Philip Kept Strictly In Background For Historic Handshake

Theresa May Wishes European Court A Merry Christmas

Home secretary Theresa May today wished the European Court of Human Rights a very merry Christmas and a happy new year – adding that she hoped, when it reconvenes in a fortnight after the festive break, it would readily agree that fundamentalist Islamic hate preacher and MI5’s former best friend Abu Qatada has hopelessly missed the deadline for appealing against deportation.

Mrs May has also sent ministerial Christmas cards out to bemused cabinet colleagues, civil servants and representatives of the legal industry, in which she congratulates Britain for putting its economic woes firmly behind it and winning all the gold medals in the Olympics.

Molotov Cocktail Not A Proper Bomb, Insists Ecclestone

As Team India staff begged Bernie Ecclestone to release them from indentured servitude and let them go home to their families after a petrol bomb narrowly missed them on a Bahrain motorway, the billionaire F1 microbe smoothly insisted that the Gulf state remains nothing less than a veritable oasis of love and harmony.

“A Molotov cocktail isn’t a real bomb at all,” he explained. “It’s more of a kid’s toy, actually.”

Mr Ecclestone decides to avoid the traffic jams

“What you have to understand is that Bahrain is sadly lacking in supervised play areas,” squeaked Mr Ecclestone from his luxury armoured personnel carrier. “The lovable local street urchins have to make their own entertainment with whatever they happen to find lying about. Since all the cash that used to float around on the breeze now belongs to me, that only leaves them with a giant underground lake of petrochemicals to amuse themselves with.”

“It’s just a bit of harmless fun,” he beamed indulgently as one of his APC’s eight wheels suddenly flew through the air with an entertaining bang, adding: “You cheeky little buggers! I know your dads!”

Convenient Amnesia Outbreak Spreads To Blair

Former prime minister Tony Blair has become the latest victim of the terrible Convenient Amnesia epidemic which is striking so many establishment figures dumb, after tragically failing to remember why he told the British public that his government was absolutely opposed to extraordinary rendition, while his security services were cheerfully kicking anyone who looked a bit shifty to the Americans onto the next unscheduled flight to Diego Garcia.

Mr Blair genuinely has no idea why this matters

Convenient Amnesia was first diagnosed in the US in 1986, when Lt Col Oliver North developed the symptoms after a trip to Nicaragua - or possibly Iran, as he was unable to recall his travel arrangements - and quickly infected then-president Ronald Reagan. The deadly disease rapidly spread, and is now endemic throughout the elites of the world.

“Not so long ago Tony was perfectly capable of running out a superb line of self-justifying bullshit whenever he felt like it,” explained a brain surgeon. “When he was on form, he could effortlessly pull a rubber terrorist out of the top of his head and wave it threateningly in your face until you ran away, or give his credibility a good stretch by claiming that God had told him it was OK. Now he just sits vacantly in front of a microphone on The World At One, trying desperately to remember a single excuse.”

Scientists are working hard to discover a cure for this awful affliction. Meanwhile, for sufferers like Tony, their only hope is to pray that they don’t.

Wino Mumbles Something About Jihad For Christmas

Sharp-eared Sun hacks desperate for enough filler material to provide a spurious excuse for not mentioning the News Corp AGM triumphed today, uncovering what sounded a bit like a fiendish call for a Christmas jihad from a wino in Costcutter.

Commander Insert Made-Up Towel-Head Name, Sub made a chilling sight as he angrily threw dozens of grimy coins on the counter and kept forgetting the price of the cheapest vodka in the shop, according to fearless reporter Nick Porkies - who single-handedly uncovered the dastardly plot as he queued for 20 Marlboro and a scratchcard.

Take this with you next time you pop down the offy

“In his mad mumbled ravings, I distinctly heard the words ‘200 suicide bombers and assassins dressed as Santa are ready to blow up your children and what’s your cheapest baccy’,” asserted a shaken Mr Porkies, who managed to snap the Baby Jesus-hating madman after hastily smearing the lens of his iPhone with lard from a nearby special-offers display.

“If you see this murderous loony, or any other sad case who’s let himself go a bit, give us a ring and we’ll turn him into Public Enemy Number One,” urged Mr Porkies. “With the help of the vigilant Sun-reading public, let’s hope we can avoid the chilling spectre of the bloodbath at our AGM.”

US Special Forces Suggest Archbishop's 'Uncomfortable Feeling' May Caused By Wearing Big Purple Dress In Public

Obama Suddenly Realises Futility Of Arguing With Woo Community

Obama's State-Of-You address - fuck off, come back and fuck off again

President Obama has sensationally refused to publish photographs of a Middle Eastern man with a head like a colander, after it belatedly dawned on him that he was getting into one of those never-ending arguments with an army of conspiracy addicts for whom no amount of factual evidence will ever constitute absolute proof.

“You know what? Fuck it,” the president told reporters at a special White House briefing. “We could be arguing pointlessly for years, and I really have got better things to do. So I’m not going to bother publishing a load of grainy pictures of some guy nobody’s seen for a decade with his brain decorating the walls, any more than I’m going to hold a fucking séance to ask him to name his favourite teacher. You can believe Bin Laden is dead, or you can believe that marmalade is made by pixies for all it changes anything. Because I really don’t give a shit.”

“End of,” he added emphatically. “Have a nice life, losers.”

The internet was instantly abuzz with jubilant claims that the president’s refusal to continue an unwinnable argument proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Osama Bin Laden was still very much alive and kicking, apart from the small matter of his deaths in 2003 and 2007.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, responded swiftly by demanding the release of Bin Laden’s death certificate.

Evil Terrorists Nearly Killed Millions With Deadly Photos Of Sellafield, Claim Police

Run like fuck

Five Asians (read: Fanatical Islamic Terrorists) on holiday in the Lake District came perilously close to killing every living thing in the United Kingdom, claim vigilant police officers who swooped when they saw the desperate, hate-filled terrorists clearly pointing cameras in the general direction of the giant Sellafield nuclear reprocessing facility which dominates the landscape.

“We could tell them wun’t from round ‘ere, ‘cos ‘appen we’re related to all t’folks round ‘ere,” explained eagle-eyed PC Bob Cumberland, the Cumbria force’s anti-terrorist squad. “Them looks aal foony an’ foreign. Turns out all o’ them coom oop from soom town folks call ‘London’. Me an’ t’wife’s uncle, ‘e says ‘tis fair crawling wi’ them Muslim fundimentals, like.”

The five – who have no links whatsoever to Osama Bin Laden, but it’s important to shoehorn his name in here somewhere – have been handed over to Greater Manchester Police, who are confident they will beat some satisfactory lies out of them.

Blofeld ‘Quiet Chap Who Kept Himself To Himself’, Say Astonished Neighbours

The people who lived next to Ernst Stavro Blofeld for years today told the world’s media that the evil genius was a quiet loner whom none of them would ever have believed capable of using a giant circular saw on a British secret agent.

“You’d occasionally see him going to the shop first thing in the morning to get a paper, but he wasn’t really much of a one for socialising and whatnot,” said the lady across the road. “Fancy him having a tank full of piranhas concealed beneath a trapdoor in the living room! It makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Well I never

His next-door neighbour says the only time he ever heard anything unusual coming from Mr Blofeld’s fortified house was the occasional cackle, usually followed by a splash and a brief threshing of water.

“I thought he just liked to cool his feet in an inflatable paddling pool from time to time,” explained the amazed neighbour, a high-ranking officer in Pakistan’s army. “But it seems he had a small lake filled with ravenous man-eating sharks in his back garden all this time, and nobody suspected a thing. Perhaps I might have seen it over the garden wall if I ever went upstairs, but strangely enough I never do.”

Residents did say that large items of furniture would sometimes be delivered in the middle of the night to the Blofeld compound, such as an enormous glass table with a map of the United States and several flashing lights, a 28m TV screen and a huge rocket launch tower, but added that in Pakistan’s top military city this hardly counted as unusual behaviour.

Bin Laden Felled By ‘Enery’s ‘Ammer

Evil genius Osama Bin Laden was taken down by the famous left hook of British boxing legend Henry Cooper in a precision assault planned by top military expert Richard Holmes and co-ordinated by whispering snooker commentator Ted Lowe, it emerged today.

Prof Holmes first applied his encyclopaedic knowledge of military campaigns to the mystery of Bin laden’s whereabouts, deploying foraging Pakistanis ahead of his main force in an ingenious adaptation of 19th century US cavalry tactics. Once his native scouts tracked down the terrorist mastermind, the Sandhurst and Cranfield lecturer deployed snooker’s ‘Whispering Ted’ to a forward observation post to quietly radio back Bin Laden’s movements.

'For those who see things in black and white, everything's gone green'

The moment Bin Laden stepped out of the house to hang out the washing, Prof Holmes gave the order for ‘our ‘Enery’ to be airdropped directly onto the specified co-ordinates, delivering a flurry of blows to the bearded criminal mastermind head and upper body. In desperation the Saudi-born villain hurled his dialysis machine at the gentleman of the ring, but the shrewd historian saw the opportunity to deploy ‘‘Enery’s ‘ammer’ with killing force while Bin Laden was off-balance, knocking the frail al-Qaeda leader’s battered head clean off his scrawny pencil neck.

“As students of Operation Fortitude - the allied plan to deceive Hitler into thinking that the D-Day landings would take place in the Pas de Calais area - will know, disinformation is an invaluable tool in times of war,” a dusty but elated Professor Holmes told reporters. “Carefully-timed news announcements of our supposed deaths led Obama to the fatally flawed conclusion that the deadly combination of my generalship, Ted’s finely-honed observational skills and Henry Cooper’s jackhammer left hook were no longer a viable threat. He lowered his guard, we struck and the forces of evil were defeated at minimal cost to allied lives.”

“”Students of military history will be scrutinising this victory for years to come,” he concluded, “As I plan to include it in Module 203: ‘From Troy To Terrorist: The Great Deception Strategies’ - coming soon to BBC4.”

War Against Peace Not As Useful As War On Terror, Insists NI Police Chief

Chief Constable Matt Baggott says dissident Republican terrorists suspected of planting the bomb which killed 25-year-old Constable Ronan Keir are fighting a “useless war against peace” they cannot possibly win - unlike the war on terror which he and the combined security forces of Britain and America have been fighting with outstanding success for the last ten years.

“How can you fight an abstract concept?” demanded Mr Baggott. “It’s just absurd.”

Torture Saved Bankers’ Lives, Grinning Chimp Tells Britain

You don't want to see what else he gets up to

The illegal use of waterboarding and other tortures on Iraqi prisoners undoubtedly saved the lives of Canary Wharf bankers who then went on to bankrupt the world, according to an chimpanzee called George who used to run the USA.

Since his replacement by a machine, George’s keepers have kept him away from the limelight in an enclosure in Texas, where he has mostly alternated his time between happily swinging in a tyre and masturbating vigorously.

However, George has also been experimentally taught to communicate, learning to smear his dung into primitive letters in return for a juicy mango, and anthropologists claim that he now has a vocabulary of almost 100 words.

“When he was President, George used to simply throw excrement at a map, go ‘eek’ and his advisors would invade that place and reward him with a banana,” said head keeper John E. Morris. “But now, for the first time, he is able to tell his amazing story in his own shitty words.”

According to George’s toilet daubs (appropriately reproduced in Rupert Murdoch’s lavatory paper, The Times) the inhumane mistreatment of Iraqi civilians by CIA torturers was entirely justified - partly because the information thus gained may have foiled a dastardly al-Qaeda plot to rid the world of London’s greediest corporate thieves, but chiefly because, as a chimp, he has no grasp of any concept beyond the immediate gratification of his own selfish desires.

“Tony give George big big banana,” daubed the shrieking chimp, in a faeces-strewn interview in today’s Times, before being taken away for eventual dissection in the United States.

Fast-Acting Tories Save World From Fearsome Outbreak Of Suicide Bombers Armed With Exploding Printer Accessories

From now on, it's tough tits if your printer runs out halfway across the Atlantic

Resolute home secretary Theresa May emerged from a top-level COBRA security meeting today to announce that the safety of the skies of the world was now assured, thanks to an immediate ban on passengers flying from UK airports with a cumbersome toner cartridge crammed into their hand luggage.

She added that the lethal office consumables would also be banned from cargo compartments and airfreight flights unless they originated from a reputable shipper, such as UPS, or had a combined weight of casing plus explosive of less than 500g.

Meanwhile, the prime minister told MPs after the meeting that it really was about time the world woke up and did something about terrorism.

“It is clear we must take every possible step to work with our partners in the Arab world to cut out the terrorist cancer that lurks in the Arabian peninsula," said Mr Cameron, although he skilfully refused to be drawn on whether ‘cutting out terrorist cancer’ might possibly involve a bloody invasion and fruitless ten-year occupation of Yemen.

Airlines, however, have reacted with dismay to the prospect of yet another layer of intrusive pestering of their customers.

"What happens, particularly in the coverage of the Yemeni issues of recent days, is that we have another huge lurch by the ‘securicrats’ into making travel even more uncomfortable and an even more tedious ordeal for the travelling public," warned Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary.

“That’s my job,” he asserted indignantly, revealing that he was in talks with Boeing about strengthening the cabin roofs of his 737 fleet to allow the suspension of his cheapskate passengers by their thumbs for the hellish duration of their flights.

Obliging Yemeni Terrorists Provide Timely Excuse For Keeping Airport Security Checks

A terror cell of operatives working for al-Qaeda or something have kindly given Western governments a spurious argument against airlines who want to see an end to excessive US-style passenger security checks, by obligingly sticking some inert plastic explosives inside a couple of toner cartridges, sellotaping a few wires to them and posting them airfreight to America labelled ‘BOMB - HANDLE WITH CARE’ .

One of the curiously inept bombs was miraculously discovered on a UPS cargo plane during a stopover at East Midlands Airport, while the other was fortuitously intercepted in Dubai.

“We have yet to determine whether the package we found is a viable explosive device,” announced home secretary Theresa May this morning. “We’ve tried dropping it a few times, but so far it hasn’t gone off. Next we’ll try sticking 240 volts through it, and if that fails we’ll give it a minute or two with a blowtorch. That ought to do it.”

Long-suffering passengers, meanwhile, are already pointing out to singularly unimpressed security officials that even if they were all subjected to vivisection during check-in, it wouldn’t exactly be an effective deterrent to a terrorist putting an airmail bomb in a postbox somewhere in the Middle East.

“I’m afraid such cavalier attitudes to security are missing the point,” responded Mrs May huffily. “The important thing is that if people start thinking too much about things like this, then the terrorists win.”

A dedicated suicide bomber could easily cram one of these up his arse, say experts

Meanwhile, the Yemeni government has promised a full investigation into the matter, right after it finds some way of establishing its authority beyond the walls of the parliament building.

Man Killed By Unmanned Drone Was Definitely Blofeld, Say Intelligence Sources

If this is filling your sights, do you wait for an ID check?

A British man blown apart by a robot plane in the middle of nowhere on Pakistan’s border last month was undoubtedly the notorious criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld, according to a man in a dark overcoat wearing a black fedora and sunglasses and holding a copy of Racing Post.

“As CIA joystick expert Felix Leiter peered into his VGA screen – hey, y’gotta believe me on this - he clearly saw the target open a drawer in his Vegas-size desk an’ take out one sour-lookin’ cat,” whispered the source, as he stepped away from the lamp-post’s glare. “The target stroked the cat for a few seconds, then reached for a big red box in the middle of the desk. Well, what would you have done, huh?”

“Right then Agent Leiter had no way of knowing if that box would detonate a stolen Limey H-bomb, activate a laser satellite, push China into startin’ World War Three or unleash biological warfare on England’s spud crop,” he explained. “So he let rip with a coupla Hellfires, see, just to be on the safe side. Turns out the box was a humidor and the guy was just after a cigar, but hell, better safe than sorry - that’s the first thing they teach ya. I tell ya, pal, any dude with a desk that big in the middle of a dusty goddam field’s gotta be upta somethin’ heinous.”

“Say, did I tell ya we found traces of white fur floatin’ on the breeze durin’ the mop-op phase? What more d’ya need, f’chrissakes?” he added, before disappearing silently down a manhole.

Hopes Fade For American Survivors In Rubble Of Europe

Still want that Rhodes scholarship, buddy?

A White House spokesman for the US tourist industry solemnly informed reporters that there was little chance of finding any Americans still alive in the shattered wreckage of Europe.

The crisis began this morning, when the Florida Commission on Tourism flashed a text warning to all US passport holders in Europe to “Act natural, but when I say run - you run. RUN!”

A few seconds later, the California Travel & Tourism Commission tweeted them with: “Get the fuck outta there! The whole goddam continent’s gonna blow!”

Then, seconds after the Yellowstone National Park Rangers posted “Save yo’ ass, mofos!!!” to Facebookers in the Old World, Europe exploded.

“The last communication received prior to the European disaster was a desperate message from the British saying, ‘Yes, perhaps France and Germany might seem a trifle iffy,’ then all the lines suddenly went dead,” explained the spokesman. “Satellite images we’ve analysed subsequent to the incident clearly indicate two crazed Islamists trying to cram a 500-megaton thermonuclear warhead onto a crowded bus in Prague, slap bang in the centre of Europe, just a split-second before one God-almighty bang.”

Orbital scans reveal absolutely no signs of life in the desolate thousand-mile-wide crater, which is rapidly filling up with magma, he added - pointing out that a travel advisory warning would be in place for the next ten thousand years.

“No point fretting, though, folks,” he concluded brightly. “Still plenty of things to see and do in the good ol’ U.S. of A.”

Vigilant Police Pull Five Terrorabbits Out Of Hat

The forces of law and order acted swiftly to counter claims of “draconian” security measures covering the British tour of Pope Benedict’s Mumbo-Jumbo Magic Show, by conjuring up five sleepy non-white terrorabbits from a hat at 5:45 this morning.

The long arm of the Metropolitan Police descended swiftly on the terrorabbits as they arrived for their duty shifts at Veolia Cleaning Product Testing Services’ depot in London. They were held on suspicion of committing, preparing, instigating or reading something about acts of terrorism, and of being wilfully foreign in a public place.

Police magicians are also reported to be inspecting several empty hutches in north and east London, which they promise will soon be chock-full of incriminating evidence.

“I am aware that some cynical killjoys have criticised the £1m fee the police are charging for their role in the Pope’s magic circus,” said Commissioner Sir Kim Jong-Stephenson, whose previous spectacular stunts include piercing a Brazilian man with bullets in front of an amazed audience and putting him inside a box, lifting his gorgeous assistant Cressida out of the dock and turning a murder into a breach of health and safety regulations. “Well, I defy anybody to challenge this amazing stunt, which will surely generate a healthy income for us for the next few years.”

Meanwhile, the Pope, whose Party trick involves hiding a string of swastika-covered flags up his sleeve and making ten years of Nazi indoctrination magically disappear, hopes to amaze a specially-invited audience later on with a stunning array of implausible illusions - such as surprising even the most sceptical reporters by pulling fawning press coverage out of their open mouths, and of course his trademark trick of throwing a blanket over a filthy priest and making him appear spotless in another diocese many miles away.

This evil bastard was going to kill you

Iraq Cities Celebrate US Withdrawal With Fireworks Displays

Barack Obama today thanked the Iraqi people for the somewhat over-enthusiastic fireworks put on in numerous Iraqi cities to express their gratitude for the peacekeeping work done over the years by withdrawing US forces.

“These spontaneous firework displays are a touching demonstration of the love and respect the ordinary people of Iraq feel for their departing American friends,” said the president, as news networks showed bright, colourful explosions taking place in Kut, Tikrit, Falluja, Basra, Mosul, Kirkuk, Ramadi and Karbala. “Our forces can leave with their heads held high, after successfully completing their mission of transforming Iraq from a nation living in fear to a bastion of freedom, peace and security.”

Thank you, America

Unlike traditional Western fireworks, in the Middle East they tend to be mounted inside cars or worn around the waist, and set off in crowded areas where the maximum number of people can share the experience,” he told American reporters. “Well, that’s their culture, and we celebrate it.”

At least 50 delighted Iraqis are thought to have enjoyed the displays so much that they came apart.

“This, too, is a cultural phenomenon common throughout the Middle East,” explained a sweating Mr Obama. “We show our appreciation by clapping - they show theirs by shedding limbs, heads and internal organs. It’s just a different way of doing things, which our soldiers have learned to recognise as just a regular everyday occurrence.”

“It’s just a shame those Iraqis can’t show their appreciation further by voting Democrat in our forthcoming mid-term elections,” he added.

Britain Invades Cyberspace

Dr Fox looking out for deadly Taleban pixels

A swivel-eyed Dr Liam Fox today announced that Britain was sending troops into virtual reality, on a mission to eradicate the murderous Taleban terrorists lurking within the evil video game Medal of Honor.

“This disgusting game is utterly un-British,” the outraged Dr Fox told reporters as he emerged from a top-level COBRA meeting held in a broom cupboard at the Ministry of Defence. “As of this morning, combat-hardened British soldiers are entering cyberspace through a special light pipe constructed by the Royal Engineers, where they will hunt down and destroy any virtual Taleban units they encounter.”

“We will not flinch from our mission,” he insisted, as he ducked an imaginary flying shoe, “Until the only player-character options remaining to players are either humanitarian American or British peace-keeping forces, who will then be free to blast away merrily at each other in the customary blue-on-blue way.”

The BBC, he fervently claimed, has already sent teams of eager reporters to a special MoD Xbox, from which they will receive daily briefings on the progress of the cyber war from a highly-trained Tier 1 Media Operator.

As yet, there are no casualty reports other than Dr Fox, who was caught in a large butterfly net and led away from the press briefing, foaming at the mouth, by men in white coats.

Dissident Republicans Anxious To Learn Whether Injured Children Were Protestants

A spokesman for the dissident Republican terrorists who detonated a bomb without warning in a Lurgan street yesterday has roundly denounced the Northern Ireland Police Service for cruelly refusing to divulge whether the two 12-years-olds and a two-year-old injured by flying debris were evil, murdering Protestants.

“Our brave boys who heroically planted the bomb in a bin have got the champagne on ice, but they can’t go ahead with the celebrations as long as the brutal Protestant security forces cynically continue to sit on this vital piece of information,” he explained defiantly. “That’s why we’re encouraging the local Catholic community to engage them with petrol bombs until they apologise for this atrocity.”