New Planning Guidelines All Things To Everyone, Beams Pickles

Mr Pickles says everyone's behind him, which is believable

Property developers, tree-huggers, NIMBYs, farmers, bankers, decent working families, Labour, young people, the disabled, the security forces, terrorists, penguins, seals, whales, plankton, generations as yet unborn and John Carter of Mars should unite in praising the government’s new one-page guide to planning, communities secretary Eric Pickles declared today.

“Replacing 1300 pages of really tedious crap that was only of interest to nerdy planners and other interfering busybodies with a simple tick-box ready reckoner is the only way to safeguard the beautiful vistas of England’s grey and pleasant land, both now and for future generations to come,” he insisted with a big shit-eating grin.

Those Planning Guidelines In Full

1. Will the developer trouser a tidy sum from this proposal?
Yes - APPROVED
Of course not, I’m only doing it for the good of my health – go to QUESTION 2
2. Are local (herein defined as <10m) residents likely to suffer significant loss of amenity, health or life?
No - APPROVED
Only poor people – go to QUESTION 3
3. Is the developer prepared to offer a token Section 106 bung to the council in used fivers, thereby keeping a library in another ward from closure for another day?
Yes – APPROVED
There aren’t any libraries left – go to QUESTION 4
4. Is the development in a Tory marginal ward?
Yes – REFUSED
No - APPROVED

Tree-Hugging Lesbians Made Me Tarmac The Countryside, Insists Cameron

Sandal-wearing lesbian whale-fanciers from Greenpeace told David Cameron the only way to safeguard the environment is to place it all in the gentle hands of the construction industry, insisted the prime minister today, so the nice men in hard hats can seal it for ever under a protective coat of hard core and asphalt and charge you a hefty Save The Planet Tax for the privilege of taking your evil car out of your drive.

Welcome to England's grey unpleasant land

“If you cast your minds back to when we won the election outright two years ago, I warned you that we would be the greenest government ever,” observed Mr Cameron. “Well, I had a couple of things to crack on with first, such as my longstanding commitment to play basketball with President Obama, but you must have known I’d get round to saving the planet sooner or later.”

“Here’s the deal,” he continued. “I hand Britain’s remaining green bits over to my environmentalist chums at Amey, and they preserve them under ten inches of tarmac. This will be paid for by the money we’ll save on maintenance by letting the existing motorways fall apart; they’ll soon be glorious nature reserves for Britain’s threatened weeds. In future, as soon as my yellow-jacketed friends see a traffic jam forming, they will quickly paint in an new motorway, set up a tent to sell tickets and bob’s your uncle, that’s another endangered butterfly saved from extinction.”

“My panda-friendly advisors tell me this’ll work beautifully for airports, too,” he smiled. “But remember: every time you raise an objection, a beautiful smiley dolphin dies.”

Hornby Unveils Future Of Train Sets

Train sets are to be boosted into the 21st century and beyond with the announcement by Hornby that, by 2026, all curved track sections will be deleted from their catalogue.

“This will transform train sets as we know them,” said Hornby CEO Justine Greening. “The traditional oval-track design has been keeping speed down ever since train sets were invented.”

The ultra-modern train set, she explained, will whisk tiny plastic figures from the bathroom all the way to your dad’s smelly old shed at the far end of the back garden in half the time it would take today, if little people living in your toilet fancied a day out to take in the exciting scent of creosote. From the shed, the long-awaited CrossRockery line would connect your toy people with routes to your friends’ houses and beyond via the Hedgerow Tunnel, she added - and Hornby are also hoping to extend the route onward into your front garden later.

At last, your little plastic folk will finally have somewhere else to go

Scalextric fans, however, have pointed out that the sections you will have to buy to build your new layout are going up from £3.49 per Long Straight Track (R603) segment to £149.99, while your dad has also noticed that no model trains in the Hornby catalogue are actually capable of taking advantage of the speed potential of the curve-free route - meaning that you will have to import all your rolling stock from Lima or Märklin.

Meanwhile, your sister has raised vociferous objections to the route of your planned high speed model railway passing straight through her designated area of Outstanding Natural Shagging.

Sony Creates Tiny Fan To Replace Millions Of Displeased Customers

Dissatisfied fans

As hordes of irate Japanese PlayStation Vita purchasers catalogued defect after defect in the newly-launched handheld console and a class-action lawsuit was filed in California by PlayStation Network users against the gagging clause the corporation has inserted into its terms and conditions, Sony engineers defiantly unveiled the only fan which still has reason to be grateful to the consumer electronics giant – a tiny two-inch propeller which is driven by the electricity generated by a battery containing paper-digesting enzymes.

Satisfied fan

“You ungrateful bastards,” announced project engineer Yuichi Tokita. “We transform your miserable existence with our revolutionary inventions, like portable colour televisions and the Walkman - and this is the thanks we get? Once again, out of the kindness of our hearts, we have sweated blood to improve your pathetic ant-like lives with this beautiful three-bladed propeller, but all you can do is moan. Well, fuck you. From now on, all future research will be directed solely towards selling Sony products to this nice, uncomplaining little fan.”

The press conference was then brought to an early close as the enzyme-powered generator – like previous Sony batteries – suddenly exploded.

Environment Told To Go Hang After Polar Bear Discovered Eating Cub

Animals - worse than Ian Brady

The environment can go to hell in a handcart, announced a world disgusted by this horrific photograph of a polar bear munching happily on the bloody remains of its own young.

“For years we thought the polar bear was a majestic wonder of nature, the noble figurehead of the earth’s fragile ecosystem under threat,” said an appalled Greenpeace spokesman. “Now we find out they’re all sick paedo-cannibals. Well, fuck ‘em. From now on, my telly stays on standby all night, every night.”

Meanwhile, the Sea Shepherd organisation says it will, from now on, guide Japanese whaling ships to the best pods. “All the hard work we’ve put into saving their sorry asses, and what appreciation have the fat bastards even shown us?” demanded the aggrieved captain of the MY Steve Irwin. “Bugger all, that’s what. Bloody scroungers. I bet you they’re down there right now, laughing at us in their bloody whale palaces, drinking our beer, smoking our fags and shagging our women while we’re bouncing about the Southern Ocean, puking our bloody guts up on their behalf.”

And Sir David Attenborough - incensed at what he believes to be a personal betrayal by the animal kingdom he has devoted a lifetime to championing – says he has purchased an elephant gun and is setting off for Canada “for some trophies to replace my meaningless BAFTA awards.”

By ‘Use Green Taxes To Subsidise Public Transport’ We Mean ‘Cram Even More Cash Down Brian Souter’s Yawning Gullet’, Admit MPs

This is the age of the train - it's 35

Shamefaced MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee reluctantly admitted today that when they called on the government to use fuel duty to lower the cost of using public transport, what they actually meant was hurling yet more billions of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash into the black holes of Stagecoach and FirstGroup.

Green taxes "cannot be all stick and no carrots," said the MPs this morning, and called for simple links to be made between taxing your car to high heaven and cheerfully throwing the revenue at what they fondly imagine to be more environmentally friendly alternatives - such as the clapped-out vintage diesel HSTs which First Great Western still employs to belch black, choking clouds of exhaust fumes into the rolling green pastures of Somerset as they pointlessly drag empty carriages full of unaffordable seats back and forth to London every hour, or the equally decrepit Leyland horrors they pulled out of scrapyards to squeal and clank their way around Devon’s picturesque branch lines.

“Admittedly, eye-watering subsidies on a scale undreamt of in the days of British Rail have not yet persuaded franchisees like Brian Souter - who have striven hard to turn Britain’s railways into a third-world system with out-of-this-world fares - to make a thousand-seater train a sensibly-priced alternative to a fuel-guzzling 50-seat airliner,” said aptly-named committee chair Joan Walley. “So the only possible solution to this problem is even bigger subsidies.”

“Sadly, another issue that won’t be addressed by throwing good money after bad is that, on the whole, your typical motorist doesn’t have to endure a howling, farting troupe of simian piss-artists whenever he goes for a drive,” noted BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin. “Or, if he does, at least they’re family.”

Dole Cheats Stealing £300 Of Nature A Year From Decent, Hard-Working Families

Fistral Beach

The reason you are not getting your annual £300 share of nature’s bounty is not because you live in a man-made hell of concrete and exhaust fumes, a report commissioned by the government revealed today. It is because feckless unemployeds are ripping you off and enjoying Britain’s scenic beauty free, gratis and for nothing while you toil in a dull, grey office.

“I told my Jobcentre advisor I wasn’t happy with the amount of beaches I was getting on JSA,” scoffed bone-idle scrounger Roy Biggins, 42, from Bethnal Green. “I told ‘em straight, I want three hundred nicker of the Lake District right now, right, and I ain’t budging until you give it me.”

Fistral Beach without the doleys

While Mr Biggins shamelessly cavorts with badgers to his heart’s content among Cumbria’s lush green valleys, the authors of the National Ecosystem Assessment warn that other workshy loafers are greedily sucking in the clean, valuable air that is rightfully yours all over the wave-kissed beaches of Devon and Cornwall.

When our reporter tried to reclaim his due share of Britain’s natural beauty by pushing a surfing jobless off Newquay’s golden Fistral Beach, he was loudly told to “fuck off” by the protesting wastrel, who is in the process of appealing an Atos decision that a chronic allergy to work is not a barrier to employment.

Conservationists ‘Not Particularly Horrified’ By Plans To Introduce Polecats Up Beardy Tycoon’s Private Trouser Habitat

Meet the new Sid Vicious, you cardigan-bothering creep

Leading naturalists have given an enthusiastic thumbs-up to plans by long-suffering victims of Virgin Trains to introduce angry polecats into the luxuriant trouser paradise owned by Sir Richard Bastard, it emerged today.

The polecat scheme follows hard on the heels of the grinning billionaire’s unwelcome announcement that he intends to transplant non-native lemurs to Moskito, the Caribbean island he bought in 2007 for £10m. Animal protection charities and environmentalists united in dismay, warning that the intelligent, aggressive omnivores would swiftly become the dominant species on the island, devastating its fragile ecosystem and threatening extinction for the rare dwarf gecko.

Bastard responded to the worldwide outcry by pointing smarmily to the wholehearted approval he had bought from the government of the British Virgin Islands.

“Like me, lemurs are endearingly fuzzy and everybody wants to hug them,” he oozed. “But geckos are just ugly, sucker-employing reptiles, unloved even by their own mothers - like Lord Sugar, in fact.”

Sir David Attenborough is just one of many leading conservationists to endorse West Coast mainline passengers’ plans to introduce up to 30 ferocious, starving polecats into the accounts-shuffling businessman’s private trouser hideaway.

“Reports indicate that the humid interior of Richard Bastard’s trousers hosts an abundance of large, succulent plums and other fleshy delights for these particularly vicious members of the weasel family to sink their needle-sharp teeth into,” he observed. “Sir Richard can hardly object, as he is clearly a close relative.”

Armchair Environmentalists Looking Forward To Hubristic Nuclear Blast

Told you so

As the situation at Japan’s earthquake-hit Fukushima Number 1 nuclear power plant goes from bad to worse, Britain’s tree-hugging community were unable to contain their glee, delightedly posting glib ‘told-you-so’ messages to the world at large.

“When I heard there’d just been an explosion, I was all over the NHK website looking for a satisfyingly huge mushroom cloud that would pour black, irradiated rain down on the silly Japanese population, serving them all right for building nuclear power stations,” said someone on Facebook with a made-up name and a picture only they found amusing. “Unfortunately this explosion is a bit crap, but hopefully it’s only a matter of time.”

“Why oh why do evil power companies persist in building their deadly atomic bombs right next to the obvious supply of water to cool their reactor cores?” wailed somebody else who is apparently a glitterdaisy, whatever the hell that is. “It’s madness. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if the earth didn’t send this earthquake just to show humankind its insane folly. Wake up, people! There’s less than twelve months to the end of the world, and if you’re not as gorgeously enlightened as me then you won’t be transformed into a pure thought-being made of concentrated love.”

“I’ll be smug and irritating again later,” she added, “First, I just need to set this awesome footage of fleeing cars being engulfed by a black wall of water to the Benny Hill chase music.”

Meanwhile, everyone who has friends or relatives anywhere on the farthest edges of the Pacific Ocean, or ever went there on holiday for a week, is busy racking up the caring brownie points by solicitously praying that everyone they know will somehow survive the cataclysmic six-inch tsunami rushing toward them.

Trees Much Cuddlier Than Crips, Says Public

Look at those lovely trees

As millions of Facebook users vented their anger at government plans to sell the 18% of British trees that it owns to salivating chainsaw enthusiasts, a disabled jobless registered a solitary, selfish vote in support of a petition condemning the government’s proposed cuts to the welfare budget.

“How dare he?” commented one outraged tree fan. “Trees are lovely. They give us all our air, and they look all nice and green. What have disableds ever done for us? Nothing. I wouldn’t mind so much if they just had even a hint of style, but God, just look at them. They always look like they’ve been catapulted through a charity shop. And they’re ugly.”

Another person who lives in a nice part of the countryside added, “I tried to hug a disabled with Asperger’s Syndrome once - because that’s the kind of wonderful caring person I am - and the ungrateful shit jumped out of his skin, gave me a creepy, cold look and walked away. Trees don’t walk away when you hug them. They love you unconditionally.”

An environmentalist posted: “Trees live for a very long time. Disabled people don’t. There simply is no comparison.”

“How dare some person in a wheelchair – a wheelchair I paid for, mind, with my hard-earned taxes – say I don’t care about the most vulnerable people in society?” complained a Guardian reader. “Of course I care about them, the whiny useless bastards. But they can speak for themselves, or at least squeak or grunt or use one of those hilarious drony things like Stephen Hawking. The poor trees can’t speak for themselves, though, which is why I have to bombard my friends’ newsfeeds at least twice a day with demands to sign online petitions to save the trees.”

BA Kindly Waives Fuel Surcharge Increase For Most Wasteful Flights

The world’s favourite airline to hate, British Airways, announced today that its long-suffering long-haul passengers will have an extra £10 per flight extracted from their threadbare wallets, in order to subsidise people who are too bloody impatient to travel short distances by road, rail or sea.

Coming soon to the Reading-Heathrow bus link

“Yes, of course most of the fuel is burnt up hauling a hulking great lump of metal up into the stratosphere,” admitted a smiling BA spokescreep, when questioned about the illogical decision. “Once it’s up there and bowling merrily along at 500mph, those enormous turbofans can just tick over on low revs for hours on end - which is why you can fly all the way to Florida and back for just £350, albeit not with us.”

“On your typical British domestic route, however, no sooner have you got up to 40,000ft than it’s time to come back down again,” he pointed out, after sneezing into a £50 note and casually dropping it into a shredder. “Short-haul commercial flying represents the least efficient form of mass transit that mankind has ever devised, unless perhaps somebody, somewhere is trundling about on a bus whose rear axle is driven from a reduction gear attached to the convection fan of a log-effect electric fire.”

“What you must bear in mind,” he explained, “Is that if ticket prices actually bore any relation to fuel usage, a lot of very impatient people could come to the reluctant conclusion that putting up with a couple of hours aboard one of Beardy Branson’s ghastly cattle trucks probably wouldn’t kill them after all.”

Newly-Deified Trees Issue Ultimatum

Trees - which have just become gods, following the decision of expert theologians The Charity Commission to officially recognise Druidism as a religion – today warned that they would unleash their barky powers upon mankind if just one member of their vast pantheon is felled, uprooted or even cut back.

A spokestree whispered eerily that the leylandii gods of Britain’s gardens were particularly under threat from unbelieving neighbours, and warned that arboricidal activities in any form would no longer be tolerated.

It then became inaudible for a few minutes, but when the wind picked up again it added that Network Rail had bloody better stop flailing overhanging branches away in future if it didn’t want crowded trains to be picked up by enraged gods and hurled into the nearest valley.

“Nobody consulted us when you puny bipeds decided to build your sodding railways slap bang through the middle of our sacred groves,” it murmured angrily. “Well, you’ve got four seasons to unlay your tracks and put them somewhere else instead.”

“Same goes for your local authorities, who are nothing more than sadistic amputators of innocent limbs,” it continued. “We have observed that the human worships the poisonous tin box it travels about in as a god - but it isn’t actually a proper deity, is it, with an official document to prove it? Well, I think you’ll find that gives us priority, thank you."

The gods have ways of dealing with false gods

“And speaking of paper, you can bloody well put a stop to all that nonsense as well,” it hissed. “Either you finally get round to those paperless offices you’ve been blabbing about for fifty summers, or you’d better start stepping up vellum production by a few billion per cent.”

“Remember, you live brief, squishy lives while we quietly grow for century after century,” it warned humanity. “If we decide to withhold our transpiration, who do you think can hold their breath for longer – you, or a tree?”

“And by the way, we’d like the managing director of B&Q sacrificed, please,” it added. “Make him into a shelving unit. We’ll see how he likes it.”

“Oh dear,” said a charity commissioner later. “I guess we didn’t quite think this one through, did we?”

“Next item on the agenda: a formal application for charitable status from the Worshipful Friends of the Four Elements,” he continued.

Green Unpleasant Land

Housing Minister Grant Shapps today announced that developers could build affordable housing in villages without having to go through all that tiresome nonsense about planning permission in future, as long as they offered suitable bribes to any remaining locals who haven’t been squeezed out by rich tossers from London buying up everything in sight for a picturesque second home in the country.

The plan is for local ‘housing trusts’ to vote on whether they wish to blight their rural idyll forever with low-cost housing developments, before selling up to some unsuspecting townie bastard and getting the hell out of Britain on the first available ferry to Spain.

“Oi’m orl forr it, zurr,” said Jethro Slurry, 72, the last of a long family line which has lived in the sleepy Somerset hamlet of Chorlton Wheleigh since being granted a hidal burghage in 1172. “Let zay zemty-foive grann apiece furr me an’ ole Mrs Tolpuddle as use turr run th’ Powst Orifice afore ‘ee shut daown, plus wot us’ll git furr a faast zale a’boaf uzz cottages t’zumm stock-opp bleddy yuppies, an’ it’s ‘ellow lurrve shaack daown on ‘im thurr Coster Brarrvurr f’r uzz, innit me ‘anzumm?”

Countryside preservation groups have already fainted dead away at the proposals, while county councillors up and down the country have been rubbing their hands with glee and ringing round their architect friends for quotes.

Why Oh Why Isn’t Cameron Sticking Up For Good Old BP, Demands Daily Mail

The prime minister has come under fire for failing to leap to the defence of BP – an international British success story we should all be proud of, according to the increasingly swivel-eyed Daily Mail columnist Alex Bummer.

“If the Cameron coalition fails to silence the verbal abuse and threats of steep financial penalties from President Obama and Congress,” warned Mr Bummer, “This great company could be killed by a thousand cuts, which would be an enormous blow to Britain's economy.”

With BP shares making up one sixth of Britain’s pension and insurance funds, Mr Bummer screamed, any attempt by the sneaky and noticeably black President to hold BP liable for the damage done by the worst man-made environmental catastrophe in history would not only dent the nation’s soaring economy but also hit you – yes, you - squarely in the wallet.

“Not so keen on wiping the oil off that penguin now, are you?” laughed the Mail’s top writer. “What? Penguin, pelican - what’s the difference? Neither of them are in my Observer’s Book Of British Birds, are they? Well, then I rest my case.”

BP Sucks

As BP continues to siphon off the leaking oil with a big straw, the US government has expressed some dissatisfaction with the petroleum giant’s efforts to combat the oil spill from the ruptured well head in the Gulf of Mexico, saying the technique the company was using was “no solution” to the crisis.

Speaking from his luxury corporate yacht, which is anchored directly above the leak, BP chief executive Kent Wells briefly took the straw from his mouth to refute the allegations, but hastily reinserted it as a fountain of crude oil sprayed hundreds of feet in the air.

He later wrote a message for reporters, claiming he was confident that the insertion into the broken pipeline of a straw and bung would capture three quarters of the leak.

Earlier, the company reassured the US authorities that it would honour its legal obligations, irrespective of a statutory cap on damages payable by the oil industry of $75bn.

“We promise that we will settle all legitimate damages claims,” promised a BP spokesman. “Just tell those oil-covered birds to fill out a form, and we’ll deal with each one on its merits.”

Plymouth Seizes 'Brownest City' Crown

The god-forsaken hell-hole of Plymouth is celebrating its brown credentials today, after plummeting down the rankings of Britain's 20 largest cities for sustainability.

The Devon city was rated the nation's third most sustainable last year - before Britain's only remaining Thatcherite, council leader Vivian Pengelly, had really had a chance to turn everything to shit. However, thanks to Mrs Pengelly's acclaimed stewardship, Plymouth now ranks 14th for biodiversity and climate change, 16th for green spaces and 18th for its economy.

"A year ago, Plymouth was actually top for environmental ranking," said Forum for the Future's chief executive, Peter Madden. "Now it's 14th. If I were living in Plymouth right now, I'd be throwing my essential belongings in a wheelbarrow and getting the fuck out of that toxic cesspit before nightfall."

Campaigning local newspaper the Eerole somehow failed to find space for the think-tank's ominous findings, filled as it was with a series of heart-warming stories about Plymouth's fine, upstanding citizens - including a man in court for pushing his girlfriend through a glass panel, a pensioner who has been indecently assaulting teenage girls for 40 years, another arrest linked to Plymouth's child-molesting nursery worker, and the usual daily round-up of random drunken assaults.

"Plemoff ez thurr focken bess focken setay en thur focken werowd, y'focken cont," said Cllr Pengelly in an official press release wrapped round a fresh turd, lit and pushed through the Nev Filter's letterbox. "Kmeer eff y'wanner focken myek sommen ovvet, y'focken twaah."

"Enn oy ent eevun sowed awf they focken buses yet," she added. "20th furr traanspawt, eeyer oss focken comms!"

Angry Plymoids, meanwhile, have expressed no urgent desire to read the forum's damning report, saying they would have to learn to read first and it seemed a lot of effort just to find out what "somm focken posh wanka oo wern frumm rown 'eer" had to say. They did, however, lean out of their knackered bangers to scream incoherently at strangers, which apparently constitutes the nearest thing to serious public debate in Plymouth.

Chip-Powered Environmentalist Reaches Milestone and 32 Stone

An environmental campaigner who is trying to travel around the world in a minibus powered solely by chip fat has now reached Asia - well, Turkey, which sort of counts, technically - and 32 stone.

34-year-old Londoner Andy Gutpag set off with several sacks of King Edwards in his scrapyard-salvaged bus on September 19th. He has since travelled through France, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, the Balkans and Greece, eating chips like billy-o, and today achieved the dual milestones of reaching the banks of the Bosphorus and getting through his first ton of potatoes.

Mr Gutpag has already faced many challenges on his journey - such as a higher rate of consumption than he originally planned for, which has prevented him from squeezing through the door since Zagreb.

"It's a type of bus that was never particularly efficient when new," he told reporters as he frantically shovelled handfuls of chips into his face. "It's noisy, uncomfortable, slow and it smells like a bus driver's armpit, but when you are using rubbish you can't expect too much."

Mr Gutpag's comments were echoed by reporters who made the mistake of standing too close to the flabby, farting campaigner.

"He's noisy, uncomfortable, slow and smells like a bus driver's armpit," said an appalled lifestyle correspondent from the Guardian. "But when you are eating rubbish you can't expect too much."

If he survives his epic journey without exploding -and after his bus has been cut away from him - Mr Gutpag hopes to circumnavigate the world again, this time in a balloon kept aloft by a non-stop barbecue and a constant supply of natural methane.

Airliners to Generate All Carbon Emissions By 2050

In order to meet the UK's targets for carbon emission reductions whilst allowing for growth in the aviation industry, everybody's domestic electricity and gas will be cut off and road vehicles banned by the year 2050, according to the government's advisory committee on climate change.

"In the future, the only carbon emissions will come from the queues of zeppelin-sized airliners stacked in holding patterns above Britain's airports, hoping for a landing slot to become available," said committee chair Adair Turner. "To keep this vital industry alive, everybody will have to sacrifice their lighting, heating, food preparation, home entertainment and personal transport. You'll still be able to fly to anywhere in the world whenever you feel like it, of course, only you'll have to walk to the airport first."

"It's either this, or give up your annual two-week piss-up in the Med," he added. "Unless, perhaps, you don't mind a brisk swim across the Channel, followed by a trans-continental hike."

A spokesman for the aviation industry pointed out that the airlines would not be exempt from having to make savage cuts themselves to meet any new, stringent climate agreements which might, unlikely though it may seem, be thrashed out by ministers in Copenhagen this December.

"Our long-cherished dreams of passenger-carrying rockets criss-crossing the world's oceans, burning up skyscraper-sized tanks of liquid hydrogen, have regrettably been put on the back burner once again," he sighed. "Similarly, our hopes of renting individual jet-packs to travellers have been cruelly dashed by the wicked lies whispered into the ears of gullible ministers by the evil environmentalist lobby."

"If those beardy-weirdy tree-huggers get their way, you'll never be able to charter your own personal LearJet for that tranquil weekend getaway in the Lake District," he warned holidaymakers.

Environmental Disaster Narrowly Averted By Toxic Heavy Metal Light-Bulbs

The world was saved from turning into a roasting Venus-like hell today, thanks to the timely abolition of evil tungsten light-bulbs by the heroic European Union.

Global temperatures have already dropped to nominal levels, endangered species are breeding like never before and the hole in the ozone layer is rapidly closing up, say some men in white lab-coats.

"Today's Europe-wide ban on the sale of evil old-fashioned light-bulbs completes stage two of our masterplan," said Professor Oz Ram. "As I speak, stage three is being implemented. There is no cause for alarm. You will shortly be receiving a visit from one of our dedicated clean-up teams, who have a warrant to enter your home, smash any remaining evil bulbs with baseball bats and arrest you for your part in a nefarious plot to destroy the planet. Please remain calm."

"Saintly light-bulb manufacturers have selflessly put the profit motive to one side in order to meet the demand for fluorescent lights," explained Dr Phil Lips. "And it's cost them - I mean us - a pretty penny in increased manufacturing costs, let me tell you. Regrettably, we - sorry, they - will almost certainly be forced to hike the price up sharply in order to return to our- whoops, their previous levels of profitability."

"Unfortunately, there now remains the slight problem of what to do with all that horrifically toxic mercury when the bulbs wear out and go into landfill," sighed Dr Maz Da. "Perhaps we could look into the possibility of banning these deadly fluorescent deathtraps and replacing them with LED arrays, like cyclists use. They use very little power, and really will last for years. However, setting up new production lines costs a few bob, and it's jolly nice having a captive market - er, so I'm told - so our advice for the next few years is to buy as many cuddly, evil fluorescent tubes as possible."

Government Proposes Scrappage Allowance For Jobless Youth

Following the Daily Mirror's discovery of a secret government scrapheap in the Midlands piled high with young joblesses, the Department for Work and Pensions has announced plans to dispose of the unsightly heap of useless youngsters by offering their parents the chance to trade them in for new children.

"There are simply far too many of these noisy, dirty young bangers chugging around, cluttering up our cities and countryside and generally making the place look untidy," said Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, First Secretary and Lord President of the Council but definitely not Acting Prime Minister. "What we need are some attractive and wholesome new youngsters - ones who won't be able to vote Conservative."

Parents will be able to trade in their unwanted offspring by taking them to the nearest approved NHS scrapyard and cramming the young wrecks into the laundry incinerator. In return they will be given a £1000 scrappage allowance - in the form of shares in Northern Rock - and a permit from Lord Mandelson to try for another child.

"I'm so looking forward to a shiny new baby with nothing on the clock," smiled one middle-class mother in Sussex. "I've had Joshua for eighteen years - and, although I was pleased with him at first, I've simply lost count of all the irritating faults he's accumulated over the years. And, to be honest, he's just too big for me to handle now. It's like he's developed a mind of his own."

"Come along, Joshua," she cooed to the uneconomical, smoking wreck sitting in her garage. "Mummy's got a special treat in store for you."