Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep 7. Inflation and Incinerators

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

This week on The News Quiz, the panel assess the fall in inflation, Wes Streeting's latest bright ideaWritten by Lucy Porter, with additional material by: Mike Shephard, Tasha Dhanraj, Peter Tellouche and Alfie Packham. Producer: Rajiv Karia Executive Producer: James Robinson Production Coordinator: Jodie Charman Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4 An Eco-Audio certified Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. I'm Sumi Somosgandar from the Global Story Podcast, where we're asking how the US election could impact the war in Ukraine. With Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck in the polls, President Zelensky's campaign to ensure crucial funds don't run out is increasingly uncertain. So will the result in November change his nation's fate?

The Global Story brings you unique perspectives from BBC journalists around the world. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to the news quiz hosted this week by me, Lucy Porter. Don't worry about the blue light police escort that's accompanied me to the studio, it's nothing to do with Keir Starmer. It's just the cashier left the security tag on the nice new top I picked up from John Lewis and they will stop at nothing now

if they think you've been shoplifting. So before this burly constable reads me my rights, let's get on with the show. ["The New York Times"] ["The New York Times"] Hello and welcome to the News Quiz. I'm Lucy Porter. Andy is away again this week, so I'm in the chair. Luckily he has left behind a huge stack of wisdoms for me to sit on. In a week where we learn that giant incinerators are burning our rubbish and millions of litres

of sewage have been pumped into Windermere, our teams this week are Team Trash versus Team Turd. So on Team Trash we have Deliso Shaponda and Andrew Maxwell. And on Team Turd it's Rheolina and Hugo Rifkin. First of all, Rhea and Hugo, what might be the cause of a sudden lack of interest in the economy? OK, so inflation has fallen to 1.7%, which means if things carry on like this this time next year, if you want to bribe a government minister, you'll have to give them, I think, 1.017 Taylor Swift tickets. Because inflation is going down, interest rates should go down as well, which means

they're currently like 5%, so that by the end of the year, they could be as low as 4.5%, meaning your mortgage will be very slightly less ludicrous. But it's really significant that this is the September figure, because September figures for inflation are used to calculate next year's benefit increases, which affects everybody except for pensioners, because they have the triple lock, which is what you put on your house if you can afford one. But yeah, so inflation's come down and the government's very excited. Nobody understands it. Nobody understands the economy at all. It's like that movie Tenet.

I think the economy is being directed by Christopher Nolan If I'm honest because nobody quite gets one goes down one goes up one does the other but let's be clear This is a blip unless it continues to last. This is a blip It's like when you skip dinner and then weigh yourself first thing in the morning the next day and you're like, oh my god I lost a kilo. It'll be back by lunchtime It's cuz airline ticket prices are fallen is the main thing. And some fuel prices. Well, it's like I wasn't buying that. You weren't buying fuel or airline prices. Not really.

OK, well your inflation can stay up at 2% then. Thank you. You're welcome. So we can get a plane to somewhere, but we can't afford to pay our mortgage. We can get a plane to somewhere less increasingly expensively than we could before. I blame decimalisation. It feels like Napoleon 1 sometimes. Do you know what I mean?

Well, inflation's gone up a groat. Well, the thing is, this is good news, right? It's good. Is it? Only if it lasts. It's so you've got to be clear, it's not good, it's just getting bad less quickly. The economy was pushed down the stairs by Liz Truss when she was in charge and it's only just managed to crawl to the phone, so I just don't think we should get too excited. You know what I mean? Because knowing ambulances, they're still going to take six months to get there.

So we have to wait and see. Because they've said, oh, now you can bring down the interest rates of mortgages. And it's like, OK, then off you go. No, they're not going to. So nothing. Well, because there is excitement around economics in terms of budget anticipation. In fact, the question I was going to ask to you, Team Trash, is in what way has our old friend the 22 billion pound black hole had a makeover this week?

I'm aware of this but I've forgotten who it was but somebody said that there's a 22 billion black hole in the budget. Yes. First of all, why black? Okay? I'm just gonna put this in there like you're on the radio, I'm black okay and there's no reason why it needed to be a black hole. There's a 22 billion hole in the budget, right? I read Stephen Hawking's brief history of time and a black hole sucks in all the matter around it. So this would only be a black hole if it was sucking in other budgets. So literally there'd be like, oh the British Museum budgets got sucked in, oh no, what a shame. Oh no, there goes the Wigan Country Fair budget.

Apparently it's got twice as big. Well it has and so they have given it a makeover because they are now calling it, not a black hole, it's a delightful 40 billion pound funding gap. Funding gap. Which sounds much more bijou. It is. But it's also the responses to it that I find bewildering. So they're cutting down on a lot of the expenditure.

So they've canceled road tunnel works near Stonehenge, which is just another time where the druids are getting it. Like literally, totally unappreciated minority. Who, the druids? The druids. Ugh, I'd lock everyone in a mop. Honestly, no time for those druids. Darn botherers, every one of them. There should be more space metaphors in economics, I think. Like a sort of, you know, a new galaxy of cancel tax, or, you know, a child benefit comet, I quite like, more like that. Everything you've worked for vanishing up your anus. That's pretty good.

Rachel Rees has acknowledged that there do need to be tough choices, especially now that we have an even larger funding gap than a hole than we had before. I think turning down those free Oasis tickets that she was offered was really tough. And one of those tough choices, of course, that they've already labeled is the winter fuel allowance being taken away from the elderly. I'm torn on that.

You know, on the one hand, you go, gosh, that's terrible. You're going to kill a lot of old people. And then they said, no, no, no, because they're going to get a pension deal in April. And you go, OK, so they have to live through the winter and then you'll reward them. I think labor have sort of painted themselves into a corner because they made promises which aren't really doable. I think they're going to have to change them.

So things like they said, oh, there's no austerity. I think they need to change it to no austerity but we might have custody of it on some weekends like more realistic yeah it's basically the Labour Party offered Britain a lift in its brand new Rolls Royce and then when it came for that lift to happen it turned out there were no wheels on the Rolls Royce and it was being used as a chicken coop. Which is still good, you get eggs. I think there are other ways that we can save money. You know, there's other ways that we can sort of fill that funding gap. I think we could sell all of Keir Starmer's unwanted clothes at

a car boot sale. Quite a lot of that. I mean, how about don't redo number 10? It was just done up to a very high standard, wasn't it, with gold wallpaper and the rest of it. Why don't I just live in that? You took it with him. I think that in terms of people... Took it with him. He ripped it all down and walked out wearing it like a toga. How did you miss that? To be fair, if I moved into somewhere that Boris Johnson had lived,

I would rip out everything, especially the soft furnishings. LAUGHTER Especially if you go round it with a black light, you do not want to see that, mate. LAUGHTER I did want to ask the panel, if we were going to take out insurance as a nation, true national insurance, what should we as a nation insure ourselves against? Referendums. Etonians.

Classic Eroviian answer. Lord Sugar's Twitter account. Oh gosh. I think you're referring to the fact this week on Twitter, Lord Sugar's Twitter account. Oh gosh. I think you're referring to the fact this week on Twitter, Lord Sugar tweeted while watching strictly that he's tired of these gimmicks, something to that effect. But what I find funny is a lot of people assumed he was referring to Chris McCauzen being blind as a gimmick. And when he got the bath, he said, well, I didn't mean he was disabled. That wasn't the gimmick. But then he's been very vague about what the gimmick was. That is not a time to be mysterious. Everyone's like, why were you being prejudiced? Oh, no, no, I wasn't. What did you mean? I'm not going tell you I think he meant Scousers

No more dancing Scousers What did Alan sugar do to make money? I just remember back in the day he started Amstrad which is like a really early form of computer That was basically a cardboard box that went boop And then that was it well they moved into making like weird hybrid stuff like a fax machine that was also a razor and stuff like that. A tees made that would criticise you. A SodaStream car, you know. So, therefore, if there's ever a man who knows a gimmick when he sees one... Hell of a gimmick, though, isn't it?

You can say what you want. It's a times when you see him dancing that well you go, jeez I wish I was blind. Wish I had a quality gimmick like that. Another quick question. Which minister wants to give the unemployed a shot in the arm? Oh, this is a fantastic story. This is amazing. Turns out some people are too fat to get out the door.

And if you can't get out the door, then you can't be employed outside the house. So Wes Streeting, he wants to give people Ozempic or Wegovi, these two crazy miracle drugs that make you lose an enormous amount of weight. So then you're physically able to work, which, you know... Wait, wait a second. I used to be thin, I am now plump, and I'm equally lazy. I'm not... It makes no sense, because he's basically saying, these people are fat, so we'll bribe them with weight loss drugs

to make them work. He's like, no, you idiot, bribe them with food. Exactly. And this time, don't make it a carrot. That stick better be full of sherbert. I also like all the people who are admitting they tried it. Like Robert Jenrick was like, I tried it and I didn't like it. It's not ecstasy.

I tried it and I didn't like it. It's a zemp, it's not ecstasy. Didn't someone suggest that employers should be held accountable if their employees are too obese and unhealthy? They should be fined for unhealthy workplaces. That's it. But I think that would be great because then you could negotiate your salary like holding a Big Mac. Raise it or else.

The idea of using pharmaceuticals to solve this is not the answer. If you're the government, you should be raising taxes on junk food, subsidising broccoli, funding a better education system, and getting over this idea that everything can be fixed by little pricks. Well, you've solved the economy and obesity there and got that absolutely correct. This week Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced she is looking to fill a £40 billion funding gap which doesn't sound as bad as the £22 billion black hole. As things get worse they're sounding friendlier. I think we can go further. Let's have a £50 billion cosy little finance nook.

The upcoming budget will be the first delivered by a female chancellor of the Exchequer. While the content is uncertain, we know we can expect scented note paper and little hearts and smiley faces over the eyes. Plus all the men in the room will repeat it back to her 10 minutes later as if it was their own idea. Also this week Health Minister Wes Streeting has suggested giving overweight unemployed people weight loss drugs in order to get them back to work. It turns out that Wes likes things slim, very much like his constituency majority of 528 votes. At the end of round one the scores are Team Trash have four points and Team Turd have five points. Applause Okay, well now we turn to round two and the question here which I will ask to Team Trash,

which energy plant has money to burn? Incineration plants in the Greater Manchester area. In Rooncorn. So I initially thought this is the ideal thing because they're all these plants which turn trash and waste into energy, right? Which I thought is brilliant. That's like, you know, using the

old love letters and gifts from my last relationship in the new one. Don't other people do that? But I thought it was a great way to convert waste into something positive. But then a lot of environmentalists are saying that it's very dirty energy, the dirtiest form of power. I don't know. it's very dirty energy, the dirtiest form of power. I don't know. I think totalitarianism is the dirtiest form of power, but... Apparently, run corn.

The point is, the people who own the energy company are offering the locals who live around the incineration facility four and a half grand each to sign NDA's non-disclosure agreements So they won't talk about how awesome it is to live around and incinerate. I mean, where's Erin Brockovich when you need her? But it's because the air's rancid, the water's rancid, they're all kind of sort of wheezing all the time, everything stinks And so there's this four and a half grand, it's supposed to be a gagging order. They're probably gagging already, I'd imagine So they basically they wrote to all these people and said you want this money and a lot of people didn't want the money But I guess if it's all about trash

Anyway, if you get a letter offering you four and a half grand and it's in one of those envelopes for the little window in it It's very hard to know which bin to put it into I Did actually while you were speaking I remembered that of course one call is in Cheshire Which I feel bad pointing out now that we've said so many lovely things about them They're in the gorgeous County of Cheshire, but it is like a UK wide problem I mean specifically we've been talking about wrong corn. Yeah, but these incineration plants are Everywhere. Yeah, I mean I think about bins quite a lot. Do you have a bin day? Tuesday. Again, I live in central London, it's three times a day.

LAUGHTER What's your favourite bin, Lucy? Oh, well, we have the composting bin. Right. The little one. The little one. It's gorgeous. Because you can lift it. I can get in there. Yeah, yeah. LAUGHTER That's where I overwinter.

LAUGHTER Let's stay with the subject of this kind of thing. So teams please will you complete the following lines from the great poet of the lakes Wordsworth updated in light of this week's news. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high over vales and hills when all at once I had a sit in a massive pile of... of Windermere water. Thank you. Is the correct answer. Yes, unfortunately, an investigation has revealed that the water company in that area has been releasing, via a pipe, into the middle of the lake. So how that got built without anybody finding out,

I have no idea, but via pipe into the middle of lake... It's such a simple mistake to make that, isn't it? Accidentally build a point into Lake Windermere. I bet they were building it all the way across and then some rando in the government went we're not building that tunnel anymore. And they've been releasing without telling anyone all of this sewage into Lake Windermere but in their defense they said but we reported it 94% of the time.

And I went, well, that's still less effective than a condom. LAUGHTER And there's still sewage in Lake Windermere. The problem is what they call potentially non-compliant discharges, which sort of brings us back to Boris Johnson again, doesn't it? LAUGHTER I'm going to call my dad farts that from now on. Well in fact the incinerator in

Runcorn, one of my favourite things about it is it's called the Viridor Incinerator which I think is such a good name it's like a sort of Transformers villain the Viridor Incinerator it sounds like the kind of car that Andrew Tate might drive. It is a big old lake it has to be said. Windermere. Don't call it Lake Windermere though because we'll get letters in. Why? Because it's a mirror, it's not a lake. Oh. And their difference is?

Yes. Very good. Oh, I wonder whether it's because it doesn't flow onwards. Maybe. Is that because it's made of shit? Yes, exactly. It's the United Utilities Company. The United Utilities Company has been releasing sewage into Windermere

without telling anyone, without permission. Oh, but that's how you do it, wouldn't you? But wouldn't it? You know what they say, it's always better to ask forgiveness than permission. When you're running a utilities company and defouling one of the most famous beautiful places in your country. True story, I learned to water ski on Lake Windermere and I can tell you there was no pooing with them.

Not when you started. So yes, you've done very well on second round all of the stories about waste. The story that burning household rubbish in giant incinerators is deeply harmful to the environment. The incinerators were originally pitched as a green alternative to landfill, which is like describing crack cocaine as the heroin that you can enjoy between meals. Burning rubbish in incinerators is now the dirtiest way the UK generates power. Previously that position was held by the friction from Boris Johnson

rubbing his thighs whenever he caught the whiff of a married woman. And it was also revealed this week that United Utilities deposited between 143 and 286 million litres of unauthorised waste into Windermere over a period of three years. The sewage can harm and even kill fish and other marine life. And you can learn more about that in David Attenborough's next series, Brown Planet.

So at the end of round two, the scores are Team Trash have six points and Team Turd have seven. Still everything to play for and we now move on to a sports round. Who better to ask our first question in the sports round than the man I lovingly refer to as the voice of the balls, Andy Zoltzman. He is dialing in once again from Pakistan. Hello Andy. Hi Lucy, sensational job so far. Why this week have some people been saying that England have scored a known goal without even going on the pitch? And remember this is a sport question so feel free

not to constrain your responses with facts or objective truth of any kind or to show any working whatsoever from Pakistan lots of love Andy Thank You Andy so teams what male nonsense was Andy wanging on about there I mean I'm gonna answer this because I'm half German and the England team has finally seen sense and gotten someone who understands The game to lead their men's football team gotten someone who understands the game to lead their men's football team. And some people are upset about it. They feel like we've sold out. But you've had other nations lead the team before.

I think there was an Italian, there was a Swede, and obviously it failed. So now you've finally gone, okay, we should have done this all the way back in the 40s and surrendered to what is best for the team. And now finally there's a German, Thomas Tuchel has been appointed the manager of the England men's football team and maybe you can finally win something. I think Tuchel should lean into it, into the the perception of him that is angering these people. He should just start calling the forward attack the Luftwaffe.

He should start referring to Harry Kane who's going to get the golden jack boot. And just generally toy with their rage in subtle ways. They did put the most German looking photos of him they could find. Yeah he was like wearing lederhosen and a special collarless jacket, wasn't he? Holding a huge jug of beer, yeah. I think the problem's going to be when he starts pointing across the pitch telling people where to go. LAUGHTER I like it how Thomas Tuchel arrives two hours before the game

to put a giant towel out on the pitch. LAUGHTER And so you wish to play an international football game against my team but sadly my towel is here. You'll move Switzerland. It was described the Daily Mail described it as a dark day for British football that Thomas Tuchel was appointed. Why are the English so against winning in the men's game? I don't understand. Can I just point out, I think, are you the only English person up here, Lucy? Obviously I'm Scottish, as you'll be able to tell from my impenetrable accent.

No, I hate to tell you that I, as of six months ago, I'm British too. No, I hate to tell you that I, as of six months ago, I'm British too. CHEERING So I now can have an obnoxious view of this. You can now be disappointed in our football team. Yes, I can. Being British, you can be disappointed by four different teams. LAUGHTER Can I just ask you, though, this is not the only sports question,

and in what I consider more exciting sporting news, Team Trash, which other major British sport was infiltrated by a dominating charismatic international interloper this week? I think you speak of that, I actually did not know this was a sport. Of course it is. Conquerors. The proud sport of course. Call yourself British. They may withdraw the citizenship because I did not know this surely it must have been one of the questions on the test

You didn't only have to say who was the last Plantagenet King no which was Henry a lot of Henry's delisa talk us through how you play Conkers. You take a conk... and you throw it at her and you conked her, no? Brilliant. That's brilliant. Not far off of point four. What's a conker to you? Do you know what a conker is?

Is it like an acorn? No. I just know that it's something that someone was trying to cheat and so he had like a steel one in his pocket. So it has to be small. Just to explain to everyone, if you haven't seen this huge news, it was the British Conquer Championship, which they were won by an American woman. Yes. Yeah. Whose name was Kelsey bands back which fun fact Kelsey bands back is how you say camey bad knock in American But there was also as de liso Intimated a cheating scandal because King Conquer David Jenkins was found to have an artificial conquer in his pocket

And I also loved that when confronted about it. He's like no no, no, no, no, no, this isn't a cheat. I just have it there for luck. That's like going to a poker game and they've got an ace in your pocket. Oh, it's just for luck. It brings me positivity. I just love the judges saying to him like, have you got a steel conquer in your pocket?

Or are you? I think the crazy thing is, which makes it so offensive if you're a homegrown Brit, is the fact that she only entered it because her friend was entering it as a bit of a laugh and then she won and you go how dare you also and she probably brought over her American Conker so they were probably twice the size do you mean like just massive Texan Conkers? No no they start little British ones. They supply you don't get to bring your own Conker. It was a joke. I know it was a joke. It's a serious matter.

They supply, because they supply all the Conkers. And King Conker, the steel Conker man, was involved in the supply of Conkers. And there was like an adjacent cheating scandal that he in fact specially marked the strings of the hardened nuts to make sure he got them. So you're saying it's not a conquer cheat, it's a conspiracy? It's a conquer conspiracy. This thing just gets bigger and bigger. Is there a huge prize money? Why does one care that much? Oh, oh, oh! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

Oh, my God! Ah! Sounds like you don't have autumn in your country. LAUGHTER It's the only reason we live through these dreadful months. Once Apple season's over it's Conker season. I also love that King Conker, he's 82. Right, that is an amazing age to still be an athlete. So the sports round, you've absolutely answered everything correctly. This week German national Thomas Tuchel was officially announced as the new manager of

the England men's football team. The arrival of Thomas Tuchel could be just what England needs. Think of it like the car industry. Germany offers high-end performance and efficiency and England hasn't produced anything decent since the mid-60s. I think the appointment of Thomas Tuchel is excellent news. This means that when we win the World Cup, we can all chant two world wars and let's sort of share this cup. Lovely. And the Conquer Championships. There were two major upsets at this year's World Conquer Championships.

The overall winner was an American and there were accusations of cheating when self-styled King Conquer David Jenkins was found to have an artificial conqueror in his pocket. David Jenkins called his accusers sore losers. I mean come on David, it's the World Conqueror Championships, you're all losers. David Jenkins was accused of using steel conkers and coincidentally steel conkers was Hugo's nickname at school. The World Conquer Championships are well organized and respected around the globe despite

operating on a shoestring. And at the end of this week's news quiz, Team Trash have seven points and Team Turd have nine points. They are the winners. Well done. Thank you. Woo. Woo. And before we leave you, just a quick reminder,

do keep listening to Radio 4 as coming up after the Arches is part 17 of our landmark 400 part History of the Mantlepiece. This week, beveled cornice work. So that's the end of the news quizpiece. This week, beveled cornice work. So that's the end of the news quiz. I've been Lucy Porter. Thanks for listening. Goodbye! Taking part in the news quiz were Ria Leena, Delisa Chaponda, Andrew Maxwell and Hugo Rifkind. In the chair was me, Lucy Porter. An additional material was written by Peter Toulouse, Mike Sheppard, Tasha Danraj and Alfie Packham.

The producer was Rajiv Kharia and it was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4. I'm Greg Foot and my podcast, Slice Bread, from BBC Radio 4 is back to separate more science fact from marketing fiction. We've gone from where there's some science and we've turned it sciency. Each week I investigate one of your suggested wonder products, something that's promising to make you happier, healthier or greener. The cost is almost £200. It's out of my range I'm afraid. The new series of sliced bread, including our 100th episode, where we'll be investigating

the products promising to help slow the effects of aging. We can hopefully slow down the aging process and hopefully make people live healthier for longer. Sliced Bread with me, Greg Foot, where we're asking how the U.S. election could impact the war in Ukraine. With Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck in the polls, President Zelensky's campaign to ensure crucial funds don't run out is increasingly uncertain. So will the result in November change his nation's fate?

The Global Story brings you unique perspectives from BBC journalists around the world. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.