Mattress Fraud Worse Than Thought; Biscuit Tin And Old Shoe Also Under Investigation

Not only has your mattress been refusing to allow you access to your own savings, but it emerged today that for many years it has been secretly applying a considerably higher rate of interest than the attractive 0% it claimed it was charging whenever you made a withdrawal to buy a new pair of shoes.

And then it lent all your money to that old biscuit tin in the kitchen cupboard, and the odd shoe you keep at the back of your wardrobe.

And then they threw all your cash down the toilet, because they thought that would be a great idea.

Feed me

“I thought I had £3,000 squirreled away under the bed to cover the cost of my own funeral,” sobbed saver Mavis Hodge, 83, a lifelong customer betrayed by the greed and incompetence of her mattress. “Now it turns out I owe the bloody thing £361.24 in cumulative interest, and it’s got the cheek to demand an unauthorised overdraft fee.”

The full horror was revealed by the blow-up spare bed you keep in the cupboard under the stairs, which nevertheless insisted that not all mattresses were unscrupulous thieves and brigands whose sole aim in life was to stuff themselves with all of the money in the world.

“Some of us have principles, you know,” he insisted loftily. “If you were naïve enough to try cutting me open to shove a wad of fivers inside, for example, I’d have warned you that you could be in for a big let-down.”

After your mattress was fined £290m – which will be tacked onto your overdraft – the prime minister emerged sleepily from his teapot to yawn for the resignation of your headboard.

Canadian Porn Killer Offered Cabinet Post

David Cameron confirmed today that Luka Rocco Magnotta - the Canadian porn actor, murderer and lunatic noted for posting chunks of his late girlfriend to all and sundry - has been invited to join the Cabinet as a minister without portfolio.

The PM is confident that nobody will get the chop

“Luka has an exceptional gift for making savage cuts, will screw anything that moves for money and feels that accepted standards of behaviour don’t apply to him,” explained the prime minister as he opened bail negotiations with the authorities in Berlin, where the maniac was caught.

“He’ll fit right in,” he added.

Lords Of The Admiralty, Emma And The Queen Mum Conspired Darkly Against Punk Festival, Claim Anarcho-Organisers

Fans of punk music left disappointed and out-of-pocket by the last-minute cancellation of Bath’s ‘Last Jubilee’ festival this weekend have been told by organisers Bellsonit Non-Events that dark forces of authority – rumoured to be an unholy alliance of the Five Sea Lords, genteel fictional character Emma Woodhouse and the late Queen Mother – secretly conspired to prevent the dog-on-a-string event which undoubtedly threatened to tear down the entire rotten edifice of state authority.

You wanted anarchy - you got anarchy

“Using SO-CALLED health and safety LEGISLATION whose ‘legitimacy’ we, naturally, do not recognise,” Bellsonit posted on their website, “Dark ESTABLISHMENT figures on the COUNCIL made ridiculous claims like ‘well, that’ll be nice’ and pathetic DEMANDS such as ‘if you need any advice, give our helpline a ring’ which were clearly intended to MAKE US forget to sign any contracts, which incidentally are designed solely to reinforce BLIND OBEDIENCE to artificial HIERARCHIES, or pay anyone with evil CRAPitalist tokens of OPPRESSION.”

Bemused officers at Bath & North East Somerset Council, meanwhile, have expressed a keen interest in seeing the Cancellation Notice the organisers insist was served on them by the local authority, as they have never seen one before because there is no such thing.

“To say we are out of pocket is a massive understatement,” Bellsonit told thousands of irate fans, who have handed over up to £125 each for a ticket.

Their website was subsequently updated, replacing the word ‘understatement’ with ‘porky’.

Liberian War Criminal Taylor ‘Refers Himself’ To Prison For 50 Years

Facebook Starting To Regret Jumping Without Parachute

So long, Zuckers

As it plummets earthward at increasing speed, Facebook is showing signs of having second thoughts about the wisdom of leaping heroically into the stock markets without the benefit of a parachute.

“We jumped under the impression that we were going to float off into the wild blue yonder, thanks to the remarkable self-inflating valuation designed for us by thrill-seeking underwriters, Acme Bank,” posted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg breathlessly, as he rapidly approached terminal velocity. “But the dotcom boom we were hoping to land on is getting closer every second, and now I can distinctly make out the words ‘Class Action’.”

“It’s looking uncomfortably like we’re about to be splattered messily all over the front pages,” he shared moments later. “Goodbye, cool world.”

Scrounger With Doctor-Baffling ‘Back Problems’ To Investigate A4e For Cash-In-Hand

Mr Wiggins is always keen to 'help a mate out' for cash

‘Hooky’ Wiggins, a 42-year-old lifelong doley plagued by chronic back pain whenever it suits him, has been appointed to head a crack team of expert wasters appointed by the government to look into fresh claims of systemic fraud at profit-from-welfare business A4e.

The investigators, who are to be recruited from the ranks of long-term skivers in handy-excuse blackspots like Liverpool and… well, OK, just Liverpool, are expected to leave no stone turned in their half-arsed quest for something medically indistinguishable from the truth about the dubious practices of A4e’s wayward consultants.

“Benefit fraud is costing this country hundreds of thousands of billions of pounds every day, probably,” fumed No Work or Pensions Secretary Iä Duncan Smith, the black goat of the woods with a thousand young. “These feckless, workshy bastards are perfectly capable of reporting A4e’s dodgy tricks, if they put their backs into it.”

At this point a terrific stage groan shook windows all over the North of England, emanating from an epicentre thought to be somewhere in Bootle. A4e immediately submitted a tender document to the DnWnP, offering to sort out the noise for the usual fee, no questions asked.

Putin Not Out, Shake It All About

Mr Putin needs to hug something this big to regain credibility

There have been widespread calls from President Vladimir Putin for an investigation into vote-rigging in Russia today, the day after fraudulent election officials criminally failed to alter a shocking 37% of the ballot papers in his favour.

“What kind of message is sent out to the rest of the world when corrupt state employees openly abuse the trust placed in them, by not doing what I pay them for?” demanded Mr Putin as he stamped angrily through a forest clad only in a pair of Speedos and a crown, looking for photogenic wildlife to squeeze. “The people should demand the severest punishment for those who turn Russia into an object of international ridicule.”

Britain’s MPs Urge Government Not To Send Aid To Countries Which Act Like Britain’s MPs

MPs on parliament’s influential International Affairs Committee today urged David Cameron to consider cutting off aid to foreign governments with a history of behaving like British MPs.

The committee is very concerned about this sort of thing

“In countries where fraud and corruption are as rife as they are within these walls, the Department for International Development will not always be able to mitigate against this adequately,” said Malcolm Bruce, the Lib Dem committee chairman who claimed £3,100 in expenses for ‘working’ from a home which was less than 30 minutes from his taxpayer-funded constituency office.

The moralising report was enthusiastically endorsed by international development secretary Andrew Mitchell - who relieved taxpayers of £19,000 for cleaning, redecorating and refurbishing his home and garden – and will now be passed on for the attention of chancellor George Osborne, who claimed for interest on a £450,000 mortgage for a house he bought for £45,000.

Pope’s New Year Encyclical: Dissimulavero Moderari Meo Mensam Nefastam

Not what it looks like at all

Just a day ahead of an EU deadline requiring him to clean up his financial act, Pope Benedict XVI has confirmed the moral authority of the Roman Catholic church with a message of hope for the New Year contained in his latest encyclical, ‘Dissimulavero moderari meo mensam nefastam’, (‘I shall pretend to run my crooked bank properly’).

The somewhat belated step towards the moral high ground comes after Italian judges ordered the seizure of £19m which the Vatican had tried to deposit in a commercial bank in St Peter’s Square, without any explanation of where it had come from or who it was intended for, and began a criminal investigation into the sacred bank’s director and his deputy.

The Pope then tried to evade international laws on money laundering by claiming that his bank was not really a bank at all, but an Institute for Works of Religion. Financial regulators then sang the response, ‘Pa aliam filiolus Jacobus in eo campanae’, (‘Pull the other one, sonny Jim - it’s got bells on’), and dismissed him with a demand to clean up his act by 31st December or else.

Successive popes throughout the ages have maintained a tradition of pretending that things are not what they might appear to be to the simple, unenlightened layman. For example, the Vatican is not just a big church with rather a lot of administrative wings tacked onto it, but an important nation state with embassies and a seat at the UN, while a doddery old bloke in a big hat is actually God’s personal spokesman on earth and a Nazi anti-aircraft gun is in fact Christ’s Blessed Finger of Thunderous Mercy.

Western Governments Condemn Russia’s Perverse Determination To Convict Businessman Of Fraud

This would simply never happen in the West

Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, angrily warned the leaders of the Western democracies to keep out of its domestic affairs, as they continued to express grave concerns over Russian justice in the case of incredibly rich fraudster Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Mr Khodorkovsky, a former Komsomol deputy who woke up one morning and decided that all the oilfields in Russia belonged to him, is already serving an eight-year sentence and, in a second trial, has now been declared guilty of stealing oil worth more than $26bn from his own company, presumably to fuel an extremely large car.

The White House has said that it is “deeply concerned” about the “selective application of justice”, pointing out that a string of criminal activities is now a basic entry requirement for Russian politicians, while both France and Germany have condemned the Russian legal system for its backwardness in actually putting a rich businessman on trial at all.

“It is the sign of a healthy democracy that the legal concept of fraud, once the preserve of the wealthy, has long since been extended to the people, and is nowadays only ever prosecuted in the case of dolescum who have a 20-hour part-time cleaning job yet tell the Jobcentre they do less than 16 hours a week,” commented a legal expert. “Nobody expects to see a chap in an Armani suit in the dock any more - and as for a corporate multi-billionaire actually doing time, well, it simply isn’t done.”

This isn’t law,” he observed scathingly. “It’s justice, which has no place in a modern society.”

Mr Putin remains unmoved, however, insisting on Russian TV even before the judge announced his verdict that a “thief must be in politics - unless he dares to criticise me, of course, in which case obviously he must be in prison.”

Fugitive Tycoon Not Likely To Be Charged With Stealing Millions of Votes

The fugitive millionaire Arsehole Blair, who returned briefly to Britain today after several years abroad, is unlikely to be charged with stealing millions of votes from the now-collapsed Labour Party, admitted Serious Fraud Office officials.

Mr Blair began his blatant theft of Labour votes almost seventeen years ago, when he was elected as leader of the once-prominent party. Under his leadership, the party was systematically stripped of its core policies and beliefs, leaving nothing but an empty shell. Just before the game was up, he cynically fled the country, leaving others to face the music while he enjoyed all of the benefits of a millionaire lifestyle.

“Unfortunately it was all a very long time ago and nobody here can remember much about it,” admitted an SFO spokesman. “The file on Arsehole Blair appears to have unaccountably placed in a cardboard box and filed in the hot water tank.”

“The chances of getting any kind of firm conviction out of this flamboyant crook are approximately zero,” he added apologetically, “As disgruntled former members of his collapsed party know only too well.”

Millionaire Released From Prison After Terrible Misunderstanding

Convicted fraudster Conrad Black was released from Coleman Federal Prison in Florida on bail today, after the US authorities agreed that prison was certainly no place for a wealthy tycoon and it was probably all due to some ghastly mix-up.

“Our federal and state prisons are positively bursting at the seams with poor people,” said District Judge Amy St Eve. “That is who they are designed for. They are clearly not the ideal base of operations for a wealthy and cultured peer, whose only misdemeanour was to thoughtfully divert $6m of his shareholders’ money into his personal bank account so he could watch over it all the more carefully for them. If he didn’t tell them, why, surely that is because he would have felt deep embarrassment at the thought of being lavished with fulsome praise for such a typically selfless and charitable act.”

Lord Black's release comes after the Supreme Court ruled that one of the three laws used in his prosecution was a bit vaguely worded in places, making it all but certain that he had in fact done nothing even slightly questionable at any time in his entire life, as is usually the case with ruthless megalomaniacs who secretively micro-manage their vast business empires via an impenetrable tangle of mystery accounts.

The former proprietor of the Daily Telegraph initially applied for leave to return to Canada, as he was pining for the rugged forest slopes of his homeland. However, he kindly agreed to make do with his luxurious Palm Beach residence instead, while his lawyers worked out how much the federal authorities should reimburse him for the unimaginable torment of sharing a lavatory with the poor for a couple of years.

'All My Medals Are Genuine,' Insists Remembrance Day Marcher Who Isn't

Roger Day, the 61-year-old man who marched in a Remembrance Day parade wearing medals covering a period from the Battle of Waterloo to the Dalek Invasion of Earth 2150AD insisted today that, as a bona fide member of the SAS, he was absolutely entitled to each medal and had the receipts to prove it.

"I could tell you how I managed to fight in World War Two, despite being born three years after it ended," Mr Day told a Sun reporter, as he polished his genuine Swiss Army penknife. "But then, of course, I'd have to kill you."

"I strangled a man with my own pubes once," he added darkly.

Mr Day denied that, instead of a regimental tie, he marched wearing a gaudy monstrosity from Marks and Spencer.

"The abstract swirl of colours denotes that famous unit of Kitchener's army, the Artists' Rifles," he insisted, whilst cleaning his authentic First World War cycling mask. "It was a privilege to serve in the trenches alongside men of the calibre of 'Sharky' Hirst, 'Stinker' Emin and 'Banksy' Banksy."

Britain's greatest war hero also denied that he fled the march after being challenged about his 21 medals by a real veteran.

"I saw the parade out to its bitter, bloody end," he claimed, while he stripped and reassembled his plastic BB gun. "Then I went for a victory drink with my old SAS pal, Andy McNab. Of course, he'll deny it, even if you torture him by telling him his books are shite. It's all part of our training."

MrMcNab did indeed refute all knowledge of Mr Day, saying: "This is an insult to the brave men and women who have served in our armed forces. Roger Day is not the first to do this sort of thing. And unfortunately he will not be the last."

"Well, there you are, just as I told you. What more proof do you need?" crowed Mr Day triumphantly. Before the reporter could ask him the colour of the boat shed at Hereford Barracks, however, Mr Day leapt into his metallic-camouflaged 7th Armoured Division Mahindra Jeep and drove off to pick up his wife, the Celtic warrior queen Boudicca.

Committing Credit Card Fraud and Getting Away With It: Priceless

One in three Metropolitan Police officers and staff issued with a corporate credit card has misused it for their own personal purchases, which is just fine by their standards watchdog.

After investigating 1,183 cases of card misuse, the Metropolitan Police Authority is taking legal action against two officers who spent £82,000 and £1,100, and offering "training and guidance" to the rest. No disciplinary action is to be taken.

"Of course, in any other organisation such flagrant theft would result in instant dismissal, prosecution or a written warning at the very least," said Met Commissioner Sir Paul Jong-Stephenson. "But what you have to remember is that my officers can blow your head off in broad daylight for no reason and get off scot-free. So what's a little credit card theft between mates?"

No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed

Tory leader David Cameron has invited everyone in Britain to stand as a Conservative at the next election.

"What I'm going to do today," said Mr Cameron, as interviewer Andrew Marr played guitar, "Is to reopen the Conservative candidate list to anybody who wants to apply, particularly if they haven't been convicted of theft recently."

"They may not have had anything to do with the party before," he added. "But I'm saying if you believe in public service, if you share our values - no, hang on, forget that bit - if you want to help clean up politics - better scrub that bit too - er - look, if you want a chance to get your hands on a basic of £64,766 plus expenses - and let's face it, that's a hell of a lot better than anything you'll ever find on Jobcentreplus - come and be a Conservative parliamentary candidate."

Mr Cameron said he wanted to persuade people like headteachers and small business owners to stand.

"I should think they're just the kind of people who are sick and tired of busting a gut trying to do the impossible with limited resources on a daily basis, only to watch everything falling apart around them. I'm sure they'd jump at the chance of four years of well-paid job security," he smiled. "Right now I expect many of them are saying, 'I'm not going anywhere near that nest of vipers.' But I say come on in, the water's lovely - and it was paid for by the taxpayers!"

When asked whether MPs with no grounding in the fundamental principles of Toryism would be expected to toe the party line, Mr Cameron looked blank, and asked for the question to be repeated slowly.

"No, you've lost me there," he admitted. "Party line? Is that what poor people used to have when they couldn't afford a phone of their own? Sorry, I don't see what you're getting at."

Thoughtful Public Calls For Election in Well-Thought-Out Revenge Plan

Public anger over the continuing saga of MPs' expenses has boiled over - according to several polls - into widespread calls for an early election, in order to allow completely new set of MPs the chance to get their hands on those lovely expense claim forms.

"Puttin' a lot of new MPs in parliament will fix this mess, innit?" said leading opinion-former Joe Public today, when the Nev Filter caught up with him in the car park outside Sainsbury's. "I've really thought this through."

"Course, what I'd really like to do is flay the thick 'ide off my thieving bastud MP, yeah?, roll 'im in pepper and drag 'is raw, bleedin' carcass fru every street in town," he added. "But wouldn't you know it, they must of saw this coming, 'cos they passed a law against it years ago. So I reckon if we all vote the little shit out of office, 'e'll be so pissed off at bein' stitched up, e'll prob'ly 'ang 'isself. Then I reckon it'll be OK to flay the bugger, roll 'im in pepper and drag 'id raw, bleedin' carcass fru every street in town. Sorted. End of."

Mr Public also expressed his support for any independent candidate, no matter who they were or how barmy. Constitutional experts, however, were dubious that a ballot paper four yards long would change anything - pointing out that, in all likelihood, they would simply split any protest vote between themselves, and thus traditional party candidates would still get elected.

"Of course, we could all be wrong. If Gordon Brown changes the habits of a lifetime and listens to public opinion, a snap election could theoretically see a parliament dominated by a bickering rabble of random fuckwits who, lacking any coherent policies or means of formulating any, will probably drag the basic mechanisms on which the day-to-day running of the nation depends to a crashing halt within weeks, if not days," said an acknowledged expert on constitutional matters, Mrs Elizabeth Windsor. "In desperation, the people will then turn to the one authority figure who retains any last vestige of credibility."

"Not you, Charles," she added.

When these dire warnings were put to Mr Public, he replied, "Woteva," and headed off in search of a three-for-two offer on Carling.

Ancient Curse of Steen May Be Lifted, Promises Cloven-Hoofed Party Leader

Conservative leader David Cameron has threatened an MP who accused his villagers of "jealousy" with expulsion from the party of darkness if steps out of line again.

Count Anthony Dracula - who has claimed over 87,000 pints of blood from virgins in his Totnesylvania constituency in the last four years - made his outspoken comments on Radio 4 yesterday.

"I think I have behaved impeccably," Count Anthony smiled, before sinking his fangs into the interviewer's neck. "I have done nothing criminal. And you know what it's about? Jealousy. I have got a very, very large castle."

"It was this government which introduced the Freedom of Virgins Act," he hissed, "And it was this government which insisted on the things which have caught me on the wrong foot - which if I'd been clever they wouldn't have done."

"Unfortunately I am very stupid," he added, before flying back to his mouldering pile, "And I am now at bay. Curses!"

The ancient count has been an MP in feudal South Devon since time immemorial, where his name is muttered fearfully as a curse to frighten children. However, the rustic villagers of his consituency are now so incensed by his unrepentant bloodsucking that they have gathered at the foot of his castle waving firebrands.

"Us'm starvin' to death in arr shit-walled 'ovels," shouted a ringleader, "While that there Count Anthony do spend ee's days a-lyin' in luxury in ee's foin noo rort-iron coffin, all a-paid fower by the blood of arr dorters!"

An ugly situation was defused, however, when Count Anthony's unholy lord and master, David Cameron, appeared in a puff of red smoke and reassured the irate yokels that any further acts of craven vampirism from the complete and utter Count would result in the permanent withdrawal of the party whip, and other instruments of torture.

Lamb-Like MPs Blame Speaker For Leading Them Into Sin

Angry MPs have made it clear that the Speaker of the House of Commons is a charismatic leader of a heretic cult, whose saturnine influence led them all astray through the malignant force of his irresistible personality.

"I was a gentil and parfait knight, as the loyal serfs of my consituency will attest, before I fell under the sway of Speaker Martin," said a furious Sir Edwin Hideage (Con., Motton Bayleigh). "But this demon appeared to me in a vision, urging me to refortify my castle in preparation for the coming apocalypse. It is entirely due to his weasel words that I claimed two groats for work on repointing the battlements, four guineas for Greek fire and four shillings and ninepence for trebuchet maintenance. I shall of course repent my sins by distributing these moneys among the lepers who huddle beneath the walls of my stronghold, but verily I say that Speaker Martin is a cavorting imp of Satan, and demand that he be subjected to trial by newspaper."

"Speaker Martin journeyed through the realm, offering absolution from expenses, and when he came to my constituency I did call him to my presence and demand that he explain the expenses system to me," confessed a shaken Robert Blague (Lab., Warden of the Cinque Estates). "His honeyed tongue did lull me into sinful dreams of riches, leading me to indulge in the shameless flipping of hovels, contrary to the teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In contrition, it is my intent to do penance for a week in a converted sty, for I am but an innocent lamb lured from the flock; but I call for this knave to be subjected forthwith to Holy Inquisition by the heralds."

Members, who only last week were vying to abase themselves in the eyes of the enraged peasantry, jostled and fought in their efforts to outdo each other in describing the dismal betrayal of their faith in the expenses system administered by the sin-gorged mendicant. Speaker Martin himself, however, stood impassively erect as serjeants-at-arms bound him firmly to his gilded chair (John Lewis, £15,499) atop a huge pile of faggots at the head of the debating hall, all the while rending the air with his cries to Lord Gordon, his patron, to save him.

His unholy master was, however, notable for his silence, absorbed as he was in the apparent study of the chamber's decorative ceiling bosses.

The Nev Filter Expense-Claim Confession in Full

Some MPs have rightly suggested that, as far as expense claims are concerned, various prominent media figures may have some skeletons in their closets.

In a spirit of openness (and before somebody sells my entire unaudited life to the Daily Telegraph) I would therefore like to abase myself before the altar of public opinion and confess all of my freebie-related sins.

1. I hereby confess that I blagged seven years of private school fees out of the council by sneakily taking the 11+ at the age of ten, just catching the tail-end of the Direct Grant scheme which I would otherwise have missed.

2. I hereby confess that by pretending to be vaguely interested in a military career at the age of 14, I cynically deceived the RAF into flying me - at taxpayers' expense - both from and back to the optimistically-named Plymouth Airport on several occasions, in a state-of-the-art Chipmunk T10 trainer.

3. I hereby confess that in 1987 I was treated to a night in a German-friendly hotel in London's fashionable Victoria by my employers, Virgin Retail Ltd, who hoped thereby to persuade me that there was some sort of hitherto-untapped market in Plymouth for Hammerite-sprayed alarm clocks at £25 a throw.

4. I hereby confess to availing myself of a free trip to BT's computing centre at Exeter's exclusive Sowton Industrial Estate, in order to hear a man in glasses tell me an amusing story concerning a work-experience girl who sat on a Winchester drive.

5. I hereby confess to obtaining two free visits to NUS Annual Conference in 1996 and 1997, by convincing a hundred or so students that I might, in some unspecified manner, be able to influence decisions that could conceivably affect them. I then spent my time shamelessly getting through several reams of SU-funded A4 for a satirical newsletter, cynically bypassing the rather long-winded democratic process by means of a popular and effective publicity stunt.

6. I hereby confess that in 2001 I made maximum use of the one free ticket I ever got for meeting my targets at National Rail Enquiries by travelling to London and back at peak times just for the hell of it, even though it meant wedging myself into a corner of the buffet car between Paddington and Reading due to overcrowding.

Whilst all of the above claims were made in full compliance with the relevant rules, I appreciate that my readers may have reached the reasonable - but entirely wrong - conclusion that I am interested solely in lining my own pockets at their expense; am in some way analagous to a gentleman of the stone-throwing persuasion whose transparent home is inappropriately fragile for such activities; and, furthermore, that I am a very dark container used in the brewing of tea.

I can only beg your forgiveness until such time as you have all lost interest in the matter.

UK Tricked By Scammers

A cleaner turned up to work at the palace of Westminster this morning, only to find the doors ajar and official papers blowing down silent corridors.

"I turn up ten to six as usual and the doors, they wide open," explained Mrs Abisola Iduoze. "I say 'Hello?' but nobody there. All the offices, they all empty. Everything a total mess. I ring my supervisor Mrs Sokolovic, I tell her I never get this place cleaned up by nine."

It was the same in Downing Street, where knotted bedsheets hung from an upstairs window at the back of the Prime Minister's residence. Of Gordon Brown and the entire government only a torn pair of trousers remained, flapping forlornly from the glass shards topping the rear wall.

Sadly, disappearing acts like this are a familiar story to consumer organisations up and down the country.

"Every so often, you'll get a leaflet through your door, asking you to donate your vote to some cause or other," said a trading standards officer. "They make all sorts of vague promises about helping the disadvantaged, providing jobs and giving children hope for the future. But it's just a tissue of cynical lies, intended solely for their own personal enrichment. They grab everything for themselves and, as soon as we start sniffing round, they do a runner. They're probably all laughing and drinking cocktails in Northern Cyprus right now."

With no MPs, lords or civil servants to run the country, Her Majesty the Queen stepped in to avert an unprecedented constitutional crisis, asking Mrs Iduoze to run the country until further notice.

The new PM acted swiftly to defuse civil unrest, urging the nation to stop fussing and have a nice cup of tea.