British Forces in Afghanistan Begin Construction Of Jobchester

The first council tent was ceremonially erected in Helmand province at dawn this morning by Royal Engineers, formalising the foundation of Iain Duncan Smith’s visionary city of Jobchester – a wonderful place where Britain’s unemployeds can all live happily ever after.

“Just imagine a place where every job is a vacancy,” smiled the Work and Pensions Secretary at lunchtime. “Well, now it exists. The army has kick-started the process by putting up fifty well-appointed council tents, ready for the first tranche of jobless construction workers to ship out and start expanding this city of dreams. All the building materials have been provided for millions of eco-homes – you’re literally tripping over dirt and goatshit out there. And I’m confident that Jobchester will have the best neighbourhood watch scheme in the world.”

“Once the pioneering shipment has knocked together a pub, a branch of Iceland and a couple of bookies, I have no doubt that the entire workshy population of Great Britain will be queueing up to swap their manky flats for the limitless potential of a plot of Afghan soil,” enthused Mr Duncan Smith. “Mainly because we’ll be adding a clause to that effect to the back of the chit they have to sign at the Jobcentre to get their benefits.”

Local Afghan warlords say they are already eager to employ Britain’s famous orange slappers in their harems, and can guarantee plenty of jobs for workers to tend and gather what promises to be a bumper poppy harvest.

Mr Duncan Smith added that Jobchester would also abound in fencing and other security-related opportunities, along with water management and goat husbandry.

“With Afghan wages among the lowest in the world, Jobchester can comfortably undercut India to become the call-centre capital of the world,” he added. “As an added bonus, irate British customers will finally have a British voice to argue with.”

“Although when they hear a Glaswegian recently relocated from Easterbrook on the other end of the line, they may find themselves none the wiser,” he conceded.

George Osborne To Slap Incapacity Claimants Until They Admit To Sheer Laziness

The Chancellor of the Exchequer today unveiled plans to reduce Britain’s annual £12.5bn spend on Incapacity Benefit and Employment Support Allowance by slapping claimants in the face until they confess that there is nothing wrong with them that a bit of elbow grease wouldn’t fix.

At present, long-term liars who have successfully played the system for years are given Incapacity Benefit, while those who have tried it on more recently receive ESA free, gratis and for nothing.

“I’ve been around the block a few times, you know, and believe me, I’ve seen every scam in the book,” announced Mr Osborne. “Medical experts agree that no test can prove the existence of back pain, for example, which puts it slap bang in pixie and little-green-man territory. So anyone claiming for a bad back had jolly well better bring a living, breathing alien or a pocket-sized toadstool-squatter along with them, or they’ll be sent away with a thick ear.”

“Mental disorders, meanwhile, obviously only exist in people’s minds,” he laughed. “If everybody who met one of these fit-as-a-fiddle loafers were to tell them in a loud voice that there was absolutely bugger-all wrong with them, they’d soon come round to our way of thinking. The flat of my palm, I’ll have you know, is a great believer in the power of positive mental attitude.”

“And any old twit can push their bottom lip out with their tongue and bang their wrists together, so don’t even think of trying that one on with me,” scoffed the chancellor. “Why, I did it myself only the other day when that silly old duffer, Mr Cable, kept raising some boring objection or other as I was briefing him on my budget. But my bleeding-heart liberal colleagues can rest assured that I draw the line at slapping every spacker in Britain. I mean, I’d get their awful yucky drool all over my hand, wouldn’t I? And that wouldn’t do at all.”

“No, I think a boot up the backside would apply in their case,” he decided.

England Fans Finally Beginning To Understand Why Their Teams Are Full Of Foreigners

As the FA meets to consider how Fabio Capello will be publicly executed, millions of sobbing England football fans are starting to exhibit early signs that a glimmer of understanding has dawned on them, linking the preponderance of foreign players in the domestic leagues in some way to their national side’s lacklustre performance in the World Cup.

In comparison to the lithe, gazelle-like foreign teams bounding majestically across the South African turf, England’s stumpy native players can easily be distinguished by prominent, ridged brows which overshadow their little piggy eyes as they extend down to their prognathous lower jaws, making them resemble monstrous troll/clam hybrids, or possibly Klingons with alopecia.

“It looks like our century-long pedigree breeding programme, taking advantage of rampant inner-city incest to produce the perfect footballer, may have backfired horribly,” conceded an FA spokesman, shortly after the national side’s crashing 4-1 humiliation at the hands of the German side.

The tennis at Wimbledon is suddenly achieving record viewing figures, however, as disgusted fans turn their backs on the World Cup and switch their loyal support to Andy Murray.

“I hear this Murray bloke’s in with a bloody good chance of putting the ball in the net,” grunted a typical tearstained fan, cheering loudly at every bad serve. “What? Oh.”

Meanwhile, somewhere in the world, Lewis Hamilton’s rocket-powered bathtub was beaten into second place by somebody or other - probably a foreigner - although nobody was there to see it.

Pope Excommunicates Belgium

The war of words between Pope Benedict XVI and the Belgian police over the latter’s recent crackdown on kiddie-fiddling bishops has escalated, with the pontiff dramatically rising to his feet during this morning’s mass in St Peter’s Square, raising an arm and performing the dreaded Rite of Excommunication on Belgium.

“The mounting of raids on retired archbishops is a deplorable act unprecedented in the darkest chapters of human history,” scowled the Pope, resplendent in his best excommunicating vestments. ”Unlike the mounting of small boys by the clergy, which is a perfectly normal everyday occurrence.”

“Not even Hitler’s Gestapo had the bare-faced effrontery to subject Catholic priests to the petty, piffling laws of the land,” he fumed. “And believe me, I should know.”

Unrepentant Belgian police pointed out that hundreds of Catholic priests were in fact sent to the concentration camps for having the moral courage to speak openly against the Nazis, but Pope Benedict has spent the day wearing solid gold earplugs and shouting the Horst Wessel Song very loudly.

“The bible clearly teaches that, er, it is perfectly all right for the jackbooted enforcers of a totalitarian regime of mass murderers to apply their sick ideas of justice to the clergy, but unutterably wicked for a democratic nation’s upholders of the law to question a holy bishop’s divine right to familiarise himself with the contents of little boys’ knickers,” stuttered a sweating cardinal to reporters in the Vatican later. “I hope this clears up a minor ecumenical misunderstanding, and if it doesn’t then anybody communicating with Belgium will have to answer for their sins.”