Episode 5 Have I Got News for You

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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

I'm Jo Brand. In the news this week,

checking out the venue before a rally for Scottish independence,

the SNP's head of health and safety arrives with his lunch.

At his country home in Chester, Liam Gallagher hears

there may be some paparazzi lurking in the bushes.

And, in Sidcup,

maverick WI treasurer Betty Wilson flouts her six-month ban

to attend a coffee morning.

On Ian's team tonight is a writer and Daily Mail journalist

whose latest book is called Patronising Bastards,

and I'm sure it's a very, very good book for a journalist.

Please welcome Quentin Letts.

APPLAUSE

And with Paul tonight, a comedian and broadcaster

who has five children under the age of eight.

He desperately wanted to be here last week,

partly to discuss the Chinese leadership story,

but mainly because it was half term.

Please welcome Miles Jupp.

APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger stories of the week.

Ian and Quentin, take a look at this.

-There's the House of Commons.

-Sexminster.

No, THAT'S the House of Commons!

That's Rocket Man, having a feel.

And he's off. The former Defence Secretary.

It's pathetic, this isn't a sex scandal, Ian, is it?

I mean, there doesn't seem to be any sex at the moment.

-No...

-But, I mean, you know,

-Berlusconi, in bunga bunga land.

-Yes.

-That's a sex scandal.

Could you not take your hands...

I think that's mostly the nature of it, yes.

It's a grope scandal.

This is Jane Austen.

Grope And Gropeability.

I missed that book.

Boris is not involved.

No, he wasn't on the list,

which you haven't seen - and nor have I.

How do you know he wasn't on the list if you haven't seen it?

Damn you, Merton!

No further questions, m'lud.

You have to feel sorry for Michael Fallon.

When the news broke last night, the female BBC journalist

kept describing him as a safe pair of hands.

Unfortunate phrasing in the circumstances.

Do you know why he's gone?

Cos it can't just be that one story about Julia Hartley-Brewer,

because she said, "I don't care."

He's brave.

Hartley-Brewer - big, strong girl.

-She's not a girl.

-She's got reach, as they say in boxing.

She's a woman, Quentin, she's not a girl.

APPLAUSE Um... She...

Can I just say, I don't feel sorry for Michael Fallon at all.

I keep wanting to call him "Michael Phallus," actually.

Where are the Lib Dems, that's what I want to know, in this sex scandal?

Normally they are way in the front, in any sex scandal,

and they've been left trailing.

Well, there's not enough of them any more.

They can't even round up a decent gang of sex offenders.

A threesome would be a push, wouldn't it?

It would be a push.

Has anyone here ever touched a knee?

I'm touching two now.

Not your own, Miles.

He didn't say it was his own.

Well, the Times published a redacted version of the list.

A damning indictment of MPs' behaviour, or, if you prefer,

a fun-packed Missing Words round.

I mean, here's one, for example.

Clothing, presumably.

-Perfume.

-Women's suffrage banners.

Yes, well...

Lloyd George again.

OK, try the next one.

Own sweets.

That's just sensible.

It's "personal trainer".

-There we go.

-Some of this is not high-level crime, is it?

-No. No, no, no.

-Not compared to Putin or Trump.

But if I can I just say,

as the only representative of the female gender here today,

I know it's not high-level,

but it doesn't have to be high-level for women to feel under siege

in somewhere like the House of Commons, and actually, for women,

if you're constantly being harassed, even in a small way, that builds up,

and that wears you down.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Sorry, I thought I was on Question Time there for a minute.

As you point out, with four blokes sitting around you,

we're hardly in a position to say, "That's rubbish."

There is a wide range of behaviour on offer.

One MP is described as...

-What, can he drive?

-Well, I don't know.

I thought maybe it meant he'd hold your chips

while you throw up out the window, I don't know.

That's what I'm looking for in a man, you know.

What a showbiz life you lead, Jo.

I tell you, Paul, you should come out with me for the night,

-it's marvellous.

-I should, yeah. I should.

What did the list have to say about Amber Rudd?

Oh, she'd had an affair, a post-marital affair,

with another MP,

and he wasn't married either.

So what? You know, she's having a love life, good for her.

-Fair enough.

-Yes, but they're very puritan,

this particular bunch of researchers,

and that was put on the list.

"Enjoying life"!

Now, Labour are obviously trying to keep their heads down

while the Tories self-destruct again, but why can't they this time?

-They've had a rather serious rape allegation.

-Very serious.

Which is way above the level of comedy.

And there's also one of their chaps

who's accused of being very good on a discotheque floor.

Is that a euphemism?

- No, that is the actual offence. - He has rhythm?

Moves rhythmically to music.

-Well, he's got to go.

-Yeah.

That's absolutely perverted.

Now, what's John McDonald's record with women like?

-He's into lynching.

-That's right.

He's really politically correct about it, though, because in 2014,

when he wanted to encourage someone

to murder Tory Minister Esther McVey,

he was very careful to use non-sexist language when he said...

-Not too good, then.

-Who made a rubbish joke on Radio 4 last week?

Guilty!

Michael Gove, on the Today programme.

That's right, with the help of Neil Kinnock, I do believe,

when they compared John Humphrys to Harvey Weinstein.

Interesting that the audience of metropolitan lefty liberals

who were there to celebrate 60 years of the Today programme

and John Humphrys seemed to find it hilarious.

Now, Quentin, didn't you upset Polly Toynbee of the Guardian on the radio

-last week?

-Yes, I did, I did.

She accused me of being Harvey Weinstein, in her column,

-the next day.

-Why did she accuse you of being Harvey Weinstein?

Because I was having a ding-dong with her...

An argument!

..on the radio...

A consensual argument?

I thought she was being a bit of a miserable old battle-axe, so I said,

"Come on, Polly, I want to pin you down and tickle your tummy,

"sometimes, cheer you up."

You said, "Tickle you under the armpits and make you smile,

-"my dear."

-Yeah. Well, why not? She could do with it.

-Cheering up.

-I think the pinning her down bit's not great.

Well, how else do you tickle someone under the armpits?

I suppose you can run up behind them.

Oh!

This is the sex scandal engulfing Westminster.

According to the redacted dossier, a...

Why are these jobs never advertised?!

According to the Daily Mail,

Speaker John Bercow once recommended the chat-up line,

"If you're free later,

"maybe we could go back to your place and name your breasts."

Not a great line, but it did get three series on ITV 2.

Did you watch it, Morecambe and Wise?

Much better than Little and Large, if you think about it.

Paul and Miles, take a look at this.

Yes, the appropriately named White House.

-Not sure what they're doing.

-Very discreet policeman.

Crouching for democracy.

This is Paul Manafort,

who's given himself in to the FBI earlier this week,

and, "North Korea's that way, Mr President."

Yes, President Trump apparently is seething,

according to insiders in the White House,

he's glued to this Russian coverage,

it's taking up every minute of his waking day.

That's not very long, is it?

-Well...

-The bit between the telly and the tweeting.

George Papadopoulos is the guy that's admitted lying to the FBI.

If you're found guilty of lying to the FBI,

it's a five-year prison sentence,

but because he's cooperating, that'll be reduced to six months,

so there's a lot of worried people at the moment.

Absolutely. Two key aides of Trump, you mention Paul Manafort,

and a business associate, also, Rick Gates,

face charges of money-laundering,

tax evasion and conspiracy to defraud the US government.

And former policy adviser George Papadopoulos...

Who has the greatest forehead in the history of the world, look at that.

-It's amazing, isn't it?

-It's incredibly shiny and flat.

And orange.

Same colour as the bus behind him that's going to Putney Bridge.

Experts believe this picture was taken in London.

It's basically about the Russians trying to influence

-the American election.

-And succeeding.

-Yeah.

-It's a success story.

Yeah.

Why aren't we getting behind it? What's wrong with us?

Manafort's connections with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs are clear,

but does Trump have any connections to these people?

He owes them millions of dollars.

He's in serious debt to the Russians.

Can you back me up on this, Ian?

Yeah, no. Whatever you say, Miles, I reckon, is true, and worse.

Here's Manafort convincingly explaining to us that actually,

Trump doesn't have any connections to these people,

during the 2016 election.

So to be clear, Mr Trump has no financial relationships

-with any Russian oligarchs?

-That's what he said.

That's obviously what our position is.

I believe him, he's got a trustworthy face.

Now, of course, the news agencies

were very excited by Manafort's arrest,

with nearly all of them focusing heavily on the breaking story.

CNN was right on the money.

Here we are.

NBC also had its finger on the pulse.

Someone pointed out, Fox News found something else to report on.

What is the emoji cheeseburger crisis?

Does anybody know? What's wrong with the burger on the right?

It's got the cheese slice underneath the burger.

That is almost as disgusting as dancing.

Would you put the lettuce underneath the burger on the left?

All of these people are absolutely deranged.

It's like it's been thrown together with no thought at all.

What emotion does it convey, this symbol?

Happiness, for me.

Who other than George Papadopoulos is particularly suffering because of

George Papadopoulos's arrest?

George Papadopoulos.

Indeed. That's right. But not that one, another one.

Another one?

This one's a financial planner,

who was deluged with tweets as the story broke. He tweeted...

To which Michael Bolton replied...

Other people to offer support were a Bruce Lee,

a James Taylor and a Jim Morrison, so...

Now, Trump is known as a genius when it comes to business and also...

-By whom?

-..and also branding.

-By himself.

-Mr Putin.

Well, he's quite a successful businessman.

No, he isn't. You must never give him that credit.

All right. He's a shit businessman.

I said the right thing!

He inherited money from his father,

and the New York Times calculated if he'd put it in a bank

and done nothing for the next 20 years,

he'd be richer than he is now.

He went bankrupt, you know, he went bankrupt running a casino,

first man in history.

How do you do that, how do you lose money?

Now, there was more suspicion surrounding Trump this week,

he's suspected of masquerading as somebody...

-On Halloween?

-Someone wrote a letter saying all women love Donald Trump.

That's right. He was suspected as masquerading as his own secretary,

a woman called Carolyn, in 1992.

Now, a letter has surfaced that Carolyn wrote to New York Magazine.

See if you can pick up on the subtle signs

that led people to think Donald might have written it, here we go.

OK, this is the latest evidence of links between the White House

and Russia. After the FBI arrested Trump campaign adviser

George Papadopoulos,

a White House spokesman insisted he was just a coffee boy whose only

involvement was ordering caramel macchiato,

leading to a panicked Trump to tweet,

"I never met Caramel Macchiato."

Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort

has been accused of setting up a business in London

to launder millions of dollars.

According to the Telegraph,

the company operated from...

A property in Finchley!

My God, how much money have these people got?!

At the White House Halloween celebrations,

there was an awkward moment

between Donald Trump and an inflatable dinosaur.

"I just didn't like the look of its big scary head

"and tiny little hands,"

said the dinosaur.

APPLAUSE

And so to round two, the picture spin quiz.

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

Yes, this is the Great British Bake Off. That's Prue Leith.

She was in another country and got her time zones wrong

and she tweeted congratulations to the winner of the Great British

Bake Off some 12 hours before we were meant to find out who it was.

But it didn't affect the ratings.

Still people tuned in and it just shows you, people love cakes.

-And who won?

-Do you not know?

-No.

-No.

Sophie.

-Are you any the wiser?

-No.

-No.

What was her creation?

What did she make that was the best baked cake ever made?

She made something called an entremet.

-Oh, yes.

-Do you knows what that is?

No, it's a ballet move, I know that much.

It's the sort of thing you would see in a patisserie that's got lots of

different flavoured layers of mousse.

A feuilletine.

A feuilletine?

Feuilletine, mm.

Feuilletine.

-Yeah.

-Do you bake, Quentin?

I do, I do a very good flapjack.

Flapjacks are piss easy.

Listen, even I can do a flapjack.

Mine are jolly good.

Prue broke the news thus in a tweet at 10.37am.

Prue wrote...

What time was it where she was?

I mean, was she up in the middle of the night somewhere?

I'm just worried about her.

We all should be, she's gone missing.

Well, the final was many, many months ago.

-Oh, was it?

-Yeah. And so they have to keep it secret for quite a time.

And it finished months ago?

-Yeah.

-Well, what are they doing?

-Just sitting on it?

-Waiting for them to cool.

We bakers do that.

Anyway, she was on holiday, got confused, she told reporters...

Does anyone know what the worst thing Mary Berry ever did

on the show was?

It was about letting information slip that she shouldn't have done.

Oh, she revealed that when she's at home she blacks up.

No.

A sort of "black berry".

APPLAUSE

Well, she let a name slip. Correcting radio host Chris Evans,

Mary listed three bakers who'd left the tent

when viewers only knew about two.

-Hm.

-Now, winner Sophie used to be in the military.

How did she put her skills to use in the final?

She shot someone.

There was a drone attack on the marquee.

She deployed some extreme multitasking

by whipping, mixing and gelling,

all at the same time, while bellowing...

The MoD has since ordered 50,000 cans of squirty cream

and a new Magimix for immediate deployment.

Finally - and this is a slight parallel shift -

what whoopsie did Amanda Holden make on ITV's This Morning?

Oh, she was interviewing Tim Peake, the astronaut.

That's right, yeah.

And she asked him whether he'd brought back any moon rock.

From the moon. And he had to say, "I'm terribly sorry,

"I didn't go to the moon. And nor did anyone else since 1972."

Shall we just have a little look at it, because we've got a clip.

Absolutely.

I don't know whether you'd be allowed to answer it, really,

cos it might be a naughty thing.

When you went to the moon,

did you take a piece of the moon and bring it back home with you?

So I wasn't on the moon. I was in the Space Station.

Is that how he dresses the whole time?

That's how he got the job.

It is amazing Amanda Holden didn't know Tim Peake spent time

on the Space Station,

because he never stops bloody banging on about it.

Anyway, this is Prue Leith accidentally revealing

the winner of Bake Off.

According to the Times' TV reviewer,

the final challenges were very tough.

Obviously he's better with Pi.

GROANING

Quite right.

Time now for the odd one out round.

Your four are Ernest Hemingway,

Donald Trump,

Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot Fisher,

and a drunk Australian with a camera.

Something to do with fake news,

because Trump has come out this week and said something about... Oh, no,

the dictionary has come out this week about fake news.

-Yes.

-Is this "fake news" is a word of the year,

"selfie" was a word of the year, John Fisher's...

He invented the term "Buggins' turn".

-He...

-He did.

Is that a sexual practice?

No, you're right on the new words, so...

Hemingway invented "selfie" as a word.

-No.

-No.

-But there is someone who invented "selfie" as a word there.

I used to be wearing a cravat.

-What happened to it?

-It's round the back there.

-Is it?

-It's come undone.

-What's happened?

-My cravat's gone.

I can see the back of it there.

Yeah, I know, but how did it get round there?

I don't know.

-It's just...

-I swear it was unconscious when I put it on.

It's undone itself.

It's only the second time I've ever worn one.

I didn't know they had a mind of their own.

Oh, I can see a bit of it down there as well.

I can see it. It's down in the shirt bit, it's down in the shirt.

Oh, look, there it is, look.

-Hey.

-Look like Lord Lucan coming back from a casino.

Hello, everyone.

I'll give you a really massive clue.

-OK.

-But not quite... They've all coined new words, except...

-Yeah, we said that.

-Well, who's the odd one out?

Except Donald Trump. Donald Trump's the odd one out.

Yes, he is.

-Why?

-Because he hasn't coined any new words.

They've all coined new words except Donald Trump, who claimed he...

Had invented a new word.

He invented the word "fake", according to him.

-That's right.

-I mean, this question is rubbish.

Yes.

I don't write the questions.

He claimed he invented...

I don't want to be rude,

-I'm just saying.

-Oh, be rude.

He claimed he invented the word "fake",

despite its first appearance in 1775.

That's when he married his first wife.

-So let's hear from the man himself.

-Yeah.

The media is...

really the word, I think one of the greatest of all terms I've come up

with is "fake". I guess other people have used it perhaps over the years,

but I've never noticed it.

Did his barber never mention it to him?

-Or his wife?

-Yes.

So, do you know, how were horses involved in the creation of fakery?

Trojan horse. No.

No, that's a very good guess.

-It is, isn't it?

-No, according to language website Haggard Hawks,

"fake" might have come via the 19th century slang word "to feague",

meaning in the equine business...

Is that the eel or the horse that's more sprightly?

Apparently, they have to put one up Eamonn Holmes every morning

-to make him appear more sprightly.

-Well, he does have to get up early.

Yes, exactly. I'm going to try it.

Do you know him that well?

Well... The term "selfie" was first used by a drunk Australian.

What did we learn this week about millennials and selfies?

They like them.

-They hate them.

-They do.

-They're indifferent to them.

-They spend...

Over 65s actually spend the same time, but that's per picture.

They can never work out which button takes a photo.

Anyway, what surprisingly modern term

did Admiral of the Fleet John Fisher

coin in a letter to Churchill, back in 1917?

I think I know this.

-OMG.

-It was indeed, well done, Quentin.

Do you know what made Lord Fisher say that?

Was it an eel?

He was actually making a pun about a new title which he had

heard was to be created, called the Order of St Michael and St George.

He alluded to it in his letter to Churchill like this...

Which I think we can all agree

is roflcopter megalolz.

Um...

Churchill was less amused when Fisher described his wife as a milf.

Ernest Hemingway, who coined the term shit-faced,

was famous for his bad language and obscenity,

which explains the original title of his book,

The Old Man And The C Word.

Time now for the missing words round, and we start with...

Conservative minister.

Apparently, it's...

Take it from me, everyone on these dating websites is lying,

or my name's not Astrid Svensson, 22, Swedish gymnast.

Next...

Auditioned for Strictly Come Dancing.

Was a Nazi.

Taught a weekly zumba class.

Yes!

As seen here.

I don't know which one he is.

Next...

Is it Michael Gove?

-Is it the tide?

-Yes, got to be.

Some very late Germans.

Finally...

Becomes Defence Secretary.

-Urgently sought.

-Yeah.

That's a kick in the teeth for David Attenborough, isn't it?

After all that work he puts in.

So, the final scores are Ian and Quentin have five,

but Paul and Miles are the winners, with six.

Unbelievable.

Well done.

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

I still can't find Keith, but I've left him another note.

And I leave you with news that in the basement of Labour Party HQ,

the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg

recovers from the knockout drops to be met with a worrying sight.

The morning after the Great British Bake Off Final party,

Prue Leith recovers at the hairdresser's.

And after a frantic week of searching,

the Gove family at last find their pet hedgehog.

Goodnight.