The World’s Most Charming Coup

Hello Buglers and an averagely warm welcome.

Look I like to think the warmth of my welcomes to the Bugle is at a consistently very high level to issue 4236 of the Bugle.

The audio newspaper that has pledged to continue addressing the world and its various music glitcheries until everything is sorted out.

That is in our unwritten constitution.

The best kind of constitution, as all Brits know, as it gives you carte blanche to select bits as and when convenient and or make shit up as you go along.

I'm Andy Zaltzman, recently voted least influential punk rock frontman of the 1980s, which I can't really argue with, to be honest.

And joining me today, a cast of millions.

Sorry, two, strewn across South London like the debris of a poorly directed alien spaceship.

I'm joined by Nish Kumar and for the first time in a long time, Chris Addison.

Hello to both of you.

Hello.

Hello, Nish.

Hello, Chris.

Hello, Bugles.

It's been ages.

It's been absolutely ages since I was on, but I've been busy in my shed working up a new range of Bugle merch because I feel like t-shirt is something everybody does and face masks are very 20-20 now because they're pretty much over aren't they?

They were fashionable on public transport for a while, but they've been supplanted by that new trend of coughing and looking guilty.

So I've got a couple of Bugle merch pictures for you.

How about Bath Zaltz?

A relaxing bath time accessory that gives your tub a distinct aroma of bullshit and as an added bonus absolutely clogs your plug hole with ginger pubes.

I've got

Zoltz and Pepper, an ill-advised rap album by Andy Zaltzman and 1990s female American golf champion Dotty Pepper.

Tracks there include Baby Got Backswing, a cover of the Beastie Boys Hold It Now Hit It, Indak Clubs and 99 Iron Problems.

And

my final merch pitch, Andy, and the one I think will get the most traction, is Full Frontal Azolts, the upsetting nude calendar nobody asked for.

So I'm not wasting my time

in between podcasts.

That's good to know.

That's good to know.

That will be as available as all other Bugle merch very soon.

Very soon, yeah.

Do you mean we'll be selling it at a gig in five years' time, Andy?

Speaking proudly from his notebook from, I believe, the 2013 range that I got.

Oh, that's Way later than that.

Way later than that.

I literally, Chris gave me one of those two months ago.

That's how many of those are still around.

Nish, have we got any

additions to the merch range you'd like to chuck into the mix at this point?

I've suggested it before.

I'll say it again.

Bugle-branded thongs.

Yeah.

I mean, you can sort of use the face masks as that repurpose, though.

Yeah, yeah.

Zoltzmann on one ball, R.I.P.

John Oliver on the other.

Hello, Chris.

Hello, Andy.

Hello, Chris, and hello, Buglers.

It's fing hot.

Okay?

It's fing hot.

I am sweating from the tits.

That's how hot it is.

It's hot.

It's hot enough that I am sweating from the tits.

And you've got eight tits.

I've got eight tits.

I've got three like that lady in total recall.

It's going to be very difficult for Greta Thunberg to not scream, I told you so, as we all float to our demise as a species.

Because it shouldn't be.

It's getting near 40 degrees in the United Kingdom.

I don't know how much clearer we could make it to people that the climate crisis is happening now and is not some sort of abstract idea that we can think about further down the road.

At this point, I think it will only take basically St.

Paul's Cathedral is going to have to spontaneously burst into flames before anyone starts taking it seriously.

And somehow, Conservative newspapers will still blame immigrants and transgender people.

Well, they are, I mean, they're very dry and brittle, aren't they?

Immigrants and transgender people.

Just takes a spark and they go up.

And obviously, they brought the wrath of God upon this land.

So, you know, join the boss.

You would think that God would not hit his own cathedral, though.

I mean, that's just a bad aim, isn't it?

There are a lot of self-hating deities, not going to run anymore.

That was your wrestling name, wasn't it?

We are recording on the 15th of July, 2022.

On this day in 1381, John Ball was hanged, drawn and quartered for his part in the Peasants' Revolt.

I'm so sorry.

I just was laughing at the name John Ball.

I'm very sorry.

But I'm afraid if you open with Dennis Nutsack, you have to.

You're going to have to expect me to laugh at it, whether or not Dennis Nucksack has been cut into four pieces.

Well, Dennis Nutsack was also executed for his part in a similar People's Rebellion in the

Prague, I think Prague in the 15th century.

Was it pronounced Nutsatch?

I forget.

Anyway, John Ball in 1381 was hanged, drawn and quartered.

And in one of the great sexist executions, because whilst hanging, drawing and quartering

was used on men for apparently reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were only burned at the stake.

Why is it women have got all the breaks throughout history?

We will be discussing this on future programmes.

In 1834, on this day, the 15th of July, the world's longest-running quiz show finally ended after a run of 356 years.

That was the Spanish Inquisition, the forerunner of popular quizzes today, such as Jeopardy, Mastermind, and what the f ⁇ is that.

It was officially disbanded on this day.

188 years ago.

Amazingly enduring for a show with so few winners.

But there you go.

And actually, it could be due to reboots.

I think it might do quite well in today's TV quiz stroke game show landscape.

Long and drawn-out questions, voyeuristic, almost sadistic focus on the suffering of the contestants.

Judgmental, repetitive, and almost cultish.

I think it would fit right in.

As always, a section of the bugle is going straight in the bin.

And, well, picking up on what Nish said, we have a special How to Stay Cool in the Heat section for people in Britain and other currently toasty parts of the world.

Now, apart from the obvious, sleeping on a bed of frozen fish fingers, which also gives you a lovely breakfast when you wake up, or replacing your brick walls with igloo walls, which is a bit short term and could get you into trouble with landlords if you live in a block of flats.

We suggest you hold a 17th century themed party.

The so-called Little Ice Age brought frozen seas and rivers to much of Europe.

But you do really have to get into character.

For example, if you live in London, just act like the Thames is frozen.

Do not actually try to walk across the Thames, but get yourself in that psychological space.

Also, to stay cool in the heat, feel somber.

Metaphorically, being under a bit of a cloud can reduce metaphorical temperatures by, let's say, 15 degrees Celsius.

And as we live increasingly in a metaphorical world, that's a real terms coolage of, like, I don't know, 17 degrees.

Interestingly, the sombrero hat was designed to make the wearer feel more somber by being unable to see the beautiful blue skies above with their

inherent message of hope and light.

The problem was, whilst they made the wearer more somber, the sombrero of course richly entertains anyone who sees someone else in a sombrero

cancelling out its overall effect.

Also to keep cool try to keep things in perspective.

Whilst temperatures may, as they said, hit 40 degrees in the UK, which I think if I remember my scriptures correctly from my time as a multi-denominational priest on the freelance religion circuit, is a sign either that you are a member of a species unable and unwilling to heed warnings to safeguard its long-term long-term future, or that your government is deeply rotten card drave incompetence.

I forget which.

But anyway, remember, let's get it in perspective.

On Venus, it's in the mid-four 50s right now, and it could have been worse, especially if you were being burned at the stake or hit by an asteroid.

And also, the hotter the world gets, the less fuel we need to heat ourselves, thus reducing carbon emissions and solving climate change.

So we are in many ways on the right path.

That section in the bin.

You know, we really focus a lot on how terrible you are at knowing your own Jewish faith, Andrew.

But I think what we focus not enough energy on is that you're shit at all religions.

That's the sort of ecumenicalism, though, isn't it?

Well, you say.

I'm really bad at all of them.

I show them equal attention.

You're antagnostic.

You say that, Nish.

You say that, Nish, but you clearly were not on Streatham Common last weekend when I sacrificed a hundred head of oxen to Zeus.

I think I did it.

I think I did it extremely efficiently.

I forgot about your well-documented love of Zeus.

Top story this week.

Sri Lanka news.

And well, if there's one hot fashion trend this year, it's not the return of the floral pantaloon or the diaphanous cassock or the Glockenspiel hat.

It's the resigning national leader.

Last week, we reported exclusively on Boris Johnson's non-tearful collision with the immovable bulwark of his own infinite shitness.

And more on that unedifying race to step into his rotting shoes shoes later.

This week, we've seen the Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Draghi, trying to resign after the collapse of his coalition government, but having the President of Italy refusing to accept his resignation, saying, well, everyone, please stop resigning.

And in Sri Lanka,

President Rajapaksa has suffered the indignity of the people of Sri Lanka taking a dip in his own private swimming pool, an embarrassment so scarring that he had no choice but to flee the country in disgrace and then resign.

I mean in many ways it's

a classic tale, isn't it?

Gotta buy

Rajapaksa's downfall.

Allegations of spectacular levels of corruption, intimidation, cronyism, parasitism, power grabbing, large-scale political and economic mismanagement, crackdowns on dissenting voices, playing on deep-seated social and ethnic divisions.

When will someone burn copies of that playbook?

But really, it comes down to the fact that everyone took a dip in his private swimming pool, and there's no recovering from that, is there?

There is no recovering from that as a leader.

They did just take a dip in his swimming pool.

They petted his animals.

I think this has to be the most adorable coup in human history.

That is not a very hotly contested topic, to be fair.

It's like you say bolt sprint records.

There is a huge jump off from first place to second place.

They swam in his his pool, they petted his dogs, several of the children, because there were children involved.

That's how wholesome this coup was.

It was like a family day out to Thorpe Park.

It was unbelievable.

They petted his dogs and several of the children played his piano.

It's an utterly, utterly charming coup.

And yet somehow, even all the more damning for it.

Having your children play someone's piano is like mafia levels of intimidation.

I quite liked that, that people were just...

There was a woman who was being interviewed interviewed who brought her kids to the Capitol for the day.

Specifically for the revolution.

That's really good parenting.

I just want them to have these experiences while they're young.

So we're going to overthrow the government and then we're going to go to the aquarium.

It's superb.

It is, in almost every extent, the polar opposite of the January the 6th riots in America.

It is the absolute polar opposite.

It really is.

It really is very wholesome.

Nobody was rubbing shit on the walls or taking cable ties in to tie up democratically elected representatives.

This was a good old-fashioned, corrupt

borderline dictator being removed from office and then everyone having a nice swim.

I sort of feel like we would never be able to do that sort of thing in this in this country because those coups dick a flare up their arms.

Well, you see, you say that in this, but I think it's the

problem for us is the palace.

We would never get very far invading a palace.

They just have to put up a red rope strung between two brass brass stanchions and we go, we can't go past that.

That's it.

And it's too easy for the police to trap people in there because the only way out is through the gift shop.

That is why it has never really happened in this country.

Not since, you know, that time.

Not since Cromwell got the hump.

Not since Cromwell got the hump.

The Prime Minister, Ranil Wickramasinghe, is now, following Rajapaksa's resignation, the acting president.

he was in his sixth stint as Prime Minister, which is quite a lot of stints.

I shouldn't say that at this point in Boris Johnson's political career.

He might see that as

a goal.

But he's also facing calls for his resignation, and indeed protesters set fire to his house,

which was

not a good sign if you are then becoming acting president.

A new president is due to

be

elected soon.

I mean, it's uh it all came as a result of this sort of huge economic crisis, uh, you know, inflation, power cuts, healthcare collapsing due to lack of medicines, transport systems failing, fuel sales restricted.

I mean, in some ways, you might see it as looking into the future, depending on where in the world you are.

But

it was very kind of broadly a kind of tragic story of

a country that has so much going for it and apart from the people who've been in charge.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think we saw also was the classic fleeing of a bad leader because Roger Practice went to the Maldives and then Singapore this week, but it's not thought to be his final destination, Andy.

So where might he go?

I've put together a little guide to some favourite haunts you'll find in the search histories of ex-tyrants.

Been deposed, got beef, then why not come to Argentina?

You'll fit right in.

World champion, handball playing nation and noted geopolitical grudge holder, Argentina is a fabulous choice for any despot fleeing from a baying mob with nothing more than the clothes they stand up in and a private plane filled with half the National Reserve.

Extradition treaty?

They don't even have a regular Dishon Treaty, let alone an extra one.

Fun activities include spot the kindly old German gentleman before the kidnapped squad from Mossad does, having a T-bone steak-induced myocardial infarction, and why not join in the traditional Argentinian pastime of staring furiously towards the Falkland Islands, or as they're known in Argentina, the Falkland Islands.

Dubai!

Dubai, whether it's British expats who, in spite of being in the middle of Arabia, will only buy hummus from the MS food shop that you're after, or a sandy vagina, air conditioning capital of the known world, Dubai is the place for you.

You practically can't walk down the street here without bumping into someone who's been chased out of their own country, so you'll always have plenty to talk about.

Whether it's former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, or the sometime king of Spain, Juan Carlos, or just some ex-city trader from Chelsea who retired at 40 and now spends his life drinking from noon and wanking himself to sleep, Dubai is absolutely lousy with people who regret their life choices in extreme but entirely tasteless luxury.

Fun activities include dune surfing, thinking that having a really tall building is important, and not talking about ongoing human rights abuses.

La Belle, France, Zoutaleur, Les Francais Adore le dictator.

That's right, as surprising as it may seem, the home of liberté and Égalité has often extended the hand of fraternité to the kind of people who just a few short centuries previously they'd have been persuading to have a closer look at the fabulous new head removing device they just invented.

France has played host to so many ex-despots that at one point in the early 21st century, an estimated 5% of the population were former African dictators.

What draws them there?

Perhaps it's the weather, perhaps it's the food, or perhaps it's just one of the few places in the world where you don't have to explain how to spell coup d'état.

Fun activities include using gold bullion to mitigate highly ingrained institutionalized racism, booing during the Bastille Day parade, and trying to make girls think you're interesting by smoking galois.

And finally, what's got 120 million thumbs, a queen the size of Paddington Bear, and an unquenchable thirst for dirty money?

Us guys.

That's right.

Have you screwed a starving population out of what was rightfully theirs?

Then Knightsbridge is the place for you.

You don't have to be a dodgily elected ex-leader of a country to be welcomed here with open arms, just so long as you've got a boat big enough to land a helicopter on and a brolly.

Fun activities include owning football teams, owning newspapers, and owning the Tory Party.

Well, we can roll out the full Pedocho package for you.

Yeah.

we got game

The Rajapaksas as a family have in true South Asian fashion dominated politics with a firm hand filled with dodgy money since Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948 they sort of for two of the decades since 1948 they've controlled the government and the most recent Rajapaksa Gotabaya the man who has fled in search of a better life for himself and his money,

has been ruling with, I mean,

a really, really unpleasant streak.

When he was defense secretary during his brother Mohinda's presidency, he oversaw the defeat of the Tamil Tigers and an estimated 40,000 Tamils died.

And Human Rights Watch has alleged that he's been involved in war crimes and he saw a sharp deterioration in human rights.

Possibly not a surprise, given that his own family's nickname for him was The Terminator.

I mean,

and to be clear,

from what age?

Yeah, they did not stipulate from two onwards when he was a nice guy.

They just very much left it at Terminator, and I think we have to assume that it was not a compliment.

His family were in positions of power all through the Sri Lankan government.

His brother most recently resigned as the finance minister in April amidst, as we've discussed, a historic cost of living crisis that's really punished the population of the country.

His brother's name, Basil Rajapaxa.

Basil!

Basil?

Is there a rogue member of the Rajapaxa family that's a huge fan of the sitcom Faulty Towers?

What the f is going on?

Basil Rajapaxa?

Basil and Sybil Rajapaxa.

That would be amazing.

That would be an amazing sitcom as well.

Definitely, whatever the fk you do, don't mention the war for Christ's sake.

It's absolutely staggering because he, because Kotabaya Regipato has just this has been going on I mean as you said Andy this has been going on for years but these protests have been going on going on since April and it's that classic sort of about to be deposed leader of nothing to do with me it's fine it's it's all fine it's like before they leave they have to go through the five stages of grief but except for them it's denial denial denial call in the army flee to the maldives

absolutely staggering and this did you see the the video footage of it is just i mean it's extraordinary because obviously you know, at first, you're sort of looking at it and you think, well, this is like a standard mob trying to get into, you know, a government building.

Yeah, anger is built, they're on the roofs and all that.

And then you go, wait a minute,

there's Buddhist monks there.

If you've got, if you have,

if you've managed to make men who've devoted their entire lives to peaceful self-abnegation go, freedom, and storm the barricades with a shiv fashioned out of a prayer bell, on balance, you've probably lost the goodwill of the people.

As we record, a couple of hours ago, Rajapaksa did officially quit.

He hadn't actually officially quit, despite the fact that he'd fled the country to the Maldives.

He hadn't actually quit.

Anyway, he's now arrived in Singapore and he has officially quit and started the process for the country to begin electing a new president.

Ranilbrik Ramasinghe is the acting president and he could be elected leader by the parliament within a month.

And just to be clear, Ranilbrik Rangasinghe has been a crucial ally to Rajapaksa.

so all i'm saying is in two months time get the trunks out and have the kids tinkling the ivories because we can be back to our old friend square one

there were some amazing scenes actually there was the australian cricket team has been in sri lanka they played two test matches in gaul and uh the cricket ground in gaul is overlooked by an old fort i think it's like a 17th century fort and on the the fort there was huge often people gather on the fort to watch the cricket.

But this time, there was a huge gathering on the fort of people protesting against the government whilst the test match was going on.

Oh my god.

Andy, all your interests

were mashed together in one moment.

But you know, Test cricket has been struggling for crowds in many parts of the cricket-playing world.

Maybe this is all it needs.

All it needs is decades of a country being ruined by its own corrupt politicians, and that will get the crowds flooding back to watch the test game.

We could be about to see a huge boon in cricket in Russia.

This does sound like an article that you absolutely would read in The Cricketer.

The role cricket has played in overthrowing governments throughout the century.

Yeah, well, just as a plan to get people back.

It's just an increasingly

series of increasingly desperate articles on how we get people back into cricket.

I genuinely wouldn't be surprised to see this written by Hube Turberville in the Crypto.

Britain's next Prime Minister news now.

And well, following the sort of resignation of Boris Johnson last week,

Britain is once again involved in its heroic efforts to confirm its place at the top of the stupidest finging ways to elect a Prime Minister rankings.

We have left the position of the most powerful politician of the country once again in the hands of a few hundred Conservative MPs and then a couple of hundred thousand Conservative Party members.

That's very kind of them to make this decision for us for the third Prime Minister in a row.

And we're in the middle of the race to whittle down the initial

eight, wasn't it, at the start, down to the final two that the Conservative members will vote on.

That phase is done by the Conservative MPs.

Amongst the front-runners, Rishi Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose resignation prompted Johnson's downfall.

And if you're in doubt as to where the well-being of the country lies in Conservative Party philosophy, then you just need to listen to interviews such as the one Rishi Sunak did on the Flagship Today programme on Radio 4 the other day and count the number of times he said something on the lines of, I'm the best person to help this country through the difficult period in our history, compared with the number of times he said, I'm the best person to defeat Keir Starmer in a general election.

And I think it was about naught to 25.

Basically, any question he responded to, you know, why should people trust you?

I'm the best person to beat Keir Starmer in a general election.

What will you do about Northern Ireland?

I'm the best person to beat Keir Starmer in a general election.

How come you set up your leadership campaign website six months ago and why didn't you resign then?

I'm the best person to defeat Keir Starmer in a general election.

How many parrots does it take to change a light bulb?

I'm the best person to beat Kier Starmer in a general election.

This is all the Conservative Party now is, it seems.

Just, it exists purely for the purpose of winning elections and nothing else.

Nothing else and regardless of the consequences.

How have you enjoyed the race?

Can we call it a race?

I don't know.

The disc race so far.

Well, it's you look at the options ahead of you and it is as unappealing as the menu at an all-feces restaurant.

It's an astro pub.

It's absolutely disgusting.

They're all...

These people are not just c.

It's they're fing.

They are weapons grade c.

And when I say weapons grade, I don't mean a pea shooter or a small butter knife.

I mean nuclear bomb civilization felling weapons grade.

The options laid in front of us are Kemi Badenock, Penny Borden, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Tom Tugenhat.

And

they're all.

Okay?

And it's amazing to me that every interview with any of these people doesn't begin with

you served under Boris Johnson.

Are you a moron or a

or both?

That's a fair question.

What I found sort of eerily fascinating about it is the extent to which Brexit remains the defining factor.

I mean, it's still at heart a Brexitatious part.

It still seems to be fighting the imaginary squabbles of the last decade and saying, well, we must have a Brexiter as Prime Minister, which to me, in this week of the open golf, is like a golfer having taken a driver off the tee and hits the ball directly into a kebab van.

Then thinking, well, I have to use the driver to get it out of the kebab van because that was the right club

when I drove off the T.

Then smashing it via several other kebab vans and an ice cream van and some slightly alarmed spectators onto the green and then just smashing it back to the tea with the same driver saying no I'm I'm not I am not changing I will not play the ball as it lay is still very I don't know what they it's a brexecherable party I think that's the that's the technical technical term and this this still still seems to shape how our Prime Minister is going to be it is baffling baffling yeah well the only things that they're really talking about are that and woke issues which very few people are actually really that interested in uh and and and taxes that's it and almost most of the candidates are pitching that they're going to abolish tax basically obviously you know they all acknowledge there has to be some way to fund the various important activities of the state like sending an aircraft carrier out every time they see a dinghy full of migrants and levelling the north sorry levelling up the north so i do mean levelling the north so what So what are their ideas for raising revenue?

What are their ideas for raising revenue without taxes?

Tom Tugenhat is promising a countrywide swear box to be activated during Prime Minister's question time and national sporting events.

Liz Truss says she will be sending all Treasury civil servants door-to-door around the country, selling lucky heather and clothes pegs.

Kami Badenoch has suggested that, and I quote, something will turn up.

Rishi Sunak doesn't believe in cutting taxes at this point, and his plan for dealing with the cost of living crisis is to make everyone as small as him and therefore need to buy less food to survive on.

And Penny Mordaunt doesn't exist.

I refuse to believe in Penny Mordaunt.

There is absolutely no record of her existing before 2010.

I am convinced that she was built in a subterranean lab deep beneath YouGov.

That said, I do find listening to her that I agree with a lot of what she says because a lot of what she says is that the other candidates will be terrible prime ministers.

She managed to shoehorn the Falklands War of 1982 into her campaign launch.

When she would have been 10?

10?

Well, I think it was, yeah, what set her off onto her, albeit fictitious life, into a career in politics.

I mean, that was an

impressive effort to appeal to the Tory heartlands.

But she is viewed as being a little bit too woke on gender issues by various

newspapers.

And it's slightly alarming to think that this is an issue for

the Tory membership who are deciding on a new Prime Minister.

The fact that our Prime Minister may be chosen in part by people who are prepared to think, well, what's the point in having a functioning economy anyway if a small number of people I don't know don't use the pronouns I think they should use were I to ever meet them?

That's

that's that to me is not reassuring.

And whoever wins or fails to lose the Tory leadership scrabble, they'll be the third, UK's 35th Prime Minister since 1834.

Now, I'm going to put you a little quiz question here: How many of those 35 Prime Ministers have come to office for the first time when they first become Prime Minister as a result of winning a majority at a general election?

Out of 35 of them since 1834?

Any guesses?

Five.

You're close.

Is it six?

It's six.

It is six.

Flipping

crikey.

Six.

Flipping crikey.

Gladstone, Attlee, Wilson, Heath, Thatcher and Blair are the only ones who've won a majority at a general election to become Prime Minister for the first time.

Ramsey MacDonald and David Cameron came in in a coalition

and the other 26 took over whilst due to a sort of collapse in government or a change of of leadership, including this will now be the third Tory putsch in a row that has inflicted

the elected Prime Minister on us.

But they don't even seem to be...

there doesn't seem to be any enthusiasm.

Do you know there's a lot of sense that Tory MPs don't really like any of the candidates and each round they're just trying to block the one that they like the least, to which I say, welcome to our world, fuckos.

The whole contest is basically like Charlie in the chocolate factory without Charlie.

It doesn't matter what order of rooms Willy Wonka takes him to, he's still going to end up having to give the factory to a

it's it the the war on woke is a pretty key theme uh and so far uh none of them have actually produced any kind of specific costed plans uh for how to deal with the cost of living crisis but all of them have been engaged in rampant transphobia and you know it's it's very hard to not self-immolate at the moment as a British person.

It's very hard to not work out how this country has any meaningful future in front of it.

And also, as a British person who is famously of an ethnic minority, it is pretty nauseating to be told by large sections of the media that I should in some way be thrilled by the ethnic diversity that's presented to us.

I should be absolutely thrilled by the representation of my people at the highest level of government.

It's very tricky when the candidates are absolutely from ethnic minority backgrounds, and I'm sure that's evidence that things are certainly less racist in this country than when my mother first came here 50 years ago.

But it is pretty hard to feel happy that any of these people have attained any position, given that all of them have enthusiastically signed up for policies that have made the lives of people that look very similar to them unbelievably worse.

These are all enthusiastic supporters of the plan to ship refugees and asylum seekers off to Rwanda.

These are all people that have been enthusiastic supporters of austerity, and there are various studies that show that people of colour in Britain have been disproportionately affected by austerity policies.

These are all deeply unpleasant people, and it's very difficult for me to muster any enthusiasm for any of them as kind of rep as kind of figureheads of ethnic minority progress in Britain.

That doesn't stop all of them from finging going on about it.

For a group of people who claim to not like identity politics, it's been a tricky couple of weeks watching their campaign launches that all start with the same thing.

My parents came to this country with nothing but the shirts on their back and millions of pounds in the trouser pockets, which they were wearing.

They worked hard to send me to some of the most elite private schools this country has ever produced.

And now I sit here proudly ensuring as a politician that none of them would ever be able to come to school.

These are all people who are acting out some psychodrama with their parents.

They're all

power so that they can retrospectively deport them because they didn't give them enough pocket money in 1994.

That's so plausible.

That explains absolutely everything.

You can only marvel at people that are working out psychodramas at the cost of nothing other than all of the people that live in this country.

Penny Morden is, despite not existing as alleged by Chris Addison, Penny Morden is the favourite amongst the party members who, as discussed, are the people who are actually going to elect the Prime Minister.

If you want to know what Penny Morden is like,

in 2014, she said that she had delivered a speech in the House of Commons as an MP just before the Easter recess in 2013 on poultry welfare and used the word cock as a forfeit for a misdemeanor during naval reserve training.

Anyway, that asshole might be our prime minister.

I mean, I can't say that that doesn't slightly endear her to me.

This is the problem with the British electorate.

I know, I know, I know, I know.

I know, I know, and I am absolutely the person who

is set up to reject everything that she stands for.

That's the exact problem.

Exact problem with the British Electorate.

I'm so sorry.

I apologise.

Also, not only the thing is, it's so easy to concentrate on the fact that they're terrible, terrible bastards

and sort of forget about the fact that they're all thick.

You know, they're genuinely stupid people.

The Tory leadership candidate and LGBT plus medical device, Les Truss,

couldn't find her way out of the room after launching her campaign on Thursday.

Did you see the video?

She finished it,

got off the plinth, and then wandered around hopelessly until one of her aides came and found her and took her to the door.

You know, that to put that in context, that is the foreign secretary who couldn't find her way into the rest of Britain, let alone in 20 minutes.

That's not falling at the first hurdle, that's slipping and slicing your scrotum open on the corner of a bench in the changing room.

We've all done it.

She looked, she genuinely looked like one of those robot Hoovers that was badly malfunctioning.

Yeah,

Sports news now.

And, well, I mean, many people have brought this story to our attention.

And me, as a professional-level

cricket obsessive,

was very excited by this story.

Four men in Gujarat in India have been arrested for staging, wait for this, a fake cricket tournament.

and accepting bets through a social media app from gamblers in Russia.

Now, in many ways, this

is the absolute apotheosis of globalization and modern technology.

I mean

it's really when you trace the evolution of this story from the very dawn of human civilization it seems almost inevitable that

and I would urge you all to watch the footage of this.

It was reported in numerous news sites

around the internet.

That So yeah,

they made videos kind of to stream to Russia of

the shittiest imaginable cricket game.

Whilst it was being streamed,

they would then pass information to the fake umpire, fakely umpiring the fake cricket match with the fake cricketers, to make fake signals.

that would then

impact on the bets that are being placed in Russia.

It's really hard to overstate how shitly this scam was.

In terms of the quality of play, imagine if you're a baseball fan, for our American listeners, baseball being played by five dolphins in a disused courtroom.

Or for our many synchronized swimming fans, imagine a load of Vatican Cardinals doing synchronized swimming in their full Vatican Cardinal gear.

It's that kind of level of quality.

And in terms of the authenticity of fakery, imagine if an art dealer offered you a genuine Da Vinci and then showed you a picture of Vanity Smurf put through an online filter to make it look like a painting.

Or a tour guide pointing at a croissant in the window display of a bakery and claiming it's a relic of the true cross and that the bakery is, in fact, a cathedral that miraculously sprang into existence when St.

Trevor of Las Vegas took a shit behind a hedge in the year 327 AD.

That is the kind of level we are talking about.

But I think that this is possibly the greatest news story of the millennium.

So far.

Would you put it up there?

Well, I sort of feel like, I think you're overplaying how bad it was.

I mean, I agree that in any other week, I would be thinking you would never see a professional batting display that bad.

But I was at the Oval on Tuesday

to watch India get out to in England, get out to India for 110.

So

it was just nice to see some quality cricket.

This is, you know what?

There's a lot.

There's a lot to like about this story.

Oh, yeah.

But what I particularly like is they scammed Russians.

Russians.

Judy, so I don't know if you're here.

Russians,

the corruptest country.

That is how this is, this is this is

high time.

It's high time that people were reminded that India is and always will be the gold standard for corruption and swindling.

And Russia has been getting away with too much for too long.

And we had to remind everybody who was boss here.

We're number one.

Unbelievable.

I read the story,

the report in the Times of India and online.

And because I only get it delivered to the house two days late.

But

I watched it.

And you know the comments underneath the story.

There's one comment underneath the story in the Times of India, and it was real entrepreneurs exclamation mark.

Which I really liked.

I like how the whole thing basically is built around

racism.

It's like it's sort of it's like a judo racist move where the

where the Indian perpetrators of the scam have basically used Russia's racism against them.

Because there are 21 farm laborers who are pretended to be all of the different teams and just put on different types.

Knowing that the Russians would go, is that the same?

Yeah, they have no idea, man.

The allegation at the moment is they were all acting under the orders of one Russian-based mastermind.

And you just think outsourcing has gone so far.

It's unbelievable.

Even if you want to swindle your own people, the Russians do get the Indians to do it.

Get the job done.

And have you seen that there's more than one league?

Yeah.

So it's like, it's the same guys, but they've done it in different states.

So there's like this one, this one was called, what was it called?

It was called the Century 2020 League.

And then there's the Tamil Big Bash, which which sounds like a very bad way of underplaying a civil war, but is in fact

they've done the same thing down in South India.

It's absolutely extraordinary in Tamil Nadu, presumably.

Remarkable.

They've found a picture of four people who are arrested in connection with the fake tournament.

And they've actually all posed for a photo that does not itself look dissimilar to a cricket team.

But I'll be honest with you, the four guys look very somber, but you could see a little glint in their eye that it's like, we're f ⁇ ing legends.

We're absolute fing legends here.

Done more to bring down Russia than much of the international community.

Did you see that other, the Sierra Leone one?

Yes.

That's astonishing.

So this was in football, a couple of, well, I think we can say questionable scorelines described by one source as impractical scorelines in the Sierra Leone football competition.

Gulf FC defeated the Kokima Lebanon team 91-1.

You know how football is, the manager will be saying, I was disappointed we didn't keep a clean sheet.

And

Lumbenba United lost disappointingly

95-0 to their big rivals, Kahula Rangers.

And

people just, you know, jumped on this and say, oh, this is terrible proof of wrongdoing.

But can we not just celebrate players finally clicking as a team which is yeah it might just have been one of those days where everything just flowed and they finally fulfilled their their potential as size but they have to be undermined by our allegations that these were not authentic matches but the context of it makes it all so much more delicious so these so the cohon rangers and golf sc who were the who were the victorious teams in these in these games were going into these were this was the final set of games final round of games uh in the super 10 i think it's called in the in the serial own football League, to see who would qualify for promotion to the Premier League.

And it was which one of them was going to win it.

And the great thing is that at half-time, Kohunla Rangers were beating Lemembo United 2-0.

And Golf FC were beating Kokeema Lebron 7-1.

But at half-time, they figured out that

it was going to be about goal difference.

So it was after half-time that the scores went up and up and up as they tried to get the most astonishing goal difference in football history.

It's amazing.

And the general manager of Labembu, a guy called Mohamed Jansai Jallo, said, This is a quote, direct quote from him, and I love this.

I'll never be part of match fixing.

I'm calling on the football authorities to investigate both matches and bring to book anyone found wanting.

And if nobody is found guilty of any crime, then so be it.

Well, that brings us to the end of

this week's bugle.

We will be back next week with the latest in the gradual death of humanity as a species.

Anything to plug to our listeners?

Yeah, I'm just frantically googling my own name.

Chris,

do you want to plug some listeners?

Okay, I'll go.

Yes, sure, why not?

Yes, I have, as it happens, the third series of Breeders, which is the show that I make with Simon Blackwell, Martin Freeman, and Daisy Haggard, that is available to stream right now on Sky Comedy, all 10 episodes.

And

it's going out on Tuesday nights

on Sky Showcase if you like to watch things old school.

Could you get that internationally or just you can get it internationally?

American listeners can

see it on Hulu.

It's streaming on Hulu and it'll be in your local market super soon.

Google it.

That's the only information I can give you.

If you live in Montreal on the 28th and 30th of July, I will be doing my tour show as part of the Just for Laughs Festival.

28th and 30th of July.

What am I doing on the 29th?

Eating poutine.

Dying of poutine.

Yeah, I'll be filling myself with chips and cheese curd.

It's the greatest dish.

Actually, more likely, I'll be at Boustan, which is an unbelievable Shoama place right in the middle of Montreal.

Phenomenal.

And don't forget to buy your tickets to the Bugle 15th anniversary live shows, which are coming up later in the year, October and November, in From Memory, Birmingham, Dublin, Glasgow, and London.

Dates somewhere online.

I'll put them on my website at some point in the nearest future.

Bugle between

me.

Have you put them up there already?

Like about three weeks ago, actually.

Oh, well done, of course.

Well done, mate.

That's terrific news.

Also, I'm doing a few more satirists for high shows in the middle of November.

But they're not

online in various places, but not my website hasn't been updated.

Yeah, Andy, currently your website is advertising live dates from May 2022.

That's all right.

That's relatively recent.

And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised to see it.

I thought he was going to be announcing your debut Edinburgh run.

Yeah, you should bring back the Dogger Doom.

Yeah, someday.

Someday.

21 years.

21 years ago.

21 years.

Probably dead now, that dog of doom.

I don't know what happened to the other guy that was in it.

Anyway, Buglers, thank you very much for listening.

Don't forget, you can join the Bugle voluntary subscription scheme.

Go to thebuglepodcast.com and click the donate button to give a one-off or recurring contribution to keep the show free, flourishing, and independent.

And the Bugle Wall of Honor will be launched in the extremely near future.

Maybe next week.

Let's say next week.

We will launch the Wall of Honor.

It's on tape now.

We record this on tape.

Hi, Buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast, Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.