Cloth-Capped Proles Propose Rum New 'Socialism' Malarkey

At its annual conference in Brighton, the TUC threw down the gauntlet to Gordon Brown’s embattled government, putting forward a strange and dangerous new political theory known as ‘socialism’ as a possible answer to Britain’s economic and social collapse.

“Them ministers ‘as to demonstrate that them’s on t’side of ordinary folks an’ all, wi’ fairness as their watchword,” said coal-smeared general secretary Brendan Barber. “That’s why us wants to see tax cuts, like.”

Not content with making this shocking demand that the poor should be less poor, Mr Barber then went on, in his clumsy manner, to make the even more outrageous suggestion that the extreme wealth of the great and the good in the world of commerce was somehow “socially divisive and morally objectionable”.

“’appen the super-rich ‘ave not created much in t’way of extra wealth. Them’s mostly taken it from t’rest of us ’uns,” he told ungrateful skiving delegates, who were all frolicking at the seaside when they should have been making money for their kindly, paternalistic employers.

With unprecedented gall, Barber then forwarded the preposterous claim that £5bn could be raised by closing tax loopholes and increasing taxes on the hard-working rich.

Seized with an insane revolutionary zeal, the inflamed masses poured out of the conference centre and besieged the Royal Pavilion - until the government sensibly called out the army to shoot them down on the steps.

Mr Barber, however, is understood to have escaped the massacre in a pram and - although the authorities have mounted a watch on all ports - it is feared that the cowardly fugitive may turn up in Paris, Geneva or some other European capital to foment his dangerous political heresies, before returning to his motherland to spearhead some kind of populist uprising against the forces of laissez-faire globalism that have governed the nation so wisely and for so long.

A smiling, top-hatted prime minister was keen to play down the stalled uprising.

“I’ve had a brief look into this socialism claptrap,” smirked Mr Brown, “And it’s all a lot of idealistic mumbo-jumbo masquerading as a political theory, so my billionaire friends tell me. It is their undoubted financial genius that has made this country what it is today, so it is certainly not my place to ignore their wise words of advice.”