-touch politician's arrogance

resulting from a series of difficult personal family issues that should prompt immediate resignation, if not some kind of public walk of shame through every city in the land, having dealt with the problem swiftly and openly, bringing immutable, unclensible shame upon the government that ought to blow over quite quickly if we're being objective about it, and will rightly surely bring down the Starma regime by, oh, I reckon, the end of this show, if not already.

Well, I think this is Angela Raina, who apparently paid the wrong amount of tax on her flat. She said she consulted three people before buying the flat. Those people were Jimmy Carr, Gary Barlow, and the ghost of Ken Dodd. So, yeah, we don't know at the time of recording whether she is going or not, but it's the housing minister.

and she's messed up by it in a house. This comes after their homelessness minister was accused of making people homeless. You're going to what next? The Chancellor of the Exchequer Owing $5 million in tax to HMRC. Oh no, that was Nadeem's a hoary. So she's paid the wrong amount of tax. She says it was a genuine mistake.

She has referred herself to the government ethics advisor who said he couldn't help because the flat isn't in ethics. It's in eth ethics. If you were being generous to her, you would say that she is someone who is hounded by the press. This story was dug up by the telegraph. You know, there's been all sorts of stories in her career. My favourite one about her was that she was crossing and uncrossing her legs seductively

to distract Boris Johnson when he was at the podium, which is kind of ludicrous. So this is the latest one, in fairness. Like he needs that. so this is the latest one in another scandal about reyna there was also one about how she wore a dry robe and drank wine which again found it relatable so i guess it's going to be a bit of a litmus test to the public actually and that word relatability i think is actually quite a good one will people think okay she was in a difficult situation she's opened up more than most politicians would about a messy divorce about her son with lifelong disabilities and selling her share into a trust so that he could stay in the house which has been modified for his needs and whether people will buy that or not, we don't know. I think the moral of this story is that if you take advice, take it from people who know about politics.

Apparently, Raina got her advice from just like a normal high street conveyance. Or just make your brand, I don't give a shit about you, never have, never will. And then people won't care. I should just say on that the issue of the amount of money, the five million pounds that you mentioned from the Nadim Zahari story and the 40,000 pounds, Angela Raina, has underpaid. Some mathematicians do claim that

5 million is much bigger than 40,000. I'd say that others say they're basically the same. I always like Claire Rainer. She was a ray of sunshine in the mornings. I didn't usually take her advice about love. I thought she was good. And to find out like she's on the fiddle,

a bit disappointed, to be honestly. There's no vape steam without a charge. I feel like I should explain then for younger listeners who might not be familiar with stamp duty in the olden days when I was a boy if a man and woman loved each other very much they could get a mortgage

and they could use that to buy a house whilst a house nobody knows because the secret of building them has been lost but basically Depending on the cost of the house, you might have to pay a tax called stamp duty to an ogre, I think. I'm not sure. Angela Rainer is probably my generation's John Prescott, the millennial John Prescott, the working class sidekick to a sociopathic prime minister. And I think that's very progressive.

I think it's great that Britain has its first female John Prescott. Fantastic. But I don't think she has Prescott's jurs, you know, he had proper scandals. He'd be out there driving two jags, punching someone, you know? Like fun, interesting scandals that you'd want to talk about on a topical, humorous show where you don't have to look at what stamp duty is. I think that's the problem with Labour today.

Like, John Prescott, you may not have agreed with his politics, you might not have liked him, you might have liked him, whatever. You can't argue, the man was a top shagger. He was an epic lad, he was a character. In 2001, if you'd seen a headline that said, John Prescott found naked in London Zoo, you'd go, which enclosure? Oh, marsupials.

There'd be a picture of him sharing a kebab with a kangaroo. You go, there he is, classic, John. I want more of that, please. This sort of rather distracting story for Kirstama followed, his attempted relaunch of his government. He described it as phase two earlier in the week. He promised to deliver in phase two what three things, all beginning with D?

Drama, drama, drama. Drugs, drugs, drugs Uh, neither of those are correct Delivery, delivery, delivery, delivery. Correct, that is the correct answer. He promised to deliver delivery? Yeah. Oh.

Well, I heard that. He was like, I'm going to deliver, delivery, deliver. I was like, can we get a tracker number? A lot of his achievements have actually been put in a safe place. They're actually in your neighbour's wheelie bin. Um, I thought it was quite an unfortunate thing to go, it's phase two of labour, because phase one.

is where your waters break. Phase two is where it really hurts and you might accidentally do a poo. In some ways, delivery is quite an appropriate term in that sense. I delivered a child in a brief, unplanned and highly successful 10-minute career as a midwife when our second child was born. And I retired with a played-one-1-1 record. Go out on top, I'll say. In terms of phase two, how long do you think? before he has to launch phase three how long are you giving phase two? Probably pretty quick.

I mean he's done nothing so far but he's only been in the job for a year he's only settling in he's only probably met the cat once but he has made some interesting promises which include nationalising the trains the house building promise is some of the greatest investment in house building

we've had for decades the promises for social housing you know there is stuff Nursery hours. Nursery hours. I would say it doesn't go far enough. Fine, but he's not interested in getting my vote because he's probably thinking

I've already got the millennials in London. He needs to get the reform voters. What he's going to deliver, I'm quite nervous about, actually. I think some of it might be a bit nasty. I think that what they're doing is they're naming their phases in the same way as the Police Academy films of the 1980s.

So the Police Academy, it was just Police Academy, right? So that's the first one, is just Labor government, right? And then Police Academy 2, that was the first assignment. Their first assignment, right? So this is where they are now. It's like we've started. Police Academy 3, back in training, right? So we've got to wait.

The good one is going to be Labor Party 8, Mission to Moscow. Because that was the best Police Academy film by some measure. My favourite bit is when Wes Streeting does those funny sound effects. Can you try that? That sound of ambulance is arriving on time. Yes, a tricky start to the autumn for Labour, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing. Angela Rainer admitted underpaying stamp duty when she bought a flat early this year, claiming she followed professional economic advice, which she then discovered was inaccurate.

It does all highlight once again how on the things to ask your tax advisor if you're a front-line politician list. The question, are you absolutely sure about that, should be pretty high. up. Along with, as a tax advisor, should you really be wearing a what would Al Capone do wristband? Also, we don't yet have all the facts, both the true facts and the rather more plentiful other facts. So it's hard to make a definitive judgment right now. And it's certainly true that Rainer made the mistake of being wealthy enough to buy a flat in Brighton, but not wealthy enough to avoid tax legally. Right, at the end of that round, the scores are two points all.

This can go to Andrew and Alistair. It's going to end in 2029, said Kirs Stama about what this week? There won't be migrants in hotels. Yes, correct. They will be in restaurants. They will then fully be on holiday. They'll have got their bags in, they'll have settled in, they'll have charged their devices. And they'll just be on holiday.

That's the plan. And then phase two is the water parks. I think that's the problem, isn't it? Because most people associate hotels with luxury. But if you stay in hotels for your work, like comedians do, you know that the average hotel is like a battery hen farm with worse Wi-Fi. Like a root control covered in mushrooms. But it doesn't matter because the TV doesn't work anyway.

There used to be a hotel that all the comedians stayed in called The Big Sleep. which I think is a bad name for a hotel, because that means death. Raymond Chandler didn't call the novel A Lovely Snooze. Anyway, it's not called that anymore. They call it the long goodbye now. My point is that, you know, people are not living luxurious five-star hotel lives

because their asylum-seekers staying in hotels, come on. But the point is that there's been migrants in hotels. Some of them are, quite frankly, not very desirable people. and the people who live near the hotel were expecting tourists or business travellers to be in the hotel. This has created disappointment. Verging on anger.

Some people have taken the streets and there's been some civil disputes. But mostly, people have decided to live like Northern Ireland. And just put flags everywhere. It's the exact opposite of how we thought the troubles was going to play out. We thought Northern Ireland would become like the rest of the world

but instead, you've become like Northern Ireland. But it's all happening in Ireland as well. There's an enormous amount of flags going up around Council of the States in Dublin. I was only home working back home. I'm at Dublin around from the north side the working glass side of the city.

There was somebody had hung this massive dry colour, the Irish flag, outside their house. But they had hung it. the wrong way around, which I don't want to notice, but the flag of the Irish Republic the other way around is the flag of the Ivory Coast. You know what I mean? When you're a comedian, you're

always like, I just couldn't help myself. I knocked on his door. I shouldn't have done. I'm a busy body and a comedian. And so I knocked on this dude's door just to see what would happen. The guy answers the door. And he was from the Ivory Coast. It's been quite a stroppy summer

around this whole issue. A lot of talk about the St George's flag and you can see why a lot of people cling to St George, much loved by the right-wing press, largely because he wasn't based in the UK, preferring to register his sainting business offshore. His most famous act, dragon slang, involved killing a sort of of renewable energy.

So you can see why that's gone down well. But, I mean, it has been an angry summer. Yeah, I'd say it has been quite an angry summer. I feel like Nigel Farage, I hate admitting it, but I think he's, you know, he's a clever man. And Parliament's been in recess. Traditionally, nothing happens. What a perfect time to capitalise.

He's been out and about. He's been working very, very hard. Yeah, I mean, Farage has been everywhere. I've been thinking of moving to Clacton just to get away from him, to be honest. At the end of that round, the scores are four to Andrew and Alistair and six to Coco and Lucy. Right, let's move global now. Trump was not invited. Putin was.

Gary Linneker wasn't. Kim Jong-un was. To what? There's been a summit. Yes. It's being run by China. People have informally called it the non-Western leader's summit, but it's got a longer name than that.

The main thing about it was that Kim Jong-un came, which was very unusual for Kim Jong-un to come. They talked about all sorts of things, mainly about trying to push back against the West's influence on the world, I suppose. Military staff, biochemistry staff. I think there was even a moment when they talked about living forever. that was like a hot mic moment between Jinping and Putin

which is kind of weird. Hot mic incidentally is a very good looking sound recordist who makes people to relax and they just say things they don't mean to say but he catches so much. Nice to seeing Kim Jong-un

out and about though. The reason why he went is because he'll only travel the world in his bulletproof train. He's like a really brutal version of Michael Portillo. I felt, yes, on the hot mic, this is extraordinary. So there's, caught on the Chinese Day TV on the hot mic,

there was Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin discussing how, you know, you can just keep getting new organs, and you could live for 150 years, you could live forever. And you just think, like, that must have been a dark day for Vladimir Putin's doubles. You know what I mean? I mean, you expect to take a bullet. it for him. You don't expect to lose an organ for him. I just thought that,

you know, the idea that they're two men over 50, what are they going to talk about about their health? My husband and his mates, he's all, have you seen my fungal toes? The commitment that he has to being just the most sinister bastard. I know.

I was listening to that and I thought, maybe he's the bad guy. You know what I mean? Up to this point, I was like, Like, you know, he's got a point. Like, yeah, maybe NATO shouldn't have expanded all the way to the east. But now I'm thinking, maybe he was wrong to invade Ukraine. He's got the biggest country in the world.

Like, you know, why do they bother making such space-saving dolls? That's true. This is a summit, which I'm from the north of England. In the north of England, that's just a thing you can't remember the name of. A big, big, big summit, big deal. All the big players were there. China, Russia, et cetera. North Korea was, no offence to Kim Jong-un,

but North Korea is not exactly a big player. It wouldn't have been weirder if it had been Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and your mum's friend, Kim. And in fact, I think it would have been good for her after the divorce to get out there and meet some guys, you know, move on, forget Alan, I think. thing is so North Korea because there was the summit

and then there was the party whether it was a commemoration of the end of World War II or a celebration of the beginning of World War III you simply don't know but so the summit it was like some people like Turkey came to the summit and Egypt

but they didn't get invited to the parade whereas Kim Jong-un went to the parade it's like a wedding where you sort of go well we won't have Kim Jong-un at the ceremony we'll invite him to the evening do because he likes a drink he'll get the dance floor Phil but if we invite him to the wedding he'll just piss in the font and try and get off with a vicar basically what happened was jie had a sleepover and he didn't invite Donald Trump and then

he did all the things that Donald Trump really likes hoping it would get back to him like oh my god he had such a great time and then Donald's there with milani going oh god they had like missiles and bombs and I love all those things and they didn't invite me and they're all just sort of snickering at him behind his back it's like if my friends went out for a Toby Carverie a pub quiz and a Dolly Parton themed

karaoke night and didn't invite me that's how Donald did he cause he laughed it off he was like I didn't care I didn't want to be there didn't care well did you see the message you wrote about it it was like please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un as you conspire against the United States

Yes, indeed. This was a big name, big hitting, small commitment to human rights conference in China that brought together some of the world's less conversationally generous leaders this week. Chinese boss Xi Jinping welcomed the likes of Vladimir Putin, the self-style Kremlin-Gremlin, a North Korea's 10-time economic progress suppressor of the year, Kim Jong-un, for a fun-packed few days of lad's chat about the future state of the planet, following America's de facto resignation as a country. Chinese President Xi told a summit of leaders

that global governance has reached a new crossroads No doubt someone will paint a union jack on it Before the The highlight was Xi putting his buddies Through a generation game type challenge Where Putin and Kin had to remember All the different military hardware That had gone past them on the conveyor

Down a shot of vodka Every time they got one wrong That explains why there was a hologram of Larry Grayson The karaoke at the after-party was reportedly sensational. Xi, of course, went with Tepau's power ballad, China in your hand. And indeed, the 2025 Oasis Reunion Mania had clearly reached Beijing with Xi and Putin both jumping on board the Live Forever bandwagon.

The leaders caught on mic discussing the possibilities of eternal life via organ transplantation, and if people do get more right-wing and authoritarian as they get older, the mind boggles at what a 150-year-old Vladimir, Putin. We're going to be painting on the mini roundabouts of Moscow. The uninvited America boss, Donald Trump, was suffering some very public fomo and accused of coercing Putin and Kim to conspire against America.

Trump was later seen going into a tattoo removal parlor and was overheard saying, well, if they can't take the naked Vladimir off my shoulder blade, can they at least make it look like a luboo? At the end of our global summit round, the scores are now eight to Andrew and Alistair. And six to Cocoa and Lucy. We enter our final quick-fire tie-break round. And in honour of Angela Arenas' difficulties, there are 40,000 points per question.

But all of these points will have to be handed back at the end of the round. So our first question, this can go to Cocoa and Lucy. Children under the age of 16 could soon be banned from buying what? Second homes in Hove It's energy drinks Yes correct Rageous

What's the message This government wants to allow 16 year olds to vote But under 16 year olds aren't allowed Have energy drinks Where are they going to find the focus To research the policy initiatives What I like about energy drinks Is the way the logo is like

If a heavy metal band Could give you diarrhoea That's great branding. I'm lucky my kids touch word they're teens But they're not into energy drinks They seem to chips off the old block They've embraced a lethargic lifestyle very well But yeah they're awful

It's such a great policy, isn't it? For a government to go, who is going to object to this? If you ban energy drinks for kids You're going to have to make school a lot less boring It's not really fair, is it? They need four coffees worth of caffeine Give them an espresso martini before they go in, that's what I do. I mean, if kids aren't going to be allowed to buy these sort of caffeine-fueled energy drinks,

what sort of psychotropic liquids do you think we should be feeding them instead? Beer, be normal. Get this country back to when it was great. Drinking cans in the park. Right, Andrew and Alistair, your question. We are here to replace you. Ominous words uttered by whom in whose direction this week. I think this is his outrageous news.

We now have one party leader in this country who opposes the war in Gaza and supports trans rights in the form of Zach Polanski of the Greens. It's outrageous. The Tories say that the Green Party has been captured by the hard left. Which is, imagine that. In other news, I went into Games Workshop earlier

and it was full of nerds. There's the new leader of the British Green Party, who in a previous career with his mind could make tits bigger. Yeah, I mean, are you going to sort of fill people in on that? Nope, that's not all right. I thought when you said we are coming to replace you, I was going to say, is it me to Melvin Bragg?

Just putting my hat in the ring. Because you have to do, that's how you do it, is in Radio 4, if you want a job, you have to say it on air, you have to dibs it. And you have to get in quick because Amal Rajan is really fast. How good are you getting boffins to hurry up Because that's where Melvin was really brilliant Oh I loved it

Hurry up boffin Get to the bit where we find The very start of the industrial revolution We don't need to hear about the charcoal era There's one, the reign of terror Brilliant, he absolutely loses it With this lovely historian She's done nothing wrong

But he just goes for her And it is the sexiest thing Was this thing? Was this the history of the Dutch East India Company? Oh, no. Was that another fight you on? Oh, God, she blathered on and he nailed her. Absolutely nailed her. God. Damody must have been grumpy that day.

Right. What has dropped to its lowest level in the UK since the 1950s? Anyone? Is it people saying, ooh matron? You never hear it these days. Yeah. Use of the word knockers. Hanky-panky, is it an all-time loud? Oh, grumpy bus ticket inspectors.

Yeah. Why are you, Patlap? The correct answer is the levels of cement production in the United Kingdom. Correct. Yeah, lowest levels of cement production since the 50s, because, I mean, you know, it's really sad, you know, for people of our generation. You know, back in our childhood days, we didn't have games, consoles and social, media, we just used to play with cement.

Yeah, in in 2024, the UK produced 7.3 million tonnes of cement, which does sound like a lot, but you have to understand it's a lot less that we used to produce, and bear in mind that the government has set aside half of that for a giant statue of Nigel Farai,

which is going to straddle the English channel, like a colossus of roads, pointing out migrant boats with his willy. It's the only time the strange kink in my willy has come in handy. If you look closely, my todgers actually pointing them along the coast to Belgium. That brings us to the end of this show and the scores. Both teams have lost their 40,000 points from that round.

So it's 8 to Andrew and Alistair, 6 to Coco and Lucy. Before we go, if you would like to contribute your bodily organs to help your favourite world leader to live forever, please send them, preferably in a sealed and even more preferably refrigerated container to the BBC Despots Never Die Appeal with your chosen recipients and why you think they should be immortal in no more than 40 words. Thank you very much for listening to the news quiz. I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye.

Taking part of the news quiz were Lucy Porter, Alastair Beckett King, Andrew Maxwell and Cocoa Kahn. In the chair was me, Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Mike Shepid, Rebecca Bain, Milo Edwards and Ruth Husko. The producer was Rajiv Kariah, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Hello, I'm Brian Cox.

I'm Robin Ince, and we're back for a new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We have our 201st, extravaganza, where we're going to talk about how animals emote when around trains and tunnels or something like that, I'm not entirely sure. We're doing one on potatoes. Of course we're doing one on potatoes. You love potatoes.

I know, but... Yeah, you love chips, you love mash. I'll only enjoy it if it's got curry sauce on it. We've got techno fossils, moths versus butterflies, and a history of light. That will do, won't it? Listen first on BBC Sounds.