Economy Collapses, Dies, Lies Unburied in Street

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, declared Britain's economy officially extinct this morning.

The economy - which had been faltering for many months - suddenly gasped, clutched at its heart and toppled in an undignified heap into the road. As it lay dying, twitching spasmodically, it was struck by a rubbish lorry, then run over by a bus and several Chelsea tractors. The flattened, pulpy mess was then picked apart by scavenging seagulls, leaving only bloody fragments stuck to the tarmac.

Mr Darling revealed the tragedy to the world by running naked out of 11 Downing Street, screaming, "We're all fucked!" He was rugby-tacked by an alert policeman, who sat on the gibbering madman until paramedics arrived and plunged a large hypodermic syringe into the Chancellor's buttock.

When Mr Darling had calmed down, he fought back tears as he told the gathering crowd of reporters that, with the passing of the economy, money was now of no worth whatsoever.

"This is the end of the financial world," he sobbed. "For thousands of years, civilisation has marched forward hand-in-hand with monetary trade. Now we face years of misery as we return to the dawn of human history, with each person's daily survival hanging on the barter value of whatever meagre goods and skills they possess, and the strength of their bodies."

Mr Darling then bit off a finger and drew a chart on the pavement in his own blood, showing how the new barter economy would affect a typical cross-section of society, including:

City banker with family of four, total income of £250,000 a year, mortgaged five-bedroomed house in home counties: home seized by rampaging mercenary forces, wife carried off as spoil of victory, children eaten by wolves; starvation in 2-3 weeks

Two married teachers, no children, joint income of £48,000, renting two-bedroom flat in provincial city: apartment building razed to ground by feral teenage gang, taken in by wandering scavenger band and fed scraps in return for telling entertaining stories round camp fire; survival prospects moderate, dependent on whim of charismatic leader

Single pensioner, living in sheltered accommodation on basic state pension: thrown onto bonfire by marauding middle-management executives

Overweight chav, living in council flat on JSA: dragged outside, cooked on pensioner-fuelled bonfire and eaten

Three Charged Over PM Character-Assassination Plot

Three men have been charged with terror offences, following investigations into an alleged plot to assassinate Gordon Brown.

Ishaq Cameron, who has made numerous threats to bring down the Prime Minister, is charged with belonging, or professing to belong to, the Conservative Party, inviting support for the Conservative Party, and dissemination of terrifying publications such as interviews in the Times and the Daily Telegraph.

Two brothers from the Labour Party - Iqband One and Two - will also face trial for threatening to stab Mr Brown in the back, and for being in possession of a Guardian article which gives rise to a reasonable suspicion that possession is for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of shameless political opportunism.

“We must be ever-watchful in our fight against the powers of darkness that threaten to overwhelm the Prime Minister,” said Detective Chief Inspector Savage of the Vote-Counter Terrorism Unit. “Take a look at the man standing next to you on the bus tomorrow morning. He might seem like a decent sort, with the Independent sticking out of his briefcase - but don’t be fooled by appearances. Inside, he is probably seething with a burning hatred for Gordon Brown’s hapless mismanagement of the country’s affairs – a hatred that can only find an outlet in random, senseless acts of voting Conservative.”

“Or he might have the mild, unassuming outward appearance of a typical lifelong Labour voter,” he went on. “But, festering in the blackest recesses of his heart, he may well harbour a vindictive, suicidal determination to destroy all that Gordon Brown holds dear, i.e. his desperation to cling to the wheel as the ship sinks under him.”

Following the announcement, the Prime Minister moved swiftly to issue a message of reassurance to his loyal followers - both of whom are currently believed to be living in a remote cave, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

“Be pure! Be vigilant! Behave!” he said.

Speedboat

The Royal Navy was involved in its biggest ever drugs-busting operation yesterday, when HMS Liverpool was found to be carrying 18 cocaine-filled sailors.

Citizens of the fair city of Liverpool expressed shock and disgust at finding the reputation of their wonderful home town besmirched by their naval namesake, with many worthy Scousers indignantly shrieking, “Ey! Ey!! Ey!!!” in tones rising to inaudible frequencies.

The Type 42 destroyer, which is currently deployed on operations to combat drug-smuggling, was found to be awash with illegal drugs after the crew had a ‘run ashore’ in Brazil.

“We conducted random drug tests on the crew after the captain noticed a sharp reduction in the number of nostrils aboard ship,” explained the ship’s doctor. “Also, when the crew were paraded on deck, some of them were clearly marching in a strangely Colombian manner. Eighteen crew members whom we subsequently tested were found to be positive. In fact, some of them were absolutely ecstatic. You really don’t want to know what they’ve been getting up to in the rigging, believe me.”

“Positive test rates in the Navy last year averaged less than 0.4%,” pointed out a spokeswoman from the Ministry of Sound Defence. “Unfortunately, the nature of statistical variation means that they appear to be slightly higher among the 240 crew aboard HMS Liverpool. All right - nineteen times higher, if you must know.”

“But let’s not lose sight of the important fact that the Royal Navy has seized the biggest-ever haul of illegal drugs in its illustrious history,” she added sheepishly. “Even if they didn’t have to look very far to find them.”

The Navy denied internet rumours that they would soon be selling tickets to the biggest festival in the Southern Hemisphere, and said that HMS Liverpool had impounded itself pending collection and destruction by specialist teams from the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

Entire Sea Bed Supports Tiny Island Dependency, Claims Britain: Earth's Crust Is Ours

The UK is formally presenting a case to the UN in which it will try to claim the entire crust of the planet Earth, in a landmark challenge to the existing understanding of what constitutes ‘land’.

Britain is kicking off by claiming that Ascension Island - a secretive military base in the South Atlantic – is, like many islands, actually the tip of an underwater mountain, and that the traditional 200-mile territorial limit should be measured from the base of that mountain, rather than the tiny little tip that pokes out above the waves.

“If we get away with this whopper, there’ll be no stopping us,” said the optimistic Foreign Secretary, Miliband One. “First, we establish the basic principle that land means all that stuff below, as well as above, sea level. Then we argue that, just as the island depends on the undersea mountain for support, so the mountain depends on the sea bed to stop it from crashing through to the magma layer beneath.”

“The world will be ours,” he added with an insane cackle.

The ostensible aim behind the remarkable challenge to accepted semantics is the acquisition of a larger domain in which to search for oil, gas and minerals.

However, Miliband One did not rule out the eventual annexation of hitherto-undiscovered deep-sea horrors like that hideous swimming mouth-thing, or maybe a scimitar-toothed angler fish the size of a double-decker bus, which could be modified by genetic engineering into an unstoppable legion of lethal anti-terrorist monstrosities. Or something.

“Can you imagine Osama Bin Laden’s face when he finds himself cornered in his remote cave by a nightmarish, pulsating squid-thing with a beak like a JCB?” exulted the Foreign Secretary. “Or picture a highly-dangerous Brazilian tradesman at your local station, instantly reduced to bloody ribbons before your eyes by a specially-trained giant eel with a cross-cut shredder for a face. Nothing will stand in our way! Vote Labour.”

The UN, however, is reported to be in favour of sticking to the generally-accepted definition of land favoured by the Oxford English Dictionary, and for that matter every other dictionary – namely, those bits of the Earth’s surface that aren’t sea.

“The blinkered fools,” smirked Miliband One cryptically. “Mark well their faces, my evil beauties.”

You Fatuous Bastard

People should not be given excuses for being fatuous, says shadow health minister, Andrew Lansley.

According to the Tory spokesman, saying that being fatuous is an inevitable product of biology and the environment gives people “the one thing we have to avoid: an excuse.”

Instead, he said, we should all take more responsibility for our lifestyles and exercise our brains more.

“Although we live in an environment where politicians and the media regularly heap ridicule and abuse on the overweight, people like me have a duty to be responsible and stop picking on easy targets whose imperfections are just more visible than our own,” said Mr Lansley. “Similarly, it’s not enough to blame my fatuousness on the fact that my parents - and generations before them – were sneering, condescending snobs. I really ought to take a close look at my own failings before making sweeping statements about other people.”

Phelps Signs Sponsorship Deal With Entire Food Industry

Michael Phelps, the top-scoring athlete from the Beijing Olympic Games, has signed the largest sponsorship deal in history, ecstatic marketing executives revealed today.

The swimming star, who carried away eight gold medals, can thank his four-million-calorie diet for the unprecedented corporate attention.

“Michael’s big pointy chin will fill the advertising breaks of television stations across the entire world,” grinned a coke-sniffer in a suit. “A typical advertising break might consist of Michael extolling the virtues of Warburton’s Super-Thick, Three-Slice-per-Loaf Toastie Bread, then slurping down a Bucket Noodle, munching his way through an entire 12-pack of Walkers lard-flavoured crisps and biting a sizeable chunk out of a freshly-slaughtered slab of prime beef before downing a jerrycan of Red Bull’s godawful new pretend-Cola in one.”

“Eat, sleep and swim, that’s all I can do,” beamed the 23-year-old sporting phenomenon, before deafening everyone in earshot with a 150-decibel burp which lasted for a full minute.

Profit and Data Loss

Following yet another security lapse - in which a computer sold on eBay was found to contain the financial details of a million Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest customers - the government has announced that computers are to be banned in Britain as of midnight.

“This data is only of use if anyone has the technology to read it,” said a Home Office spokesman with a current account balance of £872.94, a £450,000 mortgage with 204 months to run and a total credit card debt of £5,022.48, and whose mother’s maiden name was Watson. “So anyone who has not handed their computer into the local police station by midnight will be looking at a five-year stretch, minimum. If nobody has a computer, it doesn’t matter how many lost CD-Rs, hard drives and memory sticks are floating around, does it? Job done.”

He stressed that companies and government departments would not be affected by the ban, as these were highly reputable organisations which could be trusted with information of a sensitive nature. However, he added, all debit and credit cards should be handed in as well in order to prevent unauthorised account access.

“From now on, people will enjoy complete peace of mind as they collect their cash in person from the bank’s cashiers,” he explained, “Provided they take along their solicitor, doctor or local vicar to verify their identity.”

When asked about the risk from fraudsters overseas, the spokesman laughed and said that the government understood that computer technology was unknown in other countries.

'Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones, But AK47s Are Better', Mugabe Tells Hecklers

Zimbabwe’s opposition MPs have heckled Robert Mugabe during his opening parliamentary speech, shouting, “You killed people, we won’t forget that" as he listed his government’s achievements.

President Mugabe told a hostile House of Assembly that he had every expectation that power-sharing would begin soon.

“I am confident that, very soon, these gentlemen from the Movement for Democratic Change will be sharing their power with me,” he smiled. “Especially after I hand the minutes of this session over to my loyal - and extremely well-armed - security forces.”

Madge Secures Crucial South Wales Vote For Obama

The world’s most-respected political commentator, Madonna, has treated fans attending her Cardiff show to her incisive, expert analysis of the US presidential race, juxtaposing images of Republican candidate John McCain with pictures of Adolf Hitler and Robert Mugabe.

The images, which were aired during a video interlude in her Sticky and Sweet World Tour extravaganza at the Millennium Stadium, also featured scenes of global warming and destruction, and were followed by a sequence in which Barack Obama was seen hand-feeding a cute baby deer, rescuing a kitten stuck up a tree and being anointed by the Lord God Almighty.

Both candidates were quick to denounce the pop diva’s crude attempts at brainwashing.

“Senator McCain has never destroyed the world or reduced a single rainforest to matchwood,” said a campaign manager. “Neither has he invaded Poland, exterminated any Jews or burned his opponent’s villages. We do, of course, reserve the right to introduce these elements in our campaign later, should the need arise.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Senator Obama was of the opinion that few people would be swayed by crude, feelgood images of their candidate. “No,” he said, “What works is the subtle stuff – our guy dressed as Superman, chasing down black-clad, pony-tailed drug overlords in his Apache helicopter before returning to his good lady wife on the porch of the White House with a cheery ‘Hi, honey, I’m home!’ surrounded by choirs of angels flying around singing hallelujahs.”

Madonna’s fans, however, were slightly sceptical about the star’s propaganda efforts.

“In case she hasn’t noticed, South Wales isn’t actually part of the United States, is it?” pointed out Gwyneth Evans of Barry Island. “And even if it was, the average age in the stadium looked about 15.”

Madonna is widely expected to follow up her insightful video commentary with a coffee-table book, in which she will illustrate the finer points of the changing political landscape of America by posing provocatively in a never-ending succession of wrinkle-revealing costumes.

Bean's On Toast

The Bank of England’s deputy governor, Charles Bean, has delivered the gloomiest forecast yet for Britain’s economic future.

Speaking at the annual conference of the world’s top bankers in Wyoming, the newly-appointed Mr Bean delivered a shocking – and completely unintelligible – speech to the financial masters of the world.

“Mmm!” he said as he took the stage, leaving a trail of notes from an open folder.

“Hmm?” he went on, as the lectern microphone spun round on its stalk, smashing the glass autocue screen.

A cloud of despondency settled over the auditorium as Mr Bean launched into an intermittent mumble while operating the Powerpoint remote, illustrated by images of numerous failed rocket launches, extinct animal species, blitzed cities, collapsing aeroplanes with Venetian blinds for wings and Myra Hindley. Mr Bean closed his speech with a final warning to the money men, stepping backwards and falling down an open trapdoor with a final, stark: “Oh!”

The hall burst into uproar, with panic-stricken bankers screaming, “For God’s sake, sell sterling - now!” into their Blackberries and frantically searching Google Earth for the nearest tall building to hurl themselves from.

Back home, the City of London swiftly took on the look of a ghost town as the staff of its international megacorporation offices headed for the airports, leaving an army of demolition workers to knock down their deserted towers of glass and steel before collecting their P45s and heading back to the relative economic security of Eastern Europe.

“Mr Bean’s hilarious escapades always reduce me to helpless fits of laughter,” giggled the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alastair Darling, to reporters outside 11 Downing Street. “His hapless, bumbling antics provide me with welcome relief from the daily grind of presiding over the worst recession since the dark days of the seventies. There’s never a situation so bad that he can’t make things ten times worse. He’s a comedy genius.”