The News Quiz: Ep8. Mr. Starmer Goes To Washington

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Hello.

In a protest against the government's failure adequately to protect Britain's creative industries from the ravening moor of artificial intelligence and tech companies, and in support of the 1,000 music artists who released an album of nothing to make this point, this week's news quiz will be entirely silent.

Oh, that hurts.

Oh, well, you spoiled it now, so we might as well do the show.

If you're listening at home and want to take part in the protest, please turn your radio down to zero now.

Right, I'm done with humans.

Right, AI, if you're listening, which you are, help yourself to everything in this week's news quiz.

Hello!

Welcome to the news quiz.

And for the last episode of this series, we are in Scarborough in Yorkshire.

Also known as God's own country of all.

I'd be wary of suggesting that God has ever had anything to do with this place if I were you or in current form a certain American president might threaten to kick you all out into Lancashire and turn the whole county into a casino and golf range.

Our teams for this Scarborough News Quiz, we have Team Scarborough Fair versus Team Rest of the World.

Really very unfair right now.

On Team Fair we have Lucy Porter and Times columnist Alex Massey.

And on Team Unfair, we have Scott Bennett and Sarah Barron.

This goes to Lucy and Alex.

Our first question.

We'll start with a question about Yorkshire.

Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister this week, chose for whatever reason not to come to Yorkshire to speak to one of the many great people from this county.

But where, out of all the other places in the world, did he go instead?

And who is he meeting right now as we record?

I believe he's gone to meet Donald Trump in the USA.

And everybody's been on Tentuk's.

Will they get on?

And I think they should because they've both spent a lot of time in courtrooms.

And obviously, Keir Starmer, being a barrister, would have had to wear a ridiculous wig.

I think, in fairness to Keir Starmer, it is a difficult position he's in because he's got to explain what's going on to someone who's got very little knowledge of British politics.

But then he does practice every week with Kemi Badenox.

No, I mean, it's a a very difficult situation for the Prime Minister.

I mean, he's sort of flattering Trump when he gave him this letter from the King, which apparently seems to have taken Trump by surprise.

He'd sort of looked at it like a wee boy opening the best ever Christmas present.

And Starmer said to him, You know, this is really special, you know, Donald.

It's never been done before.

You know, a second state visit to an American president.

You know, these meetings in the White House are always very difficult for the junior power in the relationship.

And I suspect this is the first time that a British Prime Minister has gone to Washington to visit the President of the United States and hopes beyond all possible hope that the President does not use the phrase special relationship.

I suppose it's the killing with kindness route, isn't it?

Really?

I mean, I sort of quite liked Macron.

I watched Macron the way he dealt with him.

I don't know if you noticed, he let him sort of speak, and then he did that thing that my wife does quite a lot when we're out.

You know, when you're out and you're having a dinner party and you're thinking, I'm doing really well, and the feedback's going to be good in the car on the way home.

And then

hand will come out, I'll say it,

and it'll go down my shoulder.

And I'm such a moron, I think it's affectionate.

And

it goes on, and then she'll squeeze.

He did the squeeze on Donald.

He did the squeeze as if to say, Come on, pal.

We've all had a drink, you know.

And then what my wife will do is just lean in, and she'll just go, I think that's you done now.

I think if he gets anything out of it, you know, going, you know, he went in there, didn't he?

Giving the king away, like he was a timeshare vidla, and

you could have him in February, mate.

Macron had the advantage of being able to bamboozle Donald Trump by speaking French, of course, which is something denied to Kier Starmer.

I mean, the Wall Street Journal suggested that Macron and Starmer were in a sort of competition to see who could be the best European Trump whisperer,

you know, which does rather sound like the sort of sordid activity that's probably illegal in most of the states that voted for Donald Donald Trump.

I was sort of watching this before we were coming on here, and I'm not saying Starmer is bending over backwards to accommodate Trump, but I am hearing he's pimping out Angela Raynor to take Melania for a Manny Petty and Anando.

And I just think, you know, my advice to Trump, if you're interested, is we're so sort of enchanted by little British phrases like toodle pip and tickety boo.

I think you could try either of those or bell end.

I had sympathy for Starmer as well, you know, in terms of the King State visit, because whenever I travel abroad, I'm always inviting people to come around when they're in my country, and I've never meant it, even once.

Yeah, when they turn up with the bags, you're like, I was joking.

I was joking, I was being nice, I don't want you in my home.

I mean, it's very difficult talking with Trump, and so on.

I mean, earlier today, he was asked about his comments made about Vladimir Zelensky.

You know, is Zelensky a dictator like you said he was?

And so on.

And Trump said, Did I say that?

I can't believe I would say that.

You know, it's not straightforward negotiating with this sort of Alice in Wonderland Bistow president.

They've said today he's got bruises on his hands from vigorous handshaking.

He's done that many deals.

He's bruised the outside of his hand.

I mean, how do you bruise the outside of your hand?

He's slapping J.D.

Vance every time.

Do something.

Well, as we record, the meeting is still taking place, so we don't yet know exactly what agreements, disagreements, officially agreed mutual insults, obviously insincere platitudes and sound bites will emerge.

So I'm going to ask our panel, what do you think is going on in there right now?

I think he's probably done the thing that I do with my husband where Starmer has rehearsed his...

He's like, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to say to him, right, you back off, mate, right?

This is...

And then it's going to turn out he's giving him Wales.

I think we are going to just have to decide what we're going to give him.

I mean, that's the, or Putin will get it.

So we've got it.

Let's decide which bits of the country we're prepared.

Lancashire.

Lancashire.

You said it that way, mate.

I love the passion Yorkshire people have over it.

Over some hills.

But new evidence has emerged that actually Henry Tudor was offside at the Battle of Bosworth.

So actually

Richard III is technically still alive.

In fact, we've been running an AI summit predictor to use all the AI technology to work out what is possibly going on in that summit.

Apparently, there is a 38% chance that Trump has made Starmer crouch on all fours and then ridden him around like a rodeo bull.

There's a 22% chance that Trump mistook Starmer for a golf caddy.

There's a 65% chance that Trump asked Starma if Mary Poppins is still alive and if so whether she's single.

We will see what emerges from this.

So this is the Starma meeting with Trump.

There were various do's and don'ts for what you're supposed to do that have been officially issued to all world leaders ahead of meeting Trump in these uncertain times.

Don't pick him up on every single factual inaccuracy, or you may find that the decade has just run away with you.

Try to avoid saying the words, yeah, right, in a sarcastic tone

more than three times in any meeting.

If he starts rutting a piece of furniture, don't criticise him, it's just his nature.

Hit him gently with a newspaper and praise praise him when he stops.

He also claimed this week, Trump, that the EU was formed to screw America.

It wasn't, we know that here.

It was formed to make sure carrots were all the same shape and size.

Anyway, at the end of our first round, the scores are three points all.

Now, we talked last week about the increase in UK defence spending that, as we speak, has already seen work begin on a new nuclear-armed nine-mile-high marble statue of Vera Lynn flipping the bird towards Moscow on top of the white cliffs of Dover.

That should be finished within two weeks.

But what manifesto promise has the Labour Government decided to put through its overworked and probably already broken shredder to pay for the increased defence spending?

They're going to cut the aid budgets.

But I mean, it sounds a lot this money that we're spending on defence, 2.5% of GDP.

But with the current state of energy costs and inflation, I've done a few calculations and I've worked out that it's going to be about £32.50,

which is a down payment on two rivets on an aircraft carrier.

So, but yeah, it is one of those things.

We're going to start, we're going to not help people who are flood victims and starving, we're just going to build weapons.

I think if you need more money, I've heard really good things about manifesting.

I think there's a, do you know that the MP who was done for Brawling?

I think Starmer should get him in the UFC.

Obviously, it's you know it's difficult to find the money for these things with growth not responding to the repeated sacrifices of oxen and principles to our national economic gods and with public spending already more stretched than an elephant's jockstrap at an extreme yoga class.

Well further tax rise is about as politically popular as banning weekends and the public execution of Paddington Bear.

It is a difficult question.

Where do you find money for this increased defence spending?

Obviously, one of the possibilities, I guess, because a budget from 0.5 to 0.3%, is just to try to find some added percents.

Why can we only use 100 of the percent?

Of course, there is one obvious place for finding the money.

Yep.

Pensioners.

You know, the triple lock is unsustainable, as everybody knows, and the patriotic thing for pensioners to do would be to say we will give up our limited triple lock years that we have left and use the money to protect our grandchildren.

I think there's an army of militant pensioners to be tapped into.

I really do.

I've told my dad he should join just up oil, gets a free I-Viz,

daytime hours, walks slowly and aimlessly whilst annoying people behind you.

They do that in Liddle.

What if they started sending Royal Marines into wishing wells to retrieve coins?

It's the kind of lateral thinking that we need in this country, Sarah.

Ozzy Holsay goes, look after the pennies, then the billions of public expenditure will look after themselves.

I think we should all do only fans.

It's the right time.

I got off.

Someone asked me if I would send pictures of my feet, which, if you saw my feet, is ridiculous.

They're horrific.

They're wrong shade.

I've got face for the radio and feet for silent witness.

Someone, I put a picture of an holiday I was on, and someone asked if I've sent pictures of my feet.

And I told my wife, and she said, No, listen, that's the final.

Once you've done that, your dignity is gone.

And then I said it was 200 quid, and she said, Get your socks off.

I don't want to be alarmist about this, but while this meeting between Stumber and Trump has gone on, I've just got a message on my computer saying, Due to a time zone change, we're setting your time on your computer to Eastern time USA

so I don't know what Kierstalma has given away

someone look out the window see if we're gradually moving out into the Atlantic

in terms of foreign aid politically I mean it always seems to be you know when they're looking for cuts to be made the first injured baby wildebeest cut off from the herd to be popped into the more of the always peckish lion of budget cuts um and i've seen it you know described as a luxury we can no longer afford and also a crucial investment in the future in an uncertain changing world, Alex.

I mean politically it's always seems to be something that's squabbled about in Vietnam.

A lot of it is deeply fraudulent as well in as much as spending on asylum seekers in the UK is budgeted for the Department of International Development in the same way as this increase on defence spending and so on, part of that is going to be taken up with money spent on MI5 and MI6, which historically has been in a separate pot.

What actually counts as foreign aid, I mean, it's not all actually spent on help for

people suffering from famine or natural disasters in the developing world.

You know, quite a lot of it is actually spent in the UK.

That's the bit which won't be cut, of course.

They said in the manifesto, didn't they?

They said they promised to restore foreign aid to 0.7%

as soon as fiscal circumstances allow.

And you just think whoever remembered to put that in the manifesto is getting a knighthood, aren't they?

We're all going to borrow that.

I'm going to be like, yes, kids, we're getting a PlayStation as soon as fiscal circumstances allow.

I mean, it will take foreign aid spending back to where it was when Labour were last in government, actually, around 0.3, 0.4% of GDP.

So if it does turn out that foreign aid is a luxury we can no longer afford, well, no shame in joining an impressive list of luxury relics from a naive and bygone age that we can no longer afford, including affordable trains, funding for the arts, sport in state schools, road surfaces that don't spontaneously open up a direct portal into the bowels of hell, dignity for the old, long-term planning, our national saint-based anti-dragon defense system, which has been sadly allowed to wither over the last 1,500 years or so, as well as nuance hope and public toilets.

So, quite a lot that we've got to get rid of.

So, the scores at the end of that round are five to Sarah and Scott, and three to Lucy and Alex.

I'm in Washington, the host of KQD's Snap Judgment podcast.

And at Snap, we don't just tell stories, we live them.

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Sucks.

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs, playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

Lucy and Alex, a campaign has been launched, supported by the publishers of the Scarborough News

to highlight that other local papers are, actually, they're probably not available, are they?

To highlight the danger of the creative industries of AI and concerns around the government's impending legislation around it.

Can you complete the name of the campaign?

Make it

make it stop.

That's just what I always say.

No, it's make it fair.

Make it fair,

which is a very toddler kind of make it fair, you're not my real mum.

Yeah, so there were lots of newspapers kind of supporting it in different ways.

The front page of the Huddersfield Examiner was blank, which I mean,

no news in Huddersfield.

Hold the front page.

And there's been, there was an album released, a silent album called Is This What We Want?

Which people like Kate Burch, Jameer Aquai, Annie Lennox, Pet Shop Boys, Billy Ocean, you don't hear much from him these days,

and indeed you don't hear much from him on this album.

So,

do you guys think Fano was excluded because he insisted on singing well tonight?

Thank God it's them instead of you.

The weird thing is, is that AI is probably been trained on this very broadcast.

And it's

I think it's here, I think it's going to change everything, technology.

So, like, it'll change comedy.

So, I fully expect that you know, someone will come on here as a panelist and they'll do a joke and it'll fall flat, and then they'll stop the recording to consult VAR,

and everyone will have to sit here and they'll go, wait, wait.

Funny,

and

AI does have some work to do.

I mean, I saw a thing this week where somebody had asked Google,

is tripe kosher?

And Google came back with the reply, well, it depends what what religion your cow is.

I think I had Is Tripe Kosher as a review of one of my Edinburgh shows one year.

Yeah, sorry about that, Andy.

I mean, you know, I fear our AI future, but I think in a way it would be good if AI was trained on British people more because I think it's been trained a lot on Americans, so AI has a very can-do attitude,

and it might come for our jobs.

Whereas I think if it was British-trained AI, it'd be like, I can't be asked, to be honest.

You know, because now you put something into AI you go oh can you give me a picture of I don't know Simon Cowell in a bubble bath with Princess Diana in space and the AI is like yeah great coming up whereas if you did that with British AI it'd be like why do you want that you pervert

I'll tell you what it'd be like it'd be like asking someone for help in BQ on a Saturday

the album is entitled Is This What We Want?

What do you think the answer to that question is?

This is what I want if it becomes the cool thing for teenagers to listen to on their phone speakers on the bus.

It's the

latest in our exciting battle as we move towards the utopian age when AI and robots have taken over all the mundane work and all the non-mundane work and all the everything else.

And we humble humans can spend all that bonus extra free time sitting on a secluded bench wondering what happened to the world we once loved.

Obviously for some national newspapers there is concern that AI is already sufficiently advanced that it could quite convincingly write a column column blaming, for example, global warming on young trans people, or the war in South Sudan on young trans people, or the cost of private care homes on young trans people, rendering many journalists completely obsolete.

Concerns have also been raised across the media and creative industries, from music and comedy to local and national newspapers to visual arts to people who make genuine propaganda videos for deranged despots.

How are they going to make a living?

On a related issue, 88% of students in the UK are doing what these days?

Ghosting the other 12%.

Is it building pyramids of beer cans in their windows?

They don't drink anymore, they eat ramen and self-diagnose.

That's what

that's a night in.

That's why STDs have declined, because you don't end up with chlamydia after a night on the caramel lattes.

They're using AI for their assignments, aren't they?

Which is interesting because I would have.

Yeah.

I was wondering because I was thinking about the 12% who aren't using it, and I was like, I wonder if that's like the mature students who can't figure out how to work.

It's the people who get defeated by the fire hydrant on a capture system, isn't it?

Those people just going, I think I'm a robot because I can't get through this.

Most people.

Yeah, there's no need to be honest anymore, is there?

It's such an outdated concept.

Integrity, for God's sake, knowledge for its own sake.

Because my kids, I'm like, well, you can cheat and you can use AI to do your homework, but you're making yourself more stupid.

And they're fine with that.

Yes, according to the survey, eight out of nine students are using AI in their assessments.

The survey also found that six out of ten AI bots would prefer to be used either to make AI artworks of dogs on jet skis or to destroy meaningful human life as soon as possible.

And 11 out of 10 AI bots would prefer to redefine the boundaries of mathematics.

Well, let's move on, well, I guess, to another related story.

We talked last week about the Ukraine situation ahead of a deal with Ukraine, is it with right or against?

I forget.

For access to its minerals, Donald Trump said, we want to get our what back.

Sexy.

He wants his money back.

Correct.

I mean, it is sort of strange tactics.

It does feel like he's going to fool Tony Soprano.

It feels a little bit extortion because in the space of a week, he's called Zelensky dictator, blamed him for the invasion of his own country, and now wants half of his stuff.

It's like the fastest divorce settlement.

I mean, Zelensky's got no security guarantees, but he can visit his minerals on the weekend.

Take the lithium to McDonald's, you know.

Why is he so obsessed with minerals and replenishing minerals?

Like, I know that's important after a bout of diarrhea, but that's not what this is.

It's the rare earth minerals that he wants, and the fact that they're rare.

The problem is, of course, is it's not actually entirely clear whether Ukraine has substantial reserves or deposits of rare earth minerals.

And Zelensky may possibly have out-negotiated the great master of the deal,

in as much as initially Trump was sort of saying, you know, well, the United States wants its money back, it wants $500 billion from Ukraine and 50% at least of the mineral profits in perpetuity.

And the 500 billion appears to have been dropped, which suggests that Trump may not actually get very much at all, especially if there aren't any rare earth minerals.

Won't that be brilliant?

Like a really depressing addition of time tank.

They just dig down and it's just one little bit of pottery that

was bought at a car boot in 1997.

It's Putin's now offering a counter-offer, isn't he?

So he's offering minerals in territories he's just occupied, which I think is a proper move.

That's the equivalent of me trying to sell my mum and dad's house while they're still sat in the conservatory watching tipping point.

Well, it's a bit odd.

Basically, he wants a refund for America's military aid to Ukraine.

That seems to be essentially what he's

most of which was spent in money given to American arms companies, of course, and so has never left the United States.

So,

But it does, again, highlight the transactional nature of Trumpist politics.

So, rather than it being just that America intervened because it had a sort of moral obligation, and for our younger listeners, a moral obligation was an idea from the past in which people used to think they should do something just because it was the right thing.

Oh, what's the point?

What's the point?

It's like learning how to whittle a stick.

It's kind of fun, but it has no real political commercial application anymore.

We're better off moving on from it.

Yeah, well, Trump said, we are taking what we're entitled to take.

And as always, with such negotiations and deals, the devil will be in the detail if the devil can be persuaded to take some time off from giggling about how easy his job has become these days.

He mostly just works from home doing admin and watching YouTube videos, barely even needs to get out and recruit anymore.

Said to be quite an awkward meeting between Trump and Zelensky, given that only last week Trump called Zelensky a dictator and blamed him for starting the war.

To be fair to Trump, he has been consistent.

He then went on a history podcast and complained that Abraham Lincoln got blood all over John Wilkes Booth's lovely clean bullet.

Right, for our final round.

Now, with the scores tied at nine points all, we have a special Yorkshire or the World round.

Our panelists can choose a question from Yorkshire or a question from the rest of the world.

Gorgeous, glorious Yorkshire.

Okay, please.

In what renowned European country, the northern part of which is on the same latitude as Yorkshire,

did things go very right at an election, making some people ask, How did things go so terribly wrong?

I think I know the answer to this one.

I think this is the German election,

which was won by the CDU CSU

mainstream Conservative Party in Germany, but most attention went to the people who came second, which is the alternative for Deutschland.

Well, that's it, isn't it?

I mean, Germany's been

completely reinventing itself over the last 80 years.

You know, it's like, oh, you know, very green.

We're really into recycling.

You know, if you recycle enough, you will recycle some ideas from the 1930s.

Clearly,

that's what's shocking.

It's like they're looking if only there was some sort of omen that this might be a bad idea.

It's like those people, you know, climb Everest and then they pass dead bodies on the way up, but they keep going.

You've got the clues are there.

Friedrich Merds said that Europe is facing its five to midnight moment, which sounds very dramatic, but I didn't really understand it.

I was like, I quite like five to midnight.

That's normally when I'm doing my wordle.

The co-leader, Alice Fidal, sort of hinted that

Elon Musk had rang her to congratulate her, which was just such a weird flex.

It was like she was 16.

It's like, oh, Elon slid into my DMs.

I say DMs, I mean jack boots.

There's some great names in the AFD.

They've got Beatrix von Stutsch and Dirk Spaniel.

I always sound like sort of evil Sylvanian families or something like that.

Yes, Friedrich Merce, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union, is set to become new Chancellor of Germany at the head of a coalition government that will not involve the surging far-right AFD, who won 21% of the vote, which is only a concern if, for example, you have an even basic knowledge of 20th century history.

Otherwise, no biggie.

Departing Chancellor Olaf Schultz saw his party's vote share collapse like a prim Victorian lady at the unexpected sight of a gentleman's whoopsicle to just 16%.

Finally, Yorkshire or the world?

Yorkshire.

Yorkshire is well known to contain both restaurants and funeral parlours.

So too does China.

But why this week in China has the line between restaurants and funeral parlours becoming unusually blurred?

One of the best stories ever.

So there's a funeral parlour in China in which the food is so good that people are pretending that they're burying their dead relatives in order to just come and get these amazing noodles.

I mean, the food at British funerals.

I mean, at my dad's funeral, we have meat paste sandwiches.

I was like, I wish I'd gone really instead.

But yeah, it just sounds amazing.

So, someone put on whatever the Chinese TikTok thing is, they said,

at someone's funeral, oh my god, the food's amazing.

And then people started queuing around the block, pretending they were at funerals.

Apparently, it's a special blend of 11 herbs and embalming fluid that they use.

I just thought that I bet the fortune cookies are bleak.

I think we should have cremation and crispy dumplings.

Right?

And I've even thought of what they could call it.

It's what Nana would have wantoned.

Right, well, that means that our final scores are 11 to Sarah and Scott, 13 to Lucy and Alex.

Thank you for listening.

We'll be back in a few weeks.

Taking part in the newsquiz were Scott Bennett, Lucy Porter, Sarah Barron, and Alex Massey.

In the chair was me, Andy Zoltzmann.

An additional material was written by Peter Talouch, Cameron Loxdale, Ali Panting, and Alfie Pattam.

The producer was Rajiv Currier, and it was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4.

Hello, I'm Robin Ince.

And I'm Brian Cox and we would like to tell you about the new series of the Infinite Monkey Cage.

In this series, we're going to have a planet off.

We decided it was time to go cosmic, so we are going to do Jupiter

versus Scepter.

It's very well done that because in the script it does say in square brackets wrestling voice question mark.

and once we touch back down on this planet we're going to go deep really deep yes we're journeying to the center of the earth with guests phil wang chris jackson and anna ferreira and after all of that intense heat and pressure we're just going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice And also in this series, we're discussing altruism.

We'll find out what it is.

Exploring the history of music, recording with Brian Eno, and looking at nature's shapes.

So, if that sounds like your kind of thing, you can listen to the infinite monkey cage first on BBC Sounds.

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