Mandelson Kicks Disinterred Grandfather To Bits

Not a metaphor for the state of the party at all

The corpse of the highly-respected Labour visionary, Herbert Morrison, was today exhumed and kicked to pieces by his grandson, Lord Mandelson, in response to a promise from leadership candidate Miliband Two to take the party beyond its “New Labour comfort zone”.

A key architect of the radical Labour manifesto which swept the party to power in 1945, Mr Morrison rose from humble beginnings as an errand boy in Lambeth to become deputy to prime minister Clement Attlee, overseeing sweeping social reforms which improved ordinary people’s lives beyond all recognition.

“Bollocks to all that socialist nonsense,” shouted Lord Mandelson hoarsely, as he kicked his grandfather’s skull off. “If little Miliband Minor, Fatso Hattersley or that baldy Welsh windbag whose name we don’t mention wants to create a pre-New Labour future for the party, then he and the rest of them will quickly find this happening to them, too.”

Labour Hopefuls Urge Mandelson To Stick To Lying

Three of the androids in the Labour leadership contest have rounded angrily on Peter Mandelson, after an unprecedented five days of the party’s liar-in-chief telling the truth.

“Lord Mandelson told lies for fifteen years, and performed a great service to the Labour Party in doing so by dragging it, kicking and screaming, into the era of modern politics,” said the Miliband clones, in unison with unconvincing pretend-lefty Andy Burnham. “But if he can’t tell spectacular whoppers any more, then the party has no further use for him. He should retire immediately from politics, preferably by opening a window and turning to dust in the sunlight.”

Among the revelations disclosed to a shocked public in the Times’ serialisation of his memoirs are the following astounding-but-true insights:

- Tony Blair didn’t like Gordon Brown very much;
- Neither did anybody else;
- Once Tony Blair got it into his head to do something, it was jolly difficult to change his mind.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair himself has been left fuming, as Lord Mandelson’s memoirs beat his own forthcoming book into print.

“Look,” he told reporters, “You want lies. Britain wants lies. I’m a straightforward lying kind of guy. Britain thrives on lies. The Labour Party thrives on lies. Above all, I thrive on lies. Peter Mandelson lied for me. He lied for his party. He lied for Britain. If Peter can’t lie any more, who can Britain turn to? Who can the Labour Party turn to? Buy my book when it comes out in September, and you can read all the lies you want.”

Mandelson: Blair Feared Raving Psychopath Brown Would Kill And Eat Him

Today’s startling revelation from Lord Mandelson’s funeral elegy for the Labour Party is that, when Tony Blair was prime minister, he went to bed every night with a baseball bat - terrified that his chancellor Gordon Brown would tear down the wall between Nos. 10 and 11 Downing Street in a crack-crazed red rage, gut him with a carving knife and feast on his still-pulsing entrails.

The former business secretary claims that Mr Blair broke down in tears at the mere mention of the chancellor’s name, sobbing that he often heard the agonised death-throes of garden songbirds as the sadistic Mr Brown gleefully tortured them next door in his chamber of horrors.

According to Lord Mandelson, Mr Blair once considered the idea of shuffling Mr Brown sideways to the Foreign Office - but feared the brooding arch-fiend would seize the opportunity to engineer a nuclear Armageddon, in which he could cackle maniacally as the ocean floors cracked asunder and the atmosphere boiled away until nothing remained of our planet but a shattered asteroid belt.

“Even the tiny, brutish mind of John Prescott recognised the danger posed by Gordon Brown,” he writes in today’s serialised excerpt in the Times. “Whenever Gordon was in the vicinity John would immediately adopt a submissive posture, allowing the domineering alpha-male chancellor to mark him with urine before meekly picking nits out of Gordon’s hair.”

“It’s no wonder Tony is still surrounded by bodyguards,” explained Lord Mandelson. “The current whereabouts of Gordon Brown are a complete mystery, and it’s entirely possible that he has retreated to some sort of secret base inside a hollowed-out volcano - possibly in the Orkneys or the Western Isles - from which he is, even now, moving inexorably towards the terrible fulfilment of his insane plans.”

“Or he could just come at him from a dark alley with a sledgehammer,” he added.

Mandelson: Cabinet Members Suspected Brown Might Not Be Universally Loved By Voters

The Times’ sensational serialisation of Lord Mandelson’s explosive memoirs continues to send seismic shocks throughout the political world, with today’s astounding revelation that, in the run-up to May’s election, key members of the cabinet were beginning to wonder if PM Gordon Brown might not be the sole recipient of the complete and unconditional love of the electorate after all.

According to the party’s Machiavellian manipulator, in the last weeks of Labour’s 13-year reign Chancellor Alistair Darling was privately admitting to anyone he bumped into that “that miserable shithead Brown’s fucked into a cocked hat, the hatchet-faced bastard – I wish to high heaven he’d just do the decent thing and step out in front of a bus”, while Douglas Alexander conceded that Labour’s position in the polls might best be imagined as “right up to our shitty necks in shit creek, squatting on a giant stinking floater, without a shitting paddle.”

Even Mr Brown himself was forced to consider the possibility that the people of Britain might possibly prefer be comprehensively rogered into abject servitude by a grinning, soulless vampire like David Cameron than have to endure another five more years of his hideous scowling face, claimed Lord Mandelson.

“These completely unsuspected revelations are pure political dynamite!” enthused News Corporation chief James Murdoch, signing a very large cheque. “Whoda thunk it, eh?”

The former PM himself has maintained a dignified silence, as his head remains firmly stuffed up a cow's backside.

Tories Would Strangle Economic Recovery, Says Mandelson - Like This

Likening David Cameron and George Osborne to Laurel and Hardy, business secretary Lord Mandelson - dangling precariously from a clock face overhanging a busy Westminster street - warned that a Conservative government would "strangle the recovery at birth - like this."

To howls of derisive laughter, the acknowledged master of comic timing then slashed £449m from universities' budgets before plummeting to the ground, where the frontage of the Palace of Westminster fell on him.

Mandelson Urges Parents Not To Let Boomerangs Come Back

Parents whose children return home after graduating should show 'tough love' and slam the door in their faces, according to none-of-my-business secretary Peter Mandelson.

"Admit it, mums and dads - after eighteen years of enforced celibacy, you've spent the last three years fucking like rabbits all over again, haven't you?" Lord Mandelson tells parents in the 'Parent Motivators' guide, published today by the Department For Business, Innovation and Skills. "Do you really want to go back to how it was before, with the little shits reclaiming their bedrooms for another decade or two? Of course you don't. Tell them there's plenty of jobs at Tesco, and show them the door."

After three or four years of learning how to drink at university, the so-called 'boomerang' children are swarming back to their parental nests, where bed, board and laundry services are freely provided - allowing them to spend their entire JSA on console games and taking part in all-night drug-fuelled orgies at the local Oceana.

"Increase their motivation by bricking up their bedrooms, toys and all, and moving them into the garden shed," advised parenting expert Mandelson. "Then you can carry on romping around the house, indulging your middle-aged role-playing sex fantasies to your heart's content."

Scratching his head, shadow skills secretary David Willetts, asked: "Excuse me, but what in the name of crikey has this got to do with sorting out the economy?"

Mandelson Slashes University Budgets When Nobody's Looking

A huge, cloying air of smarminess covered Central London today, as Lord Mandelson spent the day smugly congratulating himself on the impeccable timing of his announcement of a swingeing £398m cut in university funding, now that all the lecturers are on holiday abroad and the students are too busy feverishly stacking supermarket shelves to notice.

"You know, I'm not normally one to blow my own trumpet - Modest Mandy, that's me to a T - but I am living proof that a proper university education brings out a person's native intelligence," oozed the Business Secretary. "Isn't it absolutely brilliant of me to make sure that this assault on the citadels of learning happens when there is absolutely no one around to kick off about it? Clever, clever Peter."

Lord Mandelson also berated the universities for their naïvety in taking at face value the government's meaningless platitudes about increasing student numbers, especially from less-privileged areas.

"All these chavs from council estates - I don't want to cast aspersions, of course, but very, very inferior types - are now swanning around our educational centres of excellence, lowering the tone terribly," smiled Lord Mandelson. "And some of them, would you believe, actually think they're as good as nice, middle-class children! Costs a pretty penny, between you and me, building all those new lecture halls on the never-never - not that the off-the-books borrowing of PFI is anything but a masterly stroke of sheer unadulterated genius from Gordon, of course, and I'm sure that in ten or twenty years time we'll all give him credit when the interest's due."

The slimy peer also urged universities to cram more three-year courses into two, in order to ensure that going to university was only financially viable for students whose parents were comfortably able to support them when they had no time to spare for a part time job.

"And, of course, nobody will have time to waste on fripperies like extra-curricular activities, such as sports, volunteering or, God forbid, their loony students' union," he beamed. "Middle-class people shouldn't fill their heads with any of that 'well-rounded-human-being' tripe. They should come out of university imbued only with a single-minded craving to make as much money as they can, by whatever means necessary, and devil take the hindmost. Sound Labour principles which my grandfather would approve of with all his heart."

Meanwhile, Herbert Morrison's mould-covered corpse has been sighted wandering the snowy streets of North London, heading in the general direction of Westminster and gurgling Lord Mandelson's name ominously.

Mandelson Invents Socialism

The business secretary, Lord Mandelson, is said by Labour Party insiders to be eagerly fleshing out the details of a radical new political theory he has just thought up, which he is calling 'socialism'.

The former European Commissioner for Trade tentatively announced the first of his theories today - suggesting, in a speech to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders which was received in hostile silence, that an industry which relentlessly churns out thousands of new cars every day, simply to create an artificial demand for vehicles which people cannot afford and do not need, might not actually be the smartest thing that mankind has ever dreamed up.

"If that evil commie pervert isn't stopped - and fast - pretty soon he won't just be suggesting that replacing your car every two years simply because you're bored with it might not be the best use of the planet's dwindling resources. There's a very real danger that he might dare to question the whole principle of rampant consumerism," growled a Ford executive. "And from there, it's only a short step to entertaining wholesale doubts about the necessity of the artificial monetary system which underpins this unrestricted capitalist system which we all take absolutely for granted."

"Mammon help us all if that happens," he added.

"Kill him," screamed a senior BMW director. "Kill him now, before he infects anyone else with this vile disease."

Meanwhile, staff at a London graveyard report that the body of Herbert Morrison, one of the stalwarts of the Labour movement and Baron Mandelson's grandfather, is revolving more slowly than at any time in the last 12 years.

Santa Poised To Join Postal Workers' Strike

Angry postal workers have responded angrily to the news that Royal Mail bosses are seeking to break their impending strike with a Jobcentre-supplied army of 30,000 unemployed graduates, by persuading Father Christmas to join their planned industrial action.

"Santa is, as we all know, in the same line of work as our threatened members," explained Communication Workers' Union general secretary Billy Hayes. "I have been to the North Pole to put our position to him, and the venerable old gentleman has kindly agreed not to deliver any Christmas presents to the nation's kiddies unless this intransigent management starts taking our demands seriously."

"Then he sat me on his knee and asked me what I wanted for Christmas, so of course I said 'Mandelson's head on a spike'," he added. "He laughed and said if I was a bad boy he'd see what he could do."

As anti-sleigh missile launchers moved into position above the COBRA bunker deep under Central London, Lord Mandelson smilingly dismissed the dangers of decapitation by Santa - adding that, as the grandson of Labour Party legend Herbert Morrison, his own festive wish was to see the last of the hated union dinosaurs ground into the dust, finally laying to rest the awful spectre of an empowered workforce once and for all.

"It is entirely within my powers as business secretary to use the blessed Lady Thatcher's wise and just anti-union laws to sequestrate Santa's assets if he takes secondary strike action over a dispute in which he is not personally involved," he warned. "I shall not hesitate to send in a force of press-ganged doleys to seize all the toys, then task DHL and FedEx with the responsibility for delivering them all to Britain's children - or at least to a depot within fifty miles of their homes, if mummy and daddy aren't around during the daytime to sign for them."

Meanwhile, back at Santa's polar factory, the toy-making machinery stood silent as the workers downed their tools and walked out in sympathy with their postie comrades.

"Ho ho ho!" chortled the jolly bearded striker, in a rousing speech to his elves. "Mandy Mandy Mandy! Out out out!

Skivvies' New Right To Insultingly Low Wage Devastates Hospitality Industry

Thousands of restaurants across Britain boarded themselves up and called in the receivers this afternoon, as today's introduction of a ban on using tips as an excuse to pay staff a pitiful insult of a wage, together with a 7p rise in the national minimum wage, combined to drive them into instant bankruptcy.

"Have you any fucking idea how fucking low the fucking margins are on a £45 set fucking lunch of paella-style saffron fucking risotto, with a main fucking course of braised fucking ox-cheek in red fucking wine and a lemon fucking meringue and almond fucktart for fucking dessert?" screamed Gordon Ramsay, as he nailed the last plank across the doors of his 68 Royal Hospital Road flagship eaterie. "A lot of the fuckers who stuff their fucking guts here don't even fucking bother paying the fucking optional 12.5% gratuity. If it wasn't for the fucking £fucking8 fucking charge for a fucking selection of fucking cheeses from the fucktrolley I'd have fucking gone bust years a-fucking-go."

"Fuck the fucking fuck," he added.

However, business secretary Lord Mandelson defended the changes as "a basic issue of fairness".

"When I leave a tip, I don't expect it to be used to make up the minimum wage," he told reporters as he tucked into a meal at Brighton's top-rated surviving restaurant, Planet India. "First, I want it to go to the person who has served me as a thank-you for their service - that's lovely, Anish, you can stop kissing my feet now, but do make sure you wipe your vile slobber off my shoes - and then I want it to go to the Treasury as an increase in their National Insurance deductions."

Spectre of Recession Gone Forever, Announces Mandelson

The recession is history and Britain is now experiencing unprecedented and rapid economic growth, announced business secretary Lord Mandelson today.

"The recent predatory attempt by Kraft World Domination Foods - very nice people, Britain's best interests at heart - to seize and shut down its potential rival Cadburys offers incontrovertible proof to even the most cynical naysayers that Booming Britain is once again the envy of the financial world," smiled Lord Mandelson. "Why, only today the Bank of England confidently demonstrated its firm conviction that the bleak days are far, far behind us by refusing to cut interest rates from 0.5% to zero or below. Well, what more proof do you need?"

"And let's not forget that they're still busy, busy, busy printing more and more money," he added, "Because in next to no time, you'll have so much cash you simply won't know what to do with it, you mark my words!"

The swollen ranks of Britain's unemployed crawled out of their cardboard boxes to give the business secretary three rousing cheers, amid ecstatic calls for a snap election. The humble, self-effacing man they are already calling The Saviour of Britain was, however, keen to put a brake on their understandable enthusiasm.

"I appreciate that, in these salad days, you want to express your gratitude by returning Labour to power for a fourth term," he acknowledged graciously. "That's only natural. But this parliament still has some essential business to perform before the nation can go to the polls."

"We are quite keen, for example, to pass a very important - very important - bill which would allow appointed life peers to give up their meaningless titles, allowing them to stand for parliament as ordinary citizens," he continued. "For too long - almost a year, in fact - the most able and gifted minds of their generation have been unable to take their rightful places in the House of Commons, or at the head of their parties, because of these glamorous but encumbering vestiges of an outdated caste system."

Lord Mandelson also expressed his wholehearted support for Gordon Brown's inspired stewardship of the Labour Party, and said he was trying very, very hard to persuade the hard-working prime minister to take a short break from the terrible burdens of state, possibly by going on an invigorating adventure holiday.

"Can't you imagine poor, tired-out old Gordon's troubles and cares floating away for good as he white-water rafts down Niagara Falls, or bungee-jumps off Spaghetti Junction to the delight of the oncoming traffic?" implored the smooth-talking peer, before heading off to inspect a safe Labour seat.

Members of Public Can Run Britain For An Hour, Says Mandelson

Peter Mandelson, the well-known artist, has announced that the leadership of Great Britain is open to anyone in one-hour stints, after denying that he was in charge of the country while Gordon Brown is on holiday.

"Good Lord, do you think I want to be associated with the current catalogue of woes that's hitting the papers on a daily basis?" laughed Mr Mandelson, as he steered a JCB into Central London, looking for volunteers. "No, I'm putting the people into Number Ten, one at a time, through an upstairs window. Anyone who wants to be prime minister for an hour can apply by standing in front of this forklift and jumping aboard. Let's face it, they couldn't do any worse than that hatchet-faced Scots prick, who of course has my full support until the day after the Tories win the election."

Soon after, a cheerful Mr Mandelson was spotted trundling back towards Downing Street, carrying an unkempt, wild-eyed prophet of doom whose sandwich-board straps had become entangled in the forklift.

"The end of the world is nigh," screamed the trapped loony, on his way to a brief appointment with fame, celebrity and the levers of government. "Prepare ye for the second coming!"

Mr Mandelson was seen to smile enigmatically to himself, before driving off.

'Bloody Men, What Can You Do With Them?' Demands Harman

One of the top two posts in the Labour Party should always be held by a woman, deputy leader Harriet Harman told her book group this morning over an agreeable bottle of chianti.

"Men cannot be left to run things on their own," she slurred, spilling wine on her half-read copy of Pride and Prejudice, while her fellow literature-lovers nodded vigorously in agreement. "Let's face it, they're all useless, the whole bloody lot of them. They prod you in the back with their thing when you're trying to get to sleep after you've slogged your guts out all day long raising a family, they can't move without farting and they actually think it's funny, and they can't even put up shelves without expert supervision by a woman. They're all complete and utter bastards. Hic."

"Of course, they're not totally useless, and every car should be equipped with one in case it breaks down," she added. "Then when it's all covered in oil after topping up the sparkplugs, or whatever it is they do, you can drive off and get a clean new one from Halfords."

"I'm not saying that men should be totally excluded from politics," insisted Ms Harman, waving her now-empty glass around. "After all, you've got to have someone to blame when things go wrong."

"Yes, dear," said a pinafore-clad Lord Mandelson, who was ironing his smile in the conservatory. "Do you mind if I take the car for a little spin this afternoon? I just want to find myself a nice safe seat, so I can take over when that Scottish git at work gets kicked out."

"Well, if you must," slurred Ms Harman crossly, "But for God's sake, do make sure it matches the curtains."

UK Begins Exporting The Unemployed

The government is to ship the jobless to the developing world, it announced today - beginning with whiny graduates whose superior intelligence and education led them to believe that millions of well-paid jobs would be conjured out of thin air the instant they left university.

Under the pilot scheme, a total of £500,000 will be made available for up to 500 graduates to take part in 'gap year'-style overseas expeditions, working on such worthwhile development projects as diamond mining in Namibia, t-shirt manufacture in Indonesia and 'private security consultancy' in Afghanistan.

Participants - who, according to Lord Mandelson, should preferably come from underprivileged backgrounds, where they will be less likely to be missed - will be expected to contribute £1000 of their own money, as well as paying for their own flights and jabs.

"But perhaps we can come to some arrangement," smiled the Business Secretary. "I'm sure the government could waive the inoculation requirements and loan participants the extra £1000 and funds for the outward flight, on condition that any survivors do not return to the UK until they repay the loan, with interest, and pay for their own return journey."

If the scheme is successful in reducing the official unemployment figures, it is likely to be extended to cover all benefit claimants - echoing a scheme in the late thirties in which the unemployed were sent to Canada with a couple of buns, an apple and the guarantee of agricultural work at $5 a day, only to find themselves dumped at dust-swept railheads in the middle of the Quebeçois hinterland, and being laughed at in French.

Nose On Mandelson's Face 'Taken Out of Context'

A furiously calm Lord Mandelson went on the Andrew Marr Plays Guitar Show this morning to deliver a monologue about the nose on his face, accompanied by the host on conjunctions.

"This so-called email - which a person, who may or may not have been me, did or did not send to Derek Draper, a fictional invention of the Mail on Sunday - may possibly contain the words 'Gordon', 'insecure', 'self-conscious', 'angry' and 'Brown', but you have to remember that these were balanced by other words like 'is', which were not given the same coverage," he said, after breathing in for two minutes. "No, let me finish. You asked me a question. What the public really wants is for me to finish answering the question which you - and it's not just the BBC, it's all of the right-wing media - asked me before letting me finish. I spoke to Ed Balls - and we were laughing about it - and we both agreed that there are many people in the cabinet who are qualified to finish answering the question that you put to me. I think what's important to remember is that Caroline Flint must answer the question: are there any more biscuits, love? That's the question the British public want to ask, and that's the question you should be asking now, if you'd only let me finish, even though you've twisted its meaning. And I'd say that the Prime Minister is doing an excellent job of asking the questions that ordinary people want to answer, but you never hear that in all the press hysteria over D-Day expenses. Go on, ask your question. No, let me finish. I rang James Purnell yesterday, because I know where he lives, and he says he was very drunk when he wrote to the papers, and he would and indeed will walk naked through alligator-infested swamps to support the government if he knows what's good for him - if you'll just let me make my point - and that's what the British public want to hear about, they're concerned about their jobs and their homes and crime and punishment and pride and prejudice and big brother ten and they want answers. And that's the first priority of a Labour government, these are our core values which you've taken out of context, the Tories have their core values which are entirely in some unspecified way different and I hope that answers your hysterical, parabolic questions. Next? Yes. No. Yes. Next! Let me finish. Next! Can you quote the entire bible from memory? No? Well, shut the fuck up then. Let me finish. The prime minister is definitely not a liability who is doing a wonderful job of getting the country on its feet. Thank you. Your name is going on my list."

In the meantime, Mr Marr hesitantly improvised an accompaniment consisting entirely of conjunctions, before thanking a blue-faced Lord Mandelson for making him look like a spineless twerp who would be unable to get a straight answer out of a speak-your-weight machine.

Political Journalists Struggle Manfully To Keep It Under Control

TV and radio journalists have spent today fighting a losing battle against facial cramps, as the story about somebody chucking their custard over Lord Mandelson refused to go away.

Scotland Yard did its bit to extend the life of the story by arresting the protester, Leila Deen, today in her home town of Brighton.

"At the time we just thought it was a bit of harmless fun," explained DCI Savage of the Yard. "But then we saw John Prescott on the news pointing out that it was technically assault - which is a crime apparently, even if not perpetrated against an officer of the law while being forcibly restrained by six of us in the back of a van."

Lord Mandelson appeared on the Andrew Finmarr Show this morning, where the jug-eared giant of political journalism somehow managed to blurt out, "So, Lord Mandelson, which other politicians do you think people might want to chuck their custard over? Fnarr," before being overcome by a hysterical giggling fit.

As a red-faced Mr Finmarr repeatedly bit his fist, the Business Secretary replied that he was "slightly disappointed that some in the media just took her into their studios and started interviewing her."

Finmarr - by now sliding off his chair and turning purple - tried to suggest that this was in fact normal procedure when someone did something newsworthy; but his words were rendered almost unintelligible by a series of sobs, sniggers and gasps for breath.

Undaunted, Lord Mandelson added: "We do not live in a police state, and thank goodness for it." He was then knocked senseless by the boom mike, which the sound recordist had dropped in order to hold onto his splitting sides.

"Did you see that coming?" ejaculated the helpless, rolling Finmarr, before losing control of his bladder and turning hastily to the morning's papers in search of something absorbent.

Meanwhile, over on Sky News, Sunday Live presenter Adam Hardon was left doubled up and biting his thumb knuckle after Jacqui Smith told him with a straight face: "I don't think in a democracy where people are able to speak up that anybody should chuck custard over anybody in the street."

"So would it be all right, then, if I were to chuck my custard over you behind closed doors, Home Secretary?" sniggered Sky's senior news editor, with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Her ample cleavage wobbling with indignation, Ms Smith went on: "The protester was so busy chucking her custard she wasn't actually explaining what the point of her protest was."

To barely-stifled roars of laughter from the studio crew, the convulsed Hardon then offered to demonstrate to the buxom Home Secretary the extreme difficulty of concentrating on anything else whilst chucking one's custard - at which point the nation's screens went blank due to 'technical difficulties'.

Executives at BBC Parliament are said to be eagerly anticipating record audiences this week, with easily-pleased fans of the humble double-entendre set to engorge the digital channel's flaccid viewing figures for live mass debates from the Houses of Parliament.

'LDV Would Probably Only Spend Money on Alcohol or Drugs,' Says Mandelson

The government has refused a request from the collapsing van manufacturer LDV for the loan of a fiver till Friday, announced Lord Mandelson today.

"LDV, as you know, is owned by my very good boating chum, Oleg Deripaska," pointed out the Business Secretary, "And even if I were to reach into my pocket and find a crisp new five pound note - and I don't generally carry cash, it's quite, quite vulgar and I much prefer to use somebody else's - then I would immediately come under a scandalous attack from the gutter press for being biased towards my billionaire friends. I have to think of my spotless reputation for honesty, you know - very important."

The LDV management are optimistically turning out their pockets for loose change to see if they have enough coppers between them to buy the company. However, they said that, realistically, their best hope of saving the company now lay in sitting outside the headquarters of Lloyds TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland under a newspaper, on the off-chance that a banker hurrying to the nearest four-star restaurant might accidentally drop a little of the £500bn of taxpayers' money which the government has kindly handed to them by guaranteeing to underwrite their monumentally wrong-headed investments in various kinds of rubbish, in the vague hope that they might actually grant somebody a mortgage this year.

Mandelson To Identify Businesses Worthy of State Lifelines

With the economic downturn growing worse by the day, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson is reported to be drawing up a list of businesses that the government will consider bailing out with taxpayers’ money.

“No-one can foretell how short or long, how painful or painless, the recession is going to be,” he explained. “On the one hand Woolies has gone tits up - never set foot in one myself of course, but very popular, very popular with the little people, I’m told; and yet on the other some mad doctor cheerfully blows a quarter of a million on a very nice kennel for her dogs, would you believe? All quite, quite contradictory; markets very edgy; businesses looking for guarantees, looking to government for leadership.”

Rather than consulting the Treasury or the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, Lord Mandelson is understood to have taken the unusual step of asking the Labour Party’s treasurer, Jack Dromey, for a list of corporate donors and sponsors.

“Lots of work to do; very busy, very busy identifying key players,” said Lord Mandelson. “Early days yet, of course; but I think it’s safe to say that Sainsbury’s and Tesco will turn out to be pretty recession-proof, along with British Aerospace, Shell, Nestlé, Patrick Stewart and Banksy’s art dealer. And if Eddie Izzard should happen to find his credit lines a bit over-extended in these trying times - not saying that he is, of course; very astute chap, Eddie, very ethical; a bit too much make-up for my tastes, but each to his own - well, it’s only right that the taxpayer should support this world leader in the cross-dressing comedy export industry.”

What Economic Crisis? Asks Lord Mandelson

The newly-ennobled Baron Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool has questioned the reality of the world economic crisis, as it emerged that he will be receiving £234,000 in severance pay over the next three years after resigning from his EU commissioner post, together with tax concessions and a £31,000pa pension, on top of the £104,386 salary he will receive as a government minister.

“Do you like the robes?” asked Lord Mandelson, as he emerged from his investiture. “I had them tailored by Hardy Amies, you know, just before they went bust. Now, let’s stop this idle media speculation about a global recession, shall we? I’ve got a lot of respect for the press, a lot of respect - very difficult job, long hours, deadlines to meet, I do understand - but really, do they have to keep banging on about this so-called ‘economic crisis’? I mean, I can only speak as I find - and I find that I’ve never been better off in my life than I am now. So let’s put an end to all this doom and gloom, shall we? Confidence, that’s what it’s all about you see. Sorry, must dash, I’m off to look at a new flat - very stylish, good location - moving up in the world, appearances to keep up, and I’ve got quite a good deal on it. It’s not what you know, as I always say.”

The Prime Minister’s new business secretary also announced that henceforth he will be known as Lord Mandelson - well, that’s what he’d like, anyway. He certainly won’t be called Baron Hardup, that’s for sure.

Machiavelli ‘Joined At The Hip’ to Brown

Peter Machiavelli, whose appointment as business secretary was the key surprise in Gordon Brown‘s cabinet reshuffle, has dismissed past tensions between himself and the prime minister.

“Of course there have been difficulties in our relationship,” he smiled. “But even in some of the darker moments, we were still able to talk very frankly to each other. And very honestly.”

Our reporter asked Mr Machiavelli exactly how frankly he had exchanged views with Mr Brown, on a scale from “Get a life, loser” to “You’re nothing but a soulless Scottish billy no-mates with a serious personality disorder who has about as much idea about running a sound, regulated economy as a weasel - and your grotesque, misshapen face would break if you ever attempted a genuine expression of human warmth, wouldn‘t it, you grim, pathetic gargoyle.”

After some thought, Mr Machiavelli said he was fairly certain that he had never described the prime minister’s personality disorder as “serious“.

We then asked Mr Brown how frankly he had spoken to Mr Machiavelli in the past, from a mild “You fraudulent, ideology-free poseur” to “How does it feel to have ruthlessly butchered the Labour party’s honourable tradition of deeply-held moral belief in the dignity of the working class on the altar of your greedy, heartless lust for power whilst shamelessly digging up the corpse of your own grandfather in a nakedly-misleading attempt to present yourself as the true heir of reforming post-war socialism, you scheming, manipulative little turd?”

“I think I said ‘creep’, actually,” said Mr Brown.

Mr Machiavelli stressed that “What’s important is what things are like now, and will be in the future. And from here on in, we’re joined at the hip. Not in a genital-touching way, of course, that would be too gross for words. But we do share a common arsehole - Tony Blair. Only joking, by the way. Very nice man.

“Incidentally, I did speak to Tony about the appointment before accepting it - he said it would be a no-brainer. And when I thought about it, you know, it made sense really. Let Gordon lose the next election - and then, in the aftermath, who‘s there saying, ‘Of course, if only I‘d been brought in earlier, none of this would have happened in the first place?’ That’s right, good old Mandy - always eager to serve, always willing to give 110% for the good of the country.

“The next Labour leader? Much too early to decide, and of course it‘s not for me to say. But look at the other candidates. Ed Balls? Decent chap, very media-friendly, sensible haircut - but not a name you‘d want to represent Britain at international conferences, is it? Harriet Harman - goes down well with the Guardian readers, of course, but a bit too strident for some. Tessa Jowell? Dodgy husband, scandal bound to emerge sooner rather than later, if you know what I mean. David Miliband? Scary robot man - need I say more?

“But perhaps someone new will rise up from the ranks as a possible leadership candidate? Maybe. I shall be watching. Very carefully. You have my absolute word on that.”