Episode 4 Have I Got News for You

Good evening. Welcome to Have I Got News For You, I'm Jeremy Clarkson.

In the news this week, in a key marginal,

as their policies fail to convince, there were signs that Labour

are now attempting to win over voters one at a time.

On his winter campaign on the Isle of Wight,

Gordon Brown regrets asking the captain for a go at the wheel.

In London, one man proves that riding on the pavement

ISN'T the most annoying thing that a cyclist can do.

And, after analysing the first leadership debate,

body language experts conclude that, in the event of a hung parliament,

Nick Clegg would dither and then join the Tories.

On Ian's team is a broadcaster and journalist

who presents Ramblings for Radio 4,

where she interviews a celebrity while rambling through the serene

British countryside over other people's property.

Please welcome Clare Balding.

APPLAUSE

And on Paul's team is a writer and comedian

who presented BBC Four's It's Only A Theory.

A panel show that mixed science and comedy.

A bit like those people who claim

that global warming is caused by humans.

Please welcome Andy Hamilton.

APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger stories of the week.

Paul and Andy, take a look at this.

Yes, this is a volcano, of course, in Iceland.

This is the emergency cabinet thrown together.

People were stuck abroad, and there they are being stuck abroad.

And they had to hire ships and various things

to try and get back to this island because for six days

-we had no planes in the air.

-That's the world's longest game of I Spy.

There's never one of those kids with a squeegee when you want one, is there?

I think this is the earth, the planet, the universe is telling us

which way people should consider voting in the next general election.

How?

The volcano has been going for about 10,000 years, 20,000 years,

so it's timing isn't exactly right.

But it's basically saying "Ash Down". It's 15 years out.

It's 15 years out but it's saying "Ash Down". That's what it's saying.

APPLAUSE

-This is the, um...

-Yes!

Is Paul going to get points for knowing that a volcano exploded?

Who was the man to the left of Peter Mandelson in that picture?

-Lord Adonis.

-Yes, what a great name.

It's a name that raises false expectations.

Various terribly important people got stuck, including you. In Poland.

-I wasn't stuck. I just used my ingenuity and got back.

-Yes.

You got stuck, didn't you?

No, I used my ingenuity and found a man who was driving to Calais.

-And hopped on his car.

-You just got in a man's car?

-Yeah, pretty much.

A man called Sidney. I would like to say thank you to Sidney. Yes

-Were you more stuck than that?

-No, not really. We were in Poland

and I realised you couldn't make any jokes

there cos they were burying everybody, and so...

LAUGHTER

Oh, that's when people want a laugh the best.

Get a whoopee cushion, put it in the earth.

So I went to Berlin and got the plane to Brussels.

But then Brussels closed so I went to Prague, then flew to Paris

and got the last car that they had. It was all very simple, actually.

-Yeah.

-All those people who're queuing and whinging...

Being pathetic, really?

A lot of them, yes.

What did one American traveller say when she was told

that all flights back to the States had been cancelled?

That's a shame. Would that have made the news? Probably not.

No, she said...

You were abroad as well, this week, weren't you, Andy?

-Was I?

-Yeah.

Don't deny it.

We have some footage which proves that you were in Pakistan.

APPLAUSE

In fact, Mr Wali-ur-Rehman... Why don't you just admit it?

Yeah, I'm a sleeper. For the...

You bloody well aren't. You're the deputy leader of the Taliban.

Well, maybe now I'll get a bit of respect.

But it was good for six days, though, wasn't it?

If you were here and you were near an airport...

Somebody wrote in one of the papers,

"I was in Kew Gardens and I heard a bee on the other side of the river."

Did you see that guy who wrote to the Guardian on that very subject?

Thanks to the planes not flying,

he was now able to hear the traffic on the North Circular perfectly.

-It's all going to happen again, isn't it? Because...

-Exactly.

Volcanoes tend not to work to a schedule. This one will keep going.

There's a bigger one up the road. The papers are going to love it.

They were very keen to say the economy is going to collapse. It's all over.

People will be queuing in supermarkets for exotic fruit.

I don't know. I haven't had a kiwi for days!

I thought the real scandal was Icelandic incompetence.

-Yeah.

-It seems to me very odd that nowhere in Iceland

have I heard anyone discussing the option of a human sacrifice.

LAUGHTER

You laugh. The gods are obviously angry.

Very angry.

But they've been appeased now. We've changed the science.

I love the way science works.

On day one, it's far too risky for anyone to fly.

Six days later, everyone has lost a huge amount of money.

Do you know, I don't think it's so risky any more?

This was cleared up for us, I thought, quite well.

This danger business.

-Yes.

-Yes.

-We've got some footage

here of a German man who works for Lufthansa explaining his take on it.

We have seen no impact on the engines.

No impact on the engines' performance.

Neither on the cockpit windows, nor on the fuselage.

I want you to now look at a chap

from the British Institute of Mechanical Engineers

and his view on it.

It is going to crash and everybody on board will die.

What I thought was extremely funny about the whole thing,

was seeing the panic in the political parties as they realised that

they are in an election and they had no official party line on volcanoes.

The way they all charged in.

Like, Gordon Brown sent a couple of warships to France.

Which is just like a default setting.

-When you're in trouble.

-Exactly.

And Clegg, I half-expected Clegg to steam in with a promise that Lib Dems

were going to abolish volcanoes.

Because they are part of the old geology. People are sick of them.

Cameron's line?

-Cameron said...

-"I met a volcano once."

APPLAUSE

-Did you see the Guardian's handy Cut-Out-N-Keep guide for worried readers?

-No!

It provided answers to some of the common questions, obviously,

that stranded travellers have been asking. For example...

The answer is...

Very clear, I think, as a result.

Is there any reason for me to read the Guardian? Not really.

There was one Scottish guy who really summed it up, I thought, rather well.

You only found out when you got to the airport?

You didn't know in your hotel?

I hate Iceland!

LAUGHTER

To be honest, he might have an issue with frozen food.

I think we can end this one on a very positive note.

According to The Times, 1.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions

were saved over the past four days because the planes weren't flying.

Oh, marvellous.

I can now leave my telly on standby again.

No, wait, I can't,

because this was going on while the planes weren't flying.

Rather more carbon dioxide there.

I thought that was just the exhaust from your car crossing Europe.

Yes, this is the Icelandic volcano

which caused all flights to be grounded for a week.

Keen to explain the technical complexities of flying

through volcanic ash, the Daily Star turned to

BA pilot Eric Moody who explained...

Negotiating?

"I'll stay a week initially, but after that...

"I'll have to check with the wife".

I think I missed that chapter of Wind In The Willows.

Doing their bit to spread the panic, the Daily Express reported that

authorities have warned people to stay in or wear a mask.

Year-round advice if you are Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The end of the flight ban is particularly good news for the Samaritans,

who have been inundated for the past six days with calls

from distraught plane spotters with nothing left to live for.

Ian and Clare, have a look at this.

Oh, it's Nick Clegg!

-Ah. I agree with Nick.

-It's Clegg, it's Clegg. He's here to stay.

I agree with Nick.

And it's Nick Clegg again.

I agree with Nick. Great dance move there.

Basically, they've got it's Nick Clegg. That's well done.

That is indeed Nick Clegg.

From the man who complained about the fact that we had a volcano.

I was quite upset, actually.

We managed to get Radio 4 Long Wave on the journey to Calais.

And I was really annoyed that the volcano wasn't the lead story. Nick Clegg was.

Thousands of people having a bad time is nothing compared to

the media noticing that the Lib Dems have got a leader.

Up to a week ago, it was impossible to vote for anyone other than

Labour or Conservative. And then the Liberal Democrat Party was invented.

That is basically what the papers say. They did their classic act of,

for the last few years they've gone,

"Nick Clegg, no one's heard of him. Nick Clegg."

He does one debate and everyone goes, "Why isn't he under more scrutiny from the papers?"

Cos you've ignored him.

You know the second leadership debate is happening right now over on Sky?

Brilliant scheduling, I think, for the BBC.

It's brilliant that they've... In fact, there's nobody there.

-I can just go

-BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.

They are all watching Nick Clegg on the other side.

-Is that a firm of solicitors?

-Relax.

It sounds like a firm of solicitors.

-No, they're

-BLEEP, BLEEP, BLEEP

-and Son.

-Oh, yes.

Yes, commissioners for Oaths, unsurprisingly.

You obviously noticed that everybody thought Clegg had won the debate.

He was always going to win it, wasn't he?

All he had to be was not Cameron and not Brown.

I mean, the Lib Dems could have put up a chimp.

And people would have said, "I thought he came across rather well".

What did he say that was so... I missed the whole debate.

He basically said, "I am not David Cameron or Gordon Brown."

And the audience went wild!

"That's fantastic!"

Of course, everybody agreed afterwards Clegg had won.

But the BBC can't say that.

-BBC News has to be impartial.

-Yes.

-So watch this.

And then they would do the properties up, paid for by you.

And pocket the difference in personal profit. They've got away scot-free.

Our audience seemed to really like that reaction from Nick Clegg.

Now, the system doesn't work. But that sort of sentence is, I think,

just completely unacceptable

in terms of what the public expect for proper punishment.

There again, the audience seem to react favourably

to what David Cameron was saying.

You will not back us and support us on keeping education.

Why won't you support education spending as we do?

And Gordon Brown scored well there.

I like the audience. Look at this. You've got Freddie Flintoff,

if he was ever to take up murdering.

Jesus is there!

Every conceivable different type of person there

all saying all three of them are all brilliant.

That's the ghost of John Lennon, I'm sure.

So what was found in the back of a cab after the first debate?

-Nick Clegg's notes.

-Yes.

Do you know what they said?

No, but it's the first time middle-of-the-road views

have ever been found in a cab.

Well, specifically, what they actually said is...

What have hecklers been saying to him?

-Who are you?

-One of them did.

But, no. There was somebody in Swansea who shouted at him...

Now that needs a snappy comeback, yes? Do you know what he said?

-You know, Clegg is quite posh.

-Yes.

-You know who he was at school with?

-Louis Theroux.

-There's one.

-Went to Westminster School, didn't he?

-He did.

-But that's in his favour,

cos the House of Commons is there and he knows the area.

As soon as Clegg appeared getting any sort of support,

the right-wing papers went mad.

The Times has put the boot in and The Mail basically said,

"Have a look at him. I think you'll find he's foreign".

Not only is he married to a foreign person, his mother... Foreign.

Grandfather, (foreign.)

Don't vote for him, cos he's (foreign!)

You're absolutely right. What they actually said was,

Apart form the fact he was born in Buckinghamshire, no.

Tell you what, going back to Louis Theroux.

You know he claims he was Nick Clegg's fag? He had to wake him up in the morning.

-Do you know how he woke him up?

-Oh, God.

It was in the papers and you're quite right to be so alarmed.

-Really? Yes...

-He woke him...

Can you stop pulling your face? We're going to move on...

No! I just saw this as an absolutely classic attempt to smear all public school boys

by suggesting they are homosexuals.

-I'm a public schoolboy, ducky.

-I know, Jeremy.

How did your fag wake you up?

By bumming me.

The Star set about exposing some of the Lib Dems' nuttier policies. Do you know what they were?

They're going to scrap Trident.

The argument is, we keep Trident cos it's a deterrent,

but surely we could save the money and just pretend we've got Trident.

Big cardboard missiles

and you transport them around the country wherever...

-Worked for Saddam!

-Yeah!

Heavily-armed escort.

Every now and then, you pretend there's been a bit of a nuclear accident and evacuate Wales.

Now, does anyone get the impression Mandelson isn't very keen on His Gordon-ness?

I don't know if he's keen - he's just having fun.

Let's have a look at this facial expression.

Was Alistair Campbell a good David Cameron when you were practising?

HE LAUGHS I've been working by going round the country,

talking to people, listening to what they say

and what I'll say tonight reflects the messages people are giving me.

Now, let's have a look at Mandelson's reaction to that.

That's a face that says,

"Right, you're on the list."

This, of course, is the election campaign.

Nick Clegg lives in London with his Spanish wife and their three children...

I wonder who wears the trousers in that house.

Meanwhile, in Southampton, John Prescott campaigned with the local Labour candidate,

drawing the sort of crowds you'd expect.

APPLAUSE

And so to Round Two, which sees a welcome return

to the Have I Got News For You wheel of news...thing.

Can I just raise an objection just at the beginning of this as a sporting contest?

You can't see it. That is a drawback, I admit. Anyway...

Here is the first spin.

Wow, it's gone in yellow.

-Yes, this is the man who can hypnotise rabbits.

-Yes.

His name's Cliff Penrose.

What's the name of the bloke?

Yes, come on, then. How does he do it?

Some animals, if you just get them on their back

in a certain position, they go into a trance-like state, don't they?

I think he does something. Does he rub their head or...?

I don't know why... That's a sort of rabbit.

-A rabbity thing.

-Let's talk you through it.

What he does is, he lays the bunny down.

Then he soothes Tammy, stroking her head like that.

Then he, um...

Oh, heavens! Skip over that!

I'm really not sure what he's doing there.

It's one of the perks of the job, isn't it?

Hypnotising rabbits all day, working alone -

it gets lonely.

Got a photograph here of what Tammy looks like at the end.

-Clearly dead or...

-That rabbit is dead, isn't it?

But it did give the headline writers, really, a field day.

Some went with...

The Mail had...

And The Telegraph had...

Cliff rather undermined all that. Do you know how he did that?

-He said, "I don't hypnotise rabbits."

-Exactly!

You can't hypnotise a rabbit.

I've no idea what that man is doing,

if I'm brutally honest.

This is Cliff Penrose, who is being hailed for his ability to hypnotise rabbits.

Mr Penrose employs a special technique to make a rabbit lie lifeless and still,

though I find a 4x4 is just as effective.

And here's the next spin.

Goldman Sachs - they've been caught out and the Americans are charging them with fraud.

What is it? Is it technically...? Well, anyway - Goldman Sachs.

-An investment bank, I think.

-Thank you(!)

-If you want any more financial advice...

-I'll come to you!

-Me and Paul have made a bit of money.

-We'll be very 'appy to accommodate, know what I mean?

Interested in a hypnotised rabbit? I've got a shed in the back.

-Can't shift them.

-OK. What should I do with my money?

Give it to me.

I do know the answer to this.

Goldman Sachs invented a bond to sell to people, which was based on subprime mortgages.

It was a pretty hopeless thing to sell to people, but they designed it to lose money,

because one of their other clients was a big hedge-fund manager, who were betting on the bond to lose.

So they were selling this bond to you, saying, "This is terrific,"

and behind your back going to their client, "Bet on this, this is complete rubbish."

Goldman Sachs basically proved that the entire financial collapse wasn't just an act of God or an accident.

It was a fraud.

Can I just interrupt at this point?

Because I should make it plain, the law being as it is,

Goldman calls the charges, "Completely unfounded in law and fact."

What does Sachs say?

"Well, what can you do? You get caught, you get caught."

APPLAUSE

Frankly, I can't see any of this making it into the finished programme.

-Are you worried about libel?

-Yes.

Unlike you, I haven't ever been done for it before.

I think there's very little chance of you getting any more than two years.

And any way, Jeremy,

back stage you were saying what a bunch of crooks Goldman Sachs were.

You could present your programme from your cell.

The mission could be to walk from one end to the other.

-IMPERSONATES JEREMY:

-In the shortest possible time.

APPLAUSE

Of course, Top Gear does mean something different in prison.

-You'll be all right.

-Yes,

Goldman Sachs Bank and one of its bosses have been charged with fraud.

In the wake of the scandal, Goldman Sachs have moved away from the dodgy subprime...

Bleurgh!

I said that wrong, sorry.

You can run that bit at the end, where I go, "Bleurgh!" They always do that,

-don't you?

-Me? Nothing to do with me.

When I make a mistake, it always goes in.

-It's usually the best bit you do!

-Yeah, exactly.

-I'm just going to make lots of mistakes now.

-Yeah.

In the wake of the scandal, Goldman Sachs have moved away from the dodgy sub-prime-mortgage market,

and last week proudly announced a new range of investments

in houses on the slopes of Icelandic volcanoes.

Time now for the Odd-one-out round. Herman Van Rompuy,

The Pasta Bible,

Eric Pickles and

Hertfordshire Highways Authority.

Herman Van Rompuy, old rumpy-pumpy,

-he is the president of the European Council.

-Yes.

-And he writes haiku.

-Haiku.

Which is 17 syllables. It's a Japanese thingy.

Yes, it's a verse form.

Didn't Eric Pickles, he was doing his live Twittery, bloggy thing,

and his finger didn't quite hit the button it was meant to hit,

and instead of saying something about shirts that he had bought,

-he missed the "R" out.

-Yes, that's true.

Misprints.

There's a misprint in the Highways Guide, Eric Pickles' Tweet,

in The Pasta Bible, but Herman Van Rompuy, he never makes an error.

-He's faultless.

-Yes, that's it.

I knew if you persevered you'd get there.

Yes, and you've got council workmen from Royston in Hertfordshire. They were left red-faced

when road-sign painters fouled up.

They wanted to write KEEP CLEAR, but they actually wrote...

According to The Telegraph, local resident Paul Brett was the first to notice the mistake,

despite the fact that he's dyslexic. He, of course,

thought it said, "Bus lane".

Eric Pickles, he proudly told his 4,500 on-line followers...

-WHISPERS:

-Seems like a lot for Eric Pickles.

..which was warmly received by rival fatty, and noted wit, John Prescott, who replied...

Of course, he meant to say shirts.

My shit shirts are from M&S.

The Pasta Bible, this is a typo. It made the headlines this week.

Quite big, and quite bad. It was a recipe for...

It should have said, "Add salt and freshly-ground black pepper." What it actually said was...

-That's bad.

-Yes.

Bob Sessions, Penguin's head of publishing, said...

Time for the Missing Words round, which this week features as its guest publication,

Bark, the dog magazine.

So much worse than its sister publication, Bite.

Start with...

Buy yourself a dog.

-Have kids.

-Have lots of money.

No, it's "spend time with your friends".

According to the Psychological Society,

I don't know, my local priest is one of the happiest men I know.

Next.

Oh, women who expose their flesh.

This is the man in Iraq

who suggested that earthquakes are caused

by women dressing in what he considered an inappropriate fashion.

Absolutely right, Iran. The actual answer is "wear revealing clothing."

It leads to male desire, which sparks earthquakes.

An Iranian clerk has claimed that women are to blame...

Clerk?! It was a cleric, wasn't it?

-LAUGHTER

-It's time to put me...

Is it that guy who does the driving licences?

I've got a driving licence and I can't see that that says "clerk."

It doesn't, it says "cleric".

An Iranian CLERIC...

No, you're right, it does say "clerk"!

It just goes to show what a rank amateur I am...

-It isn't clerk, it's cleric.

-That said "clerk"...

Wait, wait, wait!

An Iranian chap has claimed...

There's a way round these things, there's always a way round it.

An Iranian chap has claimed that women are to blame for earthquakes.

And finally...

The Pope.

-It's obviously from Bark magazine.

-Yeah.

So, it could be any breed of dog, really.

Dachshund, Great Dane, we don't know. One of those.

It's actually "My Korean Jindo."

Yeah.

The article in Bark magazine describes one dog as

"a lover and a licker",

and quite possibly a joker, a toker AND a midnight smoker.

So, the final scores are...

Ian and Clare have 8,

Paul and Andy, you have 7.

Oh!

APPLAUSE

Before we go, there's just time for the caption competition.

ANDY: Questions are asked

after David Attenborough's Life On Earth cast party gets out of hand.

On which note, we say thank you to our panellists,

Ian Hislop and Clare Balding,

Paul Merton and Andy Hamilton.

And I leave you with news that, in Tehran,

there's an embarrassing moment at a press conference

in which the president denies claims that Iran has nuclear weapons.

Three hours into a shoot,

a photographer finally gets his subject to look vaguely intelligent.

After waiting 15 minutes for stragglers,

the Labour Party coach trip to celebrate Peter Mandelson's birthday

finally sets off.

And there's a minor scare when John Prescott's chip pan catches fire.

Good night.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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