If I Ruled the World is a television show aired in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 in 1998

1998 in British television

This is a list of British television related events from 1998.-Events:*February – CNBC Europe merges with European Business News, upon which the channel is known officially as "CNBC Europe - A Service of NBC and Dow Jones"....

 and 1999

1999 in British television

This is a list of British television related events from 1999.-Events:*1 January – On Coronation Street, four-decade resident Alf Roberts dies of a heart attack, just one month before the real-life death of Bryan Mosley, the actor who portrayed him....

. It was a comedy panel game show

Game show

A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

, similar to Have I Got News For You

Have I Got News for You

Have I Got News for You is a British television panel show produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC. It is based loosely on the BBC Radio 4 show The News Quiz, and has been broadcast since 1990, currently the BBC's longest-ever running television panel show...

but focused on parodying the behaviour of politicians. Rounds included answering questions without using the words 'Yes' or 'No', and finding reasons to disagree with policies proposed by the other team, no matter how sensible. The winning team was chosen each week by a vote of the studio audience. The show was named after the 1960s theatre song "If I Ruled the World

If I Ruled the World

"If I Ruled the World" is a popular song, composed by Leslie Bricusse and Cyril Ornadel, which was originally from the 1963 West End musical Pickwick...

".

The show was presented by Clive Anderson

Clive Anderson

Clive Anderson is a British former barrister, best known for being a comedy writer as well as a radio and television presenter in the United Kingdom...

. Graeme Garden

Graeme Garden

David Graeme Garden OBE is a Scottish author, actor, comedian, artist and television presenter, who first became known as a member of The Goodies.-Early life and beginnings in comedy:...

 and Jeremy Hardy

Jeremy Hardy

Jeremy James Hardy is a British alternative comedian who is also known for his socialist politics.-Career:Hardy was born in Farnborough, Hampshire. He attended Farnham College and studied Modern History and Politics at the University of Southampton...

 were regular team captains (their teams were, respectively, the Blue Party and the Red Party; though in the first episode Clive pointed out there was no political significance behind the party colours). Guests included Mark Steel

Mark Steel

Mark Steel is a British socialist columnist, author and comedian. He was a member of the Socialist Workers Party from his late teens until 2007.-Early life:...

, Rebecca Front

Rebecca Front

Rebecca Front is a BAFTA Award–winning English comedian and actress best known for her performances in The Thick of It in the late 2000s, and series of critically acclaimed satirical comedies in the early 1990s: On The Hour, The Day Today and Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge...

, Tony Hawks

Tony Hawks

Antony Gordon Hawksworth, better known as Tony Hawks, is a British comedian and author.-Early life:Born in Brighton in 1960, Hawks was educated at Brighton Hove and Sussex Grammar School and Brighton College...

, Andy Hamilton

Andy Hamilton

Andrew Neil Hamilton is a British comedian, game show panellist, television director, comedy screenwriter and radio dramatist.-Early life:...

 and Doon MacKichan

Doon Mackichan

Doon Mackichan is an English comedienne and actress.-Biography:Born in London, Mackichan was brought up in Surrey until the age of 9 when she moved with her family to Upper Largo, Fife. She is a graduate of Manchester University...

. On one occasion Tony Hawks deputised as team captain for Jeremy Hardy. It was produced by Hat Trick Productions

Hat Trick Productions

Hat Trick Productions is a British independent production company that produces television programmes, mainly specialising in comedy.-History:...

.

Rounds

Several rounds were played throughout the programme's run:

• Soapbox, usually played as the first round, where the panellists voice their opinions on a pre-selected matter of topical interest.

• It's A Stickup, where the teams are shown their campaign posters and are asked to explain them. The posters would be of a rather dubious nature.

• The Yes/No Round, where Clive tested the panellist's abilities to avoid answering political questions with a straight answer, i.e. without saying the words "Yes" or "No" at any point. If at any point they said either of those words a buzzer would sound and that person would be eliminated from the round. Graeme loved to fool the buzzer by starting sentences with "Yes..terday" or "No..body...".

• The Pager Round, where Clive interviewed Graeme and Jeremy on a certain topic. However, during the interviews, both Graeme and Jeremy were given messages via their pagers from their "spin doctors" who monitored the interviews, and had to adapt to the instructions given. The pager message appeared at the bottom of the screen. For example, Jeremy was asked about teacher's pay, but received messages telling him to make up a statistic, attack Graeme's record, draw on his Irish roots before denying what he'd just said, compare himself to Jesus and finish with a joke.

• Speech, which is played by only one panellist, who is given a speech by Clive to recite to the audience. However, the speech text is something very strange such as football chants or lyrics from a song.

• I Like To Keep In Touch, where Clive asked Jeremy and Graeme a series of questions over a period of 90 seconds each on different subjects.

• State Of The Nation, where the audience were polled on a series of questions and each panellist was asked what the most popular answer was. Upon revealing the answer, Clive would reveal the rest of the top three and some of the more ridiculous answers given by the audience.

• Hidden Agenda, where an audience member asked the panel a question, and Graeme and Jeremy had to respond to the question, but each had a hidden agenda (presented to them in an envelope by Clive). For example, an audience member asked how space travel would be affected following the finding of water on the moon. Graeme had to answer while pushing the hidden agenda of the Countryside Alliance
  Countryside Alliance
  The Countryside Alliance is a British organisation promoting issues relating to the countryside such as country sports, including hunting, shooting and angling...
  
   and Jeremy with the agenda of the musicals of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber
  Andrew Lloyd Webber
  Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
  
  .

• I Couldn't Disagree More, where either Graeme or Jeremy had to disagree with any policies the other party threw at them, however reasonable they may sound. A famous example was when Tim Brooke-Taylor
  Tim Brooke-Taylor
  Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE is an English comic actor. He became active in performing in comedy sketches while at Cambridge University, and became President of the Footlights club, touring internationally with the Footlights revue in 1964...
  
   appeared as a guest and he proposed "that it was high time The Goodies
  The Goodies
  The Goodies are a trio of British comedians who created, wrote, and starred in a surreal British television comedy series called The Goodies during the 1970s and early 1980s combining sketches and situation comedy.-Honours:All three Goodies now have OBEs...
  
  episodes were repeated. Graeme was obliged by the rules of the game to refute this statement, and replied "I couldn't disagree more, it was time to repeat them on television ten, fifteen years ago." This was followed by uproarious applause from the studio audience.

• Desperate Vote Grabbing, which was always the last round, where the panellists would buzz in to give out last-minute policies to sway the audience before the division bell and the final vote.