Andy Burnham, why not bring in a rucksack tax too?

The Telegraph Hello and welcome to The Weekend Tea with me, Michael Deacon. And me, Poppy Coburn. Oh, Michael, you're wearing a very nice shirt this week. Thank you. I think that's the first time you have ever complimented me on one of my shirts. I'm trying to get a positive feedback loop going because this one doesn't help my eyes at all. This is very pleasant to me. Relieved to hear it. Okay, well, I'll stop teasing you. I'm afraid we're going to have to talk about them again. And by them, they could only be the couple that everyone in the country likes to hear constant updates about Harry and Meghan. Oh, right. Yes, of course. They're back. They're here. And guess what? They're apparently very offended by a letter that was sent out by the royal family, by the palace, saying that they are not working royals. Is this surprising? Well, I'm a bit puzzled by this. I don't see why Harry and Meghan would be upset about that because I thought that's what they wanted. They wanted to be private citizens. I seem to remember that being in the news a little while back, about six and a half years ago. I think they sort of made their feelings quite well known on this. They said, we want to be private citizens. We don't want to be working royals. Now, here's the king saying, sure, no problem. Well, I like that they've slowly been walking back basically everything they've said. So first it was, we want to go to America and have our own privacy. We want to go to Montecito. Well, now they're back in the United Kingdom. Then again. Then it was, you know, we don't want to be working royals. We're private citizens. And now apparently they do want to be working royals and have all the pomp and circumstance that comes with that. I assume they're going to walk back the royal family a racist thing as well, seeing as they've gone back on everything else they've said. Maybe they're going to come out and say that Charles loves BLM. Well, fingers crossed. Yes. In fact, Harry's going to be a sequel to Spare where he says, actually, it was all a dream. Actually, my whole childhood was quite blissful. I got on really well with my brother. My dad's a top lad. Yeah, I love the mum-in-law or step-mum, sorry, mum-in-law. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's bound to happen. Well, this could be a continuation of what we spoke about a couple of weeks ago, which is what are they actually going to do for work in the United Kingdom? Because we know that they have all their charitable enterprises, but as they are not working royals, they don't get the perks that are associated with being working royal, right? They get the title. You know, they still get to call themselves part of the royal family in their branding, if nothing else. But they're not actually allowed into the circle. Could it not just be that they're trying to slowly wiggle their way back into maybe some of the financial support that you might get if you are part of the British royal family? In order to fund their security, which we were discussing recently? Quite possibly. Possibly. It's a theory, isn't it? It's a theory, yes. Well, it does feel like their charitable empire is falling apart. I mean, there's been a country that's now said that it doesn't want any part of the Invictus Games, which is Harry's big thing. This is his big charitable enterprise. Yes, Uganda has pulled out for slightly confusing reasons. They seem to think that the king doesn't endorse these games, but I'm pretty sure he does. But anyway, it's an amazing quote here from the head of the Ugandan military, who also happens to be the son of the Ugandan president. What? Napo baby? In Uganda? Would you believe? Anyway, so he's been explaining why he didn't want Uganda to be part of the games. And he said, it's an incredible quote, I have factions in the Ministry of Defence that support that Harry-Megan nonsense. I had to quash it straight away. I support the monarch. Hang on, the Ugandan Ministry of Defence has got factions that support Harry-Megan. Is Uganda on the brink of some kind of a coup here? Is this going to be a civil war? I think these Harry-Megan factions are going to topple the current president, seize power, and then perhaps install Harry and Meghan as rulers, the new rulers of Uganda. I don't know, but I could imagine that might be quite awkward for Charles, really, on the whole, you know, if he has to invite the new Ugandan. The new Ugandan rulers on a state visit, and it's Harry and Meghan. Yes, I know, your majesties, yes, I'm delighted to welcome you. I don't know, I don't wish to cause a diplomatic incident here, but I'm concerned about these factions. Well, and they say we don't have global reach anymore, and yet the king is apparently causing some kind of internal ruckus within the Ugandan government. I mean, that's quite wonderful, isn't it? It makes you proud to be British. Very good, yes. It's good to have some good news once, isn't it? Well, let's move away from Harry and Meghan and talk about the part of the royal family that everyone actually enjoys. Yes. Which is Prince George. And his first day at school. And of course, because he is Prince George, he's not just going to his local comp. No. It's his first day at Eton. Eton College, yes, which must be very exciting. As it so happens, I actually went to Eton once, not as a pupil. Goodness, Michael, very telegraph of you. No, I went as a visitor many years ago, and I had a good look around it, and it's an amazing place, as you can imagine. I got to have a look at George Orwell's school reports, or Eric Blair's, Blair E's school reports, so that was exciting. And also, maybe people don't know this. Eton has its very own helipad, and this is so that any parents who want to come and visit for school sports day, you can just come by private helicopter, you know, if you've got one, as so many parents do. I mean, what school doesn't have a private helipad? We didn't even have a proper sports pitch. This is good stuff. It's incredible. This is my favourite story now. I heard this quite a few years ago, but I believe that the Eton school football team once got to the final of a. private school sports competition. Anyway, they got to the final, and some of the other boys were invited along to come and show their support during the match. And I've heard about some of the chants they were supposedly singing, which included. And they were singing these at the other school team's fans. You're going to work for us one day. You're just a minor public school. And this one, this is a great one. Two princes and 19 prime ministers. Although they'll have to update that now. Now they've got a third prince. And also there's been a 20th prime minister since then. That was Boris Johnson. So I hope they'll remember to update it for historical record. I mean, that's a pretty good level of stats. It's pretty impressive. I mean, if my school got to a cup fine, I mean, well, that's Bologna High School in Edinburgh. I guess they'd be singing, like, no princes and no prime ministers, but two former Scotland international goalkeepers. And maybe one former parliamentary sketch writer. Although that's quite a lot of syllables, isn't it? It doesn't really slip off the towel. I'm not sure that could scan. That's a difficult one. So maybe they'll leave. Parliamentary sketch writer out. Anyway, there you go. Very impressive anyway. Well, he's going to fit right in. And the photo of him is incredibly sweet as well. Anyway, moving away from the royal family onto politics. Andy Burnham's latest brilliant brainwave. He is going to allow sort of regional mayors to impose a new tax on British hotels. So they will tax guests staying at the hotels. I presume there must be a feeling in government that the British hospitality industry is simply doing too much. Well, it's making too much money. It's so extremely successful that we can afford to oppose yet more taxes on it. I can't see how this plan could possibly fail. I mean, it's really difficult enough to convince people to come to Britain because I think our international image has been so incredibly tarnished, possibly entirely because of Sadiq Khan and his banishment of London. If you go abroad now and you speak to people and say, oh, I'm from England, they can like, oh, God, wow, you haven't been stabbed yet and you haven't had your phone stolen must be really lucky. So it's great to see that Andy Burnham is trying to make it even more unpleasant for people to come here. Maybe that's what he thinks a good immigration policy is. If he just stops people coming through normal tourist routes, then maybe he can present that as some kind of victory. Yes, people are still coming over in the small boats, but we don't have people staying in hotels. Just not those people in the hotels. They're still there. I must admit, I'm sort of in two minds about this whole tourist tax plan, because on the one hand, I think, oh, this is terrible news for the British hospitality industry. On the other hand, I hate tourists. I mean, they just get in the way, particularly in London. They walk so slowly. I mean, I do think, right, we need a new tourist policy, just like we need a tougher immigration policy. And I would say people from abroad are not allowed to come to this country on holiday unless you have first passed a test in which you can demonstrate that you can walk faster than two miles a fortnight. OK, and you know how an escalator works and you know how a tube barrier works, things like that. You've got to pass this test before you can enter the country. Can we just do a ban on schoolchildren as well? I swear every single Spanish schoolchild has done their trip to the British Museum. And yet every week there's another group of them. Where are they all coming from? The birth rates over there must be absolutely astronomical. Yeah, indeed. They're always there. They're just being trampled underfoot. Yeah, yeah. We need to answer that. We've got terrible trouble with our birth rate. I think we need to be talking to tourists saying, what's your secret? It's because they all want to come see London, I guess. Clearly, that's how they're doing it. Well, maybe we should. This is Burnham's next thing to do. Tax them every time they have a job. Tax every child. Maybe that's how you can do it. Put a tax on the head of every child coming to the UK. Here's my idea. The Herod tax. Rucksack tax. Oh, that's good. Every tourist wearing a massive rucksack the size of a wardrobe while standing on a bus or tube. Massive, swinging taxes on that. If you did that, Michael, you could probably get rid of income tax for British citizens. I think I probably could. It would cover such a massive hole in the budget. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm Prime Minister in about two weeks' time on the strength of this incredible and very popular policy. Well, speaking of cash, more to come. Get why Donald Trump wants to give $5,000 to every American citizen if he wins the midterms and why an American Airlines passenger had to be duct-taped to his seat. You know, there are times, Michael, when I start to doubt Donald Trump. I've been watching some of the stuff that's been going on with the Iran war and I think it does look a little bit like, these are the actions of a mad person. I'm not sure that he is the political genius. I know that so many people. people, yourself included, thought he was. But then he will come back and do something so spectacular, so brilliant, that I recognise that he is possibly the most impressive politician we will ever know in our lifetimes, a modern-day Napoleon. Donald Trump has a new plan. He announced it in the Republican conference. If he wins the midterms, which currently he is on track to lose quite badly in, he will give $5,000 to every American citizen. Every American? Yes. And is that including children as well? Okay, well, the details still need to be worked out on this one, Michael. J.D. Vance had said that this $5,000, you can only spend it in America. I'm not sure how they're going to check that. Are the banknotes going to have a picture of Trump on them, saying only to be spent in the United States of America? I'm not really sure how they're going to be able to enforce that. Usually you can't spend dollars abroad anyway. And also, I'm not sure if it's legal to bribe people to vote for you. Some people have suggested, yeah, offering every single voter $5,000 possibly counts as a bribe. And to be fair, it clearly is. But I've got to say something. Is that really so very different from what our own Labour government does? Because basically every time they raise benefits, when they recently abolished the two-child benefit cap, I mean, that is effectively a bribe, isn't it? Yes. Because they are doing that to benefit their voter base or their target voters. I mean, this is how Labour politicians work, basically. They take money. They take money through taxes off people who are never going to vote for them and give it to people who might vote for them in order to ensure that they do vote for them. That's what they're doing. They are using, you know, taxes of working people like us to, you know, take our money and bribe other people to turn out and vote for them. This is why I loved it on Trump. What's the difference really? None of this means-testing nonsense. None of the most vulnerable people need to get their foot in the air. There's going to be, we're going to do a top-up fund from your taxes, going to pay for this person. No, no, no. If you are an American citizen, you're going to get five grand. If you vote for me. In America, everyone gets bribed. This is great. In Britain, it's only Labour voters get bribed. This is fantastic. Yeah, it reminds me of during the COVID pandemic. I mean, what was our response to the COVID pandemic? We're going to borrow an absolute metric tonne of money and put my generation in debt forever to ultimately not really achieve much and make everyone very depressed and unhappy having to stay in their houses. But under Donald Trump, he gave a stimulus check. He just wrote a check to everyone and said, there you go, have fun, enjoy your pandemic, here's some cash. Okay. Consuade me now. Okay, Trump is a genius after all. I can see why Kelsey Grammer likes him so much. Oh, yes, you're going to like this. So this is a very Gen Z moment. I thought Kelsey Grammer was a woman. Right. Because of the name. But it's not a woman, is it, Michael? No, no. You've not seen a picture of Kelsey Grammer, have you? No, should I look this up? These days, I know there are all kinds of women and anyone can be a woman. But I think if you have a look at Kelsey Grammer, I don't think there's much chance you're going to mistake him for a woman. Oh! Yeah, you don't get many women like that, do you? That's quite an unfortunate hairline for a woman. Can't be a very recent picture because there's not much hair at all left now. No, exactly. It's quite holding on for dear life, I think you could say. Wow, Kelsey has looked old his entire life, it looks like in these photos. Well, that is true, yes, even in the days of Cheers. I don't know if you've heard of that, one of the greatest American sitcoms ever. I have not. Frasier? Dr. Frasier? Frasier, have you seen Frasier? Dr. Frasier Crane? Yes, you know who that is? No. Unbelievable, right. These and also The Simpsons as well, a sideshow, Bob. So he's been in three of the greatest TV comedies of all time and you've not even heard of Frasier or Cheers. Okay, well, this is your homework. This time next week, you've got to work through box sets of both of those. They're brilliant. Anyway, the point is he is a huge fan of Donald Trump and he's been saying this week in an interview that he thinks Donald Trump will be remembered as one of the greatest American presidents ever. Now, I don't necessarily share Kelsey Grammer's whole, wholehearted admiration for Donald Trump. Maybe I've not had my $5,000 yet. I'm still waiting for that to clear. But I do think it's nice that there is at least one Hollywood celebrity who has different political opinions from all of the other ones because all of the others are Democrats, aren't they? Then they all hate Donald Trump. It's nice for someone to be different. But it's quite brave, isn't it? I imagine your social circle is every single person is a Democrat and they're not just a Democrat. They're a weepy, narcissistic, cash-flinging Democrat that liked to go to fundraisers with Harvey Weinstein back where he was still in the gang and then when that stopped being a thing, they all pretended they didn't know who he is. I mean, these are true blue Democrats. He's a brave man, Kelsey. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's brave to have the name Kelsey in the first place. Well, maybe if you're as rich as Kelsey Grammer, you can afford to be quite brave, the Europeans. I believe he was getting paid something like a million dollars an episode for Frasier by the end. And remember, he was doing, what, 25 episodes a year, something like that. And that was back in the olden days. So that's probably worth it. That's a lot of money back then. Yeah, I mean, this is the 1990s. There you go. You're worth a billion dollars now. Well, anyway, yes, there's a man who can afford to say what he likes and not worry about getting cancelled. Okay, well, we've gone from high life. Let's go back down to low life. And by that, we have to return to the United Kingdom. Bus drivers can apparently work half-hour shifts in cold weather. Oh, yes, this is a new deal struck by their trade union. Yes. So if they feel it's getting too cold, and there's not even a specified temperature. They don't even have to. It's getting a bit nippy. If they just feel it's a bit cold, then after half an hour, they can say, right, I'm stopping the bus. That's it. I think, okay, well, that's very nice of the bus driver. What about the passengers? Because you're just going to, what, leave all the passengers to get out in the middle of nowhere? They're probably going to be colder outside than they had been inside the bus. So, I mean, is there a trade union for bus passengers who could possibly stick up for them? I'm thinking of the Margaret Thatcher. I'm not even sure she did say this quote. Maybe this is powerful. But if you're still riding on a bus at the age of 30, you know, you know that you're a failure in life. Well, I still ride on the buses. I haven't got to 30 yet. But particularly when I was growing up, I had to rely on buses to get everywhere because I was growing up in the countryside of Essex. And there was one particular bus journey, which was an hour to my sixth form, which I had to do every single weekday. And this was the one thing that made me hate buses and hate bus drivers in particular. Sorry, bus drivers. I know that you're not all bad people. But our bus driver had a very funny habit. So, we had to go past a big Tesco, and we had to go past a big Tesco, and we had to go past a big Tesco, and we had to go past a big Tesco, on their very circuitous route into Colchester. And when we would get to Tesco, he would stop the bus, let passengers get on, and then himself get off, go into the big Tesco, take about 10 or 15 minutes browsing for his meal deal, maybe he'll come back with a Rustler's Burger or so, then not get back on the bus, pull out a gigantic vape, the biggest vape. I don't even think they make them like this anymore. It was the size of a hand grenade. And he would just sit there puffing on this massive vape. And if the windows were open at the top deck of the bus, you could just smell chemical pineapple-y fumes of some kind. And so this is why a journey that should have taken maybe 35 minutes used to take an hour every day, because the bus driver just thought that that was part of the route. And this was your bus to school. Now, if you got late to school, could you use this as an excuse to say, I'm sorry I'm late, miss, but the bus driver was vaping for half an hour. It's like the dog ate my homework for the. Did you ever have to say that? No, regularly. I would say that the bus driver had just stopped. He just stopped and went about his day. And was this accepted or were you. No, of course it wasn't accepted. They obviously thought I was lying. But no, it's a real thing. It was actually happening. First Essex buses. And ever since then, it's really put me off them. So maybe this was some kind of union allowance. You know, he's allowed to have his snack. He's allowed to have a puff on his massive vape. His vape break. So I'm not surprised by this at all. There you go. Some people, they use any excuses. Yeah. So here's a policy idea that might be a little bit more popular anyway. Suella Braverman of Reform says that when she's in charge of our schools, she is going to require. or schoolchildren to sing the national anthem. Now, I'm sure lots of patriotic viewers here will be very pleased with that idea. I must admit, though, I think it's very important. She's going to have to specify which national anthem because you can guarantee there will be headteachers across Britain saying, well, in our school, we have 31 different nationalities of people. So we can't just sing the British national anthem. We're going to sing all 31 different nationalities all together at assembly in a big show of. diversity, celebration of inclusivity. So basically, the kids will get into school, sing 31 national anthems, and then it'll be time to go home again. I was going to say that by the time they get to. No idea what else. the British national anthem, they'll probably shut the entire thing down. Oh, we've just missed it. Oh, what a shame. Yet again, we have just missed the British national anthem, but that is the school bell. Yeah, because we did them in alphabetical order and UK was right at the end, unfortunately. Yeah, sorry about that one. Yes, you could say British is a B, but we had to get through the Somali one before we could get to you lot, so. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, I can just see it back. I'm not sure that teachers are going to like the other reform idea, which is to put a flag up in the classroom. They're just going to cover up the whiteboard. There'll be flags from all over the world. You won't be able to move. Exactly, yeah. There'll be more flags than pupils. And also, Suella Braverman wants schools to teach children that the British Empire was good, actually, which I can see going down very well with all the left-wing teaching unions. They'll be right behind that one. They'll be delighted. They'll be saying, thank goodness you said that. We've been dying to tell children that the British Empire was actually wonderful. No one's less done it before, but now, yes, fantastic. Do you think reform are just trolling? Are they just trolling the teachers' union? Well, I mean, it's amusing to me, but if they're serious, I'm afraid they're in for some disappointment. Well, here's another thing about British manners we can speak about. I'm sure you receive scam calls. I receive scam calls. You must receive scam calls. I receive so many of them now. I've stopped answering my phone because I just assume, you know, if I don't know the number, I think I'm a scam. This is probably like Britain's Next Tech models. I can't pick up the phone to my call. Exactly that, yeah. You think it's true? it's elon musk wants me to launch a new business with him he wants to make me his vice president or something like that and i'm missing out on all these opportunities because i think oh another scammer well the reason i bring it up um is apparently we are helping fraudsters because we're too polite to hang up the phone even when we know it's a scam caller right oh yes i think there was a poll wasn't there british people something like a third of people said oh well i don't like to hang up on a scam caller because it might seem a bit rude which is quite extraordinary to take your money they want you to go into your bank account and drain all the money out i think rudeness is kind of the last thing that's on their mind i just felt that you know it'd be good manners to give them my bank details give them my life savings a bit awkward i love it i mean i obviously i never do this because i just switch off the phone immediately but i love it when people say oh i actually enjoy getting scam calls because i love winding them up i deliberately keep them talking for as long as possible i'm wasting their time which means they can't call anywhere else i love this i think i'm i actually i'm really tempted to do that one day if i'm bored if i've got nothing else i'm just going to pretend to be a confused little old lady and say what's that dear oh would you like my bank details oh it's really well i tell you what i'll just go and fetch them for you i can't remember where i left them though oh um are they in the fridge shall we have a look in the fridge hang on dear no stay with me i'm going to find you my bank details they don't seem to be behind the milk or the lettuce i tell you what i'm going to try the larder could my bank details be in the marmalade i just want to see how long i could keep that going i reckon you could keep them going for about 30 minutes they'll probably get quite angry that's good all right next time i'm doing it you've got to be careful the scam callers i mean i remember getting loads of phone calls from people that were claiming to be thames water saying that i had an unpaid bill and i was like yeah sure i do oh what you need me to urgently transfer you the money and give you all the bank details down the phone yeah pull the other one turns out they did actually have my phone number it was actually thames water they just didn't have my email address and i very nearly got the bailiff sent around to my back they cut your water off and you haven't had a bath since yeah yeah that's why we're satting so uh far away from each other because i just i stink to high heaven um right i think we've got to finish this on a high note this is a fantastic image you need to look at this photo um because it raises so many questions so there's this man who was taking a flight an american airlines flight of course it was an american person at dot dot dot who apparently was getting a little bit raucous a little bit unruly and so he was drunk right he was drunk yeah and so he was um stabilized by a man who was taking a flight you could put it that way by having a load of gray duct tape methodically put around the back of the chair and over him over his head over his entire body so he's there like a straitjacket and that apparently allowed the flight to take off and continue on as normal this was the cabin crew they just got out they must have stewardesses they just they got duct tape ready for this eventuality in case you get a drunk how do they do it i mean you'd have to do it pretty quickly i imagine he's going to be wiggling all over the place like hold his legs let me get they've used an awful lot of it it must be said there's an awful lot of it there i just think i wish they'd done that to that bloody five-year-old child we heard about a few weeks ago you remember you know that you know an actual flight was was abandoned they didn't take off because a five-year-old boy some spoiled little brat was just refusing to put his seat belt on and the cabin crew couldn't persuade him to do it and his parents clearly couldn't and so the flight was cancelled all the passengers have to troop off i think no ducked out of the plane and he's like oh my god i'm not duct taped on the kid yeah how did they decide when they're going to use duct tape i mean i realize i know the human rights brigade that the do-gooders will be saying oh you can't duct tape a child's mouth up you can't oh yeah it's just human rights and all the rest of it it's against the law you can't waterboard a child oh it's pc gone mad you know what the difference is that child was on a canadian flight ah this man's american so this is how the americans deal with it they immediately pull out the duct tape and they start putting you into your seat and they probably send you to cantanamo bay when you actually get off the flight because in canada it's like would you like to talk about your feelings this is this is the trouble with canadians they are they are the nicest friendliest people in the world but that can count against them sometimes situations like that i've often thought if you were a burglar and you were to break into a canadian's house in the middle of the night and he caught you doing it he'd say oh say can i help you lift that tv sir can i can i carry it out to your van for you oh and by the way do you know that we keep her safe in the the spare bedroom it's got all my wife's jewelry would would you like the combination i'm getting a scam call that would be a real nightmare yes so certainly let me just go get it in the fridge happy to help well i think that's enough from us this week michael thanks very much and you'll be listening to the weekend tea so you