I'm Phil. I got this gig last night and my first time hosting.
Very excited!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The originally planned host had to be cancelled
for impartiality things,
because the election was announced yesterday,
which I think makes me the only person I know who's benefited
from Rishi Sunak's premiership.
This programme contains some strong language.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good evening. Welcome to Have I Got News For You.
I'm Phil Wang.
In the news this week - old footage emerges
of how Anton du Beke lost his job at the London Aquarium.
In Oxfordshire, after years of torment,
Brian Blessed's downstairs neighbours snap
and get their revenge.
And in Downing Street, amid the media frenzy,
one journalist tries to get a discreet word
with the Prime Minister.
Finally... Are you looking forward to the election?
Can you win it? Can you win it?
On Ian's team tonight is a member of the House of Lords
who once wanted to become a war correspondent.
In dangerous territory, surrounded by enemy forces
and a hostile local population,
she led the Scottish Conservative Party for eight years.
Please welcome Baroness Ruth Davidson.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
On Paul's team tonight is an author whose book The Thursday Murder Club
is being turned into a film by Steven Spielberg,
who hasn't made too many changes to the original,
although now the killer is a velociraptor.
Please welcome Richard Osman.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
We begin with the big news stories of the week.
Ian and Ruth, have a look at this.
Oh, God, it's Drowning Street.
Things can only get wetter.
There he is, pretending it's fine.
Oh, this is balance. We have the Lib Dems second.
Third, Labour.
I don't think so.
So, apparently, there's going to be an election. Yes.
Now, we do have to be very careful about balance.
Why have we got a Tory Baroness on, then?
I'm absolute hardline Reform, so it's OK.
The one thing that a prime minister has in his locker is that they get
to choose the exact timing and the manner in which you call
for an election.
So you really get to nail the announcement.
We do actually have a clip of this auspicious announcement,
shall we have a look?
And with a clear plan and bold action,
we'll deliver a secure future for you, your family,
and our United Kingdom.
You can just sort of tell that once the door shut behind him,
all you could hear was, "AAAAGH!"
RICHARD:No, I bet he would have shook himself like a dog.
His hair was standing up pretty good in that downpour.
Wasn't it just? That's amazing.
Whoever does his hair should be in charge of stopping the boats.
Yeah.
Could this be interpreted as God being angry with the Tories?
I think it could. And when you're delivering this...
I was just saying that for balance.
Yeah, you have to maintain a balance.
So every time we say something against somebody,
we have to sort of balance that by saying something positive,
as Ian's just demonstrated.
Absolutely. So you could say the launch of the election by Sunak
was really pitiful.
But the next day, he was dreadful. Yeah.
Yes, exactly.
I was thinking, if Rishi Sunak had a suit that shrunk in the wet,
it could look like he was growing.
He's so desperate to lose. You can see it.
He just... He wants to go on holiday in August, doesn't he?
Do you know what? He wants to move to LA, doesn't he?
The school year presumably starts in September. Yeah.
So he's thinking, "I'm not going to have an election in November."
He is so desperate to lose. Yeah.
He literally never wants to hear the word "sewage" again.
He never wants to hear the word "Rwanda" again.
He never wants to hear the word "Grant Shapps" again.
He's got to pretend that he's putting his all into it.
He was behind that door going,
"The second it starts raining, tell me. I'm going out.
"Umbrella? Oh, no." Yeah. "Oh, no."
He doesn't want to do the job any more.
Well, I mean, it's the first time he's been in touch
with the British public.
Well, you might be right,
because do you know how this has gone down with the British public?
Shall we have a look?Yes.
I'm not bothered.
That's the big thing,
people need to get to the voting stations. Super.
They're all a load of prats.
The last time there was a general election in July was in 1945.
Yes! Yes.
Famously, Winston Churchill lost a landslide to Labour
just after World War II,
whereas Rishi is going to lose a landslide to Labour
just before World War III.
That is interesting. Yeah, how about that?
Also for balance, let's have a look at Keir Starmer
making a salmon tandoori on Channel 4's Sunday Brunch, shall we?
BLENDER WHIRRING
Angela Rayner - "GRRR! RRRR! RRRR!"
Now, how is Starmer planning to win over the electorate?
Say nothing for six weeks and you're in.
Almost. He's telling voters...
Nothing gets past him, does it?
Someone else is ready and raring for election action.
Do you know who that might be? Nigel Farage.
Well, no...Not Farage.
He said he won't stand.
At the moment his country needs him,
he said, "Oh, I'm a bit busy."
He literally said, "There's a big important election
"going on in America,"
where he can go and make more money, presumably.
Right, yes. I have no proof of that.
I'm just saying that were he to be the sort of person
who just was in it for the money,
he would go to America and make it.
In terms of balance,
I think I should add here to Ian's comment
that he wants to go to America to make money -
he wants to go to Canada.
Now, the person who seems most excited
for the election is, in fact,
Ann Widdecombe from the Reform Party.
There she is.
RICHARD:Sorry, where is she?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
What about the SNP?
Ruth, say something about them, please.
Er... Ooh.
Around the time the new First Minister was standing up,
launching the SNP's campaign,
the police in Scotland put out a notice saying
that they'd just informed prosecutors and passed their report
into the embezzlement of SNP party funds.
So I was just thinking, you know,
maybe Rishi didn't have the only terrible launch...
Now, who might be particularly delighted with the timing
of the election announcement?
Paula Vennells... Mm-hm?
..from the Post Office, because she was up in the inquiry
and it blasted her off the front pages
and she would have got an absolute shellacking.
That's right. Former Post Office head honcho
and national sweetheart Paula Vennells.
She cried four times.
For herself.
It was a really disgraceful performance and I think...
APPLAUSE Yeah, it was appalling.
She said things like, "I didn't know that they were prosecuting
"these people when I took over."
And you think, that...that just isn't true!
It's all lies.
I mean, she is now in the inquiry
trying to blame her colleagues, which is...
The entire point of the inquiry is that she's already
blamed people who didn't do it in an attempt to cover herself,
and now she's doing it again!
I also just don't understand how you can come and take over
an organisation where suddenly, out of nowhere,
after a new computer system comes in,
one in 12 people that work for you has got their hands
in the till and you never previously noticed, even though they worked
for you for 30 years before that.
RICHARD:And you work for the Tory Party!
I know! Right?!
But if what is happening is that the amount of money
that you claim they've stolen is returned to the Post Office,
and then you take it out as a bonus - which they did -
that's straightforward theft. Um...
APPLAUSE I was going to call it corruption.
It's worse than that.
Is it worse than corruption? OK.
She did show some humility -
what did Vennells admit was a personal failure?
Oh, she said she was too trusting.
I mean, that's the Prince Andrew defence.
"I was too noble."
"I can't sweat," she said.
"I use all my inner water for tears."
And her tears reached Number 10 Downing Street, didn't they?
Do you know what the inquiry chair, Sir Wyn Williams, asked her?
Did he say, "Why are you played by a different actor
"than in the TV show?"
He wanted to know more
about a briefing document Vennells received,
which advised her to only provide certain information
if really pushed to do so.
Let's have a look.
If I were to suggest to you that you were being advised
to be very precise, very circumspect
and very guarded about what you said -
that was the effect of that document, would you agree?
I would, Sir Wyn.
I'm not sure I would have noticed that
on the morning of the day.
But you'll see the point in a moment -
that was the effect that was trying to be created
by those who created that document.
It could have been, yes. Right. Yes. Why?
With hindsight, because possibly...
And if you need time to think about it...
No, I don't... ..you can tell me in the morning. It's all right.
No, no, that's enough now.
Brutal.Wow. If you need time, how about ten years?
Is there any likelihood that she will end up in prison,
do you think? I think as soon as the inquiry is over,
the incoming government, be it Labour or Conservative...
RICHARD:Or Lib Dem.
Or Lib Dem. RUTH:Or Plaid Cymru. Or Plaid Cymru.
One of the ways we could make an early popular success
is prosecute some of the people at the Post Office.
I think it'd be a really good first week.
APPLAUSE
This is the news that Rishi Sunak's new job in Silicon Valley
apparently starts on July 5th.
The Post Office inquiry continues.
When news of the Post Office scandal broke,
Paula Vennells also had a job with the NHS -
now embroiled in the contaminated blood scandal,
so she just needs a role with South West Water
and she's got the set.
While seemingly turning a blind eye
to the wrongful convictions of subpostmasters,
Paula Vennells also served as an Anglican vicar
and could often be heard in church telling the famous parable
of the Screwing of the 5,000.
I love the use of the word "seemingly".
That was very good. Can we just check the lawyer's awake?
What would you say, Ian?
Ignoring wilfully through perverse and evil motivation.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Paul and Richard, take a look at this.
Right. Well, there we are.
He's a proud man.
Sausages.
There's a man who's created a world record in creating so many sausages
in a minute, and he's beaten off all on-comers. In-comers.
Has he? So, two world records?
Two world records, yeah. Two world records.
PHIL HONKS WITH LAUGHTER
"Cumberland? Or is that just the way your trousers are hanging?
This is the news that a butcher in Bedfordshire has made 83 sausages
in one minute - and that's a new world record!
CHEERING, WHOOPING AND APPLAUSE
Sorry, you gave Ian the election... Yeah.
..and Paul... Equally important news story.
..the world sausage record. Yeah.
That was only the UK election, and that's aworld record.
Oh, actually, yeah. Yeah, that's true enough.
Yeah. Unlucky, Ian. Yeah.
What else did Bedfordshire's Gavin Reynolds have to do
with his 83 Lincolnshire sausages?
Well, you've got to twist them and display them.
Yeah, yeah.
Have you got to sell them?
What, in a minute?
83 sausages?
It's not The Apprentice! Blimey.
You know your sausages. You're right. You have to link them.
Yeah. Look at him go!
OK. Ruth, you've tried linking sausages?
I went to the Queen's butcher in Ballater, next to Balmoral,
on a campaign visit and had to have a go
with their sausage-making machine.
And it turns out that, inexplicably, I'm shit at it.
Er, so...
Not a big fan of having sausages in my hands.
Why do politicians do those things?
If someone says, "Oh, we're going to go to this butcher, going to
You think, "That sounds like a really bad idea."
Yeah, but it's so much better than sitting in Parliament.
And that may explain why the country doesn't function.
Meanwhile, what unusual product has Dutch farmer
Erik Stegink created?
Edible banister?
Well, no, he's actually kicked up a bit
of a "stegink" by creating an ice cream made from...
ALL: Ooh.
This follows the success of his other product...
Coincidentally, also a redacted
phrase from Stormy Daniels' witness statement.
Oh, dear. Goodnight, everyone!
From pigs to cows.Yes.
What trouble has cow shit caused recently?
Oh, this is the water contamination, isn't it? The bug.
Oh, cryptosporidium. Yes.
Well done.Yeah.
The drinking water of 16,000 customers in Devon
has been contaminated by cow shit
getting into the pipework.
Yeah, this was a mistake because it was meant to be human faeces.
And for some reason, the water company made a terrible error.
And they're going to have an inquiry in 2058.
But it's good news for me, because I've invested
in cryptosporidium, so...
I'm afraid it might be what's called the Shitcoin.
Water consumers in Devon have been told not to panic,
following an outbreak of...
Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious.
And so to round two. It's time for the one-armed bandit of news.
Fingers on buzzers, teams.
BELL
This is about museums that are so obscure,
they have fewer than one person a day that comes to visit them.
That's right, yeah.
Do you have any idea which attractions these are?
The Pencil Museum in Keswick?
Oh, yeah. If it rains when you happen to be in the Lakes, you
to the Keswick Pencil Museum.
Does it often rain in England? I'm just asking.
Ask the Prime Minister.
Asking for a friend.
He doesn't have an umbrella.
Well, the list of 20 or so attractions includes the Bay Museum
on Canvey Island.
That looks good.
Well, the BBC suggested the museum looked...
They're not entirely wrong.
I saw something about the Bay Museum.
There's, like, three guys who work there and no-one visits.
It must be an absolutely lovely, lovely cup of tea in the warm.
And then every now and again,
someone comes along, like, a tourist. They're, "Oh, fuck sake!"
"We're closed!" "It's near 12. Sorry."
The museum treasurer Martin Daniell told the BBC,
Hostages.
Why did some of the scarcely visited attractions not respond to the BBC's
request for a comment?
You've actually touched on... Because they don't want people to
A lot of them, not all of them, are fronts for drug gangs.
Not all of them. Not all of them.
Not all of them. Just...just most of them.
If you look down the list, there's,
yeah, a lot of them. A lot of them.
Not all of them. No, no.
But not none of them.
Definitely not none of them.
What do these museums offer that larger attractions might not?
Huge bales of cocaine?
In some of them.Some of them. Not all of them. Not all of them.Not in
Some of them are real museums.
A couple of them are real museums.
Yeah, more or less. Volunteers say they offer
a more personal, bespoke experience.
Karen Hillier, a volunteer at Longthorpe Tower, said...
You gave a little ooh at bonnacon there, Ian?
Yes, I mean the bonnacon...
It's in a lot of early-medieval bestiaries.
It featured in a very, very good documentary on Radio 4 by...
Oh, it was me!
It literally - it ejects this sort of projectile poo.
There's a picture of it killing various knights who've set out
to try and deal with the bonnacon. And there he is... That's just a
Did you say a farting Hislop? A Vizsla.
But it's mythical. What you described - it never happened. And
What a fraud you are. Yeah, yeah.
On the radio, where you can't see it. Yeah.
I bet it's some bloke going like that into a microphone.
I'm embarrassed now. You've shown me up.
This is the news that some of Britain's museums average fewer
than one visitor a day.
The Bay Museum's star exhibit is an engine cylinder from a B-17,
which crashed at Canvey Point in 1944.
Here's the engine cylinder.
And I've saved you a trip.
And time now for the odd-one-out round.
Just one between you this week.
They are a zoo in China...
CEO of Apple, Tim Cook.
Boris Johnson. And the BBC.
BUZZER
Now, the zoo in China didn't have any pandas.
So what they did was they got hold of some little dogs
and they painted them black and white and told people
that they were pandas, but they were clearly dogs just painted
black and white. That one?
Yeah, that's right.OK.
So it's about sort of like duplicity about pretending that something
is what it isn't.
How does that connect to Boris Johnson?!
You know, I really don't know.
And Tim, what's his name, from Apple. What was his name?
Tim Cook. They had the advert, didn't they? Where they were
It's about trying to advertise and sell.
Sell stuff. Things.
And what's Boris selling?
Is he selling individual armpit warmers?
BBC are the odd one out. Let's choose them.
Yeah.
No.No, it's Boris Johnson, imagine that.
Is it Tim Cook. Is he the odd one out?
No.It's got to be the panda!
That is the only one.
Why is it? Well, because they pretended that
but they weren't real pandas. They were dogs painted black
And no-one else... And no-one else has done that.
Yeah. Nobody else.
I'll give you the point. They've all caused controversy with media
in China, which caused controversy with its publicity for panda cubs.
Yeah, let's have a look at them.
Well, why... Why were visitors to a zoo...?
Look, we all want to see them.
Why were visitors to a zoo in China upset by the panda cub attraction?
Because they were dogs painted black and white. Let's have a look!
What's going on, Richard?
You have to double click. Double click, double click.
Yes. The pandas at Jiangsu zoo looked like this.
ALL: Ohhh!
Oh, that's great, isn't it? That was worth it.
Yeah.
I can't believe I have to ask you this question, but what were the
Because they were dogs painted black and white.
Yeah. Visitors suspected that they were...Suspected?!
Must be a "shit zoo".
We did that joke in pantomime this year.
Oh, no, you didn't. Oh, yes, we did.
I was there. You were there.
Your Widow Twankey was terrific.
Pity we were doing Dick Whittington.
But it was good.
What advert is Boris Johnson reportedly involved with?
Not armpit heaters?
No. The Sun on Sunday reported that Johnson will make a cameo
in an advert for Paddy Power
during the Euros this summer.Oh, no.
According to a source at Paddy Power...
Oh, that'll be nice.
He was all so serious and statesman-like.
Apple came under fire this week for releasing an advert
for their new iPad Pro.
It was more than a week ago. Er, OK, let's take that again.
Recently.
Recently. Apple...
This is going to be hard to say now.
Apple came under fire this week for...No, they didn't!
No, they didn't.
God, this is harder than it looks.
Wait a minute, he's a dog painted as a host!
Let's just watch the advert.
Yeah.
# Sometimes when I'm down and all alone
# Oh, all I ever need is you
# Winters come and they go
# And we watch the melting snow
# Sure as summer follows spring
# All the things you do
# Give me a reason to build my world all around you
# Some men follow rainbows I am told... #
The most powerful iPad ever, is also the thinnest.
Wow.
All painting, all music, sculpture... Human creativity.
MIMICS SPLATTING
Yeah, but look, it is thin.
Art critic JJ Charlesworth described the advert as...
Now, why might the publicly-funded BBC be causing advert controversy?
Oh, they're doing adverts on podcasts or something, aren't they?
And then other people who do podcasts, said, "This isn't fair."
Yes. The BBC announced that it could start selling advertising space
on podcasts played on commercial sites such as Apple and Spotify.
Now, here's a controversial question Are there too many podcasts?
That's what my guests will be discussing on this week's
Phil Wang's Wangcast, available to download now.
Have you got one called Wangcast?
I do now.
Time now for The Missing Words Round, which this week features
as its guest publication, The Clean Sheet - the magazine
of the National Carpet Cleaners Association.
It can get a bit raunchy, especially in the shag section.
And we start with...
RUTH:Take it out for a steak dinner first.
A bottle of red wine. Sorted.
Sorry! Why, Baroness...
The commercial cleaning of a carpet can be quite technical.
Mind you, it's a doddle compared to getting rainwater out of a suit.
Next...
Oh, I saw this one. Plan to bring life to Bournemouth Town Centre
include public hanging and miniature golf.
Get a ball around the clown's mouth while hanging from a gibbet.
RICHARD:Is it Shake 'N Vac?
How did none of you get fudge bus?Fudge bus?
Here is the council's design for the fudge bus.
Oh, that's lovely.
What's it say on the side? Oh, yes.
The NHS will be much richer...
And finally...
Switzerland?
Two Mini Coopers?
No, I'm afraid not.
World's biggest wig?
Would we like to...?
Yeah. It's gone on the world's biggest head, presumably.
No, but that's just stupid, isn't it?
RUTH:It looks like it's made out of Highland cattle hair.
It actually looks like one of those sewage treatment plants,
you know, where they have things...
..treating the water.
So the final scores are...
Ian and Ruth have six.
But just ahead, with seven, are Paul and Richard!
Well done. Well done.
But before we go, there's just time for the caption competition.
Same time next week, love?
On which note, we say thank you to our panellists, Ian Hislop
and Ruth Davidson, Paul Merton and Richard Osman.
And I leave you with news that after a shipment of bamboo
is stolen from Shanghai International Airport, investigators
say they won't rest until they find out which member of their ground
team is responsible.
PAUL:What's that Labrador doing at the airport?
A swingers' party in Leeds is ruined after a guest with a magnetic
pacemaker walks past the fruit bowl.
And in Stockton, one man desperately tries to escape for his life
as he feels himself slowly being bored to death.
Goodnight.