Government To Employ Everyone To Read Everyone Else’s Emails

Unemployment will soon be a thing of the past, with the government today guaranteeing jobs for life for everyone in Britain as it announced plans to spy on everything you say, do and think.

Welcome to your new job

“Not everyone is a terrorist or paedophile, obviously,” acknowledged home secretary Theresa May. “But everyone might be, which is all the excuse we need to do what Labour had the bare-faced cheek to suggest when they were in power.”

Under the Home Office proposals, everyone will be required to spend at least five hours a day monitoring and transcribing your calls, emails, text messages, social networking ,browsing history, facial expressions and body language, then pass it round until somebody eventually decides to send the police round to arrest you.

The Queen is expected to formally announce the plans to turn her country into China when she opens the next session of Parliament next month, if she knows what’s good for her.

“I heard that,” snapped Mrs May.

Nev Filter Still Waiting For Police To Arrest Editor

The Nev Filter is still waiting for the police to come and arrest its editor and writer, after committing the same “racially-motivated public order offence” that 19-year-old Azhar Ahmed was charged with yesterday by the West Yorkshire force.

Racist bastard Nev reckons they should all be sent home

“Obviously, like Mr Ahmed, at the time I wasn’t actually aware that British soldiers were a distinct racial group as such,” admitted evil racist Nev, “But in law, ignorance is no defence and I am currently waiting for justice to be done all over me.”

Strangely, hardly any of the national papers could find space to cover Mr Ahmed’s – or indeed Nev’s – vile claim that British soldiers’ lives might in some way be over-valued in the media. The honourable exception was, naturally, the Daily Mail, which sensibly called for Mr Ahmed – and therefore, presumably, Nev – to be kicked out of Britain immediately for having the cheek to speak the heresy that Afghan lives were in some way equivalent to British ones.

“I expect that, like the papers, the police are simply too busy at the moment hunting everyone who has ever come into contact with Rebekah Brooks,” mused Nev, as he patiently made himself another coffee whilst waiting for the inevitable and richly-deserved knock on the door. “Apart from David Cameron, of course, who only ever went within a mile of her if someone can dig out a photograph of it.”

Metropolitan Police Looking Forward To Pot-A-Trot Week

Police will be inviting students to give them an excuse

London’s finest are said to be eagerly anticipating the long-awaited return of Pot-a-Trot Week, following the announcement that they will be issued with baton rounds for Wednesday’s student jamboree against tuition fees, cuts, inequality and other things that don’t concern them.

“We haven’t been able to give the public what for like this since the General Strike of 1926, so called because police officers were generally free to strike anyone who looked at them in a socialist manner,” commented a gleeful Commander Simon Pounding, in charge of the operation. “Happy days.”

“Pot-a-Trot week is about charity, looking out for people, being smartly dressed and giving a sporting something back to the community,” he added. “And when my lads see anyone sporting a silly haircut or dressed like an explosion in a charity shop, they’re all looking forward to giving them what for. And that’s going to smart.”

Anarcho Squad To Arrest Francis Maude

Francis Maude, or someone who looks quite like him

City of Westminster police are preparing to storm the Houses of Parliament this aftrernoon, after a call for the public to inform on anarchists resulted in switchboards being jammed with warnings about the Conservative party, and Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude in particular.

“Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy,” warned the City of Westminster’s counter-terrorism focus desk, on the same day that Mr Maude cheerfully admitted the wholesale wanton destruction of the machinery of government – with 17,000 civil servants taken out and many major infrastructure projects stopped dead in their tracks as part of a carefully-orchestrated £3.75bn assault on the very foundations of state.

“This is just scratching the surface of what we have planned for the coming months and years,” taunted the black-suited Maude on his notorious anarchist website, http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk.

“Remember, lads, the primary objective is this jumped-up little prick Maude, who struts around the gaff looking like Boris Yeltsin,” Inspector Savage of the Westminster Bastard Squad briefed his team as they eagerly smacked their nail-encrusted truncheons into their gloved palms. “But if you happen to see that budget-slashing creep Cameron, or his nihilist accomplices George Osborne or Theresa May, the odd riot shield in the teeth certainly won’t go amiss.”

Police To Arrest Everybody

You're facking nicked, sunshine

Drunk on power thanks to their new-found ability to arrest anybody they suspect may be conspiring to commit a breach of the peace, police officers across Britain commandeered nightclubs in every city last night and arrested everybody who went in, on the grounds that they were all quite probably planning to get drunk and wander home lairy.

With every adult under the age of 25 safely under lock and key, officers today transferred their operations to electrical shops, ready to swoop on anyone who buys a stereo system. Other squads staked out garden centres and branches of Argos, on the lookout for people buying barbecue equipment, and tonight the streets of Britain will be filled with riot vans armed with decibel-meters and batons.

Meanwhile, an armed SWAT team was sent to the Metropolitan force’s operational control room to track down the despicable criminals responsible for organising the kettling of harmless protesters on several occasions in recent months.

“This’ll never stand up in court,” admitted Met chief Sir Kim Jong-Stephenson cheerfully, “But that’s irrelevant, as we’ll probably have all the barristers, magistrates and judges banged up too.”

Kate Middleton From Another Dimension Whisked Away From Westminster Abbey By Detectives

Christ, there could be hundreds of them

A frightened Kate Middleton From Another Dimension was discovered hiding under a UFO inside Westminster Abbey just minutes from the start of the royal wedding ceremony, according to an unconfirmed source sitting somewhere very close to the organ.

Details are somewhat patchy so far, due to being partially drowned out by the source playing loud bass notes with the pedals, but it appears that sharp-eyed royal detectives spotted the interdimensional interloper trying to blend in with all the other flying saucer-sporting commoners.

As plain-clothes detectives with pillboxes, orchids, boats and objects known unto God nailed to their foreheads converged on the alien imposter the papers are already calling ‘Alternatey Katie’, she emitted an unearthly polyphonic scream and tried to flee – only to run into the upheld ceremonial mace of Inspector Savage of the Royal Protection Squad.

The source insists he heard the doppelganger begging for asylum and claiming that, in Dimension 10, she had barely managed to evade 5,000 police officers who had spent the whole night rounding up every member of the alternative royal family on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a breach of the peace – namely, blocking off the whole of central London and several major arterial roads, forcing shops and businesses to lock their doors for the day, openly calling for millions of people to take to the streets of Britain and causing severe interference to the schedules of the nation’s broadcasters.

A spokesman for Sctoland Yard told our reporter: “Eyes back on the telly, sonny.”

We Are Going To Tear Your Face Off, Warn Police

Fire up the Quattro

The Metropolitan police today issued a “robust” warning to the people of London, promising that anybody found out of doors and not wearing red, white and blue and a beatific expression on Friday will have their face torn off.

“Just don’t, OK?” advised Commissioner Sir Kim Jong-Stephenson, as he showed the press the brutal spinning flail that will be attached to all police vehicles in time for the royal wedding. “I won’t tell you again.”

With a chilling bellow of rage, Mr Jong-Stephenson then pushed a Fortnum & Mason protester into the vicious flail. The results were too horrifying to describe; suffice to say that one of the force’s dogs will certainly be enjoying a nice big bowl of mincemeat for dinner tonight.

“Traditionally, a royal wedding is always the occasion for a spontaneous public outpouring of joyful national pride,” he added with a snarl. “Keep it that way, or else.”

Despicable BBC Fiend Beheads Helpless Wheelchair Man With A Scythe

Millions of TV viewers sat in appalled silence yesterday as Ben Brown, a sadistic BBC torturer, savagely hacked the head off a cowering, helpless man in a wheelchair with a razor-sharp scythe in his demented, insatiable thirst for peak ratings.

Within seconds of the sickening live broadcast BBC switchboards were glowing red hot and exploding in showers of sparks, overloaded by an unprecedented flurry of outraged complaints.

“If ever I needed concrete proof - which I don’t - that the BBC is run entirely by vicious NAZI propagandist SCUM as nothing more than a fawning mouthpiece for the perverted diktats of that blood-curdling mass-murderer David HITLER and his strutting puppet Nick MUSSOLINI,” raged typical traumatised viewer Anne Arquette, “That moment surely came when, without a SHRED of mercy, poor Jody LenIntyre was brutally decapitated by that evil bastardfuckingfuckingcuntbastard BROWN, a mere six hours into Jody's deeply moving, entirely reasonable and unquestionably newsworthy exposé of vicious NAZI propagandist SCUM running the entire BBC as nothing more than a fawning mouthpiece for the perverted diktats of that blood-curdling mass-murderer David HITLER and his strutting puppet Nick MUSSOLINI (and you'd bloody well better leave all my CAPITAL LETTERS in).”

The new Holocaust starts now

“On top of that ATROCITY, there was ABSOLUTELY no possible justification for those sick FASCIST (and don’t even THINK about leaving the first S out to make me come across like some kind of IDIOT you smug patronising BASTAD, where was I yeah right) absolutely no justification for those sick FASCIST peadocuntscumotherfucking SICKOS on BBC Breakfast to gloatingly prop his lifeless body up in his blood-drenched WHEELCHAIR, sellotape his HEAD back on and mockingly bang their WRISTS together as they threw their guffawing heads back and drove a sodding great TANK backwards and forwards over him," she wailed, "Reducing this tragic martyr of TRUTH to a nauseating crimson gore squelching obscenely up through the TRACKS.”

“I’m writing one hell of a note about this on FACEBOOK,” she added vehemently. “That’s going to finally bring a welcome end to the crypto-fascist BBC’s unspeakable reign of TERROR, passing the CONTROL of our airwaves into the gentle, freedom-loving hands of, er, Rupert MURDOCH. Okay, so I may not exactly have thought this one through but that’s NEVER stopped me before and it‘s certainly not going to hold me up NOW.”

Incredibly, a jackbooted spokesman for the BBC later made a cynical attempt to defend his loathsome organisation.

“As a responsible propagandist, it was Ben Brown’s difficult duty to put to Mr LenIntyre the sort of difficult questions which the typical viewer - with only an average understanding of terrible afflictions such as cerebral palsy, chronic inflammation of the ego and the dreaded screaming trots - might legitimately expect to hear answered,” intoned Sturmbanneditor Kevin Goebbels, a heartless deputy apologist from the BBC’s feared and hated propaganda room. “Questions like ‘You talk pretty bloody well for a spacker - are you quite sure you’re disabled?’, ‘Why can’t you just read the Daily Mail, like normal people?’ and ‘Who, for the love of Christ, did that to your hair?’ – there are the very essence of the lofty ideals of reportage.”

“This is what we cynical, seasoned apologists of repression laughingly refer to as ‘balance’,” he bellowed in rising tones to a stadium filled to capacity with hysterical BBC sympathisers. “During the course of his six-hour interrogation, Mr LenIntyre was granted an unprecedented number of opportunities to restate his colourful but imaginary version of the sequence of events which unfolded after the unfortunate PC Savage somehow caught up his watch strap in a loose thread from Mr LenIntyre’s manky sleeve. However, the fiftieth time that useless mouth deliberately charged off at a tangent to recite whole chapters from his manifesto, Ben was left with no other option but to gently but firmly steer the interview back into the realm of topicality. With a scythe. Really, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. And take my advice: neither do you.”

The Metropolitan Police and the coalition government, meanwhile, have issued an amusing statement condemning the lefty BBC, expressing the sincere hope that the public consciousness will remain focused on the real issue of underlying importance: i.e. allowing their butterfly-like attention to float randomly away from all the dubious nonsense the government hopes to shove through as fast as it can before all the hullaballoo dies down.

British Public Struggling To Remember Giving Consent For Police State

Police are sure they've got that consent form on file somewhere

As Theresa May, the home secretary, eagerly pores over water-cannon manufacturers’ glossy brochures, the public at large has raised a collective eyebrow at her claim that “Britain is policed by consent and not force.”

“Admittedly I’m constantly pestered by some cheeky arse with a clipboard – just like you, in fact – whenever I pop out for a pint of sodding milk,” observed a harassed-looking ABC1 outside Godalming’s Waitrose store, “And I have been known to make things up just for the hell of it. But I’m pretty certain I don’t remember ticking a box okaying the deployment of police horses and the riot squad against schoolkids.”

“Come to think of it, I don’t recall green-lighting the public execution of Brazilians or the killing of passing news vendors,” she reflected. “And I’m reasonably sure that if anybody had ever asked me how I thought the law should be applied to police officers who take down harmless members of the public, with ‘1’ being a twenty-year stretch and ‘10’ being a mild reprimand for breaching health and safety regulations, I dare say I’d probably have picked quite a low number.”

“You know, I don’t actually remember a copper in riot gear carefully soliciting my consent before I got brained with a heavy riot baton last Thursday,” agreed student casualty Alfie Meadows, from his bed in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital neurosurgery department.

“Mind you,” he admitted, “That might be because I got brained with a heavy riot baton last Thursday.”

Police Deny Arresting The Innocent To Add Them To Illegal Database

Police chiefs in England and Wales have angrily denied claims made in Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Fear? - a report published today by the Human Genetics Commission - that officers were arresting innocent citizens on the slightest of legal pretexts, simply to get as many people as possible onto the national DNA database.

"This is plainly wrong," said a spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers. "If it were so, we'd be arresting the Justice Secretary - and, for that matter, ourselves - for keeping the database up and running, despite a ruling last year from the European Court of Human Rights that retaining the profiles of anybody released without charge is illegal."

"Having said that, with Christmas round the corner, people should be aware that the eating of mince pies on Christmas Day has been against the law in England since Cromwell's time," he went on. "We shall also be cracking down on those who callously stick stamps on upside down, improvise home-made devices for sliding on ice or snow, or wantonly break eggs open at the pointy end."

"And I say this to the so-called 'ladies' who openly eat chocolate on public transport, and the sociopathic taxi drivers who neglect to ask their passengers if they have smallpox," he added. "We know who you are, and where you live. These evil desperadoes can shortly expect to receive their just desserts - namely, a jab in the arm in the middle of the night."

Metropolitan Police Settle de Menezes Family Compensation Claim With Magnificent Sombrero

The long-running pursuit of justice for their executed relative, Jean Charles de Menezes, has finally ended after the family were offered a splendidly-oversized sombrero by Metropolitan Commissioner Sir Kim Jong-Stephenson.

"A big straw hat may not seem like much by way of compensation for the state-sanctioned murder of an innocent electrician, or for the subsequent travesty of justice in which the trigger-happy incompetents who were responsible for his death got off scot-free," said Sir Kim. "But you have to remember that the standards of life are very different in Brazil, where these nuts come from. Most Brazilians live on a knife-edge of poverty and insecurity, under a remote, isolated government that has neither the resources or inclination to provide a decent safety net for those in need of support, preferring instead to line the pockets of a small wealthy clique."

"Actually, now I come to think of it, maybe the standards of life in Brazil aren't so very different after all," he mused. "Perhaps we could run to a nice, brightly-coloured poncho as well. I'll ask the lads for a whip-round."

Police Files on Law-Abiding Citizens Reaching New and Dangerously Wobbly Heights

Concerns are being raised about the amount of information the police are gathering about innocent citizens, it emerged today, after an officer had a narrow escape when a wobbly seven-foot pile of manila folders nearly toppled over on him.

The dodgy dossiers - which were only just stabilised in time by the quick-thinking application of a truncheon - contained 1500 photographs taken on demonstrations in the capital, together with masses of confidential information about innocent members of the public which the police extracted from teachers, community workers and others in a position of trust.

"Who did you say you were again?" commented a police spokesman. "Nev... that's not your real name, is it? How was your shopping trip this afternoon, sir? Good to see you're taking your own bag along - but with respect, seeing as you don't like Sainsbury's bread and you're running a bit low, wouldn't you have been better off going to Marks and Sparks instead? Now, what can I do for you?"

Civil liberties campaigners who just don't seem to realise that each and every one of us could be snuffed out in an instant warned that Britain's public surveillance measures were rapidly approaching levels formerly seen in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

"That's completely ridiculous," sneered a Home Office spokesman. "This is England, for God's sake. It couldn't possibly happen here. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in serious need of re-education."

Hippocratic Oath To Be Replaced By Hitlercratic Oath

The General Medical Council has today issued new guidelines to Britain's doctors, telling them to abandon the basic principles of medical confidentiality on which the entire healthcare sector rests, and share your medical details with anyone they, in their Godlike wisdom, decide might like to see them.

"There's no need for the idiot public to worry their stupid heads about this," scowled Jane Strangelove, the GMC's head of standards and ethics, who came up with the proposals after reading a book about Nazi medical experiments. "As far as they know, this is all about reducing knife crime. Quite how grassing up somebody who chopped their fingertip off as they were dicing carrots will do that, we don't really know - but people who aren't doctors are notoriously stupid, so no doubt the Sun will come up with some fuzzy logic to paper over the cracks."

Under the new plans, GPs will also be able to notify a policeman sitting in the corner of the consulting room if they think a patient has committed, or may commit, a crime.

"Ever since the infallible Dr Watson gave his invaluable assistance to the world's leading detective, the professional medic's aptitude for detecting crime even before it occurs has been well-documented," screamed the black-uniformed Ms Strangelove. "We have access to key medical information, such as the tell-tale shape of criminals' heads and their racial characteristics, which our onerous but well-rewarded responsibility as servants of the all-powerful state compels us to hand over to the police, so they can better carry out their honourable duty of locking people up for crimes they haven't committed."

GPs will also be urged to release confidential information about patients' hereditary conditions to any or all of their relatives, regardless of the patient's wishes.

"Let us imagine that a patient has a terrible genetic disorder which they could pass on to their children, such as autism, ginger hair or a tendency to run to fat in their thirties," screeched Ms Strangelove, thumping the rostrum for emphasis. "Does a doctor not have the moral right - indeed, the moral imperative - to warn their partner and in-laws that the sub-human cripples doomed to issue from this miscegenated union will be nothing but a burden on them and, more importantly, the state?"

Doctors, police chiefs and NHS budget managers leapt to their feet and cheered their support for the new proposals, before rushing back to their practices to weed out the enemies of the state.

Nice Middle Class Parents' Outrage At Being Treated With Same Suspicion As Council-Estate Scum

In the face of mounting public fury, Children's Secretary Ed Balls has moved quickly to defuse the row by offering to make a few meaningless cosmetic changes to the government's plans to label everyone in Britain a child-molesting pervert.

Parents who take part in voluntary lift-share schemes to save their poor little darlings from falling into the clutches of the armies of raincoat-clad weirdos who infest school buses and pavements expressed outrage when the government announced that they would all have to submit to a Criminal Records Bureau check, which would label them either as convicted kiddie-fondlers or potential kiddie-fondlers who just haven't been caught yet.

"How dare the government call me a paedophile!" screamed a respectable middle-class mum from the window of her Espace as she dropped her respectable middle-class daughter off at a middle-class school in Surrey which performs very respectably in the league tables. "Everybody knows that paedophiles live on benefits on inner-city sink estates in the North of England. Why don't they just round them all up and sterilise them?"

Mr Balls, however, told reporters that he was ordering a review into the Vetting and Barring Scheme, to see if there was a way of excluding nice people from its remit.

"I can't give you any specifics at present," said the sweating Balls, "But one option we're examining is a Newsagent Check. It seems to me that anyone who takes the Mail or the Express on a regular basis is obviously a normal, well-balanced individual who poses no risk at all to society."

Killing Innocent Bystander Was 'Proportionate', Say Police

Police have defended their behaviour during the G20 protests in London, citing 30 injuries received by officers carrying out Operation Glencoe Massacre and claiming that their response - leading to one death and 80 separate reports of assault to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is also looking at 50 complaints about 'kettling' tactics - was "proportionate".

"Evenin' all. What you have to remember is that the Climate Camp was nothing less than an attempt to overthrow civilisation by bloodthirtsy revolutionaries who want to eat your children," said Inspector Savage, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Federation.

"One of our number was callously scalded while trying to figure out how to make a cup of tea at the Excel Centre, another was bitten by a rioting dog and another was lucky to survive after tripping over a crypto-anarchist safety barrier," he explained. "Worst of all, a colleague from the City of London force suffered a stiff neck after being cruelly forced to wear a heavy helmet. Surrounded by such dire threats to life and limb, is it any wonder some brave officers on the spot exercised their legal right to murder a newspaper vendor?"

"The injuries show the level of violence that was shown towards police during the protest," he concluded.

"Mind how you go now," he told the press conference, before tripping over his shoelace and laying into the front row of reporters with his baton.

Judge Dredd May Misuse New Powers, Warn Magistrates

Street-judge representatives have reacted angrily to claims by magistrates that hatchet-faced law enforcement officers cannot be trusted with the authority to issue on-the-spot penalties for careless driving.

"The average magistrate may be a self-important little Hitler, with about as much idea of the statute book as a Cursed-Earth mutie with the head, brain and forelegs of a mantis," said a spokesman for the Magistrates' Association. "But believe me, when you clap eyes on some of the weasel-like comedians-in-blue who sidle into our courts to spout what they have the bare-faced cheek to call evidence, our members look like King Solomon by comparison."

But Chief Superintendent Joseph Dredd, speaking from the Grand Hall of Justice, dismissed fears that he would misuse the proposed powers of judge, jury and executioner.

"We street-judges are well aware that carless driving is, in part, a matter of opinion," he read from notes scrawled on the back of his armoured glove. "But my opinion matters, creep, and yours doesn't. If you want to argue about it, citizen, my gun fires six different kinds of ammunition. I am the lav...! Er... that's not quite right, is it? I am the law. That's it."

"Carless driving? Are we sure about that?" he whispered to his PR minder, Press-Judge Anderson. "OK, crime-blitz all the perps without cars and chuck 'em in the cubes with Mean Machine al-Megrahi. And round up all the magistrates while you're at it, and slam their butts in pokey with Justice Secretary Death."

"I am the lav!" he repeated. "Law! Gotta remember that - law."

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?"

MPs Call For Intermediaries To Stand Between Police And Protesters And Get Hit

The influential parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has criticised the police handling of the G20 protests, and is calling for intermediaries to be introduced as a means of enhancing communication between police and protesters at future demonstrations.

"There were obvious problems with this policing operation," said chair Andrew Dismal. "It did not help that communication was so poor between police and protesters. Obviously, introducing an extra layer of communication in the heat of the moment will alleviate this problem completely."

Under the committee's proposals, any police officer wishing to strike a protester to the ground with his baton - or fire a baton round, or simply kill them - must attract the attention of an authorised intermediary, who will then struggle through the turbulent crowd towards the flashpoint. When they arrive, the police officer will then apply restraining, vindictive or lethal force directly to the intermediary, who will then make every effort to let the protester know what is taking place.

"The protester will then say 'Ow' - or some such similar expression of pain and shock - to the intermediary, who will pass the message on to the police officer," explained Mr Dismal. "The officer in question will acknowledge the exchange by jotting it down in his notebook, before moving on to deal with the next incident."

The Association of Chief Police Officers has said it will examine the committee's proposals.

"As long as our officers get some sort of outlet for their aggression, there shouldn't be a problem," said a spokesman. "We're not particular. We'll cheerfully twat anyone, as Ian Tomlinson's family will be only too happy to tell you."

Scary Spike Thing Honours Memory Of Bomb Victims, Apparently

The lives of those killed four years ago in London's 7/7 bombings have been trivialised forever by some sort of wonky fence, which was unveiled today in a poignant ceremony attended by Gordon Brown, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, Trevor McDonald, Tessa Jowell and anyone else who wanted to get their face on television and hadn't won a ticket to the Michael Jackson Total Death Experience.

The achingly dull monument, which somehow cost almost £1m, consists of fifty-two 3.5m strips of stainless steel from a builder's yard, stuck in the ground in four groups in a half-hearted nod to the four separate attack locations, and has an estimated scrap value of almost £200.

"In years to come, people will see this monument and reflect quietly to themselves: 'Hello, some silly bugger's left a load of metal strips in Hyde Park, what the fuck's that all about then?'" said Sir Trevor. "If they have nothing better to do, they might even wander over out of idle curiosity and read the small plaque which explains that 52 people were killed in one day by suicide bombers. Some might say we might as well just have unveiled a plaque - but, of course, then we wouldn't have got all these TV cameras to come along, would we?"

"My turn," said Gordon Brown, rubbing his hands together with glee at a rare chance to appear in public without being pelted with balloons filled with urine. "People should remember at all times that sheer naked terror is all around us, and anyone you meet in the street could be wearing an explosive belt - especially if they have a beard or look a bit funny to you. That is why the police should be allowed to beat the living shit out of anybody they happen to take a dislike to, and occasionally kill innocent members of the public, in order to protect the traditional hard-won freedoms which the British people hold so dear."

"This monument might be as ugly as sin," added Tessa Jowell, "But if its stark, jagged nihilism sends a shiver of fear down the spine of everyone who sees it, then it's serving its purpose well - namely, to remind you that you could all be blown to bloody fragments at any moment, and that any price is worth paying to keep you cowed and terrified."

"It really is appalling," concluded Prince Charles at the end of the ceremony, although it was not clear if he was referring to the terror attack, the memorial or the fact that those survivors who were maimed for life have, as usual, been pushed into the background as their appalling injuries are not considered sufficiently photogenic or on-message.

Loss of Identity

The recently-appointed home secretary, Alan Johnson, has confirmed that the government will not be forcing ordinary, decent British people to carry ID cards, but promised that they would still be imposed on evil, moustachio-twirling foreigners.

"Some might think that this was the perfect opportunity to save the country an absolute bloody fortune in the costs of developing an ID card scheme," he told a hastily-convened press conference in the airing cupboard of the Home Office. "Unfortunately, if there's one thing these useless software companies can do right, it's writing a watertight contract with eye-watering penalty clauses for cancellation."

"Since we're stuck with a bloody useless database regardless, we figured it would be a shame to waste it," he continued. "So we thought how well it would read in the tabloids if we just inflicted it on foreigners - who, as we all know, are the real problem facing Britain today and in the future."

"And the beauty of it is that you won't read about all the inevitable cock-ups in the papers," he added. "Well, not the British ones, anyway."