Episode 4 Have I Got News for You

This programme contains some strong language

APPLAUSE

Good evening. Welcome to Have I Got News For You.

I'm Michael Sheen.

In the news this week...

At the Great British Bake Off end of series party,

there's a rare chance to really let her hair down for Mary Berry...

At an assessment centre in Carlisle, there's evidence

that the controversial Atos "fit to work" tests

are becoming even harsher...

And filming begins on a new series of Miranda

set 200 years in the future.

On Ian's team tonight is a comedian and Leeds fan

who presents a radio show that mixes football and comedy -

in much the same way that Leeds United do.

Please welcome Jon Richardson!

APPLAUSE

And with Paul tonight is the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party,

whose hobbies include hiking in the Scottish Highlands.

In fact, she's never happier

than when she's walking 500 miles, then walking 500 more.

Please welcome Ruth Davidson, MSP!

APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger stories of the week.

Paul and Ruth, take a look at this.

Ah, yes, this is the President of China, who's come to visit.

There he is, there, seeing all the sights of London.

Meeting of the minds...

..and some of the protests, which he probably couldn't see...

and, "Come behind this door and we'll just startle a little woman."

-Ooh!

-There she is.

-There she is.

There's a tradition where all the heads of state come along

and startle this little woman every year.

So, yeah, it's President Xi - is it, I think?

Or 11, if you're talking about Roman numerals.

Essentially, it's putting on a big show, you know -

in China it's been reported as,

"Our President's been met by every member of the royal family,

"he's been greeted like one of the great world leaders that he is,"

and they exchanged presents.

The Queen gave him a leatherbound edition of Shakespeare -

a book, presumably, rather than the actual playwright -

and she was given two CDs of his wife singing folk songs,

so expect it in a car-boot sale in the Windsor area.

The next five or six weeks, look out for those CDs,

cos they'll be there.

Yes, this is the first Chinese state visit since who?

Oh, when was he president?

APPLAUSE

Er, indeed - President Hu.

-Hu Jintao.

-Right, yes.

Yeah. Now it's "She's" turn.

Yeah.

This is going to be a long round, isn't it?

20,000 people lined the Mall to wave and cheer at Xi Jinping.

Who were they?

I think three of them were Tibetan monks,

and 19,997 were members of the Red Army - in tracksuits.

Pretending to be ordinary Chinese people.

I can't prove that.

Welcome to another edition of I Can't Prove That.

Did you see where the flags

and other pro-Xi Jinping merchandise came from?

Boxes that were handed out round the back door of the Chinese embassy,

as far as we could tell.

It's all about image, really, in the end...

and the fact that we are allowing the Chinese

to run a nuclear power station in our country.

We've managed to get China to invest in this nuclear reactor,

but we have to guarantee their investment.

We have to guarantee the investment

of the richest country in the entire world,

saying, "If you lose any money, we'll pay."

-That's not an investment.

-No.

That's a bribe.

-There's nothing could go wrong there.

-No!

I think they're all right - they already own PizzaExpress,

and they haven't touched dough balls.

The whole exercise was just one long sucking up to the Chinese -

and not mentioning anything that could embarrass anyone.

They have - they've mentioned it carefully over dinner.

If I invited Oscar Pistorius round for dinner this week,

I don't think I'd get much credit for saying, "I tell you what,

"I'll give him a withering look over the pork and stilton,

"I tell you that much."

I thought Scotland came out of it pretty well.

Laura Kuenssberg absolutely nailed the Chinese Premier to a wall,

-and we got a £2 billion...

-She absolutely nailed him to the wall?!

All her questions were devastating.

I mean, I don't think a press conference is one question,

but what a question she asked -

and, yeah, we got a £2 billion bus deal, and we got to keep our pandas,

so, we did all right. Yeah!

- Did they come for your pandas? - Well, nobody's taking our pandas.

They're not very fertile, but we still love them.

But ineffectively.

Yeah. Not...

They don't really love each other.

I don't understand why...

Like, we've been showing off how rich we are, but then asking for money.

I don't understand...like, even he knows, in China,

there's some tact to pretending to be poor.

So, like, he gets photographed in a modest restaurant having dumplings -

and then he gets here, and we're flaunting...

Like, he must have gone mad when he met the Queen, like,

"How are we getting to dinner - are we going to walk?"

She goes, "We'll get pulled in a gold carriage."

"Oh, really? What do you want to talk about?"

"You couldn't lend us £3 billion, could you?"

It's a good thing it wasn't a steel carriage.

Yeah.

AUDIENCE: Ohhh...

Bad taste to bring up the collapse of the British steel industry?

Partly China's fault, really, for just dumping steel on us.

All these new jobs

that the Tory Party say that Chinese investment's going to produce -

I mean, we lost nearly that many this week,

in the steel industry.

The Government haven't done anything, and I get the horrible feeling

that David Cameron's watched The Full Monty,

and he doesn't understand that that's not a viable option for everyone.

"I watched an incredible documentary

"about the steel industry this week, and I..."

How did Jeremy Corbyn express himself

on British job losses and human rights to Xi Jinping?

They had a private meeting -

and there was a picture of them shaking hands.

Have you got the pic?

-No?

-Have I got the pig?

-Were you not told about the pig - the lucky pig?

-No!

We stroke the lucky pig on the fourth show of every series.

I'm not going on if we're not stroking the lucky pig.

I thought we were back to Cameron again.

Not such a lucky pig.

The pic, "Have I seen the pic?"

-Sorry, it's my diction.

-I'm so sorry.

When I'm not on with a proper actor it all just goes.

-Here they are.

-"Tell me about this communism. How does it work?"

Who's asking who?

The camera loves Jeremy.

Or at least he thinks it does. He's always staring back at it.

Who are these people looking at me?

What's the other terrible thing about President Xi

that the Mirror discovered?

Were his trousers too long?

His trousers are touching the carpet.

Did you see the state of his cuff links?

Steel.

Yeah.

Yes, the Mirror noticed that his trousers were touching the carpet.

Way Too Long...

It's coming.

..is the name of his tailor.

So, what were the Buckingham Palace staff

forbidden to do while the Chinese delegation was staying there?

-Stare at them.

-Stare at them.

They weren't allowed to poke them with sticks?

They were not allowed to use Wi-Fi in case too much internet activity

slowed down the broadband speed for the Chinese.

So the Queen must have one of those crappy Virgin Media hubs.

Prince Charles managed to avoid the royal banquet

and other formal business but what job did Prince William have?

He had to be Your Royal Lowness

to the highest man in China, which is their basketball player.

So there's all these pictures of him

being looked down on a man who is supposed to be one of the epitomes

of Chinese sporting prowess.

It's all about status but luckily we complied.

He was indeed lecturing the Chinese on the evils of the ivory trade

and he met a very tall man.

What is sinister about Yao Ming - for it is he -

according to the Mail?

The Mail said he's not naturally tall,

but he was bred in a super-secret Bond villian-esque

genetic mutation programme to be somebody that could play basketball

and look down on British royals.

Is that right?

According to the Mail.

So this is the Chinese President's lavish state visit to Britain.

The meal was served to musical accompaniment from...

It was either them or the

Duchess of Kent's Rhythm and Blues Explosion.

Addressing the sensitive issue of human rights

the Chinese President declared...

A doctrine put forward by China's leading political philosopher,

Fuk Yu.

APPLAUSE

Ian and Jon, take a look at this.

Pieces of paper.

The tax credits, don't mention them. And that's some protesters.

Someone who's never been to a funeral before

and doesn't know you don't just write the name on the side of a box.

It's the tax credits, they put them through.

And the idea was that it was unfair to give people who were

working tax credits, their employers should pay and top it up.

Now the bill's gone through,

there's no mechanism for making the employers pay

so you're just taking away lots of money

from the poorest section of society.

And there's been a rebellion by all these leftie Tories,

which is the embarrassing thing.

Because you'd expect the other side to be against them

but you rather hope your own side might be with you.

Three million low-paid families will lose an average of £1,300 per year.

But what's Osborne's plan

to make everybody feel a little bit better about it?

He's going to resign?

APPLAUSE

That figure actually comes from the statistical body they set up

to come up with independent figures that everyone could believe.

The body comes up with that figure

and they go, "Oh, no. That's rubbish.

"I've got better figures here on this envelope."

He plans an increase in personal tax allowance

and a higher national living wage.

You'd think if the living wage was the panacea they claim it to be

that they wouldn't reprimand their own cleaning staff

when they ask for it.

APPLAUSE

-That was a weird reaction, wasn't it?

-That was a Question Time reaction.

I might do a joke about a Chinese name in a minute, Michael.

I was disappointed we missed out Wi Fi,

I thought there was an opportunity there.

Did Cameron say he wouldn't cut tax credits before the election?

Yeah, he did. But it's naive to imagine he was going to stick to it.

Let's have a look.

Will you put to bed rumours you plan to cut Child Tax Credit

and restrict Child Benefits to two children?

Thank you, Jenny, for that question. No, I don't want to do that.

This report that was out today is something I rejected

at the time as prime minister and I reject it again today.

Are you saying absolutely, as a guarantee...

First of all, Child Tax Credit we increased by £450.

-And it's not going to fall?

-Not going to fall.

It's unclear, isn't it?

People don't really remember what you promise before an election.

They don't punish you for it.

I was speaking to an ice cream driver near me called Nick Clegg.

Ruth, you're a Conservative. Are you in favour of these cuts?

Do you know, we've got a lot of people back into work

and we want to make sure they're not worse off for being in work.

And that's what all of this has been about.

-Yeah, there's a lot of us that are very angry...

-So that's a yes?

Do you think George Osborne's going to do a U-turn?

I would like to see some movement by the autumn statement.

Movement round that way?

Something else you've said on the record in the past

is how important it is to stick to the economic plan.

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

It is the stability that has got our country back on track,

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

How's that been going?

One good thing did come out of the debate.

Two of the sexiest new Tory MPs finally got a bit of airtime.

-Who was that?

-Jacob Rees-Mogg...

Heidi Allen is going to be a firm favourite for a long time to come.

Indeed, Heidi Allen.

RUTH: She looks like a 1980s ballad singer

with the wind machine through the flowing locks.

JON: Has she hired a wind machine for that shot?

She must have done.

Just listening to the Chancellor.

And the other one is Johnny Mercer.

He was in the army, wasn't he?

Oh, yes, those are army trousers, aren't they?

Camouflage trousers, they'll be quite difficult to see at first.

RUTH: Was he not in a shower gel advert or something like that?

I believe it was a Dove soap commercial.

Well, there's some speculation about him

advertising for an assistant for his Parliamentary office

because dozens and dozens of women applied, having seen

the pictures of him lathering himself up

in a shower gel commercial.

And his wife stepped in and he had to hire a male assistant,

apparently, because she was so worried about it.

That's never caused a problem for the Tories before.

That'll stop any scandal, that will.

It's better off this way, love, then we can share a hotel room.

LAUGHTER

Labour have had their own problems this week.

What did we learn about Jeremy Corbyn's political adviser,

Andrew Fisher?

He tweets. A lot of rather bad-tempered stuff.

About members of the Labour Party.

It's been revealed that last year he

described the Labour frontbench as...

He described Jack Straw as...

You can see everyone's warming to him.

And Tony Blair as...

-Can anyone do an impersonation of Tony Blair?

-No.

Corbyn's ally and former lover, Diane Abbott,

is apparently being sidelined. Why is that?

Is it cos she's not very good?

And she says mad things on the Today programme and then laughs a lot.

According to the Sunday Times,

senior Labour Party sources say it's because of her...

So, this is the tax credit cuts,

or as the rest of the Tory party called them,

George Osborne's tax credit cuts.

One Tory MP spoke out and warned

that the measures would hit the most vulnerable,

leaving them with the choice of...

Which instantly set off an alarm in the ITV games show office.

And so to round two. The Strengthometer of News.

Fingers on buzzers, teams. Here's the first one.

BUZZER

-So, this is the news that the Scots...

-Hang on, hang on.

-Oh, shit!

LAUGHTER

I buggered this up in rehearsal as well.

You got carried away with your Strengthometer, didn't you?

-I'm sorry.

-Maybe we should answer it first before you do.

-Yes. Someone buzzed in, didn't they?

-Ian did.

Right, shall I just say it's over to you because you buzzed?

-Yes, let's do that.

-OK, let's do this properly.

-Yes. This is acting.

Watch me.

Yes, Ian and Jon?

Yeah, see?

APPLAUSE

I think Jon had the answer.

It's Craig Joubert, isn't it, who broke Scottish hearts this week.

He made a mistake and now we're all out of the World Cup.

But we have to carry on hosting it like good hosts.

I think we should just pack up the stadiums and tell them

to have it on their own half of the planet.

APPLAUSE

That's the most churlish round of applause I've ever heard.

Yes, this is the news that the Scots clinched

defeat from the jaws of victory

for the second time in the last year.

The South African referee Craig Joubert,

who gave a last minute penalty to Australia,

at the end of the game, he sprinted from the centre of the pitch

and people said it was a terribly bad thing and his pal came out

and said he was only running cos he really needed the loo.

I tell you what, if I had 40,000 Scots at Twickenham shouting at me,

I'd be crapping it as well, so I'm not surprised he went to the loo.

So, Ruth, everyone makes mistakes, is all forgiven?

Um...yes, as long as he never referees for us again.

Well, this is what you tweeted after the game.

Were you a bit tipsy when you sent that tweet?

Well, my partner is Irish

and the Ireland game was on directly before the Scotland game,

so we may have been enjoying a convivial atmosphere

in Edinburgh's finest wining and dining establishments

for seven hours by the time that tweet was sent, yes.

And to be fair, you were probably still rat-arsed

from when England went out the week before.

Any other tweets you may have regretted?

Ruth said, of kicker Greig Laidlaw...

Wow, that would be quite a conversion.

There are a lot of people that tweeted back.

Especially heterosexual married men that said they felt the same.

Are we back to nailing people against the wall?

Are you asking?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Should the rest of us just discreetly leave at this point?

Oh, is that the time?

-We're off.

-In other sports news,

Slovakian football team TJ Tatra Cierny Balog

have to put up with this unexpected sight at matches.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

Now, you see, if it was like that, I would go to football.

If there were more steam trains going up and down, yeah, absolutely.

This is Scotland's heartbreaking exit from the Rugby World Cup.

According to the Mail...

Still, it's not the worst thing a South African sprinter has done.

GROANS

Fingers on buzzers, teams, here's the next one.

What the...? What is it?

-It's a ghostly apparition.

-Is it a ghostly apparition?

Is this Alex Salmond?

-He believes in ghosts?

-Er, no...

-All right, OK.

-Not yet.

-Oh, I see. Is that a clue?

JON: A sexy ghost. It's a busty ghost who lives in a museum.

It's a new show for CBBC.

It's called Spooky Booby Lady.

Yes, this is the discovery of Britain's sexiest ghost,

who has left her fingerprints on an Egyptian mummy's coffin in Torquay.

The Egyptian Empire spread a bit, didn't it?

It got as far as Torquay, blimey.

According to the Mirror, she...

..and according to the Daily Star, she has...

Were these fingerprints on the mummy's coffin definitely

the sexy ghost?

No...

because there are no ghosts.

Well, apparently so, and according to the museum manager...

JON: Oh, my God.

It's a ghost of a woman with seven men - it's Snow White.

-Staying on the subject of...

-Yes, let's(!)

-..the paranormal.

-Yeah.

-Who else recently revealed...

-Ah!

..that they had seen ghosts?

The sexy leader...

-The buxom Alex Salmond.

-Yes, it was Alex Salmond.

He told reporters...

The man currently on a train to Devon...

IMITATES SCOTTISH ACCENT: "Hello, there. Would you like to see

"my SNPenis?"

RUTH: Oh, no!

So, this is the apparition in a Torquay museum that's been dubbed...

The museum manager claimed the haunted exhibit is...

..and having seen some of the mums in Plymouth,

I think he might be right.

Time now for the Odd One Out round. Your four are...

Michael Flatley...

Betty the Chicken...

two thirds of Americans...

and Ruth Davidson MSP.

BELL RINGS

It's something about Twitter. There was a newspaper story saying

two thirds of Americans are on Twitter or read Twitter

or have it in the...tap.

-And you're on it.

-There's a chicken shop in Australia

that's got a chicken to tweet. I don't know how they do it...

-but I think her name's Betty.

-That means Flatley is the odd one out,

cos he can't tweet cos he can't use his hands, can he?

Is it about Twitter, or am I going completely wrong?

Ruth got the Betty the Chicken bit of it right,

but everything else you've got pretty wrong so far.

Michael Flatley's on Twitter, isn't he?

I'll say it again - it's not about Twitter.

-What is Betty using to tweet?

-Keyboard. Mouse.

Antibacterial wipes.

None of them use their hands for the activity they're known for.

They all do things with their feet

that you'd normally do with your hands.

Apart from Betty the Chicken, who does something you'd normally

do with your hands with her beak.

Betty the Chicken has been employed by Australian fast-food chain

Chicken Treat to run their Twitter account,

-using her beak to type.

-What do you mean, "She's been employed"?

-Let's have a look at her in action.

-Oh, go on, then,

if there's film of her. Oh, yeah, look. I was wrong.

She's got her own washing machine, as well, look.

She has in fact managed to write one three-letter word.

-Egg!

-Nnnn...o.

It would have solved that query, though, wouldn't it?

The Mirror writes that the only word she's come up with is...

So, what does Michael Flatley do with his feet, apart from dancing?

That you would normally do with your hands? Is that what...?

-WOMAN LAUGHS

-Mm-hm.

There's a woman over here, I think, knows from personal experience.

She hasn't forgotten it.

-Does he paint?

-Ah, that's a good one.

-Yes.

It's been revealed this week that Michael Flatley

paints pictures with his feet, that sell for thousands of pounds.

The auction got off to a very slow start, as everyone

kept their arms down by their sides.

According to a recent survey, two thirds of Americans

who use public toilets

press the toilet flusher with their feet to avoid germs.

Americans spend a lot of time in public toilets -

mainly hiding from gunmen.

AUDIENCE GASPS

Glasgow MSP Ruth Davidson is an accomplished kick boxer.

Although the three most popular martial arts in Glasgow

are judo...

jujitsu...

and, "Did you spill my pint, pal?"

So, the final scores are...

Paul and Ruth have five points,

but Ian and John have seven points.

APPLAUSE

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

JON: Cabinet assume position to welcome Chinese Premier.

APPLAUSE

And I leave you with news that after the third death in four days,

there are suspicions that the organisers

of the World Archery Championships

may have ordered the wrong umbrellas...

One renowned practical joker waits expectantly for his victim

to discover where he's hidden the frog...

..and as she leaves a work's do in Brighton,

one woman is completely unaware she's being eyed up

by a male colleague.

APPLAUSE

Goodnight.