Republicans Consider Parachuting Credible Candidate Into Convention, Possibly Jeb Bush

As realisation slowly dawns on the Republican party that all of their presidential candidates are drooling idiots, plans are hastily being drawn up to write off the billions spent on their caucus campaigns and leave it to the party convention in August to select a credible new candidate whose impressive stature will lead the wider American public to desert Barack Obama in droves. George W Bush’s brother Jeb has been mentioned.

This is what Republicans call 'a statesman'

“The Republican core constituency loves a traditional Old-Testament tub-thumper with foam flying from his mouth,” explained former GOP chairman Haley Barbour. “Problem is, Americans who don’t marry their cousins shit themselves dry at the prospect of some Jesus freak, who knows for a fact that Satan has a factory in hell churning out dinosaur bones, drumming his fingers on the nuclear button every morning and asking himself whether this is the day God wants him to declare Armageddon open for business.”

Meanwhile the corporate interests which have been bankrolling the current presidential candidates from state to state are understood to be willing to write off their huge capital investments to date, rationalising that the Republicans “will owe them big time” when it comes to throwing out every bill President Obama puts before Congress.

“Oh please, Bre’r Barbour, doan t’row dat prickly ol’ Jeb Bush ‘cross de ribber at poor li’l me,” pleaded the Democrat incumbent, rolling his eyes and collapsing in fits of laughter.

Please Let Me Stand Trial Before A Judge I Play Golf With, Pleads Harmless Old Arms Dealer

Mr Tappin: just a typical English pensioner

Old Mr Tappin, the lovable Kent veteran due to be dragged off to die in America later today by heartless jobsworths simply for selling a battery, today made a dramatic last-ditch plea to be tried in Britain in front of a judge he knows through the Rotary Club.

“I love this country, I’ve sold arms here all my life,” declared snowy-haired Mr Tappin, as he sat with his sweet little wife reminiscing fondly over a photo-album filled with snaps of himself in happier days, cheerfully selling missile components to undercover FBI agents in ‘WE ♥ JIHAD’ t-shirts. “Dear oh dear, I don’t know what I’ll do if some ghastly American I’ve never played golf with sends me to one of those awful ‘jailhouse’ things Elvis Presley sings about. I just couldn’t live out 35 of my twilight years without the comforting solace of Henry Blofeld’s cricket commentaries on the radio, you know.”

Mr Tappin then put on his favourite tweed jacket and flat cap, sang ‘My Old Man’s A Dustman’ and asked hopefully whether there was honey still for tea.

Armchair Anarchists Strangely Reluctant To Challenge Cameron On Somalia

Welcome to the anarchist paradise

As David Cameron threatens to destabilise Somalia - the world’s foremost anarchist state – with an invasion of evil capitalist money, thousands of freethinking Somali pirates and starving villagers have been left mystified and demoralised by the total absence of messages of support in the social media from their crusty allies in the developed world.

“First-world anarchists have been sitting on their backsides for well over a century, telling their friends how all of the world’s problems could be solved at a stroke by the abolition of all bureaucratic structures,” pointed out Looshan Yusuf, a member of a non-hierarchic pirate collective operating out of the free commune of Hafun, as he selflessly redistributed a consignment of grain liberated from the oppressive ownership of Western aid agencies among his gun-toting friends. “Well, only here in Somalia will you find an entire nation functioning in a state of perfect anarchy.”

“I am thinking your idle Western anarchists should eat their dogs on strings and sail over here immediately to demonstrate the strength of their solidarity,” agreed his friend Timiro Asad eagerly, as he oiled the recycled RPG-7 rocket launcher which the collective has deemed appropriate to his needs. “Then we could ransom them in exchange for heavier firepower and plenty of ammunition, which we desperately need to keep our heroic social experiment going.”

“Peace,” he added.

Tumbling PC Sales Nothing Whatsoever To Do With Recession, Insist iPad Nerds

Plummeting revenues at PC makers Hewlett-Packard and Dell conclusively prove that the iPad is God and all other technology is false, according to media nerds today.

A computer

“People who think these figures might simply show PC-owning luddites making do with their clockwork abacus for a year or two longer are clearly technophobes living in a mud hut who probably have trouble understanding switches and still buy DVDs,” sneered Josh Geake, who genuinely believes he would throw himself under a train if separated for as little as 24 hours from the gadget which rules his life. “In a shop.”

When his geriatric dad pointed out that both HP and Dell make tablets too, Mr Geake fell off his chair laughing at the very idea that anybody could possibly be so crassly ignorant as to think that a black slab with a touchscreen bears the faintest resemblance to the ineffable perfection of his glorious iPad 2, yet remember to breathe.

“Only the iPad has this vital app which enables me to count simply by tapping the screen,” he insisted. “My life would be absolutely meaningless without that.”

Syrian Conflict Finally Becomes International Tragedy After Death Of Times Journalist

The world’s media united today to demand the immediate launch of an overwhelming combined air, land and sea assault on Syria by teatime, following the tragic deaths of Western journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik from shellfire in the besieged city of Homs.

This'll teach them not to blow up innocent civilians

“The trivial slaughter of tens of thousands of unimportant Syrian civilians pales into insignificance against this appalling random crime against humanity,” thundered every journalist in the entire world.

“People with brown skin are used to this sort of thing,” explained an NUJ spokesman. “But Marie and Remi were civilised people who owned iPads and appreciated a really good Chablis. It’s an outrage against common decency that two brave white folk who chose to risk their lives to bring great stories of pathetic blood-soaked corpses lying in makeshift morgues to our inside pages are now themselves pathetic blood-soaked corpses lying in a makeshift morgue.”

“Let’s bomb the living shit out of Damascus until not one single brick is left on top of another,” he urged Western governments. “It’s the only language these animals understand.”

Britain On Brink Of Civil War Between Fans Of Adele And Blur

War is declared

Battle lines are being rapidly drawn throughout Britain today, after Adele’s planned Brit Awards rant against the music-industry “suits” who plucked her from obscurity was sensationally cut short last night to allow fellow millionaires Blur to plod through their grandad-pleasing set, with families being rent asunder by sharply-divided loyalties which threaten to pit fathers against daughters and sons against mothers.

“I applaud Adele’s brave and principled stance against the penis-waving music moguls who cynically showered her with awards just to shift units and make her a household name,” said Berkshire mum Jen Hayes, who has annexed all the cutlery in preparation for a long and bloody conflict. “And if that stupid husband of mine utters another word about Damon bloody All-Bran he’ll be spending his nights on the living-room sofa from now on, trying to cuddle up to the dog.”

Her 14-year-old son Josh has already suffered the tragic loss of both testicles on the way to school, after suicidally telling elder sister Chelsea that the only similarity between Adele and R&B legend Aretha Franklin is their dress size.

‘I Thought Grumio And Clemens Volunteered To Serve My Household To Gain Vital Workplace Skills,’ Claims Shocked Caecilius

Caecilius poenitens est

Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, the head of a wealthy Pompeiian household familiar to generations of young Latin scholars, has told scribes how shocked he was to learn from plebeians - who burst into his atrium yesterday and occupied his triclinium - that he has never actually paid his villa workers Grumio and Clemens a single denarius for their services.

“Many years ago I came home after hard day’s counting money at the office, to find these two young people had moved into a cubiculum at the back of the villa,” said Caecilius. “My dear wife Metella convinced me that they came knocking on our door one day, desperately keen to gain vital 24-hour-a-day experience in a typical domestic workplace environment. Imagine my horror when some poetry-scribbling dole scrounger - who was squatting in my favourite lectus - shouted that my wife had in fact bought them, body and soul, in a Slavecentreplus auction.”

“Naturally, I intend to start paying these key members of my household staff ten sesterces a week for their valuable services, starting the day after tomorrow,” he offered. “Although I reserve the right to make deductions from Grumio’s salary for drinking me out of house and home as he cooks my dinner. And I also reserve the right to beat him severely. That's my commitment to furthering his education.”

“I never spoke to them, except to give them an order, so I can solemnly swear in the names of all the gods that I never had the faintest idea they weren’t in my household of their own free will, nor that I never paid them a thing for all their labours,” insisted a red-faced Caecilius. “May the earth split open and swallow me if it’s not true.”

News International To Launch Sun On Sunday, Shut Down Sun On Monday

Corruption-hit News Corporation today announced the imminent launch of the Sun On Sunday, to be followed immediately by the closure of the Sun on Monday.

The new Sunday edition will fill the lucrative gap in the market for fraudulent celebrity tattle and right-wing propaganda left by the demise of the News Of The World. Meanwhile, the disappearance of all other editions will leave a lucrative gap in the market for fraudulent celebrity tattle, right-wing propaganda and tits.

There's going to be more fun and less difficult words in the Times

Rupert Murdoch - who is in London to reassure the Sun’s criminal staff that they have his unwavering support, right up to the moment when the jury finds them guilty - is said to be formulating urgent plans to realign the Times to fill the weekday gap, replacing long words and journalism with the astute observations of teenage breasts, before six million idiots who rely on tits for their daily opinions are forced to trawl the internet in search of porn with a neo-conservative agenda.

Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit Now Official Romanian Currency

In Bucharest, this is a month's wages

Chewing gum stolen from Britain’s supermarket shelves has been formally adopted as Romania’s official currency by the former Communist state’s government, consisting of the Gypsy King and his dancing troupe of violinists.

“Ever since I shot the Communist dictator Ceaușescu and his ugly wife, my country’s economy has been based on the fraudulently-obtained t-shirt,” said the Gypsy King. “But, in recent years, the UK’s economic woes have led to a significant shortfall in the number of households willing to contribute unwanted clothing to what they fondly think is some sort of charity collection.”

“This has led to runaway inflation here in Romania, with the result that this rare Download 2007 Festival t-shirt I’m wearing represents 2% of our capital reserves,” he explained. “My sultry young daughter Rosa, the finance minister, thought about making goat droppings into a monetary unit, but the fiscal markets of the world are strangely reluctant to exchange our beautiful sacks of shit for dollars. It wasn’t a problem at all as far as the euro was concerned, but frankly we’d rather keep our abundant goat crap, thanks, because we get a bit more warmth out of that when we burn it.”

Meanwhile, as gangs of enthusiastic Romanian currency dealers continue to strip Britain’s shelves clean of gum, chancellor George Osborne is said to be keenly examining what economists are already calling 'the Romanian economic miracle' as he formulates his latest austerity budget.

“I’d strongly advise everyone to stock up on Tic Tacs,” predicted Rob Blind, a senior global currencies dealer at Sainsbury’s Bank. “We’ve got a 3 for 2 deal on mint multipacks this week. It could be the investment opportunity of your worthless lives.”

Sky Bids For Exclusive Rights To Chisora-Haye Gunfight

Broadcasters are desperately trying to outbid each other for the TV rights to the forthcoming shoot-out between British boxing rivals Dereck Chisora and David Haye, following their exhilarating display of top-level professional brawling at a press conference in Germany.

Don't miss the highlights on Sky Sports 1

The date and venue for the thrilling display of world-class marksmanship are undecided at the moment, with experts urging both participants to arrange their eagerly-anticipated deathmatch before one or both participants is jailed by the German authorities.

“As da challenged party, Haye gots da privilege of nominatin’ toasters,” explained a spokesman for the World Duelling League from the organisation’s headquarters in Corcoran State Prison, California. “He might, fo sho, be choosin’ da traditional option of rapiers, but today’s discerning sport hos is wantin’ automatic weapons and fast whips. For me, da dope biscuit gots to be – and indeed has been - a Uzi nina outa da back seat of a Lex.”

“I don’t know what kind of pussy wheels ma limey dogs gots, though,” he admitted. “How much rubber can a Mini burn when you rollin’ outa a 187?”