The News Quiz: Ep3. Work & Play

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We present the News Quiz with me, Andy Zoltzman.

Hello, I'm Andy Zoltzman.

Welcome to a special world soothing edition of the News Quiz, during which I will continually rub an aromatherapy massage oil into this voodoo globe.

So, if things start smelling of eucalyptus and lemon verbena whilst you're listening at home, it's obviously working.

Our teams this week paying tribute to Ed Davies' walk-on music and Keir Starmer's wealthy supporters.

We have Team Take a Chance on Me versus Team Take a Free Outfit and tickets to a Taylor Swift gig on me.

On Team Chance, we have Simon Evans and Deputy Political Editor of ITV News, Anushka Rastana.

On Team Free Outfit, Outfit, Ian Smith, and visiting us from India, Aditi Mittal.

And given that some of the news from the rest of the world isn't entirely laugh-out-loud, funny this week, let's start close to home.

Anushka and Simon can have the first question.

Who has been finding out this week the cost of free clothes?

The cost of free clothes in damaged reputations.

I have been warming my hands over the embers of Labour's reputation for fair dealing, transparency, compassion, compassion, decency, moral rectitude, etc., etc.

With revelation after revelation of Keir Starmer's venal snoutery, which has been really quite delicious.

Of course, Lord Ali, about whom I knew very little, has been paying for Lady Starmer's wardrobe.

I have no idea what Ali's long game is, whether it is an entirely well-intentioned generosity which he's been bestowing upon our dear leader, or whether he is hoping to sort of gradually lure him into ever more humiliating spectacles.

Whether a couple of weeks' time, Lady Stamer will be appearing at the cenotaph dressed as Mr.

Blobby or Tinky Winky, or something as more outfits arrive by post and it becomes too awkward to say anything.

Yes, it's been absolutely delicious.

I mean, it is not a good look.

I've been going through the numbers today.

He has had £107,000 worth of freebies, more than any other MP since 2019, quite a lot more than Rishi Sunak.

I was looking at the market.

To be fair, Rishi Sunak doesn't pay VAT on his clothes, so they are

around 40,000 was from Lord Ali, who I've been looking a lot into the Labour Party recently, and he was very involved in the election campaign.

I noticed that Kirstarma's top team used his office in apparently a very nice townhouse in Soho.

I mean, the bit that got me was the 3,500 on glasses.

And this week we had all the regional political correspondents grilling Keir Starmer.

And one person just said to him, It was like, you're literally taking hundreds of pounds off pensioners while spending two thousand pounds on glasses.

And Keir Starmer completely ignored it and basically said, I'm going to bring change.

Change from £2,000.

I mean, what do you think they were X-ray specs?

Are they like super high-tech?

I mean, there are smart glasses now, aren't there?

Although they've come and gone a little bit.

A few years ago, Google Glass developed these ones that I really wanted a pair because apparently they could lock onto a face in the crowd and you could sort of murmur an instruction and it would tell you who it was if you were supposed to know them, which at the age of 59 would be such a blessing.

Mother!

Hello, mother.

Yes.

Aditi, you're over here from India.

How does our free clothes and football ticket scandal compare to what your Indian politicians get up to?

It's adorable.

This is honestly the cutest scandal out there.

What he took some clothes paid for by somebody else.

Good.

At least I'm not paying for it.

I mean, the worst thing you can accuse him of is gatekeeping where he got his outfits from.

But now you know it's all ASOS, which is as seen on Starmers.

Ian, I don't know who pays for your clothes.

Yeah, it's very hard to slam someone about their appearance on the radio.

You can just go back to everyone with made up.

So, why don't you have any clothes on, Simon?

Andy, why have you drawn that offensive mustache on your top lip?

Why are the audience all looking like this?

I've reacted very badly there.

I've reacted like a man who clearly doesn't look good because I've gone very defensive very quickly.

I could do with David Lammy defending me.

David Lamy's come to Kiersteimer's defence.

He said the matter was not a transparency issue, which is very good when we're talking about claws.

But yeah, he said this happens a lot, and that Kiersteimer and his wife want to look their best to represent the UK.

And I don't mean this as any disrespect to any of us, but I think if you really want to represent the UK, looking your best is not

the way to do it.

I mean, in terms of what you personally would like to give to the Prime Minister or any other political figure, without plugging any forthcoming tours you may or may not have on sale, details of which may be available online, what would you donate to a political figure to further their cultural awakenings?

The Darts.

Right.

This isn't even a joke.

I've never been to the Darts and I've never wanted to go to something more in my life.

Right.

It's good to have achievable goals.

Yeah.

But

the atmosphere is incredible, and you can't see the thing that's happening.

The dart board is so far away, but really, you're just drinking beer until a man who doesn't really seem to have any public speaking skills shouts 1080

in a tone of voice that doesn't even sound like the number he's saying, and then you all dance.

I think that's what Britain should be all about.

I mean, I think it, you know, great premiers do usually have some kind of artefact by which they're known, don't they?

And it can be a little bit dishonest, it can be theatrical.

Harold Wilson famously affected the Gannex overcoat and the pipe.

He actually liked to smoke a cigar in private, but he was afraid that would make him look like an old high Tory, so he smoked a pipe.

Margaret Thatcher had a handbag, Tony Blair had half a million war dead.

Everyone has something with which they're associated.

And I think it's about time Starmer found his icon, you know, and I don't know what it would be.

I think possibly a vaping device.

I think watermelon ice when I see him.

This is for Anoushka and Simon, who this week was revealed to be worth 2.46 newly upgraded train drivers or approximately five weeks worth of Nigel Farage's side hustles

or crucially 1.02 prime ministers?

Yes, Sue Grey, of course, yes.

She's got a salary I think it's 170,000 per annum, which is just like symbolically, slightly meaningfully more than Keir Starmer.

And whether or not she had the opportunity to dip below that and make it less of a news item seems to be a matter of controversy.

It seems like an awful lot of money, but of course, in total fiscal terms, despite the huge cuts and the austerity which the Labour Party have unexpectedly imposed on the country, £170,000 a year is a drop in the ocean,

a drop of sour horse urine in an ocean of pensioners' tears, but still, nevertheless, a drop in the ocean.

And I just think for a woman who has managed to negotiate herself quite such an eye-wateringly high sum, she has to be regarded now as some sort of wizard.

And consequently, I think she should be known as Sue the Grey.

Be more according with her status.

I think the problem for Sue Grey is less the salary.

But the thing that's actually going on behind the scenes is that a lot of people are briefing about all of this.

And that's because she's earning a fair amount above what her Tory predecessors earned, whilst all the special advisors in the departments are earning quite a bit lower than what all their predecessors earned, I think what's a big deal is there is massive upset across the kind of political arm of government at the moment.

And I think people are going to be able to do that.

Apparently, like all of Labour's advisers are quite upset.

But why didn't they just advise Labour to pay less?

That's what I do.

I mean, it would be helpful perhaps if we all knew what she does.

It's hard to know, isn't it?

What Chief of Staff it sounds like a glorified secretary really, and there's an app for that now, isn't there?

You know, Alexa, what time's my four 4:30?

I think it's okay.

There's just got to be transparency.

Again, we've seen these figures in print, but it doesn't really sink home.

I think she should be forced to wheel her salary home every evening in a visible wheelbarrow

in pound coins and

through the streets of Westminster.

Always full of constructive suggestions, Simon.

That's what I'm.

Andy, my visa status doesn't permit me to comment on anyone else's salary.

So Labour's conference begins on Sunday.

Yeah, it's about three months in.

And I don't have a honeymoon period.

In fact, this week was my 20th wedding anniversary this week.

By which I mean it's 20 years since I got married.

It's not the first anniversary of my 20th wedding.

But I mean, and you know, honeymoon, I mean, obviously every day's a honeymoon, darling, if you're listening.

But

it seems to me quite a short, not particularly romantic, honeymoon period.

I mean, it's amazing how quickly it's got this difficult.

And some of it they'll be really kicking themselves at.

And yeah, now two scandals, which I think are actually coming up on the doorstep.

I think in Downing Street, they're worried about them coming up on the doorstep, especially the freebies, because it's this idea that politicians are on the take.

And then we've got a conference speech ahead of a really bad budget.

So I think very difficult start.

What senior Labour people want is a bit of optimism.

So hopefully he can give them that through his next pair of glasses.

Moving on to the opposition benches.

At his party's conference in Brighton this week, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davie promised that he would cut through the government's what deal.

Lemon drizzle cake?

I think that was implied rather than explicit.

Anyway,

windpipe?

Be a change of style for Ed Davey, it has to be said.

No, it's not lemon drill cake or indeed human windpipe.

It's the doom and gloom.

The doom and gloom, yes, correct.

I mean, Ed David was trying to convey this sense of optimism through the medium of water-based pranks.

Is that continuing to work?

I thought he'd just, I'd assumed he'd stop that after he'd lectured.

Did you watch him driving up in a jet ski?

Yeah.

The only thing I could think while I was watching it was that he was incredibly skilled at driving a jet ski.

Like, does he do that a lot?

Well, I mean, that would be one hell of a story, wouldn't it?

If it turns out he's a professional jet ski.

Why would Ed Davey drive a jet ski a lot if he hadn't been like an assassin for the secret services?

I think Ed Davey's probably got gills

and he's been trying to style it out for a while.

That if he isn't on water enough, he would die.

Like when he's doing the speech at the conference, it would be like when there's a beached whale and someone's just got a hose pipe on him.

Just keeping him alive.

He did say with the conference,

let's finish the job, which is a

weird thing to say when you've just come third.

And you're like, what's the job?

Is the job coming second?

I've been to India a couple of times with Prime Ministers.

Like the Indian journalist couldn't believe that we asked the Prime Ministers such rude questions and took the mick out of them quite so much.

And we were told Modi never gives interviews and he won't take any questions at press conferences.

Are you allowed to take the mick out of him?

Is there an equivalent to this in India?

The Mickey.

What a lovely term.

You can't even take the mini out of him.

You know,

I would never say anything terrible about the greatest man that I have ever known.

And just his greatness bestowed upon me.

Truly, what a time to be alive.

Do the impression you were doing of him earlier in the group.

You know, Andy has pants on now.

We can't do that.

Family show.

What happens in the news?

Chris Greenroom stays in the news.

Well, the scores at the end of that round, it's six points to Simon and Anushka and three to Ian Anadita.

Wow.

As our leaders, Simon and Anushka, you qualified for our special bonus question of the week.

A national emergency has been declared because of what falling to its lowest ever level.

Yes, I, funny enough, did see this today on a social media website, and it's genuinely quite alarming.

The lowest number of butterflies ever in the country, who are, of course, not merely an ornament but very much a useful addition to every garden.

Although they have been controversially connected with a series of tropical storms.

Yes, yes, apparently, if they flap their wings at the wrong moment, that can unleash hell on Trinidad and Tobago.

So I guess it's no, I would like to see them brought back, and as I explained to my wife, that is why I'm not mowing the lawn.

And all of this, I didn't realize they have the big butterfly counts, where those involved have 15 minutes and they have to record how many butterflies they've seen.

Feels like the least scientific method of just someone going outside and then just going,

one!

So I don't trust that people are doing this properly.

You're a butterfly denialist, is what you're saying.

I'm a sceptic.

I tried it.

I thought I saw butterflies, but I was told they were just moths.

And I couldn't believe they weren't butterfly.

I can't believe it.

There's a joke in there somewhere, but it's very difficult to get the setup line to match

the sheer ambition of that punchline.

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

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Right, that makes a score.

Eight to Simon and Anushka, three to Ian and Aditi.

And let's move on now to a work section.

In the words of Rihanna in the song Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work.

Those are, of course, the six W's of a functioning economy, in the eyes of some.

But we're increasingly re-examining our relationship with the workplace.

And as the famous old saying goes, all work and no play makes Jack an inefficiently functioning economic unit.

So, under the planned workers' rights legislation, workers in the UK will have the right to do what out of office hours?

Anyone?

Call their bosses a naughty word in front of their kids and not apologise.

Possible.

Is it switch off?

Yes, Disconnect.

Disconnect.

Disconnect what their ailing grandparent.

So once you time it right, it's fine.

Read all those scare stories about inheritance in the Telegraph.

I am I'm very bad at this.

I like to stay up late at night and in that time get on my emails and fire them out to people.

And then when I was reading this, I was realizing that that is apparently abusive.

So I discovered the other day schedule send.

Now they just get 20 emails emails from me at 8 a.m.

on Monday morning.

Apparently that is better.

That's better.

It does make you look slightly psychotic, though, doesn't it?

The only alternative is to write at the top of the 3 a.m.

email, don't reply to this right now.

Yeah.

You can wait till morning.

After being woken up by that.

I mean, I do think it's interesting.

We've had these kind of conversations before on panels, and obviously you have a proper job.

In fact, it sounds like maybe you even have underlings or whatever they're called.

Children, I think is the name.

We stand-up comedians, we're just bluffing here, aren't we?

We're so far out of our comfort zone.

It's been 30 years since I had a job.

The idea of switching on is kind of.

As self-employed,

do you?

I mean, there's a danger of having too much flexibility.

Do you struggle with that at all?

No.

No?

No, I love it.

I think it's the best.

I mean, you rarely have to put on pants.

I honestly find it confusing when people are like, oh no, but you've got to go somewhere to physically work.

Because I've realized that like the audience is not coming to my house.

It's been very depressing.

But I am pro work from home.

I mean frankly just home.

I was very insistent early in my career, really before I did comedy, that I had to work from home and it really destroyed my career as a road cyclist

in the taught a living room.

Let's uh to another work-related question.

How have paternity rights campaigners been making their points this week?

Oh, yeah, well, they've been strapping babies to statue,

models of babies.

Yes, yes, that's a very, very important part of the truth.

Crucial, it's not going to help your paternity rights if you're getting your child, strapping it to a statue.

But I like one of the statues they strapped one of these babies in was a statue of Terry Henry at the Arsenal ground as he's doing a sliding on his knees celebration.

And I think that would get your kid taken off you.

Of course, paternity leave is a relatively new and still quite foreign concept in this country.

Traditionally, paternity leave was just the technical term for when a father, after shaking hands with his newborn infant, would disappear into an attic, office, or foreign country for 25 years before re-emerging saying, So what was it in the end?

Soldier, vicar, or wife.

Another sort of story relating to the work situation in Britain.

I think Tank has written that the key to boosting Britain's economic prosperity is for everyone to stop being so what?

Poor.

It's a very good guess, but it's not the answer I've got written down here, Ian.

Is it to do with health?

Yes, ill.

Just ill health generally.

Yeah, so

they've suggested that the goal should be a new health system, which within three decades would extend average life expectancy in the UK by around 10 more Wimbledons,

five extra Olympics, summer and winter combined, around two or three Ashes summers, uh or as others might put it, ten years.

Um there's always different.

But what's the point of this, Andy?

There are no butterflies left.

It's a very good point.

That was one of the the iconic moments, wasn't it, remember?

Right.

I've moved into that period of my life where I interrupt panel games to just reminisce

from the nineteen eighties before everything turned to shit.

But

other hosts of other shows might get a bit annoyed by you reminiscing about 1980s sport, but you're on the right show, son.

Another work-related story.

Who is basically being told to grow up but stay home?

Anyone?

I think it's perhaps junior doctors.

Is it junior doctors who are now to be called residents, which is a kind of weird...

It's a bit like calling them boarders or something, isn't it?

You know, they sleep under the bed or something.

But yeah, this is the plan.

This is so they never go home, essentially.

Yeah.

Which is almost true, I think, isn't it?

Oh, I'm sure they work extraordinarily hard.

I have a suggestion.

Why don't we call them doctors?

And then when they become more senior, you could add extra qualifiers to indicate that they're even more important than when they were just doctors, rather than kind of having the doctor bit in the middle ranking, as if you have to work up to it after 15 years.

It was a really misleading phrase when you were trying to cover the doctor's strikes, because I think people would think, Oh, the junior doctors are on strike, that's fine.

And then I'd go into a hospital and they'd be like, That's 80% of our doctors.

So I think that's why they wanted to change it.

Although I did find the kind of resident thing a bit weird.

My parents are both retired doctors, and they always go on about how they used to literally have to work three days in a row and literally sleep there.

But although they do work very hard, I don't think doctors literally sleep in hospitals.

And in fact, there are probably not enough beds anyway.

I like ages ago, had to have like a testicular check-up at the doctor's, and I was going to have a scan because they put like gel down there.

And the doctor said,

Don't worry, this is just going to feel like rubbing jelly over your testicle.

Where am I getting that reference point from?

You go, oh, oh, just like rubbing jelly in.

You say, oh, thank God for that.

But if you had told me, I'd have come pre-prepared for you.

Usually I've got jelly and then a sort of custard layer,

and then cream and a little cherry on top.

This does sound an awful lot like the work of a junior doctor, eh?

Yeah, junior doctors are to be rebranded as resident doctors.

This is after considerable haggling in which various alternative titles were suggested, such as qualified doctors, VBFHs, which is vets but for humans,

and stethospopes.

Well, the scores at the end of that round: 10 to Simon and Anushka, 6 to Ian Anaditi.

Move across the Atlantic for our final round.

Now, according to the Rules of Golf, Section X1, Rule 54.3, Paragraph A, Subsection 6, Clause 3, it is strictly forbidden to plan or attempt an act of political violence anywhere on a golf course before, during, or after play, even if you're wearing the correct footwear and a collared shirt.

Who this week tried to contravene that rule?

Oh, he won his name.

Yeah.

The would-be assassin on Trump's golf course on Mar-El-Argo, who got spotted with his muzzle poking out of the hedge.

Ryan, something?

Was it Ryan Roof?

Is that right?

Yes.

It sounds like a made-up name, doesn't it?

Assassins who always have three names.

You knew he wasn't going to pull it off.

You always know their middle name afterwards, as if they'd been very naughty and their mother's calling them in for tea for the.

Yeah, but Ryan Roof, his muzzle poked out of the bush, and the Secret Service, who have upped their game a bit, it has to be said, since the last time, they spotted.

And I have to say, I don't know how serious an attempt it was on Donald Trump's life.

We find them vaguely comical at the moment until one of them lands and becomes the next inflection point for the century.

And I don't think it'd be very pretty.

But it's not a very serious attempt, is it, if you're in a bush and you can't even camouflage your own muzzle.

Even Dad's army knew how to camouflage themselves to avoid detection.

Can I just, I think the audience have done so well to not giggle at his muzzle poked out of the bush.

I feel like everyone made a real conscious decision to go, no, we're better than that, we're better than that.

I think he was caught because he shouted four before he made the shot.

The phrase would-be when it comes before assassin makes it less scary.

But any other job, if you put would-be before it is quite terrifying.

terrifying.

Like if you went to see a would-be orthodontist,

you might know, I don't know about that.

Well, let's finish with this.

Inspired by would-be Vice President J.D.

Vance admitting that he created a story about Haitian migrants eating pet cats and dogs to draw attention to illegal immigration in the USA.

I want our panelists to tell me a news story that they've made up that they want to be spread via the august medium of BBC Radio 4 in order to make people around the world take notice of something they're not currently noticing.

Aditi, do you have a story for us?

A stand-up comedian based out of Mumbai, India, too good looking for a radio quiz panel show.

Simon?

Well, of course, I could go for Simon Evans' tour dates all sold out.

People would then rush to check to see if it was true.

Oh my god, no, there's a couple still available in deal.

As a Brighton Hove resident, I have long thought, how am I going to get effective action together to deal with the seagull menace, who seem to be some sort of protected species?

I mean, people are used to their chips, their ice creams, their sandwiches being snatched.

It's going to take a child.

I think they need to fly it out and then see it shredded in the wind farm.

Because you have literally killed two birds with one

high speed.

So your news story is Seagull snatches child and flies straight into Wind Farm.

Yeah.

Anushka, have you got a played-up news story?

I know this goes against your professional ethics, but you know, in context, it makes sense.

Labour Prime Minister, who promised to end sleaze, gets £20,000 of free clothes.

They'll never buy it.

They will quite literally never buy it.

Ian?

I'd like the news to raise the awareness of the low self-esteem of printers.

Right.

Whenever you buy a printer, the first thing it makes you do is print off a practice page to make sure it can do straight lines.

They're the least confident bit of technology.

And whenever you turn a printer on, it makes so much noise.

Why is it not in the right place?

It's got one job of printing.

Everything in the printer is going, oh, I'm not where I should.

Get over here.

Cyan, what are you doing over there?

Come here.

I think when, yeah, the mental health of printers needs to be

looked at.

And I'll just go with, if Brexit was a giant lemon, I'd still put my plonker in it, screams, unrepentant Johnson.

And that brings us to the end of this week's news quiz.

Our winners get the chance to propose a lasting, equitable solution to the Middle East situation in the remaining seconds of the show.

And we're out of time.

Thank you for listening to the Newsquiz.

I've been Andy Zoltzman.

Goodbye.

Taking part in the newsquiz were Anushka Astana, Aditi Mittal, Ian Smith, and Simon Evans.

In the chair was me, Andy Zoltzman, and additional material was written by Peter Talouch, Sarah Campbell, Cameron Loxdale, and Owen Puller.

The producer was Sam Holmes, and it was a BBC Studio Audio Production for Radio 4.

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Sucks!

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

We demand to be hosted!

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

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.