ITV renews Mr Bates vs The Post Office for three new seasons

ITV has announced it has commissioned three new seasons of the hit drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office, confirming that the script will be written as soon as the Post Office commits further miscarriages of justice upon innocent postmasters.

It's thought the titular Mr Bates character, portrayed by Toby Jones in the show, will feature in the new episodes, though the fate of villain Paula Vennells, the criminal mastermind of the first series, and whose sinister catch phrase 'the Horizon system is robust' had the nation on the edge of their seats, is currently unknown.

Since the drama aired, tourists from as far afield as Japan have flocked to Mr Bates' home in the national park of Snowdonia, drawn by the idyllic scenery seen in the drama, with further boosts to the tourist industry in Wales and Surrey. Several beer gardens in which Mr Bates took telephone calls have already received National Trust Heritage status.

A spokesman for ITV said, 'We are delighted to announce further series of one of our most popular dramas. In the absence of any major scandals on the Post Office's part, we will concentrate storylines on smaller controversies such as the rising cost of stamps, damage to Amazon parcels, and envelopes being measured incorrectly, and of course we'll be revisiting fans' favourite heroes and villains.'

'Rest assured, Mr Bates will again be solving post office-based crimes while hiking in areas of natural beauty.'

Photo by Joe Han on Unsplash

Sunak: 'With any luck I'll be in California for the 4th July fireworks'

Rishi Sunak has allegedly unveiled his master disaster plan to some aides, including Tory intern Henry Hootington-Hurst who confided 'Using his background in finance Rishi has essentially put a giant negative spread bet on the number of seats the Tories might win. So the worse it is, the better.

'Rishi will unleash a string of truly, wildly idiotic policies and promises, mostly from the drawers marked 'break glass in case of culture wars' and 'rejected Rees-Mogg erotic fantasies'. Weirdly, compulsory military uniform for 18 year old boys was in both. Anyway, the idea is for the Tories to be so far behind by general election day, Rishi won't need to hang around. He can take his jet to his California mansion, surrounded by piles of cash and enjoy the 4th July fireworks, independent from being PM.'

Image by Nick from Pixabay

Half a mannequin, two ducks, and a peg: 190 candidates short, Tory vetting gets desperate

Announcing a General Election, you'd think a government might have planned to have enough Generals in place. Not this one. With just a couple of weeks until the application deadline, the Conservatives are 190 candidates short in constituencies all over the UK.

In a last minute mad panic, vetting of candidates has slipped to a new low. One seat in Surrey Heath will literally be challenged by a seat. And not even a good one like a Recaro, just a rusty-legged, wonky, battered, old plastic village hall seat. With distasteful staining on it so grim, not even a mangy pigeon with diarrhoea would perch on it.

Another candidate in the Home Counties will be a clothes peg, and a broken compass with a constant spinning needle will be the Conservative choice in South Northamptonshire.

Not just one, but two ducks will challenge a flock of 100 feral chickens currently running the Norfolk village of Snettisham. And some dangerous air turbulence has been put forward as a candidate in the West Midlands. The main thinking being that at least it is grabbing some news headlines at the moment and voters might have heard of it.

One London borough will have the choice of half a contorted mannequin as their Tory MP. Intrigued, some voters are asking 'which half?'

And a bag of hangers will contest the Hartlepool election, but is still expected to win, given local appetite for bringing back the death penalty.

In perhaps the worst case of candidate vetting, residents in Somerset will be presented with the option of Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Picture credit: Wix AI