Labour Hails Slight Postponement Of Fuel Duty Hike As Glorious Victory For Communism

The government’s brief suspension of the coming 3% rise in fuel duty proves beyond all doubt that the notorious capitalist running dog, George Osborne, has finally accepted the undeniable truth of revolutionary socialism, jubilant shadow chancellor Ed Balls told a cowed and beaten House of Commons today.

The fleet's lit up! Well, it can afford to now, can't it

“Make no mistake, comrades, this is truly an historic moment in the annals of the revolution,” Mr Balls declaimed exultantly. “When, at long last, even the evil bloated plutocrat Osborne cravenly acknowledges the supreme validity of socialist economics by inserting a six-month pause into the hated fuel escalator inflicted on the downtrodden masses by the vainglorious running dog John Major, the triumph of the working class is complete.”

When asked by reporters afterwards why, during his many years as an economic advisor to Comrade Brown, he had somehow neglected to point out the inherent counter-revolutionary nature of planned rises in fuel duty, Brother Balls solemnly cautioned the press against any further mention of “that non-person”.

Comrade Balls is also understood to be so utterly committed to finalising the long-overdue downfall of the discredited feudal hierarchy that his strange lack of opposition to the tottering elite’s impending downtreading of the young masses, fire-sale of the machinery of state and closure of the people’s hospitals can surely be forgiven, explained his burly commissars.

Wah, Say Motorists

Your local garage, now

Car addicts are tearing around today with their heads out of the window, screaming uncontrollably as they desperately track down all the remaining petrol in the country and pour it into every available container on the off-chance that a few tanker drivers might conceivably go on strike for a couple of days in a week or two.

“The kitchen sink, the bath, the bins and all the saucepans are brim-full, so I poured concrete down the toilet, just like Francis Maude told me, so now it’ll hold about 20 litres mmph glug,” blurted a haggard BMW lover on a garage forecourt in Hendon, as he sucked the last few drops out of a nozzle and stored them in his cheeks for future use.

Meanwhile, an embarrassed government hastily dispatched roads minister and former fireman Mike Penning to allay the fears of Britain’s panic-stricken motorists by grasping their shoulders, headbutting them in the face and telling them to “Get a fucking grip, shithead” – starting, live on national television, with his cabinet colleague, Francis ‘Firestarter’ Maude.

Dancing In Streets Over Entirely Academic Reduction In Soaring Price Of Petrol

After only 83,928,500 litres, you'll have the cock you've always wanted

Britain is still reeling in delight today, after chancellor George Osborne became the nation’s darling after allowing a tiny 1p reduction in the enormous chunk of the skyrocketing cost of a litre of petrol which goes to the Treasury.

“George Osborne can bugger me bandy right now, if the fancy takes him,” enthused ecstatic petrolarse Jeremy Clarkson through tears of gratitude, speaking for the entire car-addict community as he unpeeled his stretch jeans for the first time in years. “And James May has volunteered to administer the Swarfega. Watch and learn, Richard Hammond.”

As millions of grinning car owners feverishly attempted to calculate how many throaty Bugatti penis substitutes they will be able to buy with all the pennies they will save, nobody was churlish enough to spoil the party by paying any attention to Mr Osborne’s encouragement of even more tax evasion from British companies exporting their cash to the numerous tax havens overseen – if that’s the word - by the Foreign Office, or his green light to the banks to carry on gambling as usual.

Meanwhile, the nation’s private jet owners quietly set about restructuring their operations as exclusive charter airlines which will sell nominal tickets to their corporate passengers to take advantage of the laxity of Mr Osborne’s fuel duty rules, thus neatly circumventing his meaningless threat to tax executive travel perks.

Motorists Inexplicably Happy About Scarcely Relevant 1p Fuel Duty Rethink

We're saved

Britain’s long-suffering but easily-pleased drivers were ecstatic today over the news that prime minister David Cameron may reconsider the planned 1p rise in fuel duty due next month.

“Given that every 10p rise in the cost of a litre results in an extra 4½p for the government, and prices have already soared by 8p since this time last month – and remember, that’s on the back of the additional 2½% VAT windfall – well, let’s just say I’m feeling generous for once and leave that thought floating in the air for a few weeks, shall we?” beamed Mr Cameron as he aired his thoughts.

FairFuel UK campaign leader and former Clarkson straight-man Quentin Wilson - who was not allowed a calculator at school and therefore holds no truck with the confounded things - instantly pronounced himself delighted with the prime minister’s potential largesse.

“According to my trusty slide rule, this huge saving means that every single household in the UK will be £19,500 a year better off,” he explained breathlessly. “Well, give or take a bob either way. In everyday language, that means the difference between a barrel-scraping BMW 318i ES and an altogether more satisfactory 535i M-Sport.”

Meanwhile, proud oil industry executives have almost finished recruiting two complete armies of battle-hardened mercenaries, and will soon be ready to parachute them into Libya to assist both sides in the looming civil war that threatens to send global oil prices skyrocketing.

Energy Bosses Decide Against Becoming Fabulously Wealthy At Slightly Slower Rate Suggested By Regulator

The UK's energy suppliers have donated a rope to Ofgem and a helpful diagram showing them how to piss up it, in response to the market regulator's polite request asking them if it wouldn't be too much trouble for them to take a few moments to briefly consider the remote possibility of maybe passing a tiny little fraction of the huge drop in wholesale energy prices on to their increasingly impoverished customers, if they wouldn't mind, that is.

EDF Energy executives on a fact-finding trip to the Frankfurt Motor Messe took time out from drooling over their newly-ordered Lamborghini Polygón coupés to say: "Nom d'un nom! We would of course be 'appy to reduce tareefs eef, 'ow you say, market conditions allow. Malheureusement, 'owevair, zees beautiful car she cost 1.1 million euros. Lamborghini, zey are only making fifteen of zem and we need zem all, or else zose cons from E.On will be flaunting zem all around zer glorious Fatherland - and our valued victims en Angleterre will surely agree zat zis cannot be allowed to 'appen, n'est-ce pas?"

Meanwhile, E.On directors were too busy slavering at the new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing to care what their French counterparts were saying. One of them, however, pointed reporters in the direction of the revoltingly ugly Peugeot iOn electric car, in the hope that any remaining UK customers still able to scrape together the money for a new car after settling their energy bills would buy one and plug it into the mains for several hours a day.

British Gas, whose senior management had just signed contracts for the first McLaren MP4-12C supercars off the production line, shook their heads sadly as they warned that prices were likely to remain at historically high levels because the soaring cost of paperclips meant that their penurious customers may well find more price hikes just around the corner, despite some slight reduction in the wholesale costs that British Gas pays to its sister companies for electricity and gas.

"Well, there you are - we asked. Job done for another year," smiled Ofgem chiefs apologetically, squeezing a few tears out of their pet crocodile before wandering off to see if they could put their names down for any remaining luxury dream cars not yet snapped up by energy bosses.

Airliners to Generate All Carbon Emissions By 2050

In order to meet the UK's targets for carbon emission reductions whilst allowing for growth in the aviation industry, everybody's domestic electricity and gas will be cut off and road vehicles banned by the year 2050, according to the government's advisory committee on climate change.

"In the future, the only carbon emissions will come from the queues of zeppelin-sized airliners stacked in holding patterns above Britain's airports, hoping for a landing slot to become available," said committee chair Adair Turner. "To keep this vital industry alive, everybody will have to sacrifice their lighting, heating, food preparation, home entertainment and personal transport. You'll still be able to fly to anywhere in the world whenever you feel like it, of course, only you'll have to walk to the airport first."

"It's either this, or give up your annual two-week piss-up in the Med," he added. "Unless, perhaps, you don't mind a brisk swim across the Channel, followed by a trans-continental hike."

A spokesman for the aviation industry pointed out that the airlines would not be exempt from having to make savage cuts themselves to meet any new, stringent climate agreements which might, unlikely though it may seem, be thrashed out by ministers in Copenhagen this December.

"Our long-cherished dreams of passenger-carrying rockets criss-crossing the world's oceans, burning up skyscraper-sized tanks of liquid hydrogen, have regrettably been put on the back burner once again," he sighed. "Similarly, our hopes of renting individual jet-packs to travellers have been cruelly dashed by the wicked lies whispered into the ears of gullible ministers by the evil environmentalist lobby."

"If those beardy-weirdy tree-huggers get their way, you'll never be able to charter your own personal LearJet for that tranquil weekend getaway in the Lake District," he warned holidaymakers.

$4bn Purchase of French Strike Aircraft Will Safeguard Brazilian Way of Life, Promises Sarkozy

Joyful residents of Rio de Janeiro's 800 favelas were dancing in their shit-filled streets today, after President Luiz Inacio Lulu Twiggy da Silva announced that Brazil may soon be signing a $4bn deal to purchase 36 French Rafale fighter planes.

France's President Sarkozy, meanwhile, was enjoying the South American nation's Independence Day celebrations in Brasilia, in a welcome break from his duties as chief salesman for France's huge arms industry.

"The relationship between Brazil and France is not one of supplier and client, but of partners," he told Brazilians who were both literate and lucky enough to have enough spare cash to buy a copy of newspaper O Globo. "In exactly the same way that workers who slog their guts out for multinational corporations are no longer contemptible wage-slaves, but valued associates."

The Rafale has faced stiff competition from Boeing's F/A-18 Killer Bee and Saab's Gripen Trek TNG - but Mr Sarkozy's canny sales technique has already persuaded Brazil to purchase five submarines and fifty transport helicopters, complete with extended warranties and built-in MP3 players.

"When I set off every morning down the hill to haul buckets of murky water back up to my tumbledown shack, I want to know that all those foreign-owned oil rigs off our shores will be defended by state-of-the-art warplanes capable of blowing things up at nearly twice the speed of sound," announced sewage-recycling associate Hugo Neves. "My family's daily gamble with death from dysentery is a small price to pay, if it ensures the safety of these valuable assets owned by BP, Total and ExxonMobil."

"Mr Sarkozy really is a fantastic salesman," agreed his neighbour Severino Calixto, whose photogenically-ragged son scrapes a meagre living for the family by showing camera-waving tourists around the few stench-free parts of the colourful shanty-towns beneath their hotel balconies. "His glib salesmanship convinced me to sell my daughter Fortunata to a brothel to raise the cash for an oxygen-free pure copper SCART lead, so I can connect a DVD player to my TV set. Now all I need is a DVD player, a DVD and a regular electricity supply to take my mind off the never-ending misery of abject poverty."

Electricity-Generating Virus Unlikely To Wreck Our Wedding Nights, Boast Hubristic Scientists

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Frankenstein Technology have developed a battery powered by a bacteriophage virus, which they promise will enable billions of car owners to continue driving round the corner for a pint of milk without the risk of experiencing a vague feeling of remorse that they have just wasted another drop of the world's dwindling fossil fuel reserves.

Instead, muttered the wild-eyed scientists, the motorists of the future will only have to ignore a remorseless, gnawing fear in the back of their minds that, in the event of a front-end shunt, they may inadvertently release a horribly-mutated virus cloud that will devour the flesh of every living creature on the planet, starting with them.

The prototype battery is the size of a coin, making it suitable only for a SoundBlaster remote control or a 20-year-old 8k memory card. However, the twisted minds of misguided scientists are working feverishly to find a way to grow it to the size of a large dog - possibly by bombarding it with Cherenkov radiation, or raising it to the skies at the height of a raging thunderstorm.

When asked whether dabbling with the very forces of creation might perhaps lead to unforeseen consequences, the researchers angrily ordered their assistant - a shambling amoeboid cyborg called Igor - to throw out the ignorant villagers.

"You fools!" they said later, in a press release. "You cannot hope to understand! We are on the brink of realising mankind's greatest goal throughout the centuries - nothing less than power over 1.5V itself!"

A fearful peasant mob of environmentalists which had gathered at the village inn was thwarted when somebody pointed out a fatal flaw in their hastily-devised plan to release the virus from captivity, namely that they stood little chance of burning MIT to its foundations with wind-up torches.

MPs Asked: 'What Could Possibly Be More Important Than Alleviating Poverty?'

The long-awaited Fuel Poverty Bill has been blocked by MPs, after so many of them failed to turn up that a vote could not be taken.

With only 10% of Tories and 7% of Labour politicians bothering to put in an appearance, the quorum of one hundred MPs was missed by eleven - stalling the progress of Lib Dem MP David Heath's bill, which aims to bring homes up to current energy-efficiency standards, introduce social tariffs for vulnerable households and reinforce the government's legal duty to end fuel poverty.

The Federation of Private Residents Association called the MPs' mass absence "a crying shame", and asked why so few had turned out to support to support the important bill.

MPs coughed and went red in the face when it turned out that they had been preoccupied with examining the details of their expenses claims, in case they included any educational films that they and their partners may have been scrutinising at home, with commendable diligence, in order to gain a deeper understanding of what might be causing Britain's soaring teenage pregnancies.

Spectre of Gas Warfare Hangs Over Europe

The whole of Eastern Europe has had its gas supply cut off in the escalating dispute between Russia and Ukraine over an unpaid bill. With Germany, France and Italy also experiencing shortfalls in supply, Russia has put forward a solution promising to turn the taps back on if Europe sends a team into Ukraine to monitor the pipeline.

"It's the bloody thieving neighbours at it again, I'm telling you," said Vladimir Putin. "I wouldn't trust them Ukrainian pikeys further than I could throw 'em - not since they welcomed Hitler's troops with open arms, bloody fools them for all the good it did 'em. I reckon there's probably that many garden hoses illegally plumbed into the pipeline, it looks like a great big hairy caterpillar. I'd send in the bailiffs, myself - only when I did that in Georgia last year, you all screamed blue murder. Tell you what, Europe. You send some observers into Ukraine - preferably the kind who do their observing through a laser-guided rangefinder, known what I mean? - and I'm sure we'll have your gas flowing again in a jiffy, no problem."

Brown Unveils Fuel-Poverty Relief Funding For Britain's Home-Improvement Installation Companies

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has finally announced his long-awaited plans to give nearly a billion pounds to the business sector under the guise of helping to alleviate fuel poverty.

Under the scheme, the home-improvement trade is set for a mini-bonanza under the plan to install loft and cavity insulation in any homes not already insulated.

Grateful installation companies are already placing advertisements throughout Eastern Europe to recruit more cheap labour to install the energy-saving measures.

“As a strict Calvinist, the idea of giving away money to people who actually need it causes me real physical pain,” explained the Prime Minister. “I just couldn’t bring myself to give unearned handouts to feckless scroungers, even if some of the older ones might be in danger of freezing to death this winter. This way, the money all goes towards making company directors and investors richer, which is what Labour is all about.”

The Nev Filter had great difficulty contacting any poor people, as they are so amateurish and disorganised that they don’t seem to have any lobby groups or PR groups listed in our media contacts directory. However, when our cleaner came in she pointed out that really poor people tend to live in rented accommodation and, since landlords were generally not all that poor, they wouldn’t qualify for the free insulation and so wouldn’t sign up for it – even at half price - leaving their tenants shivering as usual.

She added that most residential accommodation in Britain has had insulation for years anyway and the bills were still astronomical, and told us: “you coked-up little media shits with your BMWs and your holiday homes in Tuscany have no sodding idea what poverty in the UK is.” We thanked her for her contribution and sent her on her way with a clip round the ear and a warning to show more respect to her betters.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown is said to be looking at helpful ways to reduce the spiralling cost of everyday motoring next, with a plan to fit free solar panels to all high-performance cars costing over £50,000.

E.on Executive Nominated For 'Best Newcomer' Comedy Award

Energy company E.on has apologised after one of its senior executives joked that a severe winter would mean “more money for us”.

Mark Owen-Lloyd, the company’s head of power trading, made the comment during a seminar organised by the industry’s futile, toothless regulator, Ofgem.

“We’re sorry our grumpy customers are too wrapped up in their own selfish misery to realise that Mr Owen-Lloyd’s comments are utterly hilarious,” said a company spokesman. “Our board of directors falls about laughing at it every day.”

The government - which does very nicely out of high energy costs through VAT and corporation tax, thank you - agreed that Mr Owen-Lloyd’s comments were “absolutely spot on”.

“Oh, for God’s sake crack a smile, you miserable gits,” a chortling Hilary Benn told angry consumer groups. “What’s up, can’t you take a little home truth? Ha ha-ha ha ha.”

Won't Get Fuelled Again

Gordon Brown has further angered an increasingly-impoverished nation by declaring that the government will not, after all, be helping millions of householders struggling with skyrocketing fuel bills by giving them a one-off payment of £100.

Announcing the U-turn from an upstairs window of 10 Downing Street, the prime minister shouted: “What do you think I am, made of money? Bugger off, the lot of you!” at reporters, before emptying a chamber-pot out into the street and slamming the window shut.

A spokeswoman for the catchily-named Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform later confirmed that the much-touted cash assistance plan had been dumped in favour of some vague-sounding pep-talk about improving energy efficiency, which would probably contain an appropriate number of buzz-words and platitudes and keep Guardian leader-writers happy for five minutes.

She denied rumours circulating within government circles that the prime minister had prised open the department’s petty cash tin with a spoon and run off with the several hundred million pounds in loose change set aside to help the poorest households with their energy bills, shouting: “It’s my money, and if I want to give it all to the construction industry instead, in return for some woolly promises about better insulation, then that’s my business.”

“I don’t think it was a spoon he used,” she said. “I heard it was a rusty penknife.”

The embattled prime minister later appeared again at the window - stark naked, clutching a cuddly toy panda and grinning from ear to ear - and told the media that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the economy. In an ensuing scuffle within the upstairs room, he was then apparently wrestled away from the window by spin doctors, some of whom seemed to be holding large syringes.

Storm in a Teacup

George W Bush has expressed his disappointment at the lacklustre performance of Hurricane Gustav, which missed the abandoned ghost town of New Orleans and has now been downgraded to a Category One storm.

“I passed up the Republican party convention for this?” complained the president, who went to Austin, Texas with vice-president Dick Cheney in order to get a ringside view of the anticipated devastation. “I missed the show here three years ago, but I came down afterwards and everywhere you looked there was utter devastation. It looked like it musta been awesome. Back then, everyone was saying I oughta have been there sooner, so this time I took their advice and booked in advance. Well, thanks for nothing, losers - I missed out on a standing ovation from my loyal, drooling fanclub, thanks to you.”

Meanwhile, British TV screens are filled with images of rain-lashed streets in America, taking viewers’ minds off the rain-lashed streets outside their windows.

Along with every other UK news provider, the Nev Filter sent its top reporter to New Orleans hoping for shocking live coverage of marauding looter gangs and corpses floating in the floodwaters.

“The fact that I’m standing here, soaking wet, on a blustery New Orleans street instead of being flung dramatically into the stratosphere indicates what a damp squib this story has turned out to be,” he reported via his mobile phone. “I said last week, you should have sent me to the Caribbean. Hold on, there’s a chap over there struggling with a collapsed umbrella, do you want me to interview him? Sir, you’ve lost your temper completely and your brolly is in ruins. Do you think the authorities should do more to help?”

Meanwhile, oil companies rubbed their hands together in glee as they found yet another spurious excuse for raising their prices.

Thatcher 'Demented' Says Daughter: 'Oh Really,' Say Ex-Miners

Carol Thatcher has revealed in a newly-published book that her mother, the former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has been suffering from dementia since the year 2000.

“That’s news to us,” said one South Yorkshire miner unable to find work in his unemployment-blighted town for over twenty years. “We thought she was demented when she shut down the entire coal industry forever, with her vindictive refusal to even leave care-and-maintenance teams to keep the mines ready for the day when rising fuel costs would make the pits economically viable again – a day, incidentally, that she hastened by thrusting the energy sector into the grasping hands of unaccountable businessmen driven solely by greed and profit.”

MG TF LE NBG

There were celebrations in the motoring world today as Nanking Automotive Company restarted production at the Longbridge factory in the Midlands, which was shut down in 2005 with the loss of 6,000 jobs. The first production models of the snappily-named MG TF LE500 sports car are expected in showrooms in September.

“There’s never been a better time to launch a fuel-guzzling, £16,000 two-seater sports car,” enthused corporate optimist Eleanor De La Haye.

Think Of A Number

British Gas owners Centrica have posted a £992m half-year profit, a day after telling domestic gas customers that their bills were to rise by 35%.

Although 20% down on previous figures, Centrica’s profit figures still exceeded City forecasts by £100m; and shareholders will see their dividend increased to 3.9p a share.

“Haven’t we done well?” beamed managing director Phil Pockets. “Fortunately our prices were so high in the first place that we had a splendid safety net to keep things ticking along nicely. And by caning the punters with a 35% increase, we’ll be in clover for the next couple of months too. Then we can whack the prices up even more and blame the ever-popular ‘world energy market’ again. Nobody knows what the hell that actually means, which is great.”

When asked whether it was fair to make long-suffering British Gas customers subsidise the shareholders’ profits, Mr Pockets looked blank and asked what ‘fair’ meant, as it was a word he hadn’t come across before. When referred to a dictionary, he fell about laughing.

“Let me give you a simple lesson in market economics,” he explained, when he got up. “Shareholders give us lots of money. They matter, because at any time they can take their money and invest it anywhere else they choose. Customers also give us lots of money - but they don’t matter. They can only take their custom to a couple of other energy providers, who are all as ravenously greedy as us. Although some of our victims – sorry, customers - will switch suppliers, sooner or later the competition hikes their prices even higher and people come back to us. So as far as we’re concerned it’s a captive market - which is jolly nice, if you can swing it.”

“Anyway, don’t blame us,” added Mr Pockets. “Blame Carol Vorderman. We heard she was available, so we made her an offer and she came up with some nice big numbers for us. We’re quite keen on 35 at the moment, but we’re hoping to pull a few more numbers out and see what she can do with them.”

Meanwhile, hard-pressed customers hoping in vain to the government to intervene on their behalf are coming up with plenty of four-letter words.

Gas Prices Set to Soar For No Readily Apparent Reason

British Gas owner Centrica has warned that prices are set to rise by more than 60% early in the next decade, raising the average household bill to over £1000.

Centrica’s managing-quite-nicely-thanks director Jake Ulrich said: “We’re part of a world economy and I don’t think we can rely on UK production or cheap gas, cheap energy of any sort any more.”

Mr Ulrich added that the price of gas was tied to soaring oil prices, but somehow omitted to explain why.

“I think people will change the temperature they keep the house, they’ll be more cognisant of energy waste, they’ll buy better appliances,” he went on to say, still not mentioning why gas prices were linked to oil.

“I think people will use less energy and I hate to go back to Jimmy Carter days in the US, but maybe it’s two jumpers instead of one,” he added, which did not really go very far at all in explaining the link between gas and oil prices.

“Look, I’m hurting too,” said Mr Ulrich from the upper deck of his corporate cabin cruiser. “Have you any idea how much it costs to run one of these babies nowadays? There’s a couple of 950-horsepower Mercuries under the deck back there. Without this floating vodka tank helping us to get those Gazprom people absolutely trashed every time we re-negotiate the Russian supply contracts, you’d probably be paying twice as much again. You wouldn’t believe how much petrol this ocean-going drinks cabinet gets through on a round trip to the Black Sea.”

We asked if that was the reason why gas prices were linked to oil - but unfortunately Mr Ulrich had to excuse himself, as he was too busy taking delivery of another wheelbarrow of fivers to answer any more questions.

Meanwhile, in the United States, former Vice-President Al Gore is trying to persuade his countrymen to abandon fossil fuels as a source of power generation within a decade, drive normal-sized cars and spell ‘colour’ with a U.

Those Earth-Shattering G8 Pronouncements In Brief

And there’s just time to sum up the other announcements from the G8:

1. Robert Mugabe has been very naughty.

2. Everyone should stop wasting food, apart from us.

3. Have you seen the price of petrol lately? Shocking.

"What Food Crisis?" Say G8 Leaders, "This Caviar's Lovely"

World leaders are playing down the deployment of 21,000 police in the Japanese lakeside town of Tokayo to cover the G8 meeting which begins there today.

With rising food and fuel prices likely to dominate the agenda, the heads of state stressed that the worldwide economic meltdown was purely a figment of people’s imaginations, caused by misinformation, bad karma and negative vibes.

“With 21,000 police officers standing between us and the people of the world, anyone would think we were less than universally popular,” said Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “Let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. The worldwide recession that isn’t happening is not our fault. The Japanese authorities are polite to a fault, and to save delegates from the embarrassment of missing a meeting by accidentally forgetting to set their watches to local time, they will be able to ask a friendly Japanese policeman every three yards.”

“Gee,” said US President George W Bush. “Look at all the nice shiny uniforms. When do we get to talk about putting more missiles into Europe?”

Meanwhile, starving people in the poorest nations on Earth took heart from the message that there was no major recession.

“As the empty plates facing my family are illusions caused by our ignorance of global market forces, I shall just tell them to imagine heaps of delicious food piled high on their plates, and to believe that their stomachs are full,” said a Brazilian peasant, on his way to deliver his crops to a Monsanto biofuel converter.