ROBERT HARDMAN: Kemi is more in tune with Commonwealth thinking than our eager-to-please PM

So where will the Chancellor, John Healey, find the extra trillions to pay the penalty now demanded of the British taxpayer – by a Labour Prime Minister, no less?

The answer, according to the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, is clear enough: get up and leave the table.

In sitting down for 'dialogue', however, Andy Burnham now faces an invoice of between $7trillion and $24trillion (or £5trillion and £18trillion) – the estimated cost of the 'Ten-Point Plan' for 'reparatory justice' drawn up by the 15 nations of the Caribbean.

It includes subsidising their health and education services, plus the costs of 'psychological rehabilitation', debt cancellation and 'monetary compensation' for centuries of 'harm'.

That was their instant collective response to Andy Burnham's Guardian article ahead of this week's Commonwealth summit in Antigua. The Prime Minister wrote that he was 'open' to making an apology for Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade and a 'structured dialogue' on the issue. Financial reparations, he added, were 'not the right answer'.

Within hours, his fellow Labour PM, Philip Pierre of St Lucia, had fired off a firm riposte as chair of CARICOM, the regional bloc. Mr Pierre stated that a mere apology, while welcome, was just the start.

Mr Burnham must come to the table ready to discuss 'every element of the Ten-Point Plan'. The Caribbean, he said clearly, 'does not accept that reparations are 'not the right answer' '.

And so a tricky week has just got trickier for the King, who opens the summit tomorrow. Mr Burnham and Mr Pierre are both his prime ministers. For, like St Lucia, most of the 15 members of CARICOM now lining up to biff Britain have the monarch as their head of state.

I would argue that Kemi Badenoch is very well placed to reboot the UK's relations with today's Commonwealth, writes Robert Hardman

What's more, the King is also head of the Commonwealth. This now faces the sort of schism not seen since the days when Margaret Thatcher fought the other member states over sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa.

Even Mrs Thatcher did not go as far as Kemi Badenoch went this weekend when she became the first Tory leader to contemplate walking away from the 56-nation post-imperial 'club'.

She accused Mr Burnham of 'navel-gazing' over British history 'as if we haven't done enough of that'; she asked why Commonwealth leaders were not demanding apologies from 'the descendants of African kingdoms' who sold their neighbours into slavery; she asked why, after $100billion dollars (£75billion) of debt relief in the past 25 years, the same countries were getting poorer; and after pointing out that Tony Blair had expressed deep sorrow for the slave trade nearly 20 years ago, she warned: 'If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash, then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.'

Strong stuff. It also raises the intriguing question of what the Commonwealth would do if Britain did another Brexit – a 'Coxit' perhaps – since its HQ is in London.

In fact, I would argue that Mrs Badenoch is very well placed to reboot the UK's relations with today's Commonwealth. British-born to Nigerian parents, she hails from two of its largest and most important nations and has none of the diffidence which afflicts many white liberal politicians terrified of being called 'colonial' – or worse – for arguing with erstwhile imperial territories.

I also think that she is more in tune with Commonwealth thinking than either Mr Burnham or those canny CARICOM politicians eyeing up juicy concessions from the new, eager-to-please nice guy in No10.

For most of this week's summit is not about 18th-century grievances but 21st-century deals. Most leaders want to talk trade. The biggest gatherings will be those like today's Commonwealth Business Forum at the Coolidge cricket stadium or the People's Forum at the University of Antigua.

This is where the Commonwealth works best – as a global network for entrepreneurs or doctors or accountants or charities (and the rest) who share the same language and legal DNA.

They would much rather meet Charles III than berate his five-times great-grandfather, George III. It has been interesting, if under-reported, that the crowds during last week's royal tour of the Caribbean have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. The protests demanding reparations have been tiny (one, in the Bahamian capital, Nassau, attracted three people).

The King is not going to apologise because, in the UK, apologies come from the Government. And he is now even more constrained about what he can say on the issue since Mr Burnham has turned this into a party political issue in Britain, dividing Labour and the Tories.

As a force for unity, he will also be aware of the dire social fallout if the hard-pressed UK descendants of mill workers and farmhands are told to pay many billions in tax to the descendants of enslaved plantation workers whose misery enriched just a handful of toffs.

Two further points to note on the knock-on effects of an apology. First, CARICOM and its allies have just pushed through a UN resolution that the slave trade across the Atlantic (nowhere else) was the 'gravest crime against humanity'. Lawyers are limbering up.

Second, this weekend's CARICOM statement calls on the UK not only to pay compensation for the slave trade but for the 'colonialism' that came afterwards – 'workers who were brought from India and China'.

Having apologised to the Caribbean, Andy Burnham will instantly face calls to apologise to some of the most populous nations on Earth.

What size will the reparations bill be then?

When actor and singer Sebastian Croft was named as part of this year's star–studded Celebrity Traitors line–up, fans could be forgiven for underestimating him. After all, most had no idea who he was.

Alongside the likes of Richard E Grant, Jerry Hall and Michael Sheen, the 24–year–old – who had a minor role in Game Of Thrones, but found fame in Netflix hit Heartstopper – was expected, perhaps, to remain in their shadows.

But Friday's final put a firm end to that as he rumbled the remaining Traitors and took the crown with fellow Faithful Romesh Ranganathan.

Describing his victory as 'just incredible', Bash said: 'This might actually be the best day of my life.'

When it comes to his career, that may well prove to be true. But Bash has been quietly carving out a showbusiness career, having attended acting academies since he was seven.

When he was a teenager, and already starring in the West End, his parents were so determined he would be a star they moved to a flat in Covent Garden so the theatre world was on his doorstep.

Bash's mother Doulla – who stood as a Green party candidate in Kensington and Chelsea in May's local elections, winning just 346 votes – said: 'We joke that from our flat it is quicker for us to go home in the interval to use the loos, than stand in a queue at the theatre.'

Bash's West End stage debut was in 2010 in Sam Mendes' production of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and a year later he was cast as Gavroche in Les Miserables.

Actor Sebastian 'Bash' Croft, 24, has emerged as the breakout star of The Celebrity Traitors after winning the BBC competition alongside comedian Romesh Ranganathan

Bash’s mother Doulla stood as a Green party candidate in Kensington and Chelsea in May’s local elections, winning just 346 votes

Bash attended St Edward’s boarding school in Oxford. Pictured is St. Edward's School Woodstock Road, Oxford

Those who know Bash recall a comfortable upbringing. His father John is co–founder of Elevate, one of the leading innovators in the legal services industry, which generates about £100million in annual revenue.

Bash attended St Edward's boarding school in Oxford – where fees cost up to £62,000 a year – after leaving the nearby Dragon's independent school.

It means his £41,500 share of the Traitors prize pot, which will be donated to charity Choose Love, which supports LGBT refugees around the world, is rather small change.

But it is a cause close to his heart. He experienced his fair share of turmoil at St Edward's – in particular, after he was outed by a fellow student, who had also been his secret boyfriend. It led to him leaving the school at 16.

He said in an interview: 'I don't blame the other boy who did it, because he was obviously just also trying to navigate the fact that he was getting chipped for being gay. But it was a really lonely and difficult time in my life.'

He did his A–levels at the £35,000–a–year Mander Portman Woodward, a sixth–form college in Kensington.

After leaving school, Bash won the role of young Eddard Stark (portrayed by Sean Bean as an adult) in the sixth series of the HBO hit Game Of Thrones. His film debut came in the adaptation of Stephen Fry's novel The Hippopotamus, and he appeared in Horrible Histories: The Movie.

But his most prominent role has been as Ben Hope in the 2022 Netflix series Heartstopper, a coming–of–age drama about two teenage boys who fall in love.

Bash has kept his own love life out of the spotlight, but in recent weeks it has emerged that he dated his Heartstopper co–star Joe Locke. He is now single and focusing on a variety of projects. He releases his debut EP, The Great Forever, this month, while a weekly podcast, The Sunday Scaries With Bash Croft, starts today.

And armed with his friendship with the BBC's golden boy Ranganathan – along with the star–strewn cast of Celebrity Traitors – the opportunities are unlikely to dry up anytime soon.