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0:39

Hello and welcome to In The News This Week, the podcast

0:41

from some of the team behind Have I Got News For

0:43

You, where we take you through our picks of the news

0:45

this week when the TV show can't. We'll be looking at

0:47

both the serious and not so serious news items and trying

0:49

to convince each other of which story we think would have

0:52

been perfect for the show if it was on air. Which

0:54

it isn't. But let's introduce ourselves anyway. I'm

0:56

Emerald Pastern. I write on Have I Got News

0:58

For You. I'm Jack Harris, who's sometimes

1:00

producer of the show. I'm Mike Raymond, sometimes

1:02

series producer of the show. And I'm

1:05

Queenie Miller, the picture researcher for the show, which

1:07

is obviously essential for a podcast. Absolutely.

1:09

Hello, everyone. Hello. Lovely

1:13

to see all your faces on the

1:15

other side of the ocean because I'm

1:17

in New York. New

1:19

York. So it's a real jet

1:21

set show. We've got St. Albans. I'm

1:23

in Edinburgh. Oh, you're in Edinburgh? I know, I

1:26

didn't want to record with me. Oh,

1:28

wow. So you're both that's really passive aggressive.

1:31

Well, I think we should crack on straight away with the

1:33

big question that everyone and all the news posts talk about

1:35

this week. Jack, how many people have you told about your

1:37

deodorant? I just told someone about it

1:39

yesterday as well. I found another

1:41

person to talk about it. I've got

1:43

a new thing to talk about now, which is

1:46

I went to a supermarket and they had about

1:48

20 different flavors of hummus. That's amazing.

1:51

It's pretty good until you see some

1:53

of the flavors. So I bought a

1:55

limited edition dill pickle hummus, the one

1:58

that I text my American colleagues about

2:00

was a dessert hummus, which

2:02

was chocolate-flavoured. We have that

2:04

here. Do we actually? Yeah.

2:07

Yeah, it's called Nutella. You're behind the curve, man. Anyway,

2:09

that's all we've got time for this week. So I

2:12

guess let's get straight into round one. The big

2:14

story this week, at the honeymoon

2:16

period is definitely over for labor. I

2:19

mean, talk about being over quick. It's like the political equivalent

2:21

of filing for divorce using the wife on the plane on

2:23

the way to the Maldives. There's

2:26

a bit of a fear the first few

2:28

weeks, labor seemed to be competent. Ipsos has

2:30

shown that Keir Starmer's approval ratings have gone

2:32

down from plus seven to

2:35

zero. Which is actually not bad in terms of

2:37

the... So

2:39

the senior director at Ipsos said that

2:41

labor and care are still enjoying a

2:44

moderate honeymoon period. And I feel

2:46

like only in the UK can something be classed

2:48

as a honeymoon when the approval rating is zero.

2:51

That's how little fun we have. It's because

2:53

most people are minus four. That's incredible. We

2:55

should probably say as well, the bane of

2:57

many topical TV show, we

3:00

were just slightly too late last week to cover labor's

3:02

capitulation to the rail unions. But that's sort

3:04

of been rumbling on as well, hasn't it?

3:06

They give that pay 14%, wasn't it? Was

3:09

it as left? A fantasy figure from Narnia. I'm

3:13

glad no one at home can see Queenie's look

3:15

at this thing. They probably melt their face off.

3:18

But again, in Narnia fantasy land, they thought that

3:20

was going to solve the issue. And

3:22

it absolutely didn't. They just instantly went, oh

3:25

yeah, thanks for that. Oh no, we're also

3:27

going to call a strike with the LNER.

3:30

So they over a different dispute. So they

3:32

took the pay rise and then still

3:34

went on strike. Which I

3:36

think is brilliant. And then on top of that, you've

3:38

got Mick Lynch who goes, oh right, that's what they're

3:40

getting. Cool, we want that too. Otherwise we're going on

3:43

strike. That's the RMT. This is how it should work.

3:45

Opening the floodgates. I'm not going to elaborate. I just

3:47

think there's people should be paid

3:49

enough. Again, living in a fantasy land is

3:51

what we're talking about, which is nice. I

3:54

totally get what you're saying, Queenie. Because even these

3:57

pay rises, as has been pointed out, they're not

3:59

making people. equivalent to inflation

4:01

now they're bringing them back to 2010 levels so

4:04

we're sort of going we just got back

4:07

to 2010 and even then we can't afford

4:09

it. I would

4:11

think there's some worrying lack of honesty from Labour

4:13

over it and over what they're doing and I

4:15

think if they owned it a bit more and

4:18

accepted that they can't please everyone it might

4:21

play a bit better. Keir Starmer's week went

4:23

to Wales didn't he to go look at a load

4:25

of wind farms. He must be so annoyed he was

4:27

gonna go on holiday. Some

4:31

people go to Wales to look at wind farms

4:33

for the holiday at the same time it's like

4:35

yeah look how green credentials and then

4:37

the government snuck in the fact that they're increasing

4:40

capacity to London City Airport by like 15%. I

4:42

think the technical term for it is taking

4:44

the piss. And

4:47

you know obviously they've been quite swift to

4:49

convict all of these rioters and

4:51

they go great we've convicted them we haven't got any

4:53

space for them. So they've had

4:55

to invoke what they've called Operation

4:57

Early Dawn which sounds exciting. It's

4:59

like the Ryders of Rohan. Again

5:01

we're going fantasy with it aren't

5:03

we? Literally on the third morning

5:05

I have a whirlwind scrub too

5:07

much right? You

5:10

can never have enough. What I really enjoyed about that

5:12

the idea that if they haven't got space for them

5:14

in cells they're gonna keep them in police cells or

5:17

they're gonna bail them but they're like we're

5:19

not gonna bail anyone so we're really bad.

5:21

You know if they went into Lush and

5:23

they stole three gift kits they're not getting

5:25

bail right? There was

5:27

an article where they said the operation in

5:30

future to kind of like deal with overflow

5:32

it can just be turned off and turned

5:34

on again which is the real

5:36

last line of desperation where you've got to go

5:38

for the turn off turn on and see if

5:40

it works. Are you saying with the Lush protesters

5:42

getting locked up it's a real ticking bath bomb?

5:45

Oh I like it like. I was

5:47

waiting for it I was excited. I'm just doing

5:49

them now for Queenie's Reactions that's all I'm... and

5:52

no one can see them which is the beauty of

5:54

it. Yeah yeah yeah that's more where that came from.

5:56

Tensions are bubbling could you say

5:58

that? wasn't as good.

6:00

I mean, what an absolute shower they are.

6:03

But I guess the big story at the

6:06

moment is the cronyism stuff that's come out.

6:08

In some ways this might not stand out

6:10

that much because we've kind of become used

6:12

to people in government putting people

6:14

they want into the civil service

6:16

or into particular positions but the

6:18

reason it matters is because those

6:21

civil servant positions that we're talking

6:23

about are meant to be

6:25

impartial, they're not meant to be related to

6:27

any party. And so bringing in cronies,

6:30

people that you already pals

6:32

with, maybe isn't as

6:34

impartial as it's meant to be. More

6:37

and more coming out, even this afternoon, there

6:39

was another story about another political

6:42

appointee by Labour into a

6:44

civil service position, Annie

6:46

Rose Peterman, who has

6:48

been put in charge of Starmer's diary,

6:51

which sounds like it should be sort of political, but

6:54

everyone says no, it can't be a political

6:56

appointment, it has to be something that's come

6:58

from like a sort of neutral civil servant

7:00

background. But was she before? She worked for

7:03

Emily Thornbury. She was basically

7:05

like a Labour Party staffer essentially. If you were

7:07

in charge of Starmer's diary, where would you send

7:09

him? Oh, yeah, I'd make him come to Spurs

7:11

with me on Saturday. But Mike, you're a Spurs

7:13

fan and it's uncomfortable for you as it is,

7:15

isn't it? Yeah, it is. It's not a pleasant

7:17

thing. Where would you send him,

7:19

Queenie? I was thinking about this. In Edinburgh

7:22

there are a lot of baked potato shops.

7:25

And they all have mascots that are like

7:27

really happy potatoes. And it reminds me of

7:29

Starmer every single time. It's just the head

7:31

shape is perfect. So I think he'd be

7:33

really good at one of those. What, because

7:35

he's like he's found his brethren. He obviously

7:37

looks like an Easter Island statue, but he

7:39

also looks like an anthropomorphic baked potato. Obviously.

7:42

That's fantastic. So I'd like to send

7:44

him there. Or I don't

7:46

know, Gambados. What's Gambados? Yeah, what is Gambados?

7:48

It's like one of those indoor plays. It

7:51

sounds like a crime family from the surprise.

7:53

We'll send you to see the Gambados. It's

7:55

like Gambados. I'd say if

7:57

Labour ran a jacket potato shop, it would look

7:59

really impressive. You have loads of beans and cheese

8:01

on top and then you walk outside and scrape

8:04

it and then just a raw potato underneath. Or

8:06

it's just the skin. Nothing else is left. Yeah,

8:08

yeah. They've given

8:10

you 90% skin. Oh my God. And then they go,

8:12

oh, it's Rishi Sunak's fault. What who was the one

8:15

you took about Mike with the cronyism? Emily Middleton. She

8:18

was a partner at Public Digital and

8:21

she's been named director

8:23

general in the Department of Science, Innovation

8:25

and Technology. Oh. You

8:28

know, diss it. Diss it. That's all you need

8:30

to say. She's involved in work

8:32

for a company that made donations to the Labour

8:34

Party and then subsequently found his jobs.

8:36

And what I think is really interesting is this is all

8:38

coming at a time when we know

8:41

now that Rachael Ries is going to have to

8:43

raise taxes and on

8:45

top of that, they're going to have to cut Whitehall

8:48

Department budgets. Something's telling me it's

8:50

not going to be a first in, first out

8:52

policy when it comes to sacking people. So it

8:54

sort of makes it even more, I don't know,

8:56

grubby. The other one was the

8:59

appointment of Ian Corfield as he the Treasury

9:01

guy. And he that is caused up an

9:03

even bigger stink because he personally donated like

9:05

20 grand to

9:08

Labour MPs, including to

9:10

Rachael Rives. And they didn't

9:12

declare that to the civil service kind of

9:14

authority. The watchdog who put that in. When

9:17

I heard about this cronyism thing, I smell

9:19

Tory and we know how much Labour love

9:21

to stick to Tory policy. So I was

9:23

like, I'm going to do some research. And

9:26

it only took me about three seconds to get back to

9:28

May 2022, where the Tories were accused

9:31

of exactly the same thing. They

9:33

put two businessmen who together donated

9:35

more than a million pounds in

9:37

very high profile public sector health

9:39

jobs. Yeah, we do on the show as well. We

9:43

probably do a super. I actually saw, I

9:45

think it was Guido did a

9:48

supercut of Rachael Rives and Keir

9:50

Starmer and all of the Cabinet

9:52

ministers talking about cronyism. And

9:54

I know they are very one sided,

9:56

but it made a good point.

9:58

It sort of suggests they don't. have a great

10:00

respect for the intellect of the electorate of Great

10:03

Britain. Yeah, true. They've been such a small amount

10:05

of time and they're already doing

10:07

this. And then it'll be less than

10:09

six months before they've also raised taxes,

10:11

dropped their green pledges. That won't wash

10:13

with people and the goodwill

10:15

you've got for coming into a very

10:18

difficult situation is going

10:20

to evaporate very, very

10:22

quickly. Would we be able to gamify this

10:24

on Have I Got News? Question. Would you

10:26

do like a Kia end of honeymoon? And

10:28

it's all the things that have ruined his

10:30

honeymoon. Yeah, his face photoshopped into

10:32

a plane or something. On a beach. Yeah.

10:35

He's sticking his head through like at the

10:37

sea. So obviously, you might not be on

10:39

the body of an old man. Another person's

10:41

head comes through and goes, what's their connection

10:43

to the Labour Party? Yeah. People

10:52

often ask me what my regular London pub

10:54

is, but that assumes there's a pub I

10:56

can easily return to. So please stop asking

10:58

that. London

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order, additional term supply. Welcome

12:38

back to In The News This Week. Before we get

12:40

into round two, I should take a moment to pass

12:43

on our thoughts to the family and friends of a

12:45

much loved member of the Who I Got News For

12:47

You team, Roger Law. He

12:50

was a legendary lawyer for many TV

12:52

and radio shows across the BBC. But

12:54

he's especially well loved and regarded on

12:56

Who I Got News For You and

12:58

we certainly kept him busy. Characterised

13:01

by his kindness, calmness, wisdom and wit, he

13:03

would be sorely missed. Yeah, always fun to

13:06

work with someone who loves the show. That's

13:08

it. He really did. It was

13:10

always fun because we used to sit in the gallery and

13:13

there'd be something that was said and you'd think, oh, we

13:16

might be in trouble here. And you turn and

13:18

look and Roger would just be slapping his leg

13:20

laughing. And then there'd

13:22

be other times where you were just completely

13:24

in the show and you wouldn't even pick

13:26

something up that someone had said and Roger

13:28

would be like fum on it. Certainly a

13:31

averted menu lawsuit. If

13:33

you'd like to donate to Cancer Research UK and

13:35

Roger's name, you

13:37

can visit

13:40

www.rogerlaw.muchloved.com. Now

13:47

it's time for round two, where we

13:49

each bring a news item from the past week

13:51

that we think would work perfectly for round two

13:53

of the TV show. Jack, as

13:56

you're ahead of us in hours over there

13:58

in New York, because

14:00

I think that's how time works. I

14:02

think I'm behind, but I've still happily stayed

14:04

there first. Oh yeah, a bit like my

14:06

brain apparently. I've got a

14:08

moment to come. Whatever you guys have gone through in

14:11

the last five hours, I'm excited to... Oh mate, it's

14:13

horrendous. Well,

14:16

unsurprisingly, I'm going to cover something from America.

14:19

Quite a big week this week because

14:21

of the DNC, so the Democratic National

14:23

Convention, where they're

14:26

crowning Kamala Harris as the choice. So

14:28

they have four days and they've got all these

14:30

kind of big-name speakers. Joe Biden

14:32

being the kind of marquee name. There's

14:35

a bit of controversy because he

14:37

got pushed to quite late

14:39

on, so he didn't stop speaking until

14:41

about half 12 in Eastern time,

14:43

which is kind of like the media hub, I

14:46

guess. And all of his

14:48

teams supposedly were unhappy about that. And

14:50

also poor guy, man. He's 81, right? And

14:54

then making him starting to talk at like half 11 at

14:56

night. I read a thing that

14:58

said they blamed the fact that there was just

15:01

so much applause throughout the night.

15:03

Their raucous applause was the excuse. And

15:05

you think they've definitely... As someone pointed out

15:07

on CNN, they've definitely accounted for that. This

15:09

is not the first time that everyone's

15:11

been getting... What

15:14

is going on? Raucous... Like boasting about

15:16

their raucous applause. I mean, this is

15:18

like giving Kamala Harris an easy run.

15:20

I mean, honestly, Kim Jong-un got a

15:22

harder reelection campaign. And they

15:24

always accounted for raucous applause in North Korea. I

15:28

mean, that's 90% of the show. Yeah,

15:30

exactly. So that was quite funny.

15:32

And also very funny in that you've got

15:34

Nancy Pelosi, who's been sort of accused of

15:36

being the orchestrator of getting Joe Biden to

15:39

stand down. Everyone had these

15:41

We Love Joe banners. And

15:43

you could see her sort of really phoning in

15:46

the We Love Joe as everyone around. She's

15:49

like, yeah, come on, keep it going. I rate

15:51

that so much. I love a great video playing

15:53

for the show. Ah, another thing they had, the

15:56

roll calls. They go through the states where they

15:58

announce who's voting for who. And

16:00

obviously everyone's giving their votes to Kamala Harris. But

16:03

there's been some great comparisons of the

16:05

RNC, so the Republican National Convention. It

16:07

was very kind of like, okay,

16:10

now we go to Ohio for their votes in

16:12

the RNC, and they'd go, yeah, we give 40

16:14

votes to Donald Trump. And

16:17

at the DNC, they took it to another level because

16:19

they had a DJ who would

16:21

play a song related to each state

16:23

for like a party atmosphere. Whoa. And

16:27

did you see little John turned up? Anyone see this?

16:30

No, but I love it. It's a little

16:32

John. What, from Robin Hood? It was actually

16:34

little John's name. The singer, little John, singing

16:36

down for that, rapping along

16:39

to announce Georgia's votes.

16:42

And it was very bizarre. Everyone

16:44

was quite excited. Yeah, and

16:47

I quite liked that. I think in

16:49

our show, we'd go, okay, this is

16:51

what the RNC looks like, relaxed, normal,

16:53

bit boring. DNC, they're pumping it up

16:55

with these tunes, and then you cut

16:57

to like, Tory party or

16:59

Labour party conference. You've got Theresa May

17:01

popping in. We have

17:03

Margaret Beckett singing House of the Rising Sun. That

17:05

was a classic for a long time. It's

17:08

a tough watch. Obama did a

17:10

bit of a barnstorming speech, as you'd expect.

17:12

He did a bit of a side

17:15

joke about Donald Trump's crowd sizes with

17:17

a sort of nod to what

17:20

else could be big or large. Get him, Lee.

17:22

It's not very demure. Oh, look at

17:24

you, Mike. No. Tapping into the

17:26

TikTok generation. Yeah, you guys thought, oh,

17:28

Mike, he don't like brat or Banksy.

17:30

He's not down with the kids. Well,

17:33

guess what? You've just used a phrase that you've

17:35

seen on like, good. That's good. Yeah,

17:37

I have nothing else other than that. Other than I've

17:39

seen a lot of people saying that. I've seen it

17:42

pop up, but I don't know. Well, it's quite clear

17:44

you don't know what demure is, Jack, but the very

17:46

demure, very mindful quote. So

17:49

I think that the TikTok creator is called Jules

17:51

Lebron, and it just

17:53

seems like her words really fit a

17:56

lot of situations. Yeah, even the White

17:58

House tweeted using it.