Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz Ep8. - Peter Scandalman

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

For the final episode of this series, we look at some of the stories that we’re leaving unresolved in our ‘News Quiz 2026 Summer Break Cliffhanger Special’. This includes the latest on the Peter Mandelson scandal and the back and forth between Trump, Israel and Iran. We also discuss the British animals which might make it onto our banknotes, and Andy challenges the panel on their best ways to improve football ahead of this year’s Men’s World Cup.This week’s panel is Pierre Novellie, Alasdair Beckett-King, Coco Khan and Desiree Burch.Written by Andy Zaltzman.With additional material by: Lotte Allan, Angela Channell, Eve Delaney and Katie Storey Producer: Georgia Keating Executive Producer: Pete Strauss Production Coordinator: Asha Osborne-Grinter Sound Editor: Marc Willcox Recorded by David ThomasA BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

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Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello, I am Andy Zaltzman. This is the news quiz. Sorry, I wrote this bit of the show on WhatsApp. I know it sounds silly, but I didn't think anyone would need to listen to it. Anyway, live in London. On we go. Welcome to the News Quiz.

Let's meet our teams and Walter Mark, the Imminent World Cup. Our team's our team. It's Coming Home. Versus team, yes, but it's got loads of homes these days. and we'll probably go to one of the homes in Spain or France. On team coming home, Pierre Navelli and Desiree Birch. And on team, it's probably staying out, not coming home. It's Alistair Becker King and from Pod Save the UK, Coco Khan. And we're going to start this show by looking at some of the stories.

We're leaving unresolved in our news quiz, 26 summer break, cliffhanger special. Firstly, for Coco and Alistair, whose appointment might or might not by September cause the collapse of the Starma government? this is Peter Mandelson. This is the Mandelson files, which is like the X-Files,

if no one involved was sexy. Unlike the X-Files, it seems to be going on and on forever because they didn't really work out what the ending was going to be at the start, correct? I mean, politically, Coco, as a sort of political commentator, this story just doesn't seem like it's ever going to go away. It doesn't seem like it's going to go away.

It is interesting, though, because a lot of the polling and certainly, you know, politicians that I've been speaking to say when they're out campaigning, people don't seem to really care. The average person on the street is not really that fast. But nonetheless, it is a scandal within the Labour Party. So this week we had the latest release of the documents. And because so many of them were missing because of police or security concerns,

I mean, all the press had to talk about, all anyone had to talk about were the WhatsApp messages, just really gossipy, super snarky. I don't know if anyone's gone to a girls' school, but it's all a bit girls' school energy on these WhatsApp. And that's sort of all anyone's talking about, unless you were smart enough to use disappearing messages. It's really low-grade gossip, I think. Like the quality of it, it's nothing you can get your teeth into.

Mandelson said of the Labour Party something like people's heads are broadly in the right place, but you need more people who can execute. I mean, probably, yeah, I probably wouldn't have put executing heads that close. together. But for me, my main problem with Kirstarmer is not the position of his head, it's that his head is the exact size and shape of a bag of plain flour. And for some reason, not a bag of self-raising flour. I don't think he resembles a bag of self-raising flour at all, but a bag of plain flour is all I can see when I look at him. Why is everybody tripping over the disappearing messages? Like every episode of Law & Order,

they can find the messages. somebody at Meta has an axe to grind and is willing to leak to the Tories. They can find these messages. It's annoying because what you want when you get a bunch of leaked messages between Mandelson and government figures is either that he's saying, I love Kirstama, he promised me the world. Ever since I met him on that island or something interesting, oh, look at that.

But it's all been redacted because he's under criminal investigation. And also, as well as that, it's just criticisms of labor or the government saying, oh, yeah, they don't really seem to know what they want really. and you think, well, annoyingly, he's bang on. So at most we can say about him, ooh, rude, did you know he said that? Behind your back, yeah. And it's just, again, like he said,

Kogo's snark, the snark files. And he refused to hand over his phone, Mandelson. I think on the grounds that he was in the middle of a hot wordal streak. Seems very reasonable. He got divotts in one, apparently. So, you know, say what you like about the guy. He knows wordle.

But I think you're right, that they've released so much, we're on the second 1,000 page volume, and I think they're taking a leaf out of J.R.R. Tolkien's books, because obviously I'm sure we all know that Lord of the Rings was inspired by his experiences in World War I, which went on far longer than anyone thought it would. It was kind of boring and didn't really have any women in it.

He put all of that into Lord of the Rings, and I think that's what they do. One Tolkien hater trying to start a round of applause. It's not... It's not being picked up by the Hobbit Dwebes in the rest of the room. Some critics of various members of the government are trying to find toeholds by criticising them for sending Peter Mandelson sort of a friendly hello on his first day as ambassador,

as though the professional thing you want from the government and its ministers is to text their colleagues, I hear your mates with a non-sal batter you if I see you around. It emerged this week that Kirstama, Rachel Reeves and David Lammie all used disappearing WhatsApp messages. What else do you think the Prime Minister, could make disappear. Sense of hope.

General optimism. So Peter Mandelson said that the UK would never regret making him what? He sent a creepy letter to a really creepy letter to... I think it was David Lammy. He sent the letter to.

Yes, David Lammy. And the phrasing, I wrote it down. Something about if you made me the US ambassador, the phrasing he used was, I would make sure you never regret it. Which could just mean you'll be long dead by the time. I think you'll never have any views on it.

You should never go into business or into politics with a man who speaks like the devil in a parable. Or like he's about to ask you to sign a contract in blood. Well it's so creepy because he even ends the letter basically for his bid to be

the ambassador saying, if you're up for it, so am I. Which sounds like a text you get at three in the morning from a phone number that you've labeled, do not pick this up under any circumstances. And it was a handwritten letter as well, which is very sort of boomer coded. If he had been a millennial, it would have been like,

I could be the ambassador, no worries if not. Big deal, your choice in the end. Shrugging GIF. I don't want to show that I want it. Yeah, so he said the UK would never regret making him ambassador to the USA. So that turned out to be quite an incorrect prediction. So what I want from my panel now, I want them to own up and tell us the worst prediction you have ever made.

Desiree. So one of the things that I do, I marry people like I'm an efficient or whatever, and I've married like six different couples. And like the first ones that I married, they just like will not speak to each other. They're the only couple that I've gotten divorced that I've married. I'm so upset. But you can't really make that kind of. prediction when you're marrying people. We're just like, I'm going to go ahead

and put a hundred on these guys. Yeah, what's the worst prediction you've ever made? I'm just finishing up a stand-up tour and I planned it on the basis that trains would run and be on time. I've come to regret that several times. Well, being a patriot, every single year I predict that

England will win the World Cup. All right. I know it's not every year. but that's real patriotism. Yeah, yeah. Alistair? Yeah, obviously, I'm not perfect. I've been wrong before.

You know, you put your hopes and dreams into someone. You know, you put a lot of faith into them. You think they're the one. You know, they're going to change your life. They break your heart. Do I regret getting a tattoo of Nick Clegg? No, because I learned something from the experience, you know? Well, yes, on Monday, more than 50.

hundred pages of government documents relating to the appointment of Peter Scandal, Mandelson, which is the UK's ambassador to the US will release. That's the equivalent of a whole Bible, or perhaps more appropriately, around 100 copies of the unpublished Roger Hargreaves' Mr. Man book, Mr. Obviously

Inappropriate for Public Office. Right, Pierre and Deserate, we are ending this series with the Middle East situation still unresolved. Will they all live happily ever after? We'll let you know in September. But in the meantime, who had a Barney with a Oh, yeah, okay. This is Donald Trump.

Correct. This is, yeah. So he literally had the audacity to get on the phone with BB Netanyahu and be like, everybody hates you because of this. He's like, they're all talking about how much they hate you and how nobody's believing the hair and why are you so orange. No, it's definitely about you, BB. It's crazy for one person, like the most hated person,

to turn to the second most hated person on earth and be like, this is clearly all your fault. If I got a phone call from Donald Trump about how crazy I was It's a moment for quiet reflection Even if I don't agree in the moment I'll think Hmm He sounded very confident Is this a good thing? Is this making global diplomacy

More accessible for ordinary humans It's really thrown me I spat between Netanyahu and Trump It's like finding out that Exma doesn't get along with thrush. I don't know where I am with this. It's like finding out that the four horsemen of the apocalypse are splitting up to pursue solo careers. Okay, is it good?

I'm baffled. It was funny as well, because you know, you see the quotes, and they're quite clearly rude and angry, and then you hear that the Israelis are briefing out, like, oh, it was a very amicable conversation. Everyone was getting on swimmingly, and it does make you why you think, okay, I knew that that government was on another planet,

but this is the evidence. Yeah. I mean, at some point, he just screamed at him, like, what the F are you doing? And at that moment, I was like, are you sure he just didn't turn on the front-facing camera and actually take a good, hard look, at himself? But, like, I mean, he's got to be a dream

for anybody who has young kids right now because you can legitimately turn to, like, the worst child in your family and be like, you could be president one day. It's strange turning on the news and seeing the US involved in a war in the Middle East without us. It's like seeing your ex on holiday on Instagram. There's a part of you that thinks,

oh, that looks exciting, and then you remember how badly it ended the last time you two went abroad. Yes, Trump was Stiltskin has continued to break new ground in his world record longest continuously running single tantrum. He's reported to have a furious conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu who after the Israeli Prime Minister once again

declined the invitation to change his spots. And this followed further strikes by Israel and Lebanon, which were not in Trump's plans at the start of the war. Now, I know that, well, because two things. One, he didn't have any plans at the start of the war. Two, because I've pretended that he does have plans, and I've got them here. And his plans at the start of war were,

one, kill the baddie. Two, bask in the adulation of a grovelingly grateful planet. And three, melt down all the gold in the world to build a 500 metre high statue of self. So, at the end of that round, it's now four point all. Right, our next question can go to Coco and Alistair. Why, in the not too distant future, might someone come up to you in the street and say,

can I swap my puff in for two of your hedgehogs and a dolphin? That happens to me all the time anyway. I think this is because we're getting rid of all those boring humans on the banknotes and we're replacing them with adorable British animals. They've come up with a short list, but there's going to be a public vote, but you're not allowed to put silly ones in, because they've come up with a short list. Which I think is a shame, because I think what we need is, if we're going to have animals on the money, they should be animals that reflect modern, contemporary Britain, like a fox, but it's smoking a vape. Well, maybe it's possible to find a racist swan.

I'd love to flip over a five-pound note and go from King Charles to just a heap of rats. Would that be possible? Well, they still have the inspirational quotes on the back Because I definitely want to see a king salmon In the quote of like, I declare after all There's no enjoyment like swimming upstream Until your heart almost explodes And then having sex and dropping dead immediately

In Latin. Yes, yes. It was the subtext of a Jane Austen quote that as well. Yeah, so puffins, dolphins and hedgehogs amongst the 18 creatures, the puffin, the bird That penguins dream of being the dolphin, the Darwinian love child of the shark, the jetsky and the Geiger counter. The hedgehog, of course, the species that simply had to get into S&M to avoid extinction.

So the Guardian's description of the shortlist, it said, Mammal options include bottlenose dolphins and red foxes. And I'd just love to see the phrase Mammal options on a menu. What mammals do you have? Well, the whole list was Barnow, Kingfisher, hedgehog, red fox, bumblebee, puffin, sea eagle, hair, woodpecker, curlew, pine martin, grey seal, basking shark, bottom-nose dolphin, butterfly, dragonfly, frog and salmon, which was not only the most exciting table of ingredients

for an invention test in the history of Master Chef. But also has said the shortlist for the Bank of England for its new banknotes, six mammals, six birds and six miscellaneous, other things, will fight it out for the right to adorn the new 5, 10, 20 and 50 pound notes. After a public vote, the top 12 animals will compete in a special reality show in which they fight to the death

until only 5 survive. The top four animals will feature on those notes and the other one will be automatically entered into the Labour leadership race. For one, can't wait to see Andy Burnham take on an Eurasian curlew. Many have complained about animals replacing great national figures on our bank notes, but we live in a cashless age now.

When I spend 10 pounds on something, you know, I just think about Jane Austen. The winning wildlife will replace historical figures, including mathematical genius and Nazi code smasher Alan Turing. Another kick in the teeth for Turing from the British establishment. He was arrested for being gay. He was chemically castrated by the authorities. And now, as a final insult, he's been kicked off the £50 note to make way for a hedgehog. What do Beatles member Sir Paul McCartney? YouTube megastar, Mr. Beast.

and former Facebook executive Cheryl Sandberg all have in common. They're all being discussed in the new season of Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast which explores the lives and fortunes of the world's super rich. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now, search for Good Bad Billionaire, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Moving across the Atlantic, Desire and Pierre, Donald Trump has made a bit of a habit of being as wrong as possible, about as many things as possible,

but why might he soon be absolutely bang on the money? Oh, God. Because he wants to put his big, dumb, ugly, stupid face on a $250 bill. Because everyone needs one of those. I mean, that'll be the price of one gallon of gas by the time he leaves. So I guess we're going to need that. Who can afford that? It's the wispy hair.

It's that rar picture that we've all seen a million times, that one on there. It's the mugshot one he wants. The one way he's kind of glowering at the camera in a sort of, this is the last time you raid my warehouse. So technically at the moment it's illegal. I don't think that's going to stop Trump, but it's illegal to have a living person on the money. Do you know why that is in America?

There's a law from 1866 that you're not allowed to put a person on the bill because they issued a five-cent note and the guy who worked at the Treasury put himself on the note. Isn't that? They just wanted to do a note honoring Clark from Lewis and Clark, the Explorer. But there was a guy who worked at the Treasury who was just called Spencer Clark. and so he put his own face on the moment.

And what I assume was his last day on the job. All we need, we just need someone at the Treasury to change their name to Donald Trump. And we could do the funniest thing. When I was looking to the story, I learned, because I didn't actually know this, that a nickname for American notes is greenback. So presumably this would be the first orange back.

Yeah, in front and sides. Yeah, yeah. Alice, I'm afraid you lose a point for bringing in a fact to this show. I mean, look, if the trade-off of him being on that bill is that he's no longer alive, then I will rescind everything I just said. I take it all back. It's worth it. The legal loophole his lawyers are going for is that he's dead on the inside.

What do you think, Desiree, the 250th anniversary of America's founding error? What do you think would be the best way to market, most appropriate way? I think that they've been trying to market the way that things were done originally by trying to bring back slavery. I mean, I just feel like why not do like a sort of retrospective, like we love parades with floats? And we'll just do all the things that America has done, most of which are crimes. Over 250 years, you know, Thanksgiving started with a crime. But we could just keep going. through all the different things America's done as like a float.

I would love to see, you know, I mean, I would hate to, but I would love for America to like actually own up to everything it's done over 250 years as a celebration. Like, here's a big balloon of the interment of Japanese people. Or like, you know what I mean? Like just a catalog of all of our stuff. I know the question's like the best or most appropriate way, but I feel like this fits.

Yes, of course, I mean the proper way to deal with your sort of historical awkwardnesses as we know in this country is simply, to talk about them. I think maybe you have a combination of all the American art forms. So you have a hot dog eating contest in a comic bookstore. There's live jazz. It's hosted by a stand-up comedian.

And if you lose, you get shot. If you win, you also get shot. I think it's cool that America's having a closing down sale. That's very exciting. I am a little bit disappointed with the acts of their books because it's like vanilla ice, someone from Millie Vanilli and the rapper Flo Ryder,

which I guess sounds cool to American ears, but to me that just sounds like a correspondent on a local news program. Baby Otters are attracting crowds to the Burnley Wetland Center. Flo Rider has more. I can't take him seriously as a rapper. Also, do you think when they book that,

they just put vanilla into Google and found every artist? They were just like, look, it's for our work. Republican president. We just want the most vanilla acts possible. They got really vanilla and vanilla ice. They might have just typed ice into a search engine.

Yes, well, across the pond, the US Treasury is working on a special commemorative $250 bill featuring Donald Trump's face. Expensive as toilet paper goes, but unquestionably worth it. A concert to mark the 250th anniversary of the biggest mistake in American history has been beset by withdrawals of musical artists who didn't realize the entire thing

might be hijacked as a propaganda tool by Donald Trump, which is touchingly naive. Not to assume that. That's like seeing the three little pigs wearing a hashtag not all wolves badge. Right, at the end of our banknotes round, it's now

nine to Alistair and Coco, ten to Pierre and Desrey. What has been predicted to have an 80% chance of coming back by September? Peter Manley. You'll find a way. This is, I mean, I feel responsible for this being from the American Southwest, because we talk about this all the time. I think it's El Nino. Correct. It's like this horrible weather pattern that makes the wind's insane and like moves everything around.

So although like it gets hot in places that shouldn't be super hot and there's fires all over California. I mean, there's always fires all over California, but like extra ones. And they call it the child. Like El Nino's like the baby, right? Like the child, right? You know? So like I hate to. see the dad. I looked this up because I thought it was an unusually cute name for a horrible weather formation, but it means like baby Jesus when it's capitalized. And so Super El Nino roughly translates as Jesus Christ. Which is appropriate.

I thought Super El Nino was Spanish for the big number nine. El Nino, the celebrity weather system that quite literally takes the world by storm is going to take the world by storm. Again, scientists have warned that the return of El Nina will cause global temperatures to rise, quotes, off the chart. I mean, come on, the first warnings about climate change sparking more extreme weather were decades ago now. Surely by now we've had time to reduce its impact

by getting a bigger chart. Some weather buffins have suggested that 2027 could be the hottest year on record, but I think it's time to reflect and try and keep this in perspective. Yes, things on Earth are getting a bit toasterer than A, normal, B, ideal. and see commercially advisable and D necessary. But even in the so-called hottest year ever,

the average temperature on Earth is going to be around 15, 16 degrees Celsius, equivalent to a nice spring day early in the cricket season. So let's keep it in perspective. Did anyone here tell me what the average temperature was last year on Venus? Well, let me tell you, it was around 460 degrees Celsius, and yet somehow it's little old Earth that's got the problems. How does that work out? And all that carbon dioxide, I can't put so much...

Do you know much carbon dioxide we've got in our atmosphere at the moment? 0.04%. You can barely bloody find it when you need it. Just the other day, I needed some carbon dioxide. I wanted to make my drink fizzy. Couldn't find it. Loads and loads of nitrogen, quite a lot of oxygen, soddle carbon dioxide. Had to have yet another flat cup of tea.

Venus, 96.5% of the Venusian atmosphere is carbon dioxide. But you can't criticize Venus, can you? You can't say anything against Venus these days. And why can't it criticise Venus? because Venus is a lady planet. And you can't say anything these days, can you? Without a old woke-lobby jumping down your throat. Right, well, at the end of that round,

it's now level at 10 points all, which means we have to go into our tiebreaker. Next Friday marks the start of the 26 Men's FIFA virally mutated capitalist fever dream, soul-draining, joy-sapping sport. Sorry, World Cup. Ticket sales have reportedly not been as health. as expected in part because fans

want to have some money left over for food, clothing and shelter for the rest of their lives. FIFA have announced a new off-side technology which will reduce the time it takes for fans to shout at the assistant referees to 0.1 seconds from 0.2 seconds. But what one change would my panellists

make to football in general or the World Cup specifically best change wins the points? Me understanding it? It's a change. I would love to see. No, I mean, I'm. Honestly, from the bit that I've imbibed of being in this country, it's pretty fun and it's very fast,

which I appreciate. It's just like 90 minutes, get it done. Not a real sport. If it's less than a working week, it's not a real sport. Do you want to show it? How to improve football? Ten goalies, one player. I think it's time to swap around

and have a kind of one-v-one dual aspect in the middle of the pitch. And then even if you get past the guy, sort of human wall of our tallest and largest-handed citizens. I like that. Co-co any suggestions? I wondered what would it be like if the goal was really big, like massive goal.

You'd get loads more goals. What's like the size of the, you have to kick it off the end of the pitch? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep things interesting. Could get other people to come on and they could all have a go. Yeah. Because that's the best bit of football, isn't it?

It's the goals. Yes. So how do you have more? Or the other way would just be to have tiny, tiny goalkeepers. But... Microbes in gold. Alistair. I know you're a...

As a recent, footy experts. No messing about. I think each player should only be allowed to use one foot. It's not called feetball. Wouldn't penalties be amazing with them all hopping? Oh, or like one foot could be cleated. and ready to play, and the other one could just be a tap shoe writing to slip and fall in any notice.

So before we wrap it up, I also want your World Cup predictions. I mean, given El Nino, I'm guessing heatstroke. I'm sorry, but like, you gotta have these players out there, and it's not going to be pretty. I think this might be the push America needs to finally develop its own hooligan culture. It's never taken root because of two things.

One, you can't have a hooligan. culture where people have guns. The fights are too dangerous, it's not fun anymore. Two, you need a walkable city. You need to stagger around. World competitions. My hope is that France and Scotland will play each other, but instead of playing a game,

they will simply charge at each other and fuse to create 11 massive Canadians. I took it really seriously. Andy. Yeah. Good. My notes are like, oh, don't you think it would be interesting

to see how Iran are received? I talked about, like, you know, the monetisation of it and would we see the most expensive bottle of water? And I also wondered if there would be no controversies and maybe the rest would do a really great job. Fingers crossed.

Well, that brings us to the end of this new. I can confirm that Pierre and Desire are our winners. Congratulations. What some news just breaking at FIFA has just announced plans that whenever a controversial VAR decision is made on the big screens in the stadium they will show old newsreel footage of the First World War to help everyone keep things in perspective. Thank you for listening to this week's news quiz. We will be back in September. Goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Cocoa Khan,

Alastair Becker King, Pierre Novelli and Desry Burch. In the chair was me, Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Lottie Allen, Angela Channel, Eve Delaney and Katie Story. The producer was Georgia Keating, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. Could you talk about being invisible, or double denim?

Who knows what's next on the new series of just a minute? Belting out a rendition of Godabat. Whatever the topic, Our panel has just a minute to speak without hesitation, deviation or repetition. Join Zoe Lyons, Desiree Birch, Paul Merton and many more for the new series of just a minute with me, Super Kids. It's funny because it's true. Listen on Radio 4 and the full box set is available now on BBC Sounds. She's one of the best-selling music artists of all time.

Rising to fame as a member of R&B group Destiny's Child before launching a solo career that's produced chart-topping hits and era-defining albums. And with a business empire spanning hair care, whiskey and entertainment... It's fair to say she's more than just an artist. She's a global brand. Good Bad Billionaire is taking a closer look at the life and fortune of Beyonce. Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.