Public Delighted To Support Business Recovery Through Self-Impoverishment

Ecstatic members of the public are dancing in the high streets today as retailers, betting shops, oil companies, banks, train operators, car manufacturers and the software industry continue to report ever-increasingly healthy profits.

“I’m proud to play my part, however small it may be, in returning the business community to the salad days they’ve come to expect as their divinely-ordained right,” one overjoyed Oxford Street shopper told reporters as she spent the last £140 of her card limit on a pair of sandals which are not quite the same colour as any of her other sandals. “Could the media industry do with a few quid? Here, take my purse.”

“We could have hung onto the SUV for another year, of course,” smiled her husband. “But Audi have just bought Ducati and running a top superbike racing team doesn’t come cheap, so I reckon they could do with a bit of a cash injection. I’ve just signed the kids over as deposit on a new A1. It’s a step down, of course, but with the kids off our hands we really don’t need a tank any more.”

“Of course, I’ve promised BP that I’ll rev the new car at every set of lights and drive it in the wrong gear whenever I can,” he added reassuringly. “After all, I wouldn’t want to dent their profits.”

“If we all just keep bankrupting ourselves for the greater good of the world’s boardrooms, I bet Britain will be booming again by Christmas,” cheered a bag-laden bystander. “And, you know, William Hill were more than happy to take that bet.”

Britain Prepares For Osborne's 2012 Budget

Armchair Anarchists Strangely Reluctant To Challenge Cameron On Somalia

Welcome to the anarchist paradise

As David Cameron threatens to destabilise Somalia - the world’s foremost anarchist state – with an invasion of evil capitalist money, thousands of freethinking Somali pirates and starving villagers have been left mystified and demoralised by the total absence of messages of support in the social media from their crusty allies in the developed world.

“First-world anarchists have been sitting on their backsides for well over a century, telling their friends how all of the world’s problems could be solved at a stroke by the abolition of all bureaucratic structures,” pointed out Looshan Yusuf, a member of a non-hierarchic pirate collective operating out of the free commune of Hafun, as he selflessly redistributed a consignment of grain liberated from the oppressive ownership of Western aid agencies among his gun-toting friends. “Well, only here in Somalia will you find an entire nation functioning in a state of perfect anarchy.”

“I am thinking your idle Western anarchists should eat their dogs on strings and sail over here immediately to demonstrate the strength of their solidarity,” agreed his friend Timiro Asad eagerly, as he oiled the recycled RPG-7 rocket launcher which the collective has deemed appropriate to his needs. “Then we could ransom them in exchange for heavier firepower and plenty of ammunition, which we desperately need to keep our heroic social experiment going.”

“Peace,” he added.

Cameron Not Giving Problem Families £3733 Because They’ll Only Spend It On Drugs And Guns

Unveiling a £448m package aimed at 120,000 of Britain’s most dysfunctional families, prime minister David Cameron stopped short of actually giving them each a share of the cash, claiming they would only spend the money on drugs, guns, knives and a set of safecracking tools.

Mr Cameron has high hopes for the Angel Gang

Instead, the money – which is being diverted from budgets aimed at helping people who give a shit – will be used to raise a legion of social-work magicians, each of whom will be granted the mystical ability to transform their allotted scum into productive and responsible members of society with a wave of their special Cameron Wand.

“Each of these sociopathic ruffians will also be magically granted the ability to vote Conservative,” smiled Mr Cameron.

Poverty Not About Money, Explains Rich Man

The No Work Or Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, wants Britain to understand that poverty is not a matter of merely being pitifully short of money, according to a speech he delivered in London today.

Very poor

“I think there is a real problem with the way we measure child poverty,” insisted Mr Duncan Smith, whose personal wealth is estimated to be around £1m. “The new Conservative definition of poverty includes a lack of education, of culture, of opportunity and most of all, a total lack of hope of escaping to a better life. The coalition government is working hard to deliver all of these. Then you’ll know what real poverty is.”

“Judged purely in material terms, I might be considered a very lucky man,” he went on movingly. “But I deserve your sympathy. I suffer from a terrible poverty of compassion.”

75% Of City Financiers Say: ‘Yes I Do Get Paid Far Too Much, Thanks’

A banker's idea of what the struggling poor look like

Three quarters of London’s finance professionals happily agreed that they get paid a stupid amount of money, according to a report published by the St Paul’s Institute, a think tank linked to the Square Mile’s cathedral.

“Why, the gap between me and the poor is simply disgraceful, old boy,” commented James Spreadsheet, a senior bean counter of one of the ‘big three’ accountancy firms. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to advise some clients to sack hundreds more little people and freeze the pay of the ones who are left. Then I’ve got to charge the silly buggers the usual couple of hundred grand. No rest for the virtuous, you know.”

“The bonus culture definitely needs reforming,” pointed out Rob Blind, a guilt-stricken futures trader. “The bloody markets are so stagnant I’ll be lucky if this year’s bonus even covers the road tax on the Porsche, let alone buys me a new one. Tell you what, my friend, why don’t we abolish these rotten bonuses altogether and replace them with a much fairer system of huge salary increases?”

All of the 515 City professionals questioned in the survey insisted that their firm was a ship of probity in a sea of ravenous sharks and begged the public to appreciate their efforts more, as they staggered out of Coq d’Argent and other City dining establishments after selflessly redistributing some of their vast wealth to the poor restauranteurs of the Square Mile.

Labour Tempts Students With Lifetime Of Slightly Less Debt

Miliband 2, the regent of the Labour Party until anyone better comes along, has single-handedly recaptured the youth vote today by dangling the promise of a marginally smaller mountain of crushing debt for future generations of impoverished graduates to defer.

"We're going to get lots of people, talented people, put off from going to university by £9,000 fees,” droned the lesser Miliband, speaking before his party conference begins to address the vexing question of how to differentiate themselves from the other two parties. “But if those fees were slashed to a trifling £6,000 a year, I guarantee they’d be stampeding into higher education.”

Students can barely contain their glee

Miliband 2 went on to dream that his extraordinary munificence would be funded by retaining the current level of corporation tax which his party’s rich corporate friends strenuously avoid paying, and by charging higher interest on the student loans of graduates who stroll into the millions of jobs paying more than £65,000 which exist only in his imagination.

“Let me see now. Under the Conservatives, I’m going to have to hack away an impossible £27,000 debt mountain - not counting the interest - before I could even contemplate a mortgage and kids,” said one sixth-former, who is hoping that a good degree in Engineering might one day swing him a part-time job stacking shelves in a supermarket for £6.50 an hour. “But, under Labour, I’d only have to clear an impossible £18,000? Please excuse my tears of gratitude.”

“This is a truly fantastic deal for students,” smiled utterly independent NUS President and Labour Party member Liam Burns, through gritted teeth. “Vote Labour.”

Cameron Vows To Make ‘Tough Love’ Like A Sex Machine

Prime minister David Cameron promised today that he would soon be making “tough love” all night long to the urban poor of Britain’s deprived inner cities, leading mystified political commentators to trawl the internet for any kind of insight into what on earth he might be talking about.

Mr Cameron's vision for the inner cities

The only explanation anyone has so far come up with involves bondage, domination and sado-masochism - which, experts believe, could well involve tying the jobless up in various agonising postures, attaching clamps to their nipples and other eye-watering tortures. This would only be carried out with the victims’ consent, however, which would be renewed every fortnight as part of their Jobseeker’s Agreement, and would be halted at any time with the uttering of pre-agreed ‘safe words’ – probably along the lines of “I would like to end my claim.”

Such speculation was reinforced later when deputy prime minister Nick Clegg was seen being bundled into the back of a car round the back of 10 Downing Street, trussed up like a Christmas turkey and sporting a ball gag.

Inner Cities Looking Forward To Arrival Of Patronising Busybodies’ Valuable Cars

Nah, it was like that when you left it, mate

Britain’s problem families have welcomed prime minister David Cameron’s latest bright idea - urging insufferably patronising middle-class pricks into their inner-city hellscapes to tell them how to find those millions of ‘hidden’ jobs which exist in his empty head - and also promised a particularly warm welcome for shiny new Chelsea tractors.

Community representatives said there were plenty of vacant off-road parking spaces round the back of their decaying tower blocks where public-spirited locals could keep a watchful eye on the luxurious 4x4s and people-carriers, whilst their owners were indoors offering the full benefit of their rose-tinted worldview to any addict incapable of running away fast enough.

“This scheme’s fackin’ brilliant right?” said problem person Sammi-Jo Potts. “That poncy twat’s only just gorn an’ announced it, an’ already I bin offered like fifty nicker a wheel offuv any Merc or Beemer yeah an’ a tenner for every satnav. ‘Assa noo Xbox sorted for startas yeah innit.”

Britain’s Shouty, Aggressive Little Toerags Lacking In Self-Confidence, Opines OECD

Jeremy Kyle meets poor people with no self-confidence every day

The swaggering, arrogant morons who plague Britian’s inner-city estates fail academically because they lack self-confidence, according to the brilliant researchers of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

With the UK now trailing Tunisia and Mexico in social mobility, the OECD study claims that children from poor backgrounds have the odds stacked against any chance of using their brains to escape the poverty into which they are born, and found that they generally lack the self-confidence to stop shouting “CUNT” at random passers-by for a minute and think about answering a question about science instead.

“The fact that these deeply-misunderstood feral prodigies think they are better than you is a classic indicator of a deep-seated insecurity complex,” explained the OECD’s Dr Marvin Strangelove, as one of his research projects called him a wanker and demanded a pound so he could ring his mum for a lift home.

Dr Strangelove went on to say that what these potential geniuses lacked was some sort of “personal, internal drive”, before noticing that one of his pets had stolen his personal external drive from his laptop and was already halfway to Cash Converters with it.

New Study Suggests Poor Have Less Money

Not a pair of designer-ripped jeans in sight

Poor people have significantly less money than the rich, according to ground-breaking new research carried out by the Institute For Fiscal Studies which flies in the face of accepted social maxims long cherished by the tabloid press about benefit scroungers living in palatial council houses.

“Apparently the whopping increase in the price of essentials – food, water, electricity and whatnot – leaves your average pauper with hardly any spare cash for a new handbag every week, or even the occasional impulse-buying of a pair of Jimmy Choos,” said project leader Mary Antoinette. “Would you believe, many of these people can’t even afford a weekend of pampering at a health spa, even though the lucky so-and-sos are hardly inconvenienced at all by the terrible drain of mortgage repayments?”

“We hope this new data will form the basis of further studies into why the poor are so appallingly dowdy,” she enthused. “I mean, look at the state of them. The government seriously needs to invest in personal stylists for these walking fashion disasters.”

Dorbishop of Canterbury Wakes Up, Paints Picture Of Treacly Hardship, Nods Off

The Dorbishop of Canterbury woke up briefly today and solemnly warned a curious Little Statesgirl that the Prime Hatter/Deputy Hare coalition was committing Wonderland to “radical, treacle-based hardship for which no-one voted,” before dozing off again.

“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dorbishop began in a great hurry; “And their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well - ”

“What did they live on?” said the Little Statesgirl, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.

Zzzz

“They lived on treacle,” said the Dorbishop, after thinking a minute or two.

“They couldn't have done that, you know,” the Little Statesgirl gently remarked; “They'd have been ill.”

“So they were,” said the Dormouse; “Very ill. Yet they were assessed as fully fit for work.”

The Little Statesgirl tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But why did they live at the bottom of a well?”

“Take some more tea,” the Deputy Hare said to the Little Statesgirl, very earnestly.

“I've had nothing yet,” the Little Statesgirl replied in an offended tone, “I can't take any more.”

“You mean you can't take less,” said the Prime Hatter: “It's very easy to take more than nothing, as millions of malingering scroungers will readily attest.”

This piece of rudeness was more than the Little Statesgirl could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dorbishop fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dorbishop into the teapot.

“At any rate I'll never vote Liberal Democrat again!” said the Little Statesgirl as she picked her way through the wood. “It's the stupidest party I ever saw in all my life!”

Alternative Voting System Will Disenfranchise The Thick, Say Opponents

She can't even count her own kids, for god's sake

The ‘NO To AV’ campaign claimed today that, if introduced, the new voting system would effectively disenfranchise poor people - pointing out that they are all as thick as two short planks, and would almost certainly spoil their ballots by drawing leaking penises on them out of sheer mindless frustration.

“The poor are complete and utter fuckwits,” explained Joan Ryan, deputy director of the campaign. “They must be, or they wouldn’t be poor. There’s no way that your typical council-estate fucktard could possibly grasp the complex abstraction of putting a 1 by their first choice, a 2 by their second and so forth, because none of them can count that far.”

“Look at what happened in Australia, where they have AV,” she went on. “Last year they spoiled over five times as many ballot papers as we did. Now, we all know Australians are notoriously ignorant - but are they as pig-headedly and belligerently dense as the typical British chav? At least the Australians have got the sense to wear sunscreen.”

"This isn't us being patronising or talking down to people,” she added. “This is a fact and it is a very real concern. Many of the people who count votes up and down the land are well past retirement age, and the sudden sight of a crudely-pencilled phallus could well lead to fatalities.”

15p Minimum Wage Rise Will Make Us All Kings

The national minimum wage will soar to £6.08 an hour in October, boasted government ministers, implementing the insanely generous 2.5% increase recommended by the Low Pay Commission.

Ministers were quick to compare the huge rise to yesterday’s decision by the Bank of England to keep interest rates at 0.5% for the 25th consecutive month, while David Frost of the British Chambers of Commerce wept openly as he predicted mass suicides among employers and called for the reintroduction of slavery as the best way to lead the nation out of recession.

What the raise will buy in October - yes, all three of them!

Ministers were, however, unaccountably less keen to invite comparison with the rate of consumer price inflation, which rose again to 4.4% in February - suggesting that, in the absence of an economic miracle, the cost of everything will have risen by over 40% by the time the 2.5% minimum wage increase comes into effect.

“Yes, well if you play with a calculator for long enough you can prove anything,” scoffed work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith. “But the important thing is to concentrate on the word ‘increase’, because it’s a very splendid word indeed and makes everybody feel good.”

“Especially all the thickies who are on the minimum wage, because their numeracy is so dismal they can’t even work out how to vote for more than one candidate,” he added with a disarming smile. “To them I say: Do you believe the word of some smart-arse statistician? Of course you don’t. Bugger them - you’re getting a raise!”

Exeter University Hoping £9000 Fees Will Keep Out The Plymouth Riff-Raff

The University of Exeter today announced that it would be charging the full £9000-a-year tuition fees, and reassured its present and future students that although it would naturally be taking steps to encourage wider participation from less wealthy backgrounds, it would not be advertising this fact in Plymouth, obviously.

Exeter prides itself on its rigorous selection procedures

“Exeter has, over the years, acquired a bit of a reputation for being little more than a playground for rather wealthy young socialites who were too thick to get into Oxford, Cambridge or even Durham, and were too cack-handed to wangle their way in with their sporting prowess either,” said Professor Steve Smith, the university’s vice-chancellor and CEO. “Well, it’s nice that people say such kind things about us, but until now we’ve never really had anything really concrete to back it up with.”

“I think it goes without saying, of course, that our neighbour, Plymouth Remedial College And Petting Zoo – to give it its proper name – wouldn’t dare to charge its simian exhibits anything like the full whack,” he added. “If they did, the ghastly place would be empty in seconds and their fat frump headmistress knows it.”

“That in itself ought to keep the scum from travelling up here every day on the Shoplifter’s Special bus,” he explained with a grimace of disdain. “But just in case, rest assured that when I say we shall be meeting the government’s token target of offering bursaries to the underprivileged, I’m talking about the rather better sort for whom ‘making ends meet’ means hanging onto the Range Rover for three years instead of two.”

“We are deeply concerned about the vice-chancellor’s statement,” said Exeter Guild Of Union-Loathing Students’ hereditary president, the Hon. Annabelle Thykke. “And if he doesn’t extend his prohibition to Torquay forthwith, we shall simply have no option but to pelt him with scones until he relents.”

“Rah! Rah! Rah!” she added. “We’re going to smash the oiks!”

Dublin’s Toddlers Already Signing Book Deals

Meet Dublin's new literary elite

Publishers are forming orderly queues along the banks of the Liffey today to sign up the Irish capital’s toddlers for lucrative book deals, in which Dublin’s under-threes will write bestselling feel-bad paperbacks about growing up in unimaginable poverty.

“Sure and we all thought them English were all set to corner the market,” smiled Mrs. O’Leary, who has already sold her washing machine and replaced it with a washboard and fearsome iron mangle, with which her children Niamh, 3, and Conal, 2, will be expected to injure themselves repeatedly. “But thank the Lord for granting us a crippling economic collapse.”

“Conal want Niamh to die of something really really bad,” shouted her cherubic son excitedly. “The Penguin man told me I can get a great big guilt trip out of that. What’s a sub text? He said I have to have one. I want lots and lots of them!”

“If I don’t die of measles or whooping cough ‘cos mummy can’t pay the doctor man,” explained bright-eyed Niamh, as her father flung her pink TV and her Disney DVDs into a skip, “My nice agent says I’ve got to have a baby when I’m 12, so mummy and daddy can call me the whore of Babylon and throw me into the gutter, which is in front of our house where the car doesn’t live any more.”

The advances received from major publishing houses are expected to cover the costs for Ireland’s few remaining schools to beat basic literacy skills into the nation’s aspiring authors, whereupon their schooling will be brought to an abrupt end and they will be handed over into Father Donnelly’s wandering hands for the obligatory heart-rending chapter on being touched up during preparations for their first communion.

“To be sure, I thought I’d be the last Irishmen ever to weave a jaw-droppingly grim page-turner about childhood deprivation,” grinned Mr. O’Leary – whose recently-issued memoirs, Me Mam’s Coughing Blood Again, are providing for the all-important years of brutal, Guinness-fuelled alcoholism necessary to complete his offspring’s nightmarish suffering – as he ripped out the bathroom fixtures to make room for a manky, wheezing horse. “Thank you, sweet baby Jesus, for raising up such a glorious bunch of bumbling wastrels to govern us.”

Scrapping Minimum Wage Will Make The Poor Wealthier, Insists Loony Bin With Impressive-Sounding Title

Mr Duncan Smith, surrounded by his advisors

The work and pensions secretary has been urged to either scrap or drastically reduce the minimum wage by a collection of raving lunatics calling themselves the Institute Of Economic Affairs, who are absolutely convinced that having less money will make poor people better off, and also that their fillings are picking up alien radio messages.

"Iain Duncan Smith has rightly analysed the welfare problem, but is only part of the way to a welfare solution," IEA director general Mark Littlewood yelled at passing cars, as he fled from a pair of white-coated men carrying big butterfly nets. "Of course, we need to ensure that it pays to work, and we can do this simply by paying people a lot less. It's insane that it can be more profitable to be on welfare than in employment, although not half as insane as us."

"The daily life of benefit recipients should not be that different from the daily life of their working peers," he earnestly informed a wandering pigeon, “Except of course that their arses will be falling out of their trousers, and they’ll go home to count their riches every evening in a ramshackle bedsit shared with at least one screaming psychotic knife-collector who isn’t taking his medication because - like me and my friends Napoleon, Elvis and Wee Billy Bampot, the rightful king of Scotland - he knows that he isn’t a nutter, it’s everyone else who’s barking mad.”

Mr Duncan Smith thanked the loony think-tank for their input, but said it did not go nearly far enough for his liking.

“What’s all this nonsense about pay?” he demanded. “I’m trying to abolish that.”

Living In A Box

David Cameron has been singing the praises of cardboard boxes today, revealing that his baby daughter Florence sleeps happily in the makeshift cot he improvised on holiday in Cornwall from the packaging the Aga was delivered in.

“Obviously Florence’s early arrival caught us on the hop, as it were,” beamed the prime minister, “So I had a quick scout around our humble cottage, and in the east wing I found a room I didn’t even know we had, filled with packaging that the interior decorators had rather sloppily left behind.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve made a deduction from their fee,” he chuckled.

“By the time Sam and the baby were ready to leave hospital, I’d knocked up a cosy little cot from cardboard box the Aga came in, complete with a playroom and ensuite nappy-changing facilities,” enthused the proud dad. “Dear little Flo loves it so much, she hasn’t come out in weeks, even after we transplanted it into Number Ten. So now we’ve added an extension for the live-in nanny.”

“You know, when I look at the cost of property today and compare that to the sort of wages the peasants are earning, I can see more and more people choosing to take up residence in an attractively-priced cardboard box,” mused Mr Cameron. “In fact, my hope is that, one day in the not-too-distant future, we’ll even see entire cardboard cities springing up on under-utilised land – you know, like infilled refuse tips and whatnot. Rest assured, I shall certainly be doing all that I can to encourage that.”

“And best of all, cardboard boxes are only classed as Band A for council tax,” he added with a smile. “And they say Conservatives only look after the wealthy.”

And you don't need planning permission, either

Homelessness Will Be Easy To Bear Knowing That The Wealthy Might Be Paying Their Full 32.5% Tax, Assures Clegg

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg today promised faithfully to do something or other about rich individuals exploiting tax loopholes - which will fill victims of benefit cuts who lose their homes through stepped reductions in housing benefit with a nice warm glow, as they wrap themselves in old copies of the tax-dodging Sun while they huddle in the doorway of their local tax-dodging Tesco.

“What could possibly be fairer than rich people paying the full whopping 32.5%?” smiled Mr Clegg to a beaming Andrew Marr. “I’m sure it will be a great comfort to the poorest people in our society to know that, just as they are having to make economies by not eating for a couple of days every fortnight, some chap I went to school with is sharing their pain as he comes to the unpalatable conclusion that he’s jolly well going to have to hang on to the new Maserati for three years instead of two.”

The rich will just have to put up with this for a bit longer

Meanwhile, at a safe distance from the Lib Dem conference, rail union boss Bob Crow (salary: £133,183) was failing miserably in his efforts to promote his alternative scheme to the party’s rank-and-file membership, in which any posh geezas wot torks proppa gits their ‘eads slang dan the karzi an’ all ver bladdy assets confisculated gorblimey innit.

Impoverished Rubble Island Desperately In Need Of Leader With Rhyming Dictionary, Says Wyclef Jean

Nothing a few hella hot rhymes can't fix

Haitian escapee Wyclef Jean has registered himself as a contender for the presidency of the world’s poorest heap of smashed concrete, assuring the pathetic survivors of last year’s devastating earthquake that his wealth of experience in finding words that rhyme qualifies him, above all others, to create some sort of viable economy centred around half-bricks and cement dust.

“Election time’s comin’,” Mr Jean told a cheering crowd of walking skeletons. “Who ya gonna vote for? If I was president I’d get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday, buried on Sunday, then go back to work on Monday, if I was president.”

“If I was president,” he added. “If I was president.”

UN relief agencies gently broke the news to the hip-hop star that he cannot be elected until November 28th, which inconveniently happens to fall on a Sunday. They did, however, go on to say that - assuming he wins - from that point forward he will probably be able to fulfil most of his manifesto according to the strict timetable he has set for himself, once people become aware that his total executive experience is limited to sorting out a set list.