Etymology

and I claim my five pounds

Today it means: Used to intensify a statement of someone's identity, particularly to make a humorous comparison between two unrelated people or entities. Full definition →

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The story

After newspaper competitions, such as Lobby Lud, where readers were offered money for spotting a certain figure in public and accosting him with a passphrase, such as "you are Lobby Lud, and I claim my five pounds". (However, the Lobby Lud competition did not involve this phrase.)

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.