Alex Horne hosts Have I Got News For You

Preview clip from tonight's show

Here's a preview clip of Alex Horne hosting his first episode of Have I Got News For You.

The Taskmaster creator took the car in the week Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had the first televised leaders debate of the election campaign. Sunak subesequently drew criticism for his misleading claim that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 per working household.

'This is the big issue,' Ian Hislop said during the recording. 'Sunak kept saying, "Under Labour, you'll pay £2,000 more. These are figures that I've come up with…’"

He explained that 'Conservative special advisers had given [a brief] 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.

Guest panellist Carol Vorderman said: 'It’s not going to get any better for them [th Tories]. though, is it? I think, this is my prediction, that they will come third to the Lib Dems…'

The panel moved on to Starmer, with Horne asking, tongue in cheek: 'Did anyone learn what Keir Starmer's dad did for a living?.

'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 replies.

'We did track down some secret footage of Keir Starmer finally admitting what his dad does,' jokes 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?",' said Dee – who is going to be a contestant on the next series of Taskmaster.

The team also spoke about Nigel Farage's eighth attempt to become an MP.

'Farage left a Clacton Wetherspoons, he was drenched in banana milkshake in an incident described by local police as "utterly precedented",' quipped Horne.

And ten there was this discussion of Donald Trump...

The show's 600th episode, hosted by @AlexHorne, with @carolvorders and @TheRealJackDee, is on tonight at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer pic.twitter.com/xWefrgOyHm
— Have I Got News For You (@haveigotnews) June 7, 2024