Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - The News Quiz - 8th September

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Andy Zaltzman quizzes the week's news. Providing the answers, hopefully, are, Ian Smith, Lucy Porter, Hugo Rifkind, and Zoe Lyons.In this episode Andy and the panel test the state of schools, the resiliance of a reshuffle, and value of vets.Written by Andy ZaltzmanWith additional material by Cody Dahler Mike Shepard and Eleri MorganProducer: Sam Holmes Executive Producer: James Robinson Production Co-ordinator: Dan Marchini Sound Editor: Marc WillcoxA BBC Studios Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello. I'm Andy Zaltzman. I'm on my way to start the new series of The News Quiz and I'm travelling in the now fashionable manner by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck. I really didn't want to be late for the recording,

and as any half-decent prison escapee will tell you, the underside of food delivery trucks has proved to be the only reliable form of public transport in Britain this summer. Welcome to the News Quiz. Hello. Welcome to the new series of the News Quiz. I have rejected a multi-trillion pound offer to host a topical news show on Saudi Arabian state radio.

I'm back. And to commemorate the state of the nation as we begin our new series, our two teams this week are Team Crumbling against Team Grumbling. On Team Crumbling, we have Lucy Porter and Hugo Rifkind. And on Team Grumbling, we have Zoe Lyons and Ian Smith. And Ian and Zoe, you can take our first question. Why have schools been breaking up at the start of term?

Oh, this is the much-talked-about rack. It's basically concrete that looks like an aero that we used in buildings between the 50s and 90s because it was cheap and easy and whatever, and now schools are falling down because of it. It's causing big issues. But in a way, I think the government will try and spin this into a sort of a good thing,

because Rishi Sunak was asked about it, and he sort of answered that question in the way that he does these days, with the sort of wide-eyed joy of a prefect that's been voted head boy, and he can't quite believe it, but he did bribe everybody to get into that position. But I think what he's going to try and do is trying to incorporate this into the actual curriculum,

so it'll become a sort of thing of sort of like, if a chancellor promises to deliver 300 to 400 schools through the budget, but then says it's only going to be 200 schools, and then reduces it to 100 schools, and eventually it only becomes 50 schools that are rebuilt, how many schools are actually built? And that will be a maths question

in the future. And obviously there's other ways that can incorporate this into the curriculum. History, you know, buildings used to be built out of what? Wattle and Dorb, correct. Now what is it? Rack and ruin. There you go. Next up, PE. Can everybody pick up this ceiling

off the floor and carry it out into the playground so you know it's not all bad so it's educational it's educational he did say he wants kids to get more into maths and i think you know calculating your odds of making it through the day it's a pretty good way to start and for the little ones you could do nursery rhymes and fairy tales. You could do, one of the three little pigs built his house out of rack. I mean, I have to say, I love and adore my children and I very much enjoy spending time with them. But seven weeks is a lot of quality time. And as a parent, I always thought,

it's going to be really monotonous, having kids. It's just the same thing every day they go to school it's really not because there's always surprises like you know you suddenly find a note at the bottom of the book bag saying oh it's zoo day tomorrow you've got to bring in 13 pounds 75 in cash plus an axolotl costume and a diorama of the savannah and you know so you sort of get these little surprises but this one i thought the tories have just got to a point where they know they're on the way out they're just having fun they're just pranking they're just going to know we could have told them at the beginning of the summer but let's wait until they spent 100 quid in clarks back to school boots with steel toe caps

on them this year's uniform is high-vis. I think Rishi Sunak, though, was a little baffled by this thing about schools built between the 50s and the 90s, because in his experience, schools were built in the 17th century. Anything could have happened since then. But, yeah, it's RAC. It stands for Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete. But it's not just schools. It's also in hospitals and other public buildings.

Meg Hillier, the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, she wrote in The Times this week about a hospital she knew of where RAC was such a problem that it's not safe to let obese patients go above the first floor. Although I'm thinking that maybe that's because up there it actually is aero. Maybe that's because up there it actually is Arrow. Ian, have you ever autoclaved anything? Well, not that I'm aware of, no. But I get that sometimes you can't help yourself. I do find it... I was reading into what this is,

and it says it's concrete, with a life expectancy of a little more than 30 years. I mean, not even schools and hospitals. I don't think any building should have a life expectancy. Yeah, it's sort of created a whole new world, where someone can say, what have you been up to today? Oh, well, I was just

going to my corner shop's funeral. The tanning salon was one of the pallbearers. Yeah, it does seem very odd. I do think it can be incorporated into education. I think it can have a positive effect on education because you put the lowest set in the dangerous building and the reward for doing well in class is you move to the top set in a new building that isn't crumbling.

So it gives the lower set people a sort of incentive to be smarter. Are you working as an advisor for the government? That sounds quite sensible, actually. I mean, I didn't know that there were different types. I mean, I'm an ignorant in so many ways, but I just thought concrete... Like, you know, we say, oh, well, that's a concrete decision, or it's a strong thing,

and it turns out not necessarily. You know when, like in kung fu films or karate demonstrations, they used to chop through a block of concrete? Going to give that a go. Yeah, it makes Bruce Lee seem less impressive if it was all autoclaved. I love the way the name gets less impressive. You know, you go, what kind of concrete you built it out of?

Reinforced. That sounds good. Autoclaved. No idea, but that sounds great. Aerated. They swallow that one a bit, don't they? It's just holes with confidence, isn't it? The government are saying that their response to the concrete crisis is world-leading. But I don't know if anyone else has a concrete crisis.

You can't create a problem and go, we've made our schools out of terrible material that's now falling down on the children, but we're dealing with it faster than anyone else. It's like me saying I'm world-leading at removing my penis from a mousetrap. They have had, I think it's six education secretaries in the last three years,

which is perhaps not unrelated to the fact that schools are falling apart. But, I mean, as Zoe was saying, they can incorporate this in lessons because they can say, you know, if you've had six ministers over three years, then each one serves for an average of run for your life, the ceiling is falling in. The current school's minister, Nick Gibb... I don't know if you... I mean, we just need to say before any minister now,

current or interim... Nick Gibb said that what is still not known? Anything. Correct. No, it's the amount of schools that are made of concrete. I mean, you'd think you could just sort of look at them, but apparently that's difficult, and they're trying to figure out what to do whether you move all the kids out of them or whether you can in some way support the rack effectively putting a

rack under the rack might work but they don't know how many schools it is so a lot of the schools that are closed at the moment are closed because they can't figure out what they're made of they think it's only five percent but luckily kids have so few math teachers now they think that's a one in two thousand chance they they said as well that um it's like a different amount in each school so said in some schools it could just be a room or a cupboard and in others it will be pervasive throughout so they say in some, there could be one concrete cupboard. When has that been built or negotiated? We want to have an extension to the school, one concrete cupboard.

One concrete, we don't want anyone getting in this cupboard. That's a panic room for the RE teacher. Nick Gibb did say that it would probably be over by Christmas, and that's a phrase that's never come back to haunt anyone. The Education Secretary, Gillian Keegan... ..has what's called a hot Mike moment. Ironically, hot Mike was what Michael Gove used to insist people call him. Keegan claimed that she was doing... Are you sure this is radio-grade English?

A f***ing good job. But she said that others had sat on their what's doing what. Arses. Yes. Doing nothing. Correct. Sat on their what's doing what? Arses. Yes. Doing nothing. Correct. Sat on their arses doing nothing. But it was such an amazing moment, wasn't it?

It was described as, they said, a foul-mouthed tirade or whatever the tabloid speak is, but it was not. It was a passive-aggressive howl of self-pity. And I should know because I am the expert. That is very much my attitude. I go, well, do you think those dishes are going to magic themselves into the dishwasher, do you?

And it was just that sort of petulance of, like, why is no-one congratulating me? You know, I have found one little tip for getting congratulated on a job well done, and that is to do a job well. But Gillian Keegan, she's also the one who said recently, despite being the Education Secretary, that A-levels don't matter,

which is, I mean, hopefully not true for structural engineers, but might be. I found it interesting because they said a hot mic moment, but a hot mic moment is when some time has elapsed between the interview and then saying something. She literally went, thank you very much. And where's my gold star? Yes, the government has been on the rock this week,

as it unfortunately transpired that using building materials that are not designed to last very long and have a tendency to collapse means that buildings that you use those materials in might not last very long and have a tendency to collapse means that buildings that you use those materials in might not last very long and could collapse. Just a bit unlucky when you put it in those terms. RARC, the sequel to RARB, I think... LAUGHTER

..is a form of aerated concrete used in many buildings because it was cheaper, lighter, cheaper and cheaper than actual concrete could work. The government has insisted that schools should now focus on the three R's, illiteracy and innumeracy. To me, crumbly concrete is right up there in the combinations of

words that simply shouldn't be allowed to happen, along with soluble submarine, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, and Prime Minister's resignation honours list. Lucy, it's not just schools that are becoming too expensive. The cost of fixing your watts is going up faster than inflation. I think this is something very close to my heart because I think this is... Is it your lungs? So I think it's vets' bills. Yes.

There was the Competition and Markets Authority review said that vets' fees were rising faster than any other goods and services in the cost of living crisis and I have been on the sharp end of this because I have pets. You would not believe how much horse tranquilizers cost. I mean, I don't have a horse, but... But I have got cats. And so one cat at the minute who shall remain nameless midnight.

And he's set up some kind of fight club in the garden. Kind of bored white-collar cats. So anyway, he's been getting into scraps and he is now costing us a fortune because he comes back with these scratches and they get infected and then you take them to the vet. And I'm not even blaming the vet because it's not the vet's fault, it's the cat's, idiot, right? So he's on antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, steroids.

Like, we have to give him so much. It's like living with Elvis in his decline. I've got a 17-year-old Jack Russell. So, you know, every day's a miracle. He wasn't well recently and I had to take him to the vets and they asked me to bring in a stool sample and it was only when I got to the receptionist I hand it over I realized they meant from the dog quite alarmed at the size you've managed to produce but he

he's 17 so you know it's things happen and bits fall off and stuff but I can see he can see in our eyes that you know we will tolerate it to a point so he's very he does keep himself fit you can see him in the he does press ups in the morning he's like an old geezer like i still got it i still got it he's a sort he's a sort of terrier that you'd imagine sitting in a pub with jeans right up to his lower nipples reading the racist racist posts he is a little bit racist my dog not about humans it's other dog breeds he really doesn't like french bull terriers you can or chihuahuas you can just see him in those eyes going coming over here nicking our treats it's a lot of surprises

though isn't it because then sometimes you take them in and they they sort of do the procedure and then they tell you how much it costs and i sort of think well what are you going to do if i can't pay you're going to sew the bollock back on is that you got any um money saving tips for people with ill animals ian um i guess well people say you shouldn't but i think you should just have a dog for Christmas. Prefer that to turkey? Our next State of the Nation story. This can go to both sides. What is dry spilling and why is it bad?

It's going without flushing, in a way, isn't it? Right. Yeah, it's when they pump sewage from... I don't understand this story. I started saying it, I don't really understand. This is when the water companies pump sewage into the rivers and they're only meant to do it when it rains. And you take that as a premise and then you go, it's terrible, they're not doing it when it rains. Hang on, they're meant to do it when it rains. And you take that as a premise, and then you go, it's terrible, they're not doing it when it rains.

Hang on, they're meant to do it when it rains. When it rains, like, yeah, fine, pump it in. I was going to say fill your boots, that's not what you want. It's a classic part of the British rainy day experience. You go, ooh, a bit rainy outside, I'll just curl up on the sofa with a good book, big muck of tomato soup, and just release some E. coli into a protected river. So basically, this is what the sewage companies,

they are discharging into rivers. Therese Coffey is very upset. She's heard of some... LAUGHTER And, ladies and gentlemen, there she is. APPLAUSE She said, it's extraordinary they're doing this on the hottest day of the year, to which the answer is,

well, yes, but also on the other days of the year. You're allowed to dump stuff when there's weather, so you don't need to pick up, like, dog poo if it's windy. That'll blow to France, that's gone in nothing. But also, the sun is weather. I'm having a nightmare here. The pipes simply can't cope with the amount of rainwater and wastewater at the same time,

so there's an overflow into the rivers and seas, and that's how it... And also, it's less bad. So on dry days, it shouldn't happen. It should not need to happen. There should be enough capacity within their pipes to deal with the amount of effluent coming out. Sorry to anyone who's eating.

As Theresa says, it shouldn't be happening, but unfortunately, every time Theresa opens her mouth, we'll have to deal with more crap. She should only be allowed to talk if it's raining. Right, at the end of that round, the scores are four points all. Right, at the end of that round, the scores are four points all. Let's move on to politics. This can be for Hugo and Lucy.

A general election is just a nail-biting year and a bit away. Sorry, correct, it's not nail-biting. Chewing your own arm off in despair. Year and a bit away. Labour have been shuffling the deck chairs to make sure they at least hit the post of the electoral open goal they're being presented with. But Momentum, the Corbynist group within Labour, said that Keir Starmer has failed to offer what to the country? Is it a comprehensive plan to drive out the Jews?

It's just a guess. It's not that. Oh. I was going to say tips on how he gets his hair so lovely. I mean, you know, I don't care about his politics. He's just a lovely-looking man. Have you ever seen There's Something About Mary? But Angela Rayner's hair's lovely as well.

Just by the by. I've forgotten what the question was. The question was, Keir Starmer has failed to offer what to the country according to Momentum? Tony Blair's head on a spike? Jam. I love homemade jam. No, he's not offered that.

It's decisive change is the answer. But is that too much to be looking for now? Should they be setting realistic targets such as slightly less incompetence and occasional shafts of humanity? Is that to be a more achievable electoral goal? I'm quite excited about the Labour reshuffle because Peter Carl is my local MP and he's just become Shadow Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology.

His office is right round the corner, so if my iPad plays up again, I know who to go to. It's actually worked out quite well for me i did think it was a bit like i know there's some sort of military saying of when your enemy is making a mistake the best thing is to do nothing but i mean schools are crumbling right and kirsten was going well here's a lovely picture of hillary ben i sort of thought well you could have you know you could have said something a bit more and Keir Starmer's going, well, here's a lovely picture of Hilary Benn. I sort of thought, well, you could have, you know, you could have said something a bit more punchy, you know. It's weird because the Corbynites are basically annoyed that there's no sort of Corbynites in the Cabinet,

but the Corbynites don't like Keir Starmer and the Blairites, so why would you put them in? It feels weird that the Corbynites are basically going, well, there's none of us in your cabinet, but if they were in charge, they wouldn't be like, let's get a couple of Blairites in. Keir Starmer was in Jeremy Corbyn's cabinet. Okay, that's difficult for me

to come back to. Where do you think Labour are now? Are they doing enough, or is not enough the new enough? Yeah, I don't think they need to do all that much. now? Are they doing enough, or is not enough the new enough? Yeah, I don't think they need to do all that much. I mean, as Lucy said, you know, when schools are literally falling down, you're kind of like, they're not schools falling down, people? I'm kind of in with a good shout, I think.

The Prime Minister always had a bit of a tinker with his Cabinet toy box, as a result of which Grant Shapps is now our first line of defence in the event of war. Shapps defended his appointment, saying that only two of the last 15 defence secretaries have possessed what? Conscience. Is it their own private aeroplane which they fly for fun that nobody noticed they had even when they were environment secretary?

He didn't say that out loud. The ability to point at the UK on a globe. That might be more accurate than would be ideal. Military background or military experience. Correct. Yes. Which still didn't stop him from confusing the RAF with the Navy. So apparently he said that we have the biggest supercarriers or whatever they are.

He was very proud of bits of the RAF. So Navy. I meant that, I meant that. But he's had five jobs in the last year, which I just find incredible. So five appointments, government appointments in the last year. I mean, I wouldn't have even finished unpacking my lucky gonks on the desk by the time I'd been moved on. How do you have I mean I wouldn't have even finished unpacking my lucky gonks on the desk by the time I'd been moved on. How do you have any

grasp of what you're doing at all? He clearly doesn't, so that's... You just write your job title on an Etch-A-Sketch. It's very easy to go, right, get rid of that. It's like temping, isn't it? I used to really like temping because you just turn up

and you don't give a stuff. And you go, what is it? Oh, medical secretary this week. Oh, that's nice. What do they want? Someone needs a tonsillectomy. Oh, I can't spell that. I'll just put appendectomy.

Is it like McDonald's now in the government, where you get a little badge and you get all five stars? I've worked in defence, transport, education. I've just got to work on the fryer next week. I do think it sort of strikes fear into an enemy because what's the worst they could do? They could, like, assassinate your defence secretary. We'll have another one tomorrow.

We've got loads of people. We don't care if they're qualified. You can't do anything to us. We'll have anyone in there. That's my message to Russia. Yes, Shaps has pledged to use a green screen on Zoom calls with a painting of the Battle of Waterloo to give himself, for the first time, a military background. Moving on, at the end of that round, Lucy and Hugo have eight, Ian and Zoe have six. Moving on to our final round, we've been off air since June.

We left July and August unquizzed, sadly. So I'm going to ask our panellists, what is the most important lesson the world has learned this summer? Hugo, do you want to take first stab at this? I think it was about Nigel Farage's bank account. I think that was a very important lesson because do you remember that? When he lost his bank account and Coote said, it's because you haven't got

enough money. And he said, no it's not. It's because you think I'm a racist grifter. The worst kind of bicycle. And he felt this made him sound better than being told he didn't have enough money. He thought he could win political points by telling people that his bank thought he was a racist grifter.

And I feel that just taught me more about British politics than anything else in a quite a long time. Lucy, what lesson would you say the world has learned? Do you know, I sort of took the summer off from news, really. I suppose the only thing I did notice was that no matter how many times Donald Trump gets arrested, I never stop finding it brilliant. Oh, he was arrested about ten times

for about 15 different things, wasn't he? It just seems like everyone around him is going to prison and he is throwing them under the bus to save his own skin. And Americans are still saying they're going to vote for him. And it is an incredible... It's like watching half of a country lining up to lick a plug socket, thinking, you know, I will be the one who gets superpowers. Zoe?

I think the big lesson that we all learned this summer was that if you are going to attend what was originally a counterculture festival in Nevada known as Burning Man, which is now frequented by insufferable influencers who fly in on their private jets so they can drown out the sound of environmentalists shouting at them.

Take an anorak and some firelighters. Because climate change means it's going to be a little bit soggier than it was. Yeah, it's less burning man, more soggy man these days. I watched it with utter glee. I have to be. Yeah.

Oh, my life is ruined! My hair's all wet! Oh, it's the best festival I've never been to. Ian, what lesson do you think is most important this summer? Well, this is from my hometown. We learnt that not everyone thinks the same thing when it comes to salt and pepper pots. So my hometown of Gould has two now disused water towers.

One of them is long, thin and brown and looks a bit like a pepper pot. The other one is sort of white and a bit stouter and I assume looks like a salt pot and they're known in the town as the salt and pepper pot. For the 200-year anniversary of Ghoul, they're going to release ceramic salt and pepper pots of the salt and pepper pot. But Ghoul Town Council had a vote

for which one should have salt in and which one should have pepper in. I'll just repeat, one of them is thin and brown and shaped like a pepper grinder, and one of them is white. They were split 50-50. And the reason is because some of the council are so old, they predate the prominence of pepper grinders. Pepper grinders come in after the council,

so they're putting it to a town-wide vote. And our MP, Conservative MP, Andrew Percy, he sat on the fence and said he doesn't know which one he thinks is salt and pepper. He said, personally, as a lover of the East Yorkshire delicacy chip spice, I would like to think of them both as chip shake dispensers. I haven't the foggiest witch on his witch and never had,

but in today's world, I don't suppose it matters. They can be whatever they want. So, yeah, that's the main thing going on. So, essentially, the lesson that we've learnt is democracy doesn't work. Well, I'm afraid you're all wrong. The most important lesson that the world has learnt this summer is that there is no more soul-breaking phrase in our language

than, please contact your airline for more information. Well, that brings us to the end of this week's news quiz. Team Grumbling, Lucy and Hugo, have ten. Team Grumbling, Ian and Zoe, have eight. Team Grumbling, Ian and Zoe, have eight. And the winning team this week wins a priceless relic from the British Museum. I've got, let me just check under the table, I've got one of the Venus de Milo's missing arms. Flipping a middle finger, not sure how we got hold of that.

A 3,000-year-old snooker ball, might just be a rock, or Francis Drake's bowls trousers. By the looks of it, he was actually genuinely scared when he saw the Armada. Thank you for listening to the News Quiz. I've been Andy Zaltzman. Goodbye. Taking part in the News Quiz were Ian Smith, Lucy Porter, Hugo Rifkind

and Zoe Lyons. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman and additional material was written by Mike Shepherd, Hilary Morgan and Cody Darla. In the chair was Andy Zaltzman, and additional material was written by Mike Shepherd, Hilarie Morgan, and Cody Darla. The producer was Sam Holmes, and it was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4. This is the first radio ad you can smell. Thank you.