The News Quiz: Ep2. U-Turn, We Defect

Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4

BBC

Comedy

4.1 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Andy’s returned from The Ashes and is back in the News Quiz chair. He’s come home to a selection of defections, some serious U-turning and 30,000 properties without water in his hometown of Tunbridge Wells. He was only away for one week! Helping Andy make sense of it all is Susie McCabe, Paul Sinha, Cindy Yu and Scott Bennett.

Written by Andy Zaltzman.

With additional material by: Mike Shephard, Eleanor Morton and Dee Allum Producer: Georgia Keating Executive Producer: Richard Morris Production Coordinator: Giulia Mazzu Sound Editor: Marc Willcox

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts.
0:05.7	Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked.
0:12.7	But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes,
0:18.2	The Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylan, and comedy specials
0:22.2	from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffle and Rommashranganathan.
0:25.9	However, and maybe I'm biased, it's really all about the traitors uncoaked.
0:30.3	So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds.
0:42.0	Welcome to the news quiz.
0:54.6	I'm Andy's ultimate back from Australia after watching England pick up another glorious silver medal in the ashes.
0:56.0	Quite the collection.
0:58.4	Our teams this week paying tribute to the state of party politics.
1:01.3	We have team defect against team defunct.
1:05.2	On team defect, we have Scott Bennett and Times columnist Cindy Yu.
1:12.5	And on team defunct, Susie McCabe and Paul Sinar.
1:21.1	And as part of Elon Musk's reputation rehabilitating efforts, he has led us use his controversial AI GROC technology on this week's news quiz to make us all sound like we're wearing more clothes
1:26.2	than we actually are.
1:28.3	Right, let's start where we have to start this week.
1:32.3	This can go to Paul and Susie.
1:33.3	Who made Jen an X?
1:36.3	You go.
1:38.3	You're the clever.
1:39.3	Oh, Jen.
	...

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