Episode 8 Have I Got News for You

APPLAUSE

Good evening, welcome to Have I Got News For You - I'm Jo Brand.

In the news this week, in Kettering, after killing the neighbour's cat,

the perpetrator cleans away all traces of the crime.

At a funfair in Moscow,

the WikiLeaks whistle-blower Edward Snowden

makes a rare public appearance.

And despite the criticism of their failings,

Belgian security forces are confident of catching

another group of suspects.

On Ian's team tonight is a comedian

who now has his own sitcom on BBC 3 -

but we only have his word for that.

Please welcome Josh Widdicombe.

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And with Paul tonight is the leader of the Liberal Democrats,

and a committed Christian, who recently said...

Don't know about God, but that's certainly the voters' plan.

Please welcome Tim Farron MP.

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And we start with the bigger stories of the week.

Paul and Tim, take a look at this, please.

Ah, yes, this is Putin.

There's planes, and there's bombs being dropped -

there's the bombs, in black and white.

There's Cameron saying, "This is where I'm going to be hiding."

Yes, so it's the real world's attempts

to frighten the bejesus out of us again

by these Russians having had a plane shot down by Turkey,

but it hasn't led to another world war yet.

There's sanctions - and whenever you hear the word "sanctions",

that's always a relief.

How have the Turkish defended their actions?

-Oh, they've released the warnings.

-They've released the tape.

They have - they've released an audio recording

which apparently shows Turkish air forces warning the Russian planes.

A voice is heard saying in English...

Well, it's a fencing championship.

Bizarre, isn't it?

Do you think Turkey's actions were an overreaction?

Well... I wouldn't have done it.

Does Russia have any history

of violating other countries' air space?

TIM: Not that I'm aware of.

Don't worry, you're not going to be Prime Minister just yet.

Not yet, not yet.

-I think you're safe with an opinion for a...a while.

-How long? Ah.

So far, Russia's response has been more restrained

than we might have thought. According to the Mirror...

Because...

Really? I just get Nectar points on mine. But, um...

LAUGHTER

Now, Putin's released pictures

of his new multimillion pound three-storey war room in Moscow,

from where he directs Russia's air strikes.

Is that a storey for each world war?

Well...

I hope not - do you want to have a look at it?

-Yeah, go on, then.

-Yep.

JOSH: Why is Putin in, like...

If that was a theatre, he hasn't even paid to be in the stalls.

That is the exact set of Spectre.

I know I'm slightly obsessed by this film, but...

Can't over the fact that once again

you were passed over for the role of...

-LAUGHTER

-..Miss Moneypenny.

And the Turkish leader, Erdogan, has been talking tough.

-Do you want to see him talking tough?

-Yeah!

-We would.

-Totally.

Let's have a look, then.

HE SPEAKS TURKISH IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE

It's nice to hear the Bee Gees' influence, still,

in modern politics.

How has David Cameron argued in favour of air strikes this week?

Keep us safer, he said.

He did say that.

What's the Lib Dem position

on air strikes against Islamic State in Syria, then?

If it's legal, and it's effective, then, you know, you consider it.

I think it's probably legal.

We're basing a lot of this on, you know, stuff we don't really know,

and it's a big deal when you're voting to send people's kids to war.

And it's trust.

-Mm.

-And the Prime Minister's saying, "Trust me."

-"I'm a politician."

Cos very recently, I suggested going into Syria on the other side.

-To bomb Assad.

-Mm.

Year later, I'm saying exactly the opposite.

-But he DOES want to bomb Syria. We're sure of that.

-Yeah.

-A different bit this time.

-Consistent.

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What's Jeremy Corbyn done now?

-He's been writing letters.

-He has.

Was Jeremy Corbyn's letter just from his mum,

saying, "Jeremy can't come to Cabinet today"?

He's written letters to all of his MPs.

I don't need to bother doing that, I can just talk to them,

cos...we're that close together.

He's written a letter to all his MPs

saying that he cannot vote for the air strikes,

or whatever it's going to be.

How's it gone down with his Shadow Cabinet?

-It's bombed.

-Yes.

-LAUGHTER

MAN CACKLES

Thank you.

Why are they particularly so annoyed with him?

They keep talking about collective responsibility in the Cabinet -

the Shadow Cabinet. Sorry! How ridiculous!

The Shadow Cabinet coming to agreements about things,

and then he just makes announcements.

Yeah, he just doesn't consult anyone.

I thought a lot of them were ringing you up and saying,

"Can I come and join your party?"

The latter bit might not be true, but the first bit's true.

What, there are a lot of them ringing you up?

They did, a little while ago.

I think they're just fuming to each other.

JOSH: And what are they saying?

They're saying how sad they are that their party is left of centre now.

Are you working at the Samaritans?

It kind of...

I feel that that is my role.

If US coalition and Russia fail to rid the world of Isis,

which unlikely hero can we rely on to do the job instead?

-Is it Hillary Clinton?

-No.

It's US stay-at-home mom Linda Glocke

-Nice and smiley, isn't she, Linda Glocke?

-Yes, lovely.

Yes, nice and smiley, isn't she?

She posted on a social media site...

Well, thank goodness someone's stepped up to the plate.

Now, meanwhile, the Mafia has warned Isis to stay out of New York.

Oh, right!

Giovanni Gambino, a Mafia boss' son, said...

So, this is the continuing mess in Syria.

David Cameron has been trying to persuade MPs to support air strikes.

He's embarking on a high-risk strategy

involving himself in a civil war with fanatical factions

fighting each other to topple an unpopular leader.

But what can he do? He needs those Labour votes.

MAN LAUGHS DISTINCTLY

LAUGHTER

You were told not to bring pets into the audience!

According to the Guardian, Ed Miliband this week said...

Well, if anyone knows - it's not him.

Ian and Josh, take a look at this.

It's another budget.

Um...

"Where have they hidden?"

And that's the new rapid reaction police force.

That's the last time you could afford to buy a house.

Yeah, George Osborne's done a U-turn in his autumn speech.

Everything he said he was going to do, he hasn't done.

So, he's not going to cut the police, he's not going to

cut tax credits, there's plenty of money for the armed forces,

plenty of money for the SAS, money for everything... What you got? What you want?

It's, it's an extraordinary U-turn.

I mean, presumably, he...

He was watching this programme when there was some

mild criticism(!)...

..of his initial budget, and he's come to his senses.

Do you think, Paul, that's cos you had a chat with

Jacob Rees-Mogg about it last week, and it's had some effect

on him? He's gone and...

I don't think anything from the 21st century could have any effect

on Jacob Rees-Mogg whatsoever.

If I was sitting here wearing a periwig, I might have got through

-to him.

-Well, according to the Mirror, he...

But whose victory was it, really? Because quite a few people

were claiming it...

TIM: Definitely me.

-Hey!

-Thank you very much.

-It was a vote in the Lords...

-It was.

-And it was a lot of your lot.

It was our Lords who voted against it, to scrap it.

So I think we can claim at least as much credit as the Mirror.

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How did Labour press home their advantage?

This is the less happy bit of the story.

He got out Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, the Shadow Chancellor...

Yes, John McDonnell, he did.

It was meant to be a joke.

It was him saying, "You know, you've sold a lot

"of Britain to China, this is how they're going to deal with you."

But he didn't think - for the vast majority of people they'd

be thinking, "Oh, you're a former communist and you're now

"waving Chairman Mao's book around."

So then he threw the book...across the chamber

and Osborne - I do hate to say this - came up with a joke.

He said, "Ah, it's your personally-signed copy."

You see, you're laughing at a Tory Chancellor.

That's how bad things have got in this country.

How's George Osborne managing to do all this, when he was saying,

only a few weeks ago, that huge cuts were necessary?

The day before, someone said, "You have an extra 27 billion."

Largely coming from tax - which is the other way to raise money,

apart from cutting spending. I like the description of him

as the "lucky Chancellor". I mean, unbelievably lucky.

Yes, but he's still going to cut 12 billion from welfare.

So, he just hasn't said yet where he is taking that from.

It might be from you, madam. Who knows? None of us know.

That would be better, wouldn't it? Just pick on one person.

Everyone else...

I think if you put that to the country and said,

"There's 12 billion. Do you want to share it out between you?

"Or one of you takes the hit?"

Can I vote for Andrew Lloyd Webber?

He can take it.

What's George Osborne's big plan?

-What's his big plan?

-Yeah.

-Become leader.

-Yeah, become leader

of the Conservative Party. Move from number 11 to number 10

and not hold that red box up any more.

Yeah, that and to get the debt down.

At the moment... Does anyone know how much it is at the moment?

It's about a trillion.

It's 1.56 trillion and rising.

Look, here it is counting up, see...

JOSH: Oh, my God.

TIM: Seems to be going quicker.

JOSH: Someone has to stop him, it's still going!

We should have that above Trafalgar Square.

And we have Andrew Lloyd Webber handcuffed next to it.

Every time it goes past, like, another million,

he gets a slap.

APPLAUSE

How did Robert Peston cover the Autumn Statement on his

last Ten O'Clock News.

He song and danced it, didn't he? Came down some steps

in a top hat, twirling cane... Silver-topped cane...

# The news is breaking tonight!

# Osborne says it's all right

# He's the Chancellor, I'm... #

-You know, you know...

-Yeah.

I was really excited to see how far that was going to go.

I shouldn't have... I was trying to rhyme Chancellor

and I backed out of it.

# I'll show you my pecker I'm from the Exchequer! #

Now, we mustn't forget Ukip in all this.

What did single, solitary, powerless Ukip MP Douglas Carswell say

about the Autumn Statement?

-Ooh, I don't remember.

-He pointed out that...

Apparently, they've spent...

To be fair, that's a lot of corks.

Apparently, you can sometimes do a Nigel Farage impression,

-is that right?

-I once did a Nigel Farage impression.

-Did it go down well?

-Well, it was me v Clegg in the warm-ups

for the Nick v Nige things last year.

-All I did was make stuff up, which is what he does.

-Yes.

-Simple.

Put on a purple tie, drank quite a lot - brilliant.

Ian, do you have any political impressions you'd like to give us?

He's got a good Pitt the Younger.

He's doing it now, that's it now.

And this is Pitt the Elder...

I had a go at doing political impressions -

it didn't go very well, so I've... I gave them up.

-Who'd you do?

-Er, Tony Benn...

-OK.

But I can only do Tony Benn singing Alesha Dixon.

# Does she wash up?

# She never washes up

# Does she brush up? No, she never brushes up. #

-Can I kill this fly?

-Yeah, it's really...

Can't we negotiate first?

I'll just ring the UN.

Has it gone over your airspace?

En garde!

En garde?!

And so to Round Two, the Scrambler of News.

Buzz when you know what it is.

BUZZ

Oh, this is the boy who...

I saw this, this is why I'm able to press the button

and answer with some authority.

He was singing the Australian national anthem

but he got a bout of hiccups

so he sort of hiccupped his way through it.

AUDIENCE: Aw-w!

But, no, it's OK because he got severely punished for it.

No, everybody found it very amusing,

I think some of the players found it quite amusing as well.

-Shall we have a look?

-Let's have a look.

# Australians all let us rejoice

HE HICCUPS

# For we are young and free

# We've gol... # HE HICCUPS

# ..soil and wealth... #

HE HICCUPS

# Our home is girt by sea

# Our land abounds in Nature's gifts

# Of beauty... #

HE HICCUPS

# Rich and rare... # HE HICCUPS

-Aw-w!

-Lovely.

His name is Ethan Hall. What happened after the performance?

He was chased out of town.

Well, despite his unfortunate dilemma, he bravely carried on...

-AUDIENCE: Aw-w!

-Yeah.

And in other sports news,

why has Seb Coe given up his ambassadorial role with Nike?

Cos it's all very murky, isn't it?

Because they gave the International Athletics World Championships

to a city that I've never even heard of.

TIM: Eugene. JOSH: Eugene.

-Yeah, I'd never heard of this place.

-Eugene, Oregon.

Isn't that an opera by Tchaikovsky?

It's the centre of Nike's business.

-Yeah.

-Have you ever bought a Nike product, Ian?

Yes, I have a number of their waistcoats.

LAUGHTER

Do you know how much they were employing Seb for?

It was over a zillion pounds.

It was £100,000 a year as a brand ambassador.

Why had these suspicions been raised?

There was no bidding process, it was just awarded to them.

People think that Seb, in his role as ambassador,

might have said to himself as vice-president,

"Why don't we give the Championships to this town?" -

whose major employer pays you £100,000 a year.

TIM: That's ridiculous, that would never have happened.

So, anyway, he's had to resign.

How did Seb Coe help fund his presidential campaign

for the presidence...

The presen...

JO MUMBLES

-How did Seb Coe help fund...

-Are you on something?

I'm on menopausal ladies heroin.

I don't know if you know that, folks, it's lovely.

It's called Solpadeine Plus Soluble

and, crikey, does it give an old lady a bit of a...whooh!

I'm not even being paid to advertise it.

No, you're a brand ambassador.

I don't really want to be a brand ambassador for Solpadeine Plus.

You can't stop talking about it, though, can you?

And on the theme of allegedly corrupt men in sport,

what has Sepp Blatter been up to this week?

-We surely don't have to say "allegedly" with Blatter.

-No.

-Even he doesn't believe he's innocent.

-No.

He keeps having panic attacks, isn't he?

He told Swiss TV channel RTS...

..although I suspect he was slightly closer

towards the fire of the devil.

That's hell of a symptoms to go into your doctor with, isn't it?

"Just two paracetamol, see if it gets rid of it."

You know what I'd be recommending. Anyway, moving on.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Sticking with football, what extreme lengths has this man gone to

to ensure his son supports his team - Millwall?

Oh, well, it's one of those things where he's named him

after every player in the Millwall team.

Well, yeah, not quite every player, it is along those lines.

He's named him...

-And his nickname is "Poor little

-BLEEP".

I was on London Bridge once and there were about 50 Millwall fans

on the other platform and one of them saw me and shouted,

"Oi, Hislop! Wanker!"

And they all started running up the bridge to come over

to the other side. I thought I was going to die.

I had the devils of fire here and angels here.

-What did you do? Solpadeine?

-I...

LAUGHTER

-Sorry, I'm going to stop doing it. What did you do?

-I ran really fast.

-JOSH: Did you?

-Yeah.

Lucky you had your Nikes on.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

BUZZ

That's the hole that the potential thieves drilled

under Hatton Garden.

It is.

-Potential thieves?

-Well...

-I mean, that's cautious, isn't it?

I reserve my judgment, they might've just been lost.

It was the Dad's Army sort of criminal gang, wasn't it?

They hid the jewels under a gravestone or something,

is that right?

No, that was Scooby-Doo.

Can I just stress that four people have pleaded guilty

and four people are on trial?

Two of those standing trial have been described as...

Shocking. If it turns out they did it,

I'll never trust a second-hand car dealer again.

Didn't they discuss it in the pub?

They had all their meetings on a Friday night in the pub.

Well, we've all made plans like that on a Friday night in the pub.

-But they carried it out, you see.

-That's what I like about them.

-That's what makes Britain great.

-Exactly.

Britain's plucky pensioners.

How did the eldest ringleader Brian Reader, otherwise known as...

..or...

-..get to the raid?

-He got public transport, didn't he?

TIM: Oh, he used his Oyster.

He used his Oyster card, that's right, to jump on the bus...

The other way they caught him is the next day,

he put £4 billion on the Oyster card.

This is the start of the Hatton Garden jewellery trial.

Four men who have pleaded guilty have an average age of 68.

The raid didn't go to plan as when they finally reached

the basement, they forgot what they'd come downstairs for.

Time now for the Odd One Out round. Just one between you this week.

Ben Carson, the Ken doll,

Kanye West and Tom Cruise.

They haven't all had a doll made?

-It's someone they've all been portrayed as.

-JOSH: Is it Jesus?

Yes, it is.

Cos Kanye West called his album Yeezus, didn't he?

That's right.

-Perhaps they're all Jesus.

-They're all Jesus.

-Except him.

He's a scientologist.

Well done. You did almost get it.

The answer is they've all been depicted as Jesus,

apart from Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson,

who was depicted in a painting with Jesus, which hangs on his wall.

So that's not Jesus, that's Wolf from Gladiators.

Now as far as Tom Cruise is concerned,

the Biblewalk Museum in Ohio houses a series of waxworks

of various celebrities,

all recycled so they represent characters from the Bible.

Here, for example, is a recycled Tom Cruise as Jesus.

On the left.

Let's play a little game.

I'll show you a religious waxwork

and you have to tell me which celebrity it originally was.

-OK.

-First off, King Solomon.

Vanessa Feltz.

-That's John Travolta.

-It is John Travolta, Ian.

Brilliant work.

Next up is a rather dapper-looking angel.

Prince Philip.

Indeed. It's Prince Philip.

So who wants to go to that museum? Nobody.

Rapper and famous prat Kanye West

has often equated himself with Jesus,

and was depicted as the son of God

on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine.

Ken doll was actually part of an exhibition in Buenos Aires

in which Barbie and Ken adopted various religious guises.

Here's Ken.

Here he is doing suggestive shepherd.

LAUGHTER

Some collectors have invested a lot in the Ken as Jesus doll,

only to be disappointed -

they put him away safely in the sealed box,

but when they go back to check on it three days later,

the box is empty...

..except for the robes, which have been left neatly folded up.

Finally, what happens

if you're a high-ranking Russian Orthodox priest

and you can't get into a car because you've got a big hat on?

-Do you want to see?

-Yes.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Oh, that is brilliant.

Time now for the Missing Words Round,

which this week features as its guest publication

The Business Of Ferrets,

the magazine of the Wessex Ferret Club.

It's for people who think rats just aren't long enough.

We start with...

Is it excessive use of sunbed?

Thinking.

APPLAUSE

It's...

Next...

High-powered jet engine.

JOSH: Is it very low bridge?

It is...

This is a woman pictured in the Sun on Thursday. Here she is.

How come the blind man is looking straight at her?

Is he entitled to that dog?

If she's on her way to Dragons' Den, I don't fancy her chances.

Next...

Shoving a cucumber through a letterbox.

Did he squeeze himself through the letterbox?

Oh, dear me.

Extraordinary image you create.

Overly enthusiastic...

This is a delivery man who tried to throw a parcel through a window

but missed and it landed on the roof of the house.

The driver then posted an official card through the letterbox

which said...

Before adding by hand...

Here it is.

A spokesman for the delivery firm said...

You'll find them in the chimney pot.

-Finally...

-Yeah, final, yeah.

Appear to have been radicalised.

At the National Ferret Fair...

-That's good advice, isn't it, really?

-It is.

-It is good advice.

Weirdly, this is from The Business Of Ferrets.

A ferret with diarrhoea -

that's two things you don't want running down your trousers.

So the final scores are, Paul and Tim have four,

but Ian and Josh are this week's winners with six.

APPLAUSE

Very sorry. All my fault.

Just before we go, there's just time for the Caption Competition.

Ian and Josh have this.

JOSH: Is he saying, "So according to Tinder,

"you like dogs and horse riding"?

Paul and Tim get that.

Headcase.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You can say no more.

I've probably said enough already.

I leave you with news that there's embarrassment at Tate Modern

after their catering staff accidentally win the Turner Prize.

At a European summit,

the Greek Prime Minister suggests he could save money

by sharing a hotel room.

And in Jerusalem, an interpreter is a little slow

arriving at the translation "goat's testicle".

Good night.

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