Have I Got Election News For You Have I Got News for You

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening.

Welcome to this election special of Have I Got News For You.

I'm Jo Brand.

In the news this week,

at a last Conservative Party election rally,

arts minister Sajid Javid begins to suspect

he's only there for reasons of symmetry.

As if his stay hasn't been bad enough,

one MP has to attend an inquiry into some missing parliamentary cutlery.

What's in your pockets?

Nothing.

Empty-pocketed?

Well, I have a pen and a diary card. That's it.

From a hotel in the Lake District, rather intrusive footage emerges

of breakfast being served to me and my husband.

And in a pub in Scotland, CCTV captures the exact moment

when news reaches the last Lib Dem supporter

that Alistair Carmichael has kept his seat in Orkney.

On Ian's team tonight is a stand-up comedian

who used to play in a five-a-side soccer team

called Real Madras.

If you're watching, Mr Cameron,

they're your favourite Spanish football club.

Please welcome Romesh Ranganathan.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And with Paul tonight is the Channel 4 news presenter

who recently said, "Sex comes into every evaluation of a woman.

"It is rather a delicious thing, really,

"'what might have been', or 'what could be'".

Let's leave it at might have been, shall we?

Please welcome Jon Snow.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger election stories of the week,

Ian and Romesh, take a look at this.

Trying to get out the country.

This is the race to get the first result in,

while people are still awake.

The woman can't count. She's devastated.

Ed Miliband looking chilled out.

They're shouting at him.

So relaxed. "You're an immigrant?" "No."

-This is the throne.

-The legend.

This is the sway.

-And it's the winner.

-I hate you.

Oh, there's balance.

These are all people who've gone.

Liberals, Hughes, poor old Danny Alexander.

"Have I won?"

No.

No, he stayed in as punishment.

And then it's goodbye.

It was quite exciting, cos everyone said it was unpredictable...

meaning they'd got it wrong.

So we had this exit poll which came out,

which more or less told you what the result would be,

which was a Tory win, except they'd understated the win.

Then everyone spent the rest of the evening going,

"Well, if this poll's right...

"Oh, God, it is right."

"I'm just going to stay up to see if the exit poll's wro...

"Oh, no. I've stayed up for no reason."

They had Paddy Ashdown on at the beginning of the evening saying,

"If that exit poll's right, I'm going to eat my hat."

Typical Lib Dem, at the end of the evening, they gave him a hat.

Did he keep his promise?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You're absolutely right, Ian.

-It was the election.

-It was.

-It was the election, wasn't it?

-It was the election!

I think we've nailed that question.

Well done, one point.

All the people who were leaders at the beginning of the evening

don't appear to be now.

It's the end of Clegg, apparently. The end of Miliband.

Could be the end of Farage.

Can I just tell you...? It is the end of Farage.

-It is the end of Farage.

-Indeed it is.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, well, total wipeout for the Lib Dems. Who's gone, then?

-You mentioned a few of them.

-Vince Cable.

-Cable, yeah.

-Danny Alexander.

-Yes.

-Simon Hughes.

-Indeed.

-Charles Kennedy.

-Yep.

-Everyone you've heard of.

Indeed.

They've all gone.

But not Nick Clegg.

-No.

-In an MP-y-y-y sort of way.

He was very optimistic on Wednesday.

Let's just have a look at him on BBC News.

A few hours away from the polls closing tomorrow night,

and I think we will be the surprise story of the night...

You know, Channel 4's trying to sign him up as the Last Clegg.

Wahey.

- Ah, Romesh, well done. - I loved it, Jon.

- Two professionals in here. - Knocked it out the park, man.

Also, according to BBC News...

Is there going to be a special prize for the first politician

-that says he has a vision for 2020?

-AUDIENCE EXCLAIMS

Possibly.

That was a strange reaction, wasn't it?

All the hundreds of polls leading up to the election were inaccurate.

Yeah, for about six months.

I know.

Everything everyone said all this year is rubbish.

Is that because we, the public, are a bunch of lying bastards?

Farage has been banging on about not trusting the polls for ages,

hasn't he?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's a problem with democracy, isn't it?

People just don't vote the way you want them to.

It's a problem. I know it upsets you.

Like in '92, a lot of people voted Tory at the last minute

having said to the polls, "Oh, yeah, Labour.

"Yeah..."

You've talked about Paddy Ashdown and what he said he'd do.

Let's just have a little look actually saying that.

If this exit poll is anywhere near right,

this is beyond your worst nightmares.

If this exit poll is right, Andrew,

I will publicly eat my hat on your programme.

Paddy Ashdown's been pictured wearing a bacon hat.

Also, Alastair Campbell said he'd eat his kilt.

David O'Doherty tweeted...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Peter Kellner, the president of YouGov,

went on to defend himself by saying...

However, Ed Balls was remaining optimistic.

Mr Balls, thank you very much for joining us.

First of all, there's been this story going the rounds on Twitter

and all the rest of it that you've been defeated.

Have you heard anything about your result yet or not?

David, the ballot boxes haven't even arrived in the count

and they've got to be counted and then we'll get the result

so I think maybe you should spend less time on Twitter

and more time reporting the results when they're actually declared.

AUDIENCE: Ooh!

-Let's just see how it panned out for him.

-That's the Shadow Chancellor.

So good of him to explain the whole process.

They get the votes in and then they count them?! Well, thank you, Ed.

Thank you for your insight, you little expert.

He's an economist, he's good with figures.

Shall we see how it panned out for him?

Ed Balls, in the last few minutes, and Shadow Chancellor,

lost his seat to the Conservatives.

AUDIENCE MURMUR

Is that an "Aww"?

This is the Shadow Chancellor.

No, some people were genuinely surprised, I think.

-There were some people over here who didn't know.

-I'm sorry.

I thought it was a wave of empathy.

Is David Dimbleby going to call him and go,

"Have they been counted now, Ed?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Now, Twitter's always a pleasure to follow with big events like this,

isn't it, Ian?

It is, yeah. I knew about that weeks ago.

Eh, for example, Conservative Claire Perry tweeted after Mark Reckless

lost his seat, and to be fair, she was very gracious about it...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Well, Sky's Adam Boulton took a rare opportunity to have a snack.

And we'll leave it there and I'll pass you back to Adam.

-MOUTH FULL:

-Thank you very much indeed, Ed.

APPLAUSE

Was he...?

Had he volunteered to eat Paddy's hat for him?

'Can we just stop for a minute? Nick Clegg has resigned.'

AUDIENCE GASP

Ooh. Did you all hear that?

-AUDIENCE:

-Yes.

Nick Clegg has resigned.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hold on, hold on a second. Don't applaud.

-Do we have to start this from the top now?

-Yes.

-Do you think Ed is going to resign next?

-Ed's going to resign.

-Yeah.

What about Cameron?

See, I don't reckon he's up for another term.

-What a maverick move that would be.

-It'd be brilliant.

Thanks so much and goodbye.

Anyway, it's been a long night of interviews,

everyone rushing to get on all the channels.

Jon, you've had to interview people in a hurry in your time,

-haven't you?

-Mm.

Here's a recent example.

..who concluded very firmly that what they were doing was lawful,

it was proportionate, it was not intruding on privacy

-and above all else, it was legal.

-So...

-Forgive me, I have to run for a train.

-Yeah, OK.

Well, that unfortunately is that.

This is the result of election night.

One SNP gain from Labour saw Britain's youngest MP

for over 300 years win the seat of Paisley and Renfrewshire,

or as the BBC called it,

Paisley and Renfrewshite South.

George Galloway lost his seat, although presumably,

it wasn't his fault.

Before the count, he was confident of retaining his seat

but in the end, proved he had all the psychic powers

of Paddy Ashdown as he lost by more than 10,000 votes.

Here is Galloway...

..wearing his dinner on his head.

Labour's Yvette Cooper was re-elected

but it was a doubly bad night for her husband, Ed Balls.

Not only did he lose his seat, he's now stuck with the childcare.

They said he's got to be the sort of leader's spouse now

so he has to come onstage and say,

"I love her" and "She's really great"

and then go off to the side and everyone says,

"Look at his suit. Ew."

"Where does he get his shoes from?"

"Oh, he's lost a lot of weight."

Paul and Jon, take a look at this.

OK, so Nick Clegg celebrating the inevitable.

JON: That's from Edstone to Headstone.

There's the man saying goodbye and that's...

What is he looking at in there?

Just vote for goodness' sake.

Wining here.

It's a message from his brother, David. He said, "I'm coming home."

I wonder if David has actually been orchestrating things from behind

the scenes, or just phoning up Ed going,

"No, the stone tablet's a great idea.

"No, they'll love it, it's going to be amazing."

HE LAUGHS EVILLY

APPLAUSE

It was a terrific piece of counter-austerity. It cost £30,000.

-Did it really?

-Yeah.

The weirdest thing about it was that he did the stone tablet,

a massive stone tablet,

and then signed it, like someone else might claim that work as their own.

It was Banksy that did that.

Well, I think maybe he said,

"Oh, you know I forgot the deficit in my last speech?

"How can I remember it?"

And they said, "Put it on your tablet."

APPLAUSE

But, unfortunately,

it's one of those metaphors that comes to haunt you

so he makes the stone tablet and then his head of policy says,

in an interview, "So, is he going to keep all those pledges?"

And she says, "Well, no, I mean it's not as though they're..."

and the phrase, "..set in stone."

INCOHERENT

He was advised to do it by one of his team of special election twats.

Possibly one called Torsten Henricson-Bell.

It's the working men's party.

Well, just in case my other joke didn't get it,

I'll say it will go from Edstone to Headstone.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I mean, I don't want to be the first to say it but, you know,

Paxman, really, he's not in your league.

That could be taken in two ways.

What's one of the more practical problems to do with Ed's slab?

What are you going to do with it?

-There is that, but also no-one's sure where it is now.

-Oh.

Jon thinks it's in Hastings.

ROMESH: Jon, how do you know it's in Hastings?

Well, it certainly was in Hastings, that's where it happened.

- Right, but you don't know if it's still there?

I haven't been down to check but I'm going.

-Are you?

-Well, I'm going to send someone.

Are you going to send Jeremy Paxman?

Send him.

APPLAUSE

Tell him it's a secret mission.

I'll go if you want cos I've got some relatives in Hastings

so I could kill two birds with one stone.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Thank you.

Right, where have all the leaders actually been

in the last seven days?

All over the country. They're travelling all around.

-Quite literally.

-Yes.

-They have indeed.

Where did Nick Clegg go to? Does anyone know?

-Southeast?

-No, from Land's End to John O'Groats.

-Did he?

-With a stop in Coventry?

-That's right.

-Indeed.

-Imagine if he hadn't done that. What would have happened then?

He was meeting ordinary voters,

at least the ones who didn't know he was coming.

And he, according to the Times, in Newquay he...

And he also...

What else did he do in the name of alliteration, does anyone know?

Poached a perch in Penrith?

Had a wank in Worcester?

-I don't know. Don't worry, Ian, that won't go out.

-I bet it will!

Now, I had to go canvassing, myself,

and we were just knocking on people's doors and the door

next to me, sadly not mine, opened about an inch and a woman's voice

floated out and said, "I'm naked, but I'm voting Labour."

The Tories have been pretty much wiped out in Scotland, as usual.

Would you like to see Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson

doing some politics?

Let's not undo all of the hard work of the last five years.

It is the stability that's got our country back on crack

that's allowed us to grow faster over the past five years.

A lot better than skunk.

No, I might move to Scotland.

Now, let's have a look at how Britain went about voting yesterday.

In Hull voters cast their vote in a boxing club.

-I can't see any voters there, though. Hang on.

-There's one there.

And to end with, we've seen a lot of politicians visiting

various factories in brightly coloured safety clobber.

But they do tend to blend into one.

So let's play a game of...

OK, who's this?

-JON SNOW: Clegg.

-No, it's Osborne.

Osborne, God, give the job to Paxman!

I think Clegg is in the body bag.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Just loading him into a diving bell for some reason.

That's what they told him.

Does anyone want to see the party leaders doing something really well?

-Yes.

-OK. Now, this has been on Sky News, so no-one's seen it.

But it is very good. Let's have a look.

# I've been really tryin', baby

# Tryin' to hold back these feelings for so long

# And if you feel like I feel, baby

# Come on

# Oh!

# Come on

# Whoa... #

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

This is the lead-up to the big day.

The giant stone was not Ed Miliband's finest moment of this election campaign.

Still, it's nothing compared to the bricks Nick Clegg was shitting last night.

It's a bit... It's a bit liberal bashing, your script, isn't it?

-Do you think I wrote it?

-Yeah.

-I didn't, Ian.

-Just interested.

-Are you a bit upset?

-Yes, very.

You can tell. No, I just like to see it all handed out evenly.

-A bit like Balham.

-Not necessarily, no.

You know, there's a lot of pain in the country.

LAUGHTER

Are you aware of how sinister that was?

That was like a sort of American therapist with a personality disorder.

Ed's visit to Russell Brand's flat ended with Brand saying...

Which makes a nice change from, "Just see yourself out, love."

"The money's on the mantelpiece."

AUDIENCE GROANS

It's the same joke, I'm extending the same joke.

Into a sort of payment relationship. It's a loving, but brief one.

To get the groceries for the breakfast

-you said you were going to get in the morning.

-Oh, OK.

Even though you are a prostitute.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Time now for round two.

And let's move on from talking about the election to

answering some quickfire questions about the election.

Fingers on the buzzers. Here we go.

During the campaign we learn that Gerry Adams likes to keep fit

by trampolining, but what's unusual about the way he does it?

Is it on Ian Paisley?

Oh, no, they're friends now. No, he's dead, isn't he?

"Will you get off me, for God's sake!

"You're jumping up and down on me like a trampoline."

-That sort of thing.

-That sort of thing.

No, he admitted that he likes to jump up and down

on a trampoline with his dog while naked.

What kind of accident is he hoping for there?

Which prospective councillor emerged as having a name

-that sounds a bit rude?

-Arthur Bottomley.

-No, that's sweet.

I'm going to think of the rudest thing I can think of.

Bottomley.

No, it was Ukip prospective candidate for Barnsley...

Now, what is going on here?

I've just passed one of your manifestoes.

This is a student, surprise surprise,

at Solihull College who approached Nick Clegg for a selfie.

Let's have a look and see what happened.

Hi, guys.

Oops.

Poor chap. There is a lot of pain in the country.

Fingers back on buzzers.

Ed Miliband was interviewed by the Guardian this week.

He answered one question by saying he had some,

but didn't use them every day.

-What was the question?

-Oh, good ideas.

Chiselling equipment.

Let's have a look at one of the tougher questions

he faced during the campaign.

Do you own a pair of Wellington boots?

Ha! That is a good question.

I think I probably do,

but I wouldn't say they are, you know, used every day.

What I want to know is what questions had he been asked previously

to think that was one of the good ones?

Finally, on Tuesday, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg got together

to paint ceramic plates in Richmond,

but what disappeared during the photo opportunity?

BUZZER

Their integrity?

No - it was Vince Cable's bike, which got stolen.

AUDIENCE: Aw!

He's had a great week, hasn't he?

That means he's lost two seats.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Just goes to show you should never give up.

We'll have to include the other two bozo jokes

to make that one work, now.

To celebrate the success, we have to show the dismal failure.

Otherwise them clapping, that looks very odd indeed.

Time now for the Missing Words round,

which this week features some quotes from election night

and we start with...

ROMESH: ..distract you from the fact

that Gary is a ridiculous name for a cat.

I've got a cat called Colin.

Well, that doesn't mean that it's OK, does it?

-Are you serious? Colin?

-Yeah.

So when he's out, you open the door, go, "Colin!"

People must think you're looking for a bloke.

There's no way they'll think Colin's a cat.

Well, the judge believed me.

Here is the confused kitten.

LAUGHTER AUDIENCE: Aw!

ROMESH: He's probably thinking, "Why the hell am I called Gary?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Next...

JON: Man with chisel.

-Shall we have a look?

-Yes.

-Might be really interesting.

..the opposite effect to what many people in Scotland want,

which is, uh...they didn't want David Cameron to be Prime Minister

and if that's what happens then, you know, we're going to have

a very divided country...

-DAVID DIMBLEBY:

-Lucy Powell.

-..that needs repairing.

The way he ate it was unacceptable as well, wasn't it?

Just take the case off, you...

..you savage, what's wrong with you?

ROMESH: ..incredibly sexy and worn by legends?

JON: ..are not what they seem.

ROMESH: ..cause delays at airport security?

Um - brace yourself, Romesh.

JON: Oh, dear.

Well, I'm regretting some life decisions now.

One is the beard,

the second one is not ever cleaning my toilet.

JON: There's a lot of pain in the country.

You're...you're going to keep saying it, and at one point,

it's going to be the perfect thing that could have been said.

It's coming.

According to a new study by microbiologists,

beards could actually be dirtier than a toilet

because of the rancid bacteria that they collect.

Still sexy, though.

Next one...

Birth certificate reveals she cannot form a government

under the present legislation

and has resigned her position as royal baby.

Actually reveals...

ROMESH: Well, what a...surprise...(!)

And finally...

Goodbye!

Vince Cable says...

-He did say that afterwards.

-That doesn't make any sense, does it?

You're optimistic before -

when you realise you've done shit, stop being optimistic.

But that's real grit.

-FLOOR MANAGER:

-Can we just stop for a minute, please?

Yeah, it's too much, isn't it?

Miliband has resigned.

Oh, my God!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

As unexpected as I am to take on the leadership of the Labour Party...

..and, indeed, the Liberal Democrats and Ukip as well,

I will merge them all together into one almighty union.

Everything we said is completely irrelevant.

So out of that seven, who's left? It's like the Magnificent Seven.

-Nicola Sturgeon.

-The three women are left.

-Natalie Bennett.

-Has she not resigned yet?

-Leanne Wood...

-Oh, come on!

A lot of pressure, isn't there? A lot of pressure.

You only got one seat. Give it back to Caroline Lucas.

All the men have gone except Cameron.

Only the women have staying power.

WOMEN IN AUDIENCE CHEER

APPLAUSE

You'll do anything for applause, won't you?

I'll do anything for a woman.

So the final scores are...

Ian and Romesh have four

and Paul and Jon have two.

-Hey! Thank you.

-Thank you.

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

Ian Hislop and Romesh Ranganathan, Paul Merton and Jon Snow

and I leave with news that a retired couple on a coach trip

are looking forward to enjoying the large piece of cheddar

they've brought with them.

In one constituency, the vote for the joke candidate

is split three ways.

At the end of a long and pointless election campaign

where he's tried so hard not to be odd and weird,

Ed Miliband finally gets to relax on the train journey home.

After losing his seat, an aide wonders

if Vince Cable now has time to give his eyebrows a quick trim.

And the Labour party's stone slab

bearing Ed Miliband's carved set of election pledges

is put on display again,

having been modified and brought up to date.

Goodnight.