Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep7. Forecast for Inflation and Flooding

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

In a week of budget talks, IMF forecasts of Inflation on the British horizon, flood risk reports and approval of solar farms, Andy Zaltzman is joined by Adam Kay, Zoe Lyons, Ria Lina and Stephen Bush to break down this weeks news.Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Daman Bamrah, Ruth Husko, Christina Riggs and Peter Tellouche. Producer: Rajiv Karia Executive Producer: Pete Strauss 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. Hello, it's Ray Winston. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4. History's toughest heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you?

Subscribe to history's toughest heroes wherever you get your podcast. Hello, I'm Andy Zaltzman. Before we start this week's news quiz, I'm doing a charity collection. I'm trying to raise 122 million pounds for our featured charity this week, COVID scammers in need. I've been collecting around the country for the last two weeks now, and so far in the bucket, we have, let's see. Let's have a look. Five bottle tops, a commemorative Matt Hancock action man, a two-p piece that someone mustook for a baby hedgehog

that's been run over by a milk float. Oh, and a few million unusable hospital gowns. So their resale value means we are still now just $122 million short of our target. Whilst I list all the fixtures and fittings from the BBC Radio Theatre on eBay, why don't you listen to this week's news quiz? Hello, welcome to the news quiz. I'm Andy Zaltzum.

There was a BBC questionnaire this week that revealed that 78% of people think the BBC should offer something for everyone. So later on, we'll be hearing David Attenborough commentating on an endangered breed of puffin, who's also a dodgy copper, play a hybrid sport based on football, snooker and true crime against Amal Rajin in a spangly ball gown, whilst he eats Mary Berry's new recipe for Alan Titchmarsh's geraniums, cooked with lashings of pepper pig in an anti-Victorian bedpan that's worth less. than Fiona Bruth thought it was, over the sound of Jules Holland playing a duet with all of Henry the 8's wives, while everyone surreptitiously plots against each other, a national treasure breaks wind, and they all have to guess what the weather would be like if they were shipped somewhere north of Cromerty.

Happy now! Now here's Claire Balding with the travel. Our teams this week, well, we're following a recent updates from the Middle East, our team disarming against team alarming. On Team Disarming, we have Rialina and Adam Kay. And on Team Alarming, we have Zoe Lyons and from the Financial Times, Stephen Bush. Now, this week, we are going to give each of our panellists a question in their own specialist sphere of expertise. So, Zoe, give me a number between one and four.

Three. That means we start with Stephen. Stephen, you write for the FT about politics and the economy. economy, so we'll give you a question in your specialist area. John Chase's 2nd, Rachel Reeves, is considering putting up what in November? People's backs? Is it the latest version of her CV on LinkedIn? Is it the heating?

Well, I guess that's probably a bit expensive these days, so maybe not, yeah. Tax. Yes, correct, yes. Taxes, particularly on the wealthy. Now, you've written quite a lot about the Labour government's struggles. What sort of... Is there any possible way they can pull... a sufficiently rabid-y rabbit out of the hat at the moment?

You know, I mean, look, they could invent time travel or cold fusion or, you know, anything could happen, you know. But they have got this real problem that they made a bunch of promises at the last election and they said they would basically fix everything and someone else would pay for it. And someone else has decided they don't want to pay for it. And so now they're going to have to make all of us pay for it. And that's, well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not exactly thrilled about the prospect of.

of paying for it myself. I much preferred it when someone else was going to do it. And so they're kind of stuck between do you break your promises on fixing things, do you break your promises on tax? And it looks like they're going to break their promises on tax, and maybe if they're unlucky, they'll also break their promises on fixing things.

And does that work like a double negative in maths where that becomes then keeping a promise if you break both promises at the same time? I mean, there's a lot of staff turnover in Downing Street, so with lines like that, maybe you're in the next job could be in half. I'm clinging to that dream. Zoe, you're very excited about the forthcoming budget in November? I mean, I literally can't wait.

I'm just counting down the days. I've got a little budget advent calendar, which is like a regular calendar, but all the windows have been boarded up. It's nail-biting stuff, isn't it? But we've got to get the money from... We are so in debt, aren't we? I've really buried my head in the sand

about how in debt we are as a nation. I mean, the letters have been coming in, but I just haven't been opening them. Today I opened one and I was like, does that say $2.7 trillion? Oh my God. I think as a nation, we're going to have to just get together

and do a runner. That's the only thing I can... I reckon we're just all going to have to leave. That is it, because there is no plug in that. They called it a fiscal hole on the radio earlier and it really made me wince. So, I mean, in terms of how we raise money, obviously trying to get money from the rich

has not always proved quite as obviously successful as it might have done. So, has anyone got any suggestions for other ways of raising public money that might work? The billionaires are more than free to go to Dubai. Feel free to go, but your money stays. Right. A millionaire over there, happy with that plan. That's someone who lives next to a millionaire, I think. I don't want to go too big on this.

I think I might have solved it. Okay, that's cool. So if you charge people five grand to fly a flag from a lamp post and 20 grand to put one on a roundabout, I think that might be assorted. Right. That has the sort of double benefit of not only you expressing your patriotism through the flags, but you're also contributing to national improvement through...

Absolutely. I can't see how anyone would be against this. Any other suggestions? I mean, is it go-fund me beyond... You know, we could just set a realistic target and just say, you know, Britain needs a little bit of help. We've made some poor decisions. And there you go.

Any little bit counts. I was thinking that, you know, there's a lot of talk these days about free speech. And I'm obviously very in favour of free speech. Too much if you ask me. Well, I just think that if you say something that isn't backed up by fact or it's just, in my opinion, this is my truth, then you pay for it.

Right. That could end all conversation. As an autistic, I'm all right with that. I think one of the reasons why a lot of people are quite annoyed with the Labour Party is that as the scale of the Conservative defeat showed, right, everyone knew that we'd had a bunch of cowboys in. And there's something even more annoying than the person who's broken your boiler than the second person coming in, whistling a lot, being like, wow,

some mistakes were made here. And you're like, yes, I know I haven't had hot water. for quite some time. I was like, are you going to fix it any time soon? I think if anything, the problem is they actually should have probably just broken the promise on day one

rather than... Or not made it, right? You know, it's a bit like when someone has to take the bins out. My partner does it. She gets home. She changes into her pyjamas somehow at the speed of light and she's like, we're out of milk.

And it's just like... And that's essentially what the Labour government has done for the last year. They've like, oh yeah. I've changed my... pyjamas I can't risk taxes. I mean in terms of the boiler analogy I guess the problem for labour is that you know they're basically offering the same half-assed boiler fixes then you've got Nigel Farage and reform are coming saying we're going to take your boiler out

and replace it with an animatronic Queen Victoria sex doll you know it's quite hard to compete hard to compete with that so I see what the metaphor is aiming for but to be honest I think if I had a choice between not having a working boiler and having an animatronic Queen Victoria's sex doll I would continue to bathe by boiling the kettle In terms of the state of the economy There was a new IMF forecast out this week And the UK is set to beat all other G7 forces

And become reigning champion at what? Tiddly winks, I mean... Celebrity traitors? Yes. The correct answer is inflation. And there was different interpretations of the figures from the IMF report in which some media outlets said that Britain is going to have the second biggest growth and others said it's going to have the worst growth.

I get a third opinion. So essentially we need to both completely change everything we're doing economically and also keep up the good work. How do you balance that? I mean, don't look at me. Okay. Nobody else has a clue either. I don't know.

I don't know. We all go back to cottage industries and start knitting our own vegetables. That's the only getting to think of it. I think you're right. And we should celebrate it because as far as I'm concerned, we've always been second best in the G7.

So we're second lowest life expectancy, second highest obesity rates, second highest disease burden. Finally, we've won. Hooray, good for us. His chance for the second, Rachel Reeves, has been limbering up for her November big red box boombastic budget bonanza. Someone's got to talk it up. And there are suggestions that taxes may have to go up, even whisper it quietly, for the rich.

It shows how desperate things are economically that the government is even thinking about trying to extract more money from those who are most able to afford it and least notice it. What's that saying about broadest shoulders? Those with the broadest shoulders generally have the rudest parrots. The government has thus far, in its... It's time in office cut through to the wider public like a spoon through granite. And there is widespread sceptism over whether it can deliver the growth it promised. Having spent so long in opposition, Labor is now coming face-to-face, eyeball-to-eye-ball, with the T-Rex of reality. And no doubt, thinking back wistfully to the joy of opposition politics, which is one of the less well-selling books in the 1970s, The Joy of Series.

The lace figures from the IMF have showed that it's full speed ahead for UK PLC, but unfortunately that full speed is stationary. According to the figures, the UK took silver medal in the prestigious GDP growth category, but according to the Daily Telegraph, the UK also finished last in the living standards growth category, which all goes to show statistics are like comedians at the Riyadh Comedy Festival. If you treat them right, they can be made to say whatever you want them to say. And at the end of that round, it's four to Stephen and Zoe and two to Adam and Ria. Right, Adam, it's your specialist subject. Now, you are a qualified doctor,

my very favourite kind of doctor, incidentally. So we have a question on the NHS for you. NHS bosses are reportedly urging Rachel Reeves to allow them to raise money through what fundraising techniques? This is a really nostalgic news story. So basically some deranged NHS bosses are suggesting that hospitals should be allowed to, let me quote this correctly,

allow private capital investments into parts of the NHS in order to build new facilities, which is otherwise known as PFI, which I'd rather hoped we were finished with when Tony Blair left. But then again, I'd rather hope we'd finish with Tony Blair when Tony Blair left and I was Prime Minister of Gaza or something. So, why did PFI not work for? So essentially, we've still got the tail end of last PFI.

There's currently 57 billion pounds of PFI contracts still in place, and it's going to cost us another 160 billion to pay them off. Worst hits trusts are paying one pound out of every six pounds they have servicing these loans. Essentially, hearing this did feel a bit like the Turkey's putting in a big, order for tinsel. The chief exec of NHS providers, a guy called Daniel Elkalez, said there's enormous appetite from the private sector to invest. I bet there is, Daniel Larkas, because these people are going to make profit out of public funds.

So in terms of how we raise money for the NHS, Ria, you're also a medical scientist. Any suggestions? Yeah, I think there's a lot of other options that we can do. You know, I think I'm definitely up for maybe televising a bachelor auction of eligible doctors. I think we could also maybe, I mean, we bet on so many things. Do you think, is it wrong to bet on survival odds? I mean, I think we're probably looking at this from the wrong direction. So, essentially, we're short in the next four years, 40,000 hospital beds.

and actually what we need is bunk beds then you don't need to build any more hospitals you get twice as many people in the ones you've already got I don't know why no one's thought of this I guess another option is just to tell 40,000 people that they're fine yeah yeah that's 1-1-1

I mean I mean you know we often describe it as a sort of NHS lottery, don't they? When you're going for treatments, depending on where you are. So we do have NHS perhaps scratch cards that the dermatology unit could hand out. Get three symbols and you get your MRI scan.

We should just accept that you're going to wait for hours and hours in A&E, and the cafe should just become a 24-hour bar. A lot of people would be much more relaxed about waiting for a long time in... You know, if it were more like an airport, right, where you're like, oh, well, I'm here, but, you know, I'll go to W.H. Smith, which is inexplicably open at 5am in airports.

I think we just need to lean in to the fact that we don't provide proper medical care in this country anymore. And we'll probably save quite a lot of money on anesthetist as well if people... You're suggesting a sort of NHS Weatherspoons co-lab? It's like, the weather spoons in, like, Heathrow is actually one of the really classy weather spoons? I've said that to myself often at 2 a.m. I'm supping on a seat. Stella Artoire and a bacon bun. I've got, there's something very classy about what I'm doing here now.

I think there's actually some good tech at Weatherspoons that the NHS could take advantage of. As I travel around the country as a lone comic, I've often gone into the Weatherspoons just because they have the app with the table service. So maybe we just put people straight in the beds and then they can just order the blood draw to the bed. You know what I mean? Like, oh, I need a bedpan and just order it

and it'll come and I need a nurse, I need some more painkillers. I mean, I'd say the only issue with that just the one issue just the one is the NHS uses Windows 95 but under the previous the way to speed up

infrastructure projects was just to point at ones that were already there and say that's new but that seems to have gone by the wayside under Labour for whatever reason they have announced plans for what they call an online hospital in a bid to cut waiting lists.

The online hospital would enable surgeons to use Zoom calls to talk several hundred people at a time through how to do tracheotomies on themselves using standard household equipment and kitchen utensils and if necessary gardening equipment or how to do a functional x-ray using only a powerful domestic torch, an instomatic camera and a fluorescent marker pen.

And it would also enable patients' diagnoses to be delivered by AI versions of their favourite celebrities. And I tried the trial version of this and really took the sting out of my diagnosis to have Zippy from Rainbow tell me I'm going bald. You needed someone to tell you that? Right, at the end of our health round, it's now four points all.

Thank you. Hello, it's Ray Winston. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you?

Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast. Rear, it's time for your specialist. You have a doctorate in science, I believe. What type of science was your thing? Viruses. Oh. To me, science is science. So, according to a new report by the year 2050,

which, let's be brutally honest, it's not nearly as far away as it once was, every constituency in the UK could have a what? Oh, a teenage reform counselor. It's actually an increased flood risk Yes, correct Isn't it? Yeah, it is increased flood risk

You could also have had a 100 metre stretch of HS2 Which is going to be broken up And distributed fairly around the country There's a council-owned K-pop group And a super prison full of pensioners But increased flood risk This seems to be the way the future is o'ee I mean, you live by the seaside

I do live by the seaside Thankfully, it's staying where it should be at the minute Right. But a little bit further down the coast from me is beachy head and there's some little houses perched on there precariously and I don't know why they built it so close to the sea, really. So you're talking about why they built the houses so close to the sea? Why they built beechy head so close to the sea?

I've thought about which one came first but now you've put it that way, yeah. So yeah, I live quite close to it. I live in a basement flat quite close to the sea. So I've had to flood prep. Right. Yeah, I've bought a paddleboard. I think we're all right where we are, but there are large swathes of the United Kingdom, aren't there?

They've built houses on areas that are now very flood-prone, and the thing is, people won't get insurance for that in the future. So it's really devastating, and it'll be doubly irritating when you're up to your ankles in floodwater in your own living room, and the water boards announce a host pipe band, which is... Stephen, I mean, politically, not preparing adequately for increased flood risk

is a proud part of our national political heritage, isn't it? Is it something we're prepared to abandon now? What will we have left? Well, look, not preparing for future events is what makes this country the place it is today. And look, I live on the seventh floor, so I think it's probably going to be really good for my property price. But yeah, it's a big problem,

because obviously governments are re-elected every five years, And I think even if you're a really big fan of Kirstarmer, I think you have to concede it's unlikely. He'll still be Prime Minister in 2050. And so it's very easy for it to be someone else's problem. And that's why we're in the state where you have places being told by insurance companies. Yeah, sorry, you're on your own. Yes, according to a new report, some towns may have to be abandoned

due to becoming uninsurable due to increased flood risks. The government says it will be investing £10.5 billion in flood defences by the year 2036 and we are still waiting to hear whether the deluge itself will agree to wait politely until fiscal timetable and engineering logistics are complete and we are in fact just hearing as we record that hydrogen hydrogen and oxygen trading as water have agreed to delay any flooding until after 2036 but in return will be entitled to an extra 10% of volume in all floods over the following 20 years. Let's move on to another. sort of science-related question.

Ed Miliband has just granted approval for the biggest what in the history of the United Kingdom. Bacon sandwich. Close but not right. That is he not close. Is it a solar farm? Correct, yes.

The biggest solar farm in UK history. But he's going to put it in Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire is one of the counties that is under threat from greater flooding in the predicted report apparently. It's going to be, yeah, so this could be something of a damp squib. and obviously farmers are up in arms

because it's 300,000 acres of prime farmland but we need energy so we've got to make up a decision what do we want do we want iPads or potatoes and that is the hard one's the choice we have to make the UK's biggest ever solar power farm the woke fired power plant could provide 300,000 homes with electricity

but would also plunge large parts of Lincolnshire into permanent darkness by stealing all the sun It's important to the telegraphs reporting of the issue. Opponents have lambasted the plan for its takeover of farmland, saying it jeopardises our national food security and could leave us reliant on Vladimir Putin, sending us lemon drizzle cakes and Russian vodka sausages to survive. Also, there are concerns about the danger of over-farming the sun.

It's thought to be only around 5 billion more years of usable solar energy before our home star exhausts itself and stopped. working whereas oil never dies. It's also become a sort of bit of a culture wars issue around green energy and there has been a compromise suggested that the solar panels are laid out in the shape of the Union Jack or of our national bird

the European Robin. That needs... I think that needs updated. Or lay them out in the shape of a lion drinking a pint of real ale or Winston Churchill doing a V sign or a bulldog trying to have sex with a red phone box or whatever that makes solar power sufficiently patriotic.

Right, at the end of our science round, it's now eight to Adam and Rea and six to Stephen and Zoe. Right. So, everyone else has had their specialist subject. So Zoe, it's time for your specialist subject now, which is international espionage. You have long been one of the UK's top spite.

Sorry, was I'm not supposed to say that. Anyway, I'm going to ask you this question in a manner that only a spy would understand. So here is your question. China. Correct. Yes, correct. China is the correct answer. So this is a very confusing story that's happening at the moment

because there are two gentlemen, both called Christopher, that kept it easy for me, who have been or were accused of spying for China. One of them was a civil servant and the other a teacher, and it was about to go on trial, I believe, this week, and this has suddenly been dropped. The whole case has been dropped because the CPS said there wasn't enough proof

to say that Britain found China a reasonable threat. We weren't prepared to say that, therefore, there was no point in moving the case forward. I think it's just a very complicated situation how we sort of see China, the communist, but massive economic and capitalist, sort of provider of all our goods.

So we have to sort of keep it sweet, don't we? And then apparently it's come out that there is large amounts of evidence to show that China has been doing quite a lot of espionage stuff. But my thought that was, well, good. because if they weren't spying on us then they wouldn't see us as anything at all like it's better to be talked about than not talked about

ultimately everyone kind of gets that the government's real position both under the last Conservative government and under this Labour one is well they are spying on us but fridges and smartphones are great so you know look you've got to take the rough with the smooth and I think that it will therefore sort of blow over

I think the bigger thing will be this question about this super embassy, which, yeah, China wants to build a bigger embassy. The embassy here is actually the oldest embassy that China has in the world, and they want to build a new snazzy one. And there's a lot of political tension about that, and I think that may be a story which runs and runs. Given how much of our data we give away on a daily basis to all big companies, American companies, everybody else,

and then we get a little bit upset when China comes in and does it with it. I mean, if you're on TikTok, you've sold your soul to China already. They know everything about it. By the way, actually, Stephen, there is something to deal with the rough and the smooth on TikTok shop. I'll show you later. What was the question? Yeah, the question was, all you worried about?

China's having all your secrets. Having all my secret. Listen, when it comes down to it with this face, with this Asian face, there's only one side I'm going to fall on. All right? So it's lovely living here. I love all you pale people. But when it comes down to it, you know, I got to pick a side.

And that side pays me why. well. Yes, the government has faced criticism after an espionage case collapsed because it was unwilling to describe China as a threat to national security and the enemy of this nation. China with its vast economic power, its supply of technological goods, its formidable technological capabilities, its supply of critical minerals, its ominous military power, its brightly colored toys, and its ability to bring our society to a grinding halt with a flick of a couple of switches, plus its temptingly delicious dumplings and its functionally indispensable role in the continuing working of British national infrastructure. Is China a threat? Hell yes. But you can't spell

threat without treat. Does China make temptingly cheap electrical goods? Even hella yes. So we are stuck. The statement alleged that the two Chrisis, Cash and Berry, passed information about ministers likely to be promoted to the cabinet.

So not really matters of national security, more just stuff for China to have a little giggle at. Well, at the end of that round, it's 12 points all. Which means which means that once again we go to a tiebreaker. Our tiebreaker this week, Open AI, has announced that it will allow adults to use chat GPT to generate erotic content.

But what I'm challenging our panellists to do is to develop the title of an erotic version of a radio four show that AI could not produce. And remember, this is slightly complicated by the fact that this has to be suitable for broadcast at 6.30 p.m. Zoe Desert Island Dix News Jiz There we go Themit, miss world tonight Just a minute

Just a minute, it'll take me longer than that A.k.a. Woman's Hour Well, I'm going to give the victory to Adam and Rhea. Just some news reaching us. The White House has slammed the Mercury Music Prize Committee for overlooking President Trump. Thank you very much for listening to the news quiz. Goodbye.

Taking part in the news quiz were Adam K, Rialina, Zoe Lyons and Stephen Bush. In the chair was me, Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Christina Riggs, Peter Toulouche, Daman Bamra, and Ruth Hustco. The producer was Rajiv Currier, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Can you speak for 60 seconds on the time I went to Sue Perkins' birthday party, starting now? I wasn't invited. Sue Perkins returns with the one-minute speaking challenge. That was the start of my secret... journey into the chasm of

what is he talking about the panellists including Stephen Mangon Patterson Joseph and Zoe Lyons I was only once invited to Sue Perkins Oh aren't you lucky The new series of just a minute from BBC Radio 4 It's all quite bitter, isn't it? Welcome to the game.

Oh yeah, sorry Listen now on BBC Sounds I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.

Thank you.