Episode 6 Have I Got News for You

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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

I'm Victoria Coren Mitchell.

In the news this week, as Lewis Hamilton's private jet

stops to refuel at Heathrow,

a government tax inspector is there to greet him.

With some members of the Cabinet having a tough week,

the Minister for Health and Safety

takes the opportunity to relax away from the spotlight.

And in the Midlands, James Dyson's less successful brothers

try to get in on the act.

On Ian's team tonight is a comedian who's writing a book

called Sex Power Money,

although there may be a copyright battle

as that's also the new title of Hansard.

Please welcome Sara Pascoe.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And with Paul tonight is a veteran cricket commentator

whose live show, An Evening With Blowers,

has been recorded on DVD and CD...

..VHS, audio cassette,

vinyl, wax cylinder and parchment.

Please welcome Henry Blofeld.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And we start with the biggest stories of the week.

Ian and Sara, take a look at this.

That's "Priti" useless.

-Out she comes.

-That's where she was on holiday.

-Yes, that's the Dead Sea.

-That's the aeroplane.

That's the most famous aeroplane in history.

That's the meeting where he said,

"I met a friend of yours last week - Priti."

There he is. Off he goes. "Nothing to do with me."

There were two cabinet ministers lost this week.

It may be more by the time you see this.

So, the Cabinet could be down to just Mrs May...

..asking herself to resign.

Looking in a mirror, going, "I don't think you can handle this.

"I just don't believe in you!"

It's been a terrible week for the Government.

They lost Michael Fallon over the sexual assault allegations.

And now, they've lost Priti Patel

for having a holiday in Israel and not telling anyone

what she was doing on holiday.

She had very important meetings.

How many meetings?

-12.

-12 meetings.

How long was she there for?

She was there for 13 days.

So, she had one day off.

That's like Craig David!

Yes, she wasn't just having meetings with anyone,

she met the Prime Minister of Israel and didn't mention it.

He's a big deal over there.

Yeah, I know!

She got called in to say, "What was all this about?"

She apologised, she was forgiven,

and then it transpired that she'd met EVEN MORE Israeli officials.

So, she was called back from Africa and everybody watched the flight.

That's the thing that's icky about it.

Obviously, she's done very underhand things,

and perhaps even more underhand than we understand yet,

but the thing about someone being on a plane

not knowing how much trouble they're in...

..like, it's FUN!

Do you think Theresa May was watching it on that little map?

Definitely.

"Another eight hours, and I'll sack you!"

-Do you ever have secret meetings when you go on holiday?

-Yeah.

You must have met Middle Eastern potentates, Henry?

You've met everyone.

Um, well, I suppose I've met one or two.

I used to go to Sharjah to watch cricket,

and there was a chap there I thought was the Lord High Executioner

called Abdul Rahman Bukhatir.

And they go around, and the amazing pomp and ceremony,

the cars and everything.

It really makes one mildly ill.

Or mildly jealous. Actually, I've never wished to own Rolls-Royces,

-have you?

-Yes.

-You have?

Well, that's fair enough.

In my dreams, you've got one.

I've got one? No, no. I drove to India in a Rolls-Royce, five of us,

a 1921 Silver Ghost.

It took us 46 days and nights.

It was the most exciting adventure of my life.

The only boring thing was, no-one shot at us.

That would have made it much more exciting.

You may be the only person in the world who has weirder holidays

than Priti Patel!

Yes...

APPLAUSE

One of the great things was,

we were sponsored by the people who made Long John Scotch Whisky,

who paid us in kind as well as cash.

They're defunct now, so I'm not really advertising, but...

Was it the cost of this trip that pushed them over the edge?

That was the question it begged.

Probably!

Who's replaced Priti Patel, do we know that?

-Penny.

-Penny Mordaunt is the replacement.

-What do we know about her?

-She's been on Splash!

Did you watch her on Splash?

No, I don't, no.

-Would you like to have a look at it now?

-No, thank you.

I want to see it. I've heard she does a really big belly flop

-and it really hurt her.

-Well, funnily enough...

Let's have a look.

AUDIENCE: Oh!

LAUGHTER

Oh!

LAUGHTER CONTINUES

I mean, as metaphors go...

Is this channel freely available, or is it subscribers only?

ITV, Ian.

ITV!

Don't let it bother you.

Now, Priti Patel's exit, or Prexit, has caused quite a distraction.

Why might Boris Johnson be pleased about that?

Because in the exact mirror image of this,

there's a British citizen who's in prison in Iran.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Yeah, and he said, in the Commons,

that she'd just been training journalists,

which is exactly what they've accused her of,

what she's innocent of,

and now our Foreign Secretary has said she has,

and then she got taken back to court

and given another five years on her sentence.

The one thing you're meant to feel as a British citizen

going around the world is that if you get into trouble,

the Foreign Office will be backing you and be on your side

and it won't put up some idiot

who reinforces your sentence by another five years.

And he's had to face the woman's husband,

which is the only shaft of humour.

Not the first irate husband Boris has presumably...faced...

who's unbelievably cross about it,

and, you know, as you would be.

-And I'm sure the Foreign Office are cross.

-Boris Johnson said...

And have his fellow Conservatives been quick to rally round

-and defend him?

-No, oddly!

They've all said, "It's a disgrace."

Well, it is a disgrace that someone can actually say this.

It just... The mind boggles.

-SARA:

-Yeah.

Not only does the mind boggle, it makes one angry, really.

And people who say, "I'm sorry if..."

That's not sorry. "You're sorry THAT..."

For someone who's meant to be a great linguist...

..Boris speaks a number of languages.

So is this the end of the Government? Priti Patel's gone,

Michael Fallon's gone, Boris might go. Damian Green might go.

Damian Green might go! Look at all that talent being lost!

I'm pretty terrified, aren't you?

I can't imagine what we'll do without Boris,

Priti Patel and Damian Green!

Oh, I can't sleep at night.

I mean, there's a big barrel out there.

She can scrape the bottom of it again.

Damian Green, as far as we know, his issue is less serious.

The allegation is he's got porn on his computer.

According to an ex-copper with a grievance.

I mean, take it or leave it.

Henry, we've all got porn on our computer, haven't we?

Well, I'm frightfully dull, but I never have.

I've always thought...

There was a time in my life when I thought it would be rather fun,

but I never discovered how to do it.

And without any help from my computer, perhaps I still don't.

There's so much talk about porn on the internet.

What kind of person has NEVER looked?

I've caught Ian Hislop's eye...

It's enough that he stars in them.

It's like a busman's holiday.

There's a brilliant statistic here.

How many times did someone in Parliament

try to look at porn in 2013?

-28,000.

-Five million.

Clearly higher.

It's 354,902 times!

Although last year, that dropped to 113,000.

But I suppose Boris Johnson was travelling more, wasn't he...

..with the new job?

I don't think he's a watcher, he's a doer.

AUDIENCE GROANS

You've made everyone feel poorly!

There's a bit of professional jealousy coming out there!

This is the collapse of Theresa May's cabinet due to sex,

corruption and incompetence.

Priti Patel apologised for secretly meeting

with the Israeli Prime Minister, admitting that, initially,

she and Benjamin "met on Yahoo".

According to the Daily Mail, one of Priti Patel's secret meetings

was with the Israeli security minister,

who's already said how sorry he is

to hear about her car accident next week.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has been accused

of accidentally extending the prison sentence

of a British citizen in Iran.

According to the Guardian...

There's an Iranian Boris Johnson?!

He must have had everything chopped off by now.

Paul and Henry, take a look at this.

Yes. The beautiful Bahamas,

where you can spend a lot of time with your money.

-There is the money.

-There is the money.

A self-effacing rock star who pays too much tax, according to him.

There's Lewis Hamilton.

The Queen's counting her ingots, I think.

Yes, I can't remember which is the good one.

It's either avoidance or evasion.

It's a very subtle difference, isn't it?

You'll get sued if you say the wrong one.

-Ah, right.

-So, go on.

I'll mention your name as I'm passing through the legal system.

So, yeah, it's about people who already have huge amounts of money

who want to keep hold of their huge amounts of money by paying

as little tax as possible by possibly evading, possibly avoiding,

whichever one is the acceptable way of saying...stealing from us.

It gets very odd when you're talking about millions and billions,

in the case of Lewis Hamilton, who is extremely wealthy.

-Isn't he meant to be the richest sportsman of all, now?

-I suppose so.

He doesn't have to be particularly fit to do what he does.

He sits in the car and points it in that direction.

He's like an Uber driver who goes a bit quicker, that's all.

Yes, it's the leak of files from a law firm showing the tax,

-let's say "avoidance"...

-Avoidance!

-..practices of the rich and famous,

referred to as the Paradise Papers.

You mentioned Lewis Hamilton, Paul.

What did he buy?

-A private jet.

-And how much did that cost?

-16.5 million.

16.5 million. That's not bad for a private jet.

But how did he manage to get over three million back in VAT?

-How indeed? Do you know how?

-Through a shell company.

Yes, he bought the plane

and then lent it to himself.

-SARA:

-Oh...

-That can't be right, can it?

-Well, right is the word, Henry.

It is legal, and most of the operations

that were revealed in this are legal, but they are an attempt

to deprive other taxpayers of the income

that you should be paying to the general pot.

Other famous individuals were named,

not just Lewis Hamilton. What's Bono done?

He bought a shopping centre?

He bought a shopping centre in beautiful Lithuania.

-Here it is.

-Via a holding company in Malta.

-I've actually been there.

-What? To that shopping centre?

Yes, I spent ages trying to shop,

but I still couldn't find what I was looking for.

The way that photograph is framed is unusual,

because you can't see "The Edge", do you see?

I should mention that Bono says

he didn't know he'd bought the shopping centre.

A company bought it without his knowledge.

Lord Ashcroft was dragged into the story.

-Do we know how?

-Well, he's always dragged into all stories,

due to his status as non-domiciled here for tax reasons.

And it does look as though he's been making quite a lot of money...

..in ways that are not, desperately searching for the word here,

entirely appropriate for someone who's in the House of Lords.

I'm not saying it's illegal or that he's extremely dodgy.

That would be wrong on the evidence we have to date.

And he still picks up his 300 nicker a day

-for going to the House of Lords.

-He did, yes.

-Shall we have a look

-at Lord Ashcroft being chased by a journalist?

-Yes, please.

-Oh, yes, this is very good.

-Is it across open countryside?

-Sadly not. Let's have a look.

-No?

Hi, I'm Richard Bilton, I work for Panorama, sir.

Can I grab a quick word?

I've been trying to send you these letters, but you wouldn't take them.

Could I have a quick word?

Did you have tens of millions in an offshore trust

that you secretly controlled?

Lord Ashcroft, why don't you just talk to me?

It would be great to hear your view.

Where are we going to end up? This is great!

Why don't you stop and answer my questions?

It'll take one minute, sir.

Sir, where are we going? We have been walking for two minutes.

Why don't you just give me your views?

Sir, why don't you just give me your views? We could have been sponsored!

We've done about a mile and a half. Where are we going?

This is brilliant, I don't know where we're going to end up!

Sir!

I'm not going to follow you in there, sir.

Why not?

Let me ask you this question, Mr Blofeld.

Do you prefer a double Irish or a double Irish with a Dutch sandwich?

Ooh, I think a double Irish with a Dutch sandwich.

-And does anyone have any idea what that is?

-No.

-Yeah, it's...

-Have you just ordered the biggest one?

-It's a tax ploy.

A lot of big companies registered in Ireland.

I mean, Apple was one of the worst.

You register the brand and then you say you're leasing the brand,

so you supposedly pay the company in Ireland

which has a lower tax rate.

Anyway, Apple have moved, they've now moved to Jersey,

because the Irish tax authorities became less complacent.

Then again, on Panorama,

someone very good said Apple isn't actually a hi-tech company.

It's a very skilled tax-avoidance company

that has a small arm that produces phones,

which seems to me entirely right -

I mean, all these minor individuals, Apple, honestly! Facebook!

Look at all... They're the gross tax-avoiders.

-Vodafone.

-Yeah, Vodafone, they employ almost no-one.

-Google get away with a bit, don't they?

-Absolutely.

All of those do-no-evil young person's companies,

you know, they're the worst.

These are the Paradise Papers,

highlighting the tax irregularities of the rich and famous.

Rock star Bono featured in the Paradise Papers

for hiding money in offshore accounts.

But it's incredibly hard to trace the addresses

of U2's offshore companies,

because where they're located,

the streets have no name.

AUDIENCE GROANS

The Paradise Papers detail the private jet arrangements

of Grand Prix driver Lewis Hamilton,

who is described as the richest person in British sport.

Well, apart from the child who supplies urine

for sampling tests to the British cycling team.

LAUGHTER AND GROANS

It's not a real child!

And so to Round Two, the Picture Spin Quiz.

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

Oh, yes! Very pleased to see this come up.

Sheep can recognise human faces.

They put some faces in front of sheep and they said,

"Do you know which one's Fiona Bruce?" and the sheep went,

"Yeah, that one there." And so...

Yes, sheep have been trained to be rewarded with food

if they recognise a celebrity.

Shall we have a look at a sheep spotting Barack Obama?

-Yes, please, yeah.

-Here we are.

There we are, Barack Obama.

How did the scientists try to make it more difficult for the sheep?

By blindfolding it.

Sometimes they put two pictures, shall we have a look at a sheep

trying to tell the difference between Barack Obama

-and a non-celebrity?

-OK.

-Let's have a look.

-SARA:

-Oh, my God!

Are they trying out a new voting system

that we should be worried about?

Well according to chief sheep expert Dr Jenny Morton...

They used to be really intelligent, apparently.

We bred them to be stupider

because it was easy to keep them domesticated.

They used to do quizzes?

Yeah, yeah. They used to write for the Guardian.

"Gambling". Those herds of sheep "gambling" on the meadows,

it was poker they were playing.

That's a good joke, work it out later.

SCATTERED APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE BUILDS

They're getting it now. A pun on the word "gambolling".

-G-A-M-B-O-L.

-Yeah, exactly.

He just bullied you into that round of applause!

You're a bunch of sheep!

They recognise you anyway.

The team used four famous faces for this experiment...

..who were chosen because the scientists wanted faces

that we knew the sheep hadn't seen in person.

This is the news that sheep can recognise faces.

On the whole, the sheep stepped forward to receive a reward

when they recognised a celebrity.

Though obviously they all ran away when they saw Alan Shearer.

AUDIENCE GROANS

What do you want from a night out?!

A gambling sheep, that's the one they wanted.

Dogs, meanwhile, are colour-blind,

unlike the viewers of Strictly.

That was for you, Aston.

-The eviction of Aston? A travesty!

-Was it a travesty?

-A travesty!

Was it the sort of miscarriage that should get one very, very upset?

-I mean, it's...

-But it is the judges in the end that make the decision.

-Yeah.

-But they can only choose from the people in the bottom two.

They shouldn't have been in the bottom two.

The dance that he did wasn't particularly usefully choreographed.

Craig Revel Horwood gave it four,

and he could hardly go back on that and say, "I want to save you,"

because it's just on that dance, not... I mean, he's a great dancer,

it seems like the programme has shot itself in the foot by doing this,

you know, because over the years,

certainly the male dancers have not been as good as the female dancers.

Debbie McGee is wonderful

and Alexandra Burke is probably going to win now.

So, it's a shame that he's not in it.

After 25 years on this show, you are the man who is full of surprises.

Yes. A lot of people have said that

but they haven't used the word "surprises".

It's true. Very true.

Fingers on buzzers, teams.

Jeremy Corbyn. He was an Gogglebox, Celebrity Gogglebox,

-Gogglebox Celebrity.

-And what was he watching?

I saw a clip of it...

..on the news. It was some cookery show or something?

Maybe The Great British Bake Off perhaps.

No, he was watching Nigella.

-Oh, was he?

-Yeah.

-That's just a bit of gossip.

Jeremy Corbyn and Jessica Hynes watched University Challenge

and Nigella's cookery show.

He got a history question wrong on University Challenge.

Here he is struggling with it.

These bonuses are on Roman history, Ulster.

Against which city-state

did Rome fight the three Punic Wars

in the third and second centuries BC.

Sparta.

AUDIENCE GROANS

-Carthage.

-Correct.

-Oh.

-Oh, third century, I got the wrong century.

Of course! Carthage, yes, of course.

Oh, no!

Sparta, you muppet!

Sparta!

Were you not asked to be on Celebrity Gogglebox, Ian?

No, I was furious.

I think now that you've made your love of the show publicly known,

-I think, next year, you're bound to be ignored again.

-I'll say no.

Is it for charity? Do they do it for charity?

-Yeah.

-Oh, I'll definitely say no.

What did Jeremy Corbyn describe as ridiculous?

There was something he saw on television during the...

Sparta!

It was Nigella's recipe for poaching eggs.

Shall we watch him angrily explaining how it should be done?

-Yes.

-You don't do egg whites that way.

-What's she doing?

-No! You know how to get egg white, don't you?

-I think we all know how to poach eggs.

-You break the egg,

and you pour it from one to the other, one to the other,

put the yolk on one side and you've got the egg white.

-Masterclass in egg poaching!

-What do you use a strainer for?

It's ridiculous.

What I like is a coddled egg.

She's literally going, "This is who I voted for!"

What is a coddled egg?

A coddled egg? Oh, you wrap it up and don't say anything offensive.

I love the idea he's giving Nigella lessons in cooking.

The man who didn't know the difference

between Sparta and Carthage.

Jeremy Corbyn appeared on an edition of Gogglebox

watching various programmes including University Challenge,

though he didn't do very well on that,

as he thought the answer to every question was more public spending.

Time now for the Odd One Out Round.

Your four are...

the family of Henry Blofeld,

Frank Sinatra,

Napoleon Bonaparte,

And a frankfurter.

Is this the Bond connection?

Would you like to explain what the Bond connection is?

Bond connection, yes, my father and Ian Fleming were at school together.

And he... He cribbed my name for Stavro Blofeld in the Bond books.

And my only claim to fame in that was once meeting Lois Maxwell.

-Miss Moneypenny?

-Yes, Miss Moneypenny.

I was able to say to her,

"Yes, you might also say we had a common BOND."

-AUDIENCE GROANS

-Yes, I know, she actually laughed.

It is to do with names. What sort of a character was Blofeld?

-He was a villain.

-Indeed, he had money in every conceivable...

..in the Cayman Islands and the lot, didn't he?

-SARA:

-Napoleon was the name of the pig in George Orwell's Animal Farm.

-Oh, that's good.

-Yes.

-Yes, he's a villain in Animal Farm.

-So, baddies named after them?

But then frankfurter...

-Frank N Furter, isn't he a baddie?

-In The Rocky Horror Show.

Who is going to be the first to the odd one out?

Frank Sinatra's the odd one out!

That is correct.

We did a lot of the work for them.

-Just in time.

-You're welcome, guys.

Can I just say, it's sickening to see a woman do all the work

and a man claiming credit.

They have all inspired the names of fictional villains

except Frank Sinatra, whose singing

inspired the name of a fictional hero.

Scooby-Doo!

They don't write them like that any more. According to the BBC,

CBS Children's Commissioner Fred Silverman was inspired

by those lyrics from Frank Sinatra's song Strangers In The Night.

Your father, as you say, Mr Blofeld,

may have inspired Ian Fleming's baddie.

Shall we have a look at evil Blofeld?

-Who's the actor?

-That's Donald Pleasance, there.

Donald Pleasance in You Only Live Twice.

But why would Donald Pleasance not have been good casting

in On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

Somebody else is Blofeld in that.

Because a key plot point is that Blofeld has no earlobes.

-HENRY:

-Oh, right. Yes.

-SARA:

-What is the plotline?

Is it earrings?

He's jealous of some lovely earrings?

Blofeld's disguised, but Bond realises it must be him

because he's got no earlobes.

You know, earlobes are interesting.

Brian Johnston had such long lobes to his ears

he could stick them in and they stayed there.

He did this in the commentary box and it was very disconcerting.

When he was talking to you, he'd stick it...

..and then he would raise his right eyebrow,

and it would pop out, like a cork out of a bottle.

Time now for the missing words round,

which, this week, features as its guest publication

Milestones & Waymarkers - The Journal of the Milestone Society.

It's a critical time for the magazine. It's at a crossroads.

AUDIENCE GROANS

-Ian and...

-"Gambling" sheep, you see.

"Gambling"?

They're nostalgic for that now.

They are, yeah, that was the highlight,

you didn't know it at the time, did you?

And we start with...

-SARA:

-Bathing in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

Is it just...

..Dick?

Greasing the stairs at Buckingham Palace.

Unbelievably, Prince Charles was once spotted

painting the numbers on a milestone at Sandringham.

Charles also has a milestone saying, "Buckingham Palace, ten years."

Given to him by a chuckling queen 48 years ago.

Next...

-SARA:

-Giggle as man describes penis.

Lie-detecting underpants heat up whenever you tell a porky.

Next...

The Duke of Edinburgh.

The Queen's honeymoon was immeasurably improved

by Susan the corgi going, too.

-SARA:

-Aww, Susan.

Finally...

-SARA:

-Bulge in lie-detecting underpants!

Almighty vegetable.

Is it Eamonn Holmes?

Prince song.

# Really big courgette... #

Is that it?

Second World War bomb turns out to be really big courgette.

God, the Germans were desperate towards the end, weren't they?!

Here's the courgette...

It was found in a garden in Bretten in Germany.

-Yes.

-Coincidentally, replacing bombs with courgettes

is a key plan of Jeremy Corbyn's new defence strategy.

According to the BBC,

once police had confirmed it was just a five-kilo vegetable...

..and sure enough, 24 hours later,

neighbours heard a massive explosion.

So, the final scores are...

..Ian and Sara have five.

Paul and Henry have six.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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

That's me stuffed!

It's not just lambs who "gamble"!

APPLAUSE

-SARA:

-I've only just got what that was! I've just got it!

That's the clap I should have got 20 minutes ago!

And I leave you with news that in London

there is evidence the architect of the new Lib Dem headquarters

has been slightly too pessimistic.

In St James's Park, after feeling a sharp sting on the back of his neck,

a government tax inspector mysteriously collapses.

And in Soho, David Attenborough's agent phones to congratulate him

on the success of his new TV show.

Goodnight.