April Fool’s day celebrations are to be moved to the first Monday in May the government announced today, in a bid to quietly slip in some bad news following Bradley Wiggins’ riding a bike fast good news.
The move is designed to increase the nation’s output and transfer the traditional pranks to a public holiday where people can play jokes on each other in their own time.
Statistics show there is a tangible dip in worker productivity on the morning of April 1st when the date falls on a working day. The most popular prank is supergluing a colleague’s mug to the desk.
Newspapers and all other media outlets, including internet sites, will be prohibited from running spoof made-up stories on April 1st, with a minimum fine of £250,000 and the disconnection of services from their ISP.
David Cameron said: “I know this may not be a popular idea in some quarters, but we must jolly well get this deficit down using all measures possible. It was all Nick Clegg’s idea anyway, as are all the coalition’s unpopular policies.”
Ed Milliband said: “This is just another example of out-of-touch incompetent posh boys piling yet more misery upon hard-pressed working people. I for one will be gluing Ed Balls’ mug to his desk and advise the great British public to do no work at all next April 1st and spend all morning playing jokes on each other.”
John Prescott said: “I tell thee, the UK has gone right down the pan since the three public schoolboy stooges of Cameron, Osborne and Johnson got in – a right bunch of comedians and another right royal fine Eton mess they’ve gotten us all into.”