God Saves Yet Another Airliner

God is once again basking in headline glory, after single-handedly saving all 155 passengers and crew aboard the US Airways Airbus that came down in the Hudson River yesterday.

"It's nothing less than a miracle," said damp-but-intact passenger José Credialos. "If our merciful Lord and Saviour hadn't taught emergency procedures to the pilot, designed flotation chambers into the wings, and given us the gift of boats, I'd surely be in bloody chunks at the bottom of the river right now. Yes sir, I sure would like to shake Almighty God by the hand."

Reporters were swift to praise the pilot, Chesley B Sullenberger III, for having the humility to sit back and allow our Blessed Redeemer to fly the stricken A320 airliner safely down to a perfect ditching.

"I had nothing whatever to do with this," New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a press conference. "But I'd like to thank God for this heaven-sent opportunity to bask in the media spotlight as if I did."

God-fearing air accident investigators say their investigation will focus on the possibility that the airliner's engines suffered catastrophic failure after ingesting a flock of geese shortly after take-off.

"It's too early to say anything for definite at this stage," said chief investigator Pastor Faith Gottlieb. "But it's quite likely that our list of recommendations to the civil aviation authorities will highlight the need for kneelers behind every seat, the singing of hymns during take-off, cruise and landing and the presence of an ordained minister of the Lord on every flight deck."

Meanwhile, outgoing President George W Bush told the nation that he had awarded the Lord a nice shiny medal for His miraculous intervention, and promised that America would leave no stone unturned in its search for the twisted minds behind the cowardly suicide-goose attack.

"Even as I speak, experts from the Office of Homeland Security are combing world maps for Goosistan," he warned. "One last big invasion before I go sure would send me off in style."

Brown To Relieve Banks Of Onerous Burden Of Acting Responsibly

The government has revealed plans to take the enormous sub-prime mortgage debts off the hands of stupid, greedy banks, and dump them all in your lap instead.

"This is bloody brilliant news, old boy," crowed a senior director, one of a group of leading City figures staggering drunkenly out of Spearmint Rhino. "It's damned good of old Prudence to give us absolute carte blanche to carry on throwing money away with reckless abandon on dodgy deals that would clearly be too good to be true, if only we weren't wilfully blinded by our sheer, naked avarice to give them even the most cursory once-over. Thank heavens for the great British public, eh? Cheers!"

The BBC's Robert Peston sounded a note of caution, however, saying that the government's plans to set up a state-owned 'bad bank' full of toxic debts might yet stall.

"There are huge difficulties in valuing the assets to be placed in them," he warned, "Mainly because they have absolutely no value whatsoever, and never will."

Meanwhile, champagne-vomiting bankers were dancing in the City streets, and jabbering excitedly about wasting mind-boggling amounts of money on perpetual-motion machines, alchemy research and speculative buy-to-let apartments on the sun.

"Alternatively, we might just build a stonking great pile of banknotes in Trafalgar Square, and when it reaches the top of Nelson's Column, set fire to the whole bloody lot," giggled one inebriated Head of Corporate Investments. "Then we'll sell the ashes to Gordon for twice the amount, and he can give a nice decorative urn to all the little people who are too stupid to avoid paying taxes."

Arse Attacks!

Robotic anal probes have detected the presence of enormous farts on Mars, according to ecstatic NASA researchers.

Exobiologist sub-editors writing in the Sun immediately decided that the atmospheric methane clouds prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the red planet is teeming with life, kebabs and lager - although more cautious observers speculate that the massive Olympus Mons volcano may simply be some kind of gigantic, planet-sized rectum. 

"Jeezus H Christ, that planet stinks!" declared NASA's Mars mission chief, Wilbur von Braun. "I wouldn't go out there if I were you."

Heard That One Before

Baroness Vadera has come in for heavy criticism, after claiming to see "green shoots" of economic recovery - echoing former Chancellor Norman Lamont's famously premature use of the phrase in 1991.

The Business Minister - one of Gordon Brown's friends in the City, given a peerage and power by the Prime Minister to ensure the job didn't go to some unreliable elected MP who might conceivably put the good of the country before corporate interests - made her unfortunate choice of words in an ITV interview, saying, "I am seeing a few green shoots but it's a little bit too early to say exactly how they'd grow."

She then went on to wave a British Airways dinner menu, which she claimed guaranteed "peace for our time", adding jovially that "Mr Recession has missed the bus".

The Conservative spokesman for business, Alan Duncan, condemned the Baroness' comments. "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing," he said. "Depart, I say; and let us have done with you."

"In the name of Gord, go," he added.

Black-Hearted Fiend Attacks Disabled Kids

A deservedly-obscure backbench Labour MP has committed the unspeakable thought-crime of wantonly wondering why Britain is full of dyslexics when other countries aren't, the nasty little shit.

The heartless, depraved Graham 'Goebbels' Stringer pitilessly suggested that 10% of Britons might not be labelled as dyslexic if teachers agreed on one teaching technique and stuck to it, rather than 'confusing' their students with a barrage of different systems.

"If dyslexia really existed," ranted the clearly-deranged renegade, "Then countries as diverse as Nicaragua and South Korea would not have been able to achieve literacy rates of nearly 100%."

"Of course dyslexia is real," said an angry Shirley Cramer, chief executive of Dyslexia Action. "My job - and the jobs of thousands of other saintly experts - wouldn't exist if it wasn't."

"This brutal monster must be stopped," she pleaded, "Before he starts bundling your defenceless, disabled kiddies into the back of a van and slaughtering them all with Zyklon-B."

Every right-minded person in Britain was today clamouring for the renegade bastard MP for Blackley to be impaled on a spike - the richly-deserved fate of the producers of a malicious Channel 4 documentary some years ago, which insulted everyone by making the ridiculous, spiteful claim that dyslexia might be nothing more than a socially-acceptable label applied to nice middle-class children, rather than the 'learning difficulties' experienced by the illegitimate thicky underclass progeny of drug-addicted prostitutes on council estates.

Heretic education chiefs in Dumbartonshire, who ruthlessly eradicated dyslexia in their schools - recklessly discarding the tried-and-tested method of bombarding pupils with whatever systems individual teachers happened to like, dogmatically inflicting the unbelievable nonsense of so-called 'synthetic phonics' instead - were rightly dragged from their offices by a baying mob of concerned, caring citizens, tarred and feathered, then strung up from lamp-posts.

Thousands of incensed teachers have taken to the streets in protest against the criminal sociopath Stringer's vicious slurs, waving placards and banners reading: "fUkE Of fACiST!!!", "tEEChERZ no hOWe tOO tEECh", "hAY StiNGeR??? LEEV tHoes kiDDS ALOwN!!!!!!!!" and "StRiGNEr iS A CNUt".

Queen's Secret Sandringham Plantation Shame

In the latest twist in the racism scandal engulfing the House of Windsor, the Nev Filter has obtained shocking evidence of the Queen purchasing negro slaves at a clandestine auction, held on a secret sugar plantation in the grounds of her Sandringham estate. The plantation has been cleverly hidden from prying eyes, masquerading as an ornamental walled garden. 

In the exclusive footage, Her Majesty can clearly be seen examining the teeth of several naked, chained Africans. At one point, she is clearly heard telling a leering Princess Anne that she is looking for "strong darky stock for [her] stud farm".

The controversial clip also shows Prince Philip heartlessly horsewhipping a cowering slave for not lowering his eyes in the presence of the Queen and shouting, "How dare you feast your lustful kaffir eyes on the white mistress? Damn your hide, boy, I'll thrash some bloody manners into your dark Sambo soul."

The noble African savages are believed to have been caught in a big net by Princes William and Harry while they were ostensibly in Africa doing charity work, and posted to the UK in diplomatic bags.

The exclusive material comes hard on the heels of the revelations that Prince Harry called a fellow army officer a 'Paki', while his father refers to a polo team-mate as 'Sooty'.

Veteran royal apologists were at a loss to find excuses for the latest monarchic outrage.

"Even I find it hard to dismiss flaying the skin off a slave's back as matey banter between old friends," said an ashen-faced Nicholas Witchell.

Others were more forthcoming with their opinions, however.

"This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Britain's so-called royalty are nothing more than a goose-stepping, murderous Nazi death squad," said Mohammed Fayed. "No wonder my almost-daughter-in-law Princess Diana fled screaming from their evil clutches, and look what they did to her."

"I'd like my passport now, please," he added.

Acute Schizophrenia Symptoms Apparently Common Among Durham Students - Researcher Blames Coffee

Drinking too much caffeine can cause people to have hallucinations, according to a wide-eyed researcher from Durham University.

Psychologist Simon Jones checked the caffeine levels of 200 students before asking them if they had heard voices in their heads or seen any ghosts recently. His results showed that those students who consumed caffeine equivalent to seven cups of coffee a day or more were three times more prone to insane hallucinations than those who restricted their intake to one cup.

"This ground-breaking research proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that serious caffeine abusers are dicing with madness," warned Dr Jones. "Most of those who told me in all seriousness that they heard voices were apparently found collapsed and laughing hysterically outside my office not five minutes later."

A little later, Durham's Dean of Psychology announced that he would be undertaking some research of his own into a possible link between academic studies and excessive credulity.

Survey Round-Up

Today's surveys uncover the shocking truth that 29% of the litter clogging Britain's streets comes from mutant high-flyers with abnormally-elongated ring fingers who are frightened by the ongoing decline in Britain's economy, have failed to escape from the social deprivation of their lower-class backgrounds and stuff their faces at McDonalds.

"If anybody out there has the faintest idea of what this proves - please, please let us know," begged a spokesman for the Social Chambers of Keep Cambridge Mobility Commerce Tidy.

Defiant Palestinians Still Stubbornly Threatening Israel With Fireworks

As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon embarks on a futile hand-wringing visit to the Gaza Strip, Israeli Slaughterer-General Gabi Ashkenazi said there was "still work ahead" in the shattered region.

"By 'work', I mean the razing of any remaining buildings of more than half a storey in height," he went on to explain, "And by 'ahead', I mean until our elections are over."

Meanwhile, Israel graciously consented to allow a humanitarian aid convoy through its massive prison wall that surrounds the Palestinians, to drop off urgently-needed supplies in Israeli-controlled areas where they are not so urgently needed.

On the 18th day of the somewhat one-sided contest, Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships have been raining another 60 lethal bombardments on targets in and around the southern town of Rafah, while tanks continue to close in on the heart of Gaza City, bringing the death toll among Palestinians to at least 933. Diehard Hamas supporters retaliated by launching two rockets from a bottle in the general direction of Israel, leaving the Israeli casualty list unchanged and barely into double figures.

"We would have launched more," said a Hamas spokesman, "But we ran out of matches. Allah is great - but unfortunately it seems that, right now, the Israeli army is considerably greater."

EU Wants You To Starve

The ruthless, dictatorial European Union has cynically approved a ban on toxic, carcinogenic pesticides which will bring about the complete cessation of agricultural activity in Britain and lead to inevitable mass starvation, according to the government, the Conservative Party and the National Farming Union.

The arrogant Eurocrats ignored moving assurances from the UK government that the loyal British consumer would gladly embrace an agonising death from cancer, if it would rescue the much-loved farming community from the inconvenience of having to read the instructions on the many non-cancerous agrochemicals still available to them.

"See this? It's a carrot," said a horny-handed son of the soil with a comedy rural accent, a tweed cap and a muddy wax jacket, who was wheeled out by the NFU to create the impression that farming was in some way not completely dominated by huge corporate landowners and supermarket chains. "Take a good look, because thanks to the evil followers of Hitler and Mussolini in Brussels you'll never see one again. Fact."

Summit For Nowt

Gordon Brown has held a jobs summit today in which he outlined his latest bright ideas for fiddling the unemployment figures.

Top of the list was the planned introduction of a scheme whereby anyone in a suit will be able to walk into their local Jobcentre and walk out with £2500 and a jobless waster to dispose of as they wish.

Another idea is the setting up of a worldwide 'jobless offset' trading scheme, in which governments burdened by a benefits system will be able to pay to ship bone-idle scum to poor countries, where they can safely be left to starve.

The Prime Minister is also looking with interest at Zimbabwe's innovative system of using surplus dumb creatures to feed their troops.

"Thanks to our well-meaning but misguided predecessors, we have inherited a white elephant of a welfare state which has left us with a surplus of nearly two million workshy dossers," he announced. "Sending these unwanted animals to the abattoir could keep our brave lads and lasses safe from starvation for years."

When it was suggested that the long-term unemployed might benefit from receiving a £2500 'golden hello' themselves if they managed to find work, the PM fainted dead away, and had to be revived with smelling salts.

Prince William To Attempt Heroic Rescue of Prince Harry

Prince William is continuing to indulge his hobby of playing with helicopters, by joining the elite search-and-rescue training school at RAF Shawsbury.

Group Captain David Prowse - who famously played Darth Vader and the Green Cross Man in the 70s - told reporters it was possible that the Prince might not pass the course, and assured them that he would receive no special treatment from the day he joined until the moment he graduated as the highest-scoring trainee in the school's history.

"Prince William - or, as 'ee's corled in the surrvices, Flight Lieutenant Wales Yore Royal 'ighness Zurr - will learn to use all of 'is inbred skills to pick up 'igh-claass totty from the turbulent streets of Mayfurr and drop 'em safely in Annabel's - where they can express their gratitude by droppin' 'em fer 'ee in return," he explained, adding, "Oo arr."

The brave Prince William has already been set the difficult task of rescuing his brother Harry, who is making heavy weather of accusations of casual racism. The helicopter-loving prince is currently reported to be hovering uncertainly on the sidelines of the media, while his floundering brother risks being completely overwhelmed by a huge swell of breaking headlines.

Doomed Two-Headed Mutant Is A Gift From God, Says Deluded Mumbo-Jumbo Woman

A Catholic woman from Portsmouth has bravely decided to ignore sound medical advice, claiming that the medieval misogynism of a former Nazi made far more sense to her than the pleading of doctors to terminate two-headed foetus.

The staunch twaddle-addict said that the rare dicephalous twins deserved to have the chance of becoming Catholics in the brief days of life they are probably going to experience between birth and death.

"To me, my twins are a gift from God," said superstitious Lisa Chamberlain, 25. "A bit like the hand-knitted sweater you get from your great-aunt at Christmas with three-foot sleeves, in fact."

The Pope is said to be urgently considering the weighty theological question of whether the two-headed child should be baptised once or twice.

"There's probably an encyclical in this," said a cardinal. "Still, at least it refutes allegations that the Pope is still influenced by his Nazi past. If he was, surely he'd be calling for the 'merciful' abortion of this hideous mutant thing."

He went on to advise the unclean woman to disburse herself of any notion that her selfless decision would in any way reduce the length of time she would spend in Purgatory for the cardinal sin of being born with a hole where her John Thomas should be.

Meanwhile, a passing bus urged Mrs Chamberlain to reconsider her decision.

"If that's a gift from God," it commented, "I really wouldn't want to receive any hate mail from him."

Milburn To Investigate Eton Rifles

Arch-Blairite former minister Alan Milburn has been appointed by Gordon Brown to look into social mobility in modern Britain, it was announced today. A particular area of focus is said to be the British Army, 90% of whose officers went to private schools.

"I say, it's really very simple," said a general speaking anonymously off the record, for fear of being ribbed mercilessly at his club. "You might find it hard to credit, old boy, but just because one's parents are loaded it doesn't necessarily follow that one is in the Einstein league. Haven't you ever wondered why private schools have cadet forces? It's a kind of thicky-sponge for the dolts who are plainly in no danger of setting foot inside a proper university. Clever buggers generally eliminate themselves anyway, thanks to their tiresome habit of asking 'What for?' every time they're given a stupid, petty order. That leaves a hard core of dense, but keen-as-mustard NCOs who soon develop a fondness for yelling and genuinely believe there is considerable intrinsic value in polishing boots. After a couple of years, it penetrates even their thick skulls that their career options are, basically, either shelf-stacking with the hoi polloi, or strutting around like little tin gods and shouting orders at them instead. So they join the army - and because they can use a knife and fork, we make them officers."

"If there's some glimmer of native intelligence, the RAF or the Navy generally get them," he added mournfully. "At the end of the day, there's really only so much damage a fuckwit can create with a tank before somebody notices. But a strike fighter or a nuclear sub? God Almighty, it doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Pass the port, there's a good chap - no, not that way, damn you! Don't they teach you anything in state schools?"

Mr Milburn said he would begin his investigation by studying the case of one particular member of the officer cadre from a privileged upbringing - one Lieutenant Wales - who sees nothing wrong in hurling racist abuse, dressing up in Nazi uniform, or punching photographers who spot him staggering out of the nightclubs where he spends most of his time.

Evil Mugabe Shocks World By Feeding Dead Animals We Happen To Like To Starving Troops

Pressure is mounting on the UN to intervene on the ground in Zimbabwe, following shock claims that the impoverished nation's soldiers were being given elephant meat in their rations. Zimbabwe's national parks contain an estimated 100,000 elephants, although they can support less than half that number.

"As we all know, an army marches on its stomach - so 55,000 surplus elephants ought to keep my mob running around for months," said an unrepentant Robert Mugabe. "It's either tasty, succulent elephants or rangy, tenderised MDC supporters. Which would you prefer?"

"It's hard to find words to express how outraged I feel," said one tearful animal rights campaigner. "Naturally I was a bit upset when I heard about Robert Mugabe bulldozing shanty towns, murdering people who might vote for the MDC, and responding to the cholera outbreak by closing hospitals and all that - so of course I joined a Facebook petition about it. But feeding his starving troops with meat from elephants, even if they were being culled anyway to safeguard the survival of the rest of the herd? This is just one more disgraceful example of man's inhumanity to cuddly toy-inspiring animals that cannot go unpunished. The UN should invade Zimbabwe immediately and slaughter the elephant-hating lot of them. That'll teach them."

The Nev Filter sent an intrepid, expendable intern reporter to Africa to ask a typical cute, cuddly bull-elephant for his views. Unfortunately he was trampled into bloody paste before he could file his report.