Britain is in a state of shock today, after outgoing chief secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne left a briefing report for his successor, David Laws, accurately detailing the state of the nation’s finances.
The in-depth report, which runs to one sentence, is believed to form an entirely accurate summary of Britain’s economic situation – an act which is utterly without precedent in the history of politics.
In what many are calling the single most colossal misjudgement ever made, in his final act as a minister of state Mr Byrne carefully peeled off the last Post-It note, picked up an almost-empty Bic and wrote, “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left” before putting it in a used envelope from the IMF marked ‘FINAL DEMAND’ and leaving it on the B&Q flat-pack desk which his successor will inherit.
Mr Byrne then left the Treasury, pushed a passing cyclist to the ground and pedalled furiously off on the stolen bicycle to an undisclosed location.
“This letter is plainly a desperate cry for help from a mentally-unstable shell of a man,” claimed a perspiring spin doctor at Labour Party headquarters. “Poor Mr Byrne was, first and foremost, expressing his innermost fear. Needless to say, the terrible thing he says he is afraid of exists only in his addled head.”
“Of course there is plenty of money in Britain’s coffers,” he went on, as sweat turned his grey suit black. “Why else would the outgoing government have updated the specification of our two new aircraft carriers to include gold-plating the hulls? Likewise, signing a contract to upgrade all B-roads to diamond-surfaced motorways betokens an economy in the very rudest of health.”
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