Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep 4. Conclave Concluded

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Andy Zaltzman is joined by Geoff Norcott, Ria Lina, Ava Santina and Alasdair Beckett-King to break down the week in news. The panel discuss the results of the UK local elections, the reaching of a US-UK trade deal, the storm of online misinformation surrounding the India-Pakistan border stand-off, the statutes of statues, and the conclusion of the Conclave as we meet the world's first American Pope.Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Eve Delaney, Jade Gebbie, John Tothill and Peter Tellouche. Producer: Rajiv Karia Executive Producer: James Robinson Production Coordinator: Jodie Charman Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4.

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Andy Zoltzman. I'm in the BBC archives looking for the news quiz script from 80 years ago this week. Right, N.E. nepotism today, that's what today in parliament used to be called. Never mind the buzz bombs, quality panel show that. Oh here it is, news quiz recorded Thursday the 8th of May 1945. Interesting questions included what W has just ended on which

continent beginning with E? Who definitely now won't be needing what personal body part that currently resides in the Albert Hall? And, oh, it's an interesting question. What will this show sound like in 80 years' time, in a world which will surely have learned from the tragic failures of the first half of the 20th century, have built on our sacrifices and have shunned extremism, hatred, genocide, persecution, violence, isolationism and ethnic cleansing to march into a global utopia of peace, harmony, tolerance, cooperation, truth and celebrities wearing sensible clothes at fashion galas? Well, it's a good question.

Let's find out the answer in this week's News Quiz. Hello. Welcome to the News Quiz. Yes, I know it's been another one of those weeks in which it can be a little bit tricky to see the light amidst the darkness, but in the week of the 80th anniversary of VE Day and at this time of renewal in the Vatican, there are always reasons to think that things will improve.

So our teams this week are Team Observable Hope against Team Newfound Optimism. Let's shorten those down to more convenient acronyms. Team O against Team No. On Team O we have Jeff Norcott and Rhea Leena. And on Team No, Alistair Beckett King and political editor at Politics Joe, Ava Santina. And we'll start with the UK before moving on to the world this week. And this first question can go to Rhea and Jeff. The dinosaurs, the dodo, lead-based make-up, people throwing hats in the air when their

team scored a goal, nuance, audible dialogue in TV dramas, and what could be the next on the list of celebrity extinctions according to both Nigel Farage and Jeremy Hunt? The two-party political system, correct? I mean, like, everyone else is being the Tory, so it's made it quite hard for them, really, isn't it? Reform being the Tories, Labour being a bit Tory, Lib Dem in various constituency are a bit Tory.

They need a new blag, they need a new wheeze. Everyone's doing their stuff, I think they should go for going back into the EU. That'd be the plot twist we all need. But yeah, they could absolutely smash it in North London. I mean, the thing is, it's like, you know, like there are some knockoff products in Lidl that end up doing better than the real thing? So you know like Danpak? That's what reform are.

They're Danpak to the Tories' Lerpak. People have just decided they want... Look, all right, I'm the only person that actually shops in Lidl, but trust me... Ava, politically it was a kind of weird election for the two traditionally largest parties. How do you see how things are in the aftermath of it? Well, I think that the end of the two party system, that was the term by Tim Shipman, who was a very esteemed political journalist. And with utter hubris, I'm going to say,

I don't agree with him. I think that more in line sort of with what Jeff was getting at there, that I think that actually reform have just adopted a lot of the conservative parties. And I think we now are on a path where Nigel Farage could become leader of the opposition at the next election but what's interesting is for the next three years he's sort of got to find lots of woke issues in councils so he's gonna be spending a lot of time in potholes and looking at

dust spins and maybe that might change his mind about whether he can be bothered with the whole thing. For years people have been saying we need the grown-ups back in the room when Cor years, people have been saying, we need the grownups back in the room. When Corbyn was leader, it was like, we need the grownups back in the room. When Liz Truss was prime minister, well, you've got it. You know, the grownups, they're back in the room. But it turns out there are no windows or doors,

and it's filling with sewage. It's actually horrible in this room. I've covered many, many reform events, and at every single one there's always a person there who wants to show me their shoes and they are always Union Jacks covered all over them. Or actually one time a man he was like I've got to show you something he starts to open his suit jacket which panicked me and it was just a Union Jack from arm to arm. I'm just hearing good things my end. I'm

hearing great fashion choice after another. I mean if you talk about great fashion choices now Andrea Jenkins she won the Merrill Tee where was it? Greater Lincolnshire. Greater Lincolnshire and did you see the dress she wore? She was dressed like she won best supporting actress. She looked incredible and I know that you shouldn't just like take in politicians on how they but this was a statement dress and she's got a great story. She was a finalist in a beauty contest and she worked at Gregg's. She did? If that was me, that's all I'd talk about.

Have you heard her talk? She must be the only Miss UK finalist that doesn't want world peace. Andrea Jenkins has got the worst political scandal on record, right, because I did a bit of research for this. In 2009 she won a council seat in a by-election but the result didn't stand for long because she was forced to resign after it emerged that part-time she'd be working as a music tutor for a council-run service. It's not exactly the Perfumo affair, is it? Well, you mentioned Andrew Jenkins' victory in becoming mayor of Greater, Lincolnshire. Why did her success lead to an intense debate? Anyone? Because in her thank you speech, so ironic, she said that she thinks that if tents are good enough for refugees in France

then why don't we house them in tents over here instead of in hotels? And I said because that's what the middle class do when they go to festivals, okay? And we mustn't confuse the two. Well, she does. She wants to get back to Britain's glory days, doesn't she? But the problem is, is that I think when it comes to Brits, we don't look at, no one really thinks about empire or the glory stuff. Our two defining national myths are Dunkirk and surviving the Blitz. It's about just clinging on in there, right?

We're essentially defined by the equivalent of Jimmy Anderson batting out for a draw. The cricket gags never get much, I just do them for Andy. You've got an extra five points actually. It always works. It's very hard not to read quotes from Andrea Jenkins in the voice of a Doctor Who villain, I find. You know, reset Britain to its glorious past! To be fair, I'll let you in on a secret, everything sounds scary if you say it in that voice, that's how Saturday works. But it is quite a catchy, you know, terrifying proto-fascist slogan,

more convincing I guess than the Tory slogan, which was Britain, turn it off and on again. I suppose the thing with the Tories was they never liked the populist stuff. They never felt like their heart was truly in it. Because some of them are really, they're sort of low tax libtems really. So when they're saying stop the boats, they're like, stop the boats, maybe even slow down the boats, maybe have a bloody good talking to with the boats. Whereas you get the sense Lee Anderson would swim out there. That is just not true. I'm sorry, but Priti Patel had a policy, allegedly, that she wanted to put wave machines in the Channel to overturn the dinghies. You can't have a policy that sounds like fun.

It's not a deterrent. I'd be in there, Saturday mornings, like my child. Ed Davey was in there in the last election. Do you know what happened when this goes out? The reformed sports will get the hump, cos we started the show taking the piss out of them. But that's actually a good sign, lads. election. Do you know what happened when this goes out is that the reform sports will get the hump because we started the show taking the piss out of them but that's actually a good sign lads. You're first up to bat you're opening. This is the good bit of what we're talking about here. The Lib Dems are seething. Reform won the council in Durham and that's where I'm from.

I'm from Durham I don't want to besmirch the people of Durham I don't want to imply that all reform voters are racist, but when I was living in the Northeast, I did hear someone call into a radio talk show and begin their comment with, I am racist, but... It's up to that comment about the putting asylum seekers in tents that Andrew Jenkins made, if it's good enough for France, then it should be good enough for us I mean that rhetoric was strikingly absent during for example the Brexit campaign I mean but does this mean some exciting times that we can expect for example other French things to come over here like a functioning rail network over elaborate recipes

flamboyant rugby and nationalised energy. That's a wonderful thing France do. I don't really know what tents they're talking about over in France because I have been to visit many times and they're not particularly glamorous and we did replicate something similar to that scheme in Manston which is a detention centre in Kent. And there was an outbreak of diphtheria. Someone died and also someone miscarried. So, you know, it's not the best course of action. Reform won by six votes over Labour. So if just four people had changed their mind, it could have gone...

And Starmer didn't visit the constituency at all. Is this a sort of sign of him almost already being seen as a weakness by the Labour Party? Well, they didn't actually put a lot of money into the campaigning either. There was some suggestion quite early on that it was going to turn reform. I mean, Runcorn is a commuter town, it's about nine minutes away from Liverpool. But it's extraordinarily run down. It's sort of been at the behest of successive administrations. And I think that perhaps if Keir Starmer had been forced to go and visit the constituency,

he'd have to promise a cash injection that the Labour Party simply do not have at the moment. I think to be fair to him, given his winterfuel policy and the cuts he's making to disability, I don't think he thought anyone was left there. I mean the problem is, you know, Labour have taken on people whose very names have positive connotations, right? Farmers, people like farmers. Pensioners, people like pensioners. But they're mint like pensioners but minted

pensioners. The problem is I say pensioner and even now I'm thinking of some little old deer with that trolley they push in front of them but what's in the trolley Ethel? Gold. Gold and 90% of the cod stocks from the North Sea. You're the reason Ethel that we're all in Pollock as you're off on another Viking river cruise. So this is what labor should have done, built up the hatred, you see. But it felt like what happened was they just announced the winter fuel policy. And the next thing I saw was Angela Rayner doing shots with David Goethe. It was quite a leap. I'm really confused now. I can't tell if you are for or against labor policies at this point in time. I think when I come on shows like this, I'm the one defending them I can't tell if you are for or against Labour policies at this point in time.

I think when I come on shows like this, I'm the one defending them. That's how right-wing Labour have got. It's very weird because the Labour campaigners are getting in real trouble on the doorstep. They say the cuts are only going to affect wealthier pensioners, and I think they've made a real miscalculation there because in this country you can say what you want about you know immigrants or trans people or disabled people but if you come for pensioners who've got a little bit of money put by they will tear you apart like a Jack Russell eating a pasty. Those people have served our country they haven't fought in a war but don't tell them that. Do you know, like, in this week of all weeks, it does make me think of a generation of apps

who did fight in a war. And my grandad, you know, like, he was a very just normal bloke, and he ended up holding a gun, which he never should have done. But, you know, did he moan about it? No. He had the common decency to become a lifelong alcoholic, and I respect that. Well, we're sitting here really awkwardly because your grandad was Italian and mine was German.

And mine was Jewish. That just shows how far we've moved on in the last 80 years. Obviously all political parties love all the panels that we have on this show. Sorry. Okay. Sorry, I've been legally advised to retract that comment. But what other panels are Reform UK emphatically not fans of? They are now waging war on net zero. Things like solar panels.

Correct. They want to get rid of all of them in the places where they now have control to do it Which irritates me. I've always been irritated with the debate You know when you do debate in school and they go give us the for and give us the against and one of the against Is always they're an eyesore. Oh, but it's ugly. Oh, but it's a blue. They're always an eyesore I'm like, you know what Coventry's ugly. That doesn't mean we're gonna get rid of it Like it's not a valid reason to not do the right thing because you don't like the way it looks This is Richard Tice, I think. It's his big thing is he hates solar panels and

he's in a relationship with Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist, and my question is Oakeshott and Tice, what are they doing attacking solar panels when they should be solving crimes on ITV1? Oakeshott and Tice, he's a multi-millionaire with nothing to lose. She's a right-wing journalist who doesn't play by the rules, like checking if your sources are true before you put something... LAUGHTER Yes, well, we left you on a cliffhanger last week.

Ahead of the local elections, would Labour romp to a series of glorious victories? Would the Conservatives triumphantly bounce back from the general election gloom to seize control of county councils? Would a snap conclave result in Beyoncé becoming Pope? All equally likely. And we can confirm none of them happened. Instead, reform had huge successes. Andrea Jenkins, newly elected mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, said reform would reset Britain to its glorious past. Now as LP Hartley wrote, the past is a foreign country, and reform, appropriately enough, want to send people back there. LAUGHTER

Reform have said they will ban the flying of rainbow pride flags on public buildings. They've also stated that if it's sunny and rainy at the same time, people will be legally obliged to close their eyes, just in case. LAUGHTER Right, at the end of our local elections round, Rhea and Geoff have nine, Alice and Reneva have four.

Right, we're having a transatlantic round now. Now Americans like to invite God to bless America. Why might he have a more direct middleman to go through as of this Thursday? New Pope, everyone excited about that? We're watching the chimney? Everyone could learn from a bit of fear from the way that they choose a Pope. Just, how do you get a whole planet

just looking at a chimney man? That is content, you know? And immediately the bloke gets a job and they change his name. I just always think that's rude. Just let the man identify as he wants to identify. Why? I don't think that he was born Bobby.

He wants to be Leo. Let him be Leo. He's Leo officially Leo Twitter intravenous. Sorry, XIV. Sorry, for the 14th. Leo the 14th. This is really breaking news. I saw this coming into Broadcasting House. There's the BBC News on four massive screens and I and that was where I learned from it but confusingly three of those screens are showing BBC News and one of them is showing Richard

Osmond's House of Games and I didn't realize and they were doing a question about the musical artist The Weeknd and so as far as I know Provost is the first American Pope he headlined Coachella and his ex-girlfriend is Bella Hadid. He's from Chicago and Robert Barron, who is a Minnesota-based professional bishop who was involved in the selection process, he quoted his mentor, Cardinal George of Chicago, who said, until America goes into political decline there will not be an American Pope. So is this another thing Trump can take credit for? I mean, in terms of having a Pope from Chicago,

people say he'll be a reformer. I don't know what he's going to bring. No ketchup on hot dogs. That'll be pretty unnegotiable. And St Valentine's Day might get a lot feistier. What else are we expecting from the first American Pope? If he's a reformer, he's going to ban all the flags, going to take down all the windmills.

Finally get some good pizza in Rome. Did you see that they messed up the font on Francisco's tomb? Sorry you mean the script or the water? I'm sorry yes I forgot we're talking about Catholic stuff. I mean the typeface I mean the lettering. So they first of all they they chose Times New Roman which is like a bit on the nose, but They got the spacing between the letters wrongs. The kerning is the technical term So you see a picture of it. It just looks really bad It's embarrassing and they've really messed up the whole sort of lid of the tomb It's not the worst cover-up the Catholic Church has been involved

But it's a pretty bad job. But is it the kind of thing, you know how when you if you get the kerning wrong it'll turn a word like therapist into the rapist, like how bad is it? It's like Francis versus. It is. Versus who? This is really a visual joke for a thing only I've seen but that is what it says. Yes the Vatican smoke machine has pumped out some of the white stuff so we have a new Pope only four rounds of pontificatory pontificating were required and a new pontiff has been pontificated those are the technical terms. Unusually for an election these

days Nigel Farage did not win but just give him time it took him eight goes to get into Parliament. Another America story Trump has been in action again this week this question involves one word beginning with F and another word beginning with C what F and C did Trump himself use to describe a new trade deal between the USA and the UK announced this week funny and charming definitely not that it's a trade deal yes full and comprehensive. Full and comprehensive. Full and comprehensive. Even if he takes out his big black sharpie and signs it,

I don't trust that it's going to necessarily be followed. The moment he gets pissed off, all of those tariffs are going to go up anyway. For weeks, I've been saying the thing about Donald Trump is he doesn't understand tariffs. You know, the thing about Donald Trump is he doesn't understand international trade. And having looked into it, neither do I. I tried to read about trade deals and the words just scroll away from me in a yellow font like the start of the Phantom Menace. It's so boring I can't be interested in it. But yeah, it's being

described as a comprehensive deal but then people are saying, oh no, it's just like an outline of a deal and most of the tariffs are still in place. So I think it's a comprehensive deal in the same way that my school was comprehensive. It's going to let some people down. I kind of feel for Starmer in this relationship because I totally take your point that it is, it's not a fantastic deal. We are worse off than we were six months ago. But as Starmer said, we are better off than we were yesterday. And what you've got to remember is that... Such a Starmer way of looking at it, isn't it?

Look, the way you've got to look at it, things are worse, but they could have been worse. I love the way your impression of Keir Starmer is basically Zip-A from Rainbow. I'm actually the Prime Minister, Geoffrey. It's a bit of Josh Whiddicombe, you know. I see it as more of a caricature than an impression, you know. But we're not going to eat chlorinated chicken, are we? And that is something we've all been very worried about over the years. We're going to have to chlorinate our own chicken. Yeah.

But I think this is something to be celebrated. I think this is where Stammer actually does deserve some flowers, not the full bouquet, but like some. Because the Tories, for years after Brexit, told us that it was totally fine to eat chlorinated chicken that hormone beef would be fantastic on our shelves And you know people like Jacob Rees-Mogg was actually selling this idea to us This would have been on the table before someone like Donald Trump had even asked for it, you know, they would have handed that over So actually for Starmor to have clawed that back

even though we're still gonna allow people like Elon Musk not to pay the correct amount of tax in the UK and maybe some of our NHS might be a little bit diluted but... It's all a question of wording they say hormone injected beef call it infused. Sounds really nice you know what I mean with a drizzle of clawing. Yes well as we were recording we were still awaiting full details of the US-UK trade deal stroke agreement stroke vague heads up about something they might discuss in a few months that even that detail is not yet clear and also waiting for the schedule for when Trump inevitably throws his toys out the pram then shreds the toys and the pram through a shredder and slaps a 3000% tariff on parsnips, bakewell tarts, racing unicycle smirks and snooker

referees. So it's still a bit up in the air. The devil is in the details. All that the devil is a details man, but Trump is not at all and yet they seem to have bonded quite charmingly over so many other things. The score's the end of our transatlantic round. 11 to Rhea and Jeff, 7 to Alistair and Ava. Right, well to mark VE Day we have a war or peace round. You can choose a war question or a peace question from one of our feature regions of the world but because we're celebrating peace in particular this week peace questions are worth ten times the number of points as war questions so will Alistair and Aver have the first go? Would you like a peace question or a war question? War. You want the war question? Right, okay, one tenth of the points.

Okay, and your feature region is India and Pakistan. The recent actions between India and Pakistan have provoked a wave of what? I think I know the answer to this. I think it is misinformation. Correct. Because people are sharing videos from other conflicts. It's a real problem now online and of course there's AI-generated information. As soon as something kicks off people start sharing fake stuff. And I think there's two terrifying things about it. One is that people believe fake things.

But the other thing is it gives us permission to ignore anything that we don't like because we can just say, oh, that's fake, that's misinformation. You know, you can dismiss scenes of violence as being fake, which is not a joke, but it's a bloody good point. And this has happened to me, actually, because when I post a comedy video online, a lot of people refuse to believe that it's funny. And you'll see people in the comments saying, that isn't funny, I don't like it, even though it is really hilarious. It's very difficult. I'm a middle-class British white man. My people are more on the supply side of problems in the Asian subcontinent.

I don't really have any observations about what they should do to fix this situation. The problem with the misinformation, though, that we've seen over the last couple of days, it's not only come from what online sources, but it's also coming from our own political actors. Kemi Badenok made some rather outlandish claims about this potential Indian trade deal that has just been signed by the Labour government. I really do feel for people up and down the country because I think it's very difficult to make head or tail of What is actual fact or fiction? Especially when someone who's in a position of authority like the leader of the opposition is

Abjectly lying at the dispatch box no less I mean the problem with misinformation is that people tend to focus on the social media you can see What's up with your family is absolute wild west? Have you got your family they share something they, look at this, this is a bombing. You go, that's from a computer game. At the bottom it says how many lives the person's got. Well, yes, the correct answer, the recent incidents between India and Pakistan have provoked a wave of online misinformation.

You could also have had a deep-seated, shuddering sense of apocalyptic dread, as well as concerns about the future of international cricket tournaments. To give you some background into what has happened in the past few weeks and why it happened, well, we'd need to clear the Radio 4 schedule for the next year and a half, so we're not going to give you that background. But anyway, it's all very worrying for, amongst other people, people from India, people from Pakistan, people from surrounding nations, people from nations with large Indian and Pakistani populations, all other nations, and everyone else in the world.

So, in summary, fingers crossed. Right, so Rhea and Jeff, after Ava and Alistair scored one point for their war question, you have the choice for a ten point peace question or a one point war question. What are you going to go for? Peace. Peace, okay, and your feature section is the Middle East, so excellent choice. Whose ride is set to be pim section is the Middle East, so excellent choice. Whose ride is set to be pimped in the Middle East and how? Okay, Pope Francis' Pope Mobile that he used when he was out there is going to become a mobile clinic for children in Gaza.

Correct. I mean upcycling a Pope Mobile into a clinic for children in a war zone sounds like a really weird episode of the Repair Shop, does it? I mean, there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house for that one. As far as a kid in Gaza, I'd be hoping for something a bit better than just one weird reinforced car. What, like an ambulance? Peace, money. I find this story really confusing because why would a vehicle carrying aid into Gaza

need to be bulletproof. Surely our allies in the Israeli Defense Force would never target aid workers or ambulances or hospitals or refugee camps or schools or journalists or civilians or children. Yes the late Pope Francis who's chosen form of transport like so many of his predecessors of late, was the mobile, has bequeathed his vehicle to be transformed into a clinic for the children of Gaza, a small beacon of hope and humanity amidst the ongoing atrocities and mayhem.

And it continues a proud tradition in that part of the world of using things to function as impromptu medical facilities that were not designed for that purpose. Of course, it's now around 2025 or so years since a donkey was repurposed as a maternity ambulance and a manger as a neonatal unit and before that of course there was that whale that that guy used as an immersive meditation chamber. And at the end of our war and peace round the scores are 21 to Rhea and Jeff, 8 to Alistair and Ava. Okay our final question and this is worth 12 points so Alistair and Ava can lose by a dignified margin still. The question is what do a dog's nose, a bull's testicles

and a ghost's breasts have in common. Is this about the Molly Malone statue? It is. Are they rubbed often? Is that what it is? Yes, they're all bits of bronze statues that people rub for good luck. They're saying that there's the statue of Molly Malone and it's hard for me in a feminist way to phrase this. Do you want to answer the question? Because I might come across as one of your sort of Jeff Norcott right-wing comedians. Well, everyone keeps rubbing its tits. Just to clear it up, there's nothing right-wing about that. It's a human impulse.

He's not a real woman, so it might be a real woman. What if it was just a drama student that was frozen trying to earn money for tits? That's not okay. And I love these sort of things. I think this kind of thing is really romantic in city centres. You throw money in a trevy fountain, you put a lock on a bridge in Paris, and in Dublin you go and feel up a woman that's trying to sell fish. Until now you were allowed to rub her breasts, but you were advised not to touch her cockles. And muscles. And muscles. Yeah, and muscles.

Do I look like someone who doesn't know the words to folk songs? LAUGHTER APPLAUSE In Dublin, they're trying to stop people rubbing the metal memorials of metal Molly Malone, which people do for good luck, apparently. Now, sexually assaulting a metal version of a probably fictional 17th-century woman who sold shellfish out of a wheel Malone, which people do for good luck, apparently. Now, sexually assaulting a metal version of a probably fictional 17th century woman who sold shellfish out of a wheelbarrow, then died of a fever and came back as a ghost.

There's a niche for everything, I guess. It's important to remember that. Can't they solve the actual sexual assault? Like, do they have to...? What's with the... It's a trial scheme, I think. Right, OK. So, well, at the end of that show, the scores are 21 to Rhea and Geoff, 20 to Alistair and Ava.

APPLAUSE Thank you very much for listening. Until next week, goodbye. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Taking part in the News Quiz were Rhea Leona, Jeff Norcott, Ava Santina and Alistair Beckett-King. In the chair was me, Andy Zoltzman, and additional material was written by Peter Toulouse, Jade Gebbie, Eve Delaney and John Tothill. In the chair was me, Andy Zoltzman and additional material was written by Peter Toulouse, Jade

Geby, Eve Delaney and John Tothill. The producer was Rajiv Kharia and it was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4. Hello, Russell Kane here. I used to love British history, be proud of it. Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, massive fan of stand-up comedians, obviously, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, that has become much more challenging, for I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius, the show where we take heroes and villains from history and try to work out were they evil or genius. Do not catch up on BBC sounds by

searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed. But if like me you quite enjoy it, have a little search. Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Kane, go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed.