James Bond Killed In Tragic Cost-Cutting Mishap

Britain’s foremost secret agent, James Bond, was found today dead in a holdall in his London apartment, in what MI6 chiefs are claiming was a tragic consequence of Whitehall budget-paring.

Right idea - wrong spy

“Clearly, Mr Bond was simply hoping to save the department a small fortune in travel expenses by travelling as freight to his next top-secret assignment,” explained M this afternoon. “Unfortunately, having successfully zipped himself into an item of luggage, he realised too late that he was unable to deliver himself to the post office, and tragically starved to death after struggling unsuccessfully to get out of the bag.”

M denied categorically that there was anything remotely sinister about the super-spy’s unfortunate demise, although she did add that Q had been dispatched to the nearest branch of TJ Hughes to procure baggage which would permit easier egress for secret agents in future.

“On behalf of the whole department, I’d like to thank Mr Bond’s considerate neighbour, Mr Jaws,” she added. “If he hadn’t become concerned about James’ inactivity and chewed through the door, we might never have discovered his fate. As a token of our gratitude, I shall be giving him a personal guided tour of the MI6 offices and introducing him to the team.”

“If only the minister hadn’t ordered us to cut Mr Bond’s entertainment budget,” she reflected. “If he had been sharing his apartment with an attractive Russian cellist or wealthy expatriate circus owner, this tragedy would never have happened.”

Wicked Animal Cruelty Woman Faces Vigilante Justice

Let's kill him, too

Baying crowds gathered today outside the home of an inexplicably cruel old lady who was captured on CCTV yesterday, wantonly swallowing fauna of increasing sizes.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw that sick, twisted woman pick up a poor little cat by the scruff of its neck, calmly place it in her mouth, swallow and walk on as if nothing had happened,” said a horrified people-hating animal lover after the footage was aired on national television in lieu of news. “But worse was to follow. A few minutes later she brazenly scooped up a Labrador and, ignoring the tearful protests of its distraught owner, she proceeded to consume the poor yelping doggie, lead and all.”

The woman – who is thought to have previously consumed a fly, a spider and a bird before progressing to mammalian victims – was chased back to her home by irate animal lovers.

Horrified RSPCA inspectors arrived on the scene just in time to hear the desperate mooing of a cow emanating from inside the house, which was abruptly cut off by a loud belch. Protesters said they had previously heard a pitiful high-pitched bleating.

When the RSPCA team’s knocks on the door were answered, they were greeted by the stomach-churning sight of the back end of a horse sticking out from the woman’s horribly-distended mouth. Goaded beyond restraint, the crowd surged forward, seized the wicked old lady and strung her up from the nearest lamp post.

“Tragically, this is a story which is repeated almost daily somewhere in this country of supposed animal lovers,” said a spokesman for the RSPCA later.

Camerons Torn Between Hideously Off-Message Cornish Baby Names

A welcome addition to Cornwall's tiny gene pool

Following the early arrival of David and Samantha Cameron’s fourth child in the middle of their Cornish holiday – proving to a delighted nation that the prime minister has passed one of the key requirements of a modern party leader, namely that his cock works – the happy couple are said to be rapidly regretting Mr Cameron’s ill-advised comment that the as yet unnamed baby girl would “have to have something Cornish in the middle”.

Hastily-dispatched spin doctors from Conservative Central Office flew down to Cornwall, where they swiftly embarked upon a damage limitation exercise.

“When people think of Cornwall – if, and it’s a very big if, they ever think of it at all – words like ‘bloody rip-off’, ‘chronic unemployment’ and ‘economic disaster area’ tend to be foremost in their minds,” admitted a smarmy prick called Damien. “About the only Cornwall-related word that immediately stands out as anything less than utterly inappropriate for the grand-daughter of a baronet and a viscountess on one side and a descendent of William IV on the other is ‘inbred’. But the tooth growing out of her forehead makes that rather superfluous.”

“We’ll probably surf YouTube for any fuzzy old clips of Poldark, and see if anything jumps out,” he added without enthusiasm. “But not Demelza - wasn’t she a bit of a tinker who married several miles above herself and never could quite figure out where to place the fish knives?”

X Factor Bosses Admit Using AutoTune To Disguise Droning Monotone Of Simon Cowell

X Factor producers admitted today that they used pitch-altering software AutoTune to add a simulation of human inflection to the soulless, dead noise that comes out of Simon Cowell’s robot head.

Suspicious fans jammed ITV switchboards to point out that they actually heard Cowell’s hollow voice vary in pitch by a whole semitone as its faceplate droned out its standard selection of repetitive stock phrases during Saturday’s broadcast.

Another X-Factor contestant comes off the production line

“Regrettably, producers do occasionally make use of superior Dalek technology in post-production,” admitted a spokesbot this morning from the X Factor’s orbital mothership. “It’s for technical reasons that inferior humanoid life forms would not understand, like inexplicably combining the inputs from several microphones even though every celebrity judge’s head unit is wired directly into the mixing desk.”

Simon Cowell itself was unavailable for comment, as it was in its recharging cubicle downloading routine software updates.

Meanwhile, performing cyborg Gamu Cyberman confessed to being a little off-key during its inanimate rendition of Katrina And The Waves hit ‘Walking On Sunshine’ during the audition.

“Self-diagnostic scan indicates possible intermittent malfunction in vocalisation subroutine,” it intoned. “Delete error and reboot.”

Labour Outsider Burnham Calls For ‘Pretend Socialism’

Mr Burnham's campaign team are full of fresh ideas

Labour leadership no-hoper Andy Burnham has promised that the Labour Party will implement a return to what he calls ‘Pretend Socialism’ from its commanding position on the opposition benches, in the supremely unlikely event that the other contenders are all run over by a bus.

“If by some capricious act of God I find myself leading the Labour Party, I will somehow bring about free transport for teenagers in education, some sort of graduate tax, the details of which I haven’t really thought through yet, apprenticeships paying the minimum wage and jam tomorrow,” he promised a stray dog that paused to cock its leg against his ankle.

“Don’t worry, though,” he added hastily, as the dog resumed its wandering. “None of that will mean lowly menials calling you ‘comrade’, or any such nonsense. It’s not real socialism, God forbid. It’s only make-believe stuff that looks good in the Guardian.”

Mr Burnham hastily explained that he was only talking about aspirational socialism, meaning that he cherished, deep within his heart, a wildly-optimistic hope to be somebody important in the Labour Party one day.

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.

People Of Pakistan Deeply Moved By British Flood Danger

This harrowing sight brings tears to the eyes of millions in Pakistan

Big-hearted Pakistanis are delving deep into their waterlogged pockets to donate funds to alleviate the terrible flash floods which are expected to devastate Britain tonight, according to charity relief workers.

“When an impoverished, backward nation like Great Britain is hit by a natural disaster of such awful magnitude, my heart goes out to the poor, simple people who invariably lose what little they have,” said tribal elder Muhammed Fadil Jarwar, treading water above his submerged house. “I’m sure my wife Husna would be the first to agree, if she wasn’t floating face-down somewhere downstream at the moment.”

“Sadly, most people dismiss Britain as nothing more than a fertile breeding ground for terrorists, run by an autocratic government which happily spends billions on nuclear weapons yet cares nothing for the terrible plight of ordinary people,” commented a missing farmer’s wife, Salwa Badini, from the top of a tree. “But I always think of the suffering peasants who scrape out a meagre living in remote rural villages which nobody has ever heard of, like Harbertonford, watching helplessly as their livelihoods are swept away by a raging torrent of muddy floodwater.”

“I shall be taking a deep breath and diving down to my home, to look for a rupee or two to send to the needy people of Britain in their time of need,” she promised. “While I’m there, I’ll see if I can find my children.”

Berliners Strangely Not Calling American Building Insensitive

Berliners not particularly upset by this symbol of foreign culture

As hundreds of angry Americans massed on the streets of New York to protest against the building of a mosque near the site of the World Trade Centre, no Germans were reported to be protesting about the presence of the US Embassy in Berlin, where over 20,000 civilians tragically lost their lives in three years of terror bombing.

“I’m really not that bothered, actually,” said passer-by Katrina Eberhart, 20. “I can appreciate that although a number of Americans planned to kill as many Germans as they could with large aircraft, such extreme acts of violence do not necessarily represent the hopes and aims of every single American on the planet.”

“Although, at the time, we Germans had a pretty high opinion of ourselves, I realise it was not necessarily a view endorsed by the rest of the world,” added her friend Romy Maurer. “In fact you could say that the way we treated other nations and races made Germans, to some degree, the engineers of our own misfortunes. Anyway, it’s in the past and the important thing is for people to understand and appreciate each other, isn’t it?”

Beckhams Found Sleeping Rough In Bus Station

Bloody tramp

A shocked cleaner discovered David and Victoria Beckham sleeping on a bench in Finsbury Park bus station early this morning, with their three children wrapped in old newspapers.

“I was just pushing my pavement cleaning machine along, as I do every morning,” explained Anchal Parekh, “All of a sudden I was abused by terrible shrieks coming from a pile of filthy blankets on a bench. Some of the words were not very nice at all. I was just trying to do my job. I shouldn’t have to put up with hurtful insults from a rich man’s wife in the course of my duties.”

The argument swiftly escalated, and police were called after seven-year-old Romeo punched Mrs Parekh’s supervisor in the groin.

A spokesman for the British Transport Police confirmed that a Mr and Mrs Beckham were down in the cells, and that their children Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz were currently being looked after by social workers.

“It appears that the Beckhams were living rough on the advice of their somewhat parsimonious new accountant, who had earlier pointed out how much money they were wasting by keeping a small army of staff to look after their 14 homes,” he told reporters. “Apparently his exact words were ‘You can afford to employ all of these people. But why the hell do you?’ From what we can gather, Mrs Beckham immediately took it upon herself to sack them all and put the houses on the market, but unfortunately neglected to exclude the one they were staying in at the time. The Hertfordshire mansion was promptly snapped up by a Kuwaiti buyer, who told Mr Beckham his services would no longer be required as he would be bringing his own servants, and handed them £50,000 cash in lieu of notice to vacate the premises immediately.”

A spokesman for Islington Council said the pair would be welcome to put themselves on the social housing register, but warned that they may have to be placed in temporary accommodation for some time.

The Beckhams were later released on bail of £50,000, which was all that the family had in their battered shopping trolley. The public, meanwhile, were warned not to give money to any orange-skinned women in £25,000 frocks who might accost them in the street for the price of a cup of tea.

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.