Have I Got News For You

Alex Horne guest hosts for the first time, with Carol Vorderman and Jack Dee as the guests.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer faced up in the first televised leaders' debate of the election campaign, pitching their plans to the country. Rishi Sunak drew criticism for his potentially misleading characterisation of Labour's tax plans throughout the debate, as he continued to repeat a claim that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 per working household.

Carol Vorderman went on to predict that the Conservatives would come third in the election, behind the Liberal Democrats.

"This is the big issue. Sunak kept saying, 'Under Labour, you'll pay £2,000 more. These are figures that I've come up with...'" Ian Hislop joked, to laughs from the audience.

"'Independently verified'..." Carol Vorderman chipped in.

"Which they weren't... Conservative special advisers had given them to civil servants, and amazingly they'd come up with this figure of £2,000. Which turned out very shortly not to be true. Isn't that amazing? It was The Spectator - and this is a right-wing paper - saying, 'well under the same system, under the Conservative plans you'd be paying £3,000'!" Hislop pointed out, laughing.

"Well again, [the Conservatives] do make it very easy. Their big thing - 'under Labour you'll pay £2,000 more next year' and then a number of journalists pointed out that since this Government started, the tax increase for everyone has been £13,000... so hey! We're £11,000 up!" Hislop exclaimed.

"It is always difficult for a Government that's been in power for 10 years or more with a big majority saying 'this is what we're going to do'... well, why haven't you done it?" pointed out Merton.

"It's not going to get any better for them though, is it? I think, this is my prediction, that they will come third to the Lib Dems... that's what I think," Carol Vorderman suggested, to a chorus of surprised 'ooo's from the audience.

"That was a good noise, wasn't it?" Merton chipped in, "It's like the sort of noise you used to get on 1970s quiz shows when the curtains part and there'd be a caravan..."

"That's a hell of a prize though!" replied Vorderman.

"Yeah, especially if you didn't own a car," quipped Merton.

The panel's discussion soon moved on to Labour leader Keir Starmer, and the way in which he has been using his election campaign speeches up and down the country to repeatedly tell people that his dad was a toolmaker - with some suggesting that he is clearly keen to make it known that he is an ordinary man from a working class background. Starmer's repeated references to his dad's profession have not gone unnoticed in the media.

"Did anyone learn what Keir Starmer's dad did for a living?" host Alex Horne asked, tongue in cheek.

"I think he's never mentioned it, it's kept a very tight secret. He's never said anything about that, so no one knows actually..." Jack Dee sarcastically replied.

"We did track down some secret footage of Keir Starmer finally admitting what his dad does," joked Horne, before introducing a video compilation of Sir Keir repeatedly saying "My dad was a toolmaker" at different press conferences and speeches.

"Has no one ever heckled him and said 'well he made you, didn't he?!'" joked Jack Dee.

"This is week two of the General Election. According to some polls, Labour could achieve the biggest majority since 1924 when Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister, helped on the campaign trail by the uplifting anthem by Elgar, 'Things Will Surely Improve Somewhat'," joked Horne.

Later in the episode, attention turned to Nigel Farage, who this week announced that he would be standing for election as an MP for Reform UK, despite saying for weeks that he wouldn't be. At his campaign launch in Clacton, a woman threw a banana milkshake over Farage in front of a large crowd as he left a local Wetherspoons.

"Had it been low alcohol beer, he would have actually disintegrated," joked Dee.

"This is Nigel Farage's eighth attempt to become an MP. As Farage left a Clacton Wetherspoons, he was drenched in banana milkshake in an incident described by local police as 'utterly precedented'," quipped Horne.