Britain Plunged Into Ratings War

The UN Security Council is to debate an emergency motion in a special session this evening, as the bitter ratings war which has plunged Britain into crisis continues to escalate.

The BBC declared war on ITV last night at 1900 BST, with the populist veteran trouper Bruce Forsyth leading his semi-trained Strictly Scum Prancing cadres into territory occupied by ITV's hated Simon Cowell and his ZZZ Faction.

Although this is only the first skirmish, the BBC's carefully-orchestrated onslaught has already claimed 7.7 million victims, while ITV's peasant army has so far retained control of its heartlands at a human cost of 10m casualties.

The very ordinary people caught up in the midst of the conflict are begging the BBC to rethink its strategy, which has already left millions severely traumatised by the terrible choices forced upon them.

The bitter conflict has reopened the old faultlines which underpin Britain's class-based society. For decades, ITV has been popular with people with absolutely no class at all, while those who think they have a bit of class traditionally leap to the defence of the BBC.

Shocked government and insurgent leaders across Africa and Latin America were swift to issue urgent calls for the UN to send a peace-keeping force to strife-torn Britain.

"Our petty squabbles are nothing, compared to the horrific civil war which has broken out over the airwaves of Great Britain," sobbed President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, sitting side-by-side with deeply-moved FARC rebel leaders for the first time at an historic press conference in Cartagena.

On hearing the news Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, immediately cancelled preparations for Tuesday's suddenly-unimportant Middle East summit to perform a symbolic dance of solidarity with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netunyahu at a West Bank border checkpoint - both hoping against hope that sanity may yet prevail and bring an uneasy truce to Britain's screens.

Both camps, however, are refusing to concede ground in what promises to be the bloodiest conflict in history since BBC Parliament declared war on Prince Charles I, a very long time before media studies began.