The News Quiz: Ep 2. Team Vibes vs Team Bribes

Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4

In this episode of The News Quiz, host Andy Zaltzman leads two teams through a series of comedic dissections of recent global and UK news. T

Key takeaways

• Nigel Farary and Reform UK are facing scrutiny over allegations of receiving illegal foreign donations via a fake donor.
• Eleven MPs have been banned from visiting Israel following new government sanctions on West Bank settlements.

Main topics

• Nigel Farage and Reform UK controversies
• UK-Israel diplomatic relations

Notable quotes

It's like getting 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.

Conclusion

The episode provides a satirical look at how political and social news

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Speaker 3 (0:39) Welcome to the Haunted Library. Have you come in search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From gothic masterpieces to pulpy penny dreadfuls, join me, Colin Morgan, with new episodes twice a week. Find the Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 8 (1:08) Before we start this week's News Quiz, we would like to check whether all humanity has already been wiped out by AI. Experts have suggested this may well happen. We thought we'd make sure it hasn't already happened before we start the show. So I'm going to ask you in the audience here in Birmingham, please answer as honestly as possible. Do you still exist? Yes. Are you all AI bots? No. Are you sure? Yes. That's good enough for me. Welcome to the News Quiz. Speaker 8 (1:43) I'm Andy Zoltan. This week we are recording here in Venice. Birmingham, sorry. I'm always getting those two mixed up. One for the canal fans there. Our teams in a week in which the government in the UK tried to find ways to boost the economy despite no money being available and in which Donald Trump offered $5,000 to every adult American citizen ahead of his midterm elections. We have Team Vibes against Team Bribes. On Team Vibes we have Zoe Lyons and Hugo Rifkind. On Team Bribes, Mark Steele and Celia Aby. Speaker 8 (2:20) To kick us off this week, a story that's been building since last Friday. Which party leader who admits he doesn't always listen could soon be hearing from the police? Speaker 5 (2:29) Sorry, what did you say? I wasn't... That's Mr Nigel, isn't it? Yes. That's what I call him. They were trying to do a donation, right? And then he was pretending that he wasn't listening. But really, the whole time... Speaker 3 (2:47) I think he did. Speaker 6 (2:49) And that concludes the case for the prosecutor. Speaker 5 (2:57) I think he could have come up with a better line. He could have been like, I was eating a big bowl of cereal. I couldn't hear a thing. And they were pretending to be American, right? Speaker 7 (3:06) Yeah, we've all done it. Speaker 5 (3:07) Yeah, well, they Speaker 7 (3:08) were pretending to be American, but the guy was like, hello, I'm American. Everyone was like, yes, of course you are. We're convinced. Carry on. It's like me pretending to be Scottish. Speaker 5 (3:18) Can you do it? Speaker 7 (3:19) No, I am Scottish. That was a joke. Speaker 8 (3:25) Can you pretend to be more Scottish, Hugh? Speaker 7 (3:29) Not really. Speaker 6 (3:31) Well, it's Nigel Farage, and it's staggered the nation because he's usually so reliable and honest. But we're just used to it, aren't we, now, with modern politicians? Just a few years ago, you'd have thought, well, that's ridiculous, but now you go, yeah. Can Speaker 5 (3:47) I just say, as someone whose British citizenship is... pending. I feel nothing about that man. Speaker 5 (3:56) I mean, to be fair Speaker 4 (3:56) to him, though, it is hard to listen, isn't it, when you're slurping down a plate full of oysters at lunchtime and the popping of champagne corks in the background. And then if anybody does say anything of interest, of course he's just drowned out with a sign of the helicopter landing that's been donated by one of his other suspicious stoners. So, you know, I feel a bit sorry for him. I think he's hard done. But I think the establishment are really going for him, aren't they? It's the establishment, Andy, that are going for him. Speaker 7 (4:23) The crux of the kind of reformist thing story is... whether or not they broke the law, right? Which is actually quite hard to figure out, because if everything in this documentary was accurate, they definitely tried to break the law and thought they were breaking the law. Because basically what happened is the fake donor was paying for polls, and they thought the money was coming from America. It's a serious amount of money. It was like £35,000 that the fake donor gave them to pay for polls. And they thought it was coming from America. It was actually paid out by this sort of journalistic outfit. And we don't know where their money came from. Reform says... They were foreign funded, so that's kind of reform saying we did break the law, even though they say they didn't. So if reform's wrong and this group is actually British, then reform tried to break the law and failed to break the law, which is special. But if it wasn't actually from Britain, as reform claims, then they tried to break the law, actually ended up breaking the law, but in a completely different way. from the way they thought they were breaking them. It's like getting 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife, but then you realise that the massive box that says 10,000 spoons on it is actually full of knives, in a way. That's clarifying things, Hugo. Speaker 8 (5:35) Imagine having Speaker 4 (5:36) taken money for the polls as well than discovering you've dropped in the polls. That's just a double whammy, isn't it? He can't be arsed anymore, can he? You can see it. He's like that. Don't care. Whatever. Whatevs. Whatevs. Got five million in the bank. Whatevs. You know. He's come out and said, hasn't he, my family are begging me to stop doing this job. And we're like, no, Nigel. Everybody's Speaker 8 (5:58) begging you. Speaker 8 (6:03) If they are begging him to stop doing his job, I guess we can just be disappointed that he wasn't listening to that either. Speaker 5 (6:08) And I'm ambivalent about all of this. I Speaker 8 (6:12) mean, Farage is not listening. Is that actually quite a good characteristic for a prime minister, to just completely ignore everything that's going on? Oh, Speaker 4 (6:20) boring! That's his tactic, isn't it? Boring! Yeah, I suppose it's just... It's what I do at home, Andy, and it just makes life an awful lot easier. He Speaker 7 (6:31) said, he said, he said, it's not my job to check these things. It's not my job to be a compliance officer. It's my job to have a nice glass of wine and shake somebody's hand. I'm thinking, I could do Speaker 8 (6:40) that job. I'd like that job. Speaker 7 (6:43) Is Speaker 8 (6:43) that what he Speaker 7 (6:43) said? That's what he said, yeah. But they're also in trouble this week because of the hecklers they beat up. which I imagine comedians have more time for than a lot of people, actually. But, you know, the hecklers, they were in the conference, and all these old... Like, Night of the Living Dead, all these old people attacked them and beat them with sticks and stuff. This girl had her hair pulled. The guy who hit her with the stick said it was blind, blind panic. It was a fight or flight. She only hit her with the stick. She didn't have to run away. And reform doesn't care. Robert Jenrick said, boo-hoo. He was asked about it. He said, is this bad? And he goes, oh, boo-hoo. And, you know, I'm not sure about him. Speaker 4 (7:19) laughter Speaker 7 (7:23) I'm starting to think that the man who painted over a Mickey Mouse mural in a child migrant detention centre might not be a nice guy. Speaker 4 (7:31) Maybe this is reform's idea to get welfare benefits down, is to rile up pensioners so much that they just throw away their sticks in the end. Speaker 6 (7:39) He walks! Well, they're trying to do