This programme contains some strong language.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good evening. Welcome to Have I Got News For You.
I'm Victoria Coren-Mitchell.
In the news this week...
At the Balham branch of Pizza Express, there's dismay
for the chef as another customer orders the American Hot.
At Central Office, a trip to the first floor is a bit
of a treat for some of the Conservative Party membership
who voted for Liz Truss.
And most commentators agree that Liz Truss could have chosen a more
private moment to tell one of her ministers
that they're sacked.
On Ian's team tonight is a journalist who reported from
the Conservative Party Conference, so tonight will be the second time
she's been in a venue where half the audience are asleep.
Please welcome Isabel Hardman.
On Paul's team tonight is a comedian whose show was described
by the Times as "a hugely enjoyable hour of stand-up".
Unfortunately, it was a three-hour special.
Please welcome Ivo Graham.
We begin with the bigger news stories of the week.
Ian and Isabel, have a look at this.
It's the woman of the moment!
It's the ex-Prime Minister.
There is her local party.
Yeah, a group of puppets.
And a man walking in a straight line.
You see, now U-turn.
And she's blowing something up.
The economy!
So, you were there, how gloomy was it?
It was great.
If you like feasting on human misery, I cannot recommend a better
holiday than the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.
I read in the papers that Liz's speech was marvellous
and it was going to rouse the nation.
Is that not true?
If it had come at the end of a really, really good conference,
it would have been a really, really bad speech.
Did you see Therese Coffey's speech?
I did.
Shall we have a look at speech?
While in England we have now virtually eliminated
waits of over two years, we are speeding up our plans to roll
out new diagnostic centres as well as new hospitals.
I mean, normally coffee wakes people up...
But who got the biggest reaction from the crowd?
Greenpeace demonstrators.
They appeared with a banner and a man angrily pulled
the banner away from them, and then brilliantly,
they had another identical banner.
Let's have a look at one annoying heckler.
That was the speech of a Prime Minister trying
to hold her party together.
Have you done enough, Prime Minister?
I'm so sorry, that wasn't the climate change people,
that was Chris Mason from the BBC.
The climate change protesters, let's look at them.
Let's get them removed...
When they were all shouting, "Out, out, out," I wasn't sure
who they were saying it to.
And of course, the protester de-lanyarded there,
that's the ultimate indignity.
How did Jacob Rees-Mogg avoid that happening to him?
Was he in a brothel?
Just wanted to say something that wouldn't make the edit, that's all.
Let's have a look at how Jacob Rees-Mogg wears his lanyard.
It looks like he is a lot at auction.
Here is a debate that I enjoyed, and I hope you know the answer
to this, is Liz Truss the first Prime Minister to have gone
to comprehensive school?
Theresa May's school was a comprehensive school?
No, it was selective.
As was Gordon-Brown's school.
What about John Major?
Selective.
The key word is selective, because no-one chose Liz Truss.
One pundit before the speech said the good thing is that the slogan
is projected onto the wall behind her, so it's not
going to fall off like it did with Theresa May.
That's a pretty low expectation for a speech.
What is the downside of using this sort of back projection?
Well, it is up there for ages and people look at it
and think, "That isn't true."
People that are computer whizzes can adjust it.
For example, like this.
The left are attacking our profound elemental values, wanting to replace
them with the poison of identity politics.
What a day.
It has been tough, but we need to focus on the job in hand.
What is the anti-growth coalition?
It is an imaginary group of enemies.
If you are doing very, very badly in the polls
and you have no ideas, traditionally, you invent an enemy.
You just list everybody and say they are anti-growth.
They are anti-her.
I mean, if she thinks she is some sort of growth...
Liz Truss said that the anti-growth of coalition included...
The Daily Mail said Number Ten...
She has blamed everyone.
IMF, BBC, C of E, DFS...
Let's see who Liz Truss thought was to blame
for the 45p tax rate cut.
Her Chancellor?
Can I ask you, Prime Minister, did you discuss scrapping the top
rate with your whole Cabinet?
No.
No, we didn't.
It was a decision that the Chancellor made.
If only there was someone he could have reported to.
Who is the Chancellor blaming for the financial meltdown?
Oh, yes, the death of the Queen.
On the death of the Queen!
The death of the Queen, so it was her fault.
Why don't we have a look at him at the Queen's funeral
just processing that grief?
Oh, yes.
He is a strange character, isn't he?
The sort of slow walking that he does.
I wondered perhaps if he had some sort of medical condition.
Like he's got his head stuck up his arse or something.
But I didn't know...
He walks slowly because he's got these very extreme
bunions on his feet, and if you have bunions,
you need to pop down Boots and get yourself an anti-growth coalition.
It will sort the whole thing out.
I mean, nobody knows what he was laughing at.
Presumably, he was thinking, "If I bring in a mini Budget,
I can tank the whole economy."
Isabel, do you think there is going to be an election soon?
I mean, I don't think there is any option that makes
anything any better.
Is that the official slogan?
I Don't Think There Is Any Option That Makes Anything Any Better.
Liz Truss was adamant she wasn't going to drop the plan
to scrap the 45p tax, but less than 24 hours later,
she had U-turned on that, leading to this headline in the Sun.
At exactly the same time, in unison, Liz Truss
and Kwasi Kwarteng tweeted...
Having come out and said it, should she have stuck with it?
No, I mean, because she's got a number of other U-turns to go.
If you do two U-turns, aren't you then facing the same way?
Maybe I don't understand this metaphor.
One, another one, you're still going in that direction.
I said last week, you should be Chancellor.
Yeah, I'm waiting for the call.
You can do the maths.
Yeah...
Well, I can find somebody that can do it.
And what is it that Liz Truss doesn't like about the media?
They keep reporting what she says.
She also accused them of taking...
Yes, so I was pretty appalled by that.
You don't live in North London, do you?
I live in South London and I took a limo...
She was asked, Liz Truss, by the Guardian, if she herself had
ever taken a taxi from her London town house to the BBC studios.
A Downing Street spokesperson replied...
The pound has recovered slightly, but who is a weak pound good for?
Apart from Keir Starmer.
It's good for people who bet against it, it's good
for the hedge funders.
It's good for those people and also tourists, of course.
Yes.
Virgin Atlantic this week advertised flights to American
customers with the slogan...
Which is also the slogan that they used for meetings
at the Palace with the Saudis, it was the same slogan.
What advice did the Chairman of the Parliamentary
Conservative Party, Jake Berry, have for people worried
about the cost-of-living crisis?
I mean, I can tell you, I literally had never
heard of him until today.
I'm going to say that right out.
Yeah, but nor had his family.
Let's have a look at Jake Berry's comforting advice.
People know that when their bills arrive, they can either
cut their consumption or they can get a higher salary, higher wages,
go out there and get that new job.
That's the approach the Government is taking.
Who is he?
He is in charge of their election messaging.
Well, there we are, then.
What could go wrong with that?
He came up with Getting Britain Moving.
Because we're repossessing your house.
That's the slogan, we can all get behind it.
Well, there might be nuclear war.
This is the news that Liz Truss is still Prime Minister.
One attendee at the Conservative conference told the BBC...
Adding, "Anyway, here's your name badge, enjoy the conference."
Paul and Ivo, take a look at this.
Ah, yes, I recognise those tins, those are Quality Street tins.
Quality Street wrappers.
At last, something I'm interested in.
They've changed the Quality Street wrappers after 70 years.
Christmas time, black-and-white TV, used to hold up the yellow thing
and look through it and make it look like a colour TV.
Quality Street wrappers have changed.
Next question.
Sorry...
What?
You used to look through the wrapper...
Yeah, at black-and-white televisions, in the 1960s, to make
it look as if it was in colour.
I don't suppose you did that at Eton, did you?
I thought, "I've just got to keep my head down
about my private education in at the round about
the Conservative Party, then we can have that nice relaxing
bit about Quality Street."
It often gets you when you least expect it.
Why have they done this?
I don't know, they can't get the papier mache?
Whatever reason.
It's for environmental reasons.
Yes, good.
Would you like to see the old wrappers compared to the new ones?
I think there is no other way we can advance this debate.
Here are the old wrappers.
Lovely, you see, there are the yellow ones.
You'd look through that.
Here are what the new ones will look like.
AUDIENCE BOOS There was one boo for Jake Berry,
and there was a whole chorus of boos for the new Quality Street.
I know they might be doing it for PR, you know,
to get people talking about it, so I think we should
clarify, they look shit.
But who thinks...
I should imagine there is a Quality Street appreciation
society that has said, "No, we have memories of holding up
the yellow wrappers, watching black-and-white TV."
Alex Hutchinson...
Yes, him.
He is actually a she.
According to the Sunday Times...
Well, I know him better than you do.
She is a...
Any idea what she might specialise in?
Quality Street.
Yeah, I mean, I've got a list here.
William of Orange.
Wars of the Roses?
There you go.
The battle of Marathon.
Oh, I see, these are jokes!
Sorry!
Did you know that each individual Quality Street
has its own wrapping machine?
Yeah, it's not surprising at all.
Well...
If Quality Street means anything, it is the word "quality".
I wouldn't expect some old bloke smoking a fag
round the back going, "Oh, that's all the toffees done,
let's do the ginger slings."
I wouldn't expect that.
I wouldn't expect that from them.
That's why the boxes are so small.
Quality Street, not Quantity Street.
Who do you think was more enthusiastic than Paul
about the fact that each individual Quality Street chocolate
has its own wrapping machine?
Oh, was it Gregg...thingy?
Gregg Wallace?
"Gregg Thingy"?
And his friend, the other one.
Shall we have a look at Gregg Thingy at the factory?
The sweet's coming up under here now.
OK.
Brilliant!
And then, as it gets up to the top...
Wow, it just twisted it!
It twisted it.
Either side.
Literally like a couple of fingers coming in and twisting it.
Yeah.
So, and that's what we've got.
Brilli-a-a-ant!
Has he had a drugs test?
In a climate change breakthrough, Nestle have announced that some
of the wrappers on Quality Street will soon be recyclable.
The changes to Quality Street are yet another example
of the modern woke agenda ruining the traditions of Christmas.
This year, they've even got a man doing the Queen's Speech.
APPLAUSE
And so to round two, the Strengthometer of News.
Fingers on buzzers, please, teams.
BUZZER
Yes.
Elon Musk, he made an offer to buy Twitter but then he said,
I'm not doing that, I made a mistake.
And now he's back on board and he's going to be on Twitter.
And why do you think he had this change of heart?
Because he realised Twitter was full of angry, ill-informed
people, like himself.
Is he in the middle of some sort of court case?
He was being sued by Twitter for pulling out of the deal to buy
it, and one of the possible outcomes of the case was that he would lose
and be forced to buy it, so some people are saying,
if he buys it now, it works out much cheaper for him.
Why is the US Democratic Party worried about this
takeover by Elon Musk?
Is this because Trump would be allowed back on Twitter?
He said he'd put him back on Twitter.
Where has the former President been posting on social media
since he's been off Twitter?
He has his own social media network.
Called?
Trumpy.
I thought he was just on Pinterest, posting inspirational interiors.
He is shouting through the medium of Truth Social which a journalist
for the Financial Times described as...
And she's seen Ivo's old MySpace page, so strong words.
You won't see more dedicated Kaiser Chiefs fan art anywhere
else on the internet.
How did Joe Biden embarrass himself last week in relation
to congresswoman Jackie Walorski?
I didn't see it.
He asked her to stand up at a rally...
Oh, no.
But unfortunately...
She's in a wheelchair?
Worse.
She struggled to do, because she's dead.
She's dead?
Mind you, it would have been a coup if she had have stood up.
He struggles to stand up and he's alive.
What else has Elon Musk been trying to solve?
He's been trying to solve the Ukraine-Russia war,
and there was a bit of a backlash with people saying, this
isn't helping hugely.
And what did the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany
say in response?
Lock off.
Lock off, yeah.
APPLAUSE
He also said that no Ukrainians from now on would
ever buy that Tesla...
Electric car.
It was another swearword.
Tesla fuckwagon.
That was it!
You try getting an MOT on one of them.
This is the news that Elon Musk has decided he will go ahead
with his plan to buy Twitter.
The BBC reported that the initial meeting to buy the social media firm
took place at a farm, and on that farm he agreed to become
Twitter C-E-I-E-I-O.
It's an Apple Old Macdonald.
Dear me!
You sounded like Basil Brush, then.
Fingers on buzzers, teams.
Here's the next one.
BUZZER
The face is familiar.
Yes, this is King Charles, as we now know him.
Liz Truss says he can't go to a conference about green issues
and he wanted to go and she said, you can't go.
King Charles had been going to make a speech at this climate conference
and there were reports he was ordered not to go,
but both sides have said, there is no suggestion of a row.
So there was a row?
In other news, Prince William recently came into possession
of the Duchy of Cornwall estate formerly owned by his father,
so that includes a garden centre, some rivers and a tin mine.
Do you know what Prince Charles's income was from the Duchy
of Cornwall estate?
Must have come close to the old 45p, mustn't he?
He went and got a better job.
Went and got a better job!
Got up early.
APPLAUSE
His income from the Duchy of Cornwall
was £21 million a year.
He did pay income tax, but not on the first
£23 million of earnings, and no corporation tax
or capital gains tax.
When he inherited the Queen's estate, he didn't pay inheritance
tax, but other than that he's just like you and me.
Do you know when the Coronation is expected to be?
June third.
June 3rd, 2023.
What else is happening that day?
A horse race.
The FA Cup final.
Players will be competing for this beauty, and isn't it lovely how
they've adapted it to a likeness of the King?
This is the news that Liz Truss told King Charles not to go
to the COP27 climate summit.
The Royals are nervously awaiting Prince Harry's tell-all memoir.
Andrew, if you're scouring the index, you're listed under P.
Not Prince, bit higher up.
Prince William's recently inherited Duchy of Cornwall estate includes
a tin mine in Cornwall.
Prince William will be able to sell any metal produced by the tin mine
thanks to the ancient royal proclamation,
whoever smelt it, dealt it.
Fingers on buzzers, here we go.
BELL
Yes.
Poker.
It's cheating, cheating in games.
The chess man who we did last week,
who had the beads that helped him, he's been cheating again.
You just want to talk about anal beads again.
I want to talk about the Venerable Bede.
And lots of people in other games have said, no,
we've got a cheat as well.
So there is a poker cheat.
I can't believe this wasn't the opening story.
Presumably the cheating is above the level of what's
being demonstrated here.
Well, in my view, this woman is definitely not cheating.
The thing that is hard for non-poker players to understand about it,
is he went all in and she called.
And how would you know you had the winning hand with Jack high?
But she didn't really, because even though her jack
was beating his eight, he can hit any six, any jack,
any seven, any eight or any club, so mathematically her hand is ahead.
BUZZER
Is there much more of this?
OK, you are interested in Quality Street, I'm
interested in this hand.
Well, make the rest of us interested in it, then.
Imagine you've got an audience listening to this.
But I think it's interesting because what people are accusing her
of is having a hidden vibrating device like the anal beads.
Yes.
And I don't think any of it's true.
I don't think the chess player did either, I think he
had an earpiece.
But where did he have the ear piece, that's what everyone wants to know.
Are there any other games it's spread to, this vibrating cheating?
Snap.
Apparently, Liz Truss used to cheat at board games
according to her brother.
She must have been the banker, presumably.
There has been a cheating allegation somewhere else.
Has it been in the world of fishing?
Yes, it has.
Fishing?
Yeah, a man landed a giant cod but it was covered in batter.
There were these competitions, and you can win like $50,000
for catching the heaviest fish, so this chap just stuffed lead
weights into the fish's mouth.
Shall we have a look at the moment they were caught?
Go on, then.
Those are pretty big vibrating beads.
This is the news that the poker world has been rocked
by accusations of cheating.
A poker player has been accused of cheating by having a vibrating
device hidden on her body.
It doesn't make sense to me, if you have a good, strong hand,
why would you need a vibrator?
Time now for the missing words round which features
as its guest publication, Dr Darts' Newsletter,
the monthly publication bringing the most up-to-date research
into the history of darts.
And we start with...
Wheelie bin, it's always a wheelie bin.
Woman spotted on Google Street view in exactly the same place
she was nine years ago.
What, in her own home?
This picture is 2009 and 2018.
Well, that's a traffic lights.
Where do you want her to be standing, in the middle of the road?
Next...
Tanked the economy.
Man who took a photograph of a woman crossing the road
twice in nine years, did it to prove...
I can't believe that happened.
What's the chances of that happening twice in nine years?
In the town where she lives.
Next to a shop where she goes every week.
This is Richard Lee-Wright who started the London Marathon
by making a mad dash for the front in order to prove to his friends
he could lead the race.
Let's have a look at him setting off.
Second is the constant, reassuring constant over the years,
then surely the London Marathon is the same as well.
Over 40 years we've come to enjoy these sights.
It's not Philip Schofield, is it?
He would have joined the Marathon halfway through.
Next...
The purrfect grade.
Photographed in the school reunion photo.
That's it!
What do you mean, that's it?
This is Ziggy the cat, who is a frequent visitor to Drury
Primary School in Fincher.
Here he is in the school photo.
That's nice.
Got an anal bead round its neck.
Next...
Well, it's got to be eat his own product,
what else is he going to do?
Dog food boss regularly takes photograph of woman at traffic
lights, but only produces photographs for the last nine years.
Regularly humps wife's leg.
He must have eaten his own dog food.
The CEO of Mars, Grant Reid, says he's been sampling the company's
Pedigree Chum for years.
Though occasionally it gives him an upset stomach,
which is not good news for Mrs Reid, who has to pick up after him.
Next...
Readership.
Agenda.
A common misconception about Dr Darts' Newsletter
is that it has a big misconception attached to it.
Is it board?
I'm going to take board, because it is to do
with the size of its personnel.
A common misconception...
Just as good as board.
How is board close to team of research staff?
Is this some sort of Oxford prejudice coming in here?
Is this because you walked across the quadrangle together
wearing mortar boards, tilted at a jaunty angle.
"I'm going to go into television after doing this."
I'm so flattered you think I was there at the same time as Victoria!
APPLAUSE
Oh, dear, that's made my night.
And finally...
Looking bored in sepia photos.
Not if you've got the yellow bit of Quality Street.
Dance music?
Queen Victoria was a pioneer of dance music?
Was she, is that right?
This is the news that a cache of letters written by...
Cach-ay.
No.
Cache.
Cache, really?
Yes, I think so.
I've wasted my time.
Bundle.
This is the news that a bundle of letters written
by Queen Victoria...
Bund-lay.
Experts believe she may have been drunk at the time of writing
and used abbreviations similar to today's text messages.
One of the letters read...
Followed by, aubergine, aubergine, chair leg.
What on earth are you talking about?
So the final scores are Ian and Isabel have five,
Paul and Ivo have nine.
APPLAUSE
Before we go, there's just time for the caption competition.
Scientist explains why he and his wife sleep in separate beds.
If we take the rectangle on the left as being nine years ago and the one
on the right as today, the woman in the middle
is in exactly the same position.
Because she is standing by traffic lights.
On which note, we say thank you to our panellists,
Ian Hislop and Isabel Hardman, Paul Merton and Ivo Graham.
And I leave you with news that in Somerset, the PR team
for EDF Energy insists that the new Hinkley C nuclear power
station is perfectly safe.
At Westminster, there is an awkward silence as Keir Starmer identifies
two big reasons why the electorate stopped voting Labour.
And at the Radisson Hotel in Birmingham, it's still a mystery
as to how carbon monoxide was diverted into
Michael Gove's room.
Goodnight.