The Naked Week: Ep 3. Prisons, Syria, and Kemi's Catchphrase.

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Oh, love it.

Hello, and welcome to The Naked Week, Radio 4's new topical comedy.

Imagine question time if Fiona Bruce have been toppled by rebels.

This week, on the naked week, Nigel Farage has been working on his impression of a hungry baby.

Wants some milk.

Proper bloody milk, not left-wing options, proper milk.

What's wrong with me asking for that?

On the Today programme, Nick Robinson swallows a condom full of cocaine.

If it goes through, the question then will be where it goes next.

It often is.

Reforms Lee Anderson explains that his friends don't need women.

My mate's got one of these simulators in his bedroom.

And wait, what did Sky News's Trevor Phillips just call Angela Rainer?

Angela Raina, the black-legged kit awake.

Leave it, Trev.

She's not worth it.

And I'm beginning to suspect that politicians and journalists have a bet on to see who can squeeze the most comedy catchphrase references into their interviews.

For example, here is Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride.

It is a dead parrot, okay?

It has ceased to exist.

It is pushing up the daisies.

And this was Keir Starmer channeling OnlyFools and Horses.

No income tax, no VAT.

No money back, no guarantee.

Keir, you plonker.

But they weren't the only ones going catchphrase crazy because the Tories woke buster in chief, Kemi Badenock, has been in the USA to renew links with the Republican Party, and it was there that she told the trumped-up throng.

I don't like using the word woke to describe these issues.

I use progressive authoritarianism.

before going on to say, but for some reason, progressive authoritarianism is not catching on.

No, Kemi, no, because as a catchphrase, it is hardly up there with, am I bothered, is it?

But we are bothered because we at the Naked Week are nothing if not supportive.

And we think that with our help, this time next week, your new catchphrase could be on mugs, magnets, posters.

Progressive authoritarianism will be on the lips of kids and playgrounds everywhere, as they all do the progressive authoritarianism TikTok dance.

We say let's start the campaign now.

I can tell that our studio audience is up for it.

So, here's how we're going to get it started.

Let's do a classic catchphrase-style audience call and response.

So, let's start with: nice to see you, to see you.

Progressive authoritarianism.

Lovely.

What do points make?

Progressive authoritarianism.

Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be

brilliant.

Our survey said...

Happy to help, Kemi.

Happy to help.

We've all seen the extraordinary scenes in Syria this past week.

The downfall of a brutal, decades-long regime and the rise of another

one.

It's too soon to say.

It might be fine.

It might be worse.

Middle Eastern politics is like jazz.

It's complex.

It's unpredictable.

And people who are really into it are no fun to be around.

But the most striking thing about this whole story was how fast the rebels swept across the country.

Two weeks ago, Aleppo taken.

Islamist fighters have taken over Aleppo.

Last Friday, Hama taken.

Entered the city of Hama.

Saturday, Homs taken.

They are now in full control of the city of Homs.

Sunday, Damascus, taken.

Seized control of Damascus.

Monday, Liam Neeson, taken.

But what I do have are a very particular set of skills.

Sorry, sorry.

That was me on Netflix.

But just like that, it was all over.

And it was time up for Assad, who hastily grabbed his inflatable travel pillow and anti-Novitroc medication

and escaped to Moscow

to join fellow expats Edward Snowden, Stephen Sigal, and Gerard Depardieu in what will either be the best or worst podcast ever made.

The House Arrest is Politics.

Yes!

Thank you.

You are very generous people.

And seeing the opposition military taking cities and towns with breathtaking speed, the Naked Week team started wondering, how do you actually do it?

How do you take a town?

And could it be done here?

How would rebel forces go about capturing, say, Nuneaton?

And that's not a random choice, by the way.

Nuneaton is a crucial bellwether seat in most elections.

It's a vital strategic political stronghold.

As Professor Sir John Curtis himself once said, Nuneaton is the Homs of Warwickshire.

So let's talk military strategy now.

Please welcome to join our Chief Correspondent Amy and me, former British Military Intelligence Officer Philip Ingram.

So before we get to Nuneaton, this stuff of taking cities, how actually do you take a city?

The best way to take anything is to do it without a fight.

So you want to try and put as much pressure as you can can to force those that are in there to realise that it's hopeless and time for them to move on somewhere else.

Okay, so let's say, for the sake of argument, that there's a violent political and military uprising in the West Midlands.

Stranger things have happened.

I live in the West Midlands, so yes.

Right.

And those forces are being led by firebrand Islamist rebel Amy Hoggett.

Whoop whoop.

whose soldiers are, as we speak, bearing down on Nuneaton.

Now, we actually have here in the room an ordnance survey map map of Nuneaton town centre.

Let us just game this out.

Let's say I'm the sitting president and maybe it's been a decades-long despotic reign of terror.

Maybe actually I'm really just misunderstood and I'm a good guy and I did actually win 140% in that last election.

Sure.

Either way, I'm going to be controlling my government forces while holed up in the Rope Walk shopping centre and I'm going to be making TK Max my stronghold.

Can we go over to the map?

Yes.

All I've ever wanted to do is push little things around a map, and now we're here and we're doing it.

Nuneaton is here.

Okay, so right, let's game this out a little bit.

So I have here a can of Lynx body spray with my face taped to it to represent the classic massive autocratic statue of the dictator.

So I'm going to put that here.

It's Lynx Syria.

It's a new...

Okay.

Okay.

Now we're going to have some Lego people to represent the armed forces.

So Amy is going to be potentially coming down from Tamworth.

Well, I don't want you to know.

No, okay.

See, she knows the plan.

She knows how to do this.

You could be coming up from Bulking.

But then I'm off the map.

Bedworth is gone.

That's the main thing.

Philip, what should I, President Murray, do to secure my stronghold against Amy?

Right.

Have you got defense and depth, or are you stuck in this in TK Max?

We have the high point, which is, I think, the old slag heat.

Mount Mount Judd.

We've got Mount Judd.

Okay, where should

Amy be concentrating her attention and fighting?

Let's say I'm not going to go quiet.

It's a KFC near the train station.

Yes.

So I just thought I'd re-punch the troops, then cut off the supply.

Logistics, that's brilliant.

Wars are won or lost on logistics, so tick, yes.

Thank you.

I think there's a pound land on the marketplace.

Yep.

So I can stock up on artillery.

And then I'm going to go down to Riversley Park.

There's the Nuneaton Museum and an art gallery.

So then I'll control all the state-sponsored propaganda.

Where can I, former beloved, misunderstood President Murray, flee?

As I went to Moscow, can I make it onto the M69 M69 and get to Leicester?

Well,

you might be able to, but what's in Leicester for you?

You need to get a son.

A question so many have.

Exactly.

So, Nuneaton has fallen, and what we've learned is that even in a hypothetical scenario, a man has been forced out of a job to make way for a woman.

Typical.

So much for equality.

Even war gaming is woke these days.

Isn't that right, Kemi?

I use progressive authoritarianism.

Thank you, Cammie.

Brilliant.

Thank you for it.

Time now for a quick look through the highlights in the Christmas Radio Times that's just hit the shelves.

Lovely.

Okay, now let's just have a little look through.

Christmas Eve, there is a special episode of Jacob Reese Mogg's new reality show, Christmas at Home with the Mogs.

It says here, join former MP and spectral umbrella Jacob

as his haunted brood gather round the tree to open their trust funds and roast orphans on an open fire.

That's lovely.

Great.

Amy, what have you found?

BBC One's big family animation is The Boy, the Mole, The Lawrence Fox, and the Horse.

This is a heartwarming tale of friendship, respect, and kindness.

Completely spoiled when Lawrence Fox calls the horse a paedophile on Twitter.

I'll set my recorder.

Christmas Day morning, this sounds really special.

Strictly Wolf Hall.

Claudia Winkleman and psychic Mark Rylance balletically execute all the on-screen talent that's embarrassed the BBC over the past year.

And here on Radio 4 on Boxing Day, it's the Christmas festive edition of Feedback.

And we've got a preview.

I'm sorry, but it's just not funny.

Boring, boring, boring.

Nevertheless, I'm outraged.

We've switched off after 12 minutes.

It was all so terribly feeble.

And also something that sounds like intellectual snobbery.

Surely the BBC can do better than this.

And those were all messages that came into Feedback about feedback.

Magical.

This is The Naked Week on Radio 4, and we are still trying to get Kemi Badenock's call and response audience catchphrase to catch on.

I don't like using the word woke.

I use progressive authoritarianism.

Let's just try it one more time.

Heidi high.

Izzy Wizzy, let's get.

Progressive authorities.

I've started so well.

Progressive authorities.

It's time now to just take a quiet moment in the Naked Week's topical garden of contemplation.

It's the news in haikus.

Storms batter Britain.

Christmas comes early.

You've just gained a trampoline.

The news in haikus.

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

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

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

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

Now, throughout the series, The Naked Week has been looking at government lobbying.

And as we've learned, if you stare long enough into government lobbying, something suspicious will stare back into you.

Despite our efforts, however, we have so far failed to bring down the government.

Syrian rebels won Naked Week nil.

So we thought we would give it one more crack.

As the old saying goes, if at first you don't succeed, you'll probably lose Truss.

I'm joined once again by The Naked Week's Adam McQueen.

Adam, we talked last week about think tanks and ethics and spads.

Oh my.

And I suppose to some extent, that's its own weird, grotty little ecosystem like a stagnant puddle or ITV.

But people

are probably more familiar with lobbying when it comes to dishing out lucrative government contracts.

Is that fair?

Yeah, yeah.

Things like the PPE scandal during COVID.

Not Matt Hancock's finest hour.

No.

Although when was Matt Hancock's finest hour?

I mean, they all featured Matt Hancock.

So anyway, PPE procurement has been back in the news, hasn't it?

It has.

Just this month, Rachel Reeves appointed a COVID corruption commissioner.

Big moment for fans of needlessly alliterative job titles.

And to be fair to the Chancellor, cleaning up government is something she's demonstrably passionate about.

Here she is wielding the opposition pressure washer back in 2021.

The government chose to prioritise contracts for friends, for donors, and a handful of large companies and the whole cabinet.

They've just gone along with all of it.

Adam, what type of large companies was she railing against there?

Well, those PPE companies for one.

But the Conservative government also gave other contracts to companies like, say, Price Waterhouse Coopers, or PWC, which is a multinational auditing and accounting firm who had donated over half a million in what they called staff costs and consultancy services to the Tories when they were in opposition.

Oh, consultancy, costs, auditing, accounting.

It's sexy talk, Adam.

Pass me Martin Lewis and a cold flannel.

Steady yourself, Anna, because a decade later, when the Tories were clearly heading for the exit, Price Waterhouse Coopers started donating to Labour instead.

How much are we talking?

Over £300,000 in staff costs between January 2021 and June 2024.

So that's shortly after Party Gate, right up to the moment where Rishi Sunak dissolved both Parliament and himself in the rain outside number 10.

Okay, but donations are perfectly fine.

The Chancellor doesn't seem to object to those.

Her concern was, let's have it again, Rachel.

What was it?

Contracts for friends, for donors, and a handful of large companies.

Okay, so presumably, under a Labour government, there will be none of what to the uninitiated could look like kind of cash for contracts.

That's correct, Andy.

There wasn't any of that.

Terrific.

Well, that's great.

For the first month.

Oh, right.

And then on the 9th of August this year, the Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero awarded Price Waterhouse Coopers a contract worth up to £8 million.

Well, that was.

And just four days after that, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs handed PwC another contract worth over £300,000.

Okay, but if you...

And last month, the Ministry of Defence gave them yet another contract worth £270,000.

So after just six months of a Labour government, a prominent Labour-donating consultancy firm is already up around 9 million quid.

Okay, so what we're saying is the Tories were hard at it, and now Labour are hard at it, too.

Well, perhaps.

But PWC isn't the only company to benefit.

There's also Ernst - Young, another multinational, covering, wait for it, mergers and acquisitions, tax services, and financial auditing.

Martin Lewis is going to need another flannel.

Ernst ⁇ Young also gave money to Labour before the election and have subsequently received government contracts worth millions.

Okay, so to be clear, nobody is suggesting that Ernst Young and PWC weren't qualified for or unable to deliver those contracts, but we know how the Chancellor felt when, Rachel.

The government chose to prioritise contracts for donors.

She seems dead against it.

That and pensioners heating their homes.

But.

Well, it's funny you should bring up Rachel Reeves again, because back in August, she tried to appoint a man named Ian Caulfield to a senior civil service job in the Treasury.

And that was the same Ian Caulfield, who, as it happened, had previously donated £5,000

to Rachel Reeves.

So do you just mean to the Labour Party?

No, I mean to Rachel Reeves directly.

And she would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling people who noticed.

That is not actually illegal.

No, no, no, true.

It's sleazy, but it's not illegal.

Which, by the way, is also the motto of Eton College.

Apparently, it sounds better in Latin.

But Ian Caulfield isn't the only example, by the way.

There's also Emily Middleton.

Before the election, the consultancy firm where she worked worked paid 67 000 pounds to second her to the office of peter kyle mp and when he became science secretary in kierstama's government she was coincidentally appointed to a civil service job as a director in his department okay you said coincidentally is there a chance it is just a complete coincidence

yes

thank god for that

shortly after her new role was confirmed the very same peter kyle held a meeting with the then government chief digital officer mike potter a freedom of information request by the naked week has uncovered what was said in that meeting.

The Secretary of State and Mike Potter discussed Emily Middleton as an excellent addition to the department.

The Secretary of State was keen to support bringing in top talent where his personal impact would help.

Okay, so if it is a coincidence, it's a very big one.

A thousand to one shot.

Okay.

Or you might say maybe a 67,000 to one shot.

That would be nice.

So just to clarify what we have here, in addition to a private donor coming within inches of a job in Rachel Reeves' treasury, we've got a consultancy firm cozying up to a cabinet minister who appears happy to directly influence civil service appointments.

And the naked week is making no suggestion of impropriety.

Has our lawyer told you to say that?

No.

This is all a bit like what we were talking about last week.

That's right.

If you remember last time, we had Jess Sargent, who was a former staffer from a Labour think tank, being wangled into a job in the Cabinet Office by obscure procedural loopholes.

So is there anyone actually scrutinising civil service appointments?

Oh, yes.

It's an independent, executive, non-departmental public body called the Civil Service Commission.

They sound fun?

Crazy name, crazy guys.

This is how they describe themselves.

We are established by statute to provide assurance that civil servants are selected on merit on the basis of fair and open competition.

And in the spirit of fair and open competition, they examined the appointment of Jess Sargent.

And that job was never advertised.

And yeah, that's a fair and open competition of one.

Got it.

And they also looked at the appointment of minister's mate Emily Middleton at the Department of Science, and they concluded that they were.

Largely satisfied with processes in place within departments.

Largely satisfied.

I don't know what we're all still doing here.

That's fine.

That's largely reassuring, isn't it?

But do we know what Kier Starmer, what's special K himself, makes of all this?

Well,

he certainly has views on the civil service.

Trying to get it going.

He's certainly got views on the civil service, Andy.

It's just not entirely clear what they actually are.

This was him during last week's milestone speech.

I do think that too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline.

The tepid bath.

Andy, you're thinking about Martin Lewis's fannel again, aren't you?

I certainly am.

Adam McQueen, everybody.

You're listening to The Naked Week on Radio 4.

In the news this week, Keir Starmer has advice for beginners on how to join your local public toilet cottaging group.

Maybe starts online or in a stall and then goes from there.

The Today programme's Nick Robinson is disappointed by a sheep.

I was left at the end of it thinking, not woolly.

And Amul Rajan is asked to describe his ideal Christmas dinner.

A Cuban cigar, very small bits of rubber, and turkey.

While on Good Morning Britain, Richard Madeley described the suspect in the New York assassination case while simultaneously sounding like he was trying to impress a waiter in Bella Italia.

He is 26, 26-year-old Luigi Maggioni.

Are you all right, Richard?

Do you need us to call someone?

Maybe we should refer to all assassination suspects like that.

I'll have the Leah Harvey Oswald with the side of John Wiltshire Booth and the bloke who shot John Elennon with olives.

So, while Syrian prisoners were being released this week, in the UK, there came news that the backlog of cases in the nation's Crown Courts is expected to reach 100,000.

There's a shortage of barristers, a shortage of prison cells, and also in the news this week, a shortage of Guinness.

Which is not relevant to the first two, but we really needed three.

Earlier this year, with jails at capacity, the government's decision to give prisoners early release seemed reasonable.

But on Monday, it was reported that a committee in the Lords found Labour completely failed to anticipate the consequences of releasing dangerous prisoners back into the country.

It's a catch-22.

Not having cells available is worsening the backlog, but freeing them up by giving domestic abusers a packed lunch for the bus home isn't ideal.

It's like the shortlist for BBC's Sports Personality of the Year coming down to a choice between Jermaine Genus and a soil jockstrap.

So why are UK prisons so full and are any of the assassins in them hot?

Well, one of the reasons the prisons are overcrowded is the legacy of IPPs or indefinite detainment for public protection orders by which minor criminals who might have otherwise only got a couple of months could be sentenced for up to 99 years.

There are thousands of examples.

Here is just one.

Martin Myers, who at time of recording has spent more than 18 years in prison after being given an IPP for attempting to steal a cigarette.

Attempting.

He didn't even succeed.

He has been in prison for two decades for not stealing a cigarette.

Now, in 2012, the European Convention on Human Rights ruled IPPs were unlawful and abolished them.

But it wasn't applied retrospectively to the 3,000 prisoners serving them at the time, and 1,000 of them are still serving IPPs today, clogging up the cells with their wanton attempted tobacco heists.

Another reason that this year has seen a particular lack of cell space is that Labour spent most of the summer locking up protesters left, right, and centre, or to be more accurate, right, right, and far right.

Now, to be clear, many of the writers jailed a few months back deserve it.

Like this man who was sentenced to 38 months for violent disorder offences in Middlesbrough, including spouting this hate-fueled manifesto, which we have reconstructed verbatim.

You can stick your chicken ticker up your ass!

You can stick your chicken ticker up your ass.

That is a rallying cry, if ever I heard one.

To which, and I love this, the judge said, this in no way reflects the values of the decent people of Middlesbrough.

So, although a lot of the rioters do deserve to be in prison, or at the very least in A ⁇ E with curry-related internal injuries, the speed, the speed of Starma's reaction does seem even more notable now, given this week's backlog news.

And the media's coverage has also been quite unhelpful.

According to the Telegraph, Talk TV, and the BBC, one man was even sent to prison for yelling at a dog.

Yelling at a dog.

Really?

Well, no, not really.

He was actually sent to prison for violent disorder, which included shouting at a police dog.

The judge said his actions were dangerous in a tinderbox atmosphere, as opposed to a chicken ticker box atmosphere, which is very different but equally ill-advised.

But leading with man jailed for shouting at dog as the headline is classic clickbait and if you read that you'll think well no wonder the prisons are full the government has lost the plot and to be clear you cannot go to prison for shouting at a dog.

If you could Barbara Woodhouse would have faced the death penalty.

But the stats are shocking and they haven't received much attention.

The media have been far too busy reporting on a man shouting at a dog and not busy enough reporting on the real crisis in our prisons.

We were stumped.

We wanted to get people to pay attention to the shocking stats, but we also knew that to do that we needed to be a bit more clickbait.

And then we realized the answer was staring us in the face and the snout because in a radio first, the Naked Week is going to broadcast these shocking prison statistics by shouting them at a dog.

Buckle up.

Now, I should explain that due to some stupid red tape called the Performing Animals Act of 1925,

we can't actually bring a dog onto the stage without a special license.

We would have to apply to a court or something.

What with the backlog?

It wouldn't work.

Anyway, long story short, we have found a workaround.

We cannot have a dog on stage here.

But over to my left here is this theatre's load-in door, which leads to the outside world.

And in the outside world, crucially not on stage, but certainly within earshot of the perimeter.

Amy, can you do the honours?

I'm opening them now.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rupert the dog.

Hello, Rupert.

Hello.

Here we go, good boy!

Oh.

Look how cutie.

He's so sweet.

He's a good boy.

You do need to keep him outside the room.

There we go.

Sorry, Rupert.

This feels...

Feels very harsh, this.

Hello, sorry, Rupert's owner.

What's your name as well?

Andrew.

Hello, Andrew, how's it going?

What sort of dog is Rupert?

This is a jorky poo.

What is that?

A mix of Jack Russell, Yorkshire Terrier, and poodle.

Wow.

A jorky poo.

How old?

Four.

And how old is Rupert?

Okay, Rupert, are you ready?

Rupert's looking round at a bus.

Okay.

Amy, you've got the stats too as well, I believe.

Yes.

It is time for us now to call this important story to public attention.

Rupert?

Rupert.

Rupert we have some.

Yeah.

Yeah all right.

He's very cute.

Yeah yeah.

We're trying to do news here guys.

Rupert are you ready?

Amy it's time to shout these facts at the dog.

Let's go.

Over the summer prisons were just 100 spaces away from reaching full capacity Rupert.

Yes.

With the length of current delays, the average case now takes 683 days between reporting and completion.

Bad dog.

Rupert, good dog.

Rupert, don't milk it.

I'm sorry, you're a good boy.

Rupee, Rupi, over here.

Over a quarter of cases wait more than a year to even be heard at all.

Yes.

Almost one in five people in prison are there on remand awaiting trial.

Walkies?

Rupe, 16,000 people were kept in prison on remand last year, including many who were later acquitted.

Rupert!

Rupert!

Someone serving a four-year sentence can now be released in less than 10 months.

No biscuits!

Guys!

It's okay!

It's okay, boy!

But you need to know, Rupert, that the number of prisoners has been growing by 4,500 a year.

Yes, and one last thing, Rupert.

And this one is a bit dense, so you will need to pay attention.

The National Audit Office has just released a report saying that Boris Johnson's pledge to create 20,000 extra cell spaces will not now be met until 2031 and is already £4.2 billion over budget.

In your basket!

Oh, Rupert, one more thing, sorry.

While we've got you, we've been trying to help out Kemi Babenot with her new catchphrase.

Just have a listen to this, Rupert, see what you think of it.

I don't like using the word woke to describe these issues.

I use progressive authoritarianism.

But for some reason, progressive authoritarianism is not catching on.

But with our help, it can, and we can now get it into the canine community too.

So, audience, I would like us all to shout at the dog the catchphrase, one, two, three.

Progressive authoritarianism.

And I...

Ladies and gentlemen, Rupert the Dog, the most statistically qualified dog brackets, prisons, closed brackets in the world.

The Naked Reef was hosted by me, Andrew Hunter Murray, with chief Correspondent Amy Hoggart and guests Philip Ingram and Rupert the Dog.

It was written by John Holmes, Gareth Koretig, Katie Sayer, Sarah Dempster, Jason Hazley, Adam McQueen, and Louis Mian.

Additional Nakedness was by Mark Haynes and Carl Minnes with Ali Panting, Alice Bright, Cooper Mawini Swirt, Pete Redfern, and Gavin Greenwood with the voice of Jake Yap.

The Naked Week is produced and directed by John Holmes and it's an unusual production for BBC Radio 4.

Strong message here from BBC Radio 4.

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

Hawk barrel politics.

Red state.

Purple state.

Sports washing.

Strong and stable.

Flip-flopper.

What do they actually mean?

I'm Amanda Nucci.

And I'm Helen Lewis.

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.

And singling out the worst examples of political doublespeak.

Strong message here from BBC Radio 4.

Listen now on BBC Sounds.

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

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

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

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