The Blame Game Election Special The Blame Game

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello!

Hello, hello and welcome to The Blame Game Election Special,

the show that has more laughs than the Ulster Unionist Party has MLAs.

LAUGHTER

That's right, count them. We have at least 11 laughs.

I'm Tim McGarry and the people have spoken.

So our regular panellists have just about clung onto their seats.

They are, of course, Colin Murphy,

Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And our special guest tonight is a firm Blame Game favourite.

He's a superb and highly sought-after, cutting-edge comedian.

You've seen him on Have I Got News For You, Mock The Week,

Argumental, Live At The Apollo

and a million other things.

Please welcome the fabulous Andrew Maxwell!

APPLAUSE

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's The Blame Game Election Special

and, as we know, every election in Northern Ireland is famous

for bringing people together in the spirit of reconciliation

and cross-community cooperation.

But this time it was different.

This time the crocodiles came home to roost.

And we had a shock result. Yes, it's official.

Most Protestants vote Unionist, and most Catholics vote Nationalist.

Who knew?

Well, how did this happen?

Well, on The Blame Game, the audience asks the questions

and our panel provides some very unreliable answers.

So what question did you, the audience, ask us tonight?

"Who's to blame for The Blame Game Election Special Part Two

"in six weeks' time?"

No... No, Gavin, no!

"Who's to blame for...?"

HE READS IN IRISH

"Who's to blame for this being filmed in English?"

-Did I get that right?

-I have no idea what you said, to be honest.

Our first question tonight is, who do you blame

for the Assembly election happening in the first place?

Yes, in the old days,

the spurious letters in Northern Ireland were IRA and UDA.

Now it's RHI.

In the old days, we used to do kneecappings.

Now, we can't even cap an energy scheme.

The BBC's official line

is that RHI is a botched renewable energy scheme.

But what does that actually mean?

Well, it means that in parts of Northern Ireland,

you can see chickens wearing bikinis.

The DUP and Arlene Foster

have borne the brunt of the blame for RHI.

In the early days of the scandal,

Arlene Foster said that she was the victim of misogyny.

Although, being accused of misogyny by the DUP

is a bit like being accused of having a bad hairdo by Donald Trump.

But who do you blame

for the Assembly election happening in the first place?

Sinn Fein chickens.

Sinn Fein chickens are the background to this whole thing.

We had Ulster chickens,

good, ordinary-bred Ulster chickens

that were acclimatised to our climate

and then they brought in these Fenian...

Fenian Sinn Fein chickens that needed special heat.

Which meant we had to get the RHI boilers in

to heat up for these Sinn Fein chickens

and from then on it has been a downward slide.

The first was, of course, Jonathan Bell.

Do you know who Jonathan Bell was?

Wee Johnny Bell was a guy who took over from Arlene.

Arlene had this department called DETI,

which started the RHI thing, right?

So she very generously gave it to Johnny.

Because she's that sort of girl. She's generous.

She gave it to Johnny.

Johnny, at some point, realised he had inherited

the biggest pile of steaming shite in the history of humanity.

Now, being a Northern Irish politician,

he did what Northern Irish politicians do.

His little legs, he ran to The Nolan Show

and I had sympathy.

I had sympathy with Johnny

until he did his praying thing.

I have nothing against praying.

I pray occasionally myself.

But why is it a Northern Irish politician

needs to pray to tell the truth?

Arlene, seeing that happen, Arlene with her wee legs,

she ran to Nolan, too, and she said that Johnny...

Johnny intimidated her.

Jonathan Bell intimidated Arlene Foster.

Do we have a picture of Johnny Bell?

LAUGHTER

-Pretty intimidating.

-Look at that!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

He looks like one of them wee pug dogs

that's had its arse slapped.

That intimidated Arlene Foster?

Johnny Bell couldn't intimidate Arlene Foster

with a baseball bat in his hands.

She'd have beat the fake tan off him in two seconds.

So Arlene said that, over the RHI,

Arlene said that she could not be expected to remember

every "jot and tittle" that happened in her department.

400 million quid!

490 million quid!

In the lexicon of stupid comments from Northern Irish politicians,

and there is a big, big one to choose from,

that is up there with the number one, which is...

"We haven't gone away, you know?"

This is the perfect thing to bring down

this government/parish council.

And, er...I genuinely didn't think it would be this.

You know, it wasn't a bank robbery. It wasn't intimidation.

It wasn't protest in the streets.

It wasn't paramilitaries and it wasn't flags.

It wasn't anything like that.

It was basically the most culchie reason in the world.

Someone left the immersion on. That's what happened.

It's the most perfect thing.

If you were to offer anything to a culchie,

and we were talking about this before,

and the most perfect thing to offer a culchie for free is what?

-A carvery?

-Yes!

The second best thing you can say to a farmer is,

"By the way, I'll pay you to leave the heating on."

"What?!"

It doesn't help the environment at all.

In fact, so many people are burning so much stuff,

they don't know what to do with the waste products.

Two weeks ago, at the start of Lent, I saw a priest

giving out ashes with a trowel. Just going....

Did you not notice that this year? The crosses were definitely bigger.

Really big.

It's also all...

This also, it doesn't make any sense to anybody who's young.

They've grown up in an Ireland where you've got central heating.

This...

They have no idea.

You know what I'm talking about. You do gigs.

Anybody in their 20s, they have no idea.

They live in an Ireland where, you know, you just flick a switch

and the next thing - heat. Heat appears.

You don't understand!

The Ireland we grew up in...

The Ireland we grew up in,

one room in the house was too hot to go into.

And everywhere else you'd die.

You're studying for an exam in your bedroom,

"I'm turning blue. What's the point?"

And this thing, how does this all fit into the Irish language thing?

What's that all about?

Because our Communities Minister decided there was a scheme...

There was a £50,000 scheme and we have to have cutbacks.

Because there is £490 million spent somewhere else!

So he decided, being the genius that he is...

"You know what I'd do for cross community?

"I'll take that 50,000 off the kids going to Donegal

"and that'll work out well."

What, to learn Irish?

But then he found it down the back of the couch again

and then gave it back.

And then he decided on a really good scheme.

And this was quite a nice scheme.

There'd be, you know, these community halls and places,

focuses for people in the community. Yes, community.

Bringing the community together out in the country, and so...

These places, they get run down and things. They need help.

Refurbishing them and keeping them in tiptop condition.

And so people had to apply for them

and then he found 1.9 million quid to give to these places

to help to them up, which was really nice,

but it turns out there were 90 of these places that he had money for

and something like 80% of them

were either flute bands or Orange Halls, right?

And, you know, this tells us one of two things.

Either, that was a deliberate thing.

Or, which is less likely, Catholics are really good at DIY.

I just thought of something.

Do you know that Icelandic cloud that stopped all the planes?

-The ash cloud...

-Yeah.

-..in 2010?

-Yeah.

There was no volcano.

That was just a chicken farm in Fermanagh.

It stopped them. It stopped all these...

This has been running for too long.

Jim Allister was hilarious, though. I love Jim Allister.

I love him. I'd vote for him.

-He's the T, er...

-The Traditional Unionist Voice.

Yeah, he's the real deal.

I'm glad they're out there, the TUV.

There's somebody...

Well, they're not really out there.

He's out there.

That's what I like about him.

I would love to see that, just a one-man parade.

I'd like that, to know that there is somewhere out there,

there's a man just looking at the DUP, going, "Hippies."

Thank you. Thank you very much for that.

Yes, indeed, there is now going to be a full judicial public inquiry

into the RHI scandal.

Yes, we gave half a billion pounds to farmers

and now the plan is to give all the money we have left over to lawyers.

£490 million...

Lawyers will just see that as a challenge.

In a highly controversial TV interview,

ex-DUP Minister Jonathan Bell claimed that God was on his side.

After the election result,

it was clear that God may be on Jonathan's side,

but he was voting for somebody else.

I don't know my Bible that well,

but God seems like a people-before-profit guy to me.

I'm joking, I'm joking.

God doesn't get involved in politics.

He's Alliance.

So what's our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for the election campaign?

Yes, Arlene Foster said the campaign would be "brutal".

We didn't believe her

and then we saw the party election broadcasts.

The Ulster Unionist Party broadcast

showed a man walking down the street in his pyjamas.

Mike Nesbitt desperately trying to appeal to the Catholic vote there.

But who do you blame for the election campaign?

Yes, the campaign, the election broadcasts were phenomenal.

The UUP one was, "Wow, that was an epic!"

And it had the worst acting ever

and then Nesbitt appeared and, weirdly, it got better.

That was the weird thing about it.

The actual actors were awful

and then he appeared and explained stuff to them.

This guy was supposed to be in a coma and things

and he thought things had really changed in the past 17 years

since he's been in a coma.

And then, they hadn't. Nothing had changed.

And then Eastwood's one, as well.

Eastwood, he was walking down an entry in Belfast

with his collar up, all moody

and with his thing

and walking along and he was like Wolverine.

There was a Wolverine vibe off him, right?

And he had obviously been told, "Don't point. Pointing is bad,"

by these body language experts.

He'd done this... You know, this thing that Blair used to do.

So he's walking down the road and he is doing this

and he wants to talk, so he looks like he's got maracas.

That's what he's doing.

But Wolverine at the same time. "Aaarrrggghhh!"

So... He's not Wolverine.

He's more like a badger, if you look at that.

You watch it again and it's Wolverine. And it's brilliant.

DUP, they went more for... There are a few DUP ones.

The first one, because it was a bit of a rush, I think,

that I saw, anyway,

featured her...

Foster.

And she was there beside...

She was sitting beside what looked like a piano, right?

And there was a bunch of flowers here with sort of lilies

and a flag behind her

and very much the sort of organist at a hospice vibe.

Alliance, they had one that was sort of black-and-white at the beginning.

It was a bit moody. It was a bit, you know, perfume addy.

And then it got all colourful and bright.

But there was no people in it. No people in it. Just places.

Which isn't a good message to send out, if you are a political party,

that this camera was constantly moving around streets and fields,

almost like it was looking for an Alliance voter.

"There must be someone here. Someone. Anyone, anyone...!"

The DUP. The best thing...

The biggest sort of newsworthy thing I think during the whole campaign

was the DUP manifesto launch.

Which Arlene appeared on a stage in some hotel somewhere

with the manifesto.

I believe it was on a stick, on a flagpole behind her.

And that was the manifesto right there.

And then she spoke and she mentioned Sinn Fein 32 times

and Gerry Adams 12 times.

And nobody really knows why she was mentioning Gerry Adams.

He had nothing to do with the thing but, if nothing else,

we do know her safe word.

Er, so...

It's definitely that.

It's either that or some sort of perfume ad.

You know one of those ones with a whisper,

the subliminal kind of thing, where they go, "Givenchy."

But it's not. It's her going, "Gerry Adams."

She is saying things like,

"Going, moving forward into the future. Gerry Adams."

That would be a brilliant perfume. Partition for men.

I thought the best thing about... Serious, like. A very serious scandal and all the rest.

And then the Shinners had a dance competition,

a Dancing With The Stars competition to raise money.

And this biggest crisis in Northern Ireland's history financially,

you're just going, "I don't know about that." And Gerry Kelly was in it. And he did really well.

There was a point, in fairness, a few years ago,

when Tango Foxtrot was just his MI5 codename.

APPLAUSE

It's a wonderful idea, isn't it?

I really hope they did their Dirty Dancing bit,

I hope there was a Patrick Swayze, what's her name? Jennifer Grey.

I just want the idea of maybe one of the maskies just holding up Gerry

and Gerry going, "I don't know if I can do it. Will you catch me?"

"Come on, Gerry, pretend I'm a Land Rover. Pretend I'm a Land Rover. Come on."

APPLAUSE

The Shinner one, the Shinner...

election broadcast was very slick,

they were a very slick machine involved there.

The one I saw, it was the only one I saw, and it was a very clever move.

They had it subtitled. They had it subtitled. It was in English,

which I thought was a bit offensive to Michelle O'Neill. But...

Because let's face it, not the greatest speaking voice in the world.

It's the fastest, unbelievable. She speaks almost like a machinegun.

And she...

Seriously...

HE SPEAKS VERY QUICKLY

And... If she was reading the Proclamation of 1916,

people would have been home for their tea a lot earlier. Do you know what I mean?

But it was subtitled underneath, in English,

and it was still being subtitled in English underneath.

And I was wondering why, I thought it was maybe for the older viewer, the hard of hearing.

And then I realised, no, it's not, it's for the middle-class voter. That's what it is.

So they can watch the Sinn Fein broadcast, but with the sound down,

in case the neighbours hear anything.

That's for the middle-class Catholics. Turn it down there.

It's hard. I find it really easy to write jokes about the DUP.

But then you've got to write jokes about all the parties.

But it's not the same. You know, it's hard, but I can't...

You know, and then Sinn Fein...

You do know they've been complaining about BBC bias, by the way, the DUP?

The DUP aren't watching this,

they're not watching the Fenian Funny Hour.

APPLAUSE

The other big election story was that the Ulster Unionists suggested,

Mike Nesbitt suggested that maybe we could vote second or third preference.

Across...

No, this is what happens.

So basically, so Sinn Fein and the UUP had a listen,

-you vote for us, we'll vote for you, right, this is what happened.

-SDLP and...

Sorry, SDLP and UUP... I'm confused, like a voter.

So the SDLP and the UUP had, if you vote for us,

we'll arrange transfers between the two of...

So the SDLP retained 12 seats and the UUP were decimated,

which proves you can't trust Catholics. You can't just trust them.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for that.

Yes, an election in Northern Ireland is that unique time when

Loyalists take all the Union Jacks off the lampposts and instead put

up election posters with pictures of Union Jacks on them.

And Sinn Fein put integrity in government at the centre of

their election campaign. Gerry Adams said honesty was essential.

And it's true, you can ask Gerry Adams anything except what

he was up to in the 1970s.

Or the '80s and most of the '90s.

So what's our next question tonight?

Who do you blame for fake news? Yes, the BBC

has been accused of fake news and being biased against the DUP.

In response, the BBC issued a statement,

saying that everything we do is informed by the BBC's

editorial guidelines and the public interest.

Tiocfaidh ar la.

APPLAUSE

But who can we blame for fake news?

Well, that's it, it's Donald Trump.

It's really... Well, actually, it started with Vladimir Putin.

It's all about... It's post-modernism, it's the idea that we are

going back to the pre-Enlightenment era where we settled on for the last

300 years that there could be such thing as empirical truth.

Yes. Something could be scientifically known.

You know, the idea that you have your own opinions but you don't get

your own facts.

And that is Vladimir Putin and his information war has been

slowly dismantling this to sow discord across the democratic West.

I haven't understood a fucking word of that.

APPLAUSE

But the reason why it's relevant to here is Edwin Poots said it.

That's it.

Trump, you know, he just denies everything.

It's all about denial and saying, "Nothing's real,

"everything's blah, I don't know." And it's working.

I mean, Trump, it's working. Like he's too fast for comedians.

I mean, there's literally, on a daily basis,

he's a totally different tit every day.

But, you know, there's always something.

You know, he's bragging about molesting women and getting

away with it. You're a comedian, it's too much.

You write jokes about, right, he's bragging about molesting women,

so you write jokes about him and what a nasty piece of crap he is.

And then the next day you get up and he's kicked a midget.

APPLAUSE

What annoys me is he lies when it's verifiably wrong.

That's what annoys me.

Like, I lie all the time, I'm not even from the Republic.

I've been getting away with it for ten years. I'm from Bangor, I hide it very well.

-He's very self-confident, he's a confident man.

-He'll get caught.

Because at the end of the day,

he's decided to pick a fight with his own spy agencies.

You know, they know everything. They've hacked into...

They're into our phones, they're into our TVs, apparently, this week.

The CIA, they can get into everything.

They can... The NSA and CIA and, I presume, GCHQ here,

they can use your phone, your laptop. Now your TV.

They can spy on you, they can do all that.

And any time anybody, any civil liberty organisation goes,

"Why do you need all this information?" There's always one answer.

"We're catching jihadis. We've got to catch Muslims.

"Got to catch them all. They're like brown Pokemon. Got to catch them..."

My thing is, I know nothing about the technology involved in the internet,

but I'm thinking, if the whole thing is to catch international, global

terrorists and jihadis, why can't they just use whatever Amazon use?

If there's a jihadi ranting online, "Kill the Jews, death to the

"Jews," why can't something just pop up going,

"Bing! I see you hate the Jews?

"You may also hate..."

"Yes, yes, a woman's face in public, yes."

The Americans. If they are hacking everything and listening to people's

phone calls and all that, if they are listening to the phone calls

here, you know, initially they think they're onto something.

They're going, "Hey, I've got something here,

"I've got this conversation and phone call here.

"Death threats or something, I don't know."

Because basically most phone calls here, at least once a day,

everyone in this room, "Do you know who's dead?"

That's all the phone calls.

-APPLAUSE

-All of them.

Thank you, thank you, thank you very much for that.

Yes, indeed, DUP figures criticised the BBC leaders' debate,

saying the audience was unbalanced.

And of course it was completely unbalanced.

I mean, if you actually volunteered to spend an hour and a half

listening to five of our politicians,

you're clearly not a well-balanced person.

To be fair, BBC staff did throw out audience members who were

clearly biased, including one man dressed as a crocodile,

and a woman who had a bottle of Pinot Noir

and a tub of Moroccan couscous who was clearly an Alliance Party plant.

And what's our next question tonight? Our next question tonight is, who do you blame

for what happens next?

Yes, the election results were widely seen as

a huge victory for Sinn Fein.

The DUP say they actually won the election. And yes, you won it.

The same way Paris Saint-Germain won against Barcelona.

Despite the loss of ten MLAs, Arlene Foster is said to have

the full, complete and unequivocal support of her colleagues.

Two words, Arlene. Claudio Ranieri.

Addressing Unionist's fears,

Gerry Adams spoke directly to the DUP and promised that

Sinn Fein would not be triumphalist,

adding, "Up your hole with a big jam roll."

APPLAUSE

LAUGHTER

I haven't heard that in years!

-Fantastic.

-It just shows...

I would pay all the money I have for Mark Carruthers to say that

on a current affairs programme.

So, we've had the election and now the talks start.

On Wednesday, the Chancellor announced extra money for Northern Ireland.

James Brokenshire, representing the British Government, comes to

the talks with an extra £120 million.

Charlie Flanagan, representing the Irish Government, comes the

talks with a Dublin GAA top and two tickets for The Late Late Show.

-But who can we blame for what happens next?

-OK, I'm going to make

an unpopular suggestion, but I think it's time to go to direct rule.

Sorry, I think direct rule, you've got to try direct rule.

It worked for a long time. And... No, if it doesn't work,

maybe direct rule from England.

APPLAUSE

One person said that... He was a political commentator.

And he said that the Sinn Fein base, you know,

they didn't want Sinn Fein being minions to anybody.

And you go, "I don't think they are minions."

Minions are little yellow lads, going, "Mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm!"

Whereas Michelle O'Neill is a blonde woman who goes,

"mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm-mmm!"

-Like...

-APPLAUSE

I don't want another election.

Because even as someone who can't vote,

I end up watching the election results until all hours.

Politicians and whores are the only people who are told they're going

to get a job in the middle of the night.

And also...

APPLAUSE

And also, they both do the same thing to the public.

One of the things they're going to get rid of,

they want to get rid of First Minister and Deputy First Minister.

-Oh, call them joint...

-Equal. That's the thing. What are they going to call them?

You know, Wizard and, you know, the Worshipful Master. I don't know.

-It could be anything we want.

-Partners.

-There we go.

No, partners, again, too close to...

The DUP are never going to go for that,

particularly as Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill are same-sex.

-Are they, though?

-Well...

APPLAUSE

Are they?

-Cagney and Lacey.

-Cagney and Lacey! Oh.

-I think that is fantastic.

-Would you?

-Yes.

-Which one is which, though?

-Well, Cagney's definitely the Fenian.

I like how you say that and everybody goes, "Yeah..."

-Tango and Cash.

-Tango and Cash, that's good. Starsky and Hutch. See, there's loads of them.

LAUGHTER

This is what the talks are like.

Someone throws something out there and then they throw it around the place.

HE SPEAKS INCOHERENTLY

-Someone else goes...

-HE SPEAKS INCOHERENTLY

And then the English boy goes, "Anyone?"

And then they all sit around and go...

-IN POSH ACCENT:

-"I really need to break the deadlock here."

HE SPEAKS INCOHERENTLY

"Guys, are we making any progress here?"

HE SPEAKS INCOHERENTLY

"Listen, I really mean it.

"It's almost lunchtime, we've got bloody nowhere."

HE SPEAKS INCOHERENTLY

"Guys, calm down."

You're laughing, but this is the first five years of The Blame Game for me.

I reckon he's not even in the room. I reckon Brokenshire comes in and says,

"Now, I'm going to leave you all to it. Can I trust you to do that?

"Yeah, yeah? And then I'll be back in an hour or two."

-And then before he leaves room, they're going...

-HE SPEAKS INCOHERENTLY

"Has he gone? Aye, good. How's it going anyway?"

-"You did well in the election. Well done, yourself."

-"Aye, not too bad."

"Here, he's coming back. Here."

THEY SPEAK INCOHERENTLY

That's what it is.

APPLAUSE

Thank you, thank you very much for that.

Just time for our quick-fire round.

I will read you various newspaper headlines and I want you to

be faster than a Michelle O'Neill speech.

And it's still colder than a chicken barn in Fermanagh.

Hello to more Catholics!

Yet you still keep voting for them.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And finally...

Would free up a couple of places on the panel of The Blame Game.

APPLAUSE

That's it, ladies and gentlemen. That's the end of the show.

Like a prisoner at Maghaberry, you're free to go.

APPLAUSE

But first... First, ladies and gentlemen, please show your

appreciation to our panel, Colin Murphy, Andrew Maxwell,

Jake O'Kane and Neil Delamere.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I'm... I'm Tim McGarry.

Until the new series starts on 21st April, don't blame yourself,

blame each other. Goodbye.

APPLAUSE