Prime Minister Gordon Brown found some comfort in this week’s dismal local election results when he learnt that Labour’s performance in fictional towns and cities was far better than results across the rest of the country as a whole. Posing for the cameras with the newly elected Labour Mayor of Casterbridge, Gordon Brown claimed that it was typical of the media to focus on Labour’s losses in places that really existed.

A leaked memo has confirmed that Gordon Brown took ‘absolutely no decisions whatsoever’ last Thursday after the Magic 8 Ball, long suspected as the primary instrument of government, failed to materialise in time for the regular cabinet meeting.