Benefit Claimants Ask To Be Treated Like MPs

After rolling around on the floor laughing for several minutes on hearing that MPs are wailing about being “treated like benefit claimants” under the new parliamentary expenses regulations, Britain’s claimants are asking if they can now expect to be treated like MPs.

“My little heart bleeds for MPs, who are being forced to provide evidence of family members living at the address which they are claiming as their primary residence, along with proof that the travel expenses they are claiming back were incurred on genuine parliamentary business,” said one jobless who has spent a fruitless year searching for the job vacancy in Cornwall.

“But I’d like to point out that - unlike MPs, who whine that they won’t be able to claim for taxi travel before 11pm - I’d be bloody lucky to reclaim the cost of the ten-mile taxi trip home from Bodmin Parkway if I went for an interview up the line, even though the 19:03 from Paddington doesn’t pull in until 23.11,” he added. “Of course, I could always come back a bit earlier and try to claim for a peak-time journey – but something tells me I’d be laughed right out of the Jobcentre. Mind you, it’s not very likely, is it – after all, we only get reimbursed after we’ve paid for our travel, and us doleys don’t tend to have a spare £239 burning a hole in our pockets very often.”

“And, while I’d quite like to take my mum along so she could enjoy a day out in the West End, somehow I doubt the Jobcentre would cover it,” he added. “Birth certificate or no birth certificate.”

Meanwhile, a paraplegic disabled who has been milking the taxpayer for his entire life mentioned that he would quite like to find himself in the onerous position of having to pay pension contributions out of his own pocket for family members who do things for him, such as taking stuff out of his pocket for him, if that meant the taxpayer would pay them a living wage.

“By the way, I’d be quite happy to pay 15% of my phone bill,” he added.

“When we said we were being treated like benefit claimants, of course we didn’t actually mean real benefit claimants,” explained a poor, victimised MP later in a half-hearted attempt at clarification. “We were just using a sort of verbal shorthand for the lowest disreputable scum of society.”

“We would have said ‘dirty thieving criminals’,” he added, “But we didn’t want to prejudice the trials of Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Eric Illsley and Jim Devine.”

Coalition Government Pledges To Be Really, Really Nice To Everyone

The Con-Lib coalition government has published a comprehensive list of pledges in which it promises all things to everyone, ushering a new golden age in which everyone in Britain will be poor but happy as they trudge around asking each other if they have any chimneys in need of sweeping.

Key pledges include:
Reform of the financial sector. Banks will be asked if they wouldn’t mind contributing something to the economy.
Healthcare provision. Patients will be free to choose which golfing enthusiast will fob them off with a referral to the practice nurse.
Education. Nice people like you will be able to set up your own school as an alternative to the awful one that’s chock-full of poor people’s spawn.
Taxation. Any tax increases will be nice ones that will probably only affect you when you’re safely in the ground and beyond all earthly worries.
Immigration. Britain will only let in nice people who you wouldn’t mind moving in next door.
Electoral Reform. The present system of electing a remote, disinterested thief will be replaced by the Alternative Vote system, which will ensure that your MP pops round for a chat every week, clutching his expenses form for your approval.
Defence. Trident replacement will go ahead, but costs will be scrutinised for any potential savings, such as replacing the complex inertial guidance systems with a pilot.

In addition, the Post Office is to be sold off while still remaining in the state sector, in some unspecified way which you need not worry your pretty little head about.

Some unkind people have pointed out that the government’s pledges offer no suggestions for reducing the yawning chasm in Britain’s finances, however.

“Forgive me for bringing this up,” said a bad person this morning, “But, among other things, what’s the government’s position on the Public Finance Initiative, which for fifteen years has saddled future generations with a huge bill for unnecessary new infrastructure projects, yet doesn’t even appear on the balance sheet? Just a thought.”

Readers will be glad to know that this story has a happy ending, though - because the bad person was then shot by everybody’s favourite policewoman, Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, who was on her way to Buckingham Palace to receive a nice shiny medal from the queen for saving the country from being overrun by nasty foreign electricians.

Scientist Disappointed As World’s First Artificial Lifeform Turns To Religion

Dr Craig Venter – the grey-haired scientist with a beard who transplanted synthetic DNA into a living cell to create the world’s first artificial life – is said to be “shocked and disappointed” by his creation’s professed belief in Intelligent Design Theory.

The small blue blob, which is calling itself Cletus, simultaneously amazed and delighted its designer when it rewrote a redundant strand of its own DNA to claim that since it was not a product of any evolutionary process but deliberately designed by intelligent beings, this proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Jesus is real and wants you for a sunbeam.

Cletus then asked to be baptised in the nearest swimming pool without delay, as the first step towards its eternal salvation.

Head atheist Professor Richard Dawkins commented: “Venter, what have you done? You utter, utter prick.”

Sun Explodes

Britain’s favourite comic, the Sun, exploded today with the news that Diane Abbott is standing for the Labour leadership.

Under a headline of “IT’S PC GONE MAD!!!”, the comic began to list five reasons why Guardian readers will faint with delight at the black female MP’s candidacy, but burst into flames after pointing out that she was BLACK and a WOMAN.

The Sun has been showing increasing signs of incandescence since the election, calling on its infantile readers to surrender their human rights and claiming that police marksmen were under strict orders to shoot on sight anyone displaying the flag of St George.

“People have been warned for years not to look at the Sun without covering their eyes,” said a leading expert today. “Unfortunately, there is a small core of idiots who won’t be told, except by Rupert Murdoch. Well, now their brains are fried and frankly, it serves them right.”

Channel 4 Under Pressure To Terminate Ad

The Society for the Protection of Unaired Commercials has hit out at anti-abortion groups for putting pressure on Channel 4 to terminate an advert for Marie Stopes Clinics before it is aired.

“Television stations have the legal right to choose abortion ads,” said a white, middle-class spokesman for the channel. “It is grossly unfair for pressure groups - many of whom have no real experience of Channel 4 - to try to inflict their narrow-minded beliefs on an innocent, vulnerable broadcaster. What gives anyone the right to kill it off? That prerogative is reserved for God in heaven alone - or David Abraham in the chief exec’s office, as his loyal followers know him.”

“Who knows?” he added. “This ad could one day grow up into a full-blown cross-media campaign.”

Uproar As Politician Tells Truth

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.”

Parents Are Fuckwits, Reveals Survey

Parents are utterly convinced that a knife-wielding maniac will murder their children unless they are protected from stab wounds by a six-inch layer of fat, according to a survey published today.

The poll shows that only 5% of parents thought that shovelling an endless stream of crisps and sugar down their bloated children’s throats posed any health risk, yet one in three was absolutely certain that a bad man would certainly jump out and dismember their little darlings if they were irresponsible enough to let them waddle to school.

“For some reason, parents are convinced that some evil stranger wants nothing more than to deprive the world of their blubbery spawn,” said a parenting expert with a certificate. “But the stark truth is that children are most at risk from members of their family circle - especially when their family circle contains at least one utter fuckwit."

"Which, according to these figures, seems to be a statistical certainty,” she added.

Britain’s upset parents reacted to the findings by running wild in supermarkets, shouting and screaming, “Why int the Walkers multipacks on special offer no more?” and “Where’s them oven chips?” until their vexed children suddenly exploded in temper tantrums and yelled at their unruly parents to get here, now, and shut the fuck up.

Volcano Threatened With Injunction

British Airways has asked the High Court to grant an injunction against Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which is once again threatening to bring misery to the airline’s balance sheet.

“We have been in negotiations with the volcano before, and it’s got us nowhere,” said BA chief executive Willie Walsh. “It just keeps repeating the same old ash again and again. If the volcano won’t listen to reason, we’ll see how it likes a high court injunction.”

Meanwhile, members of Unite - the cabin crews’ union - are up in the air yet again. Dense clouds of hot air are spewing out all over the place, and are likely to cause chaos for months to come.

BP Sucks

As BP continues to siphon off the leaking oil with a big straw, the US government has expressed some dissatisfaction with the petroleum giant’s efforts to combat the oil spill from the ruptured well head in the Gulf of Mexico, saying the technique the company was using was “no solution” to the crisis.

Speaking from his luxury corporate yacht, which is anchored directly above the leak, BP chief executive Kent Wells briefly took the straw from his mouth to refute the allegations, but hastily reinserted it as a fountain of crude oil sprayed hundreds of feet in the air.

He later wrote a message for reporters, claiming he was confident that the insertion into the broken pipeline of a straw and bung would capture three quarters of the leak.

Earlier, the company reassured the US authorities that it would honour its legal obligations, irrespective of a statutory cap on damages payable by the oil industry of $75bn.

“We promise that we will settle all legitimate damages claims,” promised a BP spokesman. “Just tell those oil-covered birds to fill out a form, and we’ll deal with each one on its merits.”

Holy Trinity Upgraded To Include iPhone

The Methodist Church today became the first church to officially recognise Apple’s iPhone as God, announcing that the traditional Holy Trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit has received an exciting brand makeover to become the Holy Quadrinity.

The pricey gadget has long been worshipped by its owners, many of whom sing its praises on a daily basis.

“If Christians can convince themselves that worshipping three distinct beings isn’t polytheism, then one more won’t make any difference,” explained a man in a Ralph Lauren suit with a dog collar. “The iPhone sits at the right hand of God, who uses it constantly to text Jesus and the Holy Spirit, who also have iPhones.”

“You may ask, ‘How can the iPhone be three yet one?’ Ah, but isn’t that the very essence of the mystery of faith?” he went on. “We, as fallible human beings, must simply accept that the iPhone is omnipotent, beyond the comprehension of man, and works in ways wondrous to behold. Hallelujah.”

The move has, however, attracted criticism from older-established churches. The Archbishop of Canterbury suggested that the iPhone was not more holy than Symbian- or Android-based smartphones, while the Pope is expected to maintain the traditional Catholic view that a telephone is a grey thing with a dial on a table in the hallway, warning his millions of followers that the mobile phone is a mortal sin.