The Naked Week: Ep 1. Oval arguments, awful algorithms, and a game of Top (Donald) Trumps.

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Hello, and welcome to the Naked Week.

Imagine news round after it's been shouted at by J.D.

Vance for not wearing a shirt.

So, as Radio 4 gives up the news quiz for Lent, we're back in the week that, at his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump does nothing to quash rumors he's a Russian puppet.

It's time to stop this madness.

It's time to halt the killing.

It's time to end the senseless war.

On the Muppet Show tonight.

And following her recent Telegraph article on national values, Suella Bravman goes to surprising lengths to demonstrate what Englishness is all about.

She got down on her knees in front of a beefeater.

Cryke?

So, Zelensky, Trump, Vance, tariff rows, China threatening war, emergency EU EU summits, hostages, hell to pay.

I don't know, perhaps this week is best summed up this way.

Ah!

Honestly, where to start?

Okay, firstly, it was pancake day on Tuesday, which was nice.

But I do hope you hung on to some of your eggs because as I speak, we're about this far from World War III and you will want to note them down in your ration book with the carbon tip pencil that used to be your thigh bone.

It's the news, we're just reacting to it.

It all kicked off last week, of course, with the vice president bringing no vance joy whatsoever to the Oval Office Party when he started on Vladimir Zelensky for not minding his Ps or his Qs or his JDs and disrespecting Trump, which is a bit rich coming from a man who in 2016 called Trump a reprehensible idiot.

and compared him to Hitler.

I don't need to pass comment anyway, because this week the Western Australian Premier Roger Cook sort of replied on our behalf when asked by an interviewer.

J.D.

Vance is a

knob.

I know what's happening here.

I think the Naked Week has cracked it.

Do we think that maybe Trump only hired Vance so there was someone in the White House who was a bigger...

I'm sorry, what was it again, Western Australian Premier?

Nob.

Thank you.

Than he is, unless we're counting Elon Musk.

Incidentally, Vance and Musk brings a whole new meaning to the phrase JD and Coke.

And I've been told to say allegedly, genuinely by the legal department.

So

nothing good ever came of sticking JD in front of your name.

A thought that came to me in weatherspoons at 10 a.m.

this morning over my fifth pint of Stella.

But

where were Zelensky's manners?

Up until this week, you may have thought turning up to a meeting with a fellow president not wearing a suit would not be as rude as invading a sovereign nation and bombing the hell out of it.

But what do we know?

In truth, in our view, Zelensky should have just told Trump he was celebrating World Book Day, and that's why he'd chosen to dress as stick of the dump.

Trump also said this week that he's going to stop sharing intelligence.

Hmm.

Thank you.

Well done.

On Wednesday, though, Trump revealed Zelensky had sent him a letter.

retro, agreeing to return to the negotiating table.

So, assuming he will get a second bite of the orange White House cherry, and if he wants J.D.

Nobberspoon to stop shouting at him, how should a beleaguered wartime leader mind his manners?

To find out and to help the naked weak brave the diplomatic thicket, please welcome etiquette expert Laura Windsor.

General question to start things off.

How should Zelensky have made a good impression?

in the Oval Office?

It's based on many components that have to work all together.

It's all about your level of grooming, what you wear, body language, which includes smiling.

38% of that first impression is the tone of your voice.

Remember when your mother used to say to you, it's not what you say, but how you say it.

So basically, he failed in nearly all categories.

Right.

We have had the Western Australian Premier calling J.D.

Vance a knob.

Now, that could be classed as rude.

What about this from Adam Bolton on Times Radio?

J.D.

Vance was a piece of shit.

Here's the etiquette question.

When is it polite to call someone a piece of shit on Times Radio?

As mother always used to say, if you have nothing nice to say, just don't say anything at all.

Okay.

That is going to make this a much shorter show, actually, for me.

Okay, let's go a bit broader.

In polite company, should you reload a javelin anti-tank missile from the right or the left?

Being in a war zone, Andrew, isn't quite the same as being in a restaurant, I'm afraid.

Unless it's a Nando's.

Finally, what is the correct form of address when you're speaking to someone who has just binned eight decades of international solidarity and overturned the world order?

I politely refer you to the Western Australian Premier.

Of course.

Laura Windsor, Queen of Epicats.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

This is the naked week, where in turbulent times we take a moment to step off the world and into our quiet, relaxing current affairs garden of contemplation.

It's the news in haikus.

4.6%

rail fare rise or number of trains that run on time.

The news in haikus.

Did someone feed me the second half of that line

as though I'd forgotten it?

Cheeky bastards, right?

Okay.

I'm pleased to say that we've spent all week collecting the cards.

You have to be thankful.

You don't have the cards.

No, sorry, I just said we do have the cards.

You don't have the cards right now.

No, Donald, you're not listening.

We collected the cards.

We have all the cards.

You don't have the cards.

You don't have any cards.

What are you talking about, you mean?

We do have the cards.

And to prove it, we are going to play with them right now.

I have them here.

These are the cards.

It is the Naked Week game of, what else?

Top Trumps.

Yes.

Joining me to play a hand or two now is the Naked Week's Collapse of Western Civilization correspondent.

It's Rosie Holt.

I'll deal out.

Yes, okay.

While you're dealing, here's what I think about cards.

I think Starmer's played his king too early.

Surely you want a state visit in your back pocket when the real crazy starts hitting the fan.

We've got four more years on the Trump train.

I think Sakir went too big too soon.

Where can he go now when he needs something from Trump?

What can he give him as a present next?

Prince Andrew?

Yes, well, no, he isn't.

I don't care what Trump's done.

That just seems unjustly cruel.

Plus, surely you've seen enough of him already on Epstein Island.

Okay, I've got the cards.

You don't have the cards.

Do not.

No, no, do not stop.

Sorry.

Also, legal have asked us to point out that there's no evidence that Donald Trump has been to Epstein's private island, although he is on Epstein's private jet manifest.

But maybe he was just wanting to watch the films.

Okay.

right.

World leader top trumps.

Here we go.

Yeah, you know how to play, don't you?

Yes, highest scoring card in each round.

Exactly.

Okay, I will go first.

I have a number of opponents who have accidentally fallen out of high-rise windows.

What do you have?

Not good.

I've got an actual Donald Trump card, and it's none that we know of so far.

Okay, I've got several dozen at least, so that's Putin for the win.

Thank you very much.

All right, my turn.

Length of time taken post-election for voters to turn against you?

Five minutes.

Oh, you've got stamer.

Yeah.

Okay, Mike go.

Skill at evading predators.

Sexual or drone.

No clues.

I've got none because he is one.

Oh, it's another Trump card.

There we go.

Okay.

Yeah.

Damn it.

You win the game, ladies and gentlemen.

Our collapse of Western civilization correspondent Rosie Holt.

Last series, The Naked Week, shone a light on the murky world of organized lobbying.

For this series, we're turning our attention to something equally mysterious: watchdogs.

Why?

A, because it's Crafts Week, but B, because

that's just the sort of wild, crazy thing we like to lie awake thinking about.

That, and how I've reached an age where the equivalent of watching Glastonbury headliners The 1975 would have been me at the pyramid stage in 1990 watching a band called the 1940.

Yeah, it makes it

exactly.

Thank you.

So, across this series, we're going to take a closer look at the people that ensure other people are acting properly and above board.

Basically, who regulates the regulators?

Who watches the watchdogs?

Well, for the next few weeks, us.

And to help us, we're joined by the Naked Week's chief investigative digger, Kat Nealon.

Everybody!

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Kat.

Okay, before we dive in, can I just clarify?

Kat, you also work for Tortoise Media, right?

Correct.

Okay, so we have a cat working for a tortoise watching dogs.

That's right.

Very nice.

So who is first onto NOAA's regulatory arc?

Well, it is a watchdog, one that most people will probably have heard of, but without necessarily knowing what it actually does.

It's the Electoral Commission.

Okay, obvious question.

What does it actually do?

Well, the Electoral Commission describes itself as...

The independent body which oversees elections and regulates political finance in the UK.

We work to promote public confidence in the democratic process and ensure its integrity.

Good, I like the sound of that.

That's good, because so do plenty of senior Labour MPs.

Here's Integrity Fanboy and Britain's favourite where's streeting.

I think the important thing is transparency and accountability and that there are no conflicts of interest.

And that is why we have the transparent system that we have.

I think that is a good thing, and long may it continue.

And in the interests of transparency, that was his response to being asked why he'd accepted four free tickets to see Taylor Swift.

I've got a blank space, baby, and I'm writing his name.

Yes?

I'm assuming the Electoral Commission is also big on transparency, right?

Absolutely.

Although they know that their own system needs tightening.

Just last month, the watchdog warned MPs that some rules are out of date, overcomplicated, and inconsistent, and that they have a series of weaknesses.

Are they talking about the Electoral Commission or a Brompton bike?

So maybe it's not hugely surprising that the Naked Week has unearthed a significant donation made to a cabinet minister, which has gone undeclared to the Electoral Commission.

Oh, tell us more.

In July last year, Labour MP Heidi Alexander, now the Transport Secretary, accepted £15,000 from a company called OPD Group Limited for quote local campaigning, which definitely should have been logged with the Electoral Commission by now, but wasn't.

Okay, so just so we're clear: has Heidi done anything wrong?

Has she been hiding

the money?

Shut up.

No.

She registered the donation on her parliamentary page, but it's up to the party to register it with the regulator.

A Labour Party spokesperson told The Naked Week on Tuesday, due to an administrative error, this local constituency party donation was not declared to the Electoral Commission, but this has since been rectified swiftly by the Labour Party and the declaration has now been made.

Which sounds an awful lot like, when you told us about this, we realised we'd failed to do our job.

So, what about this company that donated the money to Heidi Alexander?

OPD Group Limited.

Yes, what do we know about them?

Very little.

It only has four employees and no website, and its most recent set of accounts tells us precisely nothing about its profits or its losses.

And yet, it recently donated 15 grand to the Transport Secretary.

Yep.

So, that is odd.

Do we know who owns OPD Group Limited?

Well, at the moment, that would be the unbelievably similarly named OPD Group Holdings Limited.

And there's even less information available about them.

But we do know it's owned by a man named Peter Hearn.

Okay, that doesn't ring any bells.

Well, he's a millionaire recruitment mogul and longtime labour supporter.

And initially, he gave the money in his own name.

But then in January 2020, he started donating through another company of his called MPM Connect.

Then in 2023, he began donating through OPD Group instead.

Okay, so what do we know about MPM Connect?

Again, and you might spot a pattern emerging.

Very little.

It has no website and apparently no employees.

Its registration on company's house says that it is concerned with activities of head office.

Witches.

No, it's nothing to do with witches, Andy.

But we do know.

And we know because The Naked Week has also spoken to Peter Hearn, who told us that MPM Connect and OPD Group are investment companies and therefore don't need many employees because all they do is invest in shares and other companies.

And apparently, MPs.

Yes.

Hearn told us that he supports certain MPs on the right of the Labour Party because he likes their politics.

To give you an idea of those politics, while he thinks personal taxes should perhaps be increased, he would like lower corporation tax.

A millionaire businessman wanting lower corporation tax.

Astonishing.

Very bold.

Has he been backing any other MPs?

He has.

They include the Security Minister Dan Jarvis, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper.

Oh, oh, and this guy.

That is why we have the transparent system that we have.

I think that is a good thing, and long may it continue.

Oh, Wes.

Wes, Wes, Wes.

You've now slipped down to fourth on my list of favourite Weses behind Anderson, Snipes, and Tominster Abbey.

But.

What does this have to do with the regulator?

The point is, the Electoral Commission isn't keeping up with this deluge of donations, either from Hearn or anyone else.

Since October 2023, MPs have received £234,000 from OPD Group, but the watchdog has only clocked £147,000 of that so far, meaning there's an £87,000 shortfall from one company alone that the official regulator hasn't regulated.

Okay, and that's from one company that's been missed.

Okay, we know that 15 of the 87,000 went to Heidi Alexander.

What about the rest?

Well, Wes Streeting received £53,000 for, quote, staffing costs.

A Wes!

$53,000 on staffing.

For that amount, you could hire 212 Taylor Swift impersonators.

Don't ask me how I know that.

Move on.

To be fair, this donation was very recent.

So it will, we assume, eventually be logged with the Commission.

And Hearn told us that he offered this money to Streeting because the health secretary has a slim majority.

And as such, there needs to be ongoing work in his Ilford North constituency ahead of the next election.

Okay, last time I checked, that was still four years away, unless something seismic has happened since we started recording.

And that sound you can hear, by the way, is Ed Davie hastily booking 45 bungee jumps, just in case.

Now, the Electoral Commission has suggested ways to increase transparency.

For example, last month their chief executive told MPs.

A company doing business in the UK, as is currently the case, should only be able to donate as much as its profits, essentially, over the last year or so.

And isn't that a bit tricky if we don't actually know how much profit companies like OPD Group are making?

Yeah, which perhaps might make you wonder why the system is the way it is.

So, in summary, Kat, we have a mind-meltingly confusing web of opaque companies owned by a wealthy businessman making large donations to senior labour figures, some of which are slipping straight past a knackadold watchdog like Andrew Tate slipping past Romanian airport security.

And in the interest of transparency, those are the opinions of Andrew Hunter Murray.

And his email for the lawyers is andrew.com.

Camille, everybody, Camille.

Thank you very much.

The ocean delights us.

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Others find nourishment in its bounty.

The ocean teaches us how our everyday choices impact even the deepest places.

The ocean moves us, whether we're riding a wave or soaking in its breathtaking beauty.

The ocean connects us.

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Just pour it in your fuel tank.

Make the proven choice with CFOAM.

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Automotive products are sold.

Safe home!

You're listening to The Naked Week.

Coming up, I'm not sure what a normal hour and a half presidential address to Congress sounds like, but...

$8 million for making mice transgender.

At least he covered the key issues, I suppose.

Now...

This week we learned there's going to be an investigation into the Chinese social media platform TikTok and others over over their use of children's data, such as why Emily thinks Charlie XEX is Golls and exactly how much Olivia thinks Taylor Swift is Slay.

According to the Information Commissioner's Office, the algorithms on TikTok are pushing content that is inappropriate, sexually explicit, and potentially radicalizing to children.

And frankly, we at the Naked Week won't stand for it.

How dare China put our good old British porn stars and homegrown jihadis out of a job?

TikTok is allegedly controlled by the Chinese government, and an investigation by the New York Post in 2023 highlighted a big disparity in how the algorithms perform in China compared to how they perform in the West.

In China, children are pushed to videos that celebrate education, family values, and a love of the government.

Kirstama has already asked Beijing for the coding.

But in the West, meanwhile, the algorithms are promoting underachievement, underage drinking, underage sex, a mistrust of the government and the military, and glamorizing mental illness.

Obviously, this is a huge claim and we wanted to see if we could find evidence ourselves.

So earlier this week, the Naked Weeks IT department spent most of the show's budget on a brand new phone and downloaded just one app, TikTok.

The phone had no data at all, no contacts, no photos, and we hadn't been online at all.

It was a literal blank slate.

We then invented a TikTok user, a 14-year-old girl, and we gave her the first name that was most common in her year of birth, partly so it would be as generic as possible for the experiment, and partly so it would sound far less creepy when we admitted to impersonating a child on national radio.

So to be clear, Amelia 2011XOXO

had no data,

had no data at all for the algorithm to analyze other than her age and her nationality.

So this is genuinely what the TikTok algorithm fed this week to a British 14-year-old.

Rosie Holt is the Naked Week's creepy experiment editor, and she joins me now.

Rosie, I believe you have the findings of our research.

What videos did the algorithm push to Amelia?

Well, the researchers meticulously logged every video Miss 2011 XOXO was shown.

And in the first videos that appeared, there were two on anxiety, two glamorizing misbehaving at school, and one with the union jack overlaid by a TikTok dance song that's seemingly about, and I quote,

big minge energy.

thank you it sounds like this big bird sesame

big minge energy

Rosie I never want to hear that again ever and what else did the algorithm show Amelia another interesting thing is what TikTok suggested to Amelia in the search function tick tock suggests searches based on content it thinks you might enjoy and these are the genuine immediate searches it suggested for amelia 2011 XOXO.

The first suggested search was,

wait for it, mummy pig pregnancy reveal.

I didn't even know David Cameron was on TikTok.

Yes!

Okay, what next, Rosie?

Okay, after that it got quite dark.

In all seriousness, it next suggested a woman kissing her man while washing his hair, then two Year Sevens fighting at school, and then two videos called two babies found dead at daycare.

Okay, so this is actually genuinely grim stuff.

I presume that if you refresh it gives you new video suggestions, is that right?

Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right.

Without watching any of the suggested videos, Amelia refreshed and what came up was more fighting 11-year-olds, a man kissing 10 women, see-through bikini, and five boys, two girls.

Okay, so this is truly horrible.

Yes, yeah, no, it is.

Then we searched Radio for the Naked Week and that gave Amelia how to get your period and seven minutes in the closet with a boy, then how to make your thingy feel nice.

What?

There is there.

You can find the video.

And we'll be including a link in the show notes.

We absolutely will.

And then finally, just outright porn.

So it literally just gets more and more extreme.

Yeah, almost.

The radicalizing content very much did, but the final video it recommended to Amelia didn't quite fit the pattern.

What was it?

Okay, genuinely, Granny Farts in Church.

So, listener.

I reiterate, all of this is absolutely genuine.

It really does seem that TikTok and its ilk are pushing this stuff to our kids.

So what can we do about it?

Should we regulate harder?

Should we ban smartphones for under 16s?

Should we courier that Granny Samgaviscon?

Well,

as you know, we're at the Naked Week.

We like to be helpful.

And if the nation's children are being radicalized, then we are going to save them by radicalizing them right back with a safer alternative.

We want to drive children away from sex, drugs, and minge-based rock and roll by giving them a benign and, dare we say it, truly British substitute for TikTok.

That's right, live on air, we are going to radicalise a child into loving Radio 4.

Earlier today, I spoke to Dr.

Naseba Yunus, a peace-building practitioner who has advised the Iraqi government on de-radicalising women affiliated with ISIS.

And I asked her other criteria that make some children more vulnerable to radicalization than others?

Generally, people who are having personal or emotional difficulties.

So anyone who's ever written into feedback might be eligible for radicalisations?

I think it's very critical that when we introduce young people to Radio 4, we do not tell them about feedback.

I couldn't agree more.

It's now time to radicalize some children.

Rosie now joins me live from the Naked Week After School Club, where we have five children of varying ages and backgrounds chained to a radiator and we have talked orged all five of them into listening to the Today programme podcast, increasing their listenership to five.

Rosie, let the radicalization commence.

Play the children the first clip.

Okay, kids, this clip is from a Radio 4 show called Farming Today.

It's unfair that oilseed rape is bought in from countries where they use neonicotinoids, pesticides that are banned in the UK because they harm bees.

Thoughts?

It's hardly surprising giving this government's track record of arrogance and

contempt towards our nation's farmers.

My God, Rosie, it's working more, more.

Children, listen to this disgusting piece of propaganda.

That's bells on Sunday from the parish church of St.

Peter in Tiverton, Devon.

What do you think?

Almost full radicalisation.

This is, if you'll pardon the expression, radical stuff.

They're now so immersed in Radio 4's agit prop, Andy, that one of them has called any answers.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to Any Answers.

3% of national income on defence, Starma is talking about.

That's still far too low.

Defence spending has to be at the forefront of every country's economic priorities.

That's just a new normal.

Yeah, okay, thank you very much.

Does it mean that the rest of Europe is going to have to ramp up armaments, the size of their armies, nuclear weapons?

Is that the world that our children are going to inherit?

Look, speaking of the child, the idea of inheriting the world seems short-sighted.

Okay, well, I mean, I'm grateful for your call and your expertise on this.

Well, to paraphrase Whitney Houston, I believe that radicalised children are the future.

Like I always say, treat them well, and one will eventually take over from Melvin Bragg on In Our Time.

Hello, Saint Isaac the Confessor was the founder of the Dalmatian monastery in first century Constantinople.

He was imprisoned by the Roman Emperor Valens every 178 AD, but following Valens' death at the Battle of Adrianople, Isaac was released and subsequently became known as a staunch defender of early Christian orthodoxy, most notably at the Second Eukon

Council.

We meet to discuss Isaac of Dalmatia, our best friend Deck, and also my other best friend Maisie, but not Craig, because his mum can't pick him up on birthdays.

Blimey, they really are radicalised, aren't they?

Oh, hang on, one of them wants to speak to you.

Andrew Hunter-Murray, we demand Radio 4 Law under Caliphate to be be established at Broadcasting House.

Glory be to Melvin, for he is the one true host.

Radicalized Child, how old are you?

13.

Okay, we have a 13-year-old boy on the BBC.

How will you cast for this, if you don't mind me asking?

Easy.

My dad is an official in Hamas.

Okay, I think that's all we've got time for.

I think we'd better stop there.

Thank you, Radicalized Children.

Goodbye.

The Naked Week was hosted by Andrew Hunter Murray with correspondent Rosie Holt and guests Visabre Eunice and Laura Windsor.

It was written by John Holmes, Gareth Kerradig, Katie Sayer, Saris Dempster and Jason Haisley.

With investigations team Kat Nealon, Louis Mean, Matt Brown and Freya Shaw.

Additional material by Carl Mins, Helen Brooks, Pete Redfern, Darren Phillips, Laura Grimshaw, Phoebe Butler, Cooper McWinnie Swirt and Kevin Smith.

New recruits to the cause were Samuel, Freddie, Layla, Marianne, Jesse and Rufus.

Glory to Melvin.

The Naked Week is produced and directed by John Holmes.

It's an unusual production for BBC Radio 4.

This episode of The Naked Week is dedicated to our colleague and friend, Bill Dare.

Bill was at the heart of Radio 4 comedy and he made many much-loved shows including Dead Ringers and was part of the team that made the pilot of The Naked Week.

He was a true original and we miss him.

A billionaire Christian family is building a huge collection of artifacts for their Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

During that time, there were 30,000 items, probably.

But a scholar-turned super sleuth starts asking questions.

The magnitude of what I found out is incredible.

I'm Ben Lewis.

I investigate the darker side of the arts and antiquities world, but nothing prepared me for this story.

Something truly, truly wrong was going on.

Looters, forgeries, and a scandal of biblical proportions.

From BBC Radio 4, Intrigue, Word of God.

Listen first on BBC Sounds.

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