Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep 2. Elections (Local and Papal)

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Andy Zaltzman is joined by Andrew Maxwell, Zing Tsjeng, Jessica Fostekew and Pierre Novellie to unpack the upcoming local elections, the Conclave in the Vatican, Trump's planned UK visit, and Yorkshire Gladiators.Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Chris Ballard, Cody Dahler, Eve Delaney and Alice Fraser. Producer: Rajiv Karia Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Coordinator: Jodie Charman Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4.

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. We present the news quiz with your host me, Andy Zaltzman. Hello, welcome to the news quiz. Exciting news. It turns out that topical comedy radio panel shows can change the world. This week finally Donald Trump posted a social media message saying Vladimir stop shamelessly cribbing what we at the news quiz have been saying for more than three years now so let's see if we can influence Trump again save test cricket. I'll set the clock, run about summer 28, it'll be alright on board. Right our teams this week in this age of improvised

global politics and unbridgeable divisions we have Team Rifts against Team Rifts. On Team Rifts we have Andrew Maxwell, an author, journalist and host of the hit podcast Good Bad Billionaire, available on BBC Sounds, Zing Zeng. And taking on Andrew and Zing, it's Jess Foster-Kew and Pierre Novelli. I would pay 500 pounds to hear Donald Trump try to explain cricket. I would love this. The ball should be bigger. Big bouncy ball. Get rid of the guys all in white.

Make them sparkly. Everybody gold. Everything gold. I don't think Trump would get rid of the guys all in white, make them sparkly. Everybody gold, everything gold. I don't think Trump would get rid of the guys in white. No, no, no. Right, our first question can go to Andrew Anzing. It's local election time next Thursday, the 1st of May. Control your excitement, everyone.

You have. The first chance since last July's general election for voters in the UK to get their harrump on at the ballot box. And according to opinion polls, a quarter of voters say they would like to do what? I think it's one in four would vote for reform. Correct. Tell you what Andy, I absolutely love a local election. Yeah.

I get excited. It doesn't matter what the candidate, the minute I see them come down me garden gate, I scamper off the couch, I'm straight to the door, I take the leaflet off them and I go straight to the bin and I recycle it right in front of them. Which is so bittersweet for the Green candidate. They're like, aww, well done. How excited are you by the local elections? Yeah, I'm absolutely giddy. Yeah, fizzing. Fizzing. Reformers saying they're going to clean up.

Hard to tell with reform whether they mean get lots of votes or ethnically. Politically, Zing, we're in a bit of a strange place. Just under a year since Labour came to power and they're bumbling along in the sort of low 20s per cent, the Tories are struggling as well. Are we sort of entering a new age of post two-party politics? Well, I think it's difficult given that when you look at what Labour are doing, you know, not scrapping the two-child benefit, taking away disability benefits from people, you

might look at it and think, well, what's the difference between these two parties anyway? Which I probably think is the reason why people are going, well, why not give the other guys a chance? It's just a shame who the other guys happen to be. It's interesting that they look at it and go, there's no difference between these two guys. I want an even meaner party. Yeah, but you say that. It's like, the only choice if you don't want the two big two. Let's not forget somewhere out there Ed Davies on a bounty castle. It is like the Lib Dems wished on a cursed monkey paw that we go back to three-party politics

and it's sort of curled. Nigel Farage sat bolt upright in bed somewhere. I love every time I see Ed Davey on the news going down a log flume or just having the time of his life, I just have this image of just a monster raving loony party candidate in their house just throwing their enormous clown shoe at the television. Farage has said that there is a 35 to 45 percent chance of him doing what? Ever visiting Clacton. Has he become the Prime Minister? Yes, 35 to 45 percent chance of him becoming Prime Minister according to no lesser source than Nigel Farage himself. I think the Americans would be delighted because Nigel Farage

looks like an offensive drawing of what they think English people look like. Sort of tweed and sort of slightly sort of yellowed by cigarettes teeth and like a massive warm flat pint in his hand. It would be like if Macron had a beret and onions. Disneyland Prime Minister. He is Toad from Toad Hall, isn't he? He really is. That's who Farage is.

Poop, poop! It's Nigel Farage said there is a 35 to 45% chance of him becoming Prime Minister, albeit he did say that in a cameo message to himself that he bought for himself as a special present for himself to congratulate himself on being himself. So, um, but of course everyone sees different things in Nigel Farage. Some see a genuine patriot, some see a Putin sympathizing chance. So it's a kind of political ink blot test. You know, that sort of ink blot test that psychologists do where some people see in

the ink blot the petals of an opening flower, others will see two badges in a cage fighting to the death with chains opening flower, others will see two badges in a cage fighting to the death with chainsaws and others see a silhouette of David Gower driving one sumpchisley through the covers for four. You know, it's not just what you're looking for really. Today Farage was saying this over diagnosis of autism. He's waded into the sort of RFK Junior arena on autism. And Farage was in UKIP when one of their manifesto commitments

was to repaint trains in traditional colors. I think if there is a demographic Farage doesn't want to mess with its autists because he might be surprised how many of us are in his ranks. Looking at the Conservatives now, Tory leader Kimienock, has warned her party to brace for heavy losses. And there's a bit of a spat between her and Robert Jenrick, who apparently suggested that the party should get all Fausty and make a pact with Farage and Reform. How do you think that would pan out were it to happen? Well, I would think badly, to be honest. Well, Jenrick also came second to Kemmy Badenock, so he's very much the man in the wings, so to speak, who can kind of take over if she kind of messes up. So she's got her eye on him. Very strange.

Tory's in reform, in bed together. Weird. Be like the Routery Club having a meeting at Witherspoon's. Really? Technically it's the same side of the aisle, but it's not really, is it? It doesn't work, I don't think. Like sure, Reform were kind

of spawned out of the most bulbous end of Tories but that doesn't mean they get to reabsorb them. It's hard to even watch them try. It's like when a cat eats its own sick. I think it's more like the sick eating the cat, isn't it? Kirsten's got to be feeling pretty lucky, right? Because the reform and Tories are just stealing votes largely from each other, not entirely, but mainly. So it's a bit like two rival muggers try to mug you at the same time, while they're arguing you just get to leave. So, well yes, this is the local elections next week, the first major

ballot box test for Stammer, with both Labour and the Conservatives struggling to convince the voting public that they remain the best solutions to the problems that they have A. caused and B. failed to solve for the last hundred years or so. They have struggled to bounce back from the huge setback of actually winning a general election for once and it's hard to see how they can recover their form from here. Less than a year into their government, they're bumbling along in the low 20s in the polls, further proof that their honeymoon period as government lasted about 45 seconds into the groom's speech at the wedding reception when the groom said, things could get worse

before they get better. PS, can't do the first dance, I've got to listen to Moneybox live. With the economy struggling, the government has been borrowing more than it planned. We've all done it. Almost £15 billion more than it planned. We've all done it. Almost £15 billion more than it planned. We've not all done it. But a solution has just been floated. As we record, the government has said it's to bring in a tax on pessimism, which, I mean,

looking at the economic, that could turn things around really very quickly indeed. But sadly, I just don't think it's going to work. These things never do. Point three. But Starmer has been trying to confront Labour's main right-wing challenge which now emanates from Nigel Farage's Reform UK and at a St. George's Day event at Downing Street this week at which top celebrities were invited to ceremonially slay a migrant actor in a pantomime dragon outfit at this event Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed that Labour is the party of what?

Puppy yoga? Not not puppy yoga? Patriotism! Correct. Being proud that your patron saint once slayed a dragon in what is now Turkey. He had a sort of patriotic picnic, Stama, in number 10, where everyone had sort of pork pies and English sparkling wine. And I'm broadly in favor of that kind of thing, but it's a bit late for cut-through for the

local elections, I think. If he had to have cut-through, he'd need to go full football hooligan. You know, down a bottle of English sparkling wine, hurl it at a policeman on a horse, flare up bumhole, pass out a few leaflets while it fizzles out. It's true. That young man that snuck that flare up his bumhole at the Euros final has set a very high bar for other Englishmen. They're issuing a limited edition stamp with him on I think. Yes but I mean it's

in the patriotism card seems I mean that's can politicians do without it now? Probably not I mean he kind of pushed this idea of patriotism in this telegraph essay that he published where he said I'm proud to be English precisely because it's a place where we can disagree and I actually don't agree with that at all. Patriotism is something that we'd like to outsource to the people in charge so we get to enjoy making fun of ourselves but I mean we don't like it when the people in charge do it so it's like well we're gonna go to Spain and have tapas and things and make fun of ourselves but you have to go on holiday to a sort of rain

soaked grouse moor and sort of have like a thin smile outside an incredibly expensive cottage in Cornwall or something. And you need to do that because you're in charge and you want this and so you're going to enjoy this burnt sausage and this awful barbecue. Well, I watch laughing using a VPN. Some are nice. I'm a naturalized British citizen, so I'm quite patriotic but that's, I'm allowed to because I'm not originally from British citizen, so I'm quite patriotic, but I'm allowed to because I'm not originally from here. And if you're sort of a proper, you know, English middle-class person, you feel a kind of incredible guilt and self-loathing and sort of cringe at this kind of thing.

So in order to integrate properly, I actually, I need to work on that. And I'm going to pay someone to show me a slideshow of the Cotswolds and electrocute me. So anything English and nice makes me jump and feel sort of frightened. And then I'll finally become one of you. I like the traffic jam besides Stonehenge. That's something to be proud of. I like the fact that it's all tourists paying money to look at a hodgepodge of ancient rocks, whereas Brits just slow down. Just slow down, you know, it's a 40 mile an hour zone, they do 30 and go,

here it is. I like that about you. It's a typical British infrastructure project, never finished and only works twice a year. about you. It's a typical British infrastructure project never finished and only works twice a year. The point is that patriotism is always a tricky balance beam to politically gymnasticize on so I'm gonna set a challenge for our panelists. Under the table here we have Brito the 100% British doggy. Brito, the 100% British doggy, is not feeling very patriotic this week. And he's the most British doggy in history. All he's ever eaten is British sausages. So we need to cheer him up by making him patriotic again. So our panellists have to tell Brito a new reason to be proud to be British and of course he expresses his

patriotism by barking the national anthem and the more notes he barks the more patriotic they've made him. Jess do you want to take the first one? Yeah okay this is dog like sausages I think we should be especially proud that we've got an absolutely massive fingered King. Let, Britto, how patriotic does that make you feel? Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff. Six! Six parts! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Zing, what's your decision?

I think complaining is a great patriotic trait because when I first moved here from Singapore to the UK, I didn't realise when I first got here that everyone loved to complain so much, but in a really unique way. So you'd meet someone and they'd be like, oh, it's terrible. On Monday I lost my wife, on Tuesday I lost my fingers in a freak accident, and Wednesday I lost my job. On Thursday my children got run over.

But you know, mustn't grumble, things could be worse. I think it's called the stiff upper lip. Yes, the stiff upper lip, how patriotic does that make you feel? Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, No problem. I've lived in your country for 30 years, a stranger in your land. But in that 30 years, what I've mostly noticed is the three-pronged plug, sir. It's by far the greatest thing that this country has ever done. It's only when you go to other countries in the rest of the world and they're dreadful spindly heathen plugs.

Like your phone's going up like one bar an hour. And then you finally get back to Blighty and you stick that big fat plug that you can either charge a device with or stick in a sock and knock a man out with. Brito, how patriotic does the three-pin plug make you feel? Oh you've got the full 16! At the end of that section Jess and Pierre four, and Zing and Andrew have six. Now we have a special post-Easter question. What rose again after whose death this week?

Andrew? Pope Francis, he passed. Yes. So we're going to have a new pope. I've been looking at it and the bookies are saying it's going to be a Catholic. Right. So that's narrowed it down. One of the candidate's surnames is Pizza Barla, which is, it has to be him. There has to be a Pope Pizza the first. See it's not up to us to decide, it's up to the Council of the Cardinals. This is called the Conclave, this is happening right now. We're all over the world, all the Cardinals are gathering. From all over Latin America, from Asia, from Africa, from Europe, the New World, the Old World.

The Arizona Cardinals, the St. Louis Cardinals. Easy for the Arizona Cardinals because they're obviously out of season, being an American football team. There's someone standing in for the Pope right now, though. There's already like a temporary Pope in the meantime. And this guy is called Kevin. Do you think that because he's a substitute Pope, all the Cardinals, they're not listening they're messing about yeah throwing rubbers at his head paper airplanes made out of the little voting

things yeah you're not my real pope i think there's an opportunity to get really exciting new pope like um you know francis who's just died was the first ever latin american pope um i think they should get their new pope i don't know if you've heard, they're also doing auditions now for the next series of gladiators. They could tie it in to help find a pope. Do you feel the power of the father, son, and how it goes? It'd be quite a good gladiator name, Pontiff. Yeah.

It's got power behind it, that's nice. Cardinals ready! LAUGHTER Just two croisures on a thing attacking each other. First one to knock the mitre off, the other man wins. LAUGHTER Perfect. What was the question? The question, yeah.

No-one's answered. The question is, what rose again after whose death? Since the Pope's death, it's got to be Conclave downloads. Correct, yes. Viewing figures for Conclave, the multiple Oscar nominated Pope-picking, chaggable, rocking blockbuster. I think it's because you can make anything interesting with enough of a sort of air of gossip. It's quite a sort of gossip driven film.

And I think that's why Henry VIII and the Tudors are so popular in this country, because he's the first king where records get good enough that we get all the gossip about how mad he was. There could have been gossip about William II, we'll never know. Record keeping is simply not good enough. He was from Eltham.

I think some people forget about Henry VIII. He was from Eltham. Some people forget about Henry VIII. He was from South East London. I think it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Big ginger geyser, big van, loads of birds. Do you know what I mean? It's a fun film, and I'm hoping that the real Conclave is as fun and sort of intriguing and gossip driven, although I imagine it's incredibly slow and boring.

I really want them to livestream it. I think that's incredibly slow and boring. I really want them to live stream it. Yeah. I think that's what they should do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. React in the chat if you think it should be pizza bolla. And then there's a big brother chair for all the cardinals to come in and have a little one-on-one with the producer. Yes, Pope Francis passed away on Monday, entirely the logical thing to do after spending five

minutes with American Vice President J.D. Vance. Francis had been widely praised for his humanity in an age of furious, heartless oppositionalism. As a young man, he worked as a nightclub bouncer, which is also how St Peter started, of course, picked up again after his career as Pope had come to an end back in the first century AD. But the future direction of the Catholic Church, one of the most enduringly popular spin-off franchises from Judaism, is said to be hotly disputed as the process of impopling a new pontiff begins in earnest. There are only a few weeks to submit your application, listeners, before the papal conclave. Now at a conclave they all meet facing inwards towards the middle

then when the decision is made they turn outwards to announce it to the world at which point the conclave changes to a convlex. That's a little math joke. You should be ashamed for having got that. You know you're only encouraging them. Right the scores are now 8-2 You know you're only encouraging them. Right the scores are now 8 to Jess and Pierre, 6 to Zing and Andrew.

Moving from the most Christian man in the world to the least Christian person ever to be endorsed by Christians, Donald Trump, set to visit the UK later this year but what are some people saying he should not be allowed to do when he comes here? Speak. Land. You were very close saying when people said he should be able to speak. To whom should he not be allowed to speak to? Was it to speak at Parliament? Yes, correct. I couldn't be more in favour of letting him just do more speaking, because it's always funny. I want to know what he thinks the building is for. I want to hear how he thinks the word Parliament is pronounced.

I want to see his reaction to having Black Rod explained to him. Again, I would pay so much money. I don't think we need to take him to the real one though. We can just take him to the Hogwarts Hall at the Harry Potter world. He'll think it's the same. Yeah, that would be great. Keep all the actors there as well. Watching him thank Dumbledore for having him. So close to Watford I didn't know. It's beautiful. Just off the M25, really convenient. In another Trump story, surrender, capitulation, betrayal, appeasement, abandonment, words in the Daily Telegraph used to describe Trump's treatment of whom this week?

All of us? Yes. Are we the answer? That would be right, but you need to narrow it down a bit. Is it Zelensky? Yes. Correct. He's demanding Ukraine give up all of its territory and for balance he's saying to Russia,

hey, stop it. It's just mad if you're going to have conflict resolution between two parties, you need to do that resolution with both the parties there, not just one of them. I've seen fairer conflict resolution on married at first sight. But it's to Trump's benefit, isn't it, to turn the world back into a place where you can sort of eat bits of your neighbor because he doesn't want to bother protecting Taiwan and it's useful for sort of you know Israel, Palestine and Greenland and if we go back to that global order then all the European

countries are gonna have to huddle together like meerkats and actually spend money on guns for once instead of pretending we can solve conflict through subsidised performance art. Can we not? It's going to have to just be tanks again, I'm afraid, lads. We tried classical music and it's tanks again. Jackson Pollock wouldn't be as big as he was without the CIA. Yes, the world, as always, is waiting for the latest strange pronouncements from the

president of the USA. We are in the rather bizarre spectacle of the world's politicians and pundits, earnestly discussing how to deal with Trump as if he is some kind of cross between a potentially lethal zoo animal, an alien who could destroy the world, and an overindulged toddler. And the results of the DNA test have just come back. He is all three of those things. Right. the DNA test have just come back, he is all three of those things. Right, that means that the scores are nine points all, which means we go to a tiebreaker. And for our tiebreaker, we'll let Pierre and Jess choose the topic.

You can't always get what you want, tiebreaker, so you can request a topic and I'm going to ask you a question about something else so choose a topic you'd like a question on 10th century Denmark okay well it's not too far off you're getting early first Millennium York okay a bit of a compromise archaeologists in York have discovered the first evidence of what happening in this country almost two thousand years ago. Puppy yoga! Madonna concert. Big fossilized brassiere. Is it a gladiator who got killed by a lion? Yes. In Yorkshire?

Yeah. LAUGHTER The greatest lions in the world. LAUGHTER Twice the size you'll get over the other side of the Pennines. LAUGHTER You've got tiny little muggies over in the Red Rose County. LAUGHTER

It's your own fault for trying to fight him, you daft ape-ish. LAUGHTER Eee! Don't fight him, you daft air bitch. Eee, don't be soft you bastard, get out there and fight that lion. Is this Sean Bean's gladiator? Did they also find an enormous perfectly preserved woollen mouse toy? It doesn't say that. But again, archaeology's never finished, is it? They might find these things. You know what else they found in York?

From the Viking era, they found the world's largest fossilized poo. Really? Yes, there's a technical term for it. It's called coprolite. It's when a poo becomes fossilized and then becomes science, right? Stops being funny because that stops being a poo and it becomes a coppolite and they think they think it was a giant Viking

Did it and it is honestly you should see this thing. It's a proper fjord clogger They also found an issue of Viking times from the same week with a particularly difficult cryptic crossword. That poo has a whole hazelnut in it. What? Yeah. That is fusion food gone mad for me. You can see why the North of England laid down their weapons and just gave them money

for 400 years. Yeah, if their spears are as fearsome as their bowel movements, we'd be wise to pay now. Well, I think Simon Schama is fearing for his career, isn't he? Apparently, it's the first ever physical evidence we've ever had that animal versus human combat happened in the Roman Empire, but we've been going on about that happening for decades to kids. Where have we been getting the evidence we thought we had before? Facebook. Yeah, but it's, I mean, the first time it's been found in this country, yeah, they found a pelvic bone with a bite mark from a big cat. That's brutal as well, isn't it, that it was in the pelvic bone? It means he's eating him willy first. That's brutal as well, isn't it, that it was in the pelvic bone. It means he's eating him willy first.

That's Oyee-ee-yorkshaman. Willy first. It implies that maybe he wasn't trying to fight the lion. LAUGHTER Coming to you live from God's own country. That's right. Truly the bravest man. That lion was hungry and he'd heard there was a hazelnut in there.

He was like a human Ferrero Rocher. The lion was saying about all the gladiators, has anyone got the little map of what flavour is which? LAUGHTER Yes, the archaeologists have found the remains of the unnamed gladiator. They do know that Geoff Boycott, at the other end, ended the day 48 not out. LAUGHTER Well, that brings us to the end of this week's News Quiz, and our winners are Zing and Andrew with 10. Jess and Pierre finish on nine.

APPLAUSE And... And our winners are Zing and Andrew with 10. Jess and Pierre finish on nine. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Some breaking news reaching us. After leading Team GB to a superb first place in gold medal at the 2025 World Regretting Championships, skipper Thrapston Bramphill said the team was very disappointed with the result. Absolute class. Absolute class. Thank you for listening to the News Quiz. Goodbye!

APPLAUSE Taking part in the News Quiz were Jess Foster-Kew, Pierre Novelli, Andrew Maxwell and Zing Sang. In the chair was me, Andy Zoltzman, and additional material was written by Alice Fraser, Cody Darla, Chris Ballard, Eve Delaney and Brito, the 100% British dog. The producer was Rajiv Kharia and it was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4. Hello, I'm Robin Ince.

And I'm Brian Cox, and we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Coach. In this series, we're going to have a planet off. We decided it was time to go cosmic so we are going to do Jupiter versus Sefton! Well it's very well done that because in the script it does say in square brackets wrestling voice question mark and once we touch back down on this planet we're going to go deep. Really deep. Yes we're journeying to the centre of the earth with guests Phil Wang, Chris Jackson and Anna Ferreira. And after all of that intense heat and pressure, we're just going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're

discussing altruism. We'll find out what it is, exploring the history of music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So if that sounds like your kind of thing, you can listen to the Infinite Monkey Cage first on BBC Sounds.