The Naked Week: Ep1. Royal lodges, asylum hotels and witches.
This week we provide recourse for a randy royal, organise an on-air riot and, for Halloween, get confused over which witch is which.
From host Andrew Hunter Murray and The Skewer's Jon Holmes, Radio 4’s newest Friday night comedy The Naked Week returns with a blend of the silly and serious. From satirical stunts to studio set pieces via guest correspondents and investigative journalism it's a bold, audacious take not only on the week’s news, but also the way it’s packaged and presented.
An unusual production for BBC Radio 4
Host; Andrew Hunter Murray
Guests: Bella Hull, Lisa Webb
Investigations Team: Cat Neilan, Cormac Kehoe, Freya Shaw
Written by:
Jon Holmes
Katie Sayer
Gareth Ceredig
Jason Hazeley
James Kettle
Additional Material:
Karl Minns
Vivienne Hopley-Jones
Cooper Mawhinny Sweryt
Helen Brooks
Ali Panting
Kevin Smith
Sophie Dickson
Live Sound: Jerry Peal
Post Production: Tony Churnside
Clip Assistant: David Riffkin
Production Assistant: Molly Punshon
Assistant Producer: Katie Sayer
Producer: Jon Holmes
Executive Producer: Phil Abrams.
an unusual production for BBC Radio 4.
Press play and read along
Transcript
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Speaker 6 Learn more at adobe.com slash go slash expression and welcome to the naked week.
Speaker 1 Imagine the news agents if they'd rented out their studio without getting the proper landlord's license.
Speaker 1 Coming up on The Naked Week this week, Prime Minister Kier Starmer shared his main takeaways from a recent swingers cruise.
Speaker 1 It taught me skills such as watching somebody's eye so you know when to come in.
Speaker 1 How did they know it was Keir? Because he threw his keys in the bowl and missed. In other news.
Speaker 1
In other news, the BBC confirms new Strictly presenters. The King and the Pope.
Wow.
Speaker 1 I mean, even if you're the most died-in-the-world license fee sceptic, you have to admit that is one hell of a coup.
Speaker 1 And over on LBC, James O'Brien trialled a new format for his show where he outlines the three kinds of people that call LBC. You're thick, you're racist, and you're weird.
Speaker 1 Right.
Speaker 1 Which is also how Take That told themselves apart.
Speaker 1 Now, before we go any further, I want to shout out a big 6-7 to our younger listeners
Speaker 1 if you don't know what a 6'7 is by the way I can tell you it's a viral internet meme that has become the obsession of both children and Guardian journalists seriously the Guardian in the last week alone they've had 6'7 should parents be worried
Speaker 1 no
Speaker 1
No, of course not. It's not Andrew Tate.
It's just a passing fad of saying two numbers out loud. Let's all calm down.
The next day. Five teachers on dealing with 6'7 in the classroom.
Speaker 1 Right, you do know there's other news going on, right?
Speaker 9 UK teachers, how are you coping with 6'7?
Speaker 1
Okay, right. No, you don't.
All right, well, you've already done teachers. Maybe you've maybe you've got a different angle on 6-7? Teachers and 6'7.
Okay, clearly not.
Speaker 1 But then the Guardian did change tact because they suddenly realised they hadn't even explained what it is. 6'7?
Speaker 1 What does it mean? No one knows. No one knows.
Speaker 1 So, I'm glad we've cleared that up.
Speaker 1 Now, they're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky. They're all together ookie, the royal family.
Speaker 1
Yes, it's Halloween. And while the royal family aren't exactly like the Addams family, there are similarities.
Mainly the creepy uncle
Speaker 1 and the wandering hand.
Speaker 1 And also the fact that if you look up the Addams family on Wikipedia, it says they are an eccentric old money clan who delight in the grotesque and are seemingly unaware or unconcerned that other people find them bizarre or frightening.
Speaker 1 It's not a great leap, is it?
Speaker 1 Of course, it's all about Prince Andrew, who, until this week, was continuing to uncle Fester in the comfy surroundings of the Royal Lodge. And we have been learning what he's been getting up to.
Speaker 12 It's been revealed that Prince Andrew hosted the late sex offender Geoffrey Epstein as well as Ghilane Maxwell and Harvey Weinstein at the Royal Lodge.
Speaker 1 Offenders assemble
Speaker 1 Was Diddy busy that night?
Speaker 1 On a positive note, for one afternoon at least, the entire rest of the world was briefly a much safer place.
Speaker 1 And in case you're thinking, well, so what? A lodge doesn't sound that luxurious. I stayed in a travel lodge and someone had pissed in the kettle.
Speaker 1
This one is a bit different. It has 98 acres of grounds.
There's a swimming pool, a tennis court, a driving range, which I assume is what royals call roads.
Speaker 1 And the house itself has 30 rooms, including seven bedrooms, each with its own ensuite cupboard full of skeletons.
Speaker 1 And the Royal Lodge, lest we forget, was a peppercorn property for Andrew, so-called because there's a nominal contractual rent that's never collected, and also because of all the grinding that actually, you know what, we're better than that.
Speaker 1 We're not better than that.
Speaker 1 So Andrew has been desperately trying to strike a deal over which free house he gets next, and the big question on the lips of the media this week has been, where next for the prince formerly known as Andrew?
Speaker 1 And it's been very difficult to come up with an answer, at least one that doesn't involve the word Belmarsh.
Speaker 1 But as you know, we at the Naked Wheat like to make ourselves useful. So as it's Halloween, what better way to help Andrew see into his future than by harnessing the dark arts?
Speaker 1 Please welcome to Read the Royal Runes, a real-life witch, Lisa Webb.
Speaker 1
Hi, Lisa. And you're called Lisa Webb, which is also a bit witchy.
So this could not be going any better, to be honest. I mean, do you have a cat? Because that really would be the spooky triple.
Speaker 15 I think there's been a bit of a mistake here. I'm not actually a witch.
Speaker 15 I'm a senior lawyer for Witch magazine.
Speaker 1 Oh, genuinely.
Speaker 15 Yeah, no, honestly, I've worked there for like 10 years.
Speaker 7 Witch magazine?
Speaker 1 Oh, witch magazine. Sorry, right.
Speaker 1 Okay, well, this is a bit awkward.
Speaker 1 Have you ever used the dark arts to predict the future?
Speaker 15 Nope, not really. Mostly, I just advise on consumer law and media law.
Speaker 1
Oh, that's good, actually. I might need to speak to you about something I said about cattle in travel lodges.
Okay.
Speaker 1 Right, what to do? I mean, you're here, Lisa, and you do work for Witch magazine.
Speaker 15 Yeah, it's got nothing to do with witches.
Speaker 1 But we still want to help Prince Andrew review his options. So, Lisa, our witch spelt W-H-I-C-H.
Speaker 1 How about if we play to your skill set and you review Prince Andrew as if he were a range of consumer goods and services?
Speaker 15 That I can do.
Speaker 1 And so, I know you've brought a copy of Witch magazine with you. We have also been joined by The Naked Weeks.
Speaker 1 We booked the wrong guest, so let's get out of this awkward segment with as much dignity as we can, correspondent, Bella Hull.
Speaker 1 So, Bella, what's in the the magazine?
Speaker 4 Right, well, let's have a look.
Speaker 4 For a start, there's three pages on steam cleaners.
Speaker 1 Oh, perfect. Okay, so let's do:
Speaker 1 what sort of things do you look for in both a steam cleaner and a disgraced royal? Great idea. Okay, so Prince Andrew, what are the categories we've got here? Does he heat up quickly, Lisa?
Speaker 15 Well, I mean, if he does, you wouldn't know because of that medical condition.
Speaker 1 Right.
Speaker 7 Any issues plugging it in?
Speaker 15 Yes, he does have a very short fuse and as of now, no power.
Speaker 1 If something goes wrong with my one, how much compensation is paid out? £12 million.
Speaker 15 But only if nobody admits that anything criminal took place and all charges are denied.
Speaker 7 Does it have any attachments?
Speaker 15 One ex-wife, not particularly useful.
Speaker 1 Okay, finally, is there a child safety feature?
Speaker 14 I'm not answering that.
Speaker 1 Okay, the lawyer is indicating that we should stop. So, ladies and gentlemen, our correspondent Bella Hull and our witch, who isn't a witch but who does work at witch, Lisa Webb.
Speaker 1 You are listening to The Naked Week on Radio 4, where the time has come once again to take a quiet stroll in the relaxing garden of current affairs contemplation. It's the news in haikus.
Speaker 1 How should Labour treat Welsh by-election drubbing? Very carefully.
Speaker 1 It's the news in haikus.
Speaker 1 This week, Nigel Farage conducted a press conference alongside a survivor of grooming gangs and where he dealt with a question from a female journalist with all his trademark openness and honesty.
Speaker 5 Can you just explain when you two first got to know each other?
Speaker 1 No. Right, moving on.
Speaker 1
No, no, no. Hold on, Nigel.
This is a survivor of grooming gangs. We'll keep my personal life out of it.
Speaker 1 Nigel Farage there, having some fun in a press conference about grooming gangs. But the old smoking lounge lizard has form in patronizing women.
Speaker 1 Here he is recently with Bloomberg presenter and today programme survivor, Michelle Hussein.
Speaker 18 So if you were Prime Minister and Russian jets entered NATO airspace, whatever that does, however much that inflames tension,
Speaker 18 Russia needs to be taught a lesson.
Speaker 1 Listen, love, you're trying ever so hard.
Speaker 1
That's right, Michelle. You're trying ever so hard.
Don't you worry your pretty little head about Russia. Leave Russia to the experts.
Speaker 1 Experts like Nathan Gill, the former Welsh leader of reform, who recently pled guilty to eight counts of bribery by Russia to promote pro-Kremlin propaganda.
Speaker 1 Still, we can now add Condescender in Chief to Nigel's long list of other jobs. Although it turns out he's actually been doing it as a hobby for decades.
Speaker 19
Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth.
Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.
Speaker 1 No. Right, moving on.
Speaker 1 There was also this iconic moment from Malala.
Speaker 7 I'm proud to be the first Pashtun,
Speaker 7 the first Pakistani, and the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Speaker 1 Listen, love you, try to ever so hard.
Speaker 1 Take your Taliban assassination attempt-inspired activism and run along. There's a good girl.
Speaker 1 You're listening to The Naked Week in the week when Donald Trump flattened the east wing of the White House, causing a storm of controversy and exposing at least one of Melania's escape tunnels.
Speaker 1 I'm joined once again by The Naked Week's chief investigator and observer, Whitehall editor, Kat Nealon.
Speaker 1 Kat, last time we all got very angry about Westminster lobbying. What's the plan for this series?
Speaker 10 Broadly, voter concerns.
Speaker 1 That is very broad. But okay, what are voters' concerns this week?
Speaker 10 Well, according to Kemi Badenock, this.
Speaker 20 Labour promised not to increase income tax, not to increase national insurance, and not to increase VAT. Does the Prime Minister still stand by his promises?
Speaker 1
Well, Mr Speaker, I'm glad that the Leader of of the Opposition is now finally talking about the economy. I cannot tell you that.
Start, Mr.
Speaker 1 Speaker, clearly not wanting to answer and breaking Labour's manifesto pledge of, we promise he won't flail around like a directionless windsock. Cat, has the Chancellor talked about tax rises?
Speaker 10 She's definitely been asked about it. Here's a testy little exchange from the world's least accurately titled breakfast show, Good Morning Britain.
Speaker 16 Can you rule out increasing VAT?
Speaker 10 What I'm saying to you,
Speaker 22 can you rule out increasing VAT?
Speaker 16 I know, but can you rule out?
Speaker 21 This manifesto stands, and it stands for a reason.
Speaker 10 Sorry, I just want to translate this.
Speaker 22 You will not increase VAT.
Speaker 10 The manifesto that we stood on stands for the title of the APA.
Speaker 18 I don't understand.
Speaker 22 Sorry, Chancellor, with respect, are you going to raise VAT?
Speaker 21 The problem is, Susanna, is that as soon as you answer one question, you'll move on to the next one.
Speaker 1
That is the problem with questions, Rachel. You know, interviews are like Pringles.
Once you pop, you cannot stop. So,
Speaker 1 Kat, is that a no on VAT increase?
Speaker 7 Well, here's a crazy idea, Randy.
Speaker 10 Forget increasing VAT. What the Chancellor could do is get companies to, you know, actually pay some.
Speaker 1 Okay, any companies in particular?
Speaker 10 Well, hypothetically, maybe the ones operating through a gigantic, all-powerful consumer bear moth run by a bald billionaire that sells everything and delivers it to your door in minutes. Witches?
Speaker 10 No, it's nothing to do with witches.
Speaker 1 Except.
Speaker 1 Actually. Happy Halloween, everybody.
Speaker 10
Except, actually, for once, it is because it's the company you use if you suddenly decide you need a witch's costume at the last minute. So, Amazon.
Spot on.
Speaker 10
Honestly, you can really buy anything there. It's amazing.
For this series, The Naked Week even bought its own Irish investigative journalist. Why Irish? Tax reasons.
Speaker 1 So hello to Cormac. Hello, Cormac.
Speaker 1 So, Cormac, why are we looking at Amazon?
Speaker 24 Because, according to a financial crime expert we spoke to, there are thousands of companies using Amazon as a shop front while simultaneously avoiding VAT to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds every year.
Speaker 1 Hundreds of millions of pounds. So, roughly half what the Louvre spent on cardboard security guards.
Speaker 1 Shocking.
Speaker 10 We should point out it's not just Amazon these companies use, but obviously that's by far the largest marketplace.
Speaker 1 I can almost sense the hand of the lawyer in the room.
Speaker 1 Cormack, how are these companies actually avoiding paying what they owe? I would assume it's incredibly complex.
Speaker 24 Nope, one easy way is for a company to dissolve itself but then continue to trade anyway. And that makes it really hard for HMRC because the company doesn't exist anymore in any real physical sense.
Speaker 1 So it's basically like the Conservative Party, but with a returns policy.
Speaker 10
There are over a quarter of a million of these companies on Amazon.co.uk. The Naked Week did a quick test.
We searched Amazon for a common household item, a padlock.
Speaker 10 And among the top 50 sellers of padlocks, we found two dissolved companies and another seven that hadn't filed their accounts properly.
Speaker 10 So while it's difficult for us to estimate exactly how much tax is going unpaid, the industry itself believes it could be around £700 million each year.
Speaker 1 That's a lot of Padlocks.
Speaker 10 It's every centurist ads must have item.
Speaker 1 Yeah, you don't need to tell me I've got 500. Got to keep that bike safe.
Speaker 10 But Padlocks is just one example.
Speaker 10 Basically, these companies combined are costing roughly half the amount Rachel Reeves could have generated from the winter fuel allowance changes she announced and then scrapped.
Speaker 24 And that's not the only way a company can dodge tax.
Speaker 24 Another option is to conveniently liquidate itself so it can't pay its creditors, then magically resurrect under a new name, transfer its assets and carry on as before.
Speaker 24 You found an example of this in a company called Ascot City.
Speaker 1 Okay, so Ascot City, I'm presuming it sells the horses.
Speaker 24 No, they're too big for the Amazon drivers to throw over your fence.
Speaker 10 But actually, it sells pretty much everything else. Household items, car parts, clothes, just tons and tons of general stuff.
Speaker 10 Ascot City is the sixth largest seller on Amazon UK, but it seems to have taken over the business of a dissolved company called Sourcing Map that hadn't paid VAT for years before it folded.
Speaker 10 The companies even have the same home address.
Speaker 1 Which is
Speaker 1 where?
Speaker 10 Great question. We had a look on Google Maps and it appears to be a cat hotel on the first floor of a shopping centre in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1 So just to spell this out completely clearly, the UK's sixth biggest Amazon retailer is operating out of a pet daycare centre 6,000 miles away for tax reasons, for no tax reasons. Yes.
Speaker 10 We asked Ascot City about this and they replied, Dear customer, thank you for your letter.
Speaker 9 We're very sorry to tell you that we cannot meet your requirements.
Speaker 10 If you have any questions about our products and services, please feel free to reach out to us.
Speaker 9 Best regards, Ivy.
Speaker 1 Feels like you did have questions about their products and services and you did reach out to them. Okay, well done, Ivy.
Speaker 1 Cat, correct me if I'm wrong, hasn't the government tried to crack down on this sort of thing?
Speaker 10 They have. In 2021, Boris Johnson brought brought into law a bill that automatically charges VAT on Amazon sales made by international sellers.
Speaker 1 Okay, and I cannot believe I'm even suggesting this, but is it possible that Boris Details Johnson wasn't totally successful in this endeavour?
Speaker 10
Here's what happened, Andy. Brace yourselves.
Many overseas traders set up UK companies instead and paid random British citizens a few hundred quid to act as directors.
Speaker 10 Under the new law, UK companies were still allowed to file their own VAT returns, so they weren't charged VAT automatically, making it far easier for them not to pay the tax at all.
Speaker 10 We did ask Amazon for a statement, and they asked that we read it in full.
Speaker 10 We're happy to do that, but it is quite long, so we've taken the liberty of speeding it up, which means that while they have got the statement in, it does sound like it's being read by Chipmunk.
Speaker 25 We take this matter seriously and have investigated the sellers in question, for which two are overseas established sellers.
Speaker 25 Under online marketplace VAT collection rules introduced in 2021, we collect and remit VAT directly to HMRC on their behalf, while UK established sellers are required to pay VAT directly to HMRC.
Speaker 25 We believe extending VAT collection rules to cover all sellers, both domestic and overseas, could raise up to £700 million more annually for the Exchequer.
Speaker 1 I'm sure they won't have any problem with us doing that.
Speaker 1 So, Kat, just so we're clear, will the Chancellor try to offset some of that missing £700 million by increasing taxes? Yes or no? It's a simple question.
Speaker 4 In the words of Rachel Reeves.
Speaker 21 The problem is that as soon as you answer one question, you'll move on to the the next one.
Speaker 1 Don't forget it. Cat near the corner here, everybody.
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Speaker 1
You're listening to The Naked Week on Radio 4. Still to come.
BBC correspondent Seema Katecha announced an investigation into the accuracy of Paul McCartney's songwriting during his time in Wings.
Speaker 14 We just don't know if he was necessarily on the run.
Speaker 1 And it's been a sad week for comedy with the loss of Prunella Scales. But at least it it was a chance to celebrate her wonderful life and her long and varied career.
Speaker 1 Unless, of course, you were the Today programme.
Speaker 27 What better way to remember the late, great Prunella Scales than with a look back at some other legendary Sybils of history?
Speaker 1 Yes.
Speaker 1 Yes, let's remember her by simply listing people that aren't her. It's what she would have wanted.
Speaker 1 We've just got time to check back in and see who Nigel Farage is patronising now.
Speaker 1 Listen, love me trying ever so hard.
Speaker 1 What a shack a camp.
Speaker 1 Now, this week, reform MP Sarah Pochin caused much wailing and gnashing of Colomitch's when, during an appearance on Talk TV, she said,
Speaker 28 Drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.
Speaker 1
Full of them. Full of them.
First boats, now adverts, eh, Sarah? Hashtag stop the ads. That's what I say.
Speaker 1 Now, it's fair to say her comments have divided political opinion. For instance, there was this from Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp.
Speaker 24 It was racist the way she said it.
Speaker 1 Yeah, it was the way she said it.
Speaker 1 I mean, that and the words.
Speaker 1 All of this comes amid the row over asylum hotels, of course, and dominating the headlines this week was the Select Committee report estimating that the government is wasting in the region of £15 billion on asylum hotel accommodation.
Speaker 1 £15 15 billion pounds. To give that figure some context, that is enough for Prince Andrew to pay off 1,200 Virginia Geffrays.
Speaker 1 It doesn't get better taste in case you're wondering, okay?
Speaker 1 Now, the report from this group of MPs found that...
Speaker 8 The Home Office has wasted billions of pounds on hotels for asylum seekers through flawed contracts and incompetence.
Speaker 1 So where is this money actually going? Well, one of the providers is a company called Clear Springs.
Speaker 1 Now, since they got the contract in 2019, their profits have swollen from around £800,000 to last year, £91 million.
Speaker 1 That's profit. That's not turnover, that's profit.
Speaker 1 Now, we should say in fairness, the other two firms providing asylum accommodation, Serco and Mears, have also posted record profits, which they claimed was just due to the whole company being terrific and not just home office contracts.
Speaker 1 Serco, for example, also have lots of prison contracts, and I hear the prison system is going great.
Speaker 1 As a side note, Michelle Moon, if you are listening, if you'd only focused on giving asylum seekers food poisoning rather than giving NHS workers COVID, you might still have your peerage.
Speaker 1
I'm joking, I'm joking. It was never taken off her.
Now,
Speaker 1 here at The Naked Week, we don't see flagrant profiteering. We see opportunity.
Speaker 1 Clearly, or clear-springingly, there is a shed ton of money to be made in exploiting the most vulnerable, and we want in.
Speaker 1 So before this episode is out, The Naked Week will be opening our very own asylum hotel.
Speaker 1 And we want to see if we can make even more profit and cut even more corners than the current crop of brazen opportunists.
Speaker 1 So to help me out, please welcome the Naked Weeks shameless profiteering correspondent, Bella Hull.
Speaker 1 Bella, you've been looking into this story. Is there a way that we can take even more money off the taxpayer than the current providers?
Speaker 14 Well, Andy, I'm pleased to say there is.
Speaker 16 Asylum hotels currently cost the government £145 per asylum seeker per night, but that does include meals.
Speaker 16 However, photos seen by the BBC show migrants being fed frozen, uncooked chicken, out-of-date foodstuff, and in some cases, rotten fruit.
Speaker 1 Surely we can't do worse than that, Bella. That's appalling.
Speaker 14 Actually, the Naked Week doesn't have to do worse than that to save the taxpayer money. Earlier today, I bought this multi-pack of Kit Kats
Speaker 13 for £2.20 in Sainsbury's. £2.20 is way less than £145 according to Google.
Speaker 14 But it's technically still an improvement because these Kit Kats are actually in in date and will make even more money if we snap the fingers in half.
Speaker 4 The Kit Kat fingers. No, the residents' fingers.
Speaker 16 If they can't pick up the food, then they can't eat it.
Speaker 1 And that's just more profit for us.
Speaker 1 Darker than I was expecting, if I'm honest, Bella.
Speaker 1 Where else are asylum accommodation providers cutting corners? And how can the Naked Week asylum hotel go even further?
Speaker 16 Hygiene is another one. There are reports from inside asylum hotels of 24 people sharing one toilet with the contractors allocating one toilet roll per four residents per week.
Speaker 16 And that is particularly tricky if you're living on rotten fruit.
Speaker 14 Oh, yuck.
Speaker 16 Other reports have found that female asylum seekers are being given just seven sanitary towels per period.
Speaker 4 Six, seven?
Speaker 1 No. Oh, sorry.
Speaker 4 And also, please don't interrupt me when I'm talking about periods.
Speaker 1 Sorry, right, got it.
Speaker 1 But hang on, seven sanitary towels, isn't that?
Speaker 13 Shocking, dehumanizing, and negligent.
Speaker 16 You might think so, but I see a marketing opportunity. Free bleeding is genuinely a huge movement on TikTok right now, so let's cut that seven down to zero and pretend it's for feminism.
Speaker 1 Richlift, here we come. And where are we going to put the Naked Week Asylum Hotel?
Speaker 4 Well, I did find an option in Windsor that looked pretty good.
Speaker 14 It's recently come up for lease.
Speaker 7 It's got more than 30 rooms, so could theoretically house several thousand people.
Speaker 16 And there are no concerns about vetting or paperwork because, given the current resident, we know they have no issues housing sex offenders.
Speaker 1 Legally speaking, I have to say, I have no idea what you mean.
Speaker 16 Legally speaking, neither do I.
Speaker 16 What I do know is that the taxpayer is paying £145 per migrant per night for cramped accommodation with 10 people to a room and feeding them gone-off food. But if we pay Woucher just £89,
Speaker 16 each asylum seeker can have a spa weekend away,
Speaker 14 dinner in a champagne bar, and an hour in a Himalayan salt sauna.
Speaker 1 £89, that is quite a good deal.
Speaker 16 And if you run the maths, it would save the taxpayer about £6 billion.
Speaker 1 Okay, can you send me that Woucher link? Because it is my wedding anniversary on Thursday, although I know for a fact she's got me rotten fruit. Bella hole, everybody!
Speaker 1 There's lots of public anger about the asylum crisis, not least because a number of high-profile crimes have been committed by asylum seekers.
Speaker 1 It doesn't help that the government's solution was the classic set them free by accident then pay them 500 quid to go home method and maybe you think the public shouldn't be registering its displeasure in the form of riots and demonstrations outside these hotels but we say in fact maybe we should
Speaker 1 But for different reasons. We need to protest against the fat cats and that's why in a radio first we will now be orchestrating a riot live on air.
Speaker 1 We've checked with Ofcom, and they're fine with it, apparently.
Speaker 1 Yes, in protest at the Asylum Hotel fiasco, but against the money-grabbing companies who are running the hotels and not the residents themselves.
Speaker 1
Bella Hull is the Naked Weeks whipping up a baying mob correspondent. She joins me now.
Bella, how do we go about organising a riot?
Speaker 14 Well, first up, Andy, we need attendees, and we're currently in a room with 150 seated audience members who look very much like an angry mob. Well,
Speaker 1 of course they're angry.
Speaker 1 Of course they're angry. They came here expecting the news quiz.
Speaker 14 Next, we need a slogan for the placards.
Speaker 16 You know, something memorable like Black Lives Matter, Reclaim the Streets, or Auto Glass Repair, Auto Glass Replace.
Speaker 1 Yeah, okay.
Speaker 16 Memorable is key.
Speaker 1 And you've brought some placards for the protest, is that right? Yeah. Great, okay, so what have you got for the first one?
Speaker 4 So this one, this one says no kings.
Speaker 23 Oh, good, yeah.
Speaker 7 And it was written written by Prince Harry.
Speaker 1 Oh, lovely.
Speaker 1 Very nice. Okay, what about that second one there?
Speaker 4 What's that? This one. It's catchy.
Speaker 7 This one says, send them back.
Speaker 23 And by them, I mean the executives of private sector companies. And by back, I mean to their palatial homes in Surrey.
Speaker 1 Snappy.
Speaker 1 All right, finally, we need an angry chant. And maybe, as it's your name next to that line, you should say that line in the script.
Speaker 1 Sorry.
Speaker 16 And finally, we need an angry chant.
Speaker 1 Great idea, Bella.
Speaker 1 Great idea.
Speaker 1 No problem.
Speaker 1
To coin a phrase, we are the angry mob. We read the papers every day, although mostly for the Sudoku.
Right, audience, we have a chant and we're not afraid to use it.
Speaker 1 Please, everyone, just follow my lead. Okay.
Speaker 1 I don't know, but I've been told.
Speaker 1 The hotel food is full of mold.
Speaker 1 And for 145 quid a night,
Speaker 1 your hotel rooms are completely shite.
Speaker 1 We're bringing this right up to your hotel door,
Speaker 1 but politely because it's radio four.
Speaker 1 Politely because it's radio four.
Speaker 1 Perfect.
Speaker 1 Now, instead of throwing bricks, everyone just talk as loud as you possibly can. One, two, three.
Speaker 1
That was fantastic. If that doesn't bring the private sector to its knees, I I don't know what will.
Bella Hull, everybody!
Speaker 1 And that's it for this week from The Naked Week. Happy Halloween, everybody, and goodbye.
Speaker 1 The Naked Week was hosted by me, Andrew Hunter Murray, with guest correspondent Bella Hull, and the wrong kind of witch we booked by mistake, Lisa Webb.
Speaker 1 It was written by John Holmes, Katie Sayer, Gareth Kerevic, Jason Hazley, and James Kettle, with investigations team Kat Neeland, Cormac Keo, and Freya Shaw.
Speaker 1 Additional material by Carl Minns, Cooper Mwini Swir, Ali Panting, Helen Brooks, Sophie Dixon, Kevin Smith, Joe Topping, Vivian Hopley Jones, and David Rifkin.
Speaker 1 The Naked Week is produced and directed by John Holmes and it's an unusual unusual production for BBC Radio 4.
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