Have I Got News For You

Katherine Parkinson hosts the show for the first time. Joining her on the panel is Julian Clary and Financial Times columnist Jemima Kelly.

On hosting for the first time, Katherine Parkinson says: "It's such an honour to present this institution of a show, one that I've enjoyed watching for years. I really hope I can read the autocue, I think I probably need glasses now. I suppose we'll find out."

Joining Parkinson, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton are comedy legend Julian Clary, appearing for the first time since 2008, and Financial Times columnist Jemima Kelly, making her debut appearance on the programme.

This week has seen the trade tariff war between the US and China intensify, Britain have 'taken back control' of their steel industry, Katy Perry has taken a trip to space and... Ed Davey is still doing TikTok dances.

Another busy week in domestic politics has seen the government admit that it would look at Chinese firms in 'a different way' when considering investment in the steel industry, after being forced to pass an emergency law to seize back control of British steel.

This news formed the basis of the first round, with the panel discussing the origins of British Steel, and accusations that the Chinese owner of the Scunthorpe plant was planning to switch the furnaces off:

"British Steel is British once more," Jemima Kelly says, satirically.

"Except it's owned by the Chinese," Ian Hislop adds.

"I was amused that Jonathan Reynolds went up to Immingham to see all this stuff being taken off ships, in order apparently to make Britain self-reliant... and all this stuff had apparently come in from like Japan, America and Australia," Kelly adds.

"Yeah, but it's British in the sense that we import it from other countries, we take it to a plant... owned by the Chinese... then we do something or other..." Hislop says, before Katherine Parkinson quickly clarifies, "We put 'Made in Britain' on it..."

"This is the government's rescue of the British steel industry in the nick of time. The Chinese owners appeared to be actively running down the blast furnaces at Scunthorpe..." Parkinson reveals.

"They were," Hislop concurs. "The Chinese management were trying to close it down without anyone noticing, and the government had to step in. It was quite exciting," a giddy Hislop says.

"It's all very educational, I'm glad I came..." Julian Clary added.

"This is the government's rescue of Scunthorpe steel works, just before the plant's furnaces were shut down," Parkinson concluded. "Following a speech to steel workers who had somehow kept the furnaces at their plant going, Keir Starmer received a standing ovation... mainly because they'd had to burn all the chairs," Parkinson quipped.

Later in the episode, the panel turned their attention to the Blue Origin space mission, which saw an all-female crew, including pop star Katy Perry, sent into space on billionaire Amazon owner Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rocket, taking them 100km above earth into space.

"This is the news that for an all too brief 11 minutes, Katy Perry was blasted into space," Parkinson joked. "What was notable about the Blue Origin space flight?" Parkinson asked the panel.

"It's the first all-female crew technically to go into outer space?" Merton asked.

"Which I think's a nice idea... I'm going to get on to that Jeff and see if we can have an all-homosexual flight..." Clary joked.

"Oh yes. Who would you have going?" Merton asked.

"It will be me... Craig Revel Horwood... Christopher Biggins..." Clary begins to list.

"Yeah, you can't go to space without Christopher Biggins" Hislop agreed.

"...and Alan Titchmarsh" Clary joked.

"I don't think Alan Titchmarsh is homosexual," Merton said.

"He will be by the time we come down!" Clary replied, laughing.

"Owned by billionaire Amazon owner Jeff Bezos... it was the first all-female space flight since 1963," Parkinson revealed.

The panel also found time to look at the increasing tensions on tariffs being imposed on China by the US, as the percentage reached 245% earlier this week.

"This is the tariff trade wars. JD Vance the other day made the remarkable comment where he said 'we're not on anybody's side, we're on America's side'.... What's the JD stand for? Do we know, is it 'Jumbo d*******'?" Merton joked, before continuing, "Yeah there's a trade war going on at the moment. Trump doesn't know where he is, he just makes stuff up, he says this, he says that, the Chinese are very angry..."

"If I had to choose who to trade with, if I was Taiwan... and who's to say I'm not... he's got a nice face, I like the Chinese man's face," Clary added.

"Warm personality do you think?" Merton questioned.

"Well compared to the other one... yes," Clary joked, comparing him to President Trump.