Blair changes mind

Tony Blair has dramatically withdrawn his decision to resign this morning, explaining that he had woken up feeling that he’d made a terrible mistake, and realizing that he would quite like to stay on for another ten years after all.

Government spin doctors immediately went into overdrive attempting to portray Thursday’s seemingly clear-cut resignation speech as a theoretical proposal rather than a concrete statement that he was stepping down as Prime Minister. ‘Tony was just flying a kite, testing out an idea,’ said Labour’s Director of Communications. ‘It’s the media who have got this all out of proportion,’

The Prime Minister was more frank about his mistake; ‘You know, sometimes in this job, you don’t always get it right. Yesterday I said I was resigning. Today I’ve decided to stay on until 2017. Nobody’s perfect. Sorry about all the fuss.’

His second bombshell in two days was delivered to tearful supporters at Trimdon Labour Club in Sedgefield, where he returned early this morning, having just made the 300 mile journey back to London the night before.

The Prime Minister’s sudden reversal tears up the carefully planned timetable that had been in place for the months in run up to his resignation. It had been intended that there would be an initial week of national euphoria at the thought that he’d finally gone, followed by a short period of hope that Gordon Brown might turn out to be a bit better. Then a gradual realisation that not much had actually changed, leading to a knee-jerk decision to give that David Cameron a chance at the next election. After a short period of hope that the Tories might turn out to be better, there would be a long period of regret, and a growing feeling that actually Blair might not have been that bad after all if only he hadn’t been so stupid over Iraq. Then another period of thinking that maybe someone like the Green Party might be the answer, except that would probably just let the Tories back in.

Tony Blair explained that it was reflecting upon this scenario that had made him decide to give it another decade. Chancellor Gordon Brown was said to be delighted the decision, saying ‘No problem Tony – you take as long as you need.’ The Prime Minister’s sudden change of heart apparently even took his own family by surprise; this morning Cherie Blair was spotted inside 10 Downing Street putting all the light bulbs back in their sockets.