Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz: Ep7. The worst birthday ever

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Top of the agenda this week is some royal breaking news - who got a special birthday visit from the police? We’ll be analysing yet another government U-turn and see who’s emerged from the shadows for Nigel Farage’s proposed ‘shadow cabinet'. Plus a couple of stories on robots and aliens - something for everyone.Joining Andy this week is Mark Steel, Daliso Chaponda, Coco Khan and Bella Hull.Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Jade Gebbie, Ruth Husko and Peter Tellouche. Producer: Georgia Keating 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. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? 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 and 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 Zaltzman. Ahead of this week's news quiz, I am at the Tower of London, which has just been reactivated. It's been a while since they needed it for its true original purpose, but this week, well, just in case it's back in action.

Anyway, they'll all work a bit slower these days than when you're Henry VIII of this world just needed a growl or someone to have them tried convicted sentence and in some case is shortened. So while we wait to see who the mystery guest could be, it's time to start this week's news quiz. Hello. Welcome to the news quiz in what has been another fractious week for Team Human. You know the world must be in one of its angrier phases when people are swearing at each other during curling matches. What have we become? Our teams this week, after it transpired, the ex-Prince

Andrew hasn't been entirely honest, and after his arrest on Thursday morning, We have team rhubarb against team custard eat. On team rhubarb, we have Bella Hull and Deliso Sheponda. And on team custard E, we have Mark Steele and from Pod Save the UK, Coco Khan. Our first question this can go to Mark and Coco. Who got a special birthday visit from the police on Thursday? Well, I feel like defending the royal family here at last because we pay them all this money

and they give us nothing back, but now they do. I don't know, the thing where his story seems to be is that every time something else comes out that Andrew did, his punishment is that his name gets a little bit more common. And I think by the summer his official title will be,

Oy Andy, you wanker! He will, of course, come up with a defence, which will probably be a, couldn't have been sending those messages because I have a condition that means I can't send emails. And now he's at to spend

the day at least in a cell in Norfolk with some local copper if you can just like to put these things in this bag. It's my gun and just put it there. This is rather too small for my

horse. I'm guessing it's Prisandrew. You're entirely... I mean, he's got things to look forward to. Obviously now he's been arrested. It means lots of his old mates will come and stay with him for three days to tell him that they can't possibly be his friend anymore.

I mean, look, I'm going to try and not show how happy I am. And I think it's worth also mentioning. Everything that's been revealed in the Epstein Files has truly been a global story. There's people being implicated in many, many names. across the world. Most notably, of course, Americans, and there's a very famous man involved who is in the White House and we'll just leave it there. This has caused a lot of sort of fracture over in the States. And the Democrats have been looking at Britain and said, well, look, they

have arrested their own prince. They've done it. That makes Britain cool. And it's doing lots of things for our image. But anyway, that aside, it's making them say, well, if Britain can do that, then we can take down some of the people on our side who have also been implicated in this. Maybe not the big man, the Don, but other people. So I think the ripple effects of this is going to be far and wide. So, you know, the American remakes of British shows

are never quite as good. The whole story is really absurd to me, but what I love is they would avoid saying who it was. It was like an anonymous man is in his 16. from Norfolk has been arrested on suspicion of Ms. Conner. Like, we know who it is. It's not Cludeau. Just say who you got. I'm mainly surprised that the police arrested him

instead of just sort of offering him a job. I do you feel sorry for Andrew a bit, you know, like getting arrested on your birthday. He probably thought it was just like an elaborate stripper ground. It went on and on for way too long. Do you think that for his birthday he was going to go to pizza, pressing, woke him.

And now he's thinking, that place is just bad luck for me. Do you think if he goes to prison, the British public will queue up to see him like they did for the Queen? But it's, in a way, sort of that people are surprised when they turn out like this. But of course they do, because they're brought up from birth to believe that they have been divinely ordained by God through superior blood to be better than anyone. Of course they're mad, aren't they? It's astonishing. More of them aren't completely insane.

They're all mad. The Queen, probably by their chips in her 90s. Ma'am, you've got to come out and greet your people. Oh, sort of. I just want to watch Netflix. No, ma'am. It's the plutonium jubilee. You've got to come out and...

I'm bloody neckered. Go away. It's raining. No, ma'am. And then there's all the people. There's just millions of reporters everywhere. It's so exciting. No one's ever done anything. so magnificent in all the history of humanity.

We're down here in Maidstone with Mrs. Ada Tubworth, who's got her own special way of commemorating the Queen's 60 years on the throne. She's climbed up an apple tree and painted union jacks on all the blackbirds. They're all nuts. And then she dies, and instead of just being rational, and going, well, it's sad as a woman in her 90s has died.

We have 24 hours a day for about eight weeks, morning, minute after minute on the BBC. all read out by a bloke who turned out to be a sex offender. Pace were mad. No one's there on merit. Even people who like the Queen. No, she wasn't, she didn't start out in the postroom as a humble princess and work her way up. She's just born.

That one died. That one died. That one was a Nazi. She became the quip. Yes, ex-Prince-Prinx-Roe. 66-year-old former It's a knockout contestant. Teddy bear obsessive and one-man argument against hereditary privilege was arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of misconduct in a public office.

I mean, it's quite a precipitous fall. He slipped from second in line to the throne to a man from Norfolk. As he was described in the police statement after his arrest. I know, as the Winter Olympics have shown, in this nation, we are good at sliding rapidly headfirst downhill, but even so, that is an impressive plummet. But difficult times for Team Windsor. Last week, Prince William visited Saudi Arabia,

where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a good old Prince to Prince gossip. And you must know things have gone a bit weird in your life when a conversation with a man who, according to the CIA, ordered the assassination of a dissenting journalist, is significantly less awkward than a family chat with your uncle. At the end of that round, well, it's two, Dermak and Coco, and I'll give Bella and Deliso one.

Next question for Bella and Deliso, a politics question. What is bacon? Sorry, what is back on? Sorry. What's back on? Yeah, what's back on? Oh, these elections. The elections are back on.

It's like a U-turn, right? Some is U-turn. But at the same time, it was like forced. So you can't really say it's a U-turn when it's forced. That's like saying, oh, I'm volunteering, but it's court-mandated community service. Yeah, I mean, it's a, exciting times for fans of local elections, Bella.

Definitely. It really went on, we went from sort of like being on my mind not at all to sort of being on my mind, not a lot. It's quite amazing that Reform fought back against the elections being delayed, but sort of confused me because I thought reform hated the polls, but...

But I also feel like, I don't know if elections work anymore, right? Because nobody's a fan of anyone who's running. So it's like, No one's popular. So actually, I've got a plan. We should instead vote for who we hate the most. And then the person who gets the least votes wins.

So it's the last past the post system. We can build a better world. I think every single thing that Kea Stama does now, he then says, well, this is absolutely what we're going to do. and then a fortnight later does the opposite, doesn't he? Every single, and this is just one more of those things. And he's just looked so hopeless, and he has no idea why. And I would imagine, if you're in the Kirstama house,

if he says, I'm going to the toilet, you'll think, oh, no, because he's going to get halfway up the stairs, turn around, come back, do a dump on the carpet, and then say, I am going to see this through, and then leave and go to China. That's what he's going to do. Labor said, we don't want these local elections because a number of the councils in which these elections will be held won't exist soon. We're having a redrawing of the boundaries.

So this is strange, why are we having elections for councils that won't exist? Obviously, they do exist right now. And even if it's for a week, they only exist, there's an argument to say that everyone should have a chance to say who, you know, has such a big part in their lives, whether it's one day or one year or whatever. And that's what the verdict found. So essentially, that was Labor's position, reform challenged them in the courts. it was found that that was not an adequate reason. On a personal level, I've had enough of elections. I mean, which is a weird thing to say because I cover them.

But I just mean, just on a me level, I have to get up on a Thursday again and go again to the poll to tick a box of people I'm not that interested in. The sooner there's a military dictatorship. But that's not the only option because, like, yes, maybe we're tired of democracy. America's experimenting with autocracy

doesn't seem fun, right? Oligarkeys are a mess in places like Russia, so maybe we need to do something that's never been tried like a pedocracy where children rule. Right, and that way, if the economy is a disaster, you're like, well, a five-year-old came up with that,

so I'm not surprised. We'd know why things are falling apart. Right. Have you seen the new Lord of the Flies? No, I think. I'm not. Kim Jong-un's just named his teenage daughter, hasn't he, as the successor? This is true.

Kim Jong-Dur. Is that the name? Please, that... No, I just made that out. That would have been wonderful. We know when they say we're tough, but Sama is tough, I'm tough. I make tough choices.

But he doesn't make tough choices against... He only makes tough choices against weak people, like a bully, isn't it? It's like a Tyson Fury when, oh, I'm tough, because I squashed a ladybird. But when he's up against tough, then he's completely weak. Against Trump, he'll go,

oh, I know how to be tough. Would you like to come and visit our king in a golden carriage? And if you like, I'll lay down naked in the gate with bluebells sticking out my ass and you can pick whichever one you want, and then we'll let you climb up Big Ben and pleasure yourself at the top. Well, now, actually, I think they should just change the visit

that he can visit Andrew. It is. funny with the Labour Party. I mean, I suppose they would say, look, we do want to make changes, but we have to win, and the fact of the matter is is we have to be tough in these sections to prove to everyone that we're capable and competent, whatever. So they've won and everyone's confused. And I have moments sometimes where I'm like, there is nothing I love that the Labour Party isn't slowly ruining. And now local elections are being ruined. Local elections were the like Glastonbury of elections. It was always sunny. People were just taking photos of their

dogs outside. No one really cared about the axe. You were just there because it, whatever. All right, we're going to go and vote for the Liberal Democrats on the pyramid stage. Yes, the government has reversed plans to delay 30 of the local council elections for a year after Reform UK launched a legal case to prevent the postponement or to postpone the preventment. I forget which one. And thus, our proud democratic nation, desperately thirsting to have our say at the ballot box, will have the chance in May to overwhelmingly elect to stay at home and not bother voting in local elections.

Well, we always do. Some had complained that the one-year delay was undemocratic. Look, if we start worrying about everything in this country that's undemocratic, we will end up bulldozing the entire houses of Parliament. Anyway, the decision by the government to delay the ballots arose because many of the councils affected are currently slated for reorganisation. Look, if we start worrying about everything in this country that needs a bit of reorganisation, we will end up bulldozing every single public building in the UK.

Anyway, the delay also rose from concern about the cost of running the votes. Look, if we start worrying about everything in this country that costs too much public money, we will end up bulldozing the entire country, leaving an empty wasteland of nothingness. And what would that make us Greenland? Right, at the end of that round, the scores are five points all. This is not the future we were promised. How about that for a tagline for the show? 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 and 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. Right. Who this week emerged from the shadows into the shadows? Reform. Yes. It's announced their shadow cabinet.

They don't have loads of politicians. So I think we could have all guessed who was going to be in it. So Robert Jenrick's in it, Swell of Brotherman's in it, Richard Tice is in it. I just want to just as a sidebar. If you ever have a moment and you just want to think about Richard Tice

as much as me, he has a TikTok channel and he's often given wisdom, such as you don't need to worry about global warming because carbon is natural. It's in the atmosphere, so you don't need to worry about it,

which I always just think to myself, I'm pretty sure cyanide is natural. Richard Tice's logic, if it's natural, don't worry. Bears, sharks, cyanide, all fine. Anyway, so he's down to be business secretary, I hear. The one story I do want to mention, and there's so much to say about the whole shadow cabinet, but Nadim Zahawi didn't get a role.

Nadim Zahari is a personal obsession of mine. He basically was chancellor under Boris Johnson, and then he decided not to stand in the last election, and he was putting pressure on the current Conservative leader, Kemmy Badernock, to give him a post in the Lords. He didn't get it. He was very upset, so then made a big song and done, and went to reform and then did not get a shadow cabinet role. It's been...

Oh! I think that's quite sweet. People hear that and go, oh, oh, the poor man who bankrupted the country. There's no need to upset his feelings. Nadim Zahawi is the man who charged expenses for heating his horse stables. Relatable.

Relatable. You can't ride... into Parliament on a cold horse. That is true. Farage, in sort of trying to disprove that the party is just him, he said that reform would still thrive even if what happened to him. No sunlight or water?

It's good guess, but not right, anyone else? He said that reform would still thrive if, I don't know, he was eaten by a polar bell. Not quite, I mean, along those lines. If someone took away his iPad? That would be curtains, I'm afraid. If he became a black Muslim? I've been here in the nation of Islam for the last year.

Frankly, I am absolutely sick to death of the number of non-Muslims who are coming over here in Dingh's invading our boss. No, he said reform would still be all right. if he was hit by a bus. He said he'd be right. If he was hit by a bus tomorrow, reform has its own brand. So it's a one-man brand

rather than the one-man band. I think that's the key difference. It doesn't make you wonder, though, in that bus scenario that he put forward. What would be the final conscious thoughts that went through Nigel Farage's mind before the bus hit him? Especially if the bus driver was speaking Spanish.

Quick disclaimer, the bus hitting Nigel Farage is a purely hypothetical scenario positive by Nigel Farage trading as Nigel Farage. No Nigel Farageists were injured by buses or other forms of public transport in the creation of this bit. The hypothetical Nigel Farage in this scenario, in fact, escaped thankfully uninjured after landing on an inflatable St. George. The BBC wishes it to be known. There is no evidence that buses in general want to hit Nigel Farage or vice versa. Nigel Farage is a registered trademark.

He also said that 600 people have already signed up for what? Bus licences. That is incorrect. Good guess what wrong. The actual answer, Andy, is 600 people, according to Nigel Farage, are ready to stand for a reform. Yes, Nigel Farage unveiled the potential cabinet lineup. He hopes will win Reform UK, the next general election,

with Robert Jenrick and Suella Braffman featuring prominently, as the election losing Tory government from earlier in the decade reforms like a molten terminator at a disappointing Zumba class. Reform also pledged to scrap the 2010 Equalities Act, but seemed to want to keep most of the provisions in it, which is a bit odd. Suella Brabman said that Britain was being, quote, ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion policies. And I guess the counterpoint, so that would be to say, no, it's not.

Right, at the end of that round, it's now eight to Mark and Coco and seven to Bella and Deliso. Now onto a special round featuring the two biggest threats facing humanity at the moment. other than humanity itself, which has top spot zone up, obviously. And those are, correct. Robots and aliens. Coincidentally, the two things, Elon Musk most often swipes right on on Tinder. And for our robots and aliens round, we have two special guest questioners.

Our first guest questioner for our robot question. Please welcome the new and improved Anthropotech 3,000X. Andy. Hello, welcome to the show. I have a question. The panel. All right. Fire away.

Why do you people always take things so literally? What is the question? Why, on the evidence of this week in the near future, will nobody be kung fu fighting, which will, in fact, be a big bit frightening. Right. So, Balad Liso, what's the answer? There was a display of Chinese kung fu robots.

Yes. Are you excited or terrified by this? Did no one watch science fiction? This is what worries me. Like literally Terminator and all of these. And Neo in the Matrix used martial arts to beat robots. Don't teach them martial arts. I hate AI.

I'm very anti-AI. It icks me out. I think it's gross. I think people that use it are losers. Everything I do takes 400 years. I've never really completed a task. But I'm sort of getting by enough. Pride alone.

I don't even understand it, but so chat, GBT, is that AI? Yes. Am I in the minority here? Even satnabs, you know, and people go, oh no, it's selling me to go there. They're quite often wrong. It'll go, you've been in a car with someone, and they're going, oh, there's satnav saying they go down there, and you go, no, but I live here. Satnav says you're there, so you must be wrong, you must have been going in the wrong house for the last day.

Yes, and the latest display. of entertainingly terrifying Chinese ingenuity, the annual China Media Group Spring Festival Gala, the biggest TV show in China, showcased a display of Kung Fu performed by humanoid robots. The speed of progress in China is dizzying. It's not that long ago that all the robots at the event were made of terracotta,

and the only trick they could do was standing up. Right, thank you to our robot. Let's move on to our next guest questioner. Please welcome all the way from the planet It's Zruz-G-3-Q. It's... Hello. What is your question for the panel?

I think he's talking about Barack Obama. That is correct, yes. Absolutely, very good. And what specifically did Obama talk about? I think he was talking about aliens. He was talking about his concerns with aliens. Luckily, I did that all day on duo-lingo. I mean, it was quite an unexpected, you know, for a former president to basically say

they're aliens. Also now, with the Epstein files being released and Barack Obama revealing that they're aliens, I honestly think that the only conspiracy theorists who are wrong right now are flat-earthers. There's going to be a lot of letters of complaint coming in for that. Bella, what did, I mean, did this confirm your suspicions? Yeah, I mean, it's amazing for a former president to believe in aliens. I think Trump believes in aliens as well. It's just they have a slightly different meaning.

He's getting ice after them. I think maybe Obama was just a bit confused. I think, you know, he thinks aliens are real, but then, you know, we've all been there. Like, you think aliens are real, and then you realize you're just looking at a photo of Mark Zuckerberg. But do you not think that we're tempting fate? We should just stop.

Stop provoking the aliens. Statistically likely that they are here enough. You think the aliens are listening to Radio 4? They're on a planet somewhere going, I have listened to Radio 4. They have good method for preserving hydrangeers on Gardner's question. Actually, Mark, Radio 4 is very popular intergalactically, and my message to them is...

Which means my mission is complete. The time to strike is now. Yes, Barack Obama can... He confirmed everyone's suspicions by saying that aliens exist. He just dropped it into a podcast, which is 98% of all human conversation now. He also clarified what he meant was that the universe is so huge these days. I remember when it was all fields.

Statistically, it's almost certain there is life elsewhere, but he said that the chance that Earth has actually been visited by aliens is low. Low. Not zero. He basically said they walk among us. and we know not who they are. At the end of that round, the scores are now 10 points all. We've gone to a tiebreaker.

Who or what is due for some long overdue R&R? Anyone. Oh, the House of Parliament? Correct, yes. Can you explain what the R&R is? Well, repair and restoration? Yes.

Because it needs about 60 billion quid spent on it, isn't it? Not a 60 billion, just a mere 39. 39 billion. Because they get builders in, but they go around going, oh, blimey, I see you've had Jacobree smug in here, and that's your trouble in there.

Why don't they just move it and use the current building for something else? Like make it a migrant hotel? I actually feel strangely passionate about this subject. I think they should restore the houses of Parliament. It's like a massive icon. It's embarrassing. Have you been in there? Have you been in there? Do the tour guys. It smells. It's a smelly place. They have fire problems. People have had stories about like fire coming out of the walls and stuff. You know, we need to attract good politicians to this country. We need to do that by better conditions for politicians and also hold them at a higher standard. But maybe their offices could be nicer. So I think actually, on a serious point, let's do it. Rather than build somewhere new and modern where, for example, they might have like a screen to look at data during a debate.

rather than just a bit of paper to wave at someone two sword lengths away. Yeah, that could go. And people do say, actually, the historic nature of it gives a unconscious advantage to those from certain schools because it's very grand and it's very know-your-plays. Guy Fawkes had the right idea. So we blow it up. But he did it quicker than 61 years, didn't it?

61 years. That's nearly long enough for people to have forgotten about Liz Trust. And of course that's an estimate, so we are looking at a 23rd century finish date. And it would cost 39 billion. That is the same as four more Olympics is. Now, let's put this to a public vote. Who here would like to see a House of Commons refurbishment? And who wants four more Olympics is?

The people have spoken. Well, at the end of this week's news quiz, Mark and Coco are. our winners with 12, Bella and Delito have 10. Well, some news just reaching us, in fact. David Attenborough is to be made immortal. Part of the nationwide celebrations of Attenborough's 100th, Parliament has just passed the law banning Sir David from ever dying. So that's some good news at the end of what has been a difficult week.

Thank you very much for listening to the news quiz. Taking part in the news quiz were Bella Hull, Deliso Sheponda, Coco Kohn and Mark Steele. in the chair was me, Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by J. Gebby, Peter Toulouche, and Ruth Husko. 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 charge. 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. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? 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 and 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.