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BBC Sounds music radio

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podcasts. Are

0:49

you feeling politically forgotten? Does

0:52

it seem that economic benefits never come

0:54

your way? Do you feel cut off from

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the rest of the country? Or do you sometimes

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think there is no way out and no way in?

1:02

Then you could be in Manchester. Where

1:05

we are for this week's News Quiz.

1:13

Hello. Welcome

1:17

to the News Quiz. Here we are in

1:19

Manchester. It's the last time that anyone

1:21

will be able to reach this great city before

1:24

it is fully cordoned off from the rest of the

1:26

country. And hermetically sealed

1:28

in a special porcelain dome. If

1:31

I've exaggerated wildly from a kernel of truth, sorry,

1:33

that's just what comes from hanging around near a party conference.

1:37

Indeed, in the week of the Conservative Conference here in

1:39

Manchester, our teams are team Same Old Same

1:41

Old against team Honestly,

1:44

We're Completely Different this time. On

1:46

team Same, we have Deliso Chaponda and Bethany Black.

1:49

And

1:53

on team Different, Susie McCabe and Hugo Rifkind.

1:57

And our first... First

2:00

question can go to Susie and

2:02

Hugo. We apologise

2:04

for the cancellation of the Manchester service. This

2:07

is due to bad government. But

2:10

by ditching the northern bit of HS2, what else, according

2:12

to the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street,

2:15

has Rishi Sunak also cancelled? Has

2:18

he cancelled a street

2:20

that was going to be named after Andy Street? So

2:23

it was going to be called Andy Street Street? Well, I think he

2:25

might have done now after these comments.

2:28

Is it Christmas? Well,

2:31

Christmas is within this period of time. Well,

2:33

they cancelled the HS2, right? But I

2:35

also think that

2:37

this is the worst train cancellation. There should be

2:39

at least an HS bus replacement

2:41

service. A

2:44

bus which goes at like, I don't know, 120 miles

2:46

an hour. It's like, oh

2:48

yes, we've got to open it with Keanu Reeves on

2:50

board. Andy

2:53

Street said that Rishi Sunak has cancelled the future.

2:57

Wow. He has the future. I mean,

2:59

are you on board with this? Is that because he had sex with

3:01

his own mother in the back of a car? LAUGHTER

3:05

Sorry.

3:11

The cancelling of HS2 is, I mean,

3:13

whether it's a good idea or a bad idea of HS2, it's a

3:16

bit embarrassing. It's only a train. You

3:18

think we could build it? It's not like it's a space elevator. If

3:20

they were serious, they would have started building from

3:22

both ends.

3:23

Has no one said ticket to ride?

3:25

LAUGHTER

3:31

Apparently the railways are the thing that we're most proud of giving

3:33

to everyone else. And yet

3:36

we can't have one for ourselves. They promised us now instead

3:38

we're going to get regional railways that will connect

3:40

Manchester to Liverpool and lead to two cities that

3:42

famously love us. LAUGHTER And

3:46

it just felt like that moment on Christmas morning

3:48

when you asked for a Mega Drive and you opened

3:51

the present your mum had got you and instead it was

3:53

a regional railway system. Connecting

3:56

Manchester to Liverpool and lead to two cities.

3:59

right when I've seen this happen and people go

4:02

and they are forgetting about the

4:04

North and I'm like

4:05

welcome to be in Scottish man.

4:09

I'm done, I'm out. Let's all go to Japan.

4:12

Do

4:16

you even believe them because they're saying that the $66

4:19

billion which is not going to be

4:21

spent is going to be used

4:24

for the Northern Network and I don't believe

4:26

them unless they put it on the side

4:29

of a train. It's

4:32

not that the trains will be moving slow enough that you'll be able

4:34

to read it. I

4:37

mean it's not a great surprise you're from

4:39

Scotland that you know we haven't managed to finish the rail line

4:41

to manage them we haven't even finished the wall

4:43

that's supposed to keep you on.

4:47

They've said all the places in the North that they're going to fix and

4:49

help with all the money that they're saving and one of those

4:51

places in the North is Somerset. It's

4:57

used to me. There

5:00

was some some good news for Manchester though

5:02

because amongst these these new transport

5:04

plans just announced the government

5:06

has placed at the MetroLink will be extended to

5:09

Manchester Airport. At

5:14

least when I think it has locals to this area can

5:16

you tell me to

5:18

the nearest mile how

5:21

long an extension will this entail?

5:25

It already exists. The

5:28

only way of maybe

5:30

they want to build on top of it a

5:35

line which goes on top and we

5:37

have simultaneous train

5:40

delays. Just

5:45

because there is a train line that goes there doesn't mean you can

5:47

get there by train. Now

5:51

according to a map released

5:53

to show these new transport links across the North

5:56

of England that I'm sure our audience here in Manchester

5:58

are very excited about.

6:01

What other exciting new project

6:03

can Manchester look forward to?

6:07

Oh, is it that Manchester is going to be moved 17

6:09

miles north and to the west? Correct.

6:11

Yes. Yeah.

6:15

According to the map, Manchester now

6:17

is in Chorley. Where

6:23

I live, which is fantastic. It

6:25

would be even easier for me to get into town. I

6:29

mean, the cost of Manchester, I mean, it's sort

6:31

of just make it up. It started

6:34

off at, I think, 28 quid and

6:36

then went up to 16 billion and

6:38

is now, I don't know, 4 quadrillion or something. What do

6:40

you think the money could have been better

6:42

spent on? A single first-class ticket

6:44

on the existing railway? I

6:49

am quite concerned that no one's thought about

6:51

Michael Pertello and all of this. Moving

6:56

words. Michael's

6:58

just going to be sat in a National

7:00

Express

7:01

spot. This

7:04

is HS2, one of the UK's leading

7:06

scientific research projects, a decade and

7:08

a half long, £100 billion

7:11

program to find out if, by piling

7:13

mistake on mistake on mistake, we can

7:15

at some point prove conclusively for the world

7:17

exactly how many wrongs do make a

7:19

right. Let's

7:23

move on to some of the keynote

7:25

speeches at the conference here in Manchester. This

7:28

question can go to Deliso and Bethany.

7:31

Who this week launched his bid

7:33

for power with a brutally uncompromising

7:35

attack on 13 years of Conservative government?

7:38

Was that supposed to be the question

7:40

from the Labour conference next week? No, I've got it on

7:42

this week's script. Let's go with it. This

7:44

was, of course, Rishi who did

7:46

a whole speech about how change is needed.

7:49

I'm going to make a change. We need a change.

7:51

We need a change. We're in power. But

7:54

we need a change. Change, please. It

7:57

was wonderful. It was like he was trying to do his own version

7:59

of it.

9:59

Just the carnage or bring

10:02

them up in front of a crowd where no

10:04

one agrees with you And you just it's

10:06

like you have to just try to get through it with

10:08

all the jeering and roasting That

10:11

would actually tell me who's worth electing.

10:13

Yeah, I'm sorry. We're in the UK. No election Announce

10:18

plans to make young people do less

10:20

of what but more of

10:23

what so less of one thing more or the

10:25

other Can you tell me it's this less technical

10:28

more maths and English? That's

10:31

on the right line. Is it less smoking and

10:33

more graffiti? You're

10:37

half right is it less saying less

10:39

when they mean fewer

10:48

More than fewer

10:48

when they mean fewer. Yeah,

10:51

sorry about that. Is it fewer smoking? Yes,

10:59

it wants fewer people smoking less

11:02

leggers So smoking smoking

11:04

and more well subjects a level more

11:06

more math Yeah, he's making it age

11:09

based and it's going to change every year

11:11

This is the proposition that the smoking age

11:14

will change every year.

11:15

This is too complicated

11:17

For people at your

11:20

off license to remember I think just do

11:22

it the Alton Towers way make

11:25

it height-based

11:46

But it's like it's gonna be a year older

11:48

every year you're allowed to buy cigarettes So people who'd

11:50

like who are like 14 now will never

11:52

get to buy cigarettes It goes off a year by year by year

11:54

there is precedent here because it's also it gets

11:57

a year older every year When you can buy a house

12:02

I mean it's meant to be the best

12:04

days of your life, being a teenager

12:06

and you just think

12:07

that sounds terrible, more maths

12:11

and no smoking. I mean

12:13

I've been smoking since I was about 8 so

12:18

I'm joking. If you were better at maths you'd have

12:20

got that right. That's too busy trying

12:24

to get sick and out of the shop to go to maths class.

12:26

You're also going to get all these people behind the counter

12:29

in news agents looking at someone trying to figure out if

12:31

they're like 49 or 48.

12:34

And then when you

12:36

do get a self-assignation you'll be so authentic

12:38

you're like I'm serious and you're

12:41

me I'm 90. Yes

12:44

this was the Prime Minister's first speech

12:46

to Tory conference as Prime Minister

12:48

Rishi Shunak issued an inspiring

12:50

twist on the famous pre-election conference

12:52

rallying call, go back to your constituencies

12:55

and prepare for opposition. Shunak

12:59

said that he was willing to be unpopular and at

13:01

last a politician making a promise they may be

13:03

able to keep. He

13:04

stood

13:06

by election festoon with the Conservatives new

13:09

slogan, long-term decisions for

13:11

a brighter future which might be the first

13:14

ever instance of a party jamming two

13:16

screeching U-turns onto one podium.

13:21

The new slogan defeated other candidates

13:24

to be the Tory slogan ahead of the next election

13:26

including complete debarkles getting worse,

13:29

grumble fumble crumble as

13:36

well as sorry we've got nothing

13:38

and you can shove your

13:40

future where the sun don't shine. He

13:45

made up some claims about things Labour will do

13:47

all of which Labour I guess might do especially if

13:49

they do do things that they haven't said they'll do which to

13:52

be fair most governments do so maybe

13:54

that was a fair criticism of things they haven't said

13:56

they'll do it's very confusing at this time of the year. I love

13:58

that I thought that was great because it was almost

13:59

like they were going from a random policy generator

14:02

of, okay, what's the Labour going to do next?

14:04

They're going to make you have seven

14:07

bins. What's

14:09

next? Labour are going to ban

14:12

Vera Lynn. Kia

14:17

Starmer is going to publicly execute

14:19

Paddington. Moving

14:22

on now, Home Secretary Sihwela Brabhamen

14:25

invoked which legendary snooker player

14:27

when warning about the threat of global

14:29

migration.

14:31

A. Ronnie the Rocket O'Sullivan.

14:34

B. Alex Hurricane Higgins.

14:37

C. Ray Dracula Reardon.

14:41

Or D. Terry, this issue requires

14:43

a coherent global effort and sensitive responsible

14:45

rhetoric, Griffiths.

14:50

It was obviously the hurricane. Correct. But

14:52

to be fair, all of those will be correct

14:55

if you just give her some time.

14:57

Every week there's just like an

14:59

increasing

15:00

metaphorical escalation,

15:02

right? It was floods. Now it's a hurricane.

15:05

I'm expecting a few weeks. There's going

15:07

to be an earthquake of immigrants

15:09

and there's going to be a volcanic

15:11

eruption of Eastern

15:13

Europeans flooding

15:15

us since it's, she's

15:17

improvising. What

15:21

bothers me is she doesn't know what a hurricane is. Like she

15:23

said, the winds have turned into a hurricane. Hurricanes

15:26

are round. They go back where they came from.

15:30

And she also said that Human Rights Act is actually

15:32

a criminal rights act. And I was

15:35

like, oh, this is horrific. And I went to look at it

15:37

and it's like freedom of education.

15:39

It's not to be tortured. Oh,

15:41

the horror.

15:43

And you know, the bit that really amazed

15:45

me is when she was like the hurricane,

15:48

my parents came in a gust, but the

15:50

hurricanes coming. And you know what?

15:52

Some of them are gay.

15:55

And I thought, oh, this isn't small

15:57

boats now. This is a flotilla.

15:59

I've got a teller that looks like

16:02

the boss from Priscilla, Queen of the Den.

16:05

It's just a pride march crossing

16:07

the channel and I think as a country

16:09

we would be like, yes, come

16:13

in and we will make Kylie Queen.

16:23

And genuinely that speech made

16:25

Enoch Powell's River of Blood speech

16:27

sound like the introduction meeting. You

16:30

get an all-inclusive

16:30

holiday.

16:36

It was when that guy heckled and said you're making

16:38

us look transphobic and I thought, no, it's

16:40

everything that you've done and said

16:42

that's done now. All of it. All

16:44

of it. It's like that's the only new

16:46

part because this is the same refrain

16:48

it's been for the last 20 years. Blame the

16:51

mic, but now they've added a little bit of identity politics. So

16:53

there's still the boogeyman. Oh,

16:55

me. But the boogeyman's wearing lipstick.

16:58

That's all really different. You've been boogeyman for a long

17:00

time, trust me. As

17:03

a trans woman myself, I think it's

17:06

disgustingly woke that the BBC will have me

17:08

on this show. That's

17:10

the last comment of the courage to say it.

17:12

You privatise

17:14

it now. You've taken me out of my busy

17:16

schedule of going to the toilet. I'm

17:25

ruining women's sports by

17:27

attempting to play and getting

17:31

people fired for using the wrong pronouns. That's

17:35

basically what we do all day in our ivory

17:37

towers. Because we're the true

17:39

elites, apparently.

17:40

It's clearly

17:42

a straight to break. Apparently

17:46

I'm the most terrifying thing you can find in a bathroom. You

17:50

see, now I would have thought it would be a venomous snake

17:52

with a taste for human genitalia. That would be a far more terrifying

17:55

thing to do. And

17:58

just when you look at the statistics alone.

17:59

Like, you save her in a bathroom with a trans person and

18:02

a member of Girls Aloud. Um, one for the gays,

18:04

then. So,

18:12

Alabraman likes to talk about coming down hard

18:14

on people without always matching

18:16

up to her rhetoric, but what did she actually

18:18

come down hard on at the Tory

18:20

Conference? Is

18:23

this a deleted scene I didn't see? I

18:27

know he said hard on, but that's not what he meant. Is

18:31

this the gay dog? Yes. Oh,

18:33

yes. She stepped on a gay dog?

18:36

Yes. Exactly.

18:39

She probably

18:40

thought it was a just stop oil protestant.

18:42

That's what

18:43

she thought it was. And

18:46

it's spread around the world, clearly

18:48

the news, because in America, Biden's

18:50

dog has been chased up

18:53

because it's bit staff members, so now the

18:55

dogs are unionizing. People

18:59

were asking why the dog didn't move when

19:01

she stood in it, but it was already where it was

19:03

supposed to be, because it had already come to where all the dog

19:05

whistles were. Yes,

19:09

in what was described as her most humane and kind-hearted

19:12

moment of the conference. Sue

19:17

Alabraman trampled

19:19

on someone's guide dog. Yes,

19:23

Sue Alabraman once again has stoked

19:26

the fires of dissatisfaction in this country

19:28

by warning of an immigration hurricane,

19:31

confirming her status as the figurehead of the delusionist

19:34

wing of the Conservative Party. So

19:36

does Brabraman have even a scintilla

19:39

of a point lurking in there? After all, let's not forget,

19:41

even a stopped henge is right twice a

19:43

year. If you're

19:45

standing at the right angle for the right minute

19:47

and have ideally been up all night and around and

19:49

have your mind on psychotropic substances, well

19:52

clearly this is a big global

19:54

problem, and we must surely ask

19:56

when is at least one other country going

19:58

to

19:59

do its part?

20:00

After all, from the Ukraine refugee crisis,

20:03

we in Britain have taken all 200,000 of the 6 million

20:07

refugees forced out of Ukraine.

20:09

That is literally every single one of

20:11

the ones that we've taken, and arguably more

20:14

than that if you ignore all the ones that have gone to

20:16

other countries. From the Syrian war,

20:18

remember that, we've taken 100% of a fifth of a percent

20:21

of the overall

20:23

number of refugees who have flown.

20:25

Why is it always us? Why

20:27

is someone else going to step up to our

20:30

plate? It's not much to ask after inventing

20:32

all those sports for the world, is it? I

20:35

also have a five-point plan for dealing with this huge

20:38

global issue. It is a very, very difficult issue,

20:41

but I have concocted a five-point plan that I'm willing

20:43

to share with any political party to deal with

20:45

the global migration crisis. Point one, quite

20:47

simple, end all war, poverty,

20:50

hunger, suffering, persecution and inequality. I

20:53

haven't really costed it out, and might

20:57

be a bit woke to sell us a policy these days. Point

21:00

two, build a moat. So we have

21:02

to try that one. Point

21:04

three, tag all 7.8 billion

21:07

potential illegal asylum migrants who are on the verge

21:09

of hurricane-ing their way over here,

21:11

so that we can see when they're massing outside

21:13

the white cliffs of Dover. Point four, use

21:16

New Zealand, it's massive. And

21:19

point five, crucially, change the entire

21:22

nature of the human psyche. Because

21:24

this is what is driving the global migration crisis.

21:26

Evolutionary flaw in our brains, which means

21:28

that if we live somewhere bad,

21:31

we want to move to somewhere

21:33

less bad. Well,

21:36

that brings the end of our Conservative Conference

21:38

round. Quite a long round. And

21:44

let's call the scores nil-nil to

21:47

summarise the entire point of the

21:49

social party conference season.

21:53

We will finish now, since we're here in

21:55

Manchester City, famed for its music. We're recording

21:57

at a music venue here. We're going to have a... music

22:00

round but without music in it. We're

22:04

going to focus on the lyrics of songs

22:07

that our panellists have to update to

22:10

tell us a story from this week's news. So

22:12

Susie and Hugo can you update this lyric?

22:15

What are you going to do with all that junk, all

22:17

that junk inside your... Ol'

22:20

Edge. I'm going to put it in my orbital

22:23

ball littering zone because it's

22:25

space junk. Correct. Just

22:27

wait till Lawrence Fox hears about this. Oh

22:30

aye, these space fascists.

22:33

Yes, that's a thing isn't it? Space

22:35

junk. This is now a thing that

22:38

a company get

22:38

fined for their

22:40

satellite that's meant to be 176 miles away

22:43

from Earth but it was always

22:45

something like 76 so they get

22:48

fined. That is how far

22:50

the woke agenda's really going to be. It's

22:52

going to other galaxies. How

22:55

bad have we got that now space is full?

22:57

Space is just another word for the absence

23:00

of stuff. I can't believe that

23:02

we have now got people in space who

23:04

are like the guy you get at the tip

23:07

that follows you round from

23:09

bend to bend when you go to put your TV

23:11

in one skip and he's like no!

23:14

It's that skip and he makes you take

23:16

all your rubbish to the other side. We've

23:19

got somebody doing that

23:20

for us. How many seagulls are there now in space? That's

23:22

the thing I would. What we need is

23:24

floating bins, floating coloured

23:27

bins. But how many? How

23:29

many? We put our threatens for seven,

23:31

you want them floating? They will find $150,000 and

23:34

the company has a $16

23:38

billion turnover. That's like

23:40

going well the fine for drunk driving is

23:42

now three pence. They

23:44

got fined for just the litter of like one,

23:47

what one satellite in space. Imagine

23:49

how much they fined Luke Skywalker. Space

23:54

is now just so full of stuff that's been up there for decades. So

23:56

that's the thing that if you went up there you'd probably find like fax

23:59

machines and. It's weird

24:01

you should say that, Susie,

24:02

because when I cleared out my parents' attic, I found

24:25

a 1950s Soviet dog in there.

24:32

The US government has slapped a $150,000 littering fine on

24:34

a satellite company for leaving

24:37

one of its satellites just lying around in space.

24:40

Space junk is an increasing problem for this old planet

24:42

of ours with our orbit cluttered up with bits of assorted

24:45

metal. Of an estimated 10,000 plus

24:47

satellites blasted into space since the 1950s, over half

24:49

have now retired from

24:51

satelliteing and are just milling around up there.

24:54

There are 25,000 bits of space junk plinking

24:56

around, leading to concerns there might not be space

24:58

for all the billionaires. The

25:02

religious experts also fear that up

25:05

to 37% of all prayers now get deflected by

25:07

space junk

25:07

and

25:14

either reach the wrong

25:16

deity or no deity whatsoever. This

25:19

has brought a significant knock on impact on sports

25:21

results and the percentage of lost pets found.

25:31

It's not easy being green. Words

25:34

famously sung by one KT Frog,

25:36

the great American philosopher, state's amphibian

25:38

and crooner. But where in the UK

25:41

have Sir Kermit's words been particularly

25:43

relevant this week? Oh, I

25:45

know this one. It's

25:48

Loch Nei, just outside

25:50

Belfast, which is now so

25:52

full of algae, it's now

25:54

become an American tourist attraction because they've

25:57

gone sea, even their lakes are greener. I

26:01

actually would argue that it's not the amount

26:03

of algae that's the problem, it's the

26:05

frequency of the algae. They

26:07

clearly have a bad algae rhythm.

26:18

This is a fake teeth half the population

26:20

of Belfast drinking water hasn't it? The question

26:23

is what half? Because the other

26:25

half are going to be a little bit better.

26:29

Historically they've been fine with only 50% of

26:31

the town having something now. My

26:35

favourite bit was the Department of Agriculture

26:37

and Environment in Roodle of Fairseeds.

26:39

Lochney's problem is a complex

26:41

multi-factorial issue that will take

26:44

years if not decades to solve

26:46

so unusual for Northern Ireland.

26:48

I

26:51

think this is basically though being caused

26:54

by one too many journalists from the

26:56

Guardian going there to write articles about

26:58

freshwater swimming. This

27:01

is nature's way of fighting back. This

27:05

is Lochney, the largest freshwater lake in

27:07

the UK located in Northern Ireland. It's

27:09

currently overwhelmed with toxic so-called

27:12

blue-green algae but it's not actually

27:14

algae it's caused by some woke

27:17

bacteria. But you

27:19

know for me I think algae is algae in

27:21

bacteria's bacteria and I don't like things being

27:23

confused. Northern

27:29

Ireland still not have a functioning government

27:31

after 19 months now and that's not proving

27:33

to be the dreamy utopia it might appear.

27:38

Other factors include sewage, fertilisers, weather

27:40

and I'm just hearing from a source within the Conservative government

27:42

people using different pronouns. That

27:48

brings

27:48

us to the end of this week's

27:50

News Quiz and let's call the scores

27:53

five all because in the week of the Tory conference it seems

27:55

only appropriate that there should be no winners.

28:09

Take part in the newspaper Hugo Rifkin,

28:12

Susan

28:12

McCabe, Delisa Chapponda and

28:14

Bethany Black. In the chair was

28:16

Andy Zoltzman and additional material was

28:18

written by Alice Fraser, Katie Darla and

28:21

Caroline Mabey. The producer was Sam

28:23

Holmes and it was a BBC Studios

28:25

production for Radio 4.

28:29

Ryan

28:32

Reynolds

28:39

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