Cameron Seeks To Pull Troops Out Of Hat Before General Election

Prime minister David Cameron is meeting President Obama today, to politely ask if he could have his army back just in time for a general election.

The Conservative leader said he wanted to pull British troops out of a hat by 2015 at the latest, but added that he preferred not to “deal in too strict timetables”.

“Naturally the PM will be looking to pull our long-suffering boys and girls out of the coalition when the time is right for a ten per cent boost in the opinion polls,” commented Richard Holmes, a veteran armchair general of two War Walks. “However, it all rather depends on if and when the Lib Dems decide to pull their long-suffering boys and girls out of their coalition.”

Seasoned observers point to the ever-rising toll of Liberal Democrat casualties – 2 to date – and increasing scepticism among the general public about the point of the coalition.

“Whenever hostilities break out, the casualties are always worst in the ranks of the Lib Dems,” said Mr Holmes. “Nobody doubts the professionalism of this small but important body of MPs - but how much longer can they sustain such a high level of collateral damage to their credibility?”

“It’s already hit recruiting,” he added.

Whales Fail To Reach Agreement On New Ship-Hunting Proposals

The International Whale Commission meeting has ended in disarray, with the whales failing to find common ground on plans to resume ship-sinking.

“I strongly urged my fellow whales that there is really no shortage nowadays of shipping to be rammed and sunk,” sang Mr Moby Dick, the white whale. “Unfortunately, the other whales just want to keep the existing moratorium in place.”

Whaling ships almost became extinct in the years following World War II, leading the International Whale Commission to declare a ban on hunting them. However, Mr Dick pointed out that Norwegian and Japanese whaler numbers have steadily increased over the years, and even Icelandic whalers – once thought to have become extinct – have recently been sighted disporting themselves merrily in northern latitudes.

“We understand Mr Dick’s frustration,” sang a right whale. “But the metal hulls of today’s whaling ships are considerably harder to stave in than the old wooden sailing vessels of old.”

Mr Dick is said to be exceptionally hard-headed, however, and sources sing that he has been in secret talks with the narwhals - and may even have broken the rules by giving aid to the whales’ former enemies, the giant squid, on condition that they support his efforts.

“It would be a real shame if whaling ships were once more hunted to the brink of extinction by these barbaric methods,” commented a Greenpeace spokesman. “For years, our members have looked forward to getting right up close to beautiful, huge whalers in their little dinghies and engaging in playful fun and games with them. But this harmless activity could one day be a thing of the past.”

McChrystal’s Downfall

SCENE 2010 INT. THE WHITE BUNKER, WASHINGTON. THE OVAL OFFICE.

A woman’s finger hovers over a newspaper on a desk.

HILLARY CLINTON

(wearing black jacket and jaunty bowler hat with black fishnet stockings)

The enemy has made a breakthrough along the media front, Mr President. In Middle England they managed to slip an op-ed piece into the Independent openly calling for the phased withdrawal of British troops within a set time-frame, and they’re advancing steadily towards the Daily Express.

CUT TO C/S. CLINTON.

The British are talking about complete withdrawal from the theatre of operations within twelve months. And the Dutch are already packing their bags.

CUT TO

OBAMA

(Bruno Ganz – for it is he, wearing black-and white minstrel make-up, white top hat and tails - waves silk-gloved hands theatrically)

Mammy! Mah fren’ Gen’l McChrystal’s PR skills gon’ bring it aaaall undah control - yassum, marm, doan’ you worry yo’ purty li’l head none.

(FX: ripple of laughter.)

CUT TO M/S. Cabinet members exchange uneasy glances.
CUT TO

CLINTON

Mr President… General McChrystal…

CUT TO

GEN. PETRAEUS

SIR! Stanley McChrystal has been cheerfully slagging you and your administration off to a long-haired peacenik reporter, SIR! He wasn’t able to hold on to his tongue, SIR!

CUT TO M/S. Cabinet. Uncomfortable pause.
CUT TO C/S. OBAMA rolls eyes furiously as he smoothly removes his top hat, rolls it down his arm to his silver-tipped cane, from which he deftly throws it onto a hat-rack in the corner.

OBAMA

De foll’win’ peoples gwin’ stay awhile: Mistah Biden, Missy Clinton, Lil’ Bobby Gates an’ Gen’ral Petraeus. As fo’ de res’ - backta de plantation, y’all heah?
CUT TO M/S. Cabinet.

(Uncomfortable pause as a dozen minor cabinet members shuffle out. FX: Taped audience ‘Aaaaah’s)

CUT TO

OBAMA

(Striding up and down office, twirling cane)

Dat was an awdah! DAT FELLAH McCHRYSTAL, HE HOLDIN’ HIS TONGUE WAS AN AWDAH!!! Who’d’ya think y’all am ta dis’bey an awdah dat ah done gived ya? Laaaoowd a’mercy!

(falls to knees in spotlight, arms outstretched)

Scene 2010A INT CORRIDOR o/s OVAL OFFICE. M/S. Uncomfortable crowd of spinmeisters, policy wonks and cabinet members.)
CUT TO
SCENE 2010B INT OVAL OFFICE.

OBAMA

(turns to left, sings)

Am dis what it come to, eh? ‘Bamah, ‘Bamah!

PAN across faces as CLINTON starts to cry.

OBAMA

(turns to right)

De pressman, he bin mos’ unkin’ ta po’ lil’ ‘Bamah dey!

(FX: taped applause.)

Waal, hush mah mouth if’n ev’body ain’t havin’ a pop at yaz truleh - ev’n massah Jon Stewart on de Daily Show!

(staggers to his feet, palms outspread)

An’ de Fox News Channel, dey’s jes’ de bunch’a low-down, disloyal heathens!

(FX: canned laughter.)

GATES

Mr President, I cannot allow you to insult Fox’s trusty Glenn Beck, America’s oracle of truth!

(FX: uproarious laughter.)

OBAMA

DEY COWARDS, TRAITORS AN’ FAILURES!!

CUT TO

GATES

Mr President, this is outrageous!

CUT TO

OBAMA

De media am de scum o’ de ‘Mer’can people!

(throws papers over shoulder)

Not de shred ob honour! Dem call deyselves journalists. Years at de PBS local news channels, jes’ to learn to read de autocue and keep de deadpan face!

CUT TO M/S. Inner cabinet.
CUT TO
SCENE 2010C INT CORRIDOR o/s OVAL OFFICE. SLOW PAN across worried faces.

OBAMA

(off-camera, muffled)

For months de media dey hinder mah plans!! Lawd, dey put ev’ kinda obstacle…

CUT TO
SCENE 2010D INT OVAL OFFICE. OBAMA raps desk with cane.

… in mah way!

(drops onto one knee, raised outstretched palm to ceiling)

Lawks an’ lawdy! What ah shoulda oughta done, ah oughta done sucked up to massah Rupert Murdoch, liken as ol’ Mistah Bush done did!

(waves angrily at cabinet, sits down)

Me, ah nevah done paid much attention to de loony right-wing press. Yet ah have risen - Lawd, AH HAVE RISEN - to the presidency all bah mahself! Hallelujah!

CUT TO M/S. CLINTON.

(Uncomfortable pause.)

CUT TO M/S. BIDEN.

Traitors!

CUT TO M/S. OBAMA.

Man oh man, ah done been betrayed an’ deceived from de verah beginnin’!

CUT TO M/S. Inner cabinet.

What de monstrous betrayal o’ de ‘Mer’can pres’dent! But Lawd, dat traitor General McChrystal he gwine PAY!

M/S OBAMA.

Ah done gonna reassign him down ‘Weezyanna way! HE GWINE DROWN HISSEL’ WAY DOWN YONDER IN DE ROLLIN’ BRITISH OIL!!

CUT TO
SCENE 2010E INT CORRIDOR o/s OVAL OFFICE. C/S DAVID CAMERON, crying, and NICK CLEGG.

CLEGG

Gosh, Dave - I say - do calm yourself, old chap.

(FX: canned laughter.)

CUT TO
SCENE 2010D INT OVAL OFFICE. M/S Inner cabinet. Uncomfortable pause.

OBAMA

Mah awdahs done fall on deaf ears.

C/S. OBAMA, down on one knee and shaking head resignedly.

Under dese circumstances, Lawd, ah ain’t no longer able ta lead de way ta de promis’ land… it over.

CUT TO M/S. CLINTON, uncomfortably looking around at inner cabinet members.
CUT TO M/S. BIDEN, ditto.
CUT TO M/S. PETRAEUS and GATES, ditto.

De time fo’ change… am lost.

CUT TO M/S. BIDEN, nervously adjusting cufflinks.
CUT TO M/S. wide-eyed, bootblack-faced OBAMA, springing to his feet and pointing cane into distance.

But laydeez an’ ge’lmen! If you believe dat ah gwine leave Afghanistan, you am se’sly mistaken! Gen’l Petraeus, suh, you go do what you likes bes’ – you go an’ blow sum’ dey towelhead brains out!

Enter chorus line of high-kicking soldiers, raising OBAMA shoulder-high and carrying him off to huge taped applause, as HILLARY CLINTON breaks into show-stopping international song-and-dance routine.

Drunk England Declared A Hazard To Navigation

International maritime officials today designated England a major shipping hazard, after the drink-sodden nation celebrated its World Cup victory over Slovenia by wrenching itself away from Scotland and Wales and staggering obnoxiously around the North Sea.

The unprecedented seismic event began at 15:23 BST, just after striker Jermain Defoe remembered the point of playing football and managed to put a ball in a net. The sozzled island nation reacted by lurching free from the European continental shelf – creating a kilometre-high tsumani in the process, which is expected to cause unimaginable devastation along the New England coastline around 23:00 Eastern Daylight Time – and staggering into the North Atlantic, colliding with Portugal and knocking it loose from Spain, before running past the west coast of Ireland shouting gibberish.

In a geological singularity which seismologists will be puzzling over for years to come, England then grasped Cornwall and Kent and pulled them up over Cumbria and Northumberland. It then charged blindly into Norway - where it was violently sick - before trying unsuccessfully to barge past Denmark into the Baltic Sea.

After spending several unconvincing minutes embarrassing itself by repeatedly insisting that Germany was its best mate in the world ever, England then tripped over Scotland and briefly knocked itself senseless against Belgium. When it came to, it called France a wanker several times before wandering off aimlessly in the general direction of Greenland.

“Unfortunately England has a tendency to drink to excess at the best of times, and this is exacerbated whenever a millionaire kicks a ball,” said a spokesman for the International Maritime Organisation. “Fortunately we anticipated this situation, and all shipping has been rerouted into the Mediterranean for the next 24 hours - by which time England will probably be feeling like shit, having woken up late for work and covered in piss.”

The EU is convening a special meeting later, in which mainland Europe’s heads of state will eagerly scrutinise the Maastricht Treaty to see if England’s antics provide a convenient excuse for kicking it out.

Last Remaining BBC Staff Off To Glastonbury

The few BBC employees not over in South Africa for the World Cup or covering the tennis at Wimbledon packed their bags this afternoon and decamped to Glastonbury, confirmed a Securicor guard outside the derelict shell of the corporation’s Television Centre in Shepherds Bush.

“You may remember reading a couple of years ago that the BBC was embarking on a massive decentralisation project,” explained director-general Mark Thompson, sipping a G&T as he gazed out across the azure-blue Indian Ocean from the penthouse balcony of Port Elizabeth’s luxurious Radisson Blu hotel. “The original plan was to up sticks and move north to Salford - but God Almighty, have you seen Salford?”

“Christ, it’s a shithole,” he shuddered, pouring himself another drink. “So the board had a quick rethink – or a ‘peer-managed blue-skies focus interlude in Barbados’, as we call it on our tax returns – and decided that the senior management would achieve greater efficiency trotting from event to event around the world’s luxury hotels. Meanwhile the little people who actually make programmes would obviously be more productive in a region of England slightly closer to the West End shops, like Wimbledon - which is jolly handy for Wembley too, incidentally, saving the dear old licence payer a tidy sum in taxi fares from Salford.”

“And all the presenters can have a jolly every year, getting ripped to the tits on cider and ivory flakes at Glastonbury,” he added. “Chin chin, old boy.”

Chancellor’s Crackdown On Imaginary Manor-Dwelling Dolescum Gives Paul Dacre Continuous Orgasm

Long-suffering hacks at the Daily Mail are struggling to write tomorrow’s articles on the effect of the budget on house prices in Surrey, against a piercing background of multiple screaming orgasms emanating from editor Paul Dacre’s office.

“I was just writing a thoughtful item calling for the instant repeal of Comrade Blair’s socialist foxhunting ban to pave the way for suburbia-based hunts, when I heard a sudden yelp of pure joy from the editor’s office,” said Richard Littlejohn. “It seemed to coincide with George Osborne’s long-overdue announcement of a £400-a-week cap on housing benefit.”

According to shocked editorial staff, the next few seconds were punctuated by strange, guttural grunts from Mr Dacre’s office, swiftly followed by shrieks of pure ecstasy – which have continued ever since.

“Of course we’d all like to see the grins wiped off the faces of the feckless generational parasites of Liverpool, when they’re unceremoniously turfed out on the streets in front of their glittering palaces and mansions,” grumbled Peter Hitchens, “But how can I invent a plausible explanation of how paying Atos Medical a small fortune to confirm that paraplegics have mobility issues is going to reduce the Disability Living Allowance budget with that wretched noise piercing my brain? Make no mistake. I’ll be raising this at the next meeting of the NUJ chapter.”

“Ugh, it’s seeping out under the door,” wailed Melanie Philips. “I can’t work under these conditions. If Lord Rothermere wants me to finish this piece on how the abolition of the Sure Start and Health In Pregnancy payments is just what we need to bring an end to the plague of pre-teen pregnancies, he’d jolly well better get down here and whisk his self-polluting monkey off to his Scottish estate or his French château, where his staff of peasants can clean up the mess. I’m not having my Manolo Blahniks ruined by a sticky carpet.”

Emergency services were called to the Daily Mail headquarters at 6pm, when Mr Dacre’s orgasmic cries began to take on a gurgling tone.

“Judging from the tide level on the office door, I’d say Mr Dacre’s got a couple of hours before it reaches the ceiling,” explained a fire chief in waders later. “That should give me enough time to hammer out a draft op-ed piece suggesting that perhaps not all public employees are bone-idle, penpushing jobsworths who richly deserve to have their pay and pensions cut to the bone. When it’s finished and laminated, my lads will be ready with the breathing apparatus and chemical hazard suits to go in and ask him to sign it before they fit him with a stopcock.”

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Criticism Of Doctor Who Unjustified And Silly and Smells Of Poo, Claims Writer

Dr Who lead writer Little Stevie Tuffet has hit back at TV’s Mr Clever-Clogs, Stephen Fry - who claimed in his Bafta Television Lecture that the long-running series was “entirely infantilised” - calling the BBC’s resident grown-up “a big stinky poo-faced poo.”

“Mr Smelly Brainbox says that grown-ups want something surprising, savoury, sharp, unusual, cosmopolitan, alien, challenging, complex, ambiguous, possibly even slightly disturbing and wrong,” wailed young Stevie from behind a locked bathroom door. “Well, Mr Farty-Face, I went to the nice lady in the costume department and told her I wanted every single scary monster in all of space in the whole universe so I could put them in the bestest finale ever. You couldn’t fit more aliens in a telly than that, even if it was a really big telly that filled a house.”

“We even dusted off Spike Milligan’s old Pakistani Dalek,” he continued, after a loud snotty sniff. “He’s right at the back, on the left, hiding behind the Abzorbaloff from series 2, which was my really brilliant idea that I sent to Blue Peter when I was 5.”

“That was how I won Russell T Davies’ job,” he added proudly.

Mr Fry briefly tore himself away from writing his memoirs to point out that, since the arrival of potato-faced Matt Smith, the new Doctor had used his sonic screwdriver to light torches, incapacitate reptilian soldiers, solve simultaneous equations, post tweets, weld his ginger sex-crazed assistant’s legs together, redecorate the TARDIS, build a portable telly that could see invisible space turkeys, mix cocktails, survey a lost Roman fort for Time Team, sign autographs and remove earwax. “Oh, that’s imaginative scripting, is it?” he chortled. “My iPad can do all that. I’ve seen better writing fall out of a Christmas cracker.”

“And another thing, Mr Stephen Bumhead Fry,” countered Little Stevie in a note written on toilet paper and pushed under the door, “If you want disturbing, what do you think could be more unfair than being shut in a room for ever and ever just for blowing up the entire universe and everything, which you didn’t even do? If that isn’t the biggest threat the Doctor has ever faced in his whole life ever, I’ll eat my entire collection of exciting new Dr Who merchandise, available in shops now, prices to suit all pockets.”

“And as for unusual, challenging and wrong – space Spitfires!” he yelled, before bursting into tears again and banging the toilet seat down really hard.