The News Quiz: Ep 8. Musk and Trump Break Up

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Hello, welcome to the new Twids.

And what a crucial show this is as we reach the final show of Series 117, the all-time series score after almost 50 years, a tied at 8,231 points each.

And as the nation braces itself for the government spending review, our teams are Team New Direction against Team Screeching U-Turn.

On Team New D, sorry if that sounds wrong, Team New Direction, Glenn Moore and political journalist Marie LeConte.

And on Team Yui, it's Felicity Ward and Athena Cablenu.

The first question can go to Felicity and Athena.

I'll put this in terms that comedians can understand.

Who is bracing themselves for a difficult review?

Us?

Kia?

Is it yours and my friend Kia?

It is, yes.

Yes, it's the budget's come out.

He's done the big budget announcement for Labour.

I'm hoping to really understand what the fiscal rules are because I just figured out what smart casual means.

And now I've got to understand fiscal rules.

Like, I don't need any more vague rules in my life.

Yeah, because they're not really like concrete plans.

I thought this was like the government says how much money is available for something, and then they put that money forward for it.

But it turns out that all the military spending is just stuff that they think would be nice to have.

And it's like, Sakir Starmer's just made a vision board.

He's taken the manic Pixie Dream girl approach to national security.

He's trying to manifest an F-35.

Well, according to the IFS, them again, appropriate name for an organization that analyses public spending, ifs.

According to

the other department, buts.

According to the IFS, tough whats lie ahead.

Days for topical comedy panels.

It's tough times, basically, because tough choices.

Choices.

Which I will say, they actually said it last year as well, this exact phrasing, and also, I believe, in 2021, and again, quite often.

So I love that there's just one guy going, ugh.

They should do what we all do when we we have a tough choice.

We should use a lifeline.

They should like phone a friend or go 50-50 on their options or ask the audience.

Well we have that's called a general election but um

well let's look a bit more closely at some of the specifics.

Now for these questions well everyone is easily distracted these days as I read in the first half paragraph of an article this week.

Not least newsreaders.

Now some people just really struggle to focus on their scripts these days and misread their worms or just say entirely the wrong tennis.

So what our panelists need to do is listen to these BBC newsreaders getting things wrong this week when reporting on the government spending plans because they were not fully dialed in.

So we're going to have some snippets from BBC Local Radio and our first snippet.

The newsreader is Pertwin Range and this is on BBC West North South.

The government has pledged to spend billions of pounds bringing more

rams, rain and busts to the cities of the UK.

Right, so what did he mean when he said the government is spending billions of pounds bringing more rams, rain, and busts to the UK?

That sounded about right to me.

Is it a public transport thing?

It is, correct, yes.

So, Rachel Reeves wants there to be more public transport around the country.

She's promising trams to a lot of places as well, which seems odd because I think in the last few months, Labour have come across as pretty anti-trams.

But the best part of of going on a holiday is going to a town with a tram, right?

So I think that's really great because it means if you're on holiday in a town, if you live there, it's probably not so fun.

Yeah, so they've pledged about £15 billion for transport in cities and regions.

Is this the right thing to do?

Should we really be investing in local transport links that could have a big positive impact in the local areas rather than a big glitzy new train line that runs from, say, London to, for the sake of argument, London in a high-speed loop costing 200 trillion pounds plus another 150 billion for a luxury hotel and spa complex for any squirrels that live along the route.

Is that not a better thing for the nation?

Look, I very much support putting money into transport infrastructure.

I would say though, as an immigrant who has just got her British driver's license, I feel like there could also be put a little bit of money into British country roads.

I just feel like when I got my licence, it would have been very helpful if they'd given me a couple of tips.

They say, do you know about British country roads?

And I'd say, no, what are they?

Three, four lanes wide.

And he would say, it is the width of a Nissan Micra.

And I'd say, two-way, wow, that sounds stressful.

I assume then that it's very straight so you can see what's coming to what.

And he would say, it is hairpin bend after hairpin bend.

And there's potholes, no guttering, no streetlights, horses, tractors, and it's all set in a hedge maze.

So you can never really prepare visually or audibly for what's coming at you next.

And I would say, my god, it must take so long to get anywhere because, given those circumstances, surely the speed limit,

what is it, 10, 20 miles?

And it says 60 British miles an hour, unless, of course, you're local, then by all means, go as fast as you possibly can.

Another transport question.

What links the following?

Batman, Wonder Woman, Robert Jenrick?

They're all my exes.

Based on a lot of their behaviour, I assume they're dealing with their parents' death badly.

It's not what I've got written down here.

Well, it's what I've got written down here.

Vigilantes.

Yes.

Vigilantalism.

That's not a word that I can say.

It sounds dumber when I say it.

I think because as you haven't shortened it yet, it needs to be like.

Do you a Viggie?

Vidgi Joe.

My auntie genuinely used the word Dezo, and I was like, what?

She's like, yeah, I'm the designated driver.

We've been, Robert Jenrick has been acting as a vigilante by going on the London Underground.

and stopping people who have been sort of dodging fares.

And he's basically being a rubbish Batman.

And I think it's a sort of quite a good deterrent.

And TFL are going to sort of use that.

You know, like how cigarette packets have got like diseased lungs on them and stuff?

Oyster cards are going to have Robert Jenrick on them.

So I don't know if he's aware of it.

The severe disinterest of the people, he chased them down escalators, which I just went and they were like, do one?

He said, oh, we've got to fix all the crime in London.

We've got to fix all the robbery.

We've got to fix the mugging.

We've got to get rid of the weird Turkish barbers.

And I just thought, oh my god there were weird Turkish barbers going guys onto us

and yeah I thought that was really unfair on weird Turkish barbers let them be weird man they've done nothing to you yeah where else can I get a haircut for eight pounds I did last week they gave me more hair

you know but it's interesting he should focus on fair dodging as an issue this is you know he admitted helping a Tory donor avoid 45 million pounds in tax by rushing through approval for a housing scheme.

That was back in 2020, which is the equivalent of dodging a six-zone-day travel card every day from now until October 9,452.

Right, let's have another headline from a distracted newsreader.

This is from Valhalla Flunt on BBC Antarctic.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Britain must be

beach body ready as soon as possible or risk looking stupid.

Right, so what did Keir Starmer actually say?

We've got to be war ready, haven't we?

Yes.

War, what is it good for?

Economic growth.

He said he was going to buy war stuff, but also buy AI war stuff, because AI is going to help us do war.

And I did this.

I went onto an AI site and I asked, how do you get ready for war?

And I swear down, this is what the site said to me.

It gave me five bits of advice for getting ready for war.

Train like a champion.

Then develop a battle cry.

Assemble a squad,

learn from history, and then finally, the best thing, pack snacks.

Also, this is for a war that is apparently potentially 10 years away.

Kirstnam is not going to be here in 10 years.

So why does he care about a sit-like?

Who's ever used the toilet brush on the train?

You said Kier Starmer isn't going to be here in 10 years' time.

Is that a threat, Glenn?

But he's ordered all this stuff for war, like submarines, but it's not going to be ready until 2034.

So somebody who wants to start a war with us is going to have to be very patient

and kindly wait until 2034 until until we're ready for it.

Twelve attack submarines are on the order.

No detail on the defence submarines or the midfield submarines to just knock it around, keep it moving, make space for the other submarines.

Might be able to pick up a couple of cheap ones from Spain, they've got loads of them over there.

Anyway,

no, so this is a segue that arguably has little in common with what we're talking about, but it reminded me of it.

So when I was a kid, I watched Asterix a lot, see, growing up in France.

And there is, I think, an episode where they go fight against the English, so in England, but they kind of have to go up to the cliffs of Dover to fight the English.

Generally, for an embarrassing long amount of time, I thought that all of Britain was raised up.

So the entire island was very high up, and like English people had to climb up and down.

Well, I mean, that actually is one of the spending pledges, actually, is to

extend the white cliffs of Dover around the entire coastline

of the UK.

It's also pretty unfair of Kier Starmer to just come up with all these pledges of like, we're going to have submarines and we're going to have tanks and we're going to have new missiles.

And actually, he's not, like, Rachel Reeves is the one who's got to find the the money for it.

And that's very unfair.

And I'm saying this is someone who picked up my kid from nursery the other day.

And they said, oh, he was crying a bit earlier, but don't worry.

We told him he could have an ice cream on the way home.

And it was like,

why'd you do that?

School leavers are going to be offered what to give them a flavour of life in the armed forces.

Low pay.

A threatening haircut.

One outfit.

All of these quite bottle.

So I think it's all meant to be about the characters and the stick, isn't it?

So I think probably porn and PTSD.

Which one's the carrot?

No, it's a military gap year.

I think what it is, it provides a welcome change to the usual sort of gap year people, and people will be doing a bit more sort of a destructive one.

I actually went abroad to demolish a well.

This all feels very different to my gap year.

I just went briefcasing around Europe.

Well, I mean, it also just made you, you think back to the British military in the past, are the young people of this country really prepared to put the kind of effort in that, for example, young people in Britain did at the Battle of Towton in 1461

in the early stages of the Wars of the Roses.

In a single day of hand-to-hand combat, historians have estimated that around 25,000 people were killed.

And I just don't think our young people today

would be prepared to put that effort in.

I think they take one look at the battlefield and say, no, it's not for me.

And we'd have to hire in a load of Poles and Bulgarians to kill each other just to get the job done.

And also, those people with the War of the Roses, they were also offered an alternative placement at Deloitte, so they could have gone through either.

Well, the government has warned, you know, the challenges we face, the challenge of China was described as sophisticated and persistent, the threat of Russia as immediate and pressing.

I don't know about you, but I find it much easier and more reassuring if my nation's existential threats are described like a perfume or the nose of a wine.

China is set to have a thousand nuclear warheads by the year 2030.

So it's lucky we've got 3,000 extra troops coming online by then.

That should see those warheads off.

China could be a formidable foe, assuming they don't repeat their usual mistake of making all their soldiers out of terracotta.

Yes, well the full details of the spending review will be announced next week.

Let me illustrate why this spending review is such a difficult thing politically.

We're going to do a quick social experiment with our audience here today.

Give me a cheer if you would like everything in the country to work better.

And now give me a cheer if you would like to have much less money.

And that is a hard circle to square

politically in the Bermuda triangle of public spending.

There remain some questions about where the money will come from.

Some within the Labour Party proposed a wealth tax, but there are concerns that this could disincentivise hard-working people in, for example, the care sector or education from working hard enough to become billionaires

government borrowing is already tinkling along at around 150 billion pounds per year so remember there is a magic money tree and that magic money tree grows in the very fertile soil of the future

tough choices are unavoidable as the government finalizes its spending plans leading to possible cutbacks in amongst areas education fair enough Wikipedia can cover it criminal justice trial by media is far quicker and cheaper than traditional trial by jury and does away with those annoying not guilty verdicts.

Defence, they should have an AI viral in ready to go by the end of the decade.

And housing, they're just going to pop an inflatable 200-square-mile peninsula floating in the North Sea off East Anglia, so problems solved there.

If you're wondering where the money has come from for all this, Rachel Reeves has very cleverly changed the definition of government debt, which is quite a cunning plan.

You should try it yourself.

No, Mr.

Bank Manager, it is not, as you describe it, a mortgage.

It is, in fact, a funky fun fund.

The score at the end of that round, I have to get this right this week because the White House have been complaining about the accuracy of scoring on the news quiz.

Just the latest pop of the BBC.

It's six points all.

It is Ryan Seacrest here.

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Right, well this is a question based on a story that has been evolving whilst we've been recording.

Which president of the world's most powerful nation and which world's richest man have had a massive public falling out whilst we've been recording?

Is it perhaps Donald Trump and Elon Musk?

Correct.

They're fighting like ex-boyfriends.

So like Elon Musk has posted, time to drop the really big bomb.

At Real Donald Trump is in the Epstein files.

That is the real reason they have not been made public.

Have a nice day, DJT.

Donald Jeffrey Tapstein.

It's such a bad breakup, which is the best breakup.

Like how delicious that they're so immature and poorly emotionally regulated that they're just putting everything out there.

You know, when you're like, oh my God, that is not the way for a grown-up to act, but don't stop.

Elon Musk has retweeted: someone posted a poll saying just who is right, and you can click on Elon Musk or Donald Trump.

Like, this is just.

That's democracy.

That's fair.

Yeah, that's also why democracy will never work.

Well, yeah, so we have a

new story evolving over the course of this show.

I was going to ask our panelists what Elon Musk could describe as a disgusting abomination, but it sounds like he's describing quite a lot of other things as disgusting abominations

now.

I mean, it's essentially a new perfume wafting across the air of Washington, D.C.

inevitabilité.

Pas politics,

musky yet flagrant.

I'm right here.

I mean, in terms of break-ups, this has all all the ingredients to be one of the absolute all-time classics.

So, where has this come?

This has escalated wildly, and it's over the Bill.

Yes, the big, beautiful.

Yes, one big beautiful.

Yes, who's married to the one big, beautiful Hillary.

If there's one thing that I love more than seeing a rich loser fail, it's seeing two rich losers fail.

It is so wonderful watching an incel lose.

I know that he does have 14 children, but I don't believe that he's had sex 14 times.

He just don't.

He just looks like a mechanical furniture with skin stretched over it.

Just with the eyes of a serial killer, but the mouth of a pensioner still waiting for his soup.

You know what I mean?

I don't really know that I want to come in straight after this.

But no, but what I do find, like, on a brief sort of serious note, fascinating about this, is that, you know, Americans in Hollywood, they have this habit of kind of taking either that Japanese, British, whatever movies and making bigger, sort of, sexier versions of those.

And I feel like that's what happened.

Like, because in Britain, we had that with essentially Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings, that we are watching exactly the same thing happen on a much grander scale.

And I think Boris and Trump clearly have this thing, you know, that they inspire this thing in people, because person after person will go, well, that guy in power has betrayed every single person who's worked for him.

He will not betray me, though.

We'll be fine.

And that's exactly what's happened again.

Well, a related Musk question: what has come down by over one-third and why on trousers since taking Ozempic?

My IQ from being on this show.

Is it Match of the Day viewers?

It's Tesla's, isn't it?

Yeah, Tesla Sales, yes.

I think it's quite cute, but it's now Tesla's becoming like a bit of a niche community.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, you know, you see bus drivers and they sort of flash their lights at each other.

Apparently, Tesla drivers just do a little sort of salute out there.

Everyone thinks it's because, like, you know, I don't want to drive a Tesla because I'm not a Nazi.

You know, we don't want to drive Teslas because there's no charging points in this bloody country.

You can't charge them.

Tesla's for people who looked at car door handles and went too easy.

Welcome, breaking news reaching us.

Elon Musk is now on the loose.

These are worrying times.

I have been asked to share the official advice for what to do if you encounter an Elon Musk in the wild after his escape from the White House.

Do not attempt conversation.

He cannot hear anyone.

Sorry, he doesn't listen.

Slight difference.

Wait until his charge runs out, then take him to your local robot repair garage and see if they can rewire him before you switch him back on, or if all else fails, run in a zigzag and climb a tree.

Alternatively, you can just on an open palm put some ketamine very

quietly towards him and lower your eyes as well.

Don't make eye contact.

Inform, educate, entertain.

Ghost is in the air.

At the end of that round, the score is seven points all.

Our next round is a science round, and to make it seem more intelligent, like OnlyConnect, we're going to ask our panelists to choose a category that has absolutely no link to the question they will then be asked.

In tribute to Robert Jenrick, the categories are symbols of national decline.

Felicity, you can go first.

Would you like three-foot pothole, discarded chicken leg, graffitied bus stop, or unidentified floating object in river?

Let's go with chickens.

All right, research funded by what industry is more likely to suggest that what is good for you.

Oh, this is meat.

Yep.

There's research into meat funded by the meat industry to suggest that red meat is good for you.

I mean shocking.

It's big meat and they're sponsoring big meat.

And as someone who looks like a vegetarian,

I find this very upsetting.

I'm not a vegetarian by the way.

I've never been a vegetarian.

I would be if I didn't eat meat, but they tell me that that's a deal-breaker.

I think people are really unfair when it comes to this kind of research.

I think it's completely legitimate.

And I'm a researcher myself, actually.

I fund my own research, and I conducted some research into Pedro Pascal

using my own money.

And my research came to a very interesting conclusion that there's a knot in my back that only he

can get out.

It's actually an epidemic because I've also got an itch that only he can scratch.

I think you find funded biased positivity in almost every field.

And for instance, Andy, everyone is very nice to you.

And I'm actually the only person on this panel not funded by Andy Saltzman.

And I've got to say, actually, backstage, you're actually a real bastard.

And you won't hear that from Felicity.

She's in the pockets of Big Andy.

They sure is.

We've had it with wine recently, we've had different reports.

Some saying red wine is good for you, others saying that any more than one glass of red wine per year is tantamount to skinny dipping in a shark tank.

And also, that one hot dog per decade can make your knees and elbows switch places.

So I guess all these things have a bit of a tainted history.

You know, in the days of smoking, you'd get these reports funded by the tobacco industry saying smoking 180 high-tar gaspo lung busters a day reduces your chances of dying of old age.

So

let's have another question.

So the remaining categories, you've got pothole, bus stop, or unidentified object in river.

What would you like, Glenn and?

I think unidentified object in river.

What do you think?

Unidentifiled object in river.

Excellent.

Okay.

Following yet more research, guys, get out and live your lives.

It has been suggested that urban planning could be improved by tapping into what precious resource?

Oh, young people, we should be grinding them up for energy.

I think that's just the next logical step at this stage.

Yes.

I mean, that's actually closer than would be ideal.

It's kids' imagination.

Yes, it is, yeah.

But that shouldn't be used to plan a town.

The infrastructure would collapse.

Within weeks, you'd go, where is the nearest water treatment facility?

And you go, right, okay, it used to be where the roller coaster shop is.

If I asked my three-year-old to design a town, it would literally just be ice cream shop, ice cream shop, ice cream shop, playground, toy shop, vape shop, ice cream shop.

My rule of thumb is: if you drink your own bath water, you don't get to plan cities.

Oh, well, what a way for me to find out.

It's because kids are imaginative.

That's basically what they've said.

But kids are imaginative because they don't know anything.

They don't know.

I'm imaginative about loads of stuff, and it's all stuff that I know I don't know about.

In the same way, for instance, I've never been on the dark web.

I imagine it looks like CFACs.

I'm really certain about that.

Just on a serious note, I haven't been on the dark web, but I also don't know what CFAX is.

So it was a bit like the dark web,

but for the Premier League scores.

Okay.

So was CFACS your equivalent of Minitel, which we had in France?

So this is one of those weird things of like, obviously, when you grow up somewhere, you don't really realise what's normal and what's not.

And then I moved in.

People are like, what on earth are you on about?

And yeah, which I also had as a realization when it turns out that when you play Tribal Pursuit, not every country in the world calls the little things camembears.

We just called them Dairy Lee triangles.

Yeah, well, so yeah, this is this little bit of research found that children remove limitations of reality and plausibility.

Now, whether you personally want limitations of reality and plausibility removed from the design and safety of your buildings, roads, bridges, and flyovers, well, that's up to you.

But town planning has been held back for too long by things like basic practicalities, stuff costing money, people having to live in towns.

It's so much easier to design urban areas if you didn't have to sully them with humans.

Town planners should be working in special hermetically sealed pods in a secret location, rubbing their hands as they gaze in wonder at their own genius, manifested in a 3D hologram of a skyscraping, futuristic, utopian megacity, giggling, wait until I add the low-traffic neighborhoods.

It's going to be awesome.

Right, well, the scores are tied at eight points all.

Which means we now have a tiebreaker, which is predictions for what will happen between now and September.

So we're not going to know the winner of the show until September.

Marie?

Aliens.

Why not at this date?

Okay, aliens, Glenn?

I'm calling it now 2023 is going to be my year.

Elon Musk, Donald Trump are going to make a baby.

Well, come on, mate.

There are people eating listening to this.

Felicity?

Well, I'm going to Majorca on Monday, so I don't care.

Well, we will have the official winners of this show based on which of those.

I think, Marie, you've got the biggest chance with the alien there.

That brings us to the end of this show.

Just some breaking news reaching us.

A commuter train has just arrived 23 years late.

The train left Snutterbridge Parkway in early 2002 and it's just pulled into London Peccadillo Street.

It contained 30 passengers who've reached retirement age during the journey, a couple who'd married and divorced twice, and an entirely new species thought to have derived from the train cat and a ham sandwich from the buffet trolley.

Passengers on the affected train will be entitled to a 50% refund under the lost decades scheme.

Anyway, thank you for listening.

We'll be back in September.

Until then, may the summer be with you.

Goodbye.

Taking part in the news quiz were Glenn Moore, Felicity Warder, Fina Cabranu and Marie LeComte.

In the chair was me, Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Cameron Loxdale, Jay Gebby, Alexandra Haddow and Eve Delaney.

The producer was Pete Strauss and it was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4.

Hello, Russell Kane here.

I used to love British history, be proud of it.

Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, massive fan of stand-up comedians, obviously Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor.

That has become much more challenging.

For I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius, the show where we take heroes and villains from history and try to work out were they evil or genius.

Do not catch up on BBC Sounds by searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed.

But if, like me, you quite enjoy it, have a little search.

Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Kane.

Go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed.

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