Have I Got News For You was back last night for its 52nd series, with Nick Clegg hosting.
The targets of their satire were the usual ones. They spent six minutes mocking UKIP, a couple of minutes mocking Trump, a few seconds mocking Hillary, six minutes mocking the Tories, and then moved on to fish and global warming, Jamie Oliver and paella, plus lots and lots of bonus digs at Boris ("a buffoon") and Gove ("a total git").
Curiously, especially given the summer they've had, Labour got less than half a minute of (gentle) mockery (a joke at the start about Corbyn on the train and a joke about Ed Balls on Strictly at the end). Given the summer of madness Labour has had and stories last week like the Jackie Walker affair, you'd have surely expected a lot more.
Now, HIGNFY is recorded at 18.30 on Thursday evenings so that night's shadow cabinet reshuffle - came too late for it to mock, but next week's edition of HIGNFY will have more than enough material to mock Labour relentlessly for several minutes.
There are so many targets, from Mao-praising Diane Abbott (...DIANE ABBOTT!?!!...) being made shadow home secretary to the controversial appointment of newly-ennobled, only-recently-a-Labour-member Shami as shadow whitewasher general. They could also mock the new shadow housing minister John Healey for his various statements over the past few months...
“Labour must unite behind Jeremy Corbyn as long as he's leader”. 20.5.2016
“I have just hand-delivered Jeremy Corbyn my resignation letter”. 27.6.2016
“Any Leader has to take people with them. Shadow cabinet elections would help to establish a basis for this”. 24.9.2016
“Why I’m Rejoining Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet”. 7.10.2016
...and Ian Hislop could rage righteously over Jackie Walker remaining a member of Momentum's steering committee. Plus someone will surely have to mock Jeremy Corbyn's already-heavily-derided error-filled tweet:
We'll have to see whether any of this happens next week, of course.
In the meantime, the biggest and best laugh on last night's Have I Got News For You came with the Captions Competition and this image:
Kevin Bridges suggested "Big dog and little dog". It brought the house down, and rightly so. You probably had to be there though.
