Episode 1 Have I Got Old News For You

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening. Welcome to Have I Got News For You. I'm David Mitchell.

In the news this week...

While Miley Cyrus is out at the VMA Awards, her dog is back at home

watching her performance on TV

In Farnborough, the MOD proudly unveils

the ?60 billion replacement for the Harrier Jump Jet.

And as officers from Operation Yewtree move in to arrest

one of the stars of Play School,

he makes a desperate, last-minute bid for freedom.

On Ian's team tonight is the presenter on Channel 4 News

who claims that she reads every national newspaper every day.

As does Ian! So you can see how useful that is for THIS show.

Please welcome Cathy Newman.

APPLAUSE

And with Paul tonight is a writer and presenter who is currently

hosting a show on BT Sport, although we only have his word for that

LAUGHTER Please welcome Danny Baker.

Thank you.

APPLAUSE

And we start with the bigger stories of the week.

Paul and Danny, have a look at this.

Ah, yes, obviously, Conservative Party Conference. There's the

Prime Minister and his lovely wife. And there's...

Osborne trying to get blood from a stone. Yeah. There's, uh, ooh...

What's his face doing? I don't know. It's very odd, isn't it?

Ah, look, I believe Mia Farrow says, it's your son. Yes.

So this is the Conservatives have been having their conference

and Boris has been speaking I think. Yes.

Osborne made a major announcement at the Tory Party conference.

About his haircut? Did... Did he? Well he had a comb-over. Yes.

He's ending the recession, isn't he?

Do you remember? He's literally combing-over the recession?

Hiding the recession. It's still there, but he's hiding it.

No, that's not the announcement I meant.

LAUGHTER Is this the return of the workhouse?

That's the announcement I meant Yes.

It's part of the buy your house except you don't know

if it's going to be a big one where you make rope.

LAUGHTER

I think they have to go to the Jobcentre every day to

register the fact that they're still unemployed? Yes. Precisely.

He said the jobless are to be required to

work for their benefits by, for example, picking up litter.

Here's how it went down in the hall.

It used to be a lot more entertaining -

and I'm not suggesting they should do a Strictly Tory Party conference.

They used to tell jokes and sing songs. They did.

People who couldn't tell jokes would do, it was extraordinary.

My dad used to say, "Ooh, it was a lot of fun." Like the X Factor.

The best acts have been stolen.

Anne Widdecombe went to Strictly. I know. You know, got poached.

The idea of Anne Widdecombe being poached is one

I can't quite get out of my head.

Think of the size of the pan you'd need. Exactly.

Do you think Boris Johnson really was loyal?

Yes, he just did one joke about whether it is possible to be Mayor

and Prime Minister at the same time

and got a big laugh and said, "Joke. Joke."

Which is what people always say when they mean it.

Do you know what he said about UKIP?

He said, "UKIP..." ..if you want to. Yeah, that was the joke, wasn't it?

I'm not for kipping. I'm not for kipping!

He said, "UKIP if you want to.. "

But that wasn't kipping, that was chillaxing,

and there is a difference. Apparently.

Yes, but unfortunately, the party isn't called Uchillax.

The conference then degenerated into

can you answer questions about groceries?

Someone else got the milk question. Boris did. That's it.

And Cameron was asked how much a loaf was. Four guineas!

He said, I have a bread-maker.

As we all do - it's Albert in the village.

How much is a bottle of milk? Well, I have a cow.

I have a cow and she goes down to the village and buys the milk.

Yeah, but, how much is a loaf of bread, Paul?

65p. Everything is 65p.

Always has been and always will be.

Bread, houses, Shropshire, it's all 65p.

And Boris didn't know the answer to anything.

He said, "I know how much a bottle of champagne is."

I'd rather that than some weaselly little journalist

saying he doesn't know how much bread is. "How much is it, mate?

"How much do you put it down for on your expenses?"

Well, Boris did that, he asked Jeremy Paxman how much a loaf was

and Paxman said, "Well, I can't possibly answer that."

Panic, panic.

Yes, Boris had a bit of a Newsnight knock-about with Paxman.

They were discussing Boris' rumoured return to the Commons initially

I think this is a now super-masticated subject.

And what... Well, masticate a little more.

Spit it out. What I would rather do. Spit it out.

That's public school, isn't it?

One person masticates it and the other person spits it out. Oh!

I mean, I thought he missed the killer question, for Paxman is

how much does a razor cost?

You had a beard for a bit, didn t you? I remember that you said,

"Do I look like a submarine captain?"

What made you shave it off?

Blackmail.

That's an excellent... It's an intriguing answer, isn't it?

Going back to Osborne, he made his announcement

that you weren't going to get benefits without doing work

but he said also if they're not doing community service,

jobless people will have to turn up at Jobcentres.

Do you know how long for?

All day. 9 to 5.

Yes. Really? For 35 hours a week.

That's ten minutes a day to check the vacancies

and 34 hours, 10 minutes of Angry Birds.

Also, there's a slight...

Obviously, I'm not taking sides here because I come from a culture

that is quite resilient when it comes to signing on.

Most people... I did it myself for two years, but during...

You used to be able to go to, as they called it,

the labour exchange and I know culture has changed

but there were window-cleaning vans outside and minicabs

and people going, "Hurry up, love, I've got a fare at 8:30."

Now, it's all been stigmatised,

everyone's "spongers" and all of this.

Never mind over in the City and all that.

But people earning a few quid the other way, these days

they want to make out that, you know,

it's the worst possible sin of all. And I say good luck to anyone

if they run their cab down, sign on, get a few more quid

and go home again.

Because making them sit there from 9 to 5 that's just...

that's pushing them around. That was a party political broadcast. I know.

On behalf of the Slightly-Dodgy-But-Quite-Nice Party.

A bit of embezzlement just shows gumption. Embezzlement?!

When I used to work at an employment office,

some people didn't really think it through.

You'd get painters and decorators,

in their overalls, covered in wet paint.

I know, exactly. "I've not had a job for six weeks."

The Tories are trying to out-Thatcher Thatcher

but David Cameron obviously thought,

"Oh, we're going to be called the nasty party again."

So he slipped in this thing about social workers

and how great social workers were.

He got the whole Tory conference applauding.

He said, "Can we have a round of applause

"for those hard-working people, the social workers."

A lot of people going, "Who are they?"

Exactly.

"Social workers?

"Those are the wonderful people who organise parties?" Yes.

Karren Brady, off of The Apprentice, was at the Tory Party conference.

Erm, what was she wearing? I mean, what was she there for? Oh, yeah.

LAUGHTER

I can tell you what she was wearing.

OK, you can say.

It was one of those body-whatsit illusion dresses

that makes you look half the size you are

Yes, a bodycon dress. Is that it? Yeah. Yes. I've never heard of that.

Is it good? Really good. Yeah. Try one next time.

I will, yeah.

Not that I'm saying you need to No. Not saying I want to.

But I will.

We can have a look at Karren Brady's bodycon dress.

If you believed the bodycon there,

you'd just call an ambulance, wouldn't you? Yes.

Brady was there to introduce George Osborne,

do you know how she did that?

George Osborne.

Bill Clinton did Tony Blair once. Really?

I mean, introduced him.

Get your wife to do it now. That's the other thing at the conference.

I think after, after Justine's performance in the Ed Miliband show,

no wife is going to do it again, are they? Anyone see that?

She was told to kiss him though. Oh, and she has to do it?!

Not even prostitutes have to kiss!

APPLAUSE

And there was also a spectre at the feast at the Tory conference.

Do you know who that was?

Ah, Nigel Farage.

Yes. I suppose the ghost of Margaret Thatcher was probably there.

Because she was invoked, wasn't she?

Was she? They did a seance?

Anyway, he turned up, didn't he

Yes, he turned up in Manchester to address a lunatic fringe -

sorry, Freudian slip - a fringe meeting. Um, here he is arriving.

Do you expect a warm welcome at the Tory conference?

No.

Um, that's the spirit, Nige. Shall we, er,

have a look at a picture of Farage

on the front page of The Times this week?

Oh, yeah.

It's Hitler combined with a one-sided Fu Manchu. So...

it shows he's multicultural.

Meanwhile, David Cameron gave an interview to The Sun on Monday

this week. He said that he can do the dance to Gangnam Style.

Urgh!

Erm, a surprising number of people can do that, can't they, Cathy

Oh, God.

# Gangnam style What about C4 style?

# Gangnam style Whop, whop

# C4 style Whop, whop, whop, whop, whop

# Gangnam style C4 style

# Whop, whop, whop, whop Gangnam style

# Waaay, sexy newsroom... #

APPLAUSE Oh, God!

Could we ask the question why?

It was... It was showing that a woman can dance in high heels

and not be inhibited. Exactly. DANNY: Yeah. And that was news?!

But at least I wasn't twerking. No, you weren't twerking.

It could've been much worse.

Oh, hang on, that's your editor on the phone...

This is the Tory Party conference held in Manchester.

An eye-catching policy announced this week is that people

claiming unemployment benefit will be made to pick up litter.

This could put the people

who are currently paid to pick up litter out of a job

but the good news is, they will then be forced to do it for free.

George Osborne revealed during the conference:

God, even THEY hate him!

Ian and Cathy, take a look at this.

It's Ed Miliband trying not to listen to an Ed Balls speech?

Oh, look, there's someone spying on him from The Mail.

And that's Karl Marx's grave.

This is the Labour conference which was equally thrilling.

Stirred the Tories up. It did. They were very worried about it

And they had Damian McBride's book, which was very entertaining.

I'm sure you all read it. Apparently Blair and Brown heated each other.

Really(?)

Yeah, no, it was one of those shock horror books that we all got very

over-excited about.

But, unfortunately for Miliband he was one of the gang.

So it was him and Balls and McBride

who were all working for Gordon Brown,

who doesn't come out well.

Yes, this was Damian McBride was hoping to upstage the conference.

Did you see him being introduced on Newsnight?

Damian McBride,

McPoison as he's known to his many enemies, or McPrick-Face

as he was referred to in a recent cache of Downing Street e-mails

He's so used to being called McPrick-Face.

He also caused a fight, didn't he?

Um, because he was doing an interview.

Yes, during the Labour conference in Brighton,

an interview with Damian McBride didn't go entirely to plan.

I mean, I think if...

DOG GROWLS

..I've said worse things about myself in the book...

DOG GROWLS

INTERVIEW BLURRED BY BARKS AND GROWLS

APPLAUSE

That's Iain Dale who's... Who is the publisher of the book!

So what he was... That man's a long-term protester

who likes to get himself into news stories. The publisher of this book,

who hadn't been invited to the conference, was trying

to get his book into a news story, started pushing the other man out.

They were both shamelessly trying to hijack the conference

so they ended up beating each other up.

The dog seemed to be biting the arse of its owner, though.

Dogs are extremely fickle.

He could see where the power shift was going.

What's been the other big story about Miliband this week?

Well this upstaged the Tory conference. Yes.

The Daily Mail managed to not merely shoot its own foot off

but sort of blow it off with a mortar.

They had a go at Miliband's father.

They ran a piece saying this is the man who hated Britain.

On the evidence of one entry in a diary when he was 16,

when he'd just arrived as a refugee in this country.

Before he fought for the country in the world war. Yeah.

So it was the most pathetic piece.

Did they accuse the father of being a committed Marxist?

What is the point of being an uncommitted Marxist?

Even if we suppose and make the leap of faith that,

you know, his old man did hate Britain -

my dad hated David Bowie, I think Hunky Dory's a masterpiece -

it doesn't work like that.

Apparently they've played the national anthem outside the grave

and the corpse hasn't stood up and saluted

so therefore, you know, that's all the proof they need.

What I think will be embarrassing, the editor of the Mail,

the Mail is owned by the Rothermere family. Yeah.

And once you start saying, you know, "What did your dad do?"

The current Lord Rothermere's father loved Britain so much

he went to live in France as a tax exile.

Erm, he then passed on that non dom status to his son who doesn't

actually pay the normal amount of tax, despite owning a newspaper

that's owned through various companies in Bermuda.

Erm, so, once you start doing, "I'm looking at your family,"

it gets embarrassing. And I think the Rothermere family,

if you want to go further back we get to the great-grandfather who,

let's join in together, ran the headline -

"Hurrah for the Blackshirts".

But the Daily Mail went on to publish

a full-page apology for that, didn't they?

What? For the Blackshirts? Yeah. Yeah.

No, they didn't.

Once you start throwing this stuff around it gets embarrassing.

I think, you know, they will find that their editor

is now a major embarrassment. Yeah, gone toxic.

The figures they kept saying when he was on Newsnight,

the fella they actually did put on Newsnight to be the fall guy,

he said, "Oh, well if you're going to go back 80 years,"

as opposed to the 75 years

you're going back for Ed Miliband... When he was 17.

There's a 75 year cut-off point, that's how journalism works.

I mean, I thought

it was quite funny that Dacre's nickname at the Mail is Mugabe.

He's very old, he won't retire and he hates the opposition.

The ancestor,

the first Viscount Rothermere of the current owner

of the Daily Mail, do you know what

he had to say about Britain's enemies, the Nazis, in 1933?

Open the borders.

He said:

LAUGHTER AND GROANING

What was the subsequent development in this story?

They sent a journalist or two journalists along to

Miliband's uncle's memorial service to get quotes off people.

Guys Hospital. Guys hospital. Did you know the deceased?

What did you think about Ed Miliband's dad? I know!

Two rogue journalists working on their own initiative, a couple

of bad apples, make the whole thing, making the whole paper look bad

Not like the one who put up a photograph of his dad's

gravestone, which was an error of judgment.

Did you see how the Daily Mali, which as you all know is...

Daily Mali?

It's all about everything to do with Mali, apparently,

they tweeted that they wanted to make clear they had absolutely nothing

whatsoever to do with the Daily Mail!

Brilliant!

Yes, the editor of the Mail On Sunday has apologised:

Describing what they did as:

It's important to note that he apologised on behalf

of The Mail On Sunday.

The editor of The Mail On Sunday is a man called Geordie Greig who is

quite keen to get Paul Dacre's job.

Um, and has somewhat increased his chances this week

Ed Miliband of course used his conference speech to position

himself further to the left of politics, people say, but

did you see how he appears to be growing his own Michael Goves?

You can see sort of...

It's like a Gove farm.

On the right, that's a sort of young beginner Gove and then slightly

more mature further to the left

And then the one on the left of the picture, that's nearly finished

DANNY: Actually looks like the world's dullest boy band, don't it?

No Direction!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And finally, would anyone like to see the chat-up technique

of Danny "fancy a brandy" Alexander? Oh, yeah.

This conference has been so busy so many things to do.

So I haven't been up, haven't been up late...relaxing in the bar.

So, that's not a problem. That'll come on Wednesday maybe

Maybe tonight. Maybe tonight? Good.

How about you? Um...

Yes, this is the Labour Party Conference

and the Daily Mail's character assassination of Marxist historian

Ralph Miliband, who they described as:

For legal reasons, we can't make any derogatory comments about

Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre but apparently his dad's an arsehole.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, WAS an arsehole!

Education Secretary Michael Gove is one of the few people

to defend the Daily Mail,

saying that political commentators should always have:

I couldn't agree more, you four-eyed reptilian toss pot.

APPLAUSE

And now it's time to play The Wheel Of News Or Not News.

I'll spin the wheel and you have to identify the story and tell me

if it's news or not news.

Cathy, all you have to think is, would we do this on Channel 4 News?

And if the answer's yes, you'll know it could be either

So, let's spin the wheel.

DRUM ROLL

BUZZER

Not news. It's, um... Well, what's the story?

There isn't a story - it's not news.

It's a policeman giving Iain Duncan Smith a head massage.

Clairvoyant police?

It IS clairvoyant police.

And it's...

The police are going to be able to predict crimes before they happen.

Ah! They'll be like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, only taller.

And do you have any idea how they're going to do this? No. No.

You think I'm making it up? No, not making it up.

I think you're reading out something that somebody else has made up

Well, according to pre-crime Commander Simon Letchford...

Pre-crime? Pre-crime.

Which has already identified the county of Midsomer.

Sounds absolutely ridiculous.

Someone has just...

They put on the map where someone has just stolen something.

By definition, there is now less to steal there,

and so the chances of a burglary there MUST be reduced.

It's all gone.

OK, that makes some sense, yes, it does.

No, it doesn't, it's just nonsense.

This is the news of police plans to predict crimes before they happen.

Will it work? It already has -

in two years' time. Enjoy that one on Dave during the riots.

The technique of identifying

and arresting potential criminals before they commit a crime

is based on a method developed by the Metropolitan Police...

known as institutional racism.

APPLAUSE

Give it another spin.

DRUM ROLL

BUZZER

Yes, Bridget Jones' Diary is coming out - this is news or not news

and the hero of the previous books is no longer with us.

It started off in a Sunday newspaper who not

coincidently had paid for the serialisation of the book.

So the fact that they thought it was news maybe due

to the fact that they paid a great deal of money for it.

And then it appears on this programme along with a stupid

pre-crime report.

Who killed Mark Darcy? I expect you already know!

LAUGHTER

I've got an idea. If we got ourselves a gallon of petrol

we could set fire to The Wheel Of News.

You're right, this is not news

This is the not news that an author has got a book out

but that didn't stop it being a story on the BBC 10 O'clock News.

On Channel 4 News you stuck to the big news...

like this...

I saw a man with a fan in the basket of his bicycle in Westminster today.

That's a sign of the times. That's Channel 4 News.

And the last spin.

DRUM ROLL

Ooh! It's a fictional character. Oh, no, no, no.

America's gone bankrupt

because its fictional character s been killed off?

And it's all closed. Republicans and Democrats can't agree on the budget.

And is that news or not news? DANNY: Oh, it's news.

The Republicans can't agree with the fact that they lost. Yeah.

They lost the election and they lost this vote repeatedly

but the Tea Party, which is a sort of UKIP with guns, um...

..have decided that basically they don't care.

Um, America, home of democracy,

vote goes the wrong way, you refuse to accept it.

So they've basically said, "No we're not going to agree."

So they would literally rather America close down

than a very, very minor and not very radical change

is made to public health care.

There are 800,000 federal workers

who've been forced to take unpaid leave.

According to the Guardian:

An idea they got from BT.

This is the news that America has closed until further notice.

If your enquiry is urgent, please contact Canada.

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

Your four are...

SpongeBob SquarePants, Sally Bercow,

Walter Tell and Carmen Miranda

BUZZER Three!

CATHY: Sally Bercow - fruitcake?

No, she was caught. This... I'm sure I saw this on Channel 4 News.

This was big.

She was at one of the conferences balancing some

item of fruit on her head in a bar.

Yes, that's correct.

Walter Tell, son of William, balanced an apple on his head

and had it shot off by his father.

Carmen Miranda had a whole bowl of fruit on her head.

Fantastic and sang Yes, We Have No Bananas. SpongeBob SquarePants

He's quite a guy.

Bob is the odd one out.

Is it because he... he's got a friend called Patrick.

And he's the odd one out

because nobody else knows anybody called Patrick.

Where does SpongeBob live?

ALL: Under the sea.

Yes, but also, under...?

A pineapple. Yes!

APPLAUSE DANNY: Hello.

How would you describe his voice, Ian?

Er, rough, manly.

Touch of Lord Hailsham.

Well, Tom Kenny the man behind the distinctive voice describes it as...

Which is also a starter at Heston Blumenthal's.

And, um, can you name any of Carmen Miranda's hits? Yes.

BOTH: # I, I, I, I like you very much. #

# Down among Brazilians coffee beans go by the millions

# And they got a lot of coffee there to sell

# There's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. #

At last! The show's coming to life!

Carmen Miranda cracked America but her English wasn't great.

She told one magazine:

She went on to teach Nancy Dell Olio how to speak English.

Yes, they've all had fruit on their heads apart from

SpongeBob SquarePants,

who lives under a pineapple in a fun town under the sea.

Sort of like Blackpool will be once all the fracking starts.

According to the Daily Mail,

late one night at the Labour Party Conference, Sally Bercow...

..tried to balance a pineapple on her head.

"I really regret this embarrassing incident

"and I'm just grateful I wasn't caught on camera looking so stupid,"

said the pineapple.

Time now for the Missing Words round and we start with:

One of the rounds on Bake Off.

Do you think you could just add boiling water and he'll come back.

The process reduces the body to powder and has been

pioneered by a company called:

Whose slogan proudly states,

"We're the people who put the gran into granules."

Next:

Pulls plug on political career as he admits that he's going to spend more

time with his 16-year-old friends.

Spend more time in jail!

CATHY: On attempt to topple the government.

Yes, quite right, news. News. Let's get back to news.

You're absolutely right. It is

As his political career draws to a close,

the one thing Berlusconi is desperately hoping for is immunity.

Not just from prosecution,

but also from every known sexually transmitted disease.

And finally:

DANNY: Eating yellow snow?

No.

GROANING

This, erm... Is that a big problem in Iceland? Well, I imagine...

There's not many of them there.

I imagine it's a smaller gene pool than in other countries.

It is dark a lot of the time, too.

This is an app which tells you if your date is a relative.

All you have to do is just press a button and Bob's your uncle.

So...don't have sex with him!

APPLAUSE

So, the final scores are:

Paul and Danny have six points

but Ian and Cathy have seven.

Yeah! Yeah!

APPLAUSE

And I leave you with news that in a bid to combat accusations

of ageism, the BBC re-employ Percy Thrower on Gardeners' World.

At the studios of Sky TV,

as the set is constructed for his new Politics Show, Adam Boulton

is about to regret naming the programme Talk It Through.

And...

And following the split in the Church of England over

same-sex marriage, the Synod meets to discuss an even more

controversial proposal.

Good night.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

So far, the Scottish referendum has focused on whether

independence is good or bad for Scotland.

But whether Scotland votes yes or no,

what does it mean for the rest of the UK?

With Andrew Neil.