Charlie Brooker's 2015 Wipe.
First broadcast 30th December 2015.
Charlie Brooker
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Mary Evans
Charlie Brooker
Al Campbell Barry Shitpeas
Diane Morgan Philomena Cunk
Mary Evans
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello, I'm Charlie Brooker and you're watching 2015 Wipe, a programme about things that happened
00:29in 2015. Things like this. Storm Desmond swept in, giving Britain its annual bath. On Sky
00:36News, Jeremy Corbyn sang happy birthday to a flood victim and reduced her to tears. Thereby
00:41adding to the floodwaters, the idiot. Sky News grief vampire Kay Burley tweeted a picture
00:46of a dog looking sad after the Paris attacks. It's heartening really to know that even a
00:50simple animal can post photos like that on Twitter. In a mortifying TV moment at the
00:55Brit Awards, Madonna was accidentally yanked downstairs by a minion. In case you're wondering
01:00how it feels to be pulled off by a dancer in front of an audience of record execs, ask your dad. Fans
01:05were ecstatic at the release of a thrilling new Star Wars film. If you haven't seen it and you're
01:09a bit worried about spoilers, just close your eyes for two seconds. Okay, you can open them now. Oh
01:14shit, sorry, thought you still had them closed. There were incredible scenes as British astronaut
01:19Tim Peake blasted into space. He's on a daring mission to rescue the man stranded on the moon
01:24in that trite and sentimental John Lewis advert. They called him a hero, but the way the world's
01:29going to me, he looks more like a guy chickening out and using an escape pod. All well and good,
01:33but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's start at the beginning. Usually the first few weeks of
01:38January are kind of uneventful. Not this time. Barbaric scenes in Paris. Twelve people have been
01:46shot dead after masked men stormed the offices of a French magazine. Sorry everyone, I was hoping
01:55to keep it light for the first five minutes of this year's show, but this is what happened. Bloody
01:59world. In the days that followed, a depressing can-can of world leaders shuffled along the
02:04Parisian street while countless citizens pledged their commitment to freedom of speech, while on
02:08apocalypse-ready Fox News, massive anchors were on hand to suggest a nuanced response to the threat
02:13at the very top of their lungs. We need to kill them. We need to kill them. Bomb them, bomb them,
02:22and bomb them again. Still, January wasn't exclusively depressing, no, because an advert
02:28appeared which was apparently the funniest thing ever. Yes, this light-hearted commercial in which
02:36a sort of disturbing half-apprentice contender, half-Beyonce centaur, twerks his way around the
02:41city streets became officially the most hilarious thing that's ever happened. Soon, the man behind,
02:46or more accurately, inside Dave's epic strut was appearing in all manner of promo opportunities
02:51around the capital. He even appeared on Daytime Culture's stall walk this morning to meet Amanda
02:55and Phil. I've forgotten about Charlie Hebdo already. Later in the year, the Sun newspaper
03:05mocked up a psychosexually confusing front-page image of George Osborne doing the epic strut
03:10after it was impressed with his budget. Tell you what, this is going in my big scrapbook of sexy
03:15George Osborne pictures. What do you make of your picture on the front of the Sun this morning? You
03:21happy with that? Yeah, I almost spilt my coffee this morning when I read the front page of the Sun.
03:28Yeah, whatever. Shut up. Come on, give us a twirl. Show us your legs. February was a month when
03:35humankind was bitterly divided over colors. Thanks to a mundane photo on social media, this
03:40became the single most notorious dress since the one Bill Clinton accidentally laminated in the
03:45Oval Office. Problem was, no one could agree what color the dress was, something every news show on
03:49earth expertly illustrated with fascinating vox pops. I'm gonna go with blue, like that. It's blue.
03:55Well, now it's black and blue, actually. No, it's not. Yes, it is. You know there's a war on, yeah? What
04:01color do you think that is? According to the boffins, your reaction to the dress depended largely on how
04:06your brain works, i.e. if your brain works, you couldn't give a shit what color it is. In illuminating
04:10scenes on Sky News, Kay Burley was so bamboozled gawping at the dress, she couldn't see she was
04:15trying to talk to a still image of a man instead of a live human. Joining us now from Cardiff is Dr.
04:20Ashley Wood, a lecturer at the School of Optometry and Vision Science. Thank you very much indeed for
04:25joining us on Sky News this afternoon. What color did you see it as, first of all?
04:29Oh, look at the sadness in his eyes. There was this sort of film thing called Fifty Shades of
04:39Grey. It was like a cross between a romantic drama and a documentary warning women about a
04:44maniac on the loose. There was this woman in it who found herself in a submissive, violent
04:49relationship with a dominant man. She goes to interview this rich businessman called Christian
04:54Grey, who's become a billionaire despite not being able to pull facial expressions. How about
04:59we try a few with a smile? He's a massively successful billionaire CEO, with his name all
05:07up in huge lettering on stuffy arms. Like Donald Trump, but younger and better looking, and a bit
05:14less of a burgeoning fascist tyrant who the world must stop at any cost. Actually, he sort of looks
05:19like Colin Firth, but done in Lego. You can see why she falls for him. He's handsome, he's rich,
05:26he flies around in a helicopter, he plays the piano with his tits out, and he's got a secret
05:31red room containing the world's biggest collection of bum sticks and things you hit horses with.
05:35Anyway, at the start of the film, he's a characterless, controlling sadist. But gradually,
05:40as their relationship blossoms, he stays that way. It's basically a film adaptation of Punch
05:48and Judy, because it's about this weird wooden man who enjoys beating a woman, but without the
05:53bit where a crocodile steals some sausages. Which might have redeemed it. As a film, it looks glossy
05:59and modern, but it's basically your old-fashioned standard romance. Boy meets girl, boy psychologically
06:04dominates girl, girl acquiesces to boy's every demand, boy hits girl with crop, boy hits girl
06:11with fluffy stick thing, boy ties girl up and yanks girl's hair, boy hits girl with belt, and girl
06:17leaves boy having explored the wilder fringes of her own sexuality in a carefully controlled, albeit
06:22unrealistic environment. Way back in 2014, controversial human exhaust pipe Jeremy Clarkson
06:28had run into trouble for allegedly using a racist word in a Top Gear outtake, after which he was on
06:34his final warning with the BBC. So all he had to do in 2015 was keep a low profile. Maybe not punch
06:41anybody. Should be easy. Just to tell you that we are just hearing from the BBC that Jeremy Clarkson
06:50has been suspended. Oh Jeremy. At first it wasn't quite clear what had happened. The BBC would only
06:56say Clarkson had been involved in a fracar, a word which was soon dancing awkwardly across the lips
07:01of every newsreader on earth. What the BBC called a fracar. Fracar. Fracar. Following a fracar.
07:06Following a fracar. Fracar. Supposed fracar. Fracas. Fracas. What do you make of the term? A fracas. It was a PR for
07:13castrophe. It turned out that following a strenuous day's work being filmed driving cars in exchange
07:18for many thousands of pounds, Clarkson had retired to this hotel, ordered a steak and discovered he
07:23could only have a cold meat platter, which he turned down in favour of some red hot beef. While
07:27Clarkson hung in limbo, the media camped outside his London pad, peering at him through long lenses
07:32as he paced around like a depressed polar bear, smoking like polar bears don't. Meanwhile at street
07:37level a campaign for his reinstatement was beginning to gather steam. David Cameron said
07:41he hoped he'd be back on TV. I hope this can be sorted out because it's a great program and he's
07:47a great talent. While gladiator Russell Crowe said he could empathize. The thing that I'm sympathetic
07:52about with towards Jeremy in this particular instance is I know how long a day can be. Yeah
07:58we've all got clocks mate. So if he's made a statement as I look that I'll go as hard as I
08:04can all day long and all I need at the end of the day is something to eat, I don't think that sounds
08:09to me like an unreasonable request. No, but it sounds like a pretty good personal mission
08:13statement. Things were becoming more and more fraught and as over a million people signed a
08:17petition for his reinstatement, it looked like the whole thing might spark a civil war. I'm just
08:22going to show you some pictures from outside this building, namely a broadcasting house in central
08:28London where a petition calling for the reinstatement of Jeremy Clarkson to Top Gear
08:34has been delivered to the BBC. Anyway eventually the BBC made their decision. Top Gear presenter
08:40Jeremy Clarkson has been dropped from the show. The news then suddenly became a kind of weird
08:44obituary with people queuing up to pay tribute as though Clarkson had died, even the director
08:49general joined in. I've always been a great fan of his work on Top Gear and I also believe that
08:54his voice and voices like his have a place, an important place on the BBC. That's good to know,
09:02so as long as I carry on speaking like this, my future at the BBC is assured. What is it with
09:09the Venezuelans? Bloody animals. Anyway now Clarkson had gone, there was the little question
09:15of where he'd end up. Presumably he could pick and choose his job offers and we all know how
09:19he does that as seen in this simulation. What? Because this is how you do it. No. Hello, back in the spring, as you probably remember, I suddenly became unbusy. Yes, as this
09:36light-hearted advert made clear, in the end he went with Amazon, although it's only a matter of time
09:40till he insults the Amazonians. They're definitely gonna fire him if he uses the n-word. Netflix.
09:45Expectant car fans already can't wait for the new show to launch. I've got a preview here of
09:51exactly the kind of tantalising spinning wheel action they can expect. Also in March, celebrity
10:00hunchback King Richard the Third had burial the second. They dug him up a few years ago and tried
10:04to bring him back to life by sticking a plasticine face on him, but that hadn't worked. He'd stayed
10:09dead, so now they were planning to throw him back in the ground, a bit like lobbing back a fish you
10:13don't want. As the startling news coverage made clear, R3-D2 now got the respectful burial he'd
10:18been denied in life, centuries too late and at great expense, in the weirdest and most arcane
10:22royal event since every single other one. That is an event which will only take place once in all
10:28eternity. Yeah, you know this is his second burial. He'll probably want another one next year, the
10:33Diva. Old Dickie Double Coffin, that's what I call him. Soon his royal deadness was lying in Leicester
10:38Cathedral, disguised as a wooden attack walker from Empire Strikes Back, while funeral-likers
10:42stood outside watching on a traditional jumbotron screen, soaking up the comprehensive coverage as
10:47Heritage Bandersnatch read a sombre poem specially written for the occasion by the poet Laureate.
10:51My bones, scripted in light upon cold soil. Nothing like bloody poetry to bring the mood
10:59down at a good funeral. Finally, the entire nation watched in silent solemnity as a group of uniformed
11:05men filed into the back of Leicester Cathedral to lovingly bury their dick in the ground. Cool,
11:09look, you can see him going in. In April, there was no ignoring the forthcoming general election.
11:15As the election campaign began, honey roast Prime Minister David Cameron, seen here
11:19frequenting his local dead pig parlor, came in for some criticism. People were saying his heart
11:24wasn't in it, as he didn't want to serve three terms. Terms are like shredded wheat. Two are
11:28wonderful, three might just be too many. I'm surprised he eats shredded wheat for breakfast.
11:32Don't know why, I just always pictured him getting stuck into some bacon. HRH Cam Sandwich was also
11:38accused of avoiding debate, which is something of a character trait, what with his weird habit of
11:42abruptly walking out of shot the nanosecond he's had enough of answering reporters' questions. Don't
11:47know why he keeps walking away like that. Maybe he's one of those shy Tories they keep going on
11:51about. It's easy to see why he'd be daunted by his chief opponent, human balloon animal Ed
11:55Miliband, a fiery public speaker accustomed to winning over audiences with his powerful rhetoric
12:01and catchphrases like, oh. Miliband had something of an image problem, which wasn't exactly helped
12:11when, in an early head-to-head meeting with weary human fight Jeremy Paxman, he dealt with questions
12:17about his leadership qualities about as convincingly as Stevie Wonder auditioning for the lead role in
12:21American Sniper. The point is people think you're just not tough enough. Well, let me tell you,
12:26right? Let me tell you, okay? Come on. Let me tell you. Quick everyone, set perineum to cringe. Am I
12:34tough enough? I'm tough enough? Hell yes, I'm tough enough. But in the weeks that followed, Miliband
12:40began shedding the geek image, developing the kind of carefree, approachable persona that can only be
12:45pummeled into you by weeks of intensive media training. Some people felt he was no longer an
12:50embarrassment, but a heartthrob. Edward Boy Band, with a growing army of admirers known as the Millie
12:55fandom, who cluttered up the internet with sexy fantasy imagery. Cameron, by contrast, seemed a
13:00little underpowered and was making uncharacteristic campaign gaffes. He got a little too close to a
13:05farm animal for the first time in his life. He was photographed eating a hot dog with a knife and
13:09fork. Good to see him treating a pork product with all the respect it deserves. And on Sky News, he
13:14forgot which football team he pretends to support, accidentally naming a different team instead of
13:18his beloved Aston Villa. Where you can support Man United, the Windies and Team GB all at the
13:24same time. Of course, I'd rather you supported West Ham. West Ham? Why is he obsessed with ham?
13:33Meanwhile, down-to-earth, tough-of-the-people George Osborne was all over the media trying to
13:38artificially inflate Britain's employment stats by doing almost every flavour of manual job
13:42imaginable. Oh, that's another one for the scrapbook. Look at him, he's so good with his
13:46hands. He was constantly in high viz, working in factories, looking at plans, operating diggers,
13:53breaking into the Hatton Garden Save Deposit Company. Hang on a minute. You've just found an
13:58extra eight billion pounds. All I'm asking is, where does it come from? No higher taxes, extra
14:03public spending cuts, where? Of course, Labour v Tory was only one part of the story. There was no
14:09escaping the new multiplicity in the leaders' debates as a full peacock's tail feather of
14:13different parties fanned out to debate the big issues, in scenes resembling a 15-to-1 wannabe
14:18tyrant special. This provided a great public hearing for UKIP's Nigel Farage, who finally had
14:24got the chance to debate Britain's out-of-control multiculturalism with six other white people. He
14:29tried to win over the crowd in the first debate with some populist AIDS patient bashing. There are
14:347,000 diagnoses in this country every year for people who are HIV positive. 60% of them are not
14:41British nationals. Yeah, you tell them, Nige, bloody foreigners coming over here guzzling our
14:46medicine. They're not just ill, they're greedy. Tiny Trump wasn't having the best time of it,
14:51this campaign. He looked tired and fed up and even turned on the audience and the Metropolitan
14:55BBC during debate number 76. There just seems to be a total lack of comprehension on this panel,
15:00and indeed amongst this audience, which is a remarkable audience, even by the left-wing
15:07standards of the BBC. I mean, this lot's pretty left-wing. To be fair, the BBC had been subjecting
15:12him to some pretty uncompromising questions throughout the campaign. Did you see the Paddington
15:17Bear movie last year? No. Racist. Meanwhile, in the Lib Dem camp, Deputy PM Nick Clegg seemed to
15:23have decided to enjoy his last few weeks in the spotlight. He was out touring the country like a
15:28one-show reporter doing a guide to days out for less with the family. He went bowling, he dangled
15:33off a zip wire, and he dawdled around at a hedgehog sanctuary. He seemed to be prematurely
15:41off-duty, kind of relaxed, even apparently enjoying the abuse he was getting on social
15:45media, if this Illuminating Sun video was anything to go by. Tom McRae, that Nick Clegg,
15:50he's a piece of work, and by work I mean shit. That's nice, Tom. Faring rather better was the
15:57SNP. They'd been growing in confidence ever since they finished an impressive second in last year's
16:01yes-no referendum. And now they had a new media-friendly leader in the form of fiery pepper
16:06pot Nicola Sturgeon, who became super popular super fast, posing for selfies all over the shop
16:11like a tartan Kardashian. The prospect of Scotland wielding some power seemed terrifying to some
16:16quarters of the press, and stoking English fears of this Scottish resurgence was one Tory tactic
16:22that seemed to be gaining traction. Maybe that's why in the final days of the campaign, Cameron
16:26seemed notably fired up. He was out making bold claims. Were you put to bed with rumours that you
16:31planned to cut child tax credit and restrict child benefits to children? Well, thank you Jenny
16:36for that question. No, I don't want to do that. And giving good pep talk. Taking a risk, having a punt,
16:42having a go, that pumps me up, and it's what is changing our country. Look at that, he's gone
16:47pinky and perky. Meanwhile, Ed Miliband was trying to make his own populist appeals by turning up to
16:53talk politics with shag-happy Che Guevara Russell Brand. The Tories want to say this is as good as it
16:58gets. Yeah. And this isn't as good as it gets for the country. He also unveiled a granite-based equal
17:04rights for stones policy. He's had his campaign pledges engraved on an eight-foot tall tablet of
17:09limestone. They're carved in stone because they won't be abandoned after the general election. I
17:16want the British people to remember these pledges, to remind us of these pledges. Yeah, hi, Ed, yeah,
17:23do you remember the time you carved a load of pledges on a massive stone? No, he's hung up. But
17:30no matter what the leaders said, did, or fell off, it seemed the polls were stubbornly failing
17:34to shift. But what if the polling agencies have got it just a little bit wrong? Welcome to the
17:40BBC's election centre. Four minutes from now, when Big Ben strikes ten, we can legally reveal the
17:47contents of this, our exit poll. Anything could happen, it promised to be an epic marathon of
17:52constitutional chaos. You'd need a degree in oncology to sort out. That's why I'm set for the
17:57longest election night ever. Weeks of negotiation and number crunching, and I'm prepared for it all.
18:01To make sense of the results, I've got a load of laptops, I've got a slide rule, a copy of the
18:05parliamentary guidelines, that 5D swing-o-meter, Paul the octopus, a ZX Spectrum, I've got a
18:11soothsayer, and to help me stay awake, I've got a thermos flask full of coffee to swig from, I've
18:16got a bucket to piss and shit in, and a platter of performance enhancing drugs. So come on, hit me
18:22with the exit poll, come on, tell me just how complicated and drawn-out this is going to be.
18:26Oh, I can't wait, it's going to be good. But here it is, ten o'clock, and we are saying the
18:31Conservatives are the largest party. Oh, what? Bloody octopus is broken. It seems voters have
18:39been trolling the pollsters all along. It's hard to know really how they can make opinion polls any
18:43more accurate. Maybe they should ask two questions. One, who are you going to vote for? And two, no
18:48really, who are you going to vote for? Meanwhile, back in election night, while the Tories chortled
18:52their socks off, a full-blown red wedding was occurring for the other parties, as one well-known
18:57face after another was toppled. Vince Cable, Jim Murphy, Danny Alexander, Simon Hughes, Ed Balls,
19:04Zayn Malik, they all naffed off to oblivion villas, and then the great purge began. Nigel Farage
19:09temporarily sent himself back to where he came from. And I will consider, over the course of this
19:14summer, whether to put my name forward to do that job again. Nick Clegg showed himself the door. I
19:20will be resigning as leader of the Liberal Democrats. And Ed Miliband announced a 100% cut
19:25in himself. So I'm tendering my resignation, taking effect after this afternoon's commemoration of VE
19:31Day at the Cenotaph. Must have been a bit depressing for Eddie, baby. Suppose the only way it could
19:35have been any more depressing is if, a few hours later, he had to stand beside the bloke who beat
19:39him, laying a wreath to a mournful musical accompaniment, in a waking nightmare, symbolising
19:44the death of his electoral dreams. I mean, thank God he didn't have to do that. Soon, Cambo and Sam,
19:49seen here in a white and gold dress, were back at number 10. While on daytime TV post-mortem, some
19:54Labour supporters were left sounding a little bitter. But I think the way the election went, it
19:58kind of shows that this country doesn't deserve a leader who's got so much, like, integrity and
20:04principles. I think Ed Miliband's too good for this fucking country, to be honest. No, no, you can't
20:08swear on daytime television, so I think I will apologise. And would you like to apologise too? Yes, I'd like to
20:14apologise. I shouldn't have sworn, it's very bad of me. June saw the shocking conclusion of the fifth season of Game of Thrones.
20:21It's based on Lord of the Rings by William Shakespeare, and it's set in sort of series one Blackadder times,
20:26before dragons became extinct. Pretty much every British actor ever has shown up in it at some
20:30point. I think it's like jury service, and they get called up. It goes on for ages, and you never know
20:34who's going to die next, just like Last of the Summer Wine. One of the main characters is called
20:38Jon Snow. He's a kind of anguished hero, with exceptional hair, which is quite an achievement,
20:43when you think about how hard it must be to maintain a half-decent male grooming regime by
20:47candlelight in a violent fantasy realm. Loads of things have happened to Jon Snow. Every moment of
20:52his life has been an incredible journey. He's looked miserable in forests, and looked miserable
20:56in the snow. He's looked miserable during the night, miserable during the day, and miserable
21:01because he was about to get off with this beautiful woman, and miserable when she shot him
21:04with an arrow, and miserable in a castle, and miserable in a boat, looking at a sort of zombie
21:09monster thing. He's been on this sort of flat roller coaster of one emotion, which is misery.
21:14Until this year, he got knifed by some of the other characters. I'm not sure why,
21:18but I think he stole someone's watch.
21:24For the watch.
21:27So then he was left looking miserable on his back in the snow, but properly miserable this time,
21:31because let me tell you, getting stabbed really stings. Oh, look at the sadness in his eyes.
21:37Now, throughout the year, feminism has been in the headlines for one reason or another.
21:41There were debates about sexism on the internet, and as this illuminating coverage showed,
21:45women in Saudi Arabia won the right to vote and pose for virtually meaningless selfies.
21:50Here to explore feminism is Philomena Kunk, with one of her moments of wonder.
22:06We used to think men were from Mars and women were from Venus,
22:10but scientists now believe they're both hatched on Earth,
22:13thousands, maybe even hundreds of years ago.
22:19But even though there have probably been women on the planet as long as men,
22:22for most of that time, the two sides haven't been equal.
22:26The only things that make a woman different from a man are her breasts and her hair.
22:32The only things that make a woman different from a man
22:35are her breasts and vagina, and also his testicles and penis.
22:42It's easy to see how these fearsome and almighty genitals
22:46convinced generations of men that they were superior.
22:53Back in Queen Victorian times, women weren't allowed to vote,
22:57even though we had a female king.
22:59So some women formed a gang called the Suffragettes.
23:04The Suffragettes did things that were considered shocking at the time,
23:07like throwing themselves in front of the king's racehorse.
23:11They did this partly to highlight how unfair it was that women didn't have a vote but horses did,
23:16and also because being women, they really liked ponies.
23:20They also went on hunger strike,
23:23sparking the cool fad for women's diets that continues to this day.
23:28The Suffragettes opened doors for millions of women,
23:31whereas before, they had to wait for men to open those doors for them.
23:36If it wasn't for the Suffragettes, I probably wouldn't be standing here now.
23:40I'd be in a kitchen where I belong.
23:44Amazingly, it took until 1928 for the women of Britain to be given a vote,
23:49and not just a vote, but a vote each, which is furrer.
23:53Even though women had a vote, they were still second class.
23:57Like a shit stamp.
23:58So in the 1960s century, there was a new wave of femininists.
24:04Back in old but still in colour times, women were seen as eye candy,
24:08which are sweets you eat just by looking at them.
24:11Then in 1970, femininists protested at the Miss World show
24:16and threw ink bombs at Bob Hope, ruining his chances of winning.
24:21Today, shallow beauty contests are unacceptable,
24:24and women are more visible everywhere,
24:26taking important roles in landmark high-quality television programmes
24:30like Game of Thrones and True Detective.
24:33Despite all that, today a woman's half as likely
24:36to earn over £50,000 a year than a man.
24:39And to add insult to injury,
24:41that money will most likely have a picture of a man on it,
24:44because most banknotes don't have women on them,
24:48apart from the Queen, who's on all of them.
24:51But what is feminism anyway?
24:53To find out more, I asked an expert.
24:57Hello, who are you?
24:59I'm Mary Evans.
25:00I'm a Centennial Professor at the Gender Institute
25:03at the London School of Economics.
25:05And what is a femininist?
25:07A feminist is a person, male or female,
25:10who thinks that women should have the same human and civic rights as men.
25:16Can a femininist wear makeup?
25:19Well, I'm wearing it at the moment,
25:22and so I would think that's perfectly possible.
25:25But if they found out, they might cast you out, do you think?
25:28I'm not sure who would cast me out.
25:30I don't think people go around casting people out.
25:32If men were women,
25:34do you think they'd have been better at doing feminism than we are?
25:38I don't think men would be any better than women are
25:42at putting forward the feminist case.
25:44They're always thinking about sex, aren't they?
25:47Like a lot of people.
25:48They're thinking about how to pay their mortgages,
25:51how to put food on the table.
25:52There are lots of questions to fill up everybody's daily lives.
25:57So they're just like us, really, aren't they?
25:59They've got their own little personalities.
26:01I think they have, and some of those personalities
26:03are a lot littler than other personalities.
26:06But there's certainly a very, very rich range of them.
26:09Yeah.
26:10When a femininist looks in the mirror,
26:12do they see an equal woman or a better woman?
26:16Erm...
26:18They quite often, like all of us, look for what they want to see
26:22and they look for what they hope to see.
26:24You see yourself back to front, don't you, in a mirror?
26:28But not upside down. Why's that?
26:31Well, hopefully, because that's the way that mirrors are designed.
26:34What power's a mirror?
26:36Sorry, you're not the mirrors expert, are you?
26:38I'm afraid not.
26:42How far have we come?
26:44Men in vans still whistle at women in the street,
26:47though thanks to femininism, the man in the van might be a woman
26:51and the woman they're whistling at might be a prime minister.
26:55Next time on Moments of Wonder, I'll be asking,
26:58why is the world's hair such a weird colour?
27:04Following the general election,
27:06the Labour Party was left wandering around in the wilderness,
27:09not really knowing what to do with itself.
27:10A bit like Howard from Take That in the late 90s.
27:13So they held a leadership raffle to see who could run the party next.
27:17The main three contenders were all professional politicians
27:19and you could tell they were professional
27:21because they were hard to relate to on any basic human level.
27:23I mean, really, look into Andy Burnham's eyes
27:26and you experience exactly the same sensation
27:28you'd get gazing at a face scribbled on a kitchen appliance.
27:31Anyway, the contest was set to go ahead until...
27:34We've just heard in the last few seconds
27:37that the veteran left-wing MP, Jeremy Corbyn,
27:40has secured his place in the Labour leadership race.
27:43Yes, at the last minute, a bunch of MPs added someone called Jeremy Corbyn
27:47to the list for a laugh to see what would happen.
27:49The previously unheard-of backbencher,
27:51who bore a resemblance to everyone from an old history teacher
27:54to an old history supply teacher,
27:55had gone unnoticed for decades, but now he was everywhere.
27:58And his weird gimmick was that he didn't have a gimmick.
28:01I mean, he dresses like a politician from archive footage,
28:04specifically Jeremy Corbyn in 1984.
28:07Is that the jumper that your mum made?
28:09Yes, it is.
28:11She didn't make the shirt as well?
28:12No, no, she didn't make the shirt, that came from the car.
28:14What that means is, rather than looking polished, he looks sort of normal.
28:18He looks like just some bloke, someone you might see
28:20trying to buy a grab bag of salt and vinegar discos
28:22at a motorway service station branch of Smith's
28:24and having to call for assistance
28:26because the sensor thing can't read the barcode.
28:28And these days, that's inspiring.
28:30To use a highbrow allusion, putting Jeremy Normal Corbyn
28:34into the media glare alongside the professional politicos
28:37was a bit like when they put Chantel,
28:39who at the time was a normal member of the public,
28:41into Celebrity Big Brother season four,
28:43and she quickly won over viewers
28:45just by not being one of the elite she was sharing a space with.
28:48If Corbyn mania was like that, there was every chance
28:50that just like Chantel, he might win.
28:53Or at least get off with Preston.
28:55Sure enough, Corbyn soon started building support
28:57with people queuing round the block to see him.
28:59Months ago, no one even knew who he was,
29:01and now suddenly, people would pack a haul to the rafters
29:03just to watch him piss in a teacup.
29:05And his anti-establishment stance was starting to win an audience.
29:08There was a quote from you in the Sun newspaper today
29:12from a video you did.
29:14Would you stand by those remarks?
29:16I don't know what the remarks are if I don't buy the Sun newspaper.
29:22Labour were furious.
29:23Under Miliband, the leadership rules had changed,
29:25meaning anyone could join the party and have a vote for three pounds.
29:28It's just silly.
29:29Labour's supposed to represent the voice of the people.
29:31You can't let just anyone have a say in that.
29:34Labour weren't the only critics of the potential Labour leader.
29:37Some did their best to paint him as the ultimate red menace.
29:39Even Panorama seemed to be trying to make him seem sinister,
29:42which was quite a tall order given his appearance
29:44was about as non-threatening as it gets.
29:46We heard him singing socialist anthems.
29:52Saw him mingling with Tory-hating hardliners.
30:00And heard chilling tales of Corbyn's true nature
30:03from those who knew him best.
30:05So, for example, if you run into him on a train,
30:08as I have done on one occasion,
30:10he'll immediately get out his box of sandwiches,
30:12which are vegetarian, of course,
30:15and cut them in half and give half to you.
30:17That means he carries a knife on a train.
30:19And look, look, his shadow's out of sync with his body.
30:22That's weird. Probably means he's a vampire or something.
30:25That voice cannot be silenced.
30:27That voice cannot be stopped.
30:30That power cannot be denied.
30:32In the end, party members and anyone with a spare three quid
30:34knocking around ignored all the warnings and elected Corbyn leader.
30:38Jeremy Corbyn elected as leader of the Labour Party.
30:42Oh, look at the sadness in Andy Burnham's eye.
30:44The news media soon made it apparent old Corbuchov
30:47had an unusual manner with reporters,
30:49almost as if he didn't like them.
30:51There's people bothering me.
30:53We're not bothering you.
30:55We're from the press.
30:56This was possibly because they'd been criticising
30:58the way his cabinet was put together
30:59and accusing him of links with anti-Semites
31:01and terrorist sympathisers.
31:03But then again, the press went out of its way
31:04to criticise him for more or less everything.
31:06They accused him of being scruffy,
31:08of failing to sing the national anthem,
31:10dithering about, kneeling in front of the Queen,
31:12not bowing with a sufficiently respectful angle at the cenotaph
31:15and using a stunt dog double to win Britain's Got Talent.
31:17Of course, Red Jez couldn't avoid media attention forever
31:20and was eventually forced to do the rounds,
31:22at which point his unrehearsed style
31:24even surprised some of the reporters.
31:26Normally, politicians, they know their answers
31:30before you've even asked the question,
31:32but Jeremy Corbyn last night almost, frankly,
31:35seemed to be thinking aloud.
31:38Thing is, sometimes it was hard to tell
31:39whether Corbyn's brand of scruffy unprofessionalism
31:42made him refreshing or, well, just a bit crap.
31:44Like when, during his big conference speech,
31:46he read the instructions,
31:48strong message here, off the autocue.
31:50And strong message here, not cutting student numbers.
31:55Bloody amateur.
31:56CB lifts mug and drinks coffee.
31:58Stupid Corbyn cut to footage of Corbyn.
32:01But, of course, Corbyn's got bigger problems
32:03than mere autocue gaffes.
32:04For one thing, he's broadly viewed as a throwback
32:06to a long-forgotten era of militant leftist politics.
32:09Most of his own MPs didn't really want him as leader.
32:11He seems incapable of keeping dissent in check
32:13within his own party,
32:15and his ideological stance puts him at odds
32:17with huge swathes of the electorate.
32:18Add it all together and many would say
32:20he's completely and utterly unelectable.
32:22Yeah, well, that's what they said about Ed Miliband.
32:25The Tories were delighted by Corbyn's victory
32:27and later in the year used their conference
32:29as an opportunity to try and seize the centre ground.
32:32We, we are the builders.
32:35Of course, the problem with straddling left and right
32:36is you end up in an awkward position,
32:38as this photo proved.
32:39Nice spread leg shot.
32:40Another one for the scrapbook.
32:42The man of the moment was also on hand
32:44to only mildly gloat about the election results.
32:47I don't know about you,
32:47but it only takes two words to cheer me up.
32:51Pig's mouth?
32:51Sorry, couldn't help it.
32:53Exit poll.
32:54Oh, right, yeah.
32:55He also took the time to fling some cuss at Corbyn
32:58by taking something he'd said about Osama bin Laden
33:00out of context.
33:01He thinks the death of Osama bin Laden was a tragedy.
33:06God, it'd be awful if we found some things Cameron had said
33:08and used them out of context.
33:10Do you know what, Christians and Muslims,
33:11we can't really live together
33:13and suicide bombings all right in Israel.
33:16Really? I'm surprised to hear you say that.
33:18Well, of course, I don't support terrorism,
33:20but a caliphate, is that such a bad idea?
33:22God, this is strong stuff, Dave.
33:24What would you say to anyone thinking of supporting you?
33:26My friends, we cannot let that man
33:29inflict his security-threatening,
33:30terrorist-sympathizing, Britain-hating ideology
33:33on this country we love.
33:37In July, one reckless dentist
33:39made everyone in the world say, aw.
33:42Forget sticking a drill into a canine,
33:44the media revealed dentist Walter Palmer
33:46had flown to Africa and stuck an arrow in a feline.
33:49Didn't even give him a I was a brave lion today sticker.
33:52No, just bloody deaded the thing.
33:53And it wasn't just any old lion, any old lion,
33:56any, any, any old lion.
33:57No, he'd killed Cecil the lion.
33:59Cecil had appeared in photographs and adverts,
34:01attended the opening of literally hundreds of gazelles,
34:04he'd released a sizzling sex tape, and now he was dead.
34:07The outcry was immediate and vocal.
34:09It's like having, going out porpoise fishing, right?
34:13And getting flipper, if you're whacking flipper.
34:16Shut him down! Shut him down!
34:19He's despicable, he's a killer, he's a murderer.
34:23The outrage grew across all media,
34:25and folks soon found out where Walter Palmer lived,
34:28partly because the details were leaked online,
34:29but mainly because he had the words lion killer
34:31painted on his garage.
34:32I mean, that's just adding insult to injury.
34:34Worse still, the coverage made clear
34:36Walter Palmer had previous for beast murder.
34:39Back then, no one cared about the other animals he'd killed
34:41because they didn't have names,
34:42or at least I don't think they did.
34:43Maybe he shot their names off too, the bastard.
34:46Anyway, while the outrage grew,
34:47the butcher himself was lion low,
34:50while emotions were still raw, dead lion jokes,
34:54as the news revealed tributes to Cecil
34:56eventually reached lady die proportions
34:58as landmarks were draped in his dead mane.
35:00Earlier this month, Cecil's face was projected
35:03onto New York's Empire State Building,
35:06and for a moment, even in this concrete jungle,
35:10he was still king.
35:12Eventually, everyone moved on, Cecil stayed dead,
35:14and Walter Palmer calmly went back to his day job
35:16drilling holes in the faces of blameless children.
35:19Sorry, what do you want, a just world?
35:20You're fucking dreaming.
35:22There was this faraway Times man called Ted Heath
35:25who's dead now, but he's still alive
35:27in all the footage of him,
35:28and he was either this sort of famous prime minister
35:31who reformed local government
35:33and took Britain into the EU,
35:35or one of the most horrific monsters
35:38our country has ever seen,
35:39and it wasn't clear which one he was.
35:41I think they were twins.
35:42One was called Ted Heath,
35:44and the other one was Edward Heath.
35:46I mean, they kept talking about both of them on the news.
35:48Former prime minister, Sir Edward Heath.
35:50Ted Heath.
35:50Edward Heath.
35:51Ted Heath.
35:52Edward Heath.
35:52Sir Ted Heath.
35:53Sir Edward Heath.
35:54They were the first twins to ever be prime minister.
35:58Prime ministers.
36:00Primes, primes ministers,
36:02I don't know what the right term is.
36:04Thing is, because he looks the same as himself
36:06in all the pictures,
36:07when you watch the footage,
36:09you can't tell which of the Heath twins he is,
36:11the good one or the evil one,
36:13if there was an evil one or a good one.
36:15It's totally confusing,
36:17and that's probably how he got away with it for so long,
36:19if he did get away with it.
36:21Or the other one did, or didn't.
36:23There was another dead politician called Little Britain,
36:26and he'd been accused of terrible things too.
36:28And again, no one knew if he'd done those things or not.
36:31But there's this detective called Tom Watson,
36:34who just wouldn't drop the case.
36:36I think he works for the Labour Party branch of the police.
36:38People got cross with him and called him a witch hunter,
36:41but they'll shut up pretty quickly
36:43the day he finally does catch a real witch.
36:45Entertainment and ITV introduced a bewildered
36:48and blameless nation to Flock Stars,
36:50a celebrity sheepdog trial,
36:51which was only slightly less harrowing
36:53than the year's other celebrity trials.
36:55It was Strictly Come Dogging, basically.
36:57In fact, just like Strictly,
36:58when I look at the pairings,
36:59I'm never quite sure which one's the famous one.
37:02And I can't help wondering
37:03if they're going to end up doing it.
37:04Bess and Tony Blackburn.
37:06I like the cuddles.
37:09Time to release the sheep.
37:13I don't.
37:15Here they come.
37:18It's the Hebrideans.
37:21Oh, God, talk about lowering the bar.
37:27Flock Stars was just the latest
37:28in a string of doomed attempts
37:30at aping the cosy patriotic success
37:32of the Great British Bake Off
37:33by pummeling something quintessentially British
37:35into a sort of format shape.
37:37It can be filed alongside the Great British Sewing Bee,
37:40the Big Allotment Challenge,
37:41and that other one, the pottery thing.
37:43Surely there's hardly any British bullshit left.
37:46What's next?
37:46The Great British Pavement?
37:48Strictly pub menu?
37:50Viral racist bus rant of the year?
37:52Music contests, too,
37:54have been looking increasingly desperate.
37:55For instance, to mark the 100 years
37:57he might have lived to
37:58had he not died 17 years previously,
38:00the BBC wanted to salute the genius
38:02of charismatic croonsmith Frank Sinatra,
38:04seen here showcasing his seductive voice
38:06and exuberant wanking technique.
38:14Ah!
38:14Anyway, they marked the anniversary
38:16by paying tribute to old blue eyes
38:17in the classiest way possible,
38:19with a ropey talent show
38:20called Frank Sinatra Our Way,
38:22hosted by Pointless star Alexander Armstrong
38:25and Pointless star Rochelle Humes.
38:27This is Frank Sinatra Our Way.
38:39Bit of a strange way to honour Frank Sinatra, really,
38:42by encouraging almost anyone
38:43to take to the stage
38:44and dismantle his musical legacy.
38:46Sort of like paying tribute to Sir Christopher Wren
38:49by making a monkey assemble
38:50some flat-packed furniture.
38:52You do it really, really well,
38:54but I can't remember Frank
38:56when you're doing it.
38:57That's the only problem, unfortunately.
38:59I think that's a kind of good thing,
39:00because we are making it so much our own way
39:02that you almost forget anyone else.
39:04Yeah, sod Sinatra.
39:05Airbrush him from history.
39:06Frank who?
39:08Glitzy establishment crooner spawning plant
39:10The X Factor was also looking wobbly this year,
39:13as it responded to dwindling ratings
39:14by upping its cruelty content,
39:16leading to unedifying scenes of contestants
39:18begging live on air.
39:20I will prove to you,
39:21I will change your mind,
39:22I'm not the girl who...
39:23I'm not the girl who...
39:26Still, if X Factor needs a new gimmick for next year,
39:28maybe it could look to Japan
39:29and its new grotesque adult talent contest
39:32Sing What Happens,
39:33in which contestants have to stay in tune
39:35while being masturbated.
39:36It's not so much a game show,
39:37more a metaphor for everything.
39:43In September, Prime Minister David Cameron
39:46was accused of inserting his penis
39:48into the mouth of a dead pig.
39:51Can I have a glass of water, please?
39:55Yes, the Daily Mail printed extracts
39:57from a biography of David Cameron,
39:58alleging that while a student,
40:00he'd taken part in a bizarre initiation ceremony,
40:02during which he'd inserted his penis
40:04into the mouth of a dead pig.
40:05A statement I still can't believe
40:07I'm reading aloud on BBC television.
40:09Seriously, this is like dreaming while awake.
40:11For a while, the trad TV news
40:13couldn't quite bring itself to discuss
40:14the ins and outs of the pig face allegations,
40:17preferring to mince words.
40:19The unauthorised biography includes allegations
40:21about Mr Cameron's student days,
40:23that he smoked cannabis
40:24and took part in a bizarre initiation ceremony.
40:27There is a quite extraordinary account
40:30of David Cameron's sort of hijinks at university,
40:35a little bit more than hijinks, it has to be said.
40:37We actually can't say some of the other things
40:39he's accused of doing on TV.
40:41We're going to have to leave it at that.
40:42But in the alternative dimension of social media,
40:44it was Christmas Day in 3D,
40:46with pig joke piled upon pig joke
40:48like so much violated sausage meat.
40:51It didn't take long for the dam to burst
40:52and the allegations soon defiled
40:54otherwise straight-laced morning debate shows.
40:56You've also got this issue of the Prime Minister
40:58putting his cock in a dead pig's mouth.
41:00Well, OK, Dan, do you know what, mate?
41:03One, it's an allegation.
41:05Two, your choice of language in referring to that,
41:07I think, far goes beyond what is permitted
41:10at this time of the day.
41:11And at that point, really, you've forfeited
41:12any right to speak on this show.
41:14So bye-bye.
41:15What a waste of a call.
41:16Let's try another.
41:17We've got Lewis on line two.
41:19Eventually, the nationwide chortling reached such a peak,
41:21it was reported workplace productivity was suffering.
41:24But amidst the hilarity, some were wondering
41:26whether maybe, just maybe,
41:28the allegations weren't entirely reliable.
41:30For one thing, Cameron was denying it.
41:32And for another, the book had been co-authored
41:33by Tory donor Lord Ashcroft,
41:35who by his own admission had an axe to grind with Cameron.
41:38And it all boiled down to one rumour
41:39from one anonymous source.
41:41Could have been anyone.
41:42Could have been Keith Lemon.
41:43It was a bit like a dirty protest.
41:45And people like me, who wanted it to be true
41:47just because it was so irresistibly funny,
41:49were the ones daubing someone else's shit
41:51up the cell walls of the collective unconscious.
41:54And it was working.
41:55It even amused loose women.
41:57The funniest thing is that the British public
42:00see the possibility as entirely plausible,
42:03although it has put me off sausage for life.
42:06The book's co-author and chronic smirker,
42:08Isabel Oakeshott, was all over the media
42:10defending the noble tradition
42:11of spreading uncorroborated rumours
42:13from a single potentially unreliable source.
42:15Where's the evidence for the allegations
42:18that you make in the book,
42:19especially the ones about the dead pig?
42:20Look, this is just a few paragraphs
42:24in the middle of a book
42:25which is some 200,000 words long.
42:29Yeah, come on, guys.
42:30There's only a hint of pig f***ing in it.
42:32Do you think the stuff about the pig is true?
42:34We're not there to write a hagiography.
42:36There are some difficult things in there.
42:38And there are also plenty
42:40of extremely complimentary, flattering things
42:43about the prime minister in there as well.
42:44Oh, what kind of compliments?
42:45Let me guess.
42:46He was the best dead pig's head f***er
42:48the world has ever seen.
42:49To be honest, the whole thing left me,
42:51particularly, feeling a bit weirded out.
42:53You see, a few years ago,
42:54I wrote a drama for Channel 4
42:56in which a fictional prime minister
42:57was blackmailed into having sex with a pig.
43:00And lots of things in that show
43:02played out much the same as they were now.
43:04There were people in newsrooms
43:05bemoaning the fact they couldn't run the story.
43:07If we mentioned bestiality pre-watershed,
43:09Ofcom would be seriously pissed off.
43:11F*** Ofcom.
43:12There were people making wisecracks on Twitter,
43:14even using some of the same hashtags.
43:16The vindictive stunt impacted cruelly
43:18on the people at the centre.
43:19Nothing is going to happen.
43:20It's already happening in their heads.
43:22And the whole thing played out as a kind of national sport,
43:25bringing the nation to a standstill.
43:26At the end of Black Mirror,
43:27the PM's reputation survives intact.
43:30And a few months on,
43:30David Cameron doesn't seem to have suffered
43:32too much from his piggy scrape.
43:34Although the mental image is still too powerful
43:36and amusing for some of his opponents to drop.
43:38The irony is the collective thunder chuckle
43:40overshadowed somewhat more pointed allegations in the book,
43:43which the Prime Minister also denied.
43:45I think it's important that this allegation,
43:47that he knew more about Lord Ashcroft's non-dom status
43:50than he had previously said he did,
43:51that that's not lost in the more lurid
43:54and humorous allegations
43:55that many people are talking about.
43:56Good point, Nicola.
43:57Let's hope no one lets that happen.
43:59The Prime Minister's attitude to Scotland
44:02betrays the worst characteristics of his government.
44:06Arrogant, patrician, out of touch, pig-headed,
44:11some might say.
44:13He f***ed a pig.
44:16He f***ed a pig.
44:17Or he didn't.
44:18Or he did.
44:19Or he didn't.
44:20Or he did.
44:21Or he didn't.
44:22Or he did.
44:23Usually people from Europe
44:24go off somewhere hot on holiday.
44:26But this year,
44:27loads of people from somewhere hot
44:28tried to come over here.
44:29You've got a swarm of people
44:31coming across the Mediterranean,
44:32seeking a better life.
44:34Normally, I think, fair enough.
44:35But when I read the papers,
44:37you could tell from the language they used
44:38that these weren't quite normal people.
44:41I mean, they look normal on the telly,
44:42but when you read about them,
44:44you realise they must have had insect DNA or something,
44:47because it sounded like
44:48there were sort of infestations swarming in.
44:50They couldn't have been real humans
44:52because people were writing things about them
44:54that would be utterly unforgivable if they were.
44:56The people said there were migrants
44:58coming here in droves,
44:59which is interesting
45:00because I've never heard of a country called Migratia,
45:02and I don't know what a drove is.
45:04The migrants couldn't hack it back home
45:06just because they're caught in a crossfire
45:07between a bloodthirsty extremist death cult
45:10and a desperate amoral military regime,
45:13both of which will stop at nothing
45:14to kill anyone in their way.
45:16But we've all got problems.
45:17I mean, I don't always like where I live,
45:19but you don't hear me moaning about it
45:21and hopping on a drove.
45:22The coverage made it crystal clear
45:24they were headed for Europe
45:25because they wanted a better way of life
45:27with benefits and a health service
45:29and houses that weren't all on fire or made of rubble.
45:33While they were waiting for the free house and money,
45:35the migrant swarms would build a sort of nest called a camp.
45:42The BBC did a special songs of praise
45:44from one of the nests,
45:46and the papers weren't happy,
45:48and nor was I.
45:49Songs of praise is meant to be a music show,
45:51so why is it suddenly getting all preachy about things?
45:54Anyway, just as I was really getting into hating the migrants,
45:57there was a massive twist that I hadn't seen coming.
46:01When the police arrived here this morning,
46:03they found several drowning victims,
46:05among them a toddler, a child of perhaps two years of age.
46:09This boat sank and there was a photo of a little boy
46:12lying dead on the beach,
46:13and he looked just like a real human,
46:15because he was.
46:16And then I thought, wait a minute,
46:18what if they're all real humans?
46:21And then I thought, oh, my God, that'd be awful.
46:24I mean, if that was true,
46:26this whole thing would be an unprecedented crisis.
46:30And to their credit, after that photo,
46:32the papers did some investigating
46:34and found out the migrants were real people,
46:36so their coverage totally changed.
46:38They realised they'd got it wrong,
46:39so they started shouting at David Cameron
46:42to do something about it, to give them a home.
46:44Today I can announce that we will do more,
46:47providing resettlement for thousands more Syrian refugees.
46:51I feel sorry for him,
46:52because he'd only just found out they were humans too, you know?
46:55Everyone was caught in the op-air.
46:56The news had all this footage of them
46:58all desperately squeezing onto trains
47:00and marching on foot in huge snaking columns,
47:04but now it looked sort of different,
47:06less swarmy and threatening
47:08and more harrowing and urgent and sad.
47:11And the clever thing was,
47:12it was the same sort of pictures you'd seen earlier,
47:15but now you knew the twist about them being humans.
47:18It seemed totally different.
47:20It was like the white and gold dress.
47:22Once it's flipped to blue and black in your head, that's it.
47:25You can't see it any other way forever.
47:28Well, until Paris happened.
47:30Then they went back to being a swarm of bastards and criminals again.
47:342015 was, of course, the year fictional construct Marty McFly
47:37arrived in futuristic Hill Valley
47:39in the light-hearted blockbuster Back to the Future 2.
47:42So naturally, people were keen to compare
47:44how the movie's vision of today had fared with the reality.
47:47And the truth is, our present-day reality is even more sophisticated.
47:50I mean, in the made-up 2015,
47:52people used hoverboards to zip around on,
47:54whereas today, arseholes have actually evolved wheels.
47:57In Back to the Future, they had robots in service stations,
48:00whereas today, we've already got robots in our homes,
48:03such as Pepper, the social companionship robot
48:06who went on sale this year in Japan,
48:08promoted by this eerie, haunting video.
48:25Surely, no-one could really bear sharing their home
48:27with an emotionally void, blank-faced robot
48:30that's chained to an iPad all day long.
48:32At least, that's what my wife keeps telling me via text.
48:38But even that wasn't the creepiest technology story of the year.
48:54Yes, this hideous commercial was advertising online cheat mode enabler Ashley Madison,
49:10which promised secret affairs for wannabe shagabouts.
49:13The site did look really safe,
49:14as though you could trust it with your most sensitive secrets.
49:17I mean, it had a photo of a woman going,
49:19shh, on the front, and a graphic of a padlock,
49:22so it was hard to see what could possibly go wrong.
49:24Computer hackers have stolen millions of items of customer data
49:27from an online adultery website called Ashley Madison.
49:31The hackers put the names of everyone who'd been on there on the dark web,
49:34which is the sort of internet you look at with the lights off.
49:36Anyway, now no-one knows where the next privacy breach is going to come from,
49:39but we know it's coming.
49:41They can hack anything now, phones, laptops, tablets, webcams.
49:44I heard they can even hack into mirrors, like bathroom mirrors,
49:47so everyone in Russia can watch you going for a shit.
49:50If you've got a mirror in front of your toilet, like I have,
49:53for personal reasons.
49:56It's almost hard to remember that a few years ago,
49:58the world was terrified of Al-Qaeda.
50:00ISIS make Al-Qaeda look like crowded house.
50:03ISIS began as something many in the West psychologically portioned off
50:06as happening somewhere over there.
50:08Atrocities in awful Adesh.
50:11But throughout the year, the threat has crept closer and closer to home.
50:14Tourists slain on their sun loungers,
50:16aeroplanes blown from the sky.
50:18It seemed nowhere was safe.
50:21A major breaking story in Paris tonight,
50:23reports of explosions and shootings.
50:25It's a shocking and confusing picture.
50:29129 people were murdered in Paris
50:31and hundreds more injured by seven Islamic State terrorists.
50:35As horrifying news coverage played out across screens of every size
50:38and shape, a mood of fear and paranoia took hold.
50:41Now, this place here is...
50:42There's shit happening.
50:44There's something going on here. People are running.
50:46People are dying, people are dying.
50:47OK, people are running away.
50:49There was a palpable sense of events spiralling out of control.
50:53Anyway, everyone agrees this is all far too scary to ignore.
50:56The question is what to do about it.
50:57And some think that means confronting the issue at its source, Syria.
51:01But how do you solve a problem like Syria?
51:03Syria's a hellish tangle involving a brutal regime,
51:06rival rebel factions, extremists and vested international interests.
51:10It's a civil war, a proxy war, an ideological conflict
51:13and a monumental humanitarian disaster all at the same time.
51:16Little wonder some want to treat the problem like a malfunctioning old TV.
51:20Give it a bang and hope it sorts itself out.
51:23Sure enough, the government was soon fielding a vote
51:25on whether we should bomb Syria or not.
51:27David Cameron informed an anxious nation that this was the right thing to do.
51:31So it's in the national interest, it's the right thing to do.
51:33But then he says everything he wants to do is the right thing to do.
51:36It hasn't been easy, I know, for many people in Britain,
51:39but it's, I think, been the right thing to do.
51:41I think that's the right thing to do.
51:43The right thing to do.
51:44I think this is the right thing to do.
51:45It's the right thing to do.
51:46This is the right thing to do.
51:47It was the right thing to do.
51:48I will do the right thing for the country.
51:50I did last time, I would again.
51:52It was the right thing to do.
51:54Labour leader and cycling proficiency badge holder Jeremy Corbyn
51:57was in a tricky spot.
51:59As a pacifist, he hates war,
52:00but he couldn't vote against it without causing one in his own party.
52:04In the event, MPs voted to bomb Syria and suddenly we were at war,
52:07which we already were up the road in Iraq.
52:09Basically, they voted for more war.
52:12These are the planes the RAF have been flying in attacks over Iraq
52:16and are ready for use in Syria.
52:17As the news channels turned into excited commercials
52:20for all the missiles and military hardware we'd soon be using,
52:23Labour careered into a civil war with itself.
52:26Well, here the recriminations in the Labour Party
52:28from last night's Syria vote
52:29are still ricocheting around Westminster and beyond.
52:32As you can see from the coverage, the infighting has become so bitter,
52:36even Assad looks at the Labour Party and goes,
52:38don't fancy getting involved in that.
52:41Bombing is one response to terror, scapegoating is another.
52:44For years, many have treated the entire Muslim faith
52:46as synonymous with extremist atrocities carried out in its name.
52:50There are constant calls for Muslims to denounce terror,
52:52which they do daily,
52:54but the media finds that a bit too boring to publicise.
52:56I guess if they were denouncing it while firing an AK-47 into the sky,
53:00the news might pay attention.
53:02Atrocities like Paris fuel anti-Muslim sentiment still further.
53:05Of course, terrorists don't represent all Muslims
53:07any more than Greg Wallace represents all mammals.
53:10This shit is everyone's problem and most people instinctively know that.
53:14They even shout it at terrorist suspects.
53:16You ain't no Muslim, bruv.
53:17You ain't no Muslim, bruv.
53:19Said it all much better than I ever could and thank you
53:22because that will be applauded around the country.
53:24Wow, he thinks something somebody else did was the right thing to do.
53:26Of course, in the current fevered atmosphere,
53:28there's no shortage of people expressing an opposite sentiment.
53:31The plan, number one, get a gun.
53:35Oh God, not you again. Sorry about this.
53:37I was hoping to keep things festive for the last few minutes of the show,
53:40but this is what happened.
53:42Buy one legally, learn how to shoot it and be primed to use it.
53:47Do you need to buy guns in America? They're probably just lying around.
53:50Donald Trump is running for president of America
53:53and the President of America contest.
53:55Americans like Trump because he's got loads of money,
53:58which is sort of their version of being clever.
54:00I mean, he's built all these giant buildings and written his name on them
54:04so no one else can steal them.
54:05He's all over the news.
54:07Like, the news can't stop filling their screens with him,
54:09even though he looks sort of weird.
54:11I mean, he looks like a sort of guinea pig
54:13staring at you through the portal on a washing machine.
54:16There's this amazing stuff on his head.
54:18It's not hair. It's like a sort of furry gas.
54:22It's like he was born with a squirrel's tail
54:24and he's brushed it over his head to pass among humans.
54:27As well as looking like a sort of biological car crash,
54:30he's got this gimmick.
54:32He says horrible things about people, totally slags them off.
54:36I never attacked him on his look, and believe me,
54:39there's plenty of subject matter right there that I can tell you.
54:42He slagged off John McClane, who was a Vietnam war hero.
54:46He's a war hero because he was captured.
54:48I like people that weren't captured, OK? I hate to tell you.
54:51He slagged off loads of women.
54:53You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs,
54:57slobs and disgusting animals.
55:00Your Twitter account...
55:01Only Rosie O'Donnell.
55:03He said horrible things about Mexicans.
55:05They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime,
55:08they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.
55:12He took the piss out of a reporter with a disability.
55:15You got to see this guy.
55:16Oh, I don't know what I said. Oh, I don't remember.
55:19It's like if Frankie Boyle decided to use his powers for evil.
55:23One of his enemies is all Mexicans, or he wants to build a wall around.
55:27He says Mexico's the new China, which it isn't.
55:29Tupperware is the new China.
55:31He hasn't thought that through.
55:33Then there was this mass shooting in California like there is every day in America.
55:37But this wasn't one of the normal mass shootings that a maniac does for no reason.
55:41This one was carried out by two maniacs for some ideological reason.
55:46I mean, it must be scary to think the terrorists
55:48have got so good at infiltrating America,
55:51it's almost impossible to tell them apart from your normal unhinged maniacs.
55:56I mean, you could be calmly minding your own business
55:58in the middle of an everyday mass shooting
56:00and suddenly realise it's a terror attack.
56:03Anyway, then Donald Trump said he had banned all Muslims from entering the country.
56:07And suddenly, even though he'd been saying all these Hitler-y things for a while,
56:11that was just too Hitler-y for everyone.
56:13Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown
56:17of Muslims entering the United States
56:20until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.
56:27Basically, everyone said he was horrible.
56:29They started calling him a fascist
56:31and that he was starting to look and sound like a racist dictator.
56:34Like, even Dick Cheney went on the news and said it was wrong.
56:38And he's the bloke who invented filling Muslims with water
56:40till they say they're terrorists just to make it stop.
56:42Trump up the jet! Trump up the jet!
56:45They've dropped the jet!
56:46Super Trump!
56:47A lot of pundits predicted that support for him would fizzle out after the summer.
56:52That doesn't seem to be happening.
56:54That doesn't seem to be happening.
56:56It's exciting watching footage of his rallies,
56:58thinking, oh, this'll be in a documentary in about 20 years' time
57:02with ominous music on it.
57:04And here's me watching it live.
57:06He says all these things that aren't true.
57:08And loads of his followers don't trust the media,
57:10so they believe whatever he says.
57:12So he can basically create his own mental reality
57:15and have thousands of people blindly agree with him.
57:18Actually, saying it out loud makes him sound sort of terrifying.
57:21But luckily, he's also got silly hair you can laugh at.
57:24I mean, there's no way Hitler would have risen to power
57:25if he had some weird physical thing that made him look silly,
57:28you know, like a stupid air car or a little stuff.
57:32Oh, fucking hell.
57:33The controversy and news on terrorism over the past month
57:37seems to have given Trump a boost.
57:39Back in late October, there were signs he had started to fade.
57:43Since then, he's jumped 13 points in that same poll.
57:47Oh, God, you know what?
57:48This is making me think there's no hope.
57:49I mean, look, you've got this kind of lunacy.
57:52Get a gun.
57:53You've got maniacs slaughtering anyone in sight.
57:56You've got fascistic demagogues capitalising on the whole thing.
57:59No wonder that bloke's hiding out on the moon
58:01in that poxy, stupid John Lewis advert.
58:04Looks like the safest place to be right now,
58:06because down here, down here, it's all anger and fear
58:08and carnage and despair, and I just, I just wish,
58:11I wish there was something to take my mind off it.
58:13Just anywhere.
58:14Oh, oh, look, look, it's Dave Zeppin's truck.
58:18It's Dave Zeppin's truck, everyone!
58:21LAUGHTER
58:31Oh, well, that's all we've got time for.
58:34I'll see you at some point next year.
58:36Till then, go away.
58:43Russell Howard has met his dream girl.
58:46Now the nightmare begins as she meets the family.
58:49Stand by for a girt-lush Christmas, next on BBC Two.