Brown Invites Britain to Thank God For War

The nation is to thank God for the First World War in a national service of glorification, announced Gordon Brown in the small hours of the morning.

In a service to be held at Westminster Abbey, the tragic, senseless waste of life which lasted for four harrowing years is to be creatively reimagined as a noble and glorious cause, the dressing-gowned prime minister told the duty reporter on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street at half past midnight.

"With the passing of my close personal friends Henry Patch and Harry Allingham, there is nobody left alive in Britain who can contradict me when I say that it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for one's country," said an uncharacteristically cheerful Mr Brown. "I hope the service will concentrate on the uplifting lessons which the British public can learn from the first war in history to be justifiably called Great - namely, a blind faith in the wisdom of the nation's leaders, a sheep-like willingness to follow orders without question, and a stoic tolerance of appalling conditions with no hope of improvement, ever."

Reactions to the prime minister's announcement have so far been mixed, with many people desperately calling on Jesus to make him stop.

Meanwhile, the BBC was much vexed this morning by the passing of the last man in Britain with personal experience of the trenches, with presenter Chris Muggins asking an historian how the experiences of millions who fought and suffered in World War One can possibly be remembered, now that there is nobody to point a camera at. When it was suggested that people could always try reading a fucking book, the clearly confused TV presenter looked blankly at his autocue for a second before handing over to a nerd who was slightly too excited about the availability of a 256Gb memory stick for £550.