Episode 3 Have I Got News for You

Good evening, and welcome to Have I Got News For You.

I'm John Bishop. In the news this week,

after putting his political ambitions on hold,

David Miliband has said he's happy to pursue other interests

outside of politics.

During the recording of the Kazakhstan TV's version of Dragons' Den

there were very few takers for the automatic clothes dryer.

And after a breathless meeting in Paris,

Carla Bruni spots what happened to the raisin

that she accidentally spat out from her French pastry.

There WAS something quite nice about that.

On my right is a comedian and writer who one reviewer described

as like an aged grandparent, an old, stuffy traditionalist

bemused and angered in equal measure by the state of modern society.

-And joining Ian is Miles Jupp.

-LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

With Paul Merton tonight is an actor and performer

who first came to notice

when performing at the Edinburgh Festival in 1976,

where his show faced stiff competition for audiences

from both the other shows that were on that year.

-Please welcome Andy Hamilton.

-APPLAUSE

I'm not really an actor.

APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH

We start with the biggest stories of the week.

Ian and Miles, take a look at this.

Oh, it's GDP! It's up 0.8%.

Oh, look, it's the West Wing.

Oh, no, it isn't.

-Ah, a tea dance. Now, that IS reassuring.

-It is.

And there's the leader of the Tea Dance Party.

Or is that Iain Duncan Smith?

Oh, leaders smoking.

Macmillan, Wilson...

-Erm...who's that?

-LAUGHTER

Erm... There's a whole load of stories there.

Which do you want first? The good news - we're not in recession.

The bad news - Clegg smokes.

Well...do you think we're in recession or not in recession?

Because what's been said is that this 0.8% really doesn't count

because it's not even a number.

LAUGHTER

I haven't really noticed the recession.

On that side of the panel I don't suppose you have, no.

What, is it tough your way, is it, John?!

LAUGHTER

It is technically very good news.

We were 1.2% last quarter

and this is a stonking 0.4% decrease.

So, that's very good.

-..Yeah, yeah.

-You see?

You can see people's unrivalled joy(!)

Not only have we got this huge growth rate

but the ratings agency have changed our rating.

So, Britain is no longer "basket case"

and we've moved up to "not as bad as Greece".

Which is a pretty high rating nowadays.

Particularly those people who've been on holiday in Greece

and have had to wipe their bottoms and put it in a bin.

That's wrong and they're above us.

Has anyone ever had that experience on a Greek holiday?

Don't go to Greece! They don't show you that bit in Mamma Mia, I tell you!

But how reliable are these figures?

It's a measure of GDP, which is manufacturing.

-And what's manufacturing nowadays...?

-Manufacturing figures, mostly.

-Right.

Is a TV show manu...? Is the X Factor manufacturing?

It's definitely manufactur-ED!

-But is it manufacturing?

-Are you suggesting it's rigged in some way?

LAUGHTER

He's the editor of Private Eye - he doesn't get out.

I'm not suggesting anything, Ian.

-That's entirely your interpretation of...

-Oh, good.

-All right...

-Good legal out there!

Now it looks like, Ian, you're going to prison now!

You've got to come back with something now.

Wouldn't you love it if the editor of Private Eye was sent to prison,

as now you've got to be really bad to go to prison.

They'll put you in with murderers, and say, "What did you do?"

"I said something a little bit slanderous.

"I accused X Factor of being rigged."

No, I asked. It's very, very different. Um...!

I'll say it's rigged, if that helps.

-Absolutely.

-OK.

-I'll say it's rigged as well.

-Yeah.

That bloke in the audience, he told me he KNOWS it's rigged.

And not only is it rigged, it's shit!

APPLAUSE

After last week's doom and gloom,

the Government is trying to remain a little bit upbeat,

and David Cameron went to the CBI.

He said he wants to:

-Could happen.

-Yeah, could happen.

Which means the country needs entrepreneurs and inventors in order to move on

with its next level of development, which, Miles, you'll appreciate.

Or should I say, Archie The Inventor?

Take a box and some yoghurt pot tops.

Hey, it's a car.

# Inventing with Archie is never a bore

# Come on, let's make some more

# Build a rocket from a squidgy bottle

# And stick on bits of junk

# Here's a crazy clip-clop puppet Dancing to the honky-tonk. #

APPLAUSE

-Great.

-Don't they use that to bring people out of comas?

I thought being on Have I Got News For You would be a real chance to lay to rest Balamory, but...

I've prepared stuff about the news and everything.

Don't worry, we've got Andy's first porn clip coming up.

Yeah, it's coming back to me now.

What was the signs this week that despite the hard times, Cameron and Clegg have a lot in common?

-They've both been on Desert Island Discs...

-Mmm.

Clegg chose lots of songs he claims he hated before the election.

What was interesting. According to The Express their musical choices on Desert Island Discs

complement each other perfectly.

The only group they agreed upon was Radiohead.

-That just doesn't cheer you up.

-No, you're absolutely right. Radiohead!

Ian thinks you're referring to Lord Reith.

The most miserable band in the world.

-I've actually heard the Radiohead and they are pretty gloomy.

-Are they?

I think in this whole situation you've got to accept it's been tactically

brilliantly played by Cameron.

-What he's doing is he's using the Lib-Dems as a human shield.

-Yeah.

That's what you're looking at. It's not a coalition, it's a hostage situation.

Ah, but they both smoke, like all the leaders in the film clip.

It was a luxury item. He said smoking was his luxury thing would be to have some cigarettes.

But that's not really a luxury item. They're available in the majority if convenience stores.

Newsnight investigated whether we as a nation

accurately care the fact that Nick Clegg is a smoker.

-Nick Clegg smokes.

-I don't know.

-He does.

Do you care?

No, no, I don't care.

What's the question exactly?

Is there political significance to the fact that Nick Clegg smokes?

I don't understand. You speak too quickly for me.

-Nick Clegg smokes.

-Nick Clegg smokes. Smokes!

Mr Clegg, he smokes.

-Yes, I don't know.

-He does.

-Do you care?

-No, I don't care.

No, I don't care.

Cameron's given up smoking, Clegg still smokes.

Gives Cameron a huge political advantage

because sooner or later, there'll be a Cabinet meeting

and Clegg'll be dying to nip out for a fag...

He'll come back and Cameron will have abolished income tax

and brought back hanging.

Why did Iain Duncan Smith annoy some people this week?

He said you should get on a bus and go and look for work

which has echoes of what Norman Tebbit said.

If you get on a bus you do often see adverts for jobs

but they're normally to drive a bus.

So it's a very narrow field of work he's suggesting people go for.

Tebbit said get on a bike and look for work.

He's saying get on a bus which suggests the subtext is either,

public transport has increased in terms of quality since Tebbit was saying that

or it's a tacit acknowledgement that there aren't enough cycle lanes for job seekers.

What he said was -

He does have an impressive knowledge of the times and distances of the bus service

in the South Wales area for which he deserves more credit than we're giving him.

Peter Mandelson is back in the news. Does anyone know why?

Is it his film? A film about him. It's called The Real Prime Minister.

-Was he the real Prime Minister?

-That's the humble title of the film.

You know the radio presenter Stuart Maconie? He told me this fantastic story.

He met Mandelson. They were chatting away and Mandelson said,

"Oh, my media image is a bit absurd.

"Me as this great Prince of Darkness they call me.

"This Machiavellian figure. It's ridiculous."

He said that Mandelson's phone rang. And he, "Excuse me a moment."

He turned away and heard Mandelson say,

"This must be suppressed."

Cherie Blair's back in the news. Does anyone know why?

It's because she appeared in Private Eye. She was caught

selling Tony Blair's signature on eBay.

Oh, no! Really?

It's all a misunderstanding and she wasn't doing it to make money.

She was doing it to stop people cashing in on Tony Blair...

cos that's her job.

She's also been selling lots of Tony's stuff,

which in most relationships would be a bad sign I think.

On eBay she posted

a watch that Berlusconi gave to Tony Blair.

Can you imagine how tasteful a watch that Berlusconi had...?

Hands that grope the numbers as they go round.

You never could quite see what the second hand is doing.

Tells you the time that Berlusconi should be doing.

It's the continuing fallout from the Spending Review.

The Government has announced that pensions will rise to £140 a week,

which means in years to come, retired people will have a bit more money

to pay off their student loans.

To raise money,

David Cameron is planning to convert Number 10's gift shop into a public business,

with such merchandise and items as...

..or the Nick Clegg as it's known.

Paul and Andy, here's yours.

Oh, right, it's a submarine.

There's the... Oh, er...

This is the ancient spell of how to get the submarine

off the bottom of the sea.

-World Hernia Championships.

-Yep.

So this is the submarine, which hit the sandbank

and is now up and about... Well, not up and about,

but is now sailing safely through the rest of the sea, having got off the sandbank.

It was near Scotland, so you've got Scottish people.

Our question was quicker than theirs!

The important thing about that submarine is that it's new,

-it's a stealth submarine.

-That's right.

Nobody is supposed to know...

where it is.

Well, the captain's supposed to know where it is, isn't he? Ideally.

But other than that, nobody else.

It is true that it's apparently got these rubberised tiles,

so that it makes it a stealth submarine.

Can anyone spot...?

It is one of those special submarines.

It doesn't need to be in water, it can go as far as Wolverhampton, can't it?

It is quite amusing that it's called HMS Astute.

Who is naming our warships these days?

So you decide you'll name them after adjectives, fair enough.

-So you go for HMS Intrepid, or HMS...

-HMS Obsolete!

HMS Astute and its sister-ship HMS Shrewd.

-HMS Canny.

-HMS Coquettish.

-Yeah.

And HMS Aground.

-There have been various theories as to why it's run aground.

-Too new.

It was too new, the controls were still swathed in bubble wrap.

The water was too shallow, wasn't it?

APPLAUSE

I think. I think.

-Factually correct, to be fair.

-Sandbanks move, don't they?

-They sort of move in the tide, so maybe they didn't have up-to-date maps.

-Apparently, yeah.

The maps said, "Here be dragons."

Apparently The Mail said it was to do with the fact that they were using old charts.

I mean, I know there's been spending cuts, but you'd think...

You could have got a Tom Tom really.

-How on earth can you use old charts?

-Imagine how irritating a sat-nav in that submarine would have been.

"You are on a sandbank."

But one of the tabloids

actually tracked down an expert on submarine design...

Thanks, Prof(!)

But there is a feature of this particular submarine's design that's quite unique.

Does anyone know what it is?

-Wheels?

-No.

Wey-hey! I can see the inventor in you!

-It doesn't have a periscope.

-Exactly.

That's a pretty useless sub, isn't it?

What do they do all day, if they can't say, "Up periscope?"

But it also might explain why it ran into a sandbank.

So it's been a week of military incompetence,

culminating in the British nuclear submarine HMS Astute

running aground just off a Scottish island.

HMS Astute is designed to be at sea ten months of the year

and is kitted out accordingly.

According to The Daily Mirror -

At least for a couple of weeks, that's true.

Meanwhile, the Afghan President has admitted receiving bags of cash from the other rogue nuclear state, Iran.

It's now emerged that last year

the Iranian Ambassador gave President Karzai a gift of £600,000 in cash,

whilst, not wanting to be outdone,

the British Ambassador gave him a family-sized box of Ferrero Rocher.

And so to Round Two, the picture-spin quiz.

Buzz in when you know the story.

BELL RINGS

The Crown Estates own a lot of the coastal waters

and they're getting a big grant to put wind farms in them,

so the Royal Family are becoming richer as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review.

You may like that or not.

It's a touch unfair in the circumstances,

but tough.

How mental is that?

-The Crown Estate owns all of the seabed...

-The Royal Family?!

Owning parts of Britain?!

Now the sea as well.

How long has this been going on for?

ANDY: I think Charles has put her up there, on that photo.

He's getting desperate.

He said, "You're not coming down till you abdicate."

MILES: He hates wind farms, doesn't he? Charles. He thinks they're a blot on the landscape.

The royals are, ironically, going to profit from things that stand there not doing a great deal.

So wind farm and...

LAUGHTER

For the purposes of compliance, we should tell the viewers that that is a trick photo.

She's actually on the one at the back.

Apart from Prince Charles, who is a big fan of wind?

Is it Prince Charles?

-I said apart from him.

-Oh well.

-I would hazard a guess it's not him.

Sorry, I find it very difficult to know what you're saying if it's not on the auto cue.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

That's completely unfair. You have a beautiful voice.

I know what I sound like. I'm all right, I can live with it.

I've heard my own answer machine and thought "Who's that knob head?"

Well, it's David Cameron. He's said:

Which is apparently his name for Eric Pickles.

LAUGHTER

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

BELL

MILES: It's about 0.8 of an octopus.

I don't know if you're a numbers man.

LAUGHTER

That is...

-He was called Paul, well, he still is...

-He's called the late Paul.

He had incredible foresight.

Even by the standards of an octopus. And...

He was offered two boxes of mussels, and each one had a country's national flag on it.

And he chose seven consecutive German results.

MILES: And now he's got one wrong and he's been killed.

LAUGHTER

You know what them Germans are like.

There is somebody who found him a little bit offensive, to say the least.

-Oh, yes! Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...

-Yeah.

..got really cross with an octopus!

He did, he said the revelations that the octopus was predicting matches showed,

LAUGHTER

ANDY: But do you know, in a way, he's right.

LAUGHTER

I'm now going to cheer everyone up.

Across the pond has been the traditional,

annual, dog dressing up for Halloween costume parade.

LAUGHTER

I'm confused, which one's the pet?

Is it the crocodile with a dog shoved in its mouth?

LAUGHTER

I must say, I find that amusing.

LAUGHTER

That's become the product of an ill mind now, hasn't it?

Time now for the odd one out round.

Christine O'Donnell.

Paul Daniels.

Fiona Robertson from the tourist attraction Wookey Hole.

And Tulisa from N-Dubz.

BUZZER

Christine O'Donnell, she's part of the Tea Party movement in America.

She's claimed on some TV station about 20 years ago that she was part of a...she wasn't actually a witch,

but she knew people involved in witchcraft. That made me think it must be about witchcraft.

She is playing a witch,

because in Wookey Hole they have an actress pretending to be a witch,

because a witch supposedly lived in Wookey Hole.

And N-Dubz are a very well known London grime band.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

HE MOUTHS

Who told you that?

I think there may be some suggestion of witchcraft there.

So we're going for Christine O'Donnell because she's denying being a witch.

-Paul Daniels has claimed he's a witch?

-Yeah.

OK, the logic's breaking down here.

-Tell us, Miles, please.

-Maybe Paul Daniels...

-Why?

-He hasn't claimed he's a witch, he's claimed he's a magician.

-That should be the right answer.

-It is.

APPLAUSE

It is true, Paul Daniels has never claimed he was a witch,

although in the 80s, he was famous for a spell.

LAUGHTER

The Republican candidate, Christine O'Donnell, in a video that emerged from her past, said,

I think we've all had dates like that.

How did she distance herself from this quote?

-She did an advert that began with the words, "I am not a witch."

-Spot on.

I'm not a witch.

I'm nothing you've heard.

I'm you.

Is that the most crazy political broadcast you've ever seen?

You've got to feel sorry for Obama.

How do you govern a country that seems to decide that facts are the work of the devil?

What's their definition, the Tea Party, the Republican Tea Party

as opposed to the main Republican Party?

Well, the Republican Party is very, very right wing.

And the Tea Party are mad.

LAUGHTER

If you talk to Tea Party supporters, they all believe different things. The only thing they believe

is that they're claiming America back.

-But they don't know who from.

-No.

-From the voices in their head.

-Yeah.

She has a lot of crazy opinions.

These groups admitted that the report that said, "Hey, yay, we cloned a monkey,"

now are using this to start cloning humans.

Let them admit anything they want, they wont do that here in the United States

unless all craziness is gone.

They are doing that here in the United States.

American scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals

and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.

LAUGHTER

And I want their votes! LAUGHTER

I say, any chance of letting me out of this cage?

-Must it be cheese every Tuesday?

-LAUGHTER

I'm voting Democrat, myself.

-But then I have got a human brain.

-LAUGHTER

So the N-Dubz singer Tulisa has also said

she's dealt with witchcraft. You know N-Dubz? No...

No, no, very keen.

-Are you an N-Dubz fan? Name an N-Dubz track.

-Well...

Let's All Get Sex Up That Bitch? LAUGHTER

To be fair, that was the Cruft's national theme tune

for quite some time.

You've probably not heard of that one, it's a B side.

-Can you sing it for us?

-Yeah, let's have a tune.

# Oh, let's all...

LAUGHTER

# Oh, let's all get sex up that bitch...

# She's a slag... # I don't know, it sort of goes round and round.

Did you sing that to the tune of a hymn?

LAUGHTER

You're going to hell.

The other person in the picture was Fiona Robertson,

the witch from Wooky Hole.

She actually skived off work and when she said she was actually ill

she turned up on X Factor dressed as a witch.

After her appearance, the Wooky Hole Witch revealed...

Coincidence? Yeah.

LAUGHTER

And now the Missing Word round,

which this week features the guest publication...

The award winning magazine celebrating Lancashire and Yorkshire

and all their brilliant fights.

LAUGHTER

We start with...

Lancashire! The North. Warrington, Wigan. I'm going to do all the northern towns.

You're getting close. It is a place in the North.

Islington!

Carlisle. LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

For those living inside the M25, that's really funny.

Outside the M25, he may as well have said Narnia.

LAUGHTER

It's actually...

Among the wonders of the Yorkshire town of Skipton is a shop that sells

LAUGHTER

Next, what... Says Woman Declared Dead?

-I demand a second opinion!

-LAUGHTER

Surprise!

LAUGHTER

-She said, "I've had a nice sleep."

-That's exactly it.

The Daily Telegraph described the confusion.

As he removed several items from eBay.

LAUGHTER

Uncle concerned about his girds told to what?

-Stop making up words that don't exist.

-LAUGHTER

Just make up words. Uncle concerned about his girds told to nebber a nobber a noober.

LAUGHTER

It's the month.

Ignore the misprint in the newspaper headline.

LAUGHTER

LAUGHTER

Is this from the Northern Magazine?

It is from the Northern Magazine.

Men with lots of what are not as sexy?

Er, testicles.

LAUGHTER

I don't know why I said that, it was a strange image that popped into my head.

It was better out than in, to coin a phrase.

-Whippets.

-It's a football story.

It's actually "sisters". This is a study

that found that male rats with more sisters attracted fewer mates.

The study was carried out by...

He's got a PhD in watching rats shag.

LAUGHTER

And so to the final scores, which are...

Paul and Andy have five, but Ian and Miles win cos they've scored six.

APPLAUSE

And I leave you with news that in the wake of the Spending Review,

Michael Gove unveils the new state-of-the-art defence system.

LAUGHTER

And London rehearsals begin for Labour's production of Gone With The Wind.

LAUGHTER

Where is Ed Miliband's right hand?

LAUGHTER

And on Westminster's first ever dress down Friday

Boris Johnson's casual look is trumped by Vince Cable.

LAUGHTER

Good night!

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by RED BEE MEDIA LTD

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