Britain's long-awaited inquiry into the Iraq war will take place, but at the bottom of a flooded mineshaft somewhere in Derbyshire, announced Gordon Brown today.
Born optimists, wishful thinkers and inhabitants of Cloud Cuckoo Land had hoped that the inquiry would take place in public, perhaps in Wembley football stadium or Trafalgar Square.
However, the Prime Minister helpfully pointed out that government inquiries such as this were boring and tedious in the extreme, and great swathes of the public might very well fall into comas so deep that they would almost certainly stop breathing and die.
"We will hand-pick a small group of experts to investigate the run up to, and conduct of, the war in Iraq and the subsequent eight-year occupation by British troops," he told reporters. "As the inquiry will take place deep in a flooded mine at a pressure of several dozen atmospheres, and in total darkness, I expect to appoint a panel consisting of a sea cucumber, one of those squids that lights up and a terrifying deep-sea fish that's basically just a tail with teeth at the front like knives."
"Witnesses will be lowered down the mine one at at time, in a watertight barrel with an armoured air hose," he continued. "If they can interpret the random flashes of the squid as morse-coded questions, they will answer them to the best of their ability. The hideous fish with a mouthful of razors will undoubtedly help to focus their minds, as the longer they stay down there the greater the risk that it will chew through the barrel. If they stall the committee with long, evasive answers, they are likely to be reduced to bloody jam by the subsequent inrush of water at a pressure of several tonnes per square inch."
When it has finished considering - or eating - the witnesses and their evidence, the committee will then be dragged to the surface in large nets, where they will give their verdict if they have managed not to explode during their rapid ascent.
"It is in the interests of national security that nobody ever finds out that we invaded a sovereign state, reduced its citizens to medieval destitution and made our country a prime target for terrorists for no better reason than because George W Bush and his creepy neo-con friends wanted us to," said Mr Brown.
"Bollocks," he added.
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