The Naked Week: Ep5. Tariffic Trump retaliation, and Woop Woop - it's the sound of the Thought Police.

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Hello, I'm Andrew Hunter Murray, and welcome to The Naked Week.

Imagine the moral maze after a 10% tariff on Michael Burke's Chinos.

Coming up on the naked week, Trump escalates his round with Russia.

He did sort of take a dump on Putin.

Wow.

I know he's called Pooh Tin, Donald, but that is going a bit far.

Also on the show, Radio 4 producers insist the rumors that other Today presenters are deliberately distancing themselves from Nick Robinson are entirely unfounded.

You're listening to Today with Nick Robinson in Salford and Anna Foster on Thailand's border with Miami.

Still somehow not far enough, is it?

And so to the Taris of Trump, perhaps a man best described this week, certainly in the minds of other world leaders, by the late Val Kilmer in Top Gun.

You're everyone's problem.

You're unsafe.

I don't like you because you're dangerous.

Thanks, Val.

R.I.P.

Three cheers for Liberation Day.

And before we begin, the Naked Week would like to express our sympathy to Melania, who must have heard Liberation Day and very much got her hopes up.

But as you know, we at the Naked Week like to help.

So as this fairland plans its retaliation to the 10% imposed on us, Keir Starmer has said, we will keep all options on the table.

Sadly, tables, of course, will also be affected by the tariffs.

But two can play the tariff game.

Jonathan Reynolds said as much in the Commons on Thursday.

I am today launching a request for input of possible retaliatory action.

And as ever, Jonathan, we've got your back.

We're with you.

Let's start slapping tariffs on American imports starting now.

To decide precisely on what, I'm joined by the Naked Weeks.

What US import shall we slap a tariff on correspondent, Larry Budge?

Larry, what's first?

200% on unnecessary whooping.

Oh, right.

About time.

Here's another one.

Having fake teeth like strip lighting in a nuclear reactor, 50% tariff.

Not being able to say aluminium, 50%.

Insistence, insistence on calling bum bags fanny packs, 60%.

With a blanket 10% on top, because every time you say it, it makes us snigger.

Calling sports events that only involve teams from your own country a World Series.

No.

Unacceptable, 112%.

Shop assistants who say, have a nice day.

No.

I'm British, thank you very much.

Not only do I not want to have a nice day, I can't.

54% tariff.

That awful plastic thin slice of yellow you ludicrously call cheese, 300%.

The idea of no national healthcare, 600%.

Chocolate that tastes like sick, 700%.

Getting the dates the wrong way around, 8,000%.

It's 11.9.

But, Larry, is there any common ground?

Is there any way to lower tensions?

Is there anything we can agree that neither of us wants to import?

James Corden, great.

Now, criticising the police is easy.

For instance, Every breath you take is a stalker's anthem and Roxanne is too shouty.

But sometimes sometimes criticizing His Majesty's constabulary is even easier because they do tend to bring it upon themselves.

This week alone, we've had three high-profile instances of police plunging into a row over heavy-handed tactics.

First, there were the parents arrested for complaining about their children's school in a WhatsApp group.

Six uniformed police were sent to their house, despite no evidence of wrongdoing having actually been produced at any point.

They may have just all watched the dawn raid episode of Adolescents and got excited.

Then, according to reports, Plodd plodded up the path of a mushroom forager to warn her in no uncertain terms that she should not forage any mushrooms from her local park.

And quite brilliantly, the forager's name was Louise Gather.

And she was cautioned by PC Overreach, Sergeant Fascist Police State, and Inspector, you can see where this joke is going.

But then came the crowning, as in Crown Prosecution Service, Glory.

The Sunday Times has revealed that 20 officers smashed down the door of a Quaker church to arrest women discussing climate change and Gaza.

Now, these women were part of a protest group called Youth Demand, who, to be fair, are certainly guilty of having a name so prosaic, they may as well have called themselves Protest Group.

But the point is, they weren't actually doing anything apart from having a meeting in a room they'd hired.

Admittedly, prior to this, they had been posting on social media that they planned to bring London to a standstill with a protest around Gaza, but the point is, they hadn't yet.

And not committing a crime really shouldn't be an arrestable offence.

Although, if any of them does go to prison, we will know who's really to blame for their doing porridge.

It's the Quakers.

Thank you.

Critics have said that all of this feels a bit minority report.

The Tom Cruise film in which police go around detaining people for pre-crimes in a nightmarish, dystopian future, which is where we all live now.

To be fair, thanks to the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts act 2022 written by philip k dick conspiracy to cause a public nuisance is a crime but just what is it to find out i'm joined by the naked weeks conspiracy to cause a public nuisance is a crime but just what is it correspondent larry budd larry conspiracy to cause a public nuisance just what is it whoop whoop andy it's the sound of the thought police

okay we don't whoop we're british 200 tariff

but what do we know about the quaker house six well i wanted to check my notes here here because they are suspected crimes, okay?

I do have to report this meeting accurately for legal reasons.

According to reports, they were arrested while they were, quote, sitting in a circle eating breadsticks and hummus.

So do not mix hummus and hammas.

Let's not forget they also had breadsticks.

Oh.

Nothing but thugs.

I say, hang a lot of them.

Well, to be fair to the police, we don't know what they were planning on doing with those breadsticks.

A sharpened Grassini straw in the wrong hands is a lethal weapon.

What's happened to the women that were arrested?

Well, as you say, the arrests were on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, which is...

No, no, Larry, it's nothing to do with witches.

And I understand the police are now looking to charge the women with six counts of homicide.

And they did raise the terra mass alarm.

You can make those noises all you like, we are not going to be stopped.

Now, we wanted to know more about exactly how the police are deciding who to arrest.

Well, joining me now is the Naked Week's predicting crimes correspondent, Larry Budd.

Larry.

As many are asking this week, what are the police playing at?

Look, Andy, it's very, very simple.

Solving crimes is really quite difficult.

Whereas arresting random members of the public is a piece of piss.

It makes sense.

And I believe they do have a specialist kit for this.

They do.

And to be fair to them, the police have kindly lent some of it to the naked weak for us to have a look at.

I've got it here.

If you can see that.

Okay.

This is the official police issue crime predicting software.

So for listeners at home, Larry has just pulled out what looks like a child's origami paper fortune teller thing of the type you might find in a typical British playground.

How does it work?

What we do is we ask someone's name and then flip bits of the folded paper toy around to see what crime it lands on.

And then we'll arrest them for it before it's happened because one cannot be too careful.

Here are some new public nuisance crimes that have been this week added to the statute books.

They include wearing white socks with sliders,

causing or encouraging someone to say the word hollybobs,

aiding and abetting a works karaoke night,

or recklessly endangering a nice evening out by mentioning her mother.

So, this is where we're going to weed out any future hardened criminals that might be hiding in plain sight in our studio audience.

Would anyone like to volunteer to find out what potential public nuisance thought crime they might be committing according to the police?

I'm just going to say, you, Madam, would you, what's your name?

Alison.

Alison.

Do you like Hummus?

I like Hummus.

You do?

I do.

Yeah.

Have you ever thought about committing a crime?

No.

Very confident, ladies and gentlemen.

Let's find out.

Larry, if you could please ready the official police issue crime predicting software.

If you'd like to play along at home, you can.

It's really easy.

Just think about possibly committing a crime and then wait for the sirens.

Okay, great.

So, Larry, if you could

I S O

N.

Brilliant.

Alison, could you pick a number between one and eight, please?

Seven.

Seven.

Seven.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Okay, we're just going to open it up.

Alison, can you please read out the newly legislated serious public nuisance crime you might possibly think about committing in the future?

Applauding or going way in a pub or restaurant when someone drops a plate.

Okay.

Alison, I want you to stop and think about that for a moment.

Okay, you have done?

Yeah.

Good.

You're under arrest.

You are going to be taken from this place to be waterboarded with hummus and pierced with sharpened breadsticks until dead.

Okay, don't blame me.

That's the law.

Ladies and gentlemen, Naked Week president number one, Allison!

This is the Naked Week on Radio 4, where once again we hold hands and take together a relaxing stroll through our quiet garden of current affairs contemplation.

It's the news in haikus.

Marine convicted.

Macron is made up, as were Le Pen's employees.

The news?

Hey, it's Brian Christopher.

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You're listening to The Naked Week, in the week when news broke of a long-running showbiz feud between Simon Cowell and David Walliams.

And speaking of things you wouldn't allow on the furniture,

it's time once again to place the Naked Week cone of shame on a Westminster watchdog to stop it scratching off its own ears, just like someone who's accidentally tuned into Vernon Kaye.

As ever, I'm joined by Tortoise Media's political editor and our chief veterinarian, Kat Nealon.

Kat, surely, surely there can't be more rabies-infested strays roaming the corridors of Whitehall.

Oh, but there are, Andy.

It's an inexhaustible supply.

Well, who's on their way to the Battersea Donica Bab factory this week?

Look, I'll admit, we've examined some pretty hopeless regulators, but this one truly takes the doggy biscuit.

It's called the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, or ACABA.

Which is?

No, I'm not doing that.

It's the body designed to regulate people moving between government and the private sector.

If a former minister or a senior civil servant wants to take up a job outside government, they must first consult this committee.

And what does this advisory committee advise?

They have all sorts of rules, some obvious, some less obvious, some baffling, like the casting for those new Beatles films.

Okay, um, give us an obvious one.

Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney.

I mean, really?

I meant an obvious Aqaba rule?

Ah, okay.

Well, for example, ex-ministers and senior civil servants aren't allowed to engage in lobbying the government for at least two years after leaving office.

Why would that be a problem?

Because they might have inside knowledge of commercially and time-sensitive information that their new employers could exploit for profit.

Okay, fair enough.

That sounds like a very sensible rule.

How does the regulator enforce it?

It doesn't.

Not even a little bit?

If you break a rule, the only thing the watchdog can do is send out a sternly worded letter.

That's it.

That's it.

So, okay, I'm sorry to sound like George Osborne describing the North, but

what is the point of it?

Great question, Andy.

And it's also a very timely one because this week the chair of that committee for the last five years stepped down and pretty much admitted that it wasn't fit to tie its own shoelaces, let alone regulate private sector appointments.

So this person has spent the last five years knowing their job is basically pointless.

Is it Ed Davy?

Close, but no.

The chair of this watchdog was former Conservative Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.

Now, of course, Lord Pickles.

The sharp, tangy rush of nostalgia.

Just out of interest, is this the same Eric Pickles who, when called to give evidence to the Grenfell Tower inquiry, said.

Feel free to ask me as many questions as you like, but could I respectfully remind you that you did promise that we would be away this morning?

I do have an extremely busy day.

Yes, that's him.

Okay, so Lord Pickles, a very busy man, spent five years chairing a watchdog he knew wasn't doing its job.

To be fair to him, he's made a point of using his last few months in the role to highlight its weaknesses and told The Naked Week that, his word, slapdash government departments aren't keeping tabs on the revolving door of civil servants moving to the private sector.

He also described it as a scandal waiting to happen.

Okay.

And he believes this is partly by design, calling it a cohort effect.

The existing cohort looks after the last one on the assumption that the next one looks after them.

So essentially they are holding the revolving door open for each other.

Um how would that work?

I don't know.

I think this metaphor needs regulating.

But still,

what jobs are these people picking up?

Funny, you should ask, Andy.

The Naked Week has found 24 ex-civil servants who left the public sector and immediately joined PR and lobbying firms.

Of course they did.

In Westminster, Westminster, you cannot cross the road without tripping over a lobbying firm.

But, all of this seems very inside the Whitehall bubble.

How does this affect people who, say, didn't graduate from Oxford with a 2-1 in PPE and now intern at the Spectator magazine, helping Michael Gove locate his Charlie?

Before the lawyers explode,

that is cockney rhyming slang.

That is cockney rhyming slang.

Charlie XEX specs.

He wears spectacles.

Everybody can't.

I mean, potentially, this has significant long-term implications for people's everyday lives, particularly the way we receive news and information.

How come?

Because big tech is making a big play for civil servants with insider experience.

Okay, so specifically?

Four people who used to work for Ofcom and two who used to work for the Information Commissioner's Office, which is the body that regulates data protection, are now employed by Naked Week favourites and big minge energizers, TikTok.

Oh, God, are we going to play the song again?

Legally, I'm afraid we have to.

Big Birds, Sesame,

Big Minge Energy.

And if you'd like some context for that, please go back and listen to episode one of this series.

Otherwise, it will simply remain a beautiful mystery.

So, TikTok's payroll now includes former employees of the online safety regulator and the Information Commissioner's Office.

It sounds like having inside knowledge of that process might potentially hand TikTok quite a significant advantage.

It might sound like that, yes.

And it's not just TikTok.

Facebook's owner Meta has hired at least seven people who used to work either in the civil service or at Ofcom.

Seven.

Or maybe it was 70 or 700.

Who knows, Andy?

They got rid of fact checkers.

In the spirit of Mark Zuckerberg, let's just call it 70,000.

Right.

Wow.

700 million ex-civil servants.

All now working at Facebook.

Sure, why not?

But overall, the Naked Week has found at least 17 people now working for Google or big social media firms who previously worked for regulators of that industry, and 19 people employed by these companies who previously worked for relevant government departments.

Right, and just to be clear, even though many of these firms are currently lobbying the government to get legislation changed or watered down or in some cases actively battling investigations into their business practices, none of these appointments were scrutinized by the watchdog Acaba.

Not a single one.

And in time-honoured fashion, the naked week is in no way implying any wrongdoing, and no actual rules have been broken.

Sorry to laugh.

Of course not.

Any thoughts on that, Eric?

Feel free to ask me as many questions as you like, but I do have an extremely busy day.

Didn't think so.

Cat Nealon, everybody!

Coming up, it's not until you dig a little deeper into the case against Frances Marine Le Pen that you realise how shameless her rule breaking breaking really was.

She was found guilty, and probably she was guilty.

I mean, I do think anyone doubts that there was some system of illegal

party funding in pasture.

Illegal farting.

I blame her diet of spicy chicken right wings.

Now, this is probably going to come as a surprise, but believe it or not, it is in fact election season.

And for listeners at home, that was the sound of Professor Sir John Curtis climaxing.

Someone in the audience just said incredibly solemnly, this is good.

But it's true.

There are indeed a number of local elections happening next month, and parties have been slowly, oh so slowly, launching their campaigns.

Reform did it via Nigel Farage waving from a JCB like a cross between Bob the Builder and Eva Perron.

Labour, we're pretty sure, launched theirs on Thursday.

The Greens, we're pretty sure, are still hibernating.

While the Conservatives actually did launch their campaign weeks ago, not that anyone noticed.

We genuinely had to look it up to see if it had happened at all.

But don't worry, Kemi's been rallying the troops with an inspiring new slogan.

We know that these elections will be extremely difficult.

That's the spirit.

But the best launch by far was on Monday, and the Liberal Democrat campaign, spearheaded by distinguished public servant and man asked to leave the church church fate after accidentally letting go of the test your strength hammer and bludgeoning the vicar

sir mr Ed Davy.

This morning leader Sir Ed Davey ran around an obstacle course on a hobby horse.

It's official it's a two horse race.

Brilliant.

It really is great fun.

That sound you can hear is William Gladstone turning in his grave.

So fun.

It was fun.

Although unfortunately for Ed, he was mic'd up for the entire 20-minute event, and some of the chat between him and his media manager was also caught on mic.

Let's just say that some of the enthusiasm may possibly have been a tiny bit staged.

Which doesn't involve any jumping,

just mounted games so you're still having fun, still doing it without jumping.

Step over.

Okay, well, I'm going to have to because my leg is pretty painful.

I know, okay, right.

Let's um.

I'm not doing it again.

Well, if you will fling yourself into every ball pit and bouncy castle in the home county, Zed, I'm not surprised you've got a hurty fetlock.

Anyway, while he was trooping the yellow, the best possible example of why you really should pay attention to local politics reared its increasingly fragrant head in the form of an entire city, home of the Peaky Blinders, Spaghetti Junction, whatever's left of UB40, and as currently in the news, an extremely large number of rats as big as cats.

They've got rats big as cats, They've got rivers of mould.

Yes, on Monday this week...

Birmingham City Council has declared a major incident to deal with the ever-expanding result of a month-long bin strike.

But this brummy black bagged bonanza has shone a timely light on the city's council.

Birmingham currently has, to use a technical economics term, no sodding money.

To help us root through this mess and dissect whatever sinks its teeth into our leg, I'm joined by the Naked Week's catastrophic economic mismanagement correspondent, Larry Budd.

Larry, who's really to blame for this?

Oh, well, Andy, I mean, take your pick.

You know, it's either Labour for how they've run the council since 2012, or it's the Tories for cutting £1 billion of its funding during austerity.

Hold on.

Birmingham isn't the only council to be facing bankruptcy, is it?

Absolutely not.

18 councils are at immediate risk of going to the dogs.

Birmingham's the only one that's gone to the rats as well.

Added to which, according to The Guardian this week, around 75 councils are facing bankruptcy in the near future.

So, what is the solution?

I mean, I think we all know.

It's council taxes.

It is, old faithful.

Council tax in Birmingham went up 10% last year, and this year it's going up by another 7.5%.

That's at the same time as the council is closing libraries, scrapping 100% of arts funding, cutting £43 million from adult social care and £39 million from children's services.

I suppose the children will simply have to make friends with the rats as big as cats.

Now,

perhaps the most remarkable thing about all this is that despite overseeing something so shambolic it could have been founded by Prince Harry, the chief executive.

The chief executive of Birmingham City Council is still paid over a quarter of a million pounds a year.

So at least they've managed to find that money somewhere, maybe in a bin bag down the back of a fly tip sofa.

Still,

how else are you going to get someone with enough knowledge and experience to...

Excuse me, I am sorry to interrupt, but this is actually quite urgent.

Oh, okay, we are just in the middle of recording.

I don't think you...

Sorry, who are you?

I'm Felicity Hanna.

I'm the presenter of Radio 4's Moneybox Live.

Oh!

So what is going on?

I think I should be asking you that question, Andy.

I am auditing The Naked Week.

What?

Why are we getting audited?

Moneybox audits every Radio 4 show.

Does it?

I mean, can't this wait?

I'm afraid it cannot.

If you're using licensed fee payers' money.

Not much.

If you're using licensed fee payers' money, you have to be able to demonstrate that you can be trusted to use it responsibly.

So we're going through the entire schedule, every program's accounts, making sure there's no unnecessary, wasteful expenditure.

Tomorrow I'm doing the shipping forecast.

Expect all their money's offshore.

Right, who are you?

I'm Larry.

I'm the various titles, depending on the story we're covering, correspondent.

Whatever, Larry, I'm afraid we're gonna have to let you go.

What?

Sorry, what?

You're firing Larry.

He has been on less than half of one episode.

He is terrible value for money.

Off you go.

It's a good shipping forecast, Joke.

Yes, but hummicide.

Yeah, she does have a point.

Larry, off you go.

Right, where were we?

Well, you were going through our books.

Yes, there were a few things that really leapt out.

What is Naked Weak Energy?

And tell me, it's not that dodgy TikTok ninja song.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Actually, inspired by Nottingham City Council, we spent lots of cash setting up our own energy firm.

Oh, yes, I have got the figures.

Look.

Just like Nottingham's attempt, Naked Week Energy subsequently collapsed, costing the taxpayer almost £40 million.

Well, okay, but you win some, you lose some.

Okay.

This is a strange one.

It says in your accounts that the Naked Week is spending almost £10,000 a year renting an office in Brussels.

Why?

Oh, well, that's easy.

We actually copied Kent County Council, who, like us, did this for no apparent reason.

And the figures?

Kent County Council are currently £740 million in debt.

Okay, but everyone has overheads, all right?

What's the big deal?

We have the rest of our portfolio to bring in the cash.

Okay, good point.

It says here you invested in a water company.

Yep, Naked Wheat Water.

Enfield Council did it, so we copied them.

And

it increased their debt to £1.1 billion.

Okay, what is the Naked Village?

Tell me, tell me it is not a Radio 4 nudist colony.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's that in 2020, Central Bedfordshire Council set up its own building company, so the Naked Week did the same.

And the accounts say

it cost £600,000 a year for four years, and then the council mothballed it before building a single home.

And finally, you spent 300 quid on a gong that you've only used once.

I'm going to take that.

I can use it again.

No?

It's too late, Andy.

In short, the Naked Week has overspent, and I'm going to have to shut you down and confiscate your assets.

Stand up.

Why?

I'm taking your chair.

Okay.

Don't clap that.

And what are these lights for?

Because the audience.

It's radio.

You don't need them.

Okay, I do need to read the credits.

Well, you should have thought of that before you overspent your budget.

Okay.

The Naked Week was hosted by me, Andrew Hunter Murray, with guest correspondent Larry Budd and from Moneybox Live, Felicity Hannah.

Sorry, no, no, you can't afford the music.

You'll have to do without it.

Okay.

It was written by John Holmes, Gareth Koreding, Katie Sayer, Sarah Dempster, and Jason Hazley with Investigations Team: Kat Nealon, Louis Mianne, Matt Brown, and Freya Shaw.

Do you really need these microphones?

Yeah, kind of, yeah.

You don't need that many.

Look, I'll take this one.

You can use that one.

Okay.

Additional material by Carl Mins, Pete Redfern, and Darren Phillips.

The Dick of Week is produced and directed by John Holmes.

Sorry, no, I'm going to have to take this one as well.

Harold's project is an unusual production for BBC Red.

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