Former Beatle Ringo Starr has been secretly lobbying the government to make buskers pay royalty fees to him every time one of them covers a Beatles song.
Ringo, 76, was said to be furious when he heard a busker singing ‘A Little Help From My Friends’ in London’s Leicester Square and making money from it. When he approached the busker, a disabled homeless man known locally as Kenny, to ask him to hand over a royalty fee, he became embroiled in a furious argument when the street performer refused to hand over the £2.62 he had in his flatcap which was given to him by passers by. Witnesses have reported that the multi millionaire was seen shouting at Kenny and the confrontation was very heated. After 5 minutes the pair came to an agreement and Ringo settled with 34p and a promise that Kenny would no longer sing anymore songs by the Beatles without paying a fee, but as Ringo was walking away the busker played an acoustic version of the theme tune to Thomas the Tank Engine, a show which he narrated in the 1980s, and the drummer had to be pulled away by his friends after grabbing a broken bottle and racing back to the singer.
Above: An example of what a disabled busker looks like, this one is possibly mentally Ill.
Shortly after the incident Ringo wrote to the Prime Minister asking for a new law to be created to insure that buskers are forced to pay royalty fees to the artists who wrote the songs that they perform and he is currently talking with other musicians to get them to help with the campaign which he has described as more important than the war on terror.
We tried to reach out to Kenny the Busker to comment on the confrontation but apparently he is missing and hasn't been seen in weeks.
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