Jeremy Clarkson mocks Andy Burnham’s tax plans and demands gratitude from benefits claimants
The television personality used his column in The Times to lambast former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves for their tax increases.
He went on to say that Andy Burnham is trying to endear himself to the public with his "15,000 TikTok videos every day" and saying he likes football, so that when he increases tax to fund social care, people won’t mind as much.
It comes after Mr Burnham promised to reform social care to help “my dad and the millions like him” faced with the unfairness of the current system as he acknowledged tax hikes could be needed to pay for fundamental changes.
Mr Clarkson made a comparison between his dogs and people on benefits.
His dogs, he says, are the "ultimate benefits scroungers" for the amount of work he has to put in to care for them.
But the difference between them and humans is that the dogs are grateful, he said.
"They are genuinely pleased to see me every morning and to demonstrate that, they jump up and down, wag their tails and run round in little circles," he wrote.
"And if I throw a ball for them or take them to the lake so they can have a swim, they are palpably grateful. You can see it in their eyes."
His suggestion for the Prime Minister is to appease taxpayers by demanding a thank you from benefits claimants, in order for them to continue being paid.
Mr Clarkson wrote: "It’s very simple. Every week, when the benefits are paid, the recipient is given the email address of a randomly selected person who is getting up and going to work every day.
"And they are told that unless a proper and genuine email is sent, thanking the working person for their generosity, the benefits will stop.
"And I’m not talking about a cursory ’thanks mate’.
"I want fulsomeness. I want to hear what they’ve done with the £194 I gave them that week. And I want effusiveness as well. I want to feel their gratitude.
"’It is SO kind of you to go to work every day so that I don’t have to. Thanks to you, I was able to buy an even bigger television this week.’”
Jeremy Clarkson will return as the host for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and its spin-off quiz show Millionaire Hot Seat, it has been announced, after his cancer remission.
His return comes after the star, 66, revealed he had been diagnosed with "aggressive" prostate cancer, which had been discovered early, in the most recent episodes of his reality show Clarkson’s Farm.
In a subsequent Sunday Times interview, the former Top Gear host confirmed a PSA test two months ago revealed no indication of cancer, and he is in remission.
ITV revealed that its newest addition to the Millionaire franchise, Millionaire Hot Seat, has been recommissioned for a further 20 episodes following its debut earlier this year.
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