Labour Party Bashed By Bishops

Five senior bishops from the Church of England have launched a scathing attack on the government, accusing it of being "morally corrupt".

In a series of interviews to be published in the Sunday Telegraph - a newspaper famed for its proud tradition of concern for the less well-off - the clerics accuse Labour of presiding over a nation torn by a growing chasm between rich and poor, together with increasing family breakdown and an unhealthy reliance on debt.

The Bishops of Manchester, Durham, Winchester, Carlisle and Hulme said that the party had sacrificed principled politics and long-term solutions in favour of vote-winning tactics. They also noticed that, somewhere along the line - and in stark contrast to Church of England clergy - its ranks seemed to have become exclusively filled with privileged middle-class types, none of whom had ever done a hard day's proper work in their lives.

"Er... howay man. Labour made a lot of promises, but a lot of them seem to have vanished into thin air," said the Right Proper Reverend Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, adjusting his cloth mitre. "We have not seen a raising of aspirations in the last 13 years, but instead there is a sense of hopelessness. Why aye."

The bishops issued an appeal to the Telegraph's socialist readership to show solidarity with their fellow workers, by voting Conservative at the next general election in order to ensure a return to decency and compassion in politics.

Sickening Christmas Violence Condemned

There has been an outcry over pictures showing Prince Edward brandishing a stick at his dogs, and apparently hitting one of them.

Animal charities accuse the Prince of setting a "truly sickening example" by his actions, as he attempted to break up a fight between several dogs over a pheasant that he, his father or Prince Andrew had just blasted out to extinction on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

"It is an offence to cause an animal unnecessary suffering," pointed out Andrew Tyler, president of Animal Aid. "Hitting a dog with a stick is a pathetic, cowardly and vicious act - though, strange as it may seem, hitting a pheasant with a twelve-bore shotgun is perfectly legal and sporting. No, I can't see the logic in that either."

A spokesman for the Royal Family asked if people would be happy if Prince Edward started hitting peasants instead, pointing out that the public seemed to be doing quite a lot of that for themselves these days, and especially over the festive period.

Alternative Speech Condemned

The British government has led widespread criticism of the controversial decision by TV executives to broadcast an alternative Christmas speech by one of the most feared and hated enemies of mankind the world has ever known.

Horror-struck viewers across the UK cowered behind their sofas as the living embodiment of evil filled their screens on Christmas Day and preached its twisted message to the nation.

"Hello, good people of Britain! Peace and goodwill to each and every one of you!" boomed the Cyber King. "You know, I sometimes wonder if the world wouldn't be a nicer place if people and governments gave a bit more thought to the teachings of Jesus. Merry Christmas, everybody!"

Politicians, religious organisations and human rights groups were swift to condemn TV bosses for giving airtime to the Cyber King, pointing out that the alien monster was well-known for its views on forcibly converting the world into Cybermen, and had a policy of ruthlessly deleting unbelievers in its home universe.

Channel 1 defended its decision to broadcast the message, saying: "As the leader of one of the most powerful armies of emotionless cybernetic killers in the Void, the Cyber King's views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in interdimensional relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view of an alternative world." 

Critics remained steadfastly unmoved by the argument, however.

"Who will deliver next year's Christmas message?" demanded Labour MP Louise Ellman. "Davros? Or the Master?"

Millions of traumatised viewers sought instead to pick up some crumbs of comfort from the Queen's traditional Christmas message - in which the monarch expressed her heartfelt concerns for the welfare of her subjects in Britain and throughout the Commonwealth, in the difficult times of economic uncertainty that lie ahead.

"I'm all right, Jack," she told her loyal supporters as she sat in one of her palaces, surrounded by the trappings of unimaginable wealth. "But mate, you're fucked."

Mythical Heroes Won't Save You, Says Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has used his Christmas sermon to tell the people not to waste their time waiting for larger-than-life heroes to bring comprehensive solutions to the ills of the world.

"Forget Superman, Batman, the X-Men, Hellboy, V, Klaatu, Watchmen, Jesus and so on because they don't exist," he told weeping churchgoers at Canterbury Cathedral. "Small and local gestures are more important - such as digging a deep hole in your back garden, stocking it with all your Christmas leftovers and sitting down with your huddled family members to wait for the impending end of the world."

Not to be outdone in dumbing down the sincerely-held religious beliefs of millions, the Archbishop of Wales called on people to heed the words of the prophet Nigella and have chips for lunch at Christmas, saying that the TV cook had revealed a "profound theological truth".

 "Well, what it is, you see, is that Christmas is not about perfection, viewed either from the human or divine perspective," said Dr Barry Morgan. "The trouble with us is that we are so hooked on looking for perfection that we are in danger of failing to understand the true meaning of this feast, isn't it? Now be a dear, Mrs. Evans, and pass the ketchup - there's lovely."

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Liverpool (who is a Catholic Archbishop and therefore not really in the same league as the others, but it keeps the story going) told Scousers that the world was facing the "darkest night" - in the form of a strange, bat-like figure glimpsed leaping from building to building in the darkness.

"Who knows what this portends?" said the Most Unfeasibly Reverend and Maximally Unctious Patrick Kelly-Blimey-O'Reilly-Begorrah. "Only yesterday I saw the sky lit up with a beam of shining light, in the shape of a nasty, flappy bat. Is it perhaps a snarling fiend from the flaming pit, come to carry us all screaming down into the burning fires of Hell? Or - unlikely as it seems - could it be some kind of larger-than-life hero who will save us from the evil, grinning Joker in Number 10? Oi, you at the back there, laughing boy - are you gay? Fuck off out of my church, you cheeky mincing knob jockey."

Harold Pinter Pauses Indefinitely

The renowned playwright, Harold Pinter, is reported to have died on Christmas Eve after a long battle with cancer.

Some sources, however, suggest that his silent immobility may simply be a longer-than-usual Pinterseque pause before he launches into a particularly vituperative, expletive-laden outburst against his favourite war criminals, President Bush and Tony Blair.

Can You Spare A Guinea At Christmas?

The African Union has held an emergency meeting to discuss the republic of Guinea, following a military coup by junior officers shortly after the death of President Lansana Conte on Monday.

Many African leaders have been swift to condemn the junta's seizure of power from the poverty-stricken country's corrupt government.

"General Conte was a great man," said Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, "And he had a great bank balance to prove it. He was also a great democratic innovator, generously allowing only a complete nobody to stand against him in a mockery of a presidential election. I wish I'd thought of that, instead of letting that irritating bastard Tsvangirai run."

The National Council for Democracy and Development has named Captain Moussa Dadis Camara as its president, declared a curfew and warned generals loyal to the government not to use mercenaries to regain power. Captain Camara has stated that "free, credible and transparent elections" would be held in December 2009.

"That is something else that worries us," said an African Union spokesman. "It could set a bad precedent for the entire continent. Nevertheless, we are hopeful that a couple of months in power will work its usual magic on these idealistic young hotheads. Once they realise how easy it is to divert investment and tax income into their own pockets, no doubt things will settle down into the usual pattern."

Few ordinary Guineans appear to be unduly discomfited by the curfew - which has led to the closure of shops and petrol stations in the capital, Conakry - as most of them are too poor to shop much anyway, let alone own a car.

Meanwhile, the European Union and the United States have joined the AU in condemnation of the coup.

"It's all very well banging on about the democracy thing like it's some worthwhile goal in itself, or something," said President George W Bush. "General Conte may have been a thieving, dictatorial thug, but a few judicious bungs to him and his minsterial henchmen made Guinea a great place for corporate America to do business - and that's the bottom line, my friends."

"You wouldn't believe how little it costs to bribe a corrupt government," confirmed Gordon Brown. "A second-hand Jag with a built-in DVD player and a box set of old Arnold Schwarzenegger movies will keep a greedy cabinet minister on-message for a year or more."

And it's no different in Guinea, either," he added.

Accountancy Firms Delighted With Christmas Gifts

Delighted City accountants say that all their Christmases have come at once, as Father Christmas struggles to stuff their bulging stockings with bankrupt high-street chains.

"Thank you, Santa, for this wonderful Whittards of Chelsea tea-and-coffee set," said an excited Ernst & Young. "I've always wanted to see a huge wad of cash poured into my mug by a rich private equity firm. And thank you for all the brilliant CDs, DVDs and games that came with my lovely new Zavvi. I'm probably going to play with that for a week or two, before flogging it off to some greedy investors."

"deer santa you carnt immagen how hapie i wus toe reseev my nis orficers club outfitt," wrote little PriceWaterhouse, in a moving 'thank-you' letter. "it wuz juss wot i wantd and i hav oreddy sowed it on four a grait big stak of shinie coins. i am reelie looken forwod toe 20009."

The lucky little accountants were solemnly reminded to spare a thought those less fortunate than themselves at Christmas time, however. Unlucky Deloitte, for example, were only given cast-off Woolies and a broken Entertainment UK centre from the scrapheap - while poor MCR have received nothing at all for their unwanted MFI home construction set.

The misery of the financial have-nots failed to burden the excited accountants' minds for long, however, as they eagerly tucked into a splendid Christmas dinner feast of Bollinger at Quaglino's.

Pope Tells Non-Heteros: 'Jesus Would Rather Save A Tree Than You'

Pope Benedict XVI has issued his traditional Christmas message to homosexuals and transsexuals, telling them that Jesus hates them.

In his traditional end-of-year message to senior Vatican staff, God's favourite ex-Hitler Youth flak gunner emphasised that saving the world from a tidal wave of bum-fornication was at least as important as protecting the rainforests. He went on to say that gender theory was yet another example of the evils of rational thinking and, in his opinion, the Catholic Church made a big mistake when it stopped burning people at the stake for possession of a telescope. 

"The little baby Jesus was given to us to save the trees, the parrots and the monkeys," said God's vicar on Earth. "But I say unto you that leather-clad nancy boys, hairy-footed bull-dykes and those walking abominations with tits and willies in particular won't be sharing heaven with the monkeys. They will be screaming in well-earned torment, mincing about in the fiery pit for all eternity with red-hot pokers up their jacksies. Amen."

"Unless they happen to be Catholic priests, of course," he added. "In that case,  least said, soonest mended."

All across overwhelmingly-Catholic Brazil, well-hung ladyboys were reported to be in floods of tears - apart from the ones living in the rainforests, who said they were hoping for a blanket inclusion into the kingdom of heaven.

Teachers Keen To Teach Any Old Rubbish

One in three UK schoolteachers supports the teaching of mumbo-jumbo in science lessons, according to a survey published today.

The Ipsos Mori survey also shows that 65% of primary and secondary school science teachers still say there is no place in their lessons for creationism - the flimsy, pick-and-mix argument that says that the evolution of the human eye is far too complicated for its adherents (including President Bush) to understand, and therefore cannot have come about by natural processes, despite the fact that the 26 other perfectly good types of eye have somehow managed it.

"Creationism, as an alternative to the evolution of species, has long been thoroughly discredited by rigorous analysis of data," explained Professor Chris Higgins, vice-chancellor of Durham University. "One might as well teach astrology, flat earthism, alchemy or a geocentric universe."

Many teachers seized on Professor Higgins' additional suggestions with enthusiasm, however, saying that they would happily teach anything that soothed the blind prejudices of their students and did not conflict with parental indoctrination.

However, the survey continues to attract criticism from prominent atheists in the scientific community.

"Any reasonable person with the slightest aptitude for rational thought will surely want to remove these thick-headed idiot teachers immediately - and not just from the classroom, but from the gene pool of the human race," commented popular TV God-baiter Richard Dawkins, through clenched teeth. "My message to these so-called educators is: read a book, for fuck's sake - preferably one of mine, available in all good bookshops."

"But not SPCK bookshops, obviously," he added, after pausing to hurl abuse at a visiting neighbour who wished him a Merry Christmas.

Sorry, Says Assistant Commissioner Frightened By Conservative Party

Little Bobby Slow, the Assistant Commissioner heading the probe into the Metropolitan Police raid on Tory MP Damian Green's Commons office, is reported to have dried his eyes and climbed out from the drain in which he was hiding from the Conservative Party.

On Sunday, Mr Slow dramatically burst into tears and ran away from home, claiming that the "spiteful" Conservatives and  "their press friends" were intimidating him.

After an extensive operation in which community support officers in the neighbourhood used loudhailers to shout, "It's all right Bobby, the nasty Tories have gone now, come and have a cuddle from DCI Savage," Assistant Commissioner Slow finally emerged timidly from his hiding place this morning, streaked with tears and covered in shite, and asked for his favourite teddy.

"I'm ever so sorry for all the trouble I've caused," he said later. "Mummy says I was very silly to think that the horrid Mail on Sunday was in any way connected with the nice people at the Conservative Party."

Little Bobby added that he was hoping to pick up the threads of his totally impartial investigation into whether his best friends in the Met Gang were in any way biased when they burst into the House of Commons without a warrant and arrested a Conservative MP for doing his job. But before that, his relieved family said, they would be taking him to McDonalds for a special treat - although Mr Slow told reporters he hoped he wouldn't meet Ronald McDonald.

"The scary clown man came over to our table on my birthday," he explained. "I didn't like him and I weed in my pants."

Brown Unveils Exciting Plan to Work Jobless To Death

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told readers of the Daily Mirror of his plans to spend even more money he hasn't got on pointless job creation schemes, saying that it isn't a proper recession if unemployment figures can be fiddled below the two million mark.

"We have already delayed the building of two aircraft carriers - which are essential to Britain, if we wish to keep pretending to ourselves that we are still a major world power - for two years, by telling shipyard workers to take a tea break every ten minutes instead of the usual half an hour," he wrote. "Now I propose to force these useless mouths out of the Jobcentres and into exciting New Labour camps, where they will perform worthless, futile tasks such as digging holes and filling them in again, painting lumps of coal white, and peeling vast tubs of potatoes and then glueing the skins back on."

"And then painting them white," he added.

Mr Brown explained that his scheme offered Britain a final solution to its ongoing financial collapse. He added that the workforce would not actually receive any money, as he was afraid that if he gave money to poor people the sky would fall down. Instead, he proposed to offer his good friends in the business community large sums of borrowed money to run the camps as they saw fit. The power industry is already reported to be interested in the possibility of incinerating the jobless to generate electricity.

"We see the unemployed chiefly as a major renewable fuel," said a PowerGen spokesman.  "They are a resource which is unlikely to run out for the foreseeable future."

"The reason I am in politics is because I saw unemployment in the 1970s and 1980s," said the PM. "I am determined we are not going to treat people the way the Conservatives treated them. In fact, we're not going to treat them as people at all. The Archbishop of Canterbury warns us that Britain must learn the lessons of Nazi Germany in dealing with the effects of the recession. Well, don't worry - I have."

Christmas TV Ruined By Boringly Non-Fatal Crash

Traumatised television executives seeking a traditional horrific pre-Christmas tragedy were consoling each other today, as it emerged that all 112 passengers and crew survived a plane crash at Denver International Airport.

As it was taking off, the Continental Airlines Boeing 737 veered off the runway, crashed down a ravine and burst into flames.

The news media rushed to the scene, to find passengers escaping from the inferno via the emergency exits in an orderly manner, under the calm supervision of the cabin crew. Heroic reporters risked their lives trying to close some of the exit hatches, whilst colleagues bravely rushed down the steep slopes waving cigarette lighters and tried to ignite dazed, fuel-drenched survivors.

Despite the best efforts of the press, however, many of the survivors remained shaken but unhurt. Patrick Hynes, chief of the city Fire Department's Airport Division, said that 38 of the 112 survivors had been taken to hospital.

"Injuries ranged from broken bones to significant fractures and bumps and bruises," he told shocked, weeping journalists.

Back in the newsrooms of the world, red-eyed editors were forced to give horror-seeking viewers blanket coverage of the Lockerbie crash, which happened 20 years ago but at least had a suitably mind-numbing body count.

"It's a disaster," said a BBC spokesman. "At Christmas time, viewers have come to depend on terrifying scenes of random death and destruction on a massive scale, so they can count themselves fortunate that their own suffering is limited to indigestion, the in-laws and waiting for January's credit card statement. But this year we have nothing but repeats to take their minds off it all."

New Government Scheme To Hit The Poor - Literally

A consultation document for the Department of Work and Pensions has suggested that the government should stop lending emergency interest-free credit to the impoverished needy at the bottom of society. Instead, it says, the loans should be made by credit unions, offering the meagre savings of other desperately-poor people at an APR of 26.8% - a rate matched only by loan sharks and store cards.

"No decision has been made yet," said a government official. "Nor will it be, while the media are sniffing around. The social fund provides affordable credit to worthless pieces of shit whom nobody cares about. We are now exploring how we can make it more widely available to working people instead, who don't need it anyway as they can always run up an overdraft with their bank."

Asked whether Gordon Brown would personally go round with a cricket bat and break the legs of any pauper defaulting on an instalment, the spokesman said that, although the Prime Minister's legendary hatred and contempt for the poor knew no bounds, the responsibility would be best left to the friendly local credit unions - along with any resulting bad publicity.

Christmas Charts Full of Cohen

The Christmas Top 50 is comprised exclusively of the light, frothy hits of songwriter Leonard Cohen, it was revealed tonight.

Covers of the cheery "Hallelujah" occupied the top spot and number two, with X-Factor karaoke winner Alexandra Who narrowly pipping the long-dead Tim Buckley to the coveted number one position. A re-release of legendary party animal Cohen's original version from 1984 was at number 36.

Other fun-packed festive Cohen covers filling the charts this Christmas include "Ain't No Cure For Love" by Beyonce, "Death of A Ladies' Man" by Boyzone, "There Is A War" by Leona Lewis and "Paper-Thin Hotel" by Take That.

"Pop fans can look forward to an unforgettable singalong party Christmas in 2008," said Radio 1's Vernon Kay, as he looped a tinsel noose around a light fitting.