The Naked Week: Ep6. Tariffs, Theme Parks, and Twister.

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Hello, I'm Andrew Hunter Murray.

Welcome to The Naked Week.

Imagine Channel 4 News if Krishnan Guru Murthy blinked first in a trade war with his own tie.

This week, after more tariff turbulence, you can criticize him all you like, but at least the US President is bringing back long-lost words.

Old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term.

Eggs.

It's such an old-fashioned term, isn't it?

Eggs.

So much more elegant than today's term, hen's ass incubation chamber.

Also, this week, there was an unexpected boost to the national mood.

Boris Johnson has been attacked by an ostrich.

Good.

Good.

Would anyone like to hear it?

Yay!

Oh, Christ!

Shit is all right.

So it's been a fast-moving, ever-changing week, but it's been good to have one thing we can be certain of.

Eggs-loving Trump will not back down from his tariffs.

Here he is on Monday.

Would you be open to a pause in tariffs to allow for negotiation?

Well, we're not looking at that.

Not looking at that, not even thinking about it.

Then he took to social media to drive the message home.

Here's what he wrote: Don't be weak, don't be stupid, don't be a panican, a new party based on weak and stupid people.

It says something about how fast this story is moving that we simply don't have time to focus more on the word panican.

But then the White House press secretary really made sure that we got the message.

President Trump has a spine of steel, and he will not break and America will not break under his leadership.

Yes!

Trump the unbreakable leader.

So the one thing we could be sure of was that Trump was not going to change his mind on tariffs.

And by Wednesday night, he made sure we all understood that loud and clear by saying...

And now I've reversed it.

At which point in this story, I wonder, do you think Trump's advisors pointed out to him that he owns rather a lot of stock in Wall Street?

Honestly, what a panic ann.

Now, before we continue, I'm very sorry to bring the mood down.

Just as we're getting going, I'm afraid I have some rather sad news.

Do you think globalization is now over?

Yeah, it's ended.

Globalization, as we've known it for the last number of decades, has come to an end.

Indeed.

As foretold by Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones and Chief Weeping Widow to the BBC Laura Kunzberg, it's my solemn duty to confirm the untimely death of globalization.

Gone too soon.

So if I could ask those of you now assembled here and those of you listening at home to please stand for the eulogy.

If you could.

Please, please do.

Thank you.

We are gathered here today to commemorate globalization.

You brought so much joy into our lives.

This week, you have made us all Google financial terms like bond yields and unilateral import levies and then accidentally land on a very not safe for work website while searching what is a bear market.

Maybe that was just me.

But sadly, your race is now run.

Cut down in your subprime by a hail of trade tariffs, retaliatory trade tariffs, retaliatory, retaliatory trade tariffs, an increase of tariffs, the freezing of tariffs, a reversal of tariffs, and a critical build-up of emergency.

The rest is politics podcasts.

Please be seated.

Thank you, everybody.

Yeah, it's not dead, Andy.

Sorry, what?

False alarm.

Globalization is fine.

And you are?

Freya Parker, The Naked Weeks False Alarm Globalisation's fine correspondent.

Hello, Freya.

Hello.

Hi.

Andy, I swear, I saw Globalisation up and about on Monday afternoon.

She looked great.

And you know who else saw?

This guy.

We are also going to work to reduce barriers to trade across the globe, to accelerate trade deals with the rest of the world, and champion the cause of free and open trade right across the globe.

Admittedly, those all mean the same thing.

But still, does that sound to you like a man who thinks globalization is dead?

Well, I mean, no, but hang on, over the weekend it was dead.

And on the third day,

it rose again.

You see?

It is the season, Andy.

And it was all thanks to the Labour top brass heading to somewhere near Birmingham, putting clothes pegs on their noses to block out the smell of the bins, and giving a couple of rousing speeches in front of a Jaguar Land Rover assembly line.

Jaguar Land Rover, our leading exporter of goods.

Can I just say a big thank you for making us proud to be British?

Sorry, is Jaguar Land Rover not 100% owned by an Indian multinational?

Exactly, Andy.

Death of globalisation, more like shmeth of shmobilized schmeissen.

How are you spelling that?

I don't know.

I'm not Susie Dent, Andy.

But you know who is?

Kia Starmer.

Loves his words, does Kia.

He even rolled out some brand new ways of using them this week.

Here we are, Monday, with you.

Please read into that a statement of intent, because it is a statement of intent.

A new entry, a new entry in the labor lexicon.

We've had pledges, we've had milestones, we've had steps, we've had missions, and now statements of intent.

I mean, forget cars.

Clearly, our most profitable industry is Big Thesaurus.

Okay, Sunday, globalization was dead.

Monday, St.

Kier, Lazarus did back to life.

But Trump's still trying to crush China in his tiny hands.

The White House confirming a 104% tariff.

Breaking news, China has retaliated, announcing an 84% 84% tariff.

US tariffs on China now total 145%.

On Friday, China raised tariffs on US goods to 125%.

China's Commerce Ministry said in part, China will fight to the end.

China and the US fighting to the end.

Truly, the Gallagher brothers of geopolitics

in that they're not worth nearly what they're charging.

But after a whole week of conflicting reports about the demise of globalisation, what's the reality?

Could the Naked Week survive in a hardline Make Great Britain Great Again economic environment?

To find out, I'm joined by the Naked Week's hardline Make Great Britain Great Again Economic Environment correspondent, Freya Parker.

Freya.

Hi, Andy.

Does this show need other countries?

In theory, no.

The Naked Week could survive as an anti-globalist, hermetically sealed British show with no foreign influences whatsoever.

Great.

I mean, you'd have to change the title.

Why?

Well, the word weak comes from the Old English wick, which is Germanic in origin.

And being naked technically comes from the Garden of Eden, which

it simply can't have been in the UK because no true Brit would have enough body competence to strut about in drizzle wearing a fig leaf.

Okay, well, what would be a 100% pure British title for this show?

If you'd want to keep it truly British, I think you'd have to call it something like

the

basically no words, just a sort of disappointed sigh.

The sort of noise that you make, you know, when you wake up in a travel lodge.

You know what I mean?

Okay, what would an episode of BBC Radio 4's The

contain?

Well, no jokes, that's for sure.

No change there?

Yes.

You were all thinking it.

Okay, but why?

Why no jokes?

Because the concept of jokes actually originated in ancient Mesopotamia.

And the first ever written down joke was about 4,000 years ago for series 7 of Have I Got News for You?

Okay, so no title, no jokes.

Do we get microphones?

Maybe, if you credit David Edward Hughes as the inventor, but then the sound mixer they're plugged into is American,

and the table the microphones are sitting on is

just a sec.

Oh, it's being held up by a Filipino child, what?

Yes,

he said he wanted to work in show business, so and also you wouldn't have any way of broadcasting the show singers.

Radio is Italian.

What if we just gave people the scripts to read?

You're forgetting about the printing press.

Witches?

No, it's nothing to do with witches.

It's German and paper is Chinese.

What about you?

Any non-white British ancestry?

Actually, no.

No way.

Wow.

But you can wear that suit, seeing as it looks like it was made in a sweatshirt by six-year-old Ricardo under the table here.

How dare you?

This suit is genuine, 100% Italian.

Just like the Dolmio puppets.

No, to be honest, Andy, if you wanted to make a truly anti-globalist episode of The Naked Week, it would probably boil down to just you wearing 100% Harris tweed, singing green sleeves into a radish.

Bring it on.

Bring it on, did you say?

Globalization lives on.

Thank you, Freya.

Thank you.

You're listening to The Naked Week on Radio 4, where it's time once more for us to join hands and, in the spirit of topical togetherness, stroll through the quiet garden of current affairs contemplation.

It's the news in haikus.

Charles and Camilla, 20 years.

More like 45, says Diana.

For our last ever episode,

it's the news in haiku.

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So, in the midst of the whole world continuing to collapse, our glorious leader tried to cheer us all up this week.

Someone comes and says, Would you like to launch a theme park?

A theme park!

He's excited.

We're excited.

It's so exciting.

A new theme park, and it's in Bedford.

But no, it is exciting.

Because The Naked Week has managed to get hold of some of the theme park plans.

Joining me now is The Naked Week's Some of the Theme Park plans correspondent, Freya Parker.

Freya, what have we got?

The Global Markets Coaster.

It just drops.

There's the Trumper cast.

They just indiscriminately smash around with no sense of direction, completely out of control.

The Thames Water Log Flume

is pretty self-explanatory, but do keep your mouth closed on the ride.

Yes, please.

There's the HS2 ghost train, the northern leg of that.

The northern leg has been cancelled.

There's Russell Brand's heavy petting zoo.

Oh.

I'm sorry, that's been cordoned off with police tape.

Unfortunately, the teacups are closed because of tariffs on China.

No, you get stuffed.

It's the last in the series.

You're listening to The Naked Week, in the week when Prince Harry began his latest UK court battle.

And speaking of pedigree chumps, it's time once again to grab the plastic bag of investigative journalism and trail behind a leaky Westminster watchdog.

To do this, please welcome Tortoise Media's political editor and six-time winner of the Naked Week Award for Most Convoluted Canine-Based Introduction.

It's Kat Nealon.

Kat, it's the last of the current series.

What's our grand finale?

Actually, Andy, we're going back to the watchdog where it all began, the Electoral Commission.

Ah, the original lassie trying to drag political sleeves out of the well.

So, in episode one of this series, we looked at a millionaire businessman making donations to senior Labour MPs, some of which were only registered with the watchdog after the Naked Week pointed them out.

Is that right?

right?

Yes.

Although the Electoral Commission does, in theory, regulate donations from individuals and individual companies, there's also a little-known third way to give money to politicians called unincorporated associations.

Which are?

Damn.

As a House of Commons report put it earlier this year, unincorporated associations are permissible donors, but they do not have to conduct permissibility checks on their own donors.

Anyone, including foreign nationals, can donate to them.

So hold on.

Even though there are very explicit rules against foreign money entering UK politics, anyone from anywhere can donate to our politicians or parties through an unincorporated association.

Yeah.

With no checks on who they are or where the money's from or what kind of influence they might hope to buy with those donations.

Pretty much.

Okay, are there any specific examples of overseas money coming in via these associations?

There are.

Are you familiar with the Carlton Club?

The Carlton Club, which is the private members' club, formerly the Conservative Party HQ.

Yeah.

So it probably won't come as a surprise to hear that they donate quite generously to the Tories.

And where do they get their money from?

Well, since 2020, the Carlton Club and its political committee have received payments worth £250,000 from a letting and real estate company called Stranbrook Limited.

Okay, so what's the issue there?

The issue is that although it's registered in the UK, Strandbrook has a different controlling company registered in Lichtenstein.

Ah, Lichtenstein.

Where famously, nothing financially creative has ever happened.

And this company, ultimately based abroad, has been giving money to an unincorporated association which has been giving money to the Conservatives.

All completely legal and the Carlton Club Political Committee told us they had complied with electoral law in respect of all political donations.

But it's also worth noting that until last month, Strandbrook's directors included Henning Connler, a Swiss-German property tycoon who was recently accused of using a frontman to funnel millions of euros to German far-right party AFD?

And was that legal?

Well, the allegations are sufficiently serious that police in Germany and Austria have launched an investigation.

Conner hasn't commented on the claims, and the AFD says they have been assured the donation did not come from him.

Of course.

But in the UK, at least, the company.

Oh, excuse me, that's me.

I'll just pick that up.

Hello?

Oh, hang on a second, yes, I'll put you on speaker.

BBC lawyer here.

No UK rules have been broken, and there's no suggestion of wrongdoing from Stranbrook, the Carlton Club, or the Tories.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thanks.

Hastily added libel prevention voiceover.

And may I say, where were you for the first five episodes of this series?

Presumably though, there are stringent requirements for unincorporated associations.

Financial records, business bank accounts, that kind of thing.

No.

The only requirement for an unincorporated association is that if it donates more than £37,270 per calendar year, it has to give the regulator a few extremely basic details.

Okay, what if they don't want to give the regulator those few extremely basic details, but they do want to donate more than that weirdly specific amount of money?

Then they can create another unincorporated association and carry on donating until they've reached that threshold again.

Then create another, then another, then another, and so on.

It's seemingly limitless.

Oh, like Ed Davies' capacity to embarrass the nation.

But hang on, we still haven't defined what exactly an unincorporated association is.

Conveniently for us, us, Andy, the regulator has an association of individuals who've come together to carry out a shared purpose.

Is that it?

That's it.

That's the vaguest thing I've ever heard.

And I've heard Robert Peston ask a question.

So, according to the watchdog, practically any group of people with a shared purpose could be an unincorporated association.

Bell ringers, your 10-year-old niece's birthday party, fight club.

Yes, to all of those.

Individuals who have come together to carry out a shared purpose.

Wait a second, Cat, that could define everyone in this room.

We're all here for a shared purpose.

And that is to listen once again to Boris Johnson being attacked by an ostrich.

It's so cheering.

It's so cheering.

But

hypothetically, Kat, if the naked weak wanted to funnel billions of pounds into British politics, could we form our own unincorporated association right here and now?

Andy, we absolutely could.

Yes!

Let's do it.

What do we need?

You need a name and some written rules.

Written on what?

Anything.

Doesn't matter, as long as they're written down.

Genuinely, anything will do.

Oh, great.

Okay, well, what about Chris Mason's crop top?

He left it here after they recorded Americast this morning.

Hang on.

Honestly, anything.

Here it is.

I've got a sharpie here, so I'm going to write on it.

Are you sure this is the official, legitimate legal method for creating an unincorporated association?

Astonishingly, yes, it really is.

And it doesn't cost anything.

And you don't have to register with any regulator.

Okay, that is incredible.

So I'm just going to write a Naked Week unincorporated association.

And you said we need some rules.

Well, that's easy.

The first rule of the Naked Week Unincorporated Association is you do not talk about the Naked Week

Unincorporated Association.

Right, done.

And now you can give as much money as you like from any part of the world to any UK politician or party.

But do you know what?

We're feeling generous.

We might want to donate more than 37,270 quid a year without giving any details to the regulator.

So let's have a second one set up just in case.

So I'll just scribble this one on this page of the script here.

The Naked Week Unincorporated Association 2, brackets, overflow, close brackets.

Rules, audience, what is the second rule of the Naked Week Unincorporated Association?

Do not talk about the Naked Week Unincorporated Association.

Beautiful.

Two overflow.

Good.

And we've got some lawyers in.

Great.

Congratulations.

Everyone here is now part of the biggest regulatory loophole in Westminster politics, and my work here is done.

Wallets out, everybody.

Thank you, Cat Nealon.

This is The Naked Week on Radio 4.

Still to come, Nigel Farage discovers a long-forgotten tattoo of Greta Tunberg.

Gross.

I couldn't scrub it off this morning, but it will go.

And as he makes his debut on CBB's bedtime stories, GB News' chief conspiracy peddler Neil Oliver reads the tale of Peter Rabbit and friends.

They're kept and used as slaves, used for sex, and then their organs are harvested from their ruined bodies.

Sweet dreams, children.

Imagine the excitement in the Naked Week production office this week when BBC management slid into our DMs with this kind of red-hot steamy chat.

We are now well into the election period for the English local elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.

So, at least two notches up on the impartiality dial this week, please.

Four

X-rated filthy stuff gives me the runt horn.

horn.

But as we're now in an election period, this is to remind us that we need to be impartial in our coverage.

The idea being that you, the listening public, could well be swayed in your voting intentions if, for example, we were to say the word bad enough without immediately adding the word good enough.

Now, historically, the pre-election period which elicits exciting emails from management is called purdah, a word of Muslim origin which means curtain or veil.

But what is it?

When is it?

Why is it?

How does it apply to elections?

And if it's a Muslim word, do we also need a Jewish one for balance?

To talk us through all of this, please welcome Blitio journalist Alicia Fitzgerald.

Hi, Alicia.

Now, you have reported on purdah.

I have indeed.

So, purdah she wrote.

You know, if you didn't like that, you are going to hate the next three minutes.

Alicia, tell us about Purdah and how it impacts local election coverage.

Well, Andy, there are 23 elections for councils across England contesting 1,641 seats.

While general elections can be called any time of year, these local elections tend to be in spring.

So they're not mid-summer purders.

Got it.

Now you're warming up.

Well to be honest, technically they're not really purder at all.

I quote the definition.

Purdah is the official period between the announcement of an election and the formation of the newly elected government, but it isn't called purder in local elections.

So general elections are the only purders in the building.

I mean

look, while purdah applies to government officials, broadcasters also have a duty of impartiality and have to make sure their coverage of the election meets the Ofcom broadcasting code.

So meet is Purda.

Specifically, the section on due impartiality and due accuracy and undue prominence of views and opinions.

And we would have to dance around those rules.

Are you going to say purder on the dance floor?

Well, I was.

I'm not now.

And the BBC's own election guidelines say this.

The order in which parties or candidates appear or are introduced in discussions should normally be editorially driven.

However, programme makers should take care to ensure that they vary this order so that no fixed or unfair pattern emerges in the course of the campaign.

Hmm.

That really sounds like a bit of a dial em

for purder.

Come on, it's the last in the series.

Look, I guess the main thing really is that you have to provide equal coverage of all the larger parties.

So, if you're making any jokes about parties who are standing for election, you must be balanced.

Okay, great advice.

Now, as you know, we at the Naked Week like to lend a hand, not least to our fellow broadcasters.

So, to help any BBC programme in this period of heightened election sensitivity, we have come up with a foolproof plan.

With the details, I'm also joined by our We've Come Up with a Foolproof Plan correspondent, Freya Parker.

Freya, I know the BBC spent a lot of time and resources on getting things right.

What have we got?

What we've got, Andy, is a game of twister.

Okay.

Note that the colours on a twister mat reflect the colours of the main parties.

Red, blue, yellow, and green.

What about reform?

We'd have to include reform?

Yep, we do have to include them, which is why I've drawn some turquoise circles on the mat over on the right.

Or the left, or the left.

Depending on balance and also which way up the mat is.

Yeah.

So we have a twister mat here.

It's taped to the the floor.

Yeah.

And I'm going to be playing Twister on my own.

Yes.

Okay.

Story of my life.

Talk me through how it's going to work.

Okay, so what's going to happen is every time the spinny spinner thing dictates, you have to put a hand or a foot on a colour and then you're going to have to tell a joke about the party of that colour while you are literally balancing

on the mat.

But the spinny spinner thing is random.

How can we be sure we'll be telling an equal number of jokes about each party?

Because of a special broadcasting trick, Andy, known as the edit.

Of course, of course.

This is brilliant.

They should do this on question time.

And Fiona, if you're listening, you can borrow this after us.

But please do give it a wipe before you return it.

Okay.

But there we go.

Let's play BBC Balance, Local Elections, Naked Week, Joke Twister.

Okay, right foot, blue.

Okay, right foot, blue.

Okay, blue, Tory.

How many current Tory leaders does it take to change a light bulb?

None, because apparently now is not the right time for change.

Okay,

left hand, red.

Okay.

Left, left, red, labour.

Red labour, yep.

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

Perfectly able to work, according to Wes Streeting.

Okay, left hand green.

Left hand green, no problem.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

The two co-leaders of the Green Party.

The two co-leaders of the Green Party, who?

No idea.

Okay, right foot.

Shall we curry this up a little bit, please?

Oh, I'm going as fast as I can.

Are you?

Right foot yellow.

It's already on yellow.

Oh, it doesn't matter, it's just a conceit for a comedy show tonight.

Yellow.

Why did Ed Davy cross the road?

Because he was on a space hopper and and it seemed like a fun way to connect with the electorate.

Okay, uh, left hand, turquoise.

Left-hand turquoise.

Why?

Turquoise reform.

Why is reform's official colour turquoise?

Because this is the colour of Lee Anderson's face when he's asked for his pronouns.

Okay, and, oh, I'm slightly between two colours here.

That's fine, I have a contingency for that.

Here it is.

Five MPs, one from each of the larger parties, walk into a bar.

The barman says, I didn't agree to be in this joke.

I didn't know you were coming in here, and I do not endorse any of you.

No, I've lost it, and I've lost the balance.

Ricardo, Ricardo, up here.

The Naked Week was hosted by me, Andrew Hunter Murray, with guest correspondent Preya Poker and guest Alicia Fitzgerald.

It was written by John Holmes, Gareth Koretic, Katie Sayer, Sarah Dempster, and Jason Haisley, with investigations team Kat Neelan, Louis Mian, Matt Brown, and Preya Shaw.

Additional material by Carl Minnes, Alice Bright, Phoebe Butler, Cooper Mwinny Swirk, and Kevin Smith.

The Naked Week is produced and directed by John Holmes.

It's an unusual production for BBC 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.

Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me, the comedy podcast from the BBC that takes history seriously.

Each week I'm joined by a comedian and an expert historian to learn and laugh about the past.

In our all-new season, we cover unique areas of history that your school lessons may have missed, from getting ready in the Renaissance era to the Kellogg brothers.

Listen to Your Dead to Me Now, wherever you get your podcasts.

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