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Daily Mail in meltdown over new driving laws for seventy year olds


The Daily Mail has now published no fewer than seven articles decrying the inhuman assault on British drivers of a certain age.


'You will be forced to retake your driving test every three years and, due to the shortage of examiners, you will be advised to provisionally book each test at least four years ahead,' ran one social media explanation of the Daily Mail's articles.


'You will need to pass a medical previously limited to active HGV drivers, be able to demonstrate an ability to reverse an articulated trailer around a corner and know how to shout obscenities in French,' said another post, which was considered to be slightly incorrect.  'French or German, surely?' asked one knowledgeable reply.


'If you fail more than once in a two month period your vehicle will be impounded and handed over to an immigrant, who doesn't need a licence, insurance or a flat cap to drive on British roads,' argued another.  The flat cap rule has been doubted online by people under thirty.


A study looking into the actual articles identified that all of the above claims were reasonable extrapolations of the headlines and first two sentences of the articles, but confirmed that the actual change required when applying to renew the driving licence at age seventy and every three after is evidence that the driver has had an optician evaluate their corrected eyesight.


'How are pensioners expected to pay for the free eyesight tests?' screamed a Daily Mail article.  'And how can they pass the test when they clearly can't read past the first paragraph?  We demand a General Election now!' it said - in paragraph three, so unseen by by most readers.





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Government announce plans to make train overcrowding worse


Eighteen-year-olds will be able to buy half-price train tickets for most services when railcard rules are changed later this month, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced. The Government said the measure would be paid for through increased train ridership, with more people being able to access the discounted fares thus enhancing the overcrowding experience.


The rail minister claimed this, ‘common sense change is exactly what passengers should expect from the railway. Its unfair that 18 year olds cannot experience overcrowded services at the same price as 17 year olds. Under this new vote winning policy, they get to experience cost effective overcrowding themselves whilst performing a civic service to help make things worse for other passengers.


'As we move towards nationalisation of our railways, younger people really do need to experience at first hand the poor services endured by passengers when trains were last in public ownership.’ Amid claims of seat reservations being able to fix the problem, a spokesman for one rail operator said, ‘Customers already think we sell two tickets for every available seat. That is categorically wrong – we sell three tickets per seat and sometimes more on peak services.


'We are proud of our completely ineffective seat reservation enforcement system. This means that any passenger can sit in any seat regardless of whether they have reserved it or not. Under this new policy, the increased number of students and their luggage will give us further excuses for our train managers to be unable to travel along the train to keep everything in order’.


A London based operator said, ‘The seats on our flagship fleet of Class 700 trains are so uncomfortable that passengers prefer to stand. We are currently thinking of taking out seats altogether which will instantly solve any overcrowding issues on our trains.’


A student representative said, ‘This will save 18 year old students around £175. With interest payments on student loans equating to up to £10 a day, this will pay for 18 days interest’. For context, 18 days is how long it can take to get from Liverpool to Leeds by train.'


Not everyone is happy though. Low cost airlines are outraged with one saying, ‘British trains are the most expensive in Europe meaning only well off individuals can afford to use them. Everyone else is forced to travel by air. This subsidy will make rail travel affordable for 18 year olds which will have a direct impact on our business’.





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Andy Burnham appoints John Lewis to run British Steel


Following the Government’s nationalisation of British Steel, it has been announced that the John Lewis Partnership will run the business.


A government spokesman said ‘It’s a pattern we have seen in recent years where a National Institution runs an important Government operation, for example, Dame Judi Dench transformed MI6 under her tenure. She’d still be there if Commander Bond had reached her a bit quicker.’


Our political correspondent added, ‘This is a really shrewd move for Andy Burnham The John Lewis model of shared ownership and employee profit sharing is an excellent example of commercial socialism. Plus, the Government has said that their ultimate goal is to find private investors to co-invest in modernisation. John Lewis’s reputation of being a very safe pair of hands will land extremely well with nervous investors.’


When questioned about the rationale behind a retailer taking over the operation of a strategically important heavy industry, a spokesman for John Lewis said ‘If steel production ceases then it will be a while before the country's infrastructure starts to decline and people begin to notice. If Waitrose runs out of Duchy Organic sourdough at 8:15 on a Saturday morning customers behave as though civilisation itself has collapsed. Which just goes to show that, in modern Britain, the path from blast furnace to artisan focaccia is shorter than anyone ever imagined.


The spokesman went on to explain efficiencies which can be put into place immediately under this arrangement. ‘Steel manufacturing uses expensive lasers, ultrasonic testing and metallurgy laboratories for quality control. We plan to dispense with all of that. We have Margaret from Electricals. Margaret has been at John Lewis since 1988 and if Margaret says a toaster won't last, customers will quietly put it back.


Our customers have never had the chance to buy steel directly. We anticipate having a small range of plate, sheet and rolled steel available in store with the entire range online. This means that retail customers can now have metric tonne rolls of steel delivered directly to their homes within 24 hours. As far as we know, no other retailer worldwide does that – another first for John Lewis.’


It was rumoured that the NHS was also in the frame to run British Steel. This was apparently ruled out because both suffer from the magical belief that removing 10% of the budget will somehow increase output by 15% and that they both rely on enormous machines that everyone is afraid to switch off.





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