Perhaps Turkey Should Have Read NATO Treaty Before Signing, Suggests Assad: Rest Of NATO Nods Furiously

After blasting a one of their RF-4 Phantom jets from the skies, Syria has pre-empted any Turkish appeals for NATO intervention on the basis of mutual defence by suggesting that their neighbour takes a closer look at the Treaty of Washington.

The Russians swore they were tractor parts

“We looked it up on Wikipedia back in April, when Mr Erdoğan raised the matter after we’d told some of our people off for leaving Syria without permission by bombing the shit out of them,” commented President Assad. “He is, up to a point, correct in stating that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. However, if he reads Article 5 properly he might notice that this bit only applies in Europe and North America. Now, is Turkey actually in the EU? Not the last time I looked.”

“Tough luck, sucker,” he added.

Other members of NATO were remarkably quick to verify Mr Assad’s explanation of the treaty - reminding Turkey that modern combat aircraft are really, really expensive, and unfortunately Syria is bristling with brand new and extremely effective anti-aircraft systems which the Russians kindly donated.

“Yes, we know,” replied Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as he reached for his reading glasses.

Syrians Pleased To Be Dying Under Ceasefire

Numerous Syrians who have been shot since the bilateral ceasefire came into effect today told reporters, as they succumbed to their wounds, how grateful they were to the UN for allowing them the opportunity to be the first victims of a new era of peace and stability.

Yes, well done you

In the aftermath of a roadside bomb in Aleppo, as what remains of him was being loaded into an ambulance, a soldier loyal to the Syrian government gasped that his missing legs were a small price to pay for an end to the sickening violence.

“I am so glad the fighting is over at last,” gurgled an optimistic Homs resident, on the other side of the truce which proud UN observers say is ‘holding’, as he lay in a pool of his life’s blood with an army bullet of hope lodged peacefully in his throat. “It is comforting to know that my imminent death represents a first step towards a permanent reconciliation.”

“Well, I think it’s all going rather splendidly, don’t you?” a delighted Kofi Annan tweeted to President Assad.

Syrian Conflict Finally Becomes International Tragedy After Death Of Times Journalist

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

This'll teach them not to blow up innocent civilians

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

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

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

RAF To Buy Whole New Aeroplane

David Cameron has given the Royal Air Force permission to purchase an entire new aeroplane, and a very impressive one it is too.

There could even be room for a couple of penguins

The aeroplane – which will increase the RAF’s fleet of ex-rental C-17 Globemaster III heavy-lift transports to a fearsome eight – is necessary for the humanitarian evacuation of civilians and sheep from tiny war zones 8,000 miles away in the South Atlantic whose runway is not quite long enough to handle chartered civil airliners, explained the prime minister.

A spokesman for the big aeroplane’s manufacturers commented: “After a hiatus of 67 years, Boeing and the United States are glad to once again be sending the mighty 8th over to help Britain’s war effort. As previously, we’ll send you the bill later.”

Meanwhile, overjoyed RAF top brass are busy preparing a massive recruitment campaign for two pilots and a loadmaster.

Sub To Sail Up River Plate In Phallic Warpaint

Ramping up his ongoing campaign to goad Argentina into a war which will win him the next election, David Cameron has ordered nuclear submarine HMS Trafalgar - which has been expertly camouflaged as a giant cock – to sail up the Rio de la Plata and flaunt itself mockingly before the enraged population of Buenos Aires.

Yep, that ought to do the trick

“If we surface in the downtown harbour area just behind the nature reserve, we can disport our proud British manhood up and down the waterfront - from Avenue Belgrano to the Autopista 25 de Mayo,” explained the obscene hunter-killer’s commanding officer. “For the benefit of younger voters, the Royal Navy torpedoed their flagship, the General Belgrano, in 1982 and we’d have got the aircraft carrier 25 de Mayo too if it hadn’t turned tail and fled, leaving a brown trail all the way back to Argentina.”

“If this doesn’t fill every hot-blooded male in Argentina with the burning desire to invade the Malvinas personally,” he added, “I’ll eat my captain’s hat.”

Meanwhile, in Plymouth yesterday, Mr Cameron was talking up the war he seeks to trigger, praising the Royal Marines he hopes will die heroically to secure a resounding Conservative victory - and promising plenty of work for Devonport Dockyard, patching up the photogenic, vote-winning holes blasted in our warships which manage to limp back from the impending South Atlantic confrontation.

Expendable Foreign Office Twerp To Win Second Term For Cameron By Goading Argentina Into Invading Falklands

The Foreign Office minister with special responsibility for Latin America and paperclips, Jeremy Nobody MP, is being sent to the Falkland Islands for a week on a mission to irritate the holy living crap out of Argentina.

May they remain British forever

“I'm going to coincide with the conclusion of the Falklands war, which should piss the spicks off a treat,” yawped the hole under Mr Nobody’s nose. “I will be going in June for the 30th anniversary, digging up a dead Argie conscript and waving his mouldy bones about in front of the world’s TV cameras. If that doesn’t kick things off, I will be flown out in Price William’s helicopter to relieve my gonads over the spot where the General Belgrano went down. If that doesn’t get Johnny Foreigner baying for a vote-winning rematch, well, I’m a greasy dago.”

Foreign Office sources say that, once Prince William and Mr Nobody have been successfully martyred, David Cameron will ride to a guaranteed second-term election landslide on a wave of bloodthirsty public calls for vengeance - by pulling Britain’s armed forces out of Afghanistan and shoving them out of the back of a Hercules, onto the heads of the new generation of Argentine cannon-fodder sent out to retake the Malvinas, heroically liberating the islands’ valuable reserves of penguins, sheep and superstitious villagers from the intolerable oppression of being forced at gunpoint to wear ponchos and take mandatory naps in the middle of the afternoon, or something.

“The PM got the idea from watching ‘The Iron Lady’,” admitted Foreign Secretary William Hague. “I’d have gone myself, but the nation simply can’t afford to lose my inspired handling of whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing.”

Britain And US ‘Not Ruling Out’ Invading Each Other

As the stakes rise inexorably in the battle of words over diverse international concerns ranging from persecution of citizens to securing oil supplies, British foreign secretary William Hague and his US counterpart Hillary Clinton are reported to be hastily drawing up contingency plans to invade and occupy each other’s sovereign nations.

“For too long, the international community has sat back complacently as the American people suffer daily at the hands of autocratic, self-serving regimes which are completely out of touch with the hopes and dreams of their own citizens,” warned Mr Hague. “Police brutality is deployed as a political weapon on the streets of major cities to stamp on any act of dissent, no matter how small, no matter how peaceful, and the prisons are full to capacity - yet the ruling elite cares only for enriching itself and its powerful supporters. We have learned to our cost that no country is safe from its threats of economic and military action. It is time for the UN to authorise the use of force, and who better to liberate the downtrodden American people than the British, whom they will surely welcome as liberating brothers?”

Hague and Clinton cordially exchanging threats

“For too long, the international community has sat back complacently as the British people suffer daily at the hands of autocratic, self-serving regimes which are completely out of touch with the hopes and dreams of their own citizens,” warned Mrs Clinton. “Police brutality is deployed as a political weapon on the streets of major cities to stamp on any act of dissent, no matter how small, no matter how peaceful, and the prisons are full to capacity - yet the ruling elite cares only for enriching itself and its powerful supporters. We have learned to our cost that no country is safe from its threats of economic and military action. It is time for the UN to authorise the use of force, and who better to liberate the downtrodden British people than the Americans, whom they will surely welcome as liberating brothers?”

The governments of Iran and Syria have lodged formal protests, however, observing that both Britain and the US also happen to be oil producers.

War With FIFA!

At 11 o’clock this morning prime minister David Cameron solemnly told the people of Britain that he had issued a warning to FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, demanding that he withdraw his ban on England players wearing poppies, but that the deadline had now expired and a state of war now existed between Britain and football’s governing body.

Massed ranks of football fans are being mobilised, he added, to seize and occupy key strategic football pitches which have been identified as vital to FIFA’s ability to wage football.

Remember the fallen

“FIFA’s unprovoked attack on the defenceless poppy demonstrates a callous contempt for the loss of millions of lives,” Mr Cameron told a cheering parliament. “We shall fight on the coaches, we shall fight on the playing fields, we shall fight in the streets. We shall never surrender.”

“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our foreigner-kicking duties,” he continued, to a standing ovation and rousing cheers from MPs of all parties, “And so bear ourselves that if British football and its players’ wealth last for a thousand years, fans will still say: this was their finest hour.”

“Here we go, here we go, here we go again,” reflected sombre battle-scarred veterans of the Moan To End All Moans, which their generation fought over Britain’s historic right to host the World Cup.

World War One ‘A Fairly Terrible Time To Be A Horsey,’ Acknowledges Army Museum

A new exhibition at the National Army Museum is to formally acknowledge the less than respectful treatment often meted out to poor little ponies and horsies by nasty rough soldiers in World War One, finally highlighting one of the most calamitous events in equine history.

"Tragically, little material survives about the horses that did the pulling and the carrying,” curator Pip Dodd said, as staff dumped dozens of now-irrelevant human soldier mannequins into a skip. “We’ve turned the archives upside down, and it seems that not a single diary or poem written by a horse survives. Yet there’s tons of stuff written by the bastards who callously ordered their mass sacrifice in futile steeplechases across No Horse’s Land, fired literally millions of them into the German trenches and sent them to their deaths as ‘Fokker fodder fodder’ in the skies above France. And they didn’t even give them parachutes. Make no mistake: this was a horsey holocaust.”

Pull your own water, you bastards

Unlike their human masters, the equine conscripts were not even granted the luxury of a tot of rum before being sent into the killing fields between the lines.

“The soldiers knew perfectly well that there wasn’t a single blade of grass to eat in those fields, yet those brave horses never shirked their duty,” pointed out author Michael Morpurgo - whose moving story, ‘Giddy Up, War Horsey’, which finally brought the equine involvement in the Great War to the world’s attention, is being filmed by Steven Spielberg as ‘Oh, What A Lovely Horse’. "And, far from returning to A Land Fit For Horses, all the shell-shocked survivors found waiting for them back in Blighty was the same dead-end work in the glue and Kennomeat factories."

The shocking exhibition also reveals for the first time that, when the Light Brigade charged to their deaths during the Crimean War, they cruelly forced their horses to accompany them.

Plymouth Asks If It Can Be Royal, Too

Hard on the heels of the announcement that the people of Wootton Bassett, through their diligent acts of standing around as 345 military hearses drove past, are to have their town granted ‘Royal’ status, the blitzed city of Plymouth has written to the Queen to ask if it could be given a grandiose title as well.

Does this count for anything?

“During the Second World War we stood and watched respectfully as 1,172 of our own dead were laid to rest in mass graves in Efford Cemetery,” said an aggrieved Plymouth. “And - unlike the troops who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq - none of our civilians cheerfully volunteered to sign up and get paid to stand in the line of fire. What's more - unlike picture-postcard Wootton Bassett - we and future generations also have to live with the monstrous aberrations of architecture that were foisted upon us afterwards to replace the shattered Victorian elegance of our blitz-blighted city. Can we have a meaningless addition to our name too, please? ‘Imperial Plymouth’ has a nice ring to it.”

London’s East End, Coventry and dozens of other blitzed cities which didn’t ask to be put in the front line of a war are also believed to have lodged formal requests with Buckingham Palace for pointless additions to their names.

Europe On Alert For Insane Insect Swarms

This could be you

So far, there have been no reports from anywhere in Europe of huge clouds of deranged locusts or barmy bees attacking families in their homes or offices, in spite of the dire threat issued by Colonel Gadaffi today.

TV’s Kate Humble commented: “I urge Britain’s nature lovers to report any sightings of locusts, no matter how small, to the authorities immediately. Even a single locust could be a scout, probing our defences ahead of the main assault force. But please don’t work yourselves into a lather about grasshoppers, though. They’re on our side.”

Libyan suicide bees may be more problematical, however, as it is possible that they could mingle unnoticed among the native bee population, awaiting a word of command from the crazed Libyan dictator to spread havoc by disrupting Europe’s jam supplies.

After an emergency COBRA meeting this morning, prime minister David Cameron emerged wearing a beekeeper’s hat, rubber gloves and heavy nylon clothing to reassure a concerned public that the RAF had adequate supplies of insect repellent to deal with mass insect assault from any quarter.

“Our message to Colonel Gadaffi is unequivocal,” he declared defiantly. “You will not destroy the British picnic.”

Taxpayers Invited To Save Themselves A Few Bob By Declaring Open Season On Libyans

Look, we could replace those bloody great fuel tanks with bombs

As the cost of British involvement in Libyan operations soars to £120m, with the cost of replacing expensive laser-guided munitions estimated at another £140m, swivel-eyed defence secretary Dr Liam Fox tempted hard-pressed taxpayers with the attractive offer of saving a few quid by simply carpet-bombing the population of Tripoli with cheap ordnance.

“Unfortunately, avoiding civilian casualties who aren’t related to Libyan ministers drives up costs - but the spending shows the UK holds the higher moral ground, whatever that’s worth,” he announced brightly. “I know when this little exercise kicked off we told you it would only cost tens of millions, and indeed it is – twenty-six of them, to be precise.”

“But farting around trying to pinpoint genuine military targets is a terrific waste of fuel,” he added. “We could save a small fortune if our brave Tornado flyboys were to simply hang dumb ironmongery off the wings until they creak, then dump the lot in the general vicinity of downtown Tripoli and bugger off straight back to Italy for fresh bombs.”

“Your choice, taxpayers,” he smiled. “How many dead wog kids is the NHS worth?”

‘How Could A Notorious War Criminal Evade Justice For So Long?’ Ask Blair and Bush

Slaughtering Muslims is a serious business

Former president George W. Bush and ex-prime minister Tony Blair today echoed the world’s anger over the fifteen years it has taken for Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic to face justice for the thousands of deaths he ordered.

“It beggars belief that a warmongering murderer with so much blood on his hands could have been allowed to move about freely in public for so long under the protection of his president,” said Mr Blair, who earlier in the week attended President Obama’s reception in Westminster Hall.

“Even when the regime that sheltered him finally collapsed, this unrepentant anti-Muslamist creep was able to enjoy a real nice life in the country,” complained President Bush from his Texas ranch, where he is tended by a pair of goats named Donald and Condy.

“That’s a big bad,” he added. “Say, when do I get an aircraft carrier named after me?”

Gbagbo Offers Leadership Experience To Libyan Rebels

Mr Gbagbo is sure his knot-tying badge will be an inspiration

As troops loyal to elected president Alassane Outtara tighten the net surrounding his embattled rival, Laurent Gbagbo has suggested to the UN that the struggling Libyan rebels might benefit from his strong leadership style.

UN peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast have previously said that Mr Gbagbo’s peaceful departure would prevent further destabilisation in the strife-torn republic.

Speaking from the coal cellar of his encircled presidential residence in Abidjan, Mr Gbagbo told UN observers: “You wantin’ me alive? OK, give me de job I can do. Dis Gaddafi character up dere in Libya, he crazy as de bag full o’ de monkeys - but he bloddy good at runnin’ de bits he got left o' de army.”

“Jus' look at dese so-called rebels,” he went on. “Dey takin’ over de ice cream van an’ de couple o’ beach huts, dey so damn’ chuffed wid demselves dey emptyin’ de ol' Lee-an'-de-Enfields into de sky like dey winnin' de whole dam’ war - den five minutes later, when de Gaddafi goons rollin’ up in de ol’ Toyota wid de Lewis gun on de back, dey buggerin’ off back into de hills like de shit off de proverbial shovel an’ hollerin’ ‘bout de lack o’ de ammunitions. Dey needin’ somebody wid de proper motivational skills an’ de gift fo’ de organisin'. Let me fax you de amazin’ Gbagbo CV. I go 50/50 wid you on de oil, dat makin’ it worth my while.”

“Bot you better be makin’ de minds up dam’ quick,” he warned. “Udderwise dese uppity nordern bastards, dey givin’ me de halal funeral wid all de trimmin’s, if you know wot I am sayin’.”

Millions Turn Down The Sound On Call Of Duty: Black Ops For Two Minutes

Level 2 sure is hell

All across Britain, the harsh chatter of full-auto gunfire and the screams of the dying fell silent for two minutes at precisely 11am, as millions of gamers solemnly muted their consoles as they continued blasting away in the runaway smash-hit shooter, Call Of Duty: Black Ops.

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember not to throw the grenades at our own squad at the end of the second level,” observed Xbox addict Josh Geake, after taking two minutes’ time out to search Google in vain for useful tips.

“The utter waste of Modern Warfare 2 is an appalling tragedy that is all too easily forgotten by the younger generation,” he sobbed. “I never finished that bastard, yet here I am again, stuck on sodding level 2 of Black Ops after forking out a hundred and thirty bastard quid for the Prestige limited edition.”

“We must never forget the mistakes of the past,” he mourned. “I’ll probably waste another small fortune on bloody Kinect, and what will it achieve? Nothing but more unnecessary pain and suffering. Lest we forget, the last time I had a go on my sister’s Wii I accidentally elbowed her right in the face and she fell through the coffee table. It was bloody hilarious.”

“Will we never learn?” he moaned plaintively, as he wasted his own team yet again.

Battle Of Britain Distractions Wheeled Out Four Weeks Early

One of The Few, at least in Mr Cameron's head

The 70-year-old Battle of Britain was taken out of storage, dusted down and put on the news almost four weeks before the traditional date, in a well-meaning attempt to give the nation’s dispirited population a spurious cause for celebrating something they had nothing to do with.

“We appreciate that, for 69 years, the Battle of Britain has been commemorated on September 15th – Hitler’s vaunted Eagle Day – on which the RAF’s fighter squadrons successfully fought off the Luftwaffe’s strongest attack,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. “But if we wait that long, people will be rioting in the streets in protest against my friend David’s tough but necessary cuts. So we decided that since today marks the anniversary of Churchill standing up and pontificating about other people’s bravery, we might as well have it now - after all, politicians are far more important than servicemen’s lives.

“So we’ve lined up the usually doddery old codgers for the TV cameras to make the national breast swell with pride, etc and provide the necessary distraction from the sheer bloody awfulness of present-day reality.”

“Look, a Spitfire!” he added, pointing to the sky. “Doesn’t that make you proud to be British?”

Treasury officials are now feverishly flipping through books on the Second World War for a spread of handy victories from the past with which to distract the public through the forthcoming dismal year.

Blair: ‘I Don’t Want This Money - It’s All Covered In Blood’

Shaking hand with Tony Blair: not for the faint-hearted

Former prime minister Tony Blair is donating an unwanted £4.6m to help maimed victims of his two Middle East wars, after it arrived from his publishers covered in the blood of the soldiers killed and maimed as a result of his vain, single-minded desire to strut around on the world stage pretending to be a latter-day Churchill.


The multi-million advance on his memoirs - due to arrive in bookshops on September 1st, then in pound shops on October 1st – dropped on his doormat this morning in a squelching brown envelope and oozed blood all over Mrs Blair’s new carpet, leading to a heated argument over breakfast which culminated in Mr Blair being told in no uncertain terms to get rid of it by lunchtime.

Mr Blair’s grisly gift was politely refused by several charity shops until, in desperation, he drove round to the local Royal British Legion and left it on the doorstep.

A Legion spokesman thanked the ex-PM for his donation, and promised to put the money towards a sports centre for the many soldiers who so kindly donated their limbs to furthering his popularity among Americans with large cheque books.

“This isn’t about easing my conscience,” Mr Blair told reporters later, “Because I don’t have one. I’m only telling the world about my incredible, selfless act of unparalleled generosity in the hope that someone out there can recommend a really good soap. I just can’t seem to get these damn bloodstains off my hands.”

Cameron Lays Wreath To Commemorate Death Of War Veterans’ Dreams Of A Fairer Society

Try not to remember this bit

Under the impassive gaze of Prince Charles, prime minister David Cameron solemnly laid a wreath on the Cenotaph in a sombre farewell to the better, fairer Britain which returning soldiers fought so hard to create.

“We must never forget the sacrifices made and the dedication showed by those who served our country in the Second World War,” he said. “However, we should most certainly forget that what they overwhelmingly wanted to come home to was a decent, caring society in which poverty, inequality and the rigid class system would be banished forever, to be replaced by a caring welfare state, universal healthcare, a decent education system based on merit rather than social status, fair working conditions and decent, affordable housing.”

“To think of such things at this time - or indeed at any other time - would be a grave disservice to the honoured memory of those 30,000 brave chaps who died today, or whatever,” he added.

“VJ Day - the day the Second World War ended, or so old ‘Two-Brains’ Willetts tells me - is a time for this generation to reflect and show its gratitude to our veterans for their bravery, dedication and sacrifice,” he explained, to mounting catcalls from elderly veterans. “It’s certainly not a time to ask what they were fighting for. We don’t do that any more, do we?”

World Safer After Invasion of Poland, Insists Hitler

Giving evidence today at the long-delayed inquiry into the Second World War, former statesman Adolf Hitler insisted today that the terrible global conflict he started had in fact made the world a safer place.

"Look," he told the inquiry panel in a rare return to the living world, "The fact is, there was clear evidence that Poland had the ability to send horse troops across our borders within 45 minutes. I have no regrets about the decisions that were made at the time, acting on the best information available from the Minister for Propaganda, Dr Goebbels."

Mr Hitler denied that his chief objective in invading Poland was regime change, but declared defiantly that Poland had become a haven of peace and tranquility after the removal of President Mościcki.

"I am proud of the part I played in making sure that millions of Poles never had a care in the world again," he screamed.

Mr Hitler also scoffed at accusations that he had secretly made an agreement over the Polish issue with the Soviet leader, Josef Stalin.

"It was clear to me long before those talks that Poland represented a major threat to the safety of the world," he insisted. "Mr Stalin and I were both of the opinion that the dismembering of the Polish nation must be seen to be carried out strictly according to our view of the legal frameworks set out by the hated, ineffectual League of Nations."

"Believe me," he added, "Between us, we went through quite a lot of lawyers before we found one who was willing to agree with our interpretation of international law."

Throughout the questioning, Mr Hitler stoutly maintained his stance that the invasion was not carried out to bring about regime change, but to remove the terrible threat posed to the entire world by deadly Polish cavalry. He said he was personally disappointed that the world had been somewhat riven by disagreements following the invasion of Poland by German and Soviet troops, but promised that he would do it all again given half a chance.

As he left the hearing, grieving relatives of the 5,533,000 German soldiers who lost their lives as a result of the invasion of Poland shouted angrily at their unrepentant former leader as he was led back down to Hell, where he now holds a lucrative post on the board of directors.

Afghanistan War Escalates As British Journalist Death Toll Passes The 1 Mark

As British journo fatalities in Afghanistan passed the psychologically-important landmark figure of 1 today with the death of Sunday Mirror war correspondent Rupert Hamer, Britain's top editors firmly rejected calls from some quarters to bring our hacks home.

"Rupert's tragic death highlights the terrible risks our brave hacks and hackettes routinely face every single day that they're not embedded in a Kabul hotel lounge, cutting and pasting an army press release and fearlessly adding their byline," said Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver from her plush London office. "But this incident only stiffens our resolve to send out another 10,000 journos to churn out in-depth articles about the terrible risks our brave hacks and hackettes routinely face as they churn out a familiar stream of hackneyed clichés about the terrible risks our brave troops routinely face when occupying somebody else's country."

The heroic correspondent - who died when an Improvised Explosive Device (known to plain English specialists as a 'bomb') blew up beneath his vehicle as he was accompanying US troops on patrol - was affectionately known as 'Corporal Hamer' to Mirror desk-wallahs, and as 'another goddam liability' to the troops who were tasked with protecting him, as if they didn't have enough on their plates already.

"We're hoping that the good, patriotic people of Wootton Bassett OBE will make an extra-special effort when Rupert's remains are flown home and paraded through the streets in a coffin solemnly draped with a Sunday Mirror banner and any female C-list celebs we can get at short notice," added Ms Weaver. "And if Islam4UK want to call for a counter-march to highlight the number of deaths of Afghan journalists which have gone unreported, our inbox is always open for a good inflammatory story that makes people hate ordinary Muslims more."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence has strongly criticised the media for issuing our brave hacks and hackettes with inadequate equipment, as it emerged that Mr Hamer's netbook was still running the obsolete Windows XP.