Comedian Kevin Bridges guest hosts ‘Have I Got News For You’ for the first time tonight, as the show makes a return to BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 9.00pm, for the first episode of its new 68th series.
On making his guest host debut, Bridges said: “An honour to be asked to host an iconic and long running show. My Mum is especially excited to see me on her screen again as she can only work freeview. The show should be a hoot. I’m off to buy a paper.”
Watch an exclusive preview clip from tonight’s episode HERE.
After poking fun at the Conservative government for 14 years, now it’s Labour’s turn. And as the new series launches, team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton have also joined forces on an ‘OASIS’ THEMED TRAILER – catch Ian and Paul as you’ve never seen them before HERE.
Joining Bridges, Hislop and Merton on the panels tonight are comedian Chloe Petts, who makes her second appearance, and staff writer at The Atlantic, Helen Lewis, who makes her tenth appearance on the show.
In the first new episode of HIGNFY since Labour moved in to Downing Street, while the Tories try to decide on a new party leader, and the US election moves ever closer, the teams weren’t short of big news stories this week and from over the summer to get stuck straight into.
It hasn’t been an easy start for Labour’s tenure in government, with Sir Keir Starmer and his team being put under the spotlight for accepting over £800,000 in gifts since they took office. Ian Hislop gave his thoughts.
“Immediately Keir Starmer gets in and lots of people have said ‘you shouldn't take these freebies, you're going to get into trouble…’ but, you know… he's a lawyer… he doesn't listen… you can't really spend years attacking the Tories for sleaze and then the first thing that happens is one of your major donors is giving you all this stuff for free… and it’s glasses… you just think, don’t walk straight into it” Hislop despaired.
“He should have gone to Specsavers, is what you’re saying,” Merton quipped.
“It’s just like the previous Labour government. If you remember the Blair government ran straight into Bernie Ecclestone… major donor giving them a load of money and changing policy. It's at worst disappointing and b) it's the same again…. it's not popular but it is what's happening…” said Hislop.
“Lord Alli is a major donor to the Labour Party… he gave them £500,000 earlier on and now he's given them suits and glasses and let them use his flat… and he's doing it for nothing! He doesn't want anything in return…!” Hislop continued, sceptically.
“Well he did get to have a pass, didn't he, to Downing Street, during the transition period, which they then took away from him. It was never really explained what he was there for, apart from just sort of vibing… I kinda imagine that he’s a bit like Bez in the Happy Mondays… and he’s just there to keep the energy up,” joked Helen Lewis.
“Yeah, that’s how I see him…” Hislop laughed, confused.
Later in the episode, the panel took great delight in looking back at Starmer’s speech at the Labour Party conference last month, in which he made a now infamous gaffe in which he mistakenly referred to ‘hostages’ as ‘sausages’.
“I did feel for him because he gave a very long speech and you thought, ‘no one will remember anything about that apart from when he said ‘we're going to bring the sausages home’,” laughed Lewis.
“I think what happened there is sometimes when I come on the television my mates will be like, ‘can you get the word ‘unicycle’ in?’” started comedian Chloe Petts.
“Which you’ve just done,” Merton pointed out.
“James, you owe me a tenner mate,” Petts laughed.
“Unicycle. I’ll have a tenner as well,” quipped Merton.
“So I think what’s happened here is his mate, Labour peer Waheed Alli, has gone ‘if you say sausages in your next speech I'll give you 16 grand’… and he knew that ‘hostages’ was coming up and he saw an opportunity…!” joked Petts.
“The night Keir did that I was doing an event with John McCarthy, who actually had been a hostage in Lebanon… and I thought oh no, this is really bad taste, I don't know what's going to happen. John McCarthy stood up and said, ‘As a former sausage…’” laughed Hislop.
“This is the end of Keir Starmer’s honeymoon period. Just three months and a majority of voters already think Labour will lose the next election. Put it this way, there are cruise ships in Belfast that have got off to a better start,” joked Bridges.
Have I Got News For You returns to BBC One and BBC iPlayer tonight from 9.00pm, guest hosted for the first time by comedian Kevin Bridges.
Picture: Hat Trick Productions
