Trains Fantastically Good Value To Taxpayers, Claim Operators, As Long As They Only Pay Tax In France, Holland Or Germany

Britain’s cash-crammed train operators hit back at transport secretary Philip Hammond’s description of Britain’s trains as “rich men’s toys”, claiming that the services they run offered excellent value for the taxpayer, albeit only if the taxpayer in question should happen to be domiciled in France, the Netherlands or Germany for tax purposes.

It's fast, and it's full of happy taxpayers

“Monsieur ‘ammond, ‘e should look in ‘is underpants isn’t it, as your fonny liddle English saying ‘as it,” said a bloated Gallic spokesman for the Association of Train Exploiting Companies, as a waiter carefully lowered an after-eight mint covered in gold leaf into his gaping maw.

“Ze taxpayers of France, ‘olland and Germany, zey pay ‘ardly anyzing at all to subsidise zair glorious state-run ‘igh-speed rail systems,” he added, pausing only to vomit gallons of paté de foie gras into a platinum bucket. “Not since ze SNCF, NED and ze Deutsche Bahn came up wiz ze, ‘ow you say, ‘wizard wheeze’ of renting ze creaking buckets of rust off ze banks, sending zem on zair wobbly way along ze rickety British tracks, zen ‘itting ze ridiculous British commuters wiz zair silly bowler ‘ats an’ zair peculiar Times crosswords for all ze eye-watering fare increases an’ ‘uge government subsidies zey could get away wiz.”

“Ze glorious taxpayers of France, ‘olland an’ Germany ‘ave never ‘ad it so good,” he added, before exploding. “Zo shot op an’ cough op ze £120 for ze peak-time return from Birming’am to Euston, you stupeed liddle rosbif.”

Vince Cable In Tragically Deluded Appeal To Shareholders’ Sense Of Decency And Fair Play

After much puffing on his best ‘ideas pipe’, everybody’s favourite uncle, Vince Cable, has formed the opinion that the best restraint on the inflation-busting jamboree that is executive pay and bonuses would be to let corporate shareholders rule on the matter.

Mr Cable gets all of his best ideas in here

Dear old uncle Vince emerged from his potting shed to tell his numerous LibDem nephews and nieces that the faceless financial institutions which hold the vast majority of corporate shares are really very sober and responsible indeed, and would certainly never be silly enough to fall for short-term dividend largesse thrown their way by cynical, irresponsible boardroom directors during their brief stopovers in the never-ending game of musical chairs which characterises Britain’s system of corporate management.

“Good heavens, just imagine what would happen if, solely in order to boost their bonuses before jumping ship to another comfy chair elsewhere, the senior management of some unprofitable business decided to pay their shareholders one nice, fat dividend out of essential capital reserves – or worse, simply borrowed the money from a bank!” beamed uncle Vince. “Why, the firm would probably go bust within a matter of years! By then, any shareholders who hadn’t sold their shares in that company at a tidy profit - which would be based solely on the apparent financial health indicated by that handsome dividend – would really have egg all over their faces, wouldn’t they?”

“Just imagine if every business behaved like that!” he went on contentedly. “I should imagine that, before long, the entire financial world would collapse in tatters. My goodness, and where would we all be then, eh?”

‘Go Back To Your Constituencies And Prepare To Be Out Of The Government’

The Liberal Democrats’ president, Tim Fallout, today rallied his party’s surviving MPs with the resounding promise that its widely-hated alliance with the Conservatives would cease at the next election, mainly because they would all be losing their deposits.

The LibDems are great survivors

“We are like cockroaches after a nuclear war,” he told stony-faced delegates at the party’s Birmingham conference. “And to be cockroaches after a nuclear war, obviously the most important thing is to be cockroaches in the first place – vile, scuttling pests which are hated by everyone and deserve to be stamped on. And I think we ought to congratulate ourselves on how quickly we’ve achieved this, in the light of our near-total extermination in May’s local elections. So hey, all we need now is nuclear war!”

Elsewhere at the conference, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg swiftly quashed rumours that he would be standing down as leader of the Lib Dems after just one term in order to take up an appointment as a European Commissioner.

“European Commissioner, my arse,” he sobbed into his espresso macchiato. “By then I’ll be bloody lucky if I get a job as a commissionaire at one of the casinos back home in Monaco.”

Lib Dems Desperate To Book Russell Howard Or Tim Vine For Next Conference

Although hopes remain high that Nick Clegg’s closing promises will have delegates falling off their seats with mirth, this year there have been few belly laughs at what is traditionally the most hilarious gig of the party conference season.

After children’s minister Sarah Teeth failed dismally to crack so much as a smile with her ill-advised effort at stand-up comedy at the Liberal Democrats’ sombre conference in Birmingham today, party officials assured hatchet-faced delegates that they would take whatever steps were necessary to guarantee a fun-packed roster of jocular ministers for next year’s headline event.

“Ideally we’d kick one of our time-expired westcountry MPs upstairs and parachute Eddie Izzard into a safe Cornish seat,” said a red-faced conference booking agent. “But he defected to New Labour in disgust years ago and anyway, we lost half our safe Cornish seats at the last election. I think we’re just going to have to take a leaf out of David Cameron’s book by elevating people we like to the House of Lords, then giving them ministerial portfolios.”

It's like Mr Potato Head reproduced, only not as funny

“George Osborne line dancing… hell’s teeth,” he sobbed as he shuffled away.

Comedians with any sort of interest in politics have been remarkably swift to claim an extraordinary number of international tours which happen to coincide with next year’s conference dates, however.

Already the field of potential LibDem lords has narrowed to a mere handful of apolitical comics, led by veteran pun factory Tim Vine, whose public profile could do with a boost, or possibly chirpy little Bristolian optimist Russell Howard, 12, as long as party whips can convince his mummy he will be safely tucked up in bed by nine every night.

“God help us, the way Britain’s stand-ups are all desperately claiming Las Vegas bookings on the same weekend next September, we could end up with the doomsday scenario of Michael McIntyre,” wept one loyal grass-roots activist. “Please, shoot me now.”

Americans Still Not Entirely Clear On Definition Of ‘Insanely Dangerous’

Preserving aviation heritage, USA-style

As three Americans paid the ultimate price - with scores more suffering injuries - for standing under irreplaceable 70-year-old aircraft and watching highly-experienced idiots slam the throttles of their vintage engines into the red and cheerfully haul their fragile historic artifacts into maximum-G turns, a shocked America is asking itself whether its current definition of ‘insanely dangerous’ might possibly need some revision.

“In the field of aviation history, there are two prevailing schools of thought,” explained Wing Commander James Bigglesworth of the RAF Museum, Hendon. “One holds that, with the exception of careful demonstration flights by lavishly-maintained examples of the more common types, these priceless relics of the epic struggle against Nazism and unprovoked aggression should be preserved in climate-controlled buildings for future generations to appreciate and understand. And the other says let’s thrash these fuckers until they break.”

“For the non-technically minded, imagine that you are fascinated by the 18th century tableware of Josiah Wedgewood,” he explained helpfully. “You are accustomed to seeing delicate examples of china being kept safely in glass display cabinets, but then you go to Reno Museum and are horrified to see its exquisite Wedgewood collection being employed in a reckless attempt to smash the world record for simultaneous plate-spinning.”

“Hell, shit happens,” commented a spokesman, on this black day for the US warbird-wrecking industry. “But what the heck, we still got 203 Mustangs to play with.”

Backlog Of Lessons To Be Learned Now Expected To Require 1000 Years Of Study

This is just the lesson to be learned from eating too many pickled onions

As the Health & Safety Executive predictably added the lessons to be learned from the Welsh coal mine tragedy to Britain’s enormous backlog of unlearned lessons, education experts warn that it will take generations of scholars 1000 years to absorb, understand and act upon the vast pile of terrible mistakes.

“As the government has, predictably, handed the initial inquiry into the flooding which caused the deaths of four miners to the South Wales Police, rather than to anybody who might reasonably be expected to have any sort of clue about mine safety, I think it’s safe to say we probably won’t be gaining any life-saving knowledge from this unfortunate incident within our lifetimes,” observed Professor Myfanwy Strangelove, curator of Britain’s ever-growing lesson mountain.

“Let’s face it, successive governments still haven’t really got to grips with picking out any tips on best practice from Harold Godwinson’s futile attempt to fight battles on two fronts, and that was way back in 1066. With a bit of luck, we should get around to safer mines just in time for the next millennium.”

“Right after we come up with a viable alternative to unrestrained global corporatism, in fact,” she added cheerfully.

Discovery Of Wookiee Homeworld Tantalisingly Close Now, Say Media Idiots

Idiots with degrees in journalism are sure that the long-awaited discovery of the legendary planet where Chewbacca came from will soon be within our grasp, following today’s sensational announcement that brainy telescope men have managed to track down Luke Skywalker’s insignificant desert homeworld, Tatooine, in a galaxy far, far away.

The holy grail of science

“Given the fluctuating electromagnetic and gravitic conditions which pertain to binary star systems, Kepler-16b is most likely to be a lifeless gas giant like Saturn in our own solar system,” top NASA telescope bloke Randy von Braun told a clamorous press conference. “And before you ask: no, it can’t support an intergalactic civilisation of little green man. There’s nothing solid to stand on because it’s just GAS, for fuck’s sake.”

Von Braun also insisted that the chance of finding Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobe or the droids we are looking for there was so remote that it could, for all practical purposes, be discounted entirely. However, leading theoreticians in the field of media studies say there can be no doubt whatsoever that, since these beings lived so long, long ago, Tatooine’s present gaseous state must surely be the terrible aftermath of vengeful Death Star activity.

Speaking for Earth’s millions of faithful Jedi Knights, they went on to urge the brainy space people to devote every telescope to the urgent search for the mysterious Wookiee planet before these magnificent - but tragically rare - beasts are driven into extinction.

If Only The Rest Of The World Would Follow Our Recession-Busting Lead, Says Clarke

The sanity of Mr Clarke

Politicians in Europe and the United States are ‘paralysed’, according to justice secretary Kenneth Clarke, when they ought to be following Britain’s shining example of how to burst out of economic disaster.

“You have paralysis in Washington, and paralysis in large parts of Europe because they are incapable of agreeing and everybody is fighting short-term politics,” observed the former Chancellor of the Exchequer from Britain’s glory days under John Major’s inspired, decisive leadership. “The collapsing pack of cards that is the eurozone is facing the stark economic nightmare of just 1.6% growth - while, here in booming Britain, we can look forward to enjoying a soaraway 1.1% by the end of this year alone.”

“And we can thank our political unity for this,” he boasted confidently. “The Conservatives, our Liberal Democrat allies and even the previous Labour government are all in complete agreement that the only possible path back to the salad days of universal wealth and happiness for all is to scrap the failed communist experiment in collective social responsibility for the welfare of the poor, the sick and the elderly.”

“Why don’t you all just come out and admit it? The world was simply better off all round back in the 18th century, wasn’t it, when we were running things,” crowed Mr Clarke to the west’s perplexed finance ministers as his colleague, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Myth, was handed a P45 as the government was now within sight of achieving its dual target of no more work and no more pensions.

Naked Intruder Relives Nightmare Of Finding Nicolas Cage In His House

Eek!

A naked man has told reporters of the shock and revulsion he once experienced when, to his horror, he suddenly discovered a lurking Nicolas Cage in the house he had broken into.

“I was tiptoeing around this house in Orange County, wondering who on earth would fill a freezer with Fudgesicles,” said the naked man. “I opened a door and saw a bed with what appeared, in the dim light, to be a gigantic spoon tucked up in its folds, apparently reflecting an amusingly distorted image of my own genitals.”

“But as I stepped forward for a closer look it suddenly let out a terrible, reverberating snore – and, in a moment of stark terror, I realised I was trapped alone in a house with Nicolas Cage and his awful, unnatural proboscis,” he continued in a quavering voice. “I know it sounds funny, but I was horrified.”

The naked man said his ordeal only ended after he sang ‘Rock-A-Bye Baby’ for six nerve-wracking hours until the sun eventually came up and the stable-boy arrived with Mr Cage's breakfast in a nosebag. He added that he did not press charges, as the horse-faced actor was clearly afflicted with nasal problems, but said he could never break into a house again after the shattering experience.

Gaddafi Seen Strolling Down Tottenham Court Road

Like the bad penny

Fugitive Libyan tyrant Colonel Gaddafi has been seen by several thousand London shoppers and tourists, strolling down Tottenham Court Road looking for the best deal on an iPad and a bulk discount on rocket launchers, after Britain repealed a law that allowed ordinary citizens to arrest foreign politicians suspected of war crimes.

Under the old law, private individuals could start criminal prosecutions, including for international war crimes, simply by applying to a magistrate for an arrest warrant. Under that system, tiresome activists who insist on taking some sort of an interest in the world apart from football and trying to look sixteen forever had vowed to arrest former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, Chinese Communist Party official Bo Xilai and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni.

Justice secretary Ken Clarke explained: “Clearly, with Britain confirmed as the second most lucrative weapons dealership in the world, it’s bloody inconvenient for foreign murderers to shop here if they’ve got to drag around some dreadlocked soap-dodger who’s taken it upon himself to handcuff himself to their ankles.”

“Or worse, Peter Tatchell,” he added grimly. “Back in 1999 the police had to prise the bugger off Robert Mugabe with a crowbar, and the upshot of that little incident saw Zimbabwe’s white farmers having to suffer the double indignity of getting beaten to death with bloody French riot batons.”