Episode 5 The Mash Report

This programme contains some strong language.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Oh, yes. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Hello and welcome to The Mash Report, and what a week it's been.

In a speech on Wednesday, Boris Johnson offered up his liberal version of Brexit.

Johnson claimed his speech would offer hope and optimism.

Look, let's face it, it's easy for Boris Johnson to be optimistic -

you would be too if your life was just basically being

terrible at your job and then immediately getting a better job.

The way things are going, if Brexit goes badly enough, he's going to end up being the next James Bond.

Who else could be Boris Johnson's Bond girl other than Boris Johnson?

It's not the biggest stretch in the world, at the end of the day.

Boris Johnson and James Bond are both privately educated,

wealthy white men who have complicated relationships

with women and ethnic minorities.

Remember that? When James Bond disguised himself as Japanese

and everyone was like, "That is...normal."

The speech offered nothing but empty rhetoric

and nothing about what Brexit would actually involve.

And that's what people are worried about now,

especially in the week the Home Office announced,

in order to cope with the changes to our immigration system

after leaving the EU, it's going to require a system

that they said is almost certainly not going to be ready in time.

When it comes to Brexit, why is nothing ever ready in time?

Why on earth did we just trigger Article 50

without any thought of whether the two-year time period

would be enough to get everything sorted?

So we're currently about to miss an unrealistic deadline that we set ourselves.

That's like deciding you're going to achieve

all your New Year's resolutions by 2nd January.

It sounds like a good idea but it's all going to end up with you on a treadmill screaming,

"This clarinet has too many buttons and Spanish is muy difficulto."

The news this week was dominated by the appalling

allegations of bullying, harassment

and inappropriate sexual behaviour carried out by Oxfam workers.

Initial accusations centred around Roland van Hauwermeiren

and his team who were assigned to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

Oxfam then allowed some of them to resign.

They faced no criminal investigation

and in some cases were able to go and work for other charities.

And now allegations are starting to spread to other Oxfam projects around the world.

The Guardian described it as the aid sector's #MeToo moment,

although given that it's the aid sector,

it's not so much #MeToo as it is

#you too seriously you're supposed to be helping people

are you fucking kidding me everything is terrible.

This is clearly a horrific story.

Some of the responses have been very strange.

Trevor Kavanagh, writing in The Sun,

took the opportunity to seemingly attack the concept of charity.

He describes charity as one of Britain's dirtiest secrets.

And then said, "Big charity and corruption go together like mosquitoes and malaria."

Look, nobody is denying that Oxfam have behaved appallingly

and there needs to be a serious investigation into how these

abuses and cover-ups have been allowed to happen,

and questions need to be asked.

But those questions do not include, "Is charity good?

"Should we have charities?

"And is Pudsey a freeloading little shit?

"I bet he's got a healthy eye behind that patch."

Now over to the Mash newsdesk for the latest headlines.

APPLAUSE

The latest headlines.

Jamie Oliver's restaurants in trouble as it emerges he's not Italian.

Teenage love poet wondering what rhymes with boner.

And savoury pancakes are bullshit, says Pope.

But first, now that Valentine's Day is over, a married couple

are relieved they don't have to have sex again until his birthday.

Kenneth Kramer romanced his wife, Joanna,

with mid-priced Belgian chocolates.

The couple then endured five minutes of adequate lovemaking

in the missionary position before resuming

their comfortable brother-and-sister dynamic.

-We've been married for about five years.

-Is it?

-Yes.

-Gosh.

So at this point it takes a good few months to gear ourselves up

-to see each other naked, doesn't it?

-Yes, absolutely.

I mean, just the idea of it...

-Yes!

-But once we get going, it is fine.

-Oh, absolutely.

-Really quite lovely and...

-Really good. Yes.

Because I can think about Natalie Imbruglia and...

-Who is it you pretend I am, again, sweetheart?

-Your brother Stephen.

Yes. My brother Stephen.

But we've got it out the way now so we don't have to do it again

-until anyone's birthday.

-Yes, and that's not until November.

-BOTH: Phewee!

-Oh, sorry!

Now I can go back to seeing you as a totally asexual housemaid

whose bowel movements I overhear every morning.

And I can go back to touching myself in the shower.

-Happy Valentine's Day, darling.

-Happy Valentine's Day.

-Ha-ha. Yes, yes.

-How nice.

-Yes.

And now for a special Winter Olympics bulletin from Nathan,

who's track-side in Pyeongchang,

where it's been an exciting day for Finland's Rinsu Skrnsson,

taking the gold in the 2 x 4,000m uphill Nordic skjord.

Skrnsson came in at 16 hours 28 seconds and 14 trees,

a mere one hundredth of a tree ahead of Sweden's Grunter Halbordshmardonsonson.

But it was a day of mixed fortunes for the Finns after Hedia Trykkso

and Dugya Hylvs were disqualified from the Chamsark ice fluting after a flagrant triple byerk.

I understand there was upset in the men's byuutobarg,

with Sweden's Rinsu Baumborg snapping his skenssohn

in a collision with team-mate Bampoo Bampbap.

Actually, the real surprise came in the women's husky svekkling.

Neurnberg Bernruug wowed the crowd with a 12 metre triple skruuntraag,

then immediately announced she was quitting sport to go feral.

I understand Nether Grengahd was leading in the svekkling until the

lead husky, Svelborg, succumbed to pelt rot in the final rhedlung.

Yes, the husky unfortunately took an early sauna,

or as we say in Britain, they shot it.

Thanks, Nathan. We'll be back with more later.

This week Jacob Rees-Mogg has quietly become

the bookies' favourite to succeed embattled Prime Minister Theresa May

as leader of the Conservative Party.

Taking a look at the man behind the headlines, please welcome Rachel Parris.

APPLAUSE

Thank you, that's right, Nish.

Lots of people have been getting in touch to ask,

"Who is this plucky upstart Jacob Rees-Mogg?

"And is he as much fun as he seems?"

Well, the answer is yes, Nish.

Jacob Rees-Mogg is a huge amount of fun - quintessentially English

and old-fashioned.

A delightful Bertie Wooster-esque eccentric.

Jeeves and Wooster, Downton Abbey, The Crown.

British people love throwbacks to a simpler time

when the upper classes ruled over us with patronising benevolence.

-Nish, do you like being patronised?

-No.

-No? I think you'll find you do.

Is there more to Mogg than this old-fashioned facade?

People are really engaging with Mogg's authenticity.

He's not afraid to be traditional

and vote with his deeply held Christian beliefs.

So, let's take a quick look at this aristocrat millionaire's voting record.

Now, as you can see here,

he consistently votes against gay rights,

women's reproductive rights, human rights and equality!

He's an absolute rotter, isn't he, Nish?

Just like Bertie Wooster in PG Wodehouse's acclaimed novels

Bertie And The Disabled Scrounger

and Don't Be Gay, Jeeves!

Rees-Mogg attributes many of his opinions to his Catholic faith.

He has talked candidly about how his religion dictates

that he opposes same-sex marriage.

He also opposes abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.

Oh, hang on! I've just seen this jaunty photo of him!

-LAUGHS

-Such a card, I love him!

So, Rees-Mogg does seem to rather cherry pick

parts of the Bible to follow.

He is oddly obsessed by the traditional marriage bit but not

so worried about all of the taking care of the poor and the meek.

You see, Jesus was famously quite pro meek...

..whereas Mogg is an unashamed meek sceptic.

He voted to block unaccompanied child refugees

in Calais from finding safety in the UK.

Thinking about it, Rees-Mogg would have absolutely hated Jesus.

He was an immigrant who could walk on water! Argh!

-It's the worst nightmare!

-APPLAUSE

-No passport control for the son of God.

-Absolutely not.

Now, the English love wordplay

and he's even got a half-hearted pun on his own name - Moggmentum.

It's a play on the Labour organisation Momentum

but it's got Mogg inside it, which isn't something any of us want.

So, let's just take a Moggment to look at his attitude

to women's reproductive rights.

One thing people really like about Mogg is that he's very polite,

and when asked whether abortion should be opposed in every case,

he replied, "I'm afraid so." Lovely.

Well, etiquette is everything when it comes to who controls my womb.

I've always been very clear on that, Nish.

Another thing that people love about the pro-life Etonian

is that he is unapologetic about his views. And I can understand that.

When people hold terrible views that can ruin people's lives,

the last thing you want is an apology.

And you know who else was famously unapologetic in their views?

All of the bad people in history.

Indeed, Jacob Rees-Mogg stated in an interview, "I am what I am."

Echoing the voices of gay people across the world whose rights he sought to curtail.

So, Nish, the question is,

was Jacob Rees-Mogg born this way or is it more of a lifestyle choice?

I don't think anyone chooses to be Jacob Rees-Mogg.

No, I don't think so.

Well, one thing is sure, Rees-Mogg's eccentricity, posed or authentic,

provides the perfect cover for some horrifying reactionary values.

A Mogg premiership would help return Britain to a golden age where

women were second-class citizens, homosexuality was illegal and

foreigners, even desperate children, were treated with utter suspicion.

It will be just like PG Wodehouse's hilarious novel,

Bertie Erases 100 Years Of Human Progress.

-Thank you, Nish.

-Thank you very much, Rachel Parris.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, let's take a look at immigration, and apparently that's

something we need to do, given how often we hear this.

It's almost inevitable that we need to talk about immigration.

Who will say anything on this panel about the catastrophe of mass immigration?

Let's talk about why 640,000 people came last year.

And given on Wednesday morning the Foreign Secretary said this...

We also need to ask ourselves some hard questions

about the impact of 20 years of uncontrolled immigration

by low-skilled, low-wage workers

and what many see as the consequent suppression of wages and

failure to invest properly in the skills of indigenous young people.

OK, look, saying we need to ask ourselves some hard questions

implies that we haven't been asking those questions already.

Is it just me? I feel like all we do is talk about immigration.

It feels like for most of my adult life the only things

we talk about are immigration and how we never talk about immigration.

Also, Bake Off.

And there was that time when we combined them both

when Nadiya Hussain was in it and the Daily Mail lost their mind

and suggested that to win now you had to make something they called a chocolate mosque!

Chocolate Mosque sounds like Ben & Jerry's are launching

new flavours to capture the religious market.

Next it'll be Candyfloss Synagogue and Mint Choc Church.

So, let's look at how these so-called hard questions

have already been asked and answered and subsequently ignored.

In May 2016 the Centre For Economic Performance published

an exhaustive study on the impact of immigration from the EU

on the UK between 1995 and 2015.

The report concluded that EU immigrants had no impact

on the jobs or wages of UK-born workers, had no negative

effect on local services such as crime, health and social housing

and paid more in tax than they took out in welfare and public services.

The report finds, rather than being the fault of immigrants,

these problems were the result of the 2008 crash and the slow economic recovery.

So, why was this ignored? Maybe because facts are boring.

Basically, the only person we'll tolerate facts from any more is David Attenborough.

It only took one episode of Blue Planet for him

to single-handedly end straws.

He's the first person in history to say, "That's the last straw," and mean it literally.

Boris Johnson ignored these facts because it clearly would have undermined the Leave campaign.

In the lead-up to the vote, a pro-Brexit minister, Bernard Jenkin,

told Newsnight they plan to go on the offensive on immigration.

The hostility was relentless,

from the campaign and its supporters in the media.

The writer Liz Gerard found that between 1st January

and the date of the referendum, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express

each published 34 front-page articles about immigration.

In case you were wondering, none of them were positive.

There were no headlines like, "Immigrant Saves Boy From Killer Shark,"

or, "Foreigners Make Lovely Jam."

The Leave campaign was given a helping hand by years

of anti-immigration sentiment that had been encouraged by these guys.

Immigration in this country, as I said,

was too high and out of control.

Put simply, Britain was a soft touch.

We help our citizens get jobs

instead of more immigration from abroad.

People want Government to have control over the number

of people coming here and the circumstances in which they come.

Cameron and Osborne spent years shifting the blame onto immigrants

for worsening conditions for British people

when in fact it was their now discredited programme

of austerity that was doing just that.

But when the time came for them to lead a pro-EU campaign,

the damage had already been done.

The British electoral study asked around 15,000 voters one key question - what matters to you

when deciding how to vote in the EU referendum?

They took the responses and made it into a word cloud.

This is what the Leave voters' one looked like.

That does not look like a word cloud.

That looks like an MRI scan of Nigel Farage's brain.

We've been subjected to years of lies about immigration,

and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Last month the Home Affairs Select Committee published a paper

called Immigration Policy: Basis for Building Consensus,

which said the Government needs to be more proactive

in challenging myths and inaccuracies and publish more

factual information about the costs and benefits of immigration.

And I'm afraid that while this is sound logic,

it's a tad too late for the Brexit vote.

It's a bit like shutting the stable door

after the horse has not only bolted but is now glue.

And if we're to learn the lessons of the last...

The horse doesn't exist. Who are you sympathising with?

If we're to learn the lessons of the last few years,

to move forward with a proper conversation about immigration

we need to dispel these myths

and remember that immigrants are human beings

that don't deserve to be demonised to appease bigots

or used to score political points, like these two morons did.

But the sad fact is that intolerance to immigrants is an easy sell.

They look different to you and they sound different to you

so everything must be their fault.

Countering feeling with facts is difficult, but also some people

will never listen because their hostilities are purely racist

and there's no point in me of all people trying to change their minds.

You never hear someone saying, "You know why I stopped being racist?

"Because a brown man told me on the iPlayer."

But what about everyone else?

Well, if you're trying to get people to take in a large number of facts

without switching off, there's only one man for the job - David Attenborough.

Our only hope is that the next series of Blue Planet sounds like this.

-AS ATTENBOROUGH:

-Here's a weird jellyfish.

Also what's weird in the decade up to 2011 -

immigrants from the European economic area

paid 34% more in taxes than they received in benefits.

Blammo. You just got Attenboroughed.

Areas of the UK with large increases in EU immigration

did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers.

Those falls were the result of the recession and a slow recovery.

Tick, tick, boom.

Turtles just want security for their children.

You know who else wants security for their children?

EU citizens being routinely used as a bargaining chip.

Attenborough out.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Let's go over to The Mash newsdesk for the latest headlines.

The latest headlines -

man takes second sick day for authenticity.

"We must not betray Brexit,"

says man who would sell his mum for a sniff of power.

And snowboarding - just skateboarding for twats in cold places.

But first, Christians worldwide have been remembering

the martyrdom of St Pancake of Antioch.

St Pancake, born in rural Turkey around 500 AD, was a leading

figure in the Byzantine Church with a reputation for charity and wisdom,

but it is the manner of his execution for which he is best remembered.

This week millions re-enacted St Pancake's death agonies.

He was beaten and battered, then stuffed full of cheese.

St Pancake was subsequently fried on both sides.

He was then tossed repeatedly into the air in a cruel mockery

of his belief that he might one day ascend to heaven or,

as St Pancake himself described in his text De Recipus,

"The righteously made shalt adhere to the celestial ceiling."

A moving tale of sacrifice and deliciousness.

More from us later. APPLAUSE

Several recent polls have the Conservatives ahead of the Labour Party,

including a YouGov survey which suggested the Tories are now four points in front,

this despite all the infighting, ongoing austerity and the Government's handling of Brexit.

To tell us where the Labour Party is going wrong,

it's the voice of Conservative Britain, Geoff Norcott.

-Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

-Geoff, you seem pleased.

-It's brilliant. I'm really enjoying it. Labour are so shit.

-Right.

I know it's unusual for the party in opposition to be behind at any time,

let alone during the sort of current turmoil.

It's weird, isn't it? Corbyn was massive last year.

This year, nothing. He's like fidget spinners, isn't he?

Or Pokemon GO.

There's old Corbachu.

Which does sound strangely Russian, like most of his ideas.

I think, you know, ultimately a lot of the problems come from the Labour membership.

They're stuck with Corbyn, the Labour Party. And he knows that.

Like all British workers, when they know they cannot be sacked,

you kick back a bit, don't you? You sort of phone it in.

He's sitting there thinking, "The membership love me.

"I don't need to think of any coherent ideas.

"I'll just sit here and google recipes for chutney."

-Do you know what I mean?

-Labour have youth on their side.

I mean, we all remember the sort of great youth quake at the last general election.

Yeah, and it turns out that youth quake didn't really happen.

The youth vote only went up by 2.5% so, you know, that's millennials, mate.

Couldn't even be arsed to turn up to their own statistic.

But the surge in party membership, that can't be ignored.

No, that's the biggest problem because you only had to be

a Labour Party member for 30 seconds and you got to vote for the leader.

It's harder to vote on Strictly than it is for Labour leader.

Do you think that their stance on Brexit is helping?

I don't think Strictly have a stance on Brexit.

Any other areas of concern?

Yeah, Labour have also become increasingly identified

-with, like, identity politics.

-Sure.

They had this conference up north which initially they planned

to charge white people more to attend.

Which is a sort of a great way of offending everybody, isn't it?

Speaking of which, there has also been a row over

the Young Labour equalities conference,

where if you're a straight, white able-bodied male, you can't attend.

Who's going to put away the chairs, you know?

I mean, I don't know, Geoff.

I mean, if there's one thing white guys can do,

we can put away a chair, Nish.

Don't take that away from us.

As a representative of the Asian community, I'll say,

we'll give it a go.

LAUGHTER

We seem to have done all right with medicine.

All right, fair enough, fair enough.

But they've also got a problem with the Shadow Cabinet.

I mean, you have, like, McDonnell,

you've got Diane Abbott, Emily Thornbury,

all of whom seem like liabilities to much of middle England.

Geoff, you say liabilities,

may I remind you that our current Foreign Secretary is Boris Johnson?

Agreed. But the alternative is Emily Thornberry.

She seems like a laugh, but she also seems a couple of bottles of Cava

and she could start a missile crisis.

One heavy lunch, we could be balls-deep in Yemen.

I mean, I'm not sure how that's different from our current policy

but anyway, continue.

You know what, actually, their biggest problem is

in terms of personality, a lot of people focus on Corbyn,

I think is John McDonnell.

Let's have a look at the man himself. Looking scary as ever.

He's the Shadow Chancellor and, some would say, a raging Communist.

He's the Shadow Chancellor, he doesn't even like money.

That's like putting a vegan in charge of the barbecue.

Great, everyone's getting grilled red peppers tonight.

No lamb chops for anybody.

-That's how socialism works, basically.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

-Is that really...?

-Yeah, that is exactly how socialism works.

-OK.

You can't just say that, you have to back this up.

What has he done to make you think

-that he is some sort of secret revolutionary?

-Loads.

He stood in front of Communist flags at a May Day rally.

He was filmed giving a talk at a Marxist training camp.

And you know that poster all lefties have of Che Guevara?

-Right.

-Yeah, his is signed.

-His safe word is Stalin.

-OK.

If he's such a radical,

why are businesses queueing up to have lunch with him?

Basically, CEOs want to know exactly how long they've got

before they've got to flee the country, you know.

Come on, Nish, if Piers Morgan became director general of the BBC,

you'd have a little lunch, wouldn't you, find out where his head's at?

I mean, build some bridges.

With Piers Morgan I'm pretty sure

I know exactly where his head is at, and...

LAUGHTER

WHOOPING

Look, Geoff, not that you'd want to help them, but do you have

any advice on how Labour can get themselves out of this mess?

Well, yeah, I do have a few things.

-Number one, just forget about the northerners.

-What?!

You'll never keep them happy. It's actually impossible.

Just cut 'em adrift and focus on the NutriBullet wankers down south.

That would be my...

OK, anything else that doesn't somehow manage to offend

the entire country?

Uh, yeah. Bring back Ed Miliband. That would be the...

-OK, so you think he'd do better?

-No, I just think it'd be a laugh.

I am not having this, Geoff.

Before you go I want one constructive piece of advice.

That's what you said you'd come here to do,

we want one piece of advice.

I'd just be honest about who Jeremy Corbyn is.

Just say, yes, he does want to leave the EU.

And we know he's just an old trot who likes pissing about

in the allotment, knitting protest banners

and blaming Thatcher cos his telly doesn't work.

Geoff, Corbyn at least has captured people who weren't necessarily

engaged in politics before.

I mean, look at Grime4Corbyn. Look at that as a movement.

No, the youth stuff is bollocks, right.

He doesn't know jack shit about grime music.

When they said Stormzy's coming,

he said "Ooh, better get the washing in, then."

Ladies and gentlemen, Geoff Norcott!

-Cheers, thank you.

-APPLAUSE

Geoff, nice one, mate.

The latest headlines.

John McDonnell banned from Monopoly

after nationalising all the utilities.

Other drinks cans think San Pellegrino is an arsehole.

And miracle cat knows when old people are about to be racist.

But first, it's emerged a woman who says,

"You'll either love me or you'll hate me," is universally hated.

Donna Sheridan, aged 24, believes her blunt-speaking

no-nonsense approach to life wins her friends and enemies alike,

despite it never having won her any friends.

We spoke to Donna earlier.

I take no prisoners. I don't take crap from anyone.

I'm real and I tell it like it is.

And if you don't like me, then that is your problem.

I split people down the middle, I'm a strong personality.

Like, I've always done everything on my own, I haven't had any help

from anybody.

So at the end of the day, it's, like, if you can't drag yourself up,

I'm not going to drag you up, you know what I mean?

Like, everything I've done, I've done my own

and at the end of the day I'm not apologising for that,

and I don't think I should have to.

So, sorry, if your ego can't take it but I can take it,

I'm willing to step out and be that person.

So, sorry not-sorry.

Everyone hates her.

That's all from us.

Let's quickly go over to Rachel Parris at the social media wall

to pick up on your comments and queries about all the stories coming in.

-Rachel!

-Thanks, Nish.

Obviously, earlier on I criticised a leading Brexiteer

so I am getting a lot of tweets calling me a snowflake bitch.

Which the Mash digital team are telling me is great engagement

so please do keep those coming in.

One of the less-rabidly insane tweets has been coming in from

Jacobs Stepladder who says...

What a lovely name.

Apparently, they call him Six Dom Bon Chris for short.

-Did you know that, Nish?

-I don't and I don't think that's true.

Another powerful political tweet here,

this time about the Labour leader...

It continues...

It's nice to have Tony Blair back in politics, isn't it, Nish?

It's like he was never away.

And UmbongoUmbongo They Drink It In Cheltenham says...

LAUGHTER

A classic night in.

-Back to you, Nish.

-Thank you, Rachel Parris!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That's all for us.

Don't forget to tune in to our spin-off show,

The Mash Report Extra Serving starting right now in my own mind.

Goodnight!