Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep2. The art of vetting

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

Some hot topics of conversation this week include the ever evolving Peter Mandelson vetting saga, phones being banned in schools and robots who can take over the world... sorry robots who can take over sports. Helping Andy make sense of it all are Daliso Chaponda, Catherine Bohart, Hugo Rifkind and Ria Lina.Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Jade Gebbie, Christina Riggs, Henry Whaley and Angela Channell Producer: Georgia Keating Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Coordinators: Asha Osborne-Grinter & Caroline Barlow Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

Hello, I am Andy Zaltzman. I'm here at a very austere and serious state occasion, the official ceremonial passing of the buck. And there is the prime minister. He has the buck with him. And it looks like Zakir is now ready for the passing, as is traditional. He will pass it to the Duke of Buckingham, the Lord Royal Bucky Emeritus, of course,

who will then himself, of course, pass the buck further onwards to a randomly selected civil servant. And here comes. the pass. He's gone hard, the Prime Minister. He really puts him willy into that. It's got clean over the Duke of Buckingham's head and through the stained glass windows here at the Abbey.

And next week, the official ceremonial carrying of the can. All the way around the entire country at breakneck speed, 24-hour coverage on 5 Live with Eleanor Aldroyd. But first, the news quiz. Hello and welcome to the news. Have you all vetted yourselves at home with your special home vetting kid? You should have received it in the post this week? Good, then we'll begin. Our teams this week, we have team vetting process against team, time to humanely put it out of its misery.

It's the kindest thing. On team vets, we have Ria Lina and Hugo Rifkin. And on team misery, Delisa Jeponda and Catherine Bohart. We'll start with the question for Hugo and Ria. Unemployment has not risen as much as some expected, but is expected to go up at some point soon, not just nationally, but in what? one-person sector. Well, I mean, it's gone up in terms of being the head of the foreign office. It's expected to go up in terms of being Prime Minister. Correct.

Although it might not. Right. It's very difficult. It's been this week, man. I mean, so Kirstama sacked Dolly Robbins for being the head of the foreign office, for he said, not telling him that Peter Mandelson had failed his vetting, which is both true and not true. because, like, he certainly didn't pass the vetting,

but because this is the foreign office, not passing the vetting, and failing the vetting, are not the same thing, right? It's true that the vetting body asked Mandelton all sorts of questions did put together a document, which they recommended that he did fail the vetting, but Robin said he couldn't have told Stama about this

because he hadn't seen it, which might make you wonder what the point is of putting together a huge document that requires loads of research that nobody ever sees. although not if you've done a PhD or if you work for the Guardian. But you do get the sense if Robbins or Stama had seen the vetting,

then Mandelson would have failed it, which is why they made sure they didn't see the vetting. Because until anyone sees the vetting, it's kind of like Schrodinger's vetting, where he's both passed and failed at the same time. Is this the same process they used to vet people to be presenters on the BBC? You're doing a wonderful job.

Thank you. I mean, the question of why he didn't show Stama the vetting. Do you tell me to shut up. I've been talking about this all week, and I can talk about it plenty more. The question of why he didn't show the vetting that he hadn't seen but still kind of knew about is really interesting.

He basically didn't show him it because he didn't, I suppose, because he didn't want to embarrass him. It's a bit like Andy, if right now you wet yourself. Right. And I saw, and then later you sacked me for not having told you you'd wet yourself. But I was like, all these people are here.

Do you want me to tell them you've wet yourself? And that's kind of the situation the Prime Minister's been in. Right. Haven't even gotten to the last couple of days yet, but I can. No. I'd like to just stay in besides for anyone listening at home. I've not, as of yet, wet myself doing this. But I would tell you. Thank you very much.

That's the kind of honesty I want from you on this show, Catherine. Thank you. I've struggled to keep up with exactly who did and didn't do and not do and not say and not hint at what. I mean, who do you think he's covering who's ass at this point, Rhea? I mean, here's the thing. Like, on the surface, ostensibly, it's supposedly, officially, Olly Robbins' fault

because maybe he really should have flagged it, but at the same time there's this unwritten culture in everything British, not just government, everything British, where, you know, if something happens to you, you swallow it down, and you pack it down, and you don't tell anybody, and then you express it in your relationship, usually in a really toxic way.

Right. That's what made us great as a country, Rhea. Let's not forget that. Well, you couldn't have taken it. And over the entire world, if all of your sons of aristocracy were homesick for mummy. That's why you severed them from their mums at four and sent them to public school. The best thing about this week, I think, has been Emily Thornberry. Emily Thornberry is amazing.

She's like this sort of terrifyingly sweet and smooth. She's like a human creme brulee. She's like the Judy Dentch character in the Bond films. But if she'd been recast as Julian Clary, you know what I mean? It's so true, but she's not just the creme brule. She's also the spoon that wax on the top. and cracks the edge, isn't she? You see her sitting there in the select committee

and you just think, like, this would be perfect if she was just drinking chardonnay at the same time. Did you guys enjoy the... I mean, it's made select committee super glamour. All the kids are talking about it. Well, I just feel like all the people objecting to everything here, it just seems naive to me. Like, they honestly don't think

that positions in government are given as favors and, like, what did you expect? Like, some kind of looking at CV or people showing up at the job center. This is how it's meant to work. Yeah, I mean, he needed a pervy guy to talk to the other pervy guy. He used to be friends with the other pervy guy. They both kind of know.

It was simple math, but no perv's going to pass the test. No, but get this, the pervy guy over there didn't want our pervy guy. Like, originally, he was really happy with the ambassador that they had. He was happy with Karen Pierce. And in hindsight, you go, why in the world Starmer do you think that he's trying to distance himself from the Epstein files by starting a war. So why do you think he'd want you to send him someone in the Epstein files? Like that was poor thinking.

Was the wrong perv? Do you think there's a particular better perv? They should have sent Russell Brand. I think there was just a hope at the highest level of government that they might have at some point met in a hot tub. So... The wrong perv incidentally is the Wallace and Grommer film that never got publicly shown.

But it's gorgeous at Christmas. Kirstama said that he was not told that Mandelson had failed his vetting procedure. Incidentally, and I assume coincidentally, if you type Peter Mandelson vetting into the What Three Words Navigation app, it takes you straight to the gates of hell. So let's have a missing word question now

as Kirstarma tried to pop a cork in the political Vesuvius that is threatening to Pompeii his premiership. He said this. Fill in the missing word. Kirstarmer said, I did not... House. What's missing there? I did not print out and stick pictures of Mandelson and Trump's face onto dolls

and create my own island reunion Barbie Dreamhouse. I did not play the Patrick Swayze role in a remake of the 90s classic Road House. He didn't say... He said that with his face. Rear? Watch. I did not watch house.

No, he didn't. That's a nice gag for fans of American medical dramas. I did not have sexual relations with that. I could go all day. The correct answer, anyone? He didn't lie, he didn't mislead the house? Can't say lie. You get kicked out of the house if you say lie.

You can say it didn't lie. But you can't call someone a liar. We found that out. on Monday. You can't call someone a liar because we don't use that language in the house, but you can lie in the house. You just can't call someone out for it. I want to live in this house.

It's very Irish mother's rules. If you ask me, my mother can lie all she wants, but you're not elected to point in it out. Completely reasonable. Hugo, what impact do you think all this might have on the local elections in two weeks' time? Is it something that is going to resonate at the ballot box? I mean, sort of not very much.

Because it's a bit like dropping an anvil on something that's already a corpse. You see what I mean? I don't know. It kind of depends what else happens. Because there's more hearings, right? There was, on the Thursday, it was Cat Little, which is like an amazing name. She sounds like the person who ate Stuart Little. You know what I mean?

She was giving more evidence. Next week, Morgan McSweeney is giving evidence. It's quite hard to see how it actually gets worse. And the picture of the local elections for the government is so incredibly bad that nothing could really make it worse. I mean, I guess it says that, you know, with Mandelson, there should be a positive message

that everyone deserves a 17th chance. Yeah, Kirstama, the current Prime Minister, has joined the long list of people in the UK who found that a vetting process can come at a very high cost. And unlike everyone else on that list, he's not even going to come out of it with a less flea-ridden dog or a cat that can sleep around without worrying about parental responsibility.

His Starman's prime ministership is increasingly, in increasingly increasing danger of quite literally petering out amidst the ongoing fallout from the appointment as ambassadors to the USA of Peter Mandelson, the disgraced, former disgraced, former disgraced, former disgraced former politician. With Mandelton, there were so many red flags during the vetting process that Joseph Stalin reportedly spontaneously woke from the dead and said, is this a parade for me? Right, so thoughtful. At the end of that round, our scores are six to Hugo and Rio and four to Deliso and Catherine.

Well, it's not just Keir Starma that's up against it. In our second round this week, we are looking at other things that could also soon be gone. So our first question in the other things that could also soon be gone round to Deliso and Catherine, this question. What could also soon be gone in schools? So I think whiteboards It's another case of Wokeness gone mad It's possible

Catherine any suggestions Um Children Maybe Because they all presumably need to go and run On that electricity generating hamster turbine That's not the answer Any other suggestions

What could sue me But gone in schools People born in 2008 By the end of June None of them I mean, what's actually left in schools? I mean, the teaching assistants are gone, the funding, the quality of education, any arts education, rack concrete, teachers, like, what's left in schools to still be gone? Well, it's phones, right?

And Hope also. Hope is also being banned. That was already gone. That was done. Yeah, but they're just formalising the ban. Your mobile phones are going to be banned in schools. Thank God. Bring back bullying in person.

Do you know what I mean? They just need to put their backs into it. I just feel it's so cowardly to do it from the phone. I worry that it really does. It's like, okay, you have backup from perverts who are 40 and trolls. It's like, come on. Make it personal. Do something that surprises me.

So if there's a message from the show, it's bring back in-person bullying. Yeah. Great. That's another message from the show to add to the list. They need skills with their hands, Andy. I think they should ban phones for children and teenagers. and adults and adults. And adults as well.

I agree. You keep reading about like oh this is terrible. It's like it's it's making young people like derange and it's like have you seen old people? So I think yeah you can start banning them in schools but don't stop there. Right. Don't stop there.

Do you think it would actually work or would it just create like phone contraband you know with like some students smuggling it in? They already do. But as a parent actually I want my kids to have fun. I gave all my kids iPhones as soon as I possibly could,

and I'm going to defend that, because if you don't know this already, when you give your kid an iPhone, it has a tracker on it. And it means that I know where my kids are at all times. You know, if you take my kids' mobile phone away from them, then you better be for free on the NHS offering to inject chips into them

so I can still GPS track them. There is a chip system in schools already, isn't there? Or at least we had a... They say your name, you say here. then you know where they are done also do we need to ban them could we not just give them old bad phones like brick Nokia's

where you can't do anything fun don't look a proper landline that would be so cute if they were all carrying around a landline I'd be obsessed with us so cute I would settle if you gave them landlines because then I do know where they are because they're tethered

we have to go further back than that way if they're picking up and say operator Give me a Johnny in class 3B, I want to tell him he's a prick. Let's have another question on something that could also soon be gone, Hugo and Rear. What could soon be gone in the lungs of anyone born after 2008? Songs of praise. Any other suggestions? What's going to be gone from the lungs of anyone born after 2008?

Well, it's an existential one, but it's a existential one. If a young person's lungs are in the forest and a nuclear bomb from the global war triggered probably quite soon by Trump's then drops into that forest and because of the worldwide nuclear blast, no one is alive anymore to think about the young person's lungs, and the lungs have also been obliterated so can no longer hold anything,

regardless of whether or not our consciousness was indeed in the forest, Andy, do the contents of the lungs exist? It's not what I've got written down here. Just a thought. It's cigarette smoke. Yes. They're going to ban cigarettes. Basically, this is this thing.

They want to ban cigarettes for anyone born after 2008. So the age of which you can buy cigarettes goes up constantly, and people born after that will never be able to buy them. This is something they tried in New Zealand. They introduced this law in New Zealand. They then repealed it because they realized it was New Zealand and there was nothing else to do. But they're going to do this here as well.

So kids will never be able to buy fags unless they buy them off their friend who's a minute's older. But it's so absurd because if it actually went through, like in 2086, there'll be a... a 70-year-old hanging out outside like an off-license saying, hey, hey, are you 71? Can you buy me a siggy?

It just doesn't make sense. And also, it will backfire. Like, Americans tried this with prohibition, right? And all it did is created a criminal underclass. We are going to create the al-Capone of mint-flavored vapes. Also, it's so short-sighted on behalf of the government. Right now, we're struggling with our welfare.

bill, which is like $330 million, which we know is at least $146 million in pension payments. So what we're doing right now is creating a young, healthy contingency that is going to live longer and more healthily than they've ever lived before. We won't be able to afford that pension bill. It's backwards. We should be making them all smoke. It should be mandatory from now on that everybody smokes so that, you know, we die faster because, you know... That's the patriotic way to go about it. I think so. For the sake of our... our budget.

Yeah, I testify. The bigger issue is how the hell are we to know who the cool kids are? They're the really good bullies. They're going to make it illegal as well to smoke in all kinds of places. You're not allowed to smoke outside schools and hospitals, which I think is like harsh because it's not people having the worst time of their life and getting life-altering news and really confronting the futility of existence. So you should definitely be allowed to smoke outside schools.

Yeah, I mean, this is an exciting new entry into Britain's weirdest laws. I mean, it's a classic political solutionist, you know, to have a dream of a smokeless society where people cannot fall into life and lung devastating smoking addiction. They also, the law is also allowing you to, the government, to control flavor.

Yes. Which I think is a very interesting way of doing it, because you would think that if you took the flavors of vapes and just made them horrible, that would be enough to stop people. But cigarettes already taste disgusting. and people still do it. So I'm not sure what flavors

the government going to make vapes that's going to... What does it taste like? The same of a room half full of smokers going, no, they don't. Well, the vape companies are sort of pivoting away from the flavors that appeal to children, candy, floss, marshmallow, strawberry ice cream.

They are now moving to flavors that appeal more to the adult market such as flat white, artisan comtee cheese. affordable mortgage and gradually increasing harrowing guilt at the legacy we're leaving for future generations which is a bit like a cross between bubblegum petrol and emphysema

it's a bit weird though that people think fruit-flavoured vapes are designed to appeal to children because you try and get the little buggers to eat in orange another thing that could be gone soon Deliso and Catherine what could be gone soon in England if we don't call the ones with grey hair. It's ginger squirrels, isn't it?

Yes. Yes. A little red squirrels are generally known. But they are the Jerry Halliwells of the tree-dwelling rodent community. That's true. They're facing extinction in Britain due to the grey squirrel. Too many grey squirrels? Yeah, yeah. And I've heard it said, I've heard it rumoured that these grey squirrels are coming over on boats.

Totally overrunning everything. Yeah, yeah. But isn't there a simple solution? Send them back. That red dye. Just die the great squirrels. I am obsessed with that idea. Yes.

Oh my God. I'll be the face of the campaign. Yes. Red squirrels are up against it, facing possible extinction within 25 years, according to reports. some efforts to help the red squirrel community have failed. Schemes to sneakily trick grey squirrels into eating food laced with oral contraceptives

have proved controversial with the Vatican, as well as with choice advocacy groups have expressed concerns, and this could lead to people dressing up in squirrel outfits for easier access to birth control than is available on the NHS. And then, any, red squirrels, of course, are the ones that leave trails of brightly coloured smoke out of their back ends as they fly past. Is that right? I forget. Hugo and Rhea, what could soon be gone from aeroplanes?

Red squirrels. True, yep. Pilots? No? No, not correct on. Well, no. But, I mean, that is, there's a trend in that direction, that's not the answer. Do we have to pay for the stairs now that go down to the ground? That's like an extra, like an add-on.

Do you also want stairs? You got to pay extra for the landing. We'll just stay in the air forever Well, not, we run out of jet fuel Well, that's the correct answer That is that jet fuel could soon be gone from aeroplanes Well, then the airplanes are definitely landing Yeah, yeah

We'll be up there all night This is the Iran War-caused shortage, right? And it's transforming all, everything. Like, even just on land, petrol's got so expensive, I've changed my Tinder dating radius to

one meter. You need to be next to me. Oh, Catherine. I'm not next to me. I'm sorry. She's got a fleet to the next room. Yes. Well, with the ongoing Iran, what's the official term?

Is it war? Is it spat? It's war-ish. War-ish. Yeah. Charity fundraiser for oil price speculators. Or the world's most disturbing improv show, which is all. Anyway, whatever it is, was, will be, might be, isn't, wasn't or hasn't been.

It could result in aeroplanes falling from the sky. or not taking off, depending on how organised everyone is. Hopefully it's the latter. But let's say fall from the skies. It's 2026. You've got to work the headlines and the deadlines. There have been reports that some airplanes are already activating the seldom used flap wings button

to preserve fuel. And not one, but two, but about 30 airlines have cancelled flights. And holiday operators apparently reduced to ringing customers up to try to dissuade them from going on their holidays now, telling them that beaches are overrated. You might as well just lie on the sun. So far, at least you won't get sand in your gloopers.

And you can see the best bits of Athens in the British Museum anyway. And that Thailand is pretend. Right, at the end of our things that might soon be gone round, the scores now, 10 points all. So, moving on to our sport round now. And Catherine and Deliso, who smashed an athletics world record last weekend, but was then unable to provide a urine. sample after the race. I mean, it's so hard to tell

the difference between professional athletes and robots, but in this case, it was robots, which begs the question, what and why? Again, you're like, okay, I don't know if you know this, there was a, obviously everyone knows there's been a lot of debate about whether trans people should be included in sports, and yet we're

fine with making superpowered robots compete in sport. What is wrong with people? Like, you want to be beaten by an ugly robot instead of a hot trans woman? Grow up! Grow up. I don't get it. I don't get it.

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me, but then I have met robots. No, sorry, I have met runners. And I do think they should all probably be beaten by robots. So tricky. And this was a half marathon, right? And last year, the robots were beaten by the runners. And then this year, the robots beat us.

It happens all the time. It's like Kasparov beat Big Blue and then eventually started losing, right? And so I think instead of... competing with robots with things where they eventually have their advantage, things to do with stamina and intelligence. We should fight them in things where we have their advantage, like complaining or passive aggressiveness or going off in a huff. Oh, yeah. That'd be gorgeous.

Humans have their advantage there. I feel like women would dominate that sport as well. Going off the huff. Don't mind if I do. I just, also, it's like, it's so inevitable. It's so boring. I mean, like, yes, a robot's faster. I know.

A car is also faster than us. When will we invest in women's health? Do you know what? You're like, okay. Are you excited by this, the robot triumph? Because they came down from about two hours, 40 minutes last year to around about 50 minutes this year for a half marathon. I'm sorry, but the robot who won was called Lightning,

and I don't think that that's a fair name. I would have been more impressed if the robot was called buffering. What's the point? We have invented the wheel. How fast do we need a robot to be able to run? What a pointless thing for a robot to do? Hugo and Rio, what else have robots beaten humans at in the sporting sphere? It's table tennis, and this is just such a nonsense story.

It's supposed to be impressed that a robot can play table tennis. Boris Johnson can play table tennis. If you set it up right, a wall can play table tennis. It's just bouncing back. And again, this wasn't like a humanoid robot with elbows and knees playing against a human with knees and elbows. This was an eight-jointed arm on a movable base that does not have to stand on two legs.

And instead of seeing the ball with two eyes, it draws on images from multiple cameras that view the entire court from different angles and track the position in the spin of the ball. So, yeah, if I could do that as a human, I'd also beat your machine. Also, this robot was controversially talking smack. Because it just started disparaging all the robots

who do opera and all the robots who do ballet. Yeah, I mean, the terrifying prospect of robots taken over sport came about 20,000 steps closer as a robot called Lightning romped to victory in a half marathon in China, smashing the human world record and running more than twice as quickly

as the fastest robot in last year's race. Then another robot won some table tennis matches against some quite good quality human opponents. There was some awkwardness at the medal ceremony after the half marathon when the winning robot, Lightning, angrily pointed out that if human athletes get medals made of metal, robot champions should get medals made of human flesh.

Lightning further proved how close robots are to completely replacing humans in sport by being completely unilluminating in the post-race interview. Look, as a sports fan, admittedly quite an old-fashioned sports fan in that I can enjoy sport without gambling on it, I'm not at all happy about this. We don't need robots to play sport, we need robots to referee sports. Do you really think the football or a manager is going to scream,

in a ref's face that they should have had that throw in when the ref has those deadly laser beams in its eyes a chainsaw instead of an arm and a flame thrower for a whistle i don't think so somehow do you think in like hundreds of years when robots are writing their own history books that their version of the gladiators will be our tv show robot wars and that's where it all started well father to a murdered toaster right that brings us to the end of this week's show and the final scores 14 to Hugo and Rea, 13 to DeLiso and Catherine.

Just some news, breaking news reaching us. Chelsea have pre-sacked their next two managers. More on this on the new 5 Live podcast Football This Minute, 60 new episodes every hour on BBC Sunday. Anyway, that brings us the end of this week's news quiz. Thank you for listening. Goodbye. part in the news quiz were Ria Lina, Hugo Rufkin, Delisa O'Sha Ponder and Catherine Bohart. In the chair was me, Andy's Altman, and additional material was written by

Christina Riggs, Jade Gebby, Henry Waley and Angela Channel. The producer was Georgia Keating, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Hi, I'm Phil Wang, and this is a podcast to podcast trailer for a different podcast than this podcast that you've listened to, or are going to listen to. But nonetheless, I'm talking about another podcast that you should also definitely listen to. The podcast I'm talking about is Comedy of the Week, which takes choice episodes from BBC sitcoms, sketch shows, podcasts and panel shows, including my own show, unspeakable, and puts them all into one podcast. Maybe I'll trail this podcast on that podcast. Who's to say? I'll do what I like.

Listen to Comedy of the Week now on BBC Sounds. Podcast.