Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep5. The Prince of Darkness

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Is there a way out for Keir Starmer after the Peter Mandelson scandal? Who fled ‘under the cover of darkness’ from their royal lodgings? What exactly is a humble address? And why are iguanas falling out of trees? Helping Andy answer some of the big questions of the week are Desiree Burch, Pierre Novellie, Daniel Finkelstein and Catherine Bohart.Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Cody Dahler, Eve Delaney and Sarah Mills Producer: Georgia Keating Executive Producers: Richard Morris and James Robinson Production Coordinator: Giulia Lopes Mazzu Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If there was a big rent button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life. and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I am Andy Zaltman.

After this week's difficulties for the Prime Minister regarding the appointment of Peter Mandelton, I'm being trained in how to tell if someone is lying to me. I'm about to interview Leslie. Leslie is a leopard. Likewise. So, Leslie, we'll go with one raw for yes, two roars for nests. know, have you changed your spots?

You have changed your spots. Are you sure? Well, that's good enough for me. Ah, damn it, you've done me. You haven't changed your spots at all, have you? So it looks like I haven't quite mastered the vetting process either. Sorry, Leslie, I forgot you still sensitive about the term vetting process. Let's get this show started before he shows everyone his special scar. Welcome to the news quiz! Hello, welcome to the news quiz.

Our team's this week in tribute to the state of the government and the start of the Winter Olympics, we have team going down fast against team sliding on their ass into an advertising hoarding after completely losing control when messing up an ill-advised spin. On team fast, we have Desiree Birch and Pierre Novelli. On team, let's call it Team Slide,

Catherine Bohart, and from the Times, Daniel Finkelstein. The first question can go to Daniel and Catherine, which self-proclaimed non-quitter quit this week. Well, that's Peter Mandelson. And it was obviously a terrible story, and it did help me understand why Kirstearner appointed him, because the more I read about Peter Madelson's experience with crooks

and manipulators and shady deals, the more I understood why he was selected as an emissary to Donald Trump. Actually, when I was talking about, having to talk about Peter Mandelson later, the taxi driver said, oh, I'm more interested in Randy Andy, and then he goes, can I call him that? And I said, well, actually, Randy is the only title you're allowed to use now. But, you know, it was obviously a story that was quite a few years in the making, but quite astonishing. Yeah, I mean, I do find the tenor of surprise to be very frustrating.

Everyone being like, what, those creeps were creeping the whole time? You're like, well, yeah. It is dispiriting to see that we have not already come to the conclusion that this was bad and are now finding ourselves going, I think maybe at some point in the future, we could possibly say conclusively, it's bad, provided we're allowed to see the tapes. There are also people saying,

will it bring down the Prime Minister to which my answer is well? It's got like a stiff competition. It has to win before being the thing that brings him down. But it might. So you're saying that the eventual downfall of Kea Stama will be, was like murder on the Orient Express. Yeah, there'll be... There's 12 different things that have brought him down.

And 12 different people, probably. Can I just say, as an American, it is so refreshing to see someone have to resign in disgrace, as opposed to being promoted to supreme leader making one-fillion and a private jet in disgrace. I mean, we are obsessed with your quaint customs, like accountability and stuff like that. We don't reward ambition in this country. It's kind of a compliment to the intake of Labor MPs since 2010-2015, that there wasn't a single oily scheming bastard among them that could have been trusted with this job.

We had to go back to the 90s to find him. Get Rambo for one last job. There should have been at least one complete cycle from the 2010-2015 intake. And they said, no, we've looked at every cupboard. We're going to have to get the main one back. But you know what he's going to do? And you go, I know, but there's no one out.

We can't. Daniel, you wrote a piece in The Times this week about Mandelton. You worked with him on a podcast a couple of years ago. You wrote quite a nuanced article about the various aspects of his personality and career. I mean, you do know that this is 2026, and nuance is officially a legal.

Yeah, I learned that from my comments underneath the article. But I think the most interesting thing about him was that there was always this air of, like, he's been really hard done by in life, and it's really hard being him. And I think Jeffrey Epstein, he was very acute clearly about what people want could see that in him and actually exploited it. It's quite a sort of subtle thing. But,

you know, Peter Mandelson is a witty and clever person and he doesn't stop being those things because he does things that are corrupt and appalling. So, you know, he's still a transformative figure in British politics despite everything he did and that had to be said. But I did admit that I had to scrunch up my courage before typing it. It's hard to square the cleverest man in politics with the cheapest whore in town, isn't it though? Because you just think, yeah, I know he might have been a political mastermind, but also only he's just... 75 grand. My guy.

It's so also incredibly stupid and then accepting this job as well. So that's hard to square with being clever. But often the mark in a contraic is like the cleverest person because they can see how they're going to make money out of it. So it's a very subtle thing but obviously you can

look at it directly and say what you said which is like he is the obvious person to choose for a job like that and you can see the other subtle things about him. I guess the question is you know you talk about you know this aspect of him being very, very clever, but at the same time, deeply immoral by the looks of things.

Where does him standing in those white underpants fit? You know that thing where your parents tell you that you better wear your clean underwear in case you get run over? I looked at that picture and I thought, well, I hope his mom had given him that piece of life. I hope he got run over right after that video was taken, but unfortunately.

And his explanation was, I was standing there and someone came and showed me an iPad, and I thought, well, that's never happened to me. Stanley there in my wife, friends. It was really a very weird picture. A lot of my friends are comedians, and they're quite silly people. But if I'm living with them during the Edinburgh fringe

or if I come and visit them, at no point will they burst into my room and photograph me in my pants. And these are very silly people. Sorry, hang on, I've been skiing with Pierre. He wore jeans under his salopets. It would be impossible to find you in your underwear. I'm pretty sure you never...

You're like a never nude. Exactly. Exactly. Jeans to bed, thank you. We're in four. The other thing is like all those sort of emails that was full of stuff and if you came into my email would be like invitations to the award ceremony

for Fridge of the Year or you know it's like really boring things or inviting me to be on a panel talking about metallurgy in Shropshire you know but he had all these emails that seemed to be sort of one after the other of you know he had political advice from Peter Mandelson and Chomsky what could possibly go wrong it was extraordinary so how did you get nominated for Fridge of the

What was in your fridge? So, somehow in this story involving Peter Mandelton, the word humble appeared. But how, anyone? Isn't it the humble address? Yes. Which, from what I understand is sort of a, it's like a binding, polite invitation that you reveal your secrets. Is that a fair explanation in politics? It's like the opposition can kind of say to you, would you please tell us more information

than we currently have, and you have to, even though you don't. don't want to. But it's fascinating to hear Tories use the word humble address, which I assume they usually reserve for their third property. Just a PA to tear in London. It's a classic giveaway. When everyone gets an Oscar and they say, I've been

incredibly humbled by this Oscar, give a rest. Because whenever I hear about these sort of rules in UK governance, it's like all these sort of ad hoc house rules. Like when you go and play Uno at someone's house and it's like, oh, if you play an eight, you have to show your boobies around 4.21.

And it's like all these paid up things that you find out on the day. It's quite grovelling as well, the humble address. Asiah, if I may find out who the paedophile was friends with. I mean, one of these sort of, you sit in the House of Lords on the subject of ancient parliamentary relics. But the... So this was about releasing information. There was also sort of labor, sort of backbench pressure to do that.

I mean, the mood in the Labour Party, Daniel, sounds... Is it not quite mutinous, but is it heading that way? Yes, well, it's already there, so it's pretty mutinous. But it's like in politics also, when somebody's on the back foot, then you can't do anything right. And it's like with Ed Miliband on that sandwich, he didn't do anything wrong with eating it, but it's like the moment you're in trouble,

you can't even eat a sandwich? I mean, can any of you see... One Labour MP quoted in the spectator said, this is the end of days. That escalated quickly. I cannot really see a way out of this for Keir. Can any of you plot him away? There has to be a tremendous bloodletting.

Right. Maybe. You just have to fire like four people and weep as you hand them their box of stuff and even that probably not going to cut it. The entire way the government's behaved for months is like that scene in Liar Liar where Jim Carrey beats up himself in a toilet. It's not even really an opponent,

but it's just smashing your own head against a sink. over and over again. I thought there was such a weird quote because a way out is like the only thing I can say for Kirstarmer. You can't see that. I mean, number 10 has a door, for example. It's interesting though, isn't it?

Because Starmour keeps trying to distract from the situation by mentioning like noble domestic policy with respect to leveling up. And it's like that that's not how you outdo an evil twink. You outdo an evil twink by being more dramatic. You have to go bigger.

You have to lie harder. To me, it's like he needs to get spilling bigger secrets. Say that you don't think Mandelson's even gay, you know? Say that you can't believe anything he says because he's that good an actor. The man has a wife. Like, that's why you've got to go big. Is it not clear that that is exactly what happened? Like, that everybody who is associated and going down because of this Epstein stuff

knew that the abuse of women and girls was part of the cost of doing business and wanted to be in those rooms and make that money, right? And Kier-Starmer was like, I don't want to go into the room, but I need someone who's already been exposed to radiation poisoning to go back in there for me. And I think that's a good idea for us. And like, you know, he got caught while he's sitting on his violence against women and girls high horse at the same time. So it's a bad look. The only way he's going to do it, like Catherine's saying, is like, get more blood. Like, maybe he can rally the international community to Reese the other two

Eiffel Tower's worth of Epstein files that we actually want. And then there will be much bigger bloodshed beyond what, you know, has happened before. And he can distract. Like, that's the only way. It's just to be like, well, now I'm going to be the good guy, and I'm going to go round everybody else up, and you have to see it through. So give me another couple years. Kirstama said, if I knew then what I know now, Mandelson, would never have been anywhere near government. I mean, I guess that's easy to say with hindsight, as indeed it was easy to say with foresight, or also known preemptive hindsight. I'm going to give a bonus point to the best piece of hindsight wisdom.

If you know an electrician is going to turn off the power in your house in one hour, do not start a two-hour wash. Wise words. Oh, that's brilliant. I mean, every single person is going to go on a bout of self-destruction.

It's cooler to do that when you're like 16, 17, not when you're like 30, 40. Like, it's always the good kids who wind up being way bad later. Just make this. be bad when it's still cute. That one wants to see a 40-year-old woman

getting her hair pulled back while she's puking into a hedge. It's a cutoff. Or indeed a 79-year-old man becoming President of America. Fair enough, yes. Well, I'm going to give Pierre the bonus point for that. In fact, some news reaching us, we can confirm that Mandelson has,

as we record, has his title revoked. He will no longer be known as the Prince of Darkness. He will instead from now on be referred to as Mr. Peter Mountbatten darkness. Yes, Kirstarmer has apologised to the victims of Geoffrey Epstein

and his acolytes and said he was sorry for believing Peter Mandelson's lies during the vetting process. Now, you would have thought that on the political checklist of things to be sure of, before appointing someone to a prominent public position,

such as ambassador to the USA, would be the following. A, is this person a close personal friend of a convicted sex offender? B, are you absolutely sure that this person has not shared secret government information with someone they definitely shouldn't have even contemplated sharing it with? C, do you sometimes shiver when you look this person straight in the eye? And D, is this person called Peter Mandelton?

It's looking pretty tricky for Starmor at the moment. Wes Streeting said the Prime Minister would be drawing a line in the sand. The only problem being that with lines in the political sand, they tend only to last until the next wave comes in or until the next dog scratches the line away and takes a dump where the line was. If there was a big rent button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is the interface,

the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life. and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Moving on to a related story, who did what in the middle of the night this week? And as a clue, it's something you don't usually do in the middle of the night.

This is Citizen Andrew. Correct. He had to call all of the no friends he has to help him move. This is Citizen Andrew. moving house in the middle of the night. He, uh, an aristocratic figure who fed off the young, having to move locations in the dead of night to Whitby Abbey. The land rover filled with grave dirt.

So it can cross running water. Yes, he's been relocated to some other, I don't know, tremendous cottage and some other park somewhere. I can't imagine he's a particularly welcome figure in daylight, much less showing up as a guy working for a moving company and realized. who you've been hired to help out at 1 a.m. I mean, is it, like, this is also a question from someone on the outside? Like, is it even possible for Andrew to face any further consequences as a member of the royal

family? Like, it's not like they're going to throw him in jail or something. Do they just, like, make him stay at the residence, like, with an ankle monitor or something? Like, he says, sadly, clops around on his horse and plays croquet and stays rich. Like, how do you punish somebody? I don't know, because I had a friend who had a dog. He had a little thing on its leg that gave it electric shock if it went past the edge of their...

He'd love that, Andy. I love the fact people can't get to the idea that maybe we've actually reached the end of what we can do. But he obviously could face criminal proceedings. If we ever saw footage of Citizen Andrew, having to testify in a US court, I think the kind of historical significance of that would cause George.

the third to burst out of this tomb come back to life and try and retake the 13 colonies. I'll make you sweat, boy! You let them do what? I mean it's kind of weird situations. I mean, it's a kind of thrilling head to head who is in more of a mess, the royal family or the government.

I mean, we haven't seen a Royals versus Parliament contest this keenly fought since the 1640. Great stuff for the neutral, isn't it? What's like a sequel to the Civil War where both sides have to unite to try and fight a dead paedophile. Alien versus predator, yeah. He's gone from a 31-bedroom house. I mean, it's quite a lot of bedrooms out.

It was for him, his ex-wife, his kids when they visit, and all the ghosts that he's haunted by. And he has, I think, 10 to a room of them. And now with five-bedroom farmhouse, I don't know if he's actually going to be doing much hands-on farming himself. No. He's dug a pretty decent hole for himself already. Well, yes, this is another tough week for Andrew Mountbatten, Windsor,

the former semi-professional prince and reigning national embarrassment of the year, which is a hotly contested title. Well, at the end of our UK round, it's six points all. Well, as that Labour MP said, The end of days are coming. The apocalypse is on the way. Unusual reaction to the apocalypse, but there we go. It's just a question of when,

could be soon. A number of things have happened this week that were prophesied as sure fire signs of the end of the world in this unpublished first draft of the Book of Revelations. I'm pretty sure it's real. I bought it on eBay. So, our panel have to tell me what news story has indeed

come to pass this week. In the land of heats and fury, the lizards shall fall from the trees. So who can tell me what? When I heard that thunder, I turned right. Peter?

We've said his name too many times. Yes. He's here with us now. Well, this is the cold snap in the States that means that like lizards are freezing in Florida. They shouldn't be, but like one guy got a lizard and decided he couldn't keep it. And now there's a bunch of iguanas. And they're just getting stuck because when they don't have heat, they just drop. And I'm surprised this hasn't featured on like a food show yet.

I mean, that's just free lizards. in the South of America. We cook them there. Apparently you actually require a permit to own an iguana in Florida, which you don't in Britain. So J.D. Vance thinks we haven't got freedom of speech,

but we have freedom of iguanas. In the US, you can own a gun without a permit. In the UK, you can own a boa constrictor. Yeah. So that is much better, I think. We have open carry iguana. Yeah.

You can take a load. Did iguana into a sports game, if you want. It's my right. I'm falling from the sky. I mean, I can't be the only one who'd prefer that to reigning men again. If you're choosing. Also, some of them aren't quite, they're not dead. Some of them are shocked, right?

He feels like a very British response to a cold snap. Yeah. But, yeah. In the news story, they were saying, please don't try to help the iguanas. That's right. Because once they warm up, they wake up quite quickly, actually. And they do weigh about five kilograms.

and they're a danger to pets. And I just love the idea of someone, an animal-loving person with lots of dogs and cats and just surrounded by these iguanas and they all wake up like an alien with all the eggs start opening. They realize they've made an enormous mistake. So does this mean that iguanas are now fruit?

Because... Riper than mangoes. The scientific law is if it falls out of a tree, it's fruit. If you can put it in a salad, it's a vegetable. so chickens of vegetables and iguanas of fruit. I think that's quite sound. Also, you've got to look on the bright side,

this is still better news than hot iguanas flying up. Yes, a cold snap in Florida has led to thousands of chili iguanas raining from the, well, out of trees, which is almost the same. With temperatures in the sunshine state dropping to below freezing, the lizards have been gelatoed to the point of hibernation.

As fully paid up, members of the reptile community, iguanas, are unable to be able to be. control their body temperature, not even with a special app, interestingly. Partly, because they cannot sweat. Oh, hang on. Maybe there is something in the Royal Family Lizards theory. I'm sure it's just coincidence.

Iguanas, renowned for crawling on all fours. Oh, it's really stacking up now. Was somehow able to survive a rapid fall and keep going. Three out of three! David Ike was right. Right, at the end of our prophecy round, it's now 10 to Pierre and Desray, 8 to Catherine and Daniel. We have a final round. Space or Yorkshire? Pierre and Desire, you have a space question.

And the question is, we are nowhere near ready yet to do what in space? Smashing in space, yo. Smash it in space. Yeah, it's reproduction. Yes. Yeah. We just can't figure out how to do it with no gravity, I think. Yeah. The first child to be born in space will be bullied for it.

That much we know. Kids will not be, like, impressed by that. Kids will just point at the sky and go, oh, is that your house? Why doesn't your mom have a rocket chip when she comes to picks you up? It's going to be miserable to be the kid from space at school. That's one of the main barriers. And NASA's been working on anti-bullying technology for years.

God knows those nerds. I think you could have a TV series, Andy, called Lust in Space. Right. And then they could just say reentering orbit a lot. Most of the time, they're not even making it into orbit. They're only at, like, the 60-mile-high club.

Like, it's not even that far. Yeah, but it's fun to say penetrating space. Yes, exactly, come on. I have to say, I find this whole thing so tedious. I'm like, we're down here on Earth trying to get the same access to IVF as straight couples, and you guys are talking about moon shagging, already, please. It just

feels needless. I feel like the main barrier to having sex in space or having babies in space are like the douchebags you have to hang out with who have the rockets to take you to space in personally. Yeah, that really is contraception on legs there, isn't it?

By the way, we're accepting this to be true but how do you actually know this? I mean, has anyone done, where does this research? Is it peer reviewed this paper? No, Nassar is saying that there hasn't been, that they're concerned basically is that there's so many tourists going to now, which by the way, who are these people? Yeah.

There's so many tours going to space now that they need to do some research into it less to their bee reproduction. Because you're exposed to a lot of radiation up there because there's no atmospheric shield, so that could affect fertility, but no one's looked into it. And so we're hundreds of years away from any kind of, you know, Epstein, moon base that people could go visit and have sex with people up there. It's terrible.

How far behind the technology of Elon Musk, if he works hard, could be the first person to traffic someone to space. Yeah. Incredible achievement for him. I mean, it's going to make for an amazing, set of memes to like nothing beats a jet two holiday. The idea of having young kids who won't go to bed because you're in an environment where the sun cannot go down.

Or having to childproof the International Space Station. Watching it crash because someone tried to watch Bluey without permission. NASA has warned that not enough is known about the impact of zero gravity on human reproduction, including whether zero gravity babies might attract aliens and whether performing the the carnal deed in space could make other planets move, or if it's only Earth. When NASA says not enough research has been done into something about space, I do think, what's your fault? That's you?

Don't say it like, well, who's not done all this work then? You're NASA. I don't have the information available to me that you do. Right. Catherine and Daniel. Your Yorkshire question is in the form of a missing word question. Complete this sentence from the near future of Yorkshire. Barnsley is full of and to give you a clue it's four letters

including an H and a T and a vowel that is the missing word It's tech Correct Thank you Because a bunch of American tech companies Have decided that the only town in Britain

That sounds like a guy they went to university with Is going to be their new tech hub Is that right? Barnesley He's an amazing lacrosse player I love Barnsley Barnsley's a dreamer You know, in 2002, I thought it was going to become a Tuscan Hill town.

It was going to model itself on that. And then in, I think, 2021, it sort of had a vague slogan that was something like the place of possibilities. And now it's going to be Britain's leading tech town, which, okay, sure, not exactly a tough race, but sure. And from what I understand, there's a problem with unemployment. So they're bringing in lots of AI. and the AI assistants who will be helping to run, I guess, schools and hospitals and other businesses will at some point mean there are more human jobs. Don't ask any questions. Stop it. Is that the essence of the story? Yeah, I think that's basically it. Yeah. I find the story really fascinating because basically everyone's just bought the lie that huge American tech companies just want to help out Barnes' life.

Oh, yeah, yeah. They're like, oh, we'll do that pro bono, will you? Will you? Why? What are you up to? When I was at Harvard Business School, my heart was always filled with thoughts of Barnsley in Yorkshire. The plight of those people. Yeah, they have an ulterior motive and I don't like it.

Yeah, it's like that's people who bought Wrexham, right? Yeah. No, that's different. That's a beautiful story. But... And I fully believe in their merits. It's just, it's a weird way of sort of reuniting a town with its historical origins, because weren't they initially a mining town,

and now they're being mined? Yes. Yes, sir, technology secretary. Liz Kendall said Barnsley would act as a national blueprint for how AI technology could make life easier, fairer and more prosperous. And the word could is doing some heavy lifting there. That word is roided up. That is, there is no way that word could should be lifting that amount of weight.

It better be bending from the knees. Come on, Cud. But in 30 years we're going to get a whole new type of Billy Elliot film. I was an AI prompter. Your dad was an AI prompted, your grandfather as well. You're going to prompt the AI like I did when I was a boy. But father, I want to work in the humanities. Well, at the end of the show, it's now 14 points all. It's a draw.

There's some news reaching us. The government has announced a new ministerial cabinet post, the Minister for the Management of Public Disgruntlement. The rising Labour hotshot, Ellsworth Bribbon, has been tossed with the responsibility of trying to enable the government to disappoint all the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. We're just hearing that Mr. Bribbon has already resigned, less than a minute into his new job, citing the impossibility of success under the current leadership. So, thank you for listening to the news quiz. Goodbye.

Taking part in the news quiz were Desire Burch, Daniel Finkelstein, Catherine Bowhart and Pierre Novelli. In the chair was me, Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Cody Dala, Eve Delaney and Sarah Mills. The producer was Georgia Keating and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Greetings, malevolent munchkins,

fiendish friends and devilish do-gooders. Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius! I'm Russell Kane and I'm delighted to be steering the ship that unceremoniously wrenches historic figures from their perfect pedestals so that we can decide whether they're evil,

genius or a heady conceding. coction of the two. It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Yes, it's evil. Yes, it's genius. Get on board now and listen to evil genius on BBC sales. If there was a big rent button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet.

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.