The News Quiz: Ep1. Messiah or Doctor?

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
Episode: The News Quiz: Ep1. Messiah or Doctor?
Date: April 24, 2026
Host: Andy Zaltzman
Panelists: Stephen Bush, Kiri Pritchard Maclean, Zoe Lyons, Andrew Maxwell

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Episode Overview

This episode launches a new series of The News Quiz, the satirical BBC Radio 4 panel show where comedians and commentators riff on the week’s news. With major UK elections looming and global turmoil unfolding, the regulars dissect political disarray, poke fun at policies, and lampoon world leaders—especially Donald Trump and the latest Middle Eastern crisis. Alongside their sharp takes, the panel revels in absurd trivia (like a UK pickle shortage) and delivers the show’s trademark blend of current affairs, wit, and playful banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Upcoming Parliamentary & Local Elections

[02:05–06:53]

• Main focus: The rapidly approaching UK Senate, Scottish Parliament, and English local elections (May 7th), marking potential seismic political shifts.
• Kiri Pritchard Maclean discusses the end of Labour’s long reign in Wales, with the party potentially down to "single figures" for MS seats.

  "We punish people. They lose a seat, they lose a finger. Not my rules." (03:13)

• Reform UK is ridiculed for its manifesto, particularly the plan to abolish 20mph speed limits in Wales ("running on the idea that there should be more dead Welsh people").
• Potential Plaid Cymru-led coalition with Greens discussed; Lib Dems humorously dismissed as insignificant.
• Polling Woes:
  • Reform UK and Plaid Cymru are neck-and-neck despite embarrassing errors (misspelling Welsh words on their manifesto [04:37–04:49]).
  • General voter apathy noted—no party exceeds 25% in polls, “an impressively broad display of political antipathy.”

    “All the parties are going to get at least 75% of the electorate not voting for them…” — Andy Zaltzman (05:25)

Notable Quotes

• Stephen Bush:

  "You can vote for Reform, who are kind of on the fence about whether or not I should be in this country." (05:57)
  “You can vote for the Labour Party, who I don't think seem to believe in anything.” (06:19)

• Andy Zaltzman:

  “Factoring in the now traditional low turnouts, we’re looking at all the parties not being voted for by 85% of the electorate, which is frankly spectacular.” (12:06)

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2. Local Issues: Potholes, Bins, and Buses

[07:05–09:12]

• Zoe Lyons skewers the Greens’ free bus travel promise: “It does mean that more people can be inconvenienced by a pothole at once, though.”
• Ongoing grievances about local infrastructure—potholes so huge “you could build a sodding library in [them]”.
• Comedy at the expense of elderly bus drivers and inefficient bus networks in Scotland and Wales.

Notable Quotes

• Andrew Maxwell:

  "If we let all the potholes join up, would we then just have a road again but a little bit lower?" (07:30)

• Zoe Lyons:

  "It's our defence mechanism now. If we ever get invaded, the only thing that will save us are potholes." (07:57)

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3. The Tories’ Anti-Graffiti Campaign

[09:27–11:43]

• Satire aimed at the Conservative Party’s attempt to crack down on graffiti.
• Andrew Maxwell:

  “A Tory shouldn’t be at a music festival. A Tory should own the farm the music festival is on.” (10:26)

• Stephen Bush notes the double meaning: those who make a mess must clean it, foreshadowing the likely 2026 Conservative messaging.

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4. Iran War & Global Tensions

[14:27–18:24]

• Ongoing chaos in the Middle East, with panellists joking about the futility and cyclical nature of “sorting” and “unsorting” geopolitical crises.
• Skepticism around Trump’s leadership and America’s role, as well as the apparent lack of coherent strategy in the Iran conflict.
• Nostalgic callbacks to 1980s Cold War nuclear paranoia—protective measures deemed as ludicrous as current foreign policy.

Notable Quotes

• Zoe Lyons:

  "It's like trying to solve a headache by punching yourself in the face." (17:09)

• Kiri Pritchard Maclean:

  “I think there’s an uncomfortable thing here where we need to accept that people who are perceived as evil can possibly do a good thing… Ricky Gervais gave two and a half million pounds to animal charities. It’s exactly the same thing as far as I’m concerned.” (15:17)

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5. Trump, Christ Imagery, and Meme Warfare

[18:24–21:37]

• Widespread mockery of Donald Trump posting (and then deleting) an AI-generated image depicting himself as a Christ-like figure.
• Trump’s claim: he was being depicted as a doctor, not a messiah, because “I heal people.”
• Panel lampoons the surreal PR spin and social media behavior of world leaders.
• Viral memes as a new battlefield in international relations (with Iran allegedly responding with memes of Trump being bested by Jesus).
• Ridiculousness of old politicians on social media versus “sensible” teens.

Notable Quotes

• Kiri Pritchard Maclean:

  “I always thought when I was warned about proxy wars when we were growing up, I thought it would be drones and robots, not memes. That’s the war we’re in.” (19:49)

• Zoe Lyons:

  “Take these old bastards running the world off social media.” (20:21)

• Andrew Maxwell:

  “Who knew an orange man wouldn’t like the Pope?” (20:32)

• On AI images:
  • Andrew Maxwell:

    “We’re just leaning into our miracle ways and we’re just turning, you know, water into absinthe.” (22:58)

  • Kiri Pritchard Maclean:

    “This is literally what [Attenborough] would have wanted, is to be hurled into the mouth of a crocodile to help it survive a little bit longer.” (23:35)

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6. The Tragedy of the Pickle Shortage

[25:25–27:34]

• Light-hearted lament about Pret a Manger running out of cornichons (mini pickles/gherkins), with Zoe Lyons bemoaning the loss to her joy and sandwiches.
• Discussion of supply chains, hypothesizing possible links to global conflicts and logistics.
• Zoe reveals her stockpiling habit:

  "I have four open jars of cornichons in my fridge at the moment because they never, ever, ever go off. One is from 1964, I believe. … they have grown their own little jumpers." (26:48)

• Humorous confusion about causes: “I thought it was carbon dioxide… can we just breathe on something?”

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Description | |---|---|---| | 03:13 | Kiri Pritchard Maclean | “We punish people. They lose a seat, they lose a finger. Not my rules.” | | 05:25 | Andy Zaltzman | “All the parties are going to get at least 75% of the electorate not voting for them…” | | 07:57 | Zoe Lyons | “It’s like it’s our defence mechanism now. … If we ever get invaded, the only thing that will save us are potholes.” | | 10:26 | Andrew Maxwell | “A Tory shouldn’t be at a music festival. A Tory should own the farm the music festival is on.” | | 12:06 | Andy Zaltzman | “Factoring in the now traditional low turnouts, we’re looking at all the parties not being voted for by 85% of the electorate, which is frankly spectacular.” | | 15:17 | Kiri Pritchard Maclean | "Ricky Gervais gave two and a half million pounds to animal charities. It's exactly the same thing as far as I'm concerned." | | 17:09 | Zoe Lyons | “It’s like trying to solve a headache by punching yourself in the face.” | | 19:49 | Kiri Pritchard Maclean | “I always thought when I was warned about proxy wars when we were growing up, I thought it would be drones and robots, not memes.” | | 20:21 | Zoe Lyons | “Take these old bastards running the world off social media.” | | 22:58 | Andrew Maxwell | “We’re just leaning into our miracle ways and we’re just turning, you know, water into absinthe.” | | 23:35 | Kiri Pritchard Maclean | “This is literally what [Attenborough] would have wanted, is to be hurled into the mouth of a crocodile to help it survive a little bit longer.” | | 26:48 | Zoe Lyons | “I have four open jars of cornichons in my fridge at the moment because they never, ever, ever go off. One is from 1964, I believe. … they have grown their own little jumpers.” |

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:05] – Discussion of upcoming UK and Wales elections
• [04:37] – Reform UK’s embarrassing errors in their Welsh manifesto
• [05:25] – UK-wide polling woes and widespread voter disillusionment
• [07:05] – Local election issues: bins, libraries, potholes
• [09:27] – Conservatives’ anti-graffiti campaign lampooned
• [14:27] – The Iran/US conflict and the futility of global diplomacy
• [18:24] – Trump’s Messiah/Doctor meme saga
• [22:13] – Satirical AI images of panelists and explanations
• [25:25] – The great British pickle (cornichon) crisis

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Overall Tone & Takeaway

The episode epitomizes The News Quiz’s irreverent, deadpan style. The panel eviscerates politicians, parties, and media spin with equal gusto, sparing little sympathy for the incompetence, absurdity, or self-importance on display at both the national and global level. With quick wit and sharp jabs, the team leaves listeners laughing at the British condition—a country on the cusp of elections that inspire mostly apathy, where local grievances matter more than grand strategies, and where even the shortage of a tiny pickle can be elevated to national crisis status.

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Transcript

[Andy Zaltzman]

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[Andy Zaltzman]

welcome to another series of the News Quiz. I'm Zaltzman. As you'll have heard, the BBC are making, to be precise, they're making cuts of 10 per. This means that every 10th word in this week's won't be said. So some jokes may not have and those that do still have punchlines won't be funny. Anyway, on we go. This is the news. Welcome back to the Newsproof. Let's meet this week's teams. We have Team Messiah against Team. No, sorry, not Messiah, I meant doctor. On Team Messiah we have Stephen Bush and Kyrie Pritchard McLean. And on team Dr. Zoe lyons and andrew maxwell. Kiri and Stephen, you can take our first question. There are now less than three weeks to go until what potentially seismic transformational event.

[Stephen Bush]

The Devil Wears Prada too. I'm not joking. Look, as a millennial, right, obviously a lot has gone wrong since the mid noughties for my generation and it's an exciting reminder of a time when we had economic growth, we were in the eu. It's also a terrifying journey back to a time when we had an ill advised war in the Middle East. But you know, not everything's perfect. So yeah, I've got big hopes for the Devil Wears Prada too.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Alright, you're resting quite a lot of hopes on one film Though I would

[Stephen Bush]

put it to you, that is a much more well thought out through plan than say Donald Trump. How long have you got?

[Andy Zaltzman]

Yeah, Kiri, what? We're less than three weeks away from

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

what big news in my home country because we're electing a new Senate.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Yes, the Senate elections, Scottish Parliament elections and local elections in England are happening in three weeks time on the 7th of May.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

So we're going to have a new parliament. We've all been put into a super constituency, terrible superhero, just in charge of the bin days. But these elections for us, so it's Going to be a big change. So the Senate was established in 1999. Since then, labour have been in control and it looks like they're going to lose power in the government. In fact, that they might be down to single fingers. Down to single fingers. That's what we do. We punish people. They lose a finger, they lose a seat, they lose a finger. Not my rules. Labors down to single figures, potentially in terms of mss, which is huge news. Also, I think, keep your eyes on what's happening politically in Wales, because we are seen to be sort of a canary in the coal mine. Coal mines. By the way, one of the things Reform have pitched to bring back in Wales. I know, yeah. Because that's what we want in Wales is the gentle hum of a nebulizer in the corner of the living room. We've really missed those Reform as well. They've released their manifesto. It's 18 pages long, so a little light on detail. The main thing that they want to do is scrap the 20 miles per hour. Now, since the 20 mile per hour limit has been introduced in Wales, the stats have come back and said that about 100 lives have been saved. So Reform are running on the idea that there should be more dead Welsh people. That's their big policy. Plyd Cymru are probably going to form the next guest government. They're sort of center left also probably in a coalition with the Green Party, maybe some Labour members. The Lib Dems are like, we might form the next government. There's one of them and she's set to lose a seat. So we can do what we do in England, ignore the Lib Dems. Yeah, it's. It's a really sort of exciting time for politics in Wales.

[Andy Zaltzman]

And so Reform in the polling, sort of neck and neck with Clyde Cymru, despite Reform UK misspelling two of the three Welsh language words on the COVID of their manifesto.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

Yes. Yeah, not bad. And those were the only Welsh words in the manifesto as well, so not great odds.

[Andy Zaltzman]

So is it possible then, having misspelled two of those three words, that many voters will tell Reform to no duck themselves? Andrew, how excited are you about all these elections on the 7th of May?

[Andrew Maxwell]

I am very excited. I strongly oppose the 20 miles an hour. I think that's outrageous. I stand with Reform on that only because all my points have tottered up and I'm on the verge of losing me license

[Andy Zaltzman]

politically at the moment. The whole of the United Kingdom's in a really weird position, isn't it, Steven? No one's really doing that well in the polls. I think Reform are generally leading the national polls around about 24, 25%. So basically all the parties are going to get at least 75% of the electorate not voting for them, which is quite an impressively broad display of political antipathy, isn't it?

[Stephen Bush]

Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to fathom, isn't it? I mean, when you think about them, they're all so appealing.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Right.

[Stephen Bush]

I could vote for Reform, who are kind of on the fence about whether or not I should be in this country. You could vote for the Conservatives, who basically have the think that everything was going brilliantly in the United Kingdom until the summer of 2024 when, inexplicably, the British public rejected them in a landslide. Who can say why it happened? But we'll come to our senses really soon. You can vote for the Greens, who basically, I think, think all of our problems can be solved through communing with crystals. Or you can vote for the Labour Party, who I don't think seem to believe in anything. Or you can vote for the Lib Dems, who. Well, I guess the great thing about the Lib Dems is when you suddenly realize you don't have a punchline, you can just go, the Lib Dems everywhere. But, yeah, I think people are just very dissatisfied with everything. But the good news is our electoral system is really well set up to deal with that. It absolutely won't guarantee a really extreme government winning a landslide majority on a

[Andy Zaltzman]

quarter of a vote.

[Stephen Bush]

So don't worry, guys. Sleep well.

[Andy Zaltzman]

You live in Brighton, Zoe. So, I mean, the Green surge, you've experienced that. You've had green MVs down there for.

[Zoe Lyons]

We've had Greens, we've had Labour, we've had all sorts. We've had. I'll tell you what we do still have, though. Potholes. That's what we've got. We've still got potholes. Still got potholes and bin issues. And it's, you know, this is what these elections are about. They're about sort of continental things that affect people at sort of grassroots level. Bins, libraries, potholes. And it's got to the point in this country where our potholes are so big, you could actually build your sodding library in the potholes.

[Andy Zaltzman]

If we.

[Andrew Maxwell]

If we let all the potholes join up, would then we just have a road again, but a little bit lower?

[Zoe Lyons]

I think that's there. I think that's actually a bloody brilliant idea.

[Andrew Maxwell]

Thanks. Both for me, 50 miles per hour in a 20 zone.

[Zoe Lyons]

How did they start? The old potholes?

[Andrew Maxwell]

Do we know? You know, nobody else seems to have them. The countries don't seem to have potholes.

[Zoe Lyons]

It's like it's our defence mechanism now. That is what it is. If we ever get invaded, the only thing that will save us are potholes. That is it. They'll charge up the beaches, they'll go, we've got them, we've invaded. Oh, sod it. Call the aa. That shattered me. Axel.

[Andy Zaltzman]

The Greens are offering people in Scotland free. What? Anyone?

[Zoe Lyons]

Anorax, sir.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Not anorax.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

Oh, is it free bus travel?

[Andy Zaltzman]

It is, yes. Is that going to be enough, do you think?

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

What? To make a Green Parliament in Scotland? I don't think so because I think Scotland's bus system is a little bit like Wales bus system, where it's just two very troubled middle aged men who have a bus route that is about 18 hours long.

[Zoe Lyons]

It does mean that more people can be inconvenient by a pothole at once though, so it's quite clever.

[Andrew Maxwell]

I've never seen a bus driver under 70

[Andy Zaltzman]

miles an hour.

[Stephen Bush]

Or

[Zoe Lyons]

how do the bus companies feel then about free buses for everybody then? How is this going to work?

[Andy Zaltzman]

I think it's free bus travel rather than a free bus for everyone.

[Zoe Lyons]

Can you imagine the traffic through Edinburgh? Oh my God. It's just end when buses. So bus travel for everyone. And this is going to be financ.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Just is

[Stephen Bush]

crystals, I say.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Yeah, crystals. Well, you mentioned the Labour and Conservatives struggling with another electoral debacle seemingly inevitable, who this week has been trying to take the writing off the wall.

[Andrew Maxwell]

Finally, the Conservative Party are taking on graffiti. It's an absolute abomination. Nobody needs graffiti. It's appalling. And thank God, finally Kemi's stepping up to the plate, which you'd never expect because the Tories are incredibly hip party, so they're very big into the world of street art. So they're actually going against their own side.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Right.

[Andrew Maxwell]

So you know they mean it. I not fight those weird. When the Tories get involved in anything trendy, it's always weird. I did a Latitude one year, you know, the music festival and the big scandal was that Damien Green, who was at the time was a Tory government minister, was there and he was Instagramming his, his trip to Latitude and all the sandalwear and types of Latitude were outraged that there was a Tory government minister there amongst them. And I was like, I couldn't agree more. A Tory shouldn't be at a music festival. A Tory should own the farm. The music festival is on.

[Stephen Bush]

It's actually quite a clever campaign in some ways. So their big message is that if the people who've made the graffiti should have to clean it off. The people who are responsible for the mess should be the ones put in charge of cleaning it up. Which, in a sneak preview of their campaign in the next general election, will actually be the message. So

[Zoe Lyons]

it was so ineffectual though, Kevin, just with a sponge on graffiti, which is notoriously hard to get off. It's not a bit of jam, you know, so they just sort of spread it around a bit and then buggered off, leaving it slightly worse. But what a bizarre thing, what a bizarre stunt to pull off now. Andrew said, you can't imagine people waking up in Britain at the moment going, oh, oh God. I just, I couldn't sleep last night just thinking about the state of the world and all of that graffiti.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Well, do you know, I blame for it all. Michelangelo,

[Zoe Lyons]

you ruined that ceiling. I really did.

[Andy Zaltzman]

How many?

[Zoe Lyons]

You can't see any of the brickwork now. It's lovely. The pointing on that was gorgeous.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Yes, the countdown is on. Just under three weeks until national parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales, as well as voters in England joyously skipping to the polling stations in 5,000 odd council seats across England. Who's looking forward to voting in the local elections? That sounds almost enthusiastic. Overall, the election seems set to give a very clear idea of a nation that doesn't have any clear idea of what it is politically anymore. Latest polling chose Labour on a heroically unimpressive 17% behind the Greens, appositely non earth shattering 18%. The conservatives phenomenally mediocre 19%. With the liberal Democrats on a don't write home about it, 13%. And reform on a flatlined not really winning over a wider public 24%. In other words, factoring in the now traditional low turnouts, we're looking at all the parties not being voted for by 85% of the electorate, which is frankly spectacular. We have a record number of floating voters now. And by floating, I mean bobbing face down in a reservoir of disillusionment. Right at the end of our UK politics round, it's four old.

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[Zoe Lyons]

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[Zoe Lyons]

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[Zoe Lyons]

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[Andy Zaltzman]

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[Andrew Maxwell]

Well, number one, it'll all be sorted, right?

[Stephen Bush]

Yep.

[Zoe Lyons]

And then it'll be unsorted and then it'll be sorted again and then unsorted before lunch, sorted again after dinner, unsorted. When you go to bed, you'll have nightmares about it, you'll wake up, it'll be sorted by the following lunchtime, it'll be unsorted again and then sorted again. I think what we're saying is we have no idea what is going on because there is a bat flying around in that man's head

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

to see the sort of global reaction and I think reaction people personally, in that the people in Iran did want liberation. You know, it's an unpopular regime there. But I'm not sure that America, led by Trump, is necessarily the best option to sort it out. It really does put the bad in bad faith actor. But I think there's an uncomfortable thing here where we need to accept that people who are perceived as evil can possibly do a good thing. You know, Ricky Gervais gave two and a half million pounds to animal charities. It's exactly the same thing as far as I'm concerned.

[Zoe Lyons]

The whole thing was to take nuclear power away from a lunatic in charge of a regime. And now when I hear that, I'm like, which one are we talking about?

[Andrew Maxwell]

There was no way of knowing that the straight to horror moose could be shut down, though. I mean, who could have seen that coming, do you know what I mean? Who knew that if you eat a load of Jaffa cakes one day you'll need a poo? Who knew what goes in here needs to come out somewhere else. No idea. There's no way of knowing, you know what I mean? And it's like it's not only a really narrow straight, it's also, you got to do a big bend as well to get around it. You've actually got to slow down.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

Are you talking about the toilet?

[Andy Zaltzman]

What do you guys think will be happening by the time people listen to this in Iran in the war piece?

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

Well, I think it's an interesting time. Is it because this is a war that America started and they haven't seemed to have thought anything through. Whereas Iran had stored, you know, they've got oil that's outside of the Strait of Hormuz that's been stored. They were kind of vaguely prepped for this.

[Stephen Bush]

So I think the answer is diplomacy is what will hopefully have broken out.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Right.

[Andrew Maxwell]

If this was a ship, you'd be over the side. Now that is not nautical talk if you're the captain.

[Stephen Bush]

I think I'd be safer on the side. I'm taking my chances with the water.

[Zoe Lyons]

I mean, I'm no expert in international diplomacy. But then again, nobody is running the States seems to be either. But the whole point was like Iran had put a restriction on the Strait of Hormuz of boats going through. So to counter that, the USA put a restriction on the boats going through the Strait of Hormuz. I don't, I'm confused. It's like trying to solve a headache by punching yourself in the face. Apparently one of the Secretary of State, the state said, you know, the short term pain will be much better than having to suffer a nuclear attack on London. And you're like, they weren't even prepared for a nuclear attack on London. And anyway, I grew up in the 80s when we had a proper threat of nuclear attack from Russia, you know, a proper one. And what we had to defend ourselves then was a pamphlet called Protect and Survive that was properly terrifying. One of the things we were told to do as a kid if you wanted to survive a nuclear attack, was take the door off the hinges and put it at 45 degrees after the 3 minute warning siren has gone off. Can you imagine? Have you ever tried to take a door off its hinges? Because mostly they've been painted over as well. And then you've got some poor bloke in the hall going, oh Christ, Margot, it's a Phillips head screwdriver. Imagine not surviving a nuclear attack because you didn't have a flathead. It's just

[Andy Zaltzman]

on the subject of diplomacy, who posted Then deleted what he claimed was a doctored image of himself.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

This is incredible. We've all seen this picture, right, of Donald Trump, as I think we can all agree, a Christ like imagery where he's kind of got glowing stigmata and he's laying his hand on the head of what looks to be a deceased Jeffrey Epstein. And there's sort of like, you know, they've got all these. They've got like the White House in the background and eagles and just lots of American things. So he posted this and loads of people got very upset and said, are you saying that you're Jesus? And then he said, no, I am saying I am a doctor and I know we have socialized medicine over here and they're terrified of it, but if that is the standard of care that they are receiving over there. Because I was in AE recently with a young person who was staying with me and I didn't see, like, people with glowing, stigmatic curing people in a very sort of beautiful, heavenly way. Saw loads of tired women in crocs vaping outside. That's what I saw. But, yeah, he claimed that it's nothing to do with Jesus. He said it just I was being depicted as a doctor. That's how I saw it, you know, because I heal people, is what he said. So I assume he got his medical degree from Trump University. Yeah, he claims he's a healer and that's why he shared the picture.

[Zoe Lyons]

Can you imagine turning up and that's the locum who's seeing you?

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

I'll do this. Me, myself. Give me the gear. Have you seen Iran are going back and forth, though, that they took that image and they sort of animated it where Jesus came down from the heavens and punched Tromaspace off his shoulders and then booted him to a pool of laughs. So that's where we are now. I always thought when I was warned about proxy wars when we were growing up, I thought it would be drones and robots, not memes. That's the war we're in.

[Zoe Lyons]

What's he doing at 2 o' clock in the morning sending out these images? Anyway, we're having loads of talk up at the moment about taking teenagers off social media. Keep them on it, they're fine, they're sensible, they know what they're doing. Take these old bastards running the world off social media.

[Andrew Maxwell]

Oh, Donald. He's having a row with the Pope.

[Andy Zaltzman]

He is, yeah.

[Andrew Maxwell]

He's gotten a big fight with the Pope. Who knew an orange man wouldn't like the Pope?

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

Did you hear what he Accused the Pope of it. He said to the Pope, he said, you're weak on crime. I mean, yeah, you can accuse the Catholic Church of not being very robust when it comes to crimes being committed on their watch, but probably not if you're in the Epstein files.

[Zoe Lyons]

I think that's Vance then plowed in, didn't he? He was at the Turning Point Conference and the States recently. Poorly attended. Poorly attended. Very poorly attended. And he was talking about the Pope and the Pope getting involved with this whole debacle. And he actually said, I think the Pope should be very careful when he's talking about things about theology. What? He's the Pope. That is his thing. In fact, if he was on, you know, Mastermind, it would be named Pope, especially subject theology.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Well, on the subject of these, Trump's excuse of claiming it was a doctor. What we've done here at the News Quiz is create similar AI pictures of our panelists in controversial situations. And I want a more implausible excuse from our panelists than Trump's. Honestly, I thought I was a doctor. So we've got these AI pictures that could be interpreted as being offensive. The first one I've got here is Andrew Maxwell and Zoe Lyons turning water into absinthe at someone's wedding.

[Andrew Maxwell]

Ah, yes.

[Zoe Lyons]

What do I look like?

[Andrew Maxwell]

That doesn't look like you at all.

[Zoe Lyons]

You're like Baldrick. I mean, you look like hot Jesus. I look like. I don't know what like you like hay.

[Andrew Maxwell]

I can save you one at a time. Time, by the way.

[Zoe Lyons]

Wow.

[Andrew Maxwell]

Or all together.

[Zoe Lyons]

That is not a flattering image. That is terrifying.

[Andrew Maxwell]

I don't know, I think I look pretty good enough.

[Andy Zaltzman]

But can you explain what you're doing in that without offending an entire religion?

[Andrew Maxwell]

No, of course we can. See, we, me and Zoe are performing a miracle.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Right.

[Andrew Maxwell]

We're on the lash in Prague and we don't have that much money for star or praming, so we're. We're just leaning into our miracle ways and we're just turning, you know, water into absinthe.

[Zoe Lyons]

It's just a much more efficient way of getting 3,000 people slightly pissed.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Right, for Stephen and Kiri, here's the picture of you two. It is Stephen Bush and Kiri Pritchard Maclean about to feed beloved national treasure David Attenborough to a hungry crocodile. So what can you. Can you explain yourselves from that picture?

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

Oh, my gosh.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Without offending Attenborough loving country.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

Right, so in this, we're kind of coaxing Attenborough into the mouth of the crocodile. Okay, well, what this is is actually David Attenborough is a big fan of the assisted death bill, but he thinks you should be able to choose the way that you want to go. And this is a Siamese crocodile, which are endangered. So this is literally what he would have wanted, is to be hurled into the mouth of a. A crocodile to help it survive a little bit longer. Is that fair, Stephen?

[Stephen Bush]

So I think I'm going to go for a different excuse, which is this is clearly Lenny Henry.

[Andrew Maxwell]

Even.

[Stephen Bush]

Even by the stat, I mean the fun thing about being an ethnic minority in AI is you literally never know what you're going to get. So my excuse is you fed him to the alligator in the company of either Lenny Henry or James. Cleverly. But I had nothing to do with it. And I'm disappointed, disgusted with you for murdering a national treasure.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

I was trying to raise money for Comic Relief. I'm not the enemy here. I've run out of sketches to do. So now we're feeding David Attenborough to crocodiles live on television.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Yeah. The President of the USA came up with an interesting twist on the classic Doctor Doctor joke format this week. Doctor Doctor. I think I'm a messiah. Well, you're not a messiah. Okay, then I'm a doctor. Alongside this, Trump has been slagging off the Pope, the universe's least Christian man, against someone whose job it is to be the world's most Christian man. The biggest Pope versus divorced dad spat since the English Reformation. One other related story, and there's been a lot of talk about the impact of the Iran war on the UK and this very worrying story. There's kind of concerns about global agriculture in crisis, aviation, fuel running out. But why is Britain simultaneously in a pickle and out of a pickle?

[Stephen Bush]

Anyone?

[Zoe Lyons]

This is the story that's been keeping me up at night.

[Stephen Bush]

Yeah.

[Zoe Lyons]

There is a shortage of cornichons,

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

and you.

[Zoe Lyons]

And you can't have a club sandwich without a cornichon.

[Andrew Maxwell]

What is it?

[Zoe Lyons]

It's a tiny, tiny, tiny little cucumber that's been pickled. It's a pickle. It's a gherkin.

[Andrew Maxwell]

It's a mini pickle.

[Zoe Lyons]

It's a mini pickle. It's a gherkin. There's a shortage of cornichons and it's wreaking havoc in the club sandwich world.

[Andrew Maxwell]

You know, I don't think it's been

[Zoe Lyons]

talked about enough, quite frankly. So thank you, Andy, for bringing it up in the news quiz. I think particularly this week, it's Been really overlooked by, I would say, other minor issues. And if you do like a pickle, and I do love a pickle, I really enjoy a pickle. I like getting my fingers in the pickle juice and just sort of pickling myself sometimes just sprinkling it liberally on my cheese and ham sandwich. Then if there's a shortage of them, then nearly all of the joy of my life is gone. So it's a very sad week for me. Yeah, it's a very sad week for me.

[Andrew Maxwell]

You know, it's a cucumber.

[Zoe Lyons]

It is a cucumber, but it's more than a cucumber. It's a cucumber with ambition. It's a cucumber. That's said, I'm not just a cucumber. I'm not just going to be for salads, I'm going to be in all sorts of different things. I could possibly even turn up in a Bloody Mary unexpectedly. That is what a cornichon is. It's a surprise of a vegetable stroke fruit. It is.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

This is like Billy Elliot.

[Zoe Lyons]

This is so moving. I have four open jars of cornichons in my fridge at the moment because they never, ever, ever go off one's from 1964, I believe. And I still. I still visit them every now and again because they're now my winter cornichons, because they have grown their own little jumpers. So you can either peel it out of the jumper or eat it within the jumper. I don't care. I don't care. Care what you do with them. But if there is a shortage of them, then it is a very sad

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

day for this country or you're a millionaire. Now, if the shortage carries on. You've got four jars.

[Zoe Lyons]

I've got four jars because I keep forgetting. I've got. I think that is actually why there might be a shortage in this, because I keep forgetting I have a jar already of cornichons at the back of the fridge and I just keep putting more cornichons in front of them. And that's probably what's happening there. It's a bit. Sorry about that. So it's probably my fault.

[Andrew Maxwell]

Do we know why we're running out of them? Are they. Do they have to come to the straighter? Hormuz?

[Andy Zaltzman]

Not all of them, I don't. But there are concerns that, you know, the food prices will go up because of the lack of fertiliser that comes through the straight.

[Zoe Lyons]

Apparently we rely on the load. It's carbon dioxide coming through the straits, carbon sulphate.

[Stephen Bush]

Or co. Sulphur. It's sulfur.

[Zoe Lyons]

Okay. I thought it was carbon dioxide. I thought, can we just breathe on something?

[Andrew Maxwell]

We've still got the.

[Zoe Lyons]

Can we just breathe on it and let it grow?

[Stephen Bush]

Although we still don't actually know why. So it's because this story, which was broken by the London centric newspaper, we don't know why Pret has run out of cornichon. They've just said it's an issue with their supplier. It's probably slightly too early for it to be a straight issue. So I like to believe that maybe there's just a thief out there who's just got a huge. Just a barrel of them and they.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

I think we found it.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Well, it's very concerning news for fans of. Of cornichons, the French micro gherkin facing the horrific prospect of having to use sensibly sized pickled vegetables in their sandwich instead. In fact, as I speak, stories are emerging of unscrupulous food retailers replacing real cornichons with substitutes, including slugs painted green and kept in the fridge. So they have goose pimples as well as normal sized pickled cucumbers. But further away. And Kermit the frogs. Well, no, they wouldn't do that to him, would they? So at the end of this week's news quiz, our winners are. Stephen and Kiri. Congratulations. Bad luck to Zoe and Andrew. And before we go, I've just been handed a quick emergency announcement addressed to global oil prices. Please calm down, pull yourselves together and grow up. You do not need to be emotionally affected by everything he says. Until next week. Thank you for listening. Goodbye. Taking part in the news quiz were Andrew Maxwell, Kiri Pritchard Maclean, Stephen Bush and Zoe Lyons. In the chair with me, Andy Zaltzman. And additional material was written by Mike Shepard, Ruth Husko De Allen and Angela Channel. The producer was Georgia Keating and It was a BBC Studios production for Radio 4.

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

Could you talk about being invisible or double denim?

[Zoe Lyons]

Who knows what's next on the new

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

series of Just A Minute?

[Zoe Lyons]

Belting out a rendition of Golden.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Whatever the topic, our panel has just

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

a minute to speak without hesitation, deviation or repetition.

[Andy Zaltzman]

Join Zoe Lyons, Desiree Burch, Paul Merton and many more for the new series

[Kiri Pritchard Maclean]

of Just A Minute with me, Sue Perkins.

[Zoe Lyons]

It's funny because it's true. Listen on Radio 4 and the full

[Andy Zaltzman]

box set is available now on BBC Sounds.

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[Zoe Lyons]

Hey, everyone. Check out this guy and his bird. What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

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[Zoe Lyons]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Advertiser]

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[Zoe Lyons]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.

[Stephen Bush]

I drive my bus in a busy city. That's why road safety is so important to me. I know that I must slow down and be extra careful when I make a wide turn. Buses need more room than cars. Everyone can help keep our roads safe. Next time you're driving, remember to give buses plenty of time and space to finish turning before driving ahead. Let's all plan to share the road safely. Learn how at www.sharetherodesafely.gov.