UN To Debate No-Fly Zone Over Basildon

Hold on tight now, girls and boys

As evil British dictator Colonel Gadavey’s minions on the People’s Reactionary Council of Basildon gear up in readiness for an all-out assault on Dale Farm, a ramshackle camp full of ethnic pikeys, the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on the UN Security Council to implement a no-fly zone over Basildon as a matter of the utmost urgency.

“In the last few days, Colonel Gadavey’s propaganda machine has been pumping out explicitly anti-pikey tales of fairground atrocities, turning the population against this victimised ethnic minority,” warned the committee. “The pikey community of the United Kingdom has been discriminated against for centuries. The lowly job opportunities allowed to them are restricted to the running of rickety amusement-park rides and offering disdainful shoppers the choice of a worthless sprig of heather or an unspoken curse.”

“The world cannot, and must not, look away and let this injustice happen,” concluded the report. “Basildon Council’s offensive capability must be neutralised, if necessary by a punitive airstrike against its car pool.”

President Nicolas Sarkozy has already indicated that the French people would be more than happy to commit their fighter-bombers and assault helicopters to supporting Britain’s pikey minority, as long as they promised to stay there and keep the fuck out of France.

Deserving Cases Could Live In Eric Pickles, Claims Minister

Yum, grub's up

Amid furore over a leaked letter suggesting that man-mountain communities secretary Eric Pickles appeared to have been concerned that the government’s planned £500 cap on housing benefits could make 40,000 homeless, health minister Angela Lansbury was hastily pushed in front of a camera to reassure the nation that “deserving cases” could be helped by opening up vast caverns within Mr Pickles and installing rudimentary lighting and a couple of windows.

“Young Conservative potholers have been exploring the inner folds of Eric’s digestive tract for some years now, and say they have mapped hundreds of room-sized voids and a couple the size of a cathedral,” explained a sweating Mr Lansbury. “I’m sure we could send a team of Polish painters and decorators in there to plaster over the cracks, put in a few partition walls and get the place looking like a regular home from home in no time.”

“And the plumbing’s already in place, which is a bonus,” he added. “It can get a bit noisy and whiffy in there at times, of course, but what do you expect if you’re on benefits – a ruddy palace?”

“Let me get this straight,” commented an appalled spokesman for Shelter. “The government’s idea of helping the poor is to feed them to Eric Pickles. I’m not certain that this is something we’d endorse.”

Industrial Estate Units To Make Ideal Starter Homes

Parking probably won't be a problem

Councils all over the country gleefully served P45s to their planning departments, as George Osborne announced that they would no longer need to consider any factors associated with a proposed development other than the temporary requirement for a couple of part-time jobs in the painting and decorating trade before granting planning permission for anything, anywhere.

The Budget also released councils from their statutory duty of saving people from living in shitholes.

“Jolly good, that’s the housing crisis sorted,” beamed Mr Osborne, looking supremely pleased with himself as usual.

“All over the country, councils are up to their necks in unleasable small business units on out-of-the-way industrial estates,” explained a spokesman for the Town and Country Planning Association, as he nailed a ‘For Sale: Excellent Potential For Social Housing’ sign to the association’s elegant SW1 headquarters. “Now that industrial premises can be flogged off to the usual suspects for conversion to rabbit hutches, expect to see Sky dishes and tacky prefab conservatories sprouting up all over those hideous conglomerations of leaky tin shacks in the next few months.”

“And I’m sure the upper galleries of Britain’s forgotten coal mines would benefit greatly from a couple of judiciously-placed partition walls and the application of a few rolls of B&Q wallpaper,” he added. “No need to go to the bother of connecting them to the water mains, either – there’s a plentiful supply in the lower levels.”

Housing Charity Confirms Boris Johnson’s Fears of Impending Servant Shortage

The homelessness charity Shelter today confirmed that London mayor Boris Johnson was right to express his concern that the government’s proposed cap on housing benefits would price the servant class out of the city, saying that research by Cambridge University clearly indicated that the majority of two-bedroom homes in Greater London would be priced beyond the reach of claimants.

“Without a pool of available labour on hand in the capital, Mr Johnson and his fellow Tory millionaires will be forced to club together to pay the costs of bussing their cleaners, drivers, valets and chimney sweeps down from the North of England and back every day,” said chief executive Campbell Robb.

“Of course, the comparatively minor shared expense of a few dozen minibuses might not lose them a great deal of sleep,” he added, “But perhaps they should ask themselves if they really want to place their lives and fragile, priceless household knick-knacks in the hands of a group of incomprehensible Northerners, who will be in a permanent semi-torpid state due to the daily rigours of a ten-hour round trip.”

PM David Cameron, however, remains unmoved - suggesting that he and other Tory grandees would be well-placed to mount an inexpensive bid for the athletes’ village currently under construction in the East End, once the London Olympics were over.

Hot-bunking should fit up to twelve skivvies into each hutch, says Cameron

“Owing to their strange lack of ensuite kitchen facilities, these accommodations are completely unviable for commercial letting purposes,” he pointed out. “On the other hand, this omission makes them perfect – and, of course, reassuringly cheap - barracks accommodation for our army of skivvies.”

Planning Authorities Should Be Replaced By Unabashed Bribery, Says Think Tank

12 grand per yokel ought to cover this nicely

Council planning departments could be shut down, announced think-tank Policy Exchange today, if developers were simply allowed to bribe local residents.

“We currently labour under an outdated planning system where expensive planning officers keep sticking their oar in, constantly moaning about irrelevant rubbish like ‘street scene’, ‘severe access problems’ and ‘conservation areas’, and spouting incomprehensible jargon like ‘inappropriate’, ‘sprawl’ and ‘blight’,” explained the report’s editor, Natalie Evans. “All of this gets in the way of developers plonking down whatever they want, wherever they like. And they assure me that what they desperately want to build - more than anything else in the world - is dirt cheap housing for first-time buyers, and absolutely not hugely profitable holiday homes for the rich.”

“Why on earth can’t these speculative philanthropists simply dole out huge wads of cash to everyone in the area, enabling them all to move away before the place is covered in multi-storey apartments?” she implored. “That seems much fairer to me. I’ve got my eye on a nice spot down in Mevagissey, but for some reason those tiresome jobsworths at Cornwall County Council keep refusing to grant planning permission for a tasteful eight-storey apartment block overlooking the picturesque 18th-century harbour.”

The Power of 'Davey Cutter' Bombs

Green Unpleasant Land

Housing Minister Grant Shapps today announced that developers could build affordable housing in villages without having to go through all that tiresome nonsense about planning permission in future, as long as they offered suitable bribes to any remaining locals who haven’t been squeezed out by rich tossers from London buying up everything in sight for a picturesque second home in the country.

The plan is for local ‘housing trusts’ to vote on whether they wish to blight their rural idyll forever with low-cost housing developments, before selling up to some unsuspecting townie bastard and getting the hell out of Britain on the first available ferry to Spain.

“Oi’m orl forr it, zurr,” said Jethro Slurry, 72, the last of a long family line which has lived in the sleepy Somerset hamlet of Chorlton Wheleigh since being granted a hidal burghage in 1172. “Let zay zemty-foive grann apiece furr me an’ ole Mrs Tolpuddle as use turr run th’ Powst Orifice afore ‘ee shut daown, plus wot us’ll git furr a faast zale a’boaf uzz cottages t’zumm stock-opp bleddy yuppies, an’ it’s ‘ellow lurrve shaack daown on ‘im thurr Coster Brarrvurr f’r uzz, innit me ‘anzumm?”

Countryside preservation groups have already fainted dead away at the proposals, while county councillors up and down the country have been rubbing their hands with glee and ringing round their architect friends for quotes.

Put Homeless in Burnt-Out Shells, Says Cameron

Conservative leader David Cameron has unveiled a radical plan to reduce waiting lists for social housing by removing tiresome, unnecessary housing regulations, such as the requirement for a roof.

There are currently 4.5 million people waiting to be housed and, with over a hundred repossessions every day, the number is rising rapidly.

"There is far too much red tape holding everything up," explained Mr Cameron. "In these difficult times, people can't afford to be too choosy. Obviously glass windows are better than plywood boards, wallpaper is more decorative than obscene graffiti and boards are ideally placed in neat rows on the floor rather than doused in petrol, stuffed under the staircase and lit - but really, all you need to make a home is four walls. In fact three will do, at a pinch."

"Councils are just wasting valuable time and money bringing these hovels up to an arbitrary level that some fusty do-gooder long ago decided was 'fit for human habitation'," he continued. "What's important is to get these ghastly scum housed right away. Then, if they've got to put their own roof on, replace the melted electrics and kill all the cockroaches, they'll be far too tired to go out stealing cars and throwing stones at fire engines, or whatever it is that they do on council estates."

Mr Cameron went on to say that, once the rehoused families were able to move out of the coal cellar, they would then be free to convert it into live-in quarters for their domestic staff.