Food Retail Sector Nostalgic For 1862

Britain’s supermarket chains have set their sights firmly on the salad days of 1862, when their predecessors could cheerfully demand the equivalent of £1254.17 out of every single shopper, every single week, according to a wistful slice of nostalgia in this month’s Grocer Magazine.

“Can you imagine charging 74 times what we do now, just for a grape?” exclaimed a spokesman for Marks & Spencer, wiping away tears of joy. “We certainly can.”

The Victorian Value range

The delighted supermarkets are also eyeing up great price-adjustment opportunities in pineapples, melons and tea, among other foodstuffs which modern shoppers take for granted.

“Of course, in Victorian times the grocer faced stiff competition from a strong self-sufficiency movement - or ‘growing a turnip in the back yard for Christmas’, as it was quaintly known back then,” pointed out a titled member of the Sainsbury family. “And market penetration was somewhat lower than it is today, due to deaths from malnutrition.”

However, the supermarkets are keen to point out that not everything in 1862 would have cost you an arm and a leg or any hope of reaching your 40th birthday.

“Your friendly, helpful Victorian grocer simply wouldn’t have dreamt of asking you to pay for many everyday items,” the magazine pointed out. “For example, there would have been no charge at all for an HDTV, a microwave oven or a box set of the Shrek movies. That was all part of the service.”

“However, due to the costs associated with shipping these items all the way from China nowadays, that’s one olde worlde price our subscribers regret they won’t be passing onto their valued customers,” it added.

Royal Navy To Recommission Entire Contents Of Fleet Air Arm Museum

With the future of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter hanging in the balance of possible Pentagon defence cuts, the Royal Navy today unveiled a back-up plan to ensure that the aircraft carriers currently under construction will have at least some offensive capability.

“The naval aviation museum at RNAS Yeovilton already has a complete naval air arm in being,” explained defence minister Philip Hammond. “The impressive inventory includes a Sopwith Pup, a couple of Dragonfly helicopters which are cheap as chips to run, and a Swordfish bomber whose strike potential can be significantly upgraded for 21st century naval operations by bolting on the Merlin-powered sharp end of a Barracuda.”

“We’ve got an almost-working Concorde, too,” he warned Britain’s enemies. “By Crikey, that’s going to put the fear of God into those damned Somali pirates when they see it screaming towards them at zero feet, festooned with torpedoes.”

Paddle like fuck

Public Just Crying Out For Cuts, Says Labour Genius

Vote Labour

Jim Murphy - the shadow defence secretary, for Christ’s sake - has told delighted Guardian readers today that what will make Labour electable again is to realise that what the public wants more than anything is cuts, cuts and more cuts.

“The truth is the Labour Party would have to make cuts if we were in power," he said brightly. “It is difficult to sustain popularity without genuine credibility.

“I really reckon the whole country is with me on this,” he argued. “We’re certainly not going to get any popular support by calling on the government to protect essential services, safeguard people’s jobs or invest in the younger generation. That’s all just stuff and nonsense, as I’m sure the public knows very well.”

Whites Divided Over What To Do With Diane Abbott

Not divisive at all

Controversial MP Diane Abbott - who may or may not be some colour or other - has apparently succeeded in her colonial supremacist plan to divide the white population of Britain, with some saying she should be kicked out of the Labour Party and others meekly apologising for their part in the cruel Victorian domination of the entire Afro-Caribbean world.

“Yay! I rule!” tweeted the non-divisive MP for Hackney North and Stoke.

Following a brutal racist visit from Ed Miliband, however, Ms Abbott later apologised for her latest inflammatory tweet, saying that she could not possibly be expected to communicate using words.

Which? Magazine To Relaunch as WTF?

MacBook-owning Which? readers are particularly cross

Leading consumer magazine Which? today announced that, in a 21st-century makeover reflecting the financial competence of the British public, it will rebrand itself as WTF? after unveiling this month’s shocking exposé of the widespread scam known as ‘trade’.

“If you sell a lappy to someone yourself, right, you get more wonga than like if you sell it to some dealer what sells it to someone else innit,” explained the group’s chief investigative reporter, Jakey Boy. “Even if it was yours, yeah, and you didn’t like nick it or nothing. I mean, WTF? Random.”

“Seriously, bro, I’m telling you, like check it out,” he added indignantly. “I shit you not.”

A spokesman for the second-hand retail sector later attempted to explain its key concept of ‘profit’ to the baffled public: “Right Baldrick, let's try again. This is called ‘retail’. If the market value of your knackered MacBook Pro is four beans and I don’t want to starve, how many beans should I give you for it?”

Britain’s MPs Urge Government Not To Send Aid To Countries Which Act Like Britain’s MPs

MPs on parliament’s influential International Affairs Committee today urged David Cameron to consider cutting off aid to foreign governments with a history of behaving like British MPs.

The committee is very concerned about this sort of thing

“In countries where fraud and corruption are as rife as they are within these walls, the Department for International Development will not always be able to mitigate against this adequately,” said Malcolm Bruce, the Lib Dem committee chairman who claimed £3,100 in expenses for ‘working’ from a home which was less than 30 minutes from his taxpayer-funded constituency office.

The moralising report was enthusiastically endorsed by international development secretary Andrew Mitchell - who relieved taxpayers of £19,000 for cleaning, redecorating and refurbishing his home and garden – and will now be passed on for the attention of chancellor George Osborne, who claimed for interest on a £450,000 mortgage for a house he bought for £45,000.

Racism Abolished

The newspaper industry today gave itself a huge pat on the back for single-handedly bringing about the end of racism, after Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted of the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence – a conviction secured solely on the evidence of a fearless accusation on the front page of that legendary anti-racist campaigner, the Daily Mail.

In the wake of the British media industry’s tireless campaigning for fairness, decency and understanding, the British National Party and the English Defence League have both announced their immediate disbanding and issued abject apologies for the stupid and misguided opinions they used to express, the ordinary British public are hugging Polish workers in the streets and a contrite David Cameron has changed his mind on the Euro crisis.

Our staunch upholder of tolerance and understanding

“Had it not been for the heroic decision of the Daily Mail to openly flout Britain’s libel laws by calling Dobson and Norris murderers, inviting them to pay all the costs of taking on the best-paid libel lawyers in the land entirely out of their own pockets, the police would still be incompetent and institutionally racist to the core, and there would still be racist attacks taking place on a daily basis on the streets of this utterly tolerant nation,” said every national paper.

“What other country in the world would allow its newspapers to libel with impunity anyone we take a dislike to, safe in the knowledge that only the very wealthiest individuals would dare to take on the staggering financial burden of a legal challenge, knowing that even if they win they may well only get awarded a pound in damages?” they concluded. “So hooray for Britain, and hooray for us.”

“On other pages: Why We Still Reckon Jo Yeates’ Weirdo Landlord Must Be A Kiddy Fiddler, Or Something,” they added smugly.

Labour: ‘We Told You The Welfare State Was An Evil Liberal Conspiracy’

Exterminate

Miliband 2, the robot who is apparently the fruition of generations of the hopes and dreams of the working class, is set to announce today that the Labour Party has always maintained that the welfare state was created by twisted Liberal traitor David Lloyd George for the sole purpose of hastening the collapse of the British Empire.

Once plugged in, Mr 2 will tell Britain what it loves to hear - namely that the jobless, the infirm and the elderly dream of nothing but stealing the food out of the very mouths of your starving kids.

“There is no war but class war,” Mr 2 is expected to drone. “That’s you, me and the Tories, united in solidarity against these thieving underclass bastards. How dare they have nothing? How bloody dare they? Let’s take it away from them.”

Key Points Of David Cameron’s New Year Message

He's back. Did you miss him?

1. There are no invisible countries.
2. Fortunately, we’ve lined up some nice distractions for you.
3. Because this year the shit’s really going to hit the fan.
4. If I fiddle with all the broken stuff a bit - the NHS, education, law enforcement, that sort of thing – you never know, I might eventually be able to bodge something together that works. Well, sort of.
5. I’ve found some jolly splendid words in the dictionary to describe how things used to be, back in the good old days.
6. Did I mention the nice shiny things?
7. Never mind. A hundred years from now, none of this will matter.