The Naked Week: Ep4: Spies, Uncanny Ghosts, and Christmas Crackers

Speaker 1 BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

Speaker 3 Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me, the comedy podcast from the BBC that takes history seriously.

Speaker 6 Each week, I'm joined by a comedian and an expert historian to learn and laugh about the past.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 8 Listen to You're Dead to Me Now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 10 Want to stop engine problems before they start? Pick up a can of C Foam Motor Treatment. C Foam helps engines start easier, run smoother, and last longer.

Speaker 11 Trusted by millions every day, C-Foam is safe and easy to use in any engine.

Speaker 10 Just pour it in your fuel tank.

Speaker 10 Make the proven choice with C-Foam.

Speaker 10 Available everywhere, automotive products are sold.

Speaker 10 Seafoam! home!

Speaker 12 BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Speaker 14 Hello, I'm Andrew Hunter-Murray, and this is the Naked Week Radio 4's brand new topical comedy.

Speaker 17 Imagine Newscast if Elon Musk had given it a hundred hundred million quid.

Speaker 20 On the naked week this week, after years of being laughed at and called names, Rudolph finally snaps and deals with all of the other reindeer.

Speaker 9 They had all been decapitated.

Speaker 22 Evan Davies' Christmas list has gotten way out of hand.

Speaker 23 Banana, Sunrise,

Speaker 25 table, season,

Speaker 15 leader chair.

Speaker 26 What's wrong with Sox Evan?

Speaker 18 And Tuesday was Michelle Hussein's last day on the Today programme.

Speaker 29 And towards the end of her final show, she had the greatest opportunity of her broadcasting career so far.

Speaker 32 And yet, instead, she said...

Speaker 33 Jeremy Hunt, thank you very much.

Speaker 34 Michelle.

Speaker 35 What a wasted opportunity.

Speaker 36 Completely bottled up.

Speaker 30 Now, the other big story this week is the revelation that yet another Chinese spy has been discovered trying to infiltrate the heart of government, or, more accurately, given Prince Andrew's involvement, the ass of Windsor.

Speaker 15 The name's 6,

Speaker 17 H6,

Speaker 1 or at least it was, until an anonymity order was lifted on Monday, and we now know him to be Yang Teng Bo, who was reported to have successfully gained the confidence of Prince Andrew, which, let's be honest, is not difficult.

Speaker 16 Anyone with a well-thumbed copy of Lolita could probably have done the same.

Speaker 20 Now, Yang Teng Bo denies being a spy, but it is all a bit embarrassing.

Speaker 48 So much so that the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, genuinely said on Sky News this week, Well, I'm a bit sorry for Prince Edward LeWeb.

Speaker 26 Quite right, Richard.

Speaker 35 Quite right.

Speaker 30 He might be a sex scandal-implicated waste of resources who's jeopardising national security, but he's our sex scandal-implicated waste of resources, jeopardising national security.

Speaker 16 As much as we joke, though, Chinese infiltration in the British government and British cultural institutions is serious and ominous.

Speaker 27 This is just one high-profile example we know about.

Speaker 50 A Chinese government intelligence agency called the United Front Work Department currently has an estimated 40,000 agents tasked with attempting to infiltrate governments, including ours.

Speaker 32 And it's not even just Chinese expats accused of spying for China.

Speaker 20 Last year, 29-year-old Scott Chris Cash was charged with spying offences, which he denies, and he was an employee of Parliament's China Research Group, as in the the people who are supposed to be keeping an eye on this situation.

Speaker 16 It's clear that when it comes to espionage, China is wiping the floor with us, and then cleaning the floor, and then polishing the floor, because they've also infiltrated the housekeeping team.

Speaker 43 And that got us at the Naked Week thinking, how could we, a lowly Radio 4 show, do our bit for Britain's national security?

Speaker 30 If this week's media is to be believed, China has thousands of spies in the UK, so it's high time we started recruiting some spies of our own and play them at their own game.

Speaker 50 So in in another radio first, the Naked Week is going to recruit a spy now from our studio audience.

Speaker 40 But what does it take?

Speaker 55 To find out, we genuinely asked a real-life spy, and he wasn't hard to find because it's someone the controller of Radio 4 was at Oxford with.

Speaker 54 And we asked him what does make a good spy.

Speaker 30 Now, we have had to disguise his voice so he can't be identified.

Speaker 26 I'm afraid the disguise was a bit too good,

Speaker 34 So we couldn't identify any words.

Speaker 51 So instead, we just looked at the Intelligence Services website.

Speaker 30 And what we're going to do is find our spy the classic old-fashioned way with a convoluted parlor game and process of elimination.

Speaker 16 So everyone in the audience who can, please, if you could stand up now.

Speaker 27 And listeners at home, you can do this too.

Speaker 58 Not if you're driving.

Speaker 27 Okay, so here we go. Criteria number one.

Speaker 59 Field operatives need to be able to blend into a crowd.

Speaker 30 They can't be too distinctive.

Speaker 27 And so the intelligence services have strict rules on height.

Speaker 61 Amy Hoggard is here with us.

Speaker 12 Men, if you're over six foot two, and we mean in real life, not in a hinge sense,

Speaker 12 you're going to need to sit down.

Speaker 12 Lots of confident men.

Speaker 12 Women, if you're over five foot eight, congratulations, but I'm sorry, you're sitting down too.

Speaker 22 Okay, everyone who's still standing.

Speaker 30 Not appearing too distinctive is crucial for a field agent. So if you have tattoos that you can't easily cover or brightly coloured dyed hair, please sit down now.

Speaker 55 And this is a Radio 4 audience, almost nobody has been affected.

Speaker 16 Also, you cannot draw too much attention to yourself in public.

Speaker 50 There are strict rules about drugs being sexually promiscuous and getting too drunk in public.

Speaker 22 So, if you've ever been to a bottomless brunch at all bar one, please sit down now.

Speaker 14 And there are still quite a few people standing.

Speaker 38 We have a large pool of potential candidates now.

Speaker 34 I think we're going to have to pick someone.

Speaker 38 Amy, can you winnow it down a bit further?

Speaker 12 I'm looking for someone with a really fine but boring face.

Speaker 56 I'm looking in the front row. I'm seeing you, sir.

Speaker 22 He's trying to avoid eye contact.

Speaker 63 He's trying to avoid eye contact, which is what a perfect spy would do.

Speaker 56 What's your name, sir? I'm Dan. Dan.
Perfect.

Speaker 44 Good spy name.

Speaker 61 And what's your surname, please?

Speaker 36 Briaz.

Speaker 44 Okay, well, you've immediately ruled yourself out by giving us your first first and surname, Dan, so I'm afraid you're fired.

Speaker 26 Thank you very much.

Speaker 58 You can sit down to Darius, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 13 And President Xi, if you are listening, they bought it.

Speaker 44 Prepare for phase two.

Speaker 63 Double COVID.

Speaker 36 Too soon.

Speaker 30 Now, just in time for Christmas, the Naked Week has been sent a box of personalized crackers.

Speaker 37 Amy is still with me.

Speaker 27 Amy, let's get into the festive spirit.

Speaker 37 Let's open some of these up.

Speaker 21 Now, who are these from?

Speaker 56 Okay, should we pull one now?

Speaker 34 Okay, here we go.

Speaker 12 This one is from Kemi Badenock.

Speaker 12 What do you call a penguin in the Sahara Desert?

Speaker 12 An invasion.

Speaker 34 Very nice. Thank you, Kemi.

Speaker 14 Here's another one.

Speaker 38 Now, this one is from Wes Streeting.

Speaker 30 Oh, I love this one.

Speaker 38 Why did Santa get stuck up the chimney?

Speaker 37 And the answer, obesity cost the NHS £11 billion a year.

Speaker 22 And government trials of weight loss drugs such as Zempic are part of Labour's long-term strategy to get overweight fictional characters back into employment to ease the pressure on working people's chimneys.

Speaker 55 Very nice.

Speaker 34 Okay, let's have another.

Speaker 12 Ah, no bang. That's an odd one.

Speaker 22 What does it say here?

Speaker 12 Send more ammo, you cheap bastards. That's from President Zelensky.

Speaker 13 Very nice.

Speaker 27 Now, the Naked Week has been hovering at the the top of the BBC podcast chart since our first show.

Speaker 30 And while it's mostly fans of Dead Ringers doing a hate listen, this week,

Speaker 27 this week we were toppled like a sort of comedy assad by the powerhouse that is Radio 4's uncanny podcast as it barged into the chart with a sheet over its head for a Christmas special.

Speaker 17 Christmas is, of course, a time traditionally for spooky stories.

Speaker 53 So we at the Naked Week thought we'd jump on the bandwagon and thus back to the top with a ghost story that we have been investigating.

Speaker 30 In the last few weeks, many Naked Week listeners have been in touch with tales of mysterious sightings in a town on the east coast of England.

Speaker 30 Audience, when there's something strange in the neighborhood, who are you going to call?

Speaker 13 Ghostbusters!

Speaker 27 That is exactly what we did.

Speaker 53 We called a ghost bus tour.

Speaker 13 Please.

Speaker 14 Welcome to the stage a paranormal expert who has worked with London's Ghost Bus Tour Company.

Speaker 13 It's Neil Frost.

Speaker 66 So, Neil, this is a strange and haunting tale, isn't it?

Speaker 67 Tell us all about it.

Speaker 68 Well, this story begins in a small seaside town on the Essex coast back in the summer of this year.

Speaker 68 Children play on the pebble beaches, waves crash languidly on the shore, and the distant melody of an ice cream van dances delicately on the breeze.

Speaker 68 But the events of 2024 would change the little town of Clacton-on-Sea

Speaker 13 forever.

Speaker 59 So, listeners from Clacton are reporting a presence in their town.

Speaker 67 Well, yeah, this is what's odd, and it's more a lack of a presence that's haunting the residents.

Speaker 59 This is really weird. So, I have some of the witness accounts of the phenomenon here.

Speaker 66 People say this strange manifestation just appeared one day and was seen shaking hands with local residents, cropping up in photos, complaining about boats.

Speaker 68 And here's the really odd thing, Andy. Attempts to contact the ghoul since have been met with nothing.

Speaker 27 Sorry about that.

Speaker 35 I think the sound engineer pressed the wrong button.

Speaker 58 As regular listeners to The Naked Week know by now, we pride ourselves on being incredibly helpful.

Speaker 58 So we thought we would try to contact this entity ourselves on behalf of the people of Clacton, who are also being haunted by low employment, high levels of economic inactivity, and a lack of investment in local infrastructure.

Speaker 56 I'm going to have to fire that sound engineer.

Speaker 58 Anyway, what we've got here to help is this.

Speaker 15 It is the Naked Week Ouija board.

Speaker 13 Great.

Speaker 27 So, we have an upturned glass here.

Speaker 17 Now, to further attract the apparition, it's a pint glass with a Spitfire painted on it.

Speaker 30 Could we please, for a better connection to the other side, could we dim the studio lights a little?

Speaker 30 I don't know about you.

Speaker 69 I think something special could be about to happen here.

Speaker 26 Okay, now, if you would like to, you can hold hands. Although, as a BBC presenter, I'd like to make it very clear you don't have to.

Speaker 29 All right, we're going to see if we can make contact now.

Speaker 38 So,

Speaker 16 mysterious vanished figure, are you there?

Speaker 70 Oh, disappearing entity, what is your name?

Speaker 14 The glass is moving, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 72 It's N

Speaker 21 I

Speaker 24 G.

Speaker 55 I think we can all see where this is going.

Speaker 13 E

Speaker 61 L Nigel.

Speaker 70 Nigel, I'm going to ask you a question on behalf of the people of Clacton.

Speaker 14 Why have you been to America six times in the five months that you've been an MP?

Speaker 70 I think we've angered it.

Speaker 61 Ladies and gentlemen, Neil Frost and ghosting the people of Clacton, Nigel Farage.

Speaker 16 You're listening to The Naked Week on Radio 4, where it's time once again to take a quiet stroll in the topical garden of current affairs contemplation. It's the news in haikus.

Speaker 21 Royal Mail bought by Czechoslovakian.

Speaker 15 The Czech is in the post.

Speaker 36 The news

Speaker 60 in haikus.

Speaker 4 Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me, the comedy podcast from the BBC that takes history seriously.

Speaker 6 Each week, I'm joined by a comedian and an expert historian to learn and laugh about the past.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 8 Listen to You're Dead to Me Now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 10 Want to stop engine problems before they start? Pick up a can of C-Foam Motor Treatment. SeaFoam helps engines start easier, run smoother, and last longer.

Speaker 11 Trusted by millions every day, C-Foam is safe and easy to use in any engine.

Speaker 10 Just pour it in your fuel tank.

Speaker 10 Make the proven choice with C-Foam.

Speaker 10 Available everywhere. Automotive products are sold.

Speaker 10 Seafoam!

Speaker 27 On Thursday this week, Parliament sat for the last time before the festive break.

Speaker 20 To celebrate, Kemmi Badenock brought in her favourite lunch, the traditional Christmas steak.

Speaker 32 And meanwhile, over in the House of Lords, the peers conducted their seasonal sweepsteak to see which of them would survive the winter.

Speaker 27 But Christmas is also the time of year to remember absent friends.

Speaker 46 And none are more absent in Westminster than MPs who've lost their seats.

Speaker 26 And right now, if you're thinking, hang on, is this going to be another swan dive into a vat of mulled wine marked Chateau de Lobbying?

Speaker 35 Yes, it is.

Speaker 16 In previous episodes, we have looked at gambling companies, financial consultancy firms, civil service appointments, and labor think tanks.

Speaker 43 And now it's time to shine a festive light on former parliamentarians.

Speaker 27 So I'm joined once again by the Naked Week's very own Krampus, Adam McQueen.

Speaker 57 Adam, first of all, what do you need to do to become a lobbyist?

Speaker 25 Well, you need to buy a nice suit.

Speaker 40 Is that it?

Speaker 25 Pretty much.

Speaker 34 Okay, Adam Adam and Queen, everyone.

Speaker 25 The only thing you really need to do is to register with something called the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists.

Speaker 24 Then off you go.

Speaker 25 Although, obviously, it will help if you know your way around the corridors of Westminster and have a contact book heavy enough to knock out one of Santa's elves.

Speaker 55 And the Naked Week in no way endorses that kind of seasonal thuggery.

Speaker 25 XMPs turning to lobbying and consulting is basically a Gamekeeper-turned poacher situation.

Speaker 25 It's an easy career move, not least because, and this fact never gets any less weird no matter how many times you hear it, all former MPs, if they want to, get to keep their security pass that gets them into the houses of parliament forever.

Speaker 73 Forever.

Speaker 50 It's like an MP is for life, not just for Christmas.

Speaker 25 Unless they're Boris Johnson, because he got his confiscated for throwing parties when the grown-ups are out.

Speaker 25 But plenty of sitting MPs have raised concerns about lobbying, and not just any sitting MPs.

Speaker 25 Here's what former Prime Minister and shop soil Jilly Cooper protagonist David Cameron said about political lobbying just a few months before he trotted into Downing Street in 2010.

Speaker 74 It's the next big scandal waiting to happen. It's an issue that frankly has tainted our politics for too long.

Speaker 24 I'm talking about lobbying, and we all know how it works.

Speaker 74 The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in the ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big businesses find the right way to get its way.

Speaker 25 So it must have come as a hell of a shock to, for example, David Cameron when 11 years later this happened.

Speaker 75 The government has ordered an independent inquiry into the lobbying work work by former Prime Minister David Cameron on behalf of the finance firm Greens Hill Capital.

Speaker 21 Okay, but this is old news.

Speaker 41 I mean, that is literally old news.

Speaker 69 That was Jon Snow.

Speaker 25 Look, Andy, they asked me to make this as Christmassy as I could.

Speaker 36 Snow is about the best I can do.

Speaker 25 The point is that since this sort of thing was good enough for the Conservatives' former, former, former, former, former leader, it's hardly surprising that plenty of Tory MPs who left Parliament this summer have slid straight into consulting and lobbying jobs.

Speaker 40 Who are we talking about here?

Speaker 25 MPs such as former Tory Transport Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Tory Party Chairman Sir Jake Berry, or as we're obliged to call him in this episode, Sir Jake Cranberry.

Speaker 13 Adam.

Speaker 13 Adam, no.

Speaker 34 So just don't fight it.

Speaker 36 It'll be easier.

Speaker 25 Anyway, both of them bagged jobs at Fulbrook Strategies, which is a lobbying firm set up by Liz Truss's former chief of staff.

Speaker 30 Okay, you can't argue with that kind of track record, though.

Speaker 25 You cannot, no, and you wouldn't want to argue with them either.

Speaker 25 Seeing as earlier this year, Fulbright Strategies was lobbying on behalf of a subsidiary of an investment firm partly owned by two sanctioned Russian oligarchs.

Speaker 25 And more recently, they've been working on behalf of the international firearms manufacturer, Sig Sauer.

Speaker 44 Well, they sound lovely.

Speaker 27 But now the Tories are in the wilderness, these guys are a small fry.

Speaker 65 I mean, cozing up to opposition backbenchers is going to do nobody any good, I presume.

Speaker 25 At the moment, it's a bit of a waste of time and money.

Speaker 25 If you want to get anything done in Westminster these days, then just as Cameron was the top hire when the Tories were in power, you need to be employing one of the firms run by a labour big beast.

Speaker 25 And this is where the former parliamentarians' lobbying gets really interesting, Andy, because labour big beasts don't get much bigger or beastlier than, wait for it, Peter O cum, o cum Immandelson.

Speaker 35 That is not acceptable, Andy. No, I'm sorry.

Speaker 64 Although he's just got a very nice Christmas present, he's just been announced ambassador to the USA.

Speaker 13 Yay! Yay!

Speaker 25 In 2016, Lord Mandelson helped set up Global Council, a consulting firm with a specific focus on clients who are, quote, working with public policy change.

Speaker 38 So when you say clients, what sort of clients are we talking about and what do they want?

Speaker 25 Well, top of the Christmas tree, time-wasting social media giant TikTok, the Chinese-owned platform who are ticked and presumably talked off

Speaker 25 about Britain's brand new online safety act and are lobbying against it.

Speaker 27 Okay, so just to be clear, the consultancy firm set up by Peter Madelson, the most labor-eyed laborite who ever laboured, is now lobbying against the Labour government.

Speaker 25 Essentially, yes. But perhaps the most interesting of Global Council's clients is Water UK, which is the trade association which represents all the big water companies.

Speaker 25 So that's the same water companies which last year were responsible for almost half a million instances of sewage spillage and for turning Britain's rivers into a physical representation of Elon Musk-era Twitter.

Speaker 25 Now, of course, the only thing better than having one ex-Labour cabinet minister lobbying on your behalf would be two ex-Labour cabinet ministers.

Speaker 25 So it's pretty handy that the current chair of Water UK just happens to be a woman called Ruth Kelly, who held six different ministerial posts under New Labour, which makes her a leading character in the TBEU.

Speaker 25 That's the Tony Blair extended universe.

Speaker 25 So Big Sewage has got some big names behind it.

Speaker 50 Okay, but the government genuinely is trying to crack down on water companies, as far as I understand it, as in their manifesto suggested legislation to bring criminal charges against companies dumping waste and blocking large bonuses for executives of those companies.

Speaker 21 That sort of thing, yeah.

Speaker 25 But actually, this is a great example of why knowing about lobbying is important. Because thanks to this weird Westminster bubble of peers and consultants and former MPs, Keir Starmer and Co.

Speaker 25 are currently spending taxpayers' money fighting some of their own Labour predecessors over a Labour manifesto pledge.

Speaker 27 Ultimately, Adam, the only question that matters is: is this lobbying by Mandelson's company on behalf of the water industry working?

Speaker 25 Well, the legislation continued its journey through the Commons just last week, and campaigners are pointing out that compared to Labour's original plans, this latest version of the bill has been significantly, and I'm sorry, there's simply no other way of saying this, watered down.

Speaker 29 You could say shitted up.

Speaker 13 Yeah, that could do it.

Speaker 22 Christmas miracle.

Speaker 52 Adam McQueen, everybody.

Speaker 71 Just time now for a few more quick Christmas crackers.

Speaker 15 This one from former post office boss Paula Venels.

Speaker 29 What does Santa say to the toys on Christmas Eve?

Speaker 31 I can't remember

Speaker 27 if I was ever told what Santa said to the toys.

Speaker 37 It was on the advice of others.

Speaker 29 And I'm sorry if the toys feel they were misled.

Speaker 13 I have another.

Speaker 56 This from it's from Benjamin Netanyahu.

Speaker 22 Why don't you ever see Father Christmas in a hospital? It's not a hospital, it's a Hamas command center

Speaker 26 and a legitimate target.

Speaker 27 Now, as it's the season of goodwill, we wanted to share something genuinely heartwarming that happened recently to some very good friends of ours.

Speaker 73 We don't normally boast here at GB News, but you know what? For once, I am going to, because on the racings, we have beaten not only Sky News, but the BBC News channel as well.

Speaker 39 He's back, the Clacton Poltergeist himself there on multicoloured Fury Shop GB News.

Speaker 27 But it turns out Farage is right.

Speaker 17 For a brief period recently, GBBs did indeed overtake the establishment heavy hitters in the ratings.

Speaker 50 And fair play to them, this is the biggest win for the flag-waving firebrands since 2022, when the channel was launched by Andrew Neal with all the pomp and ceremony of a dog walker launching a small plastic bag into a hedge.

Speaker 30 Unfortunately though, celebrations are short-lived because of the whopping £100,000 fine that the regulator recently dropped on them, taking into account 12 separate breaches of broadcasting standards.

Speaker 21 And according to reports, they also owe their parent company £83 million.

Speaker 30 Now, GB News is challenging Ofcom's ruling and is already exploring some loopholes in their broadcasting code, like shifting some of their fruitier presenters onto their YouTube channel where Ofcom can't police them.

Speaker 49 But at least they are now taking a proactive approach to regulations rather than just ignoring them as they normally do.

Speaker 60 And the naked weak wants to help.

Speaker 49 Genuinely, we really do.

Speaker 49 We really do.

Speaker 16 Because just like GB News, we have to obey Ofcom too.

Speaker 28 Every program does.

Speaker 46 We're all in this together, through Esther McVeigh and Thin.

Speaker 27 So rather than dodge around the regulator, we're happy to assist any fellow broadcasters who might want to diversify their output.

Speaker 52 And to assist us with this, please welcome media consultant and founding director of standards at actual Ofcom, Chris Banatvala.

Speaker 27 I expect most people here are familiar with some of Ofcom's rules.

Speaker 38 There are rules about nudity, bad language, not letting Robert Peston have scissors, that kind of thing.

Speaker 50 But here is our first helpful idea.

Speaker 30 GB News needs to raise some cash, clearly.

Speaker 31 Hypothetically, could they change tack and become a home shopping channel?

Speaker 59 I'm thinking great bargains news.

Speaker 63 It's a thought.

Speaker 63 But they'd first have to change their license. They're an editorial channel, so they'd have to turn themselves into a teleshopping channel.
And it also depends on what they're selling.

Speaker 63 But most importantly, if they're a teleshopping channel, they've got to make sure they don't mislead the audience, because after all, they are selling stuff.

Speaker 26 And I do, in fact, have one of GB News' home shopping products here.

Speaker 32 It's a scent.

Speaker 30 It's for men and women.

Speaker 16 It's called English Chanel.

Speaker 16 It's very nice.

Speaker 44 Unfortunately, you can't get any out.

Speaker 21 There's a blockade across the top of the bottle, but it's lovely.

Speaker 27 All right, here's another pivot for GB News.

Speaker 16 I'm thinking pretty straightforward this one: premium rate pornography.

Speaker 14 So it's gorgeous Babes News now.

Speaker 29 It's like Babe Station, but it's patriotic.

Speaker 56 What do you think?

Speaker 77 BabeStation?

Speaker 62 Yeah. Really?

Speaker 41 Well, I mean, I wouldn't know, but yeah.

Speaker 61 It's interesting.

Speaker 22 It's an interesting thought.

Speaker 63 I think the thing with those stations, they used to be registered and regulated in EU countries like the Netherlands.

Speaker 63 But now, anyone broadcasting in the UK has to have an Ofcom license because of Brexit. So thanks, Nigel Sfarage.
Bay Station is in the UK and Ofcom compliant.

Speaker 22 That is as a Naked Week exclusive.

Speaker 65 We have found a genuine, tangible benefit of Brexit.

Speaker 19 We have taken back control of our filth.

Speaker 13 Great.

Speaker 43 I've never been prouder.

Speaker 14 Okay, Chris, we have one more suggestion for GB News that we'd like your opinion on.

Speaker 65 We think this might be a genuine money spinner.

Speaker 47 Now, earlier in the show, we used a Ouija board to contact Nigel Farage.

Speaker 65 That got us thinking.

Speaker 54 10 or 15 years ago, you used to be able to ring up weird freeview channels.

Speaker 30 There were things like Psychic Today.

Speaker 63 There are limits to what these psychic-type programs can do. They have to be for entertainment purposes only.
They can't pretend to be real.

Speaker 63 So my advice is to be careful if you're contacting the dead, conducting exorcisms, practicing clairvoyance, Satanism, invoking spirits, or just simply using a Ouija board.

Speaker 22 Okay, so this is a bit awkward because our Ouija board, we did use it.

Speaker 63 Were you contacting the dead?

Speaker 69 We were contacting Nigel Farage.

Speaker 13 Well, that's all right. Okay, great.

Speaker 40 Okay, the Naked Week Ouija board is in the clear. That's confirmed.

Speaker 30 But could you have presenters on GB News, ghost-bothering news, very nice, claiming they are actually channeling the dead?

Speaker 63 No, and anyway, it would have to be objective.

Speaker 36 Okay.

Speaker 30 So I presume not like when they did this.

Speaker 73 What must Martin Luther King be thinking as he spins in his grave?

Speaker 22 George V would be spinning in his grave.

Speaker 71 Walt Disney and his father would be turning in their graves.

Speaker 67 Margaret Thatcher will be spinning in her grave.

Speaker 65 Suffragettes are spinning in their graves.

Speaker 14 Princess Diana would be spinning in her grave.

Speaker 23 The Queen, obviously, you know, arguably the greatest ever living Brit, will no doubt be turning in her grave.

Speaker 72 To say that Roald Dahl is spinning in his grave is an understatement.

Speaker 33 Part of me wants to resurrect Winston Churchill and present him with a screaming blue and pink head non-binary furry.

Speaker 44 That escalated very fast.

Speaker 31 Now, Chris, hypothetically, would a resurrected Winston Churchill presenting a primetime show on GB News fall foul of Ofcom?

Speaker 63 I think it really depends on whether it's news or entertainment.

Speaker 76 Chris, they've resurrected Winston Churchill.

Speaker 36 It's clearly news.

Speaker 57 Okay, I think we've really helped clarify Ofcom's rules.

Speaker 32 So if you are listening, GB News, you can have these ideas for free.

Speaker 59 Not least because we know you cannot afford to pay for them.

Speaker 52 Thank you, Chris Benavala.

Speaker 59 Now, as we were saying, we tried to contact Nigel Farage with a Ouija board, and that is one of the weirdest sentences we've ever said, even on this show.

Speaker 55 One of the reasons he may be hard to get hold of in his constituency is because he's a very busy man.

Speaker 31 The first month he was an MP, he received almost £100,000 from GB News for his show, Nigel Farage's Alt-Right Circle Jerk.

Speaker 19 He's also a popular after-dinner speaker, banking thousands per gig.

Speaker 17 And now even Elon Musk is stuffing his beer-sodden hamster cheeks with cash.

Speaker 13 But

Speaker 51 what piqued our interest the most was the money that old Nigel makes on a celebrity video message platform.

Speaker 60 His constituents often complain their calls are going unanswered.

Speaker 31 Some say they cannot get a reply with him for love nor money.

Speaker 54 But that is where they are wrong.

Speaker 69 Because you can get a message from Nigel Farage.

Speaker 47 Not for love, but certainly for money.

Speaker 30 For 75 quid, Nigel will read out any message you like.

Speaker 31 And according to the the Register of Members' Interests, he's earned £38,000 from this public service in the last year.

Speaker 32 Except it's now £38,075

Speaker 14 because what he didn't know was that this message request came from his ever-helpful friends at the Naked Week.

Speaker 38 Ladies and gentlemen, we have finally succeeded in contacting Nigel, and here he is with an actual message for me about the Naked Week.

Speaker 73 Hi, Andy. Congrats on the new role.
You are doing doing a smashing job. Keep up the great work.
There's nothing like a new job.

Speaker 73 It just gives you the energy that you need in life to go out there and succeed. So Andy, please do it.

Speaker 21 Thanks, Nigel.

Speaker 14 Credit where it's due.

Speaker 27 He did exactly what we wanted.

Speaker 41 That's brilliant.

Speaker 32 And it also brings us to the end of this week's show.

Speaker 22 So, Nigel, will you help me do the honours?

Speaker 73 Let's make this happen.

Speaker 62 You've been listening to the Naked Week team of Andrew, Amy, John, Gareth, Katie, Sarah, Jason, Alan, and Lily.

Speaker 14 With additional nakedness from Mark Haynes and Carl Minnes with Darren Phillips, Cooper Mwinny Swirt, and Phoebe Butler, with guests Neil Frost and Chris Bannett Mala.

Speaker 14 As everyone, while I'm here, lots of love from producer and director John Holmes.

Speaker 14 It was an unusual production for BBC Radio 4 and from all of us at the Naked Week.

Speaker 73 Please have a very happy Christmas.

Speaker 13 Goodbye!

Speaker 78 Strong message here from BBC Radio 4.

Speaker 77 A brand new series stress testing to destruction the buzzwords and phrases used and abused by politicians.

Speaker 78 Hawk barrel politics.

Speaker 48 Red state. Purple state.

Speaker 54 Sports washer.

Speaker 78 Strong and stable.

Speaker 62 Flip-flopper.

Speaker 78 What do they actually mean?

Speaker 77 I'm Amanda Nucci.

Speaker 8 And I'm Helen Lewis.

Speaker 77 And like a couple of disgraced stage magicians recently kicked out of the magic circle, we'll be revealing all the verbal tricks of the trade.

Speaker 78 And singling out the worst examples of political doublespeak. Strong message here from BBC Radio 4.

Speaker 77 Listen now on BBC Signs.

Speaker 4 Hello, I'm Greg Jenner, host of You're Dead to Me, the comedy podcast from the BBC that takes history seriously.

Speaker 6 Each week, I'm joined by a comedian and an expert historian to learn and laugh about the past.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 8 Listen to You're Dead to Me Now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 79 Suffs, the new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway. We demand to be home.
Winner, best score. We demand to be seen.

Speaker 56 Winner, best book. We demand to be quality.

Speaker 79 It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season. Suffs.

Speaker 79 Playing the Orpheum Theater October 22nd through November 9th. Tickets at BroadwaySF.com