Top 10 Funniest Recent Have I Got News For You Moments

#10: Liz Truss’s Book

In 2024, our shortest-serving PM in history was doing the rounds to promote her political memoir, “Ten Years to Save the West”, a book in which she blames everybody but herself for killing the Queen, crashing the economy, and then losing her dignity to a head of lettuce. Ian Hislop is, of course, Truss’s number one fan and had already read the memoir cover-to-cover, including her stories of meeting the Queen mere days before her death – the publication of which is actually against the rules of the Cabinet Office. She also blames the Tory party for her demise, saying that they didn’t support her enough – which, yes, obviously, considering the Parliamentary Conservative Party wanted Sunak instead of her to begin with.

#9: Trump’s Jokes

Martin Clunes introduced the panel to this hilarious bit of wordplay from President Trump, which is easily one of the best jokes we’ve ever seen. The panelists were just as impressed and presumably fearing for their jobs as political commentators when Trump’s capable of one-liners of this calibre. Elsewhere, and he had more witty quips about magnolia trees, one of which he had removed from the White House gardens despite its historic significance, being planted by Andrew Jackson in the 19th century. We’re sure you’re absolutely keeling over with laughter and probably demanding that Paul Merton gets sacked and replaced with Trump ASAP.

#8: Sausages

This Keir Starmer blunder remains one of the most iconic moments from his premiership so far, which we can’t imagine he’s particularly thrilled about. Only two months after winning the election, he was making a speech about the war in Gaza, saying that peace wasn’t going to be achieved in the Middle East until Hamas “release[d] the sausages”. He tried to move on, but it wasn’t to be; the party line about captive sausages was the only thing the news cycle picked up on following this speech. Ian also had this journalistic anecdote to deliver about just how quickly Starmer’s sausage blunder turned him into a laughingstock.

#7: Ryanair

Elon Musk was in the news trying to promote his latest rocket – not that SpaceX’s rocket launches have gone particularly well recently – claiming it would be able to carry people to Australia in only an hour. This segued into a bit about airlines and how Musk was trying to revolutionise transportation while the air industry floundered. That is except for, of course, Ryanair, the cheapest but most maligned provider of them all. But if you were worried about Ryanair simply being TOO efficient, don’t worry: after flights were cancelled due to a shortage of pilots, this distressing bit of compensation was offered to customers instead…

#6: The King’s Portrait

In 2024, the first official portrait of the King was unveiled, but the public weren’t very fond of it. Painted by Jonathan Yeo, it WAS rather odd, with viewers able to come up with little to say about it other than commenting on how red it was. Bizarrely, some conspiracy theories have sprung up online that this painting suggests blood and violence, although this is probably only true if you’re a Parker pen, the King’s well-known nemesis. Apparently, the King and Queen rather liked the picture, with the King himself suggesting that it should have a butterfly incorporated into it.

#5: Starmer’s Freebies

More from Sir Keir, his sausage blunder was rapidly overshadowed by his first major scandal since winning the election: Freebiegate. It turned out that he’d been accepting lavish gifts and not declaring them to Parliament, including at one point being gifted Taylor Swift tickets to the value of tens of thousands of pounds. Starmer was also gifted lots of designer clothes and glasses from Waheed Alli, along with his wife Victoria and then-Deputy Leader Angela Rayner. Other senior Labour ministers were also implicated. None of this was really against any rules, but it did stink of hypocrisy given that Starmer had raked the Tories over the coals for similar scandals while in opposition.

#4: Shy Fascists

Roy Wood Jr., who hosts the recently spawned American version of “Have I Got News For You” – which, by all accounts, isn’t terrible – was hosting this week, when Trump had just stormed to victory and retaken the White House. They were trying to decipher the press reaction to Trump’s success, which many polls hadn’t correctly predicted, and a lot of pundits put it down to the alleged phenomenon of “shy fascists”. Roisin Conaty had her own remarks about the bizarre concept of a “shy fascist”. As Trump’s second term office rumbles on, it’s becoming clear that whatever they are, they certainly aren’t shy.

#3: Tariffs

One of the biggest stories in international news throughout 2025 has been Trump’s volatile list of tariffs, which seem to change daily depending on which world leader was the last one to suck up to him. Sycophancy to Trump has proven to be one of the few things Keir Starmer can handle, so the UK has comfortably remained on about 10% since the “Liberation Day” chaos began. But how useful has Starmer been when the Heard and McDonald Islands in Antarctica – the ones with the penguins – are also on 10%? Investigators later found that the reason Trump thought the US was importing goods from these remote islands is that Australian cargo had been mislabelled.

#2: Coronation Protests

So as not to spoil the big day for His Majesty, the House of Commons hastily passed a law that allowed the police to temporarily detain people they thought would be a bother and release them once the event was over. They also arrested people exercising their right to freedom of expression by holding anti-monarchy placards too near to where the King was travelling. But perhaps this all meant that the Coronation went TOO smoothly, since Charles and Camilla arrived six minutes early and were stuck waiting outside. And after all that, he was upstaged by Penny Mordaunt, of all people.

#1: Paula Vennells

One of 2024’s biggest stories was, of course, the Post Office scandal, after an ITV drama in January lifted the lid. Private Eye had been reporting on this for years, and it was finally in the major news cycle. But who was to blame for the miscarriage of justice? Well, it certainly wasn’t down to just one person, but Paula Vennells was cited more than anybody else. She’s since faced inquiries and had her CBE stripped, which was why Phil Wang speculated that she was probably thrilled at Rishi Sunak calling an election and taking all the front pages. But don’t worry, Paula; we haven’t forgotten you, and Private Eye certainly hasn’t either.

Let us know in the comments what you want them to poke fun at in the next series of “Have I Got News For You”.