‘We live in a culture where too much emphasis is put on expensive clothes and high-profile brands,’ said Dr Williams, wearing hand-embroidered silk robes and a gold mitre, and addressing his audience from the pulpit of the Church of England’s flagship outlet. ‘It’s all very cynical, and with advertising playing on their fears, it’s no wonder vulnerable people end up following the crowd. Trust me, I know just how easy it is to be sucked into believing cynical claims that couldn’t possibly be true.’

The archbishop went on to warn that if the underlying excuses for smashing up shops and stealing things aren’t dealt with, the disorder could be repeated. ‘Ask yourself, ‘what would Jesus do?’. You’ll be surprised just how often he would have unthinkingly backed you up, perhaps even helped you carry a 32-inch plasma screen TV back to your flat. That’s the beauty of taking advice from imaginary friends – they always give you the answer you’re looking for.’

‘Think of it this way,’ he continued. ‘We don’t condemn Jesus for upsetting the tables of the money lenders at the temple, but is that really any different to turning over a JD Sports in Brixton? You cannot ask criminals who got caught up in the moment to take responsibility for their actions. After all, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, just like you can’t feed 5,000 without first smashing in the front of a McDonalds.’

But Dr Williams was quick to avoid any suggestion of hypocrisy and suggested that the Bible had all the answers. ‘When faced with temptation, just ask yourself whether Jesus would he have accepted goods gained immorally. I’ve thought about it and persuaded myself that’s exactly what Jesus would do, especially if he really fancied a pair of trendy new sandals. Hey, not even Jesus got through life without a criminal record.’

‘Yesterday, Father’s Day,’ Dr Williams told reporters, ‘the prime minister said fathers who don’t support their children are as bad as drink drivers.

‘Well, although I concede that God abandoned his Son, that doesn’t make him as bad as a drink driver. We all have to make sacrifices sometimes. God is not a bad dad.’

A Lambeth Palace spokesman said the Archbishop believed the prime minister was getting at him because he was miffed at Dr Williams’s recent attack on the Big Society.

Dr Williams, who supports two children and has a chauffeur, said he had been upset by the prime minister’s words.

‘He quite ruined my Father’s Day,’ the Archbishop said.

The Archbishop made the remarks in a guest editorial for Shoot magazine. He goes on to complain about Wenger’s increasing use of the fluid 4-3-3 formation.

Wenger played down claims that the Archbishop had overstepped the mark: ‘He’s a football fan like any other and he’s free to express his views,’ he told reporters.

The remarks are the strongest attack on a Premier Leauge manager since Lord Runcie‘s famous ‘You‘re shit, and you know you are‘ outbursts in Synod in 1987.

A spokesman from Lambeth Palace said that Dr Williams was busy reviewing the 4-2-4 chalice-formation used at last week’s Commonwealth Communion Service in Westminster Abbey, and was therefore unavailable for comment.

pthr

Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice, spokesman Dennis Conningsby explained how he, together with every other married man in the country, is seeking to slap a last-minute non-disclosure order on the organisers of the big day, preventing them from broadcasting the ceremony. ‘For us, the very prospect of a whole day’s worth of royal celebration is simply terrifying. We’ve already had about a month’s worth of respectful toadying on our tellies, what with all those documentaries and wedding specials in that cloyingly measured tone of the BBC royal correspondent – it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop now.’

Experts believe that the royal wedding will be directly responsible for the temporary breakdown of over a million marriages this weekend, as Britain’s entire population of male spouses desert their homes and families in a desperate attempt to escape the bunting and cucumber sandwiches made by their wives in a frenzy of patriotic activity. ‘She’s even got a Union Jack vest for the bloody dog for Christ’s sake,’ complained Conningsby. ‘Don’t get me wrong – I’m as happy for Wills ‘n’ Kate as the next man – but come on: forking out fifty quid for a knitted toilet cover in the shape of the happy couple is taking the piss!’

It is predicted that it will be standing room only along Britain’s rivers and lakesides, as vast numbers of men suddenly develop an interest in fishing, while there have already been reported scuffles outside golf courses, model railway shops and DIY stores, where queues of married men are already forming. ‘I thought I’d just ride the next few days out in my allotment,’ revealed one such refugee, ‘but when I got there I discovered at least a dozen other blokes on my patch, pottering around in a vain attempt to look busy. Okay so the purple sprouting has never been so free of weeds, but where can I go? The shed’s already full to bursting. If I have to sit there listening to the missus and her mother cooing over the wedding dress – well, I’d rather cut my own head off with a trowel.’

‘Unless there’s some way of getting this bloody wedding off the TV, we’re all doomed,’ another married man concurred. ‘Imagine the scene: millions of men staring vacantly at all that pomp and circumstance – driven into brain-dead imbecility after watching the umpteenth fawning interview with the butcher of whatever horribly middle-class Home Counties village the bride comes from. Let me tell you – I’d be battering down the door of the nearest TV-less pub, where I’d slowly get pissed for the next eight hours if I didn’t have to officiate at the bleedin’ thing. Sod it; I think I’ll do that anyway.’

‘Unfortunately there will always be unscrupulous couples out there who are prepared to abuse the office of political matrimony and enter into a coalition based on a lie,’ said Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘I fear that what we have here is nothing more than a marriage of convenience perpetrated to stop either party being removed from power in the UK.’

A Church of England investigation suggests that in the last year alone as many as 306 Tory MPs and 57 Lib Dem MPs have been implicated in an organised sham marriage racket. ‘People forget that what looks like an act of deception committed by two people is often the work of criminal gangs involved in far more sinister activities like massive public sector cuts and the extortion of crippling amounts of money from students.’

New guidelines for vicars on spotting sham marriages suggest that the Cameron-Clegg ceremony ought to have set alarm bells ringing from the start. ‘In hindsight, it is clear that the couple barely knew each other and that the families on both sides looked pretty uncomfortable with the whole thing – indeed the Maid of Honour, Vince Cable, looked visibly frightened at what he was being asked to do. But it can be very difficult for vicars when one or even both parties to the marriage are willing to jump into bed with almost anyone to gain a modicum of social standing.’

Journalist Nick Robinson, who was present at the garden party reception at No.10, now admits that the couple’s specially adapted vows were the biggest giveaway. ‘The vicar asked, ‘Do you, David William Donald Cameron, promise to use the financial crisis as an opportunity to push through your ideological belief in a smaller state which helps the rich and punishes the poor?’ He then asked, ‘And do you, Nicholas William Peter Clegg, promise to let him do it?’ Nick Clegg said, ‘I do’, which at least is a promise he appears to have kept.’

But supporters of the coalition argue that Cameron and Clegg have much in common and are very happily married. ‘They have very similar backgrounds, and when you see the two of them together there’s no denying the bromance.’ Critics remain unconvinced, however. ‘You know it’s not a proper marriage when they can’t even find anything to disagree about.’

simonjmr

The controversial debate centres on a fundamental tenet of faith that at the moment of communion the priest becomes the living spirit of Jesus Christ who was a man, and who therefore would have definitely understood the off-side law.  ’It states clearly in the Bible, And lo, let no man pass the ball to an attacking player lest there be at least one defender between him and the goal,’ said Bishop Mike Dean.  ‘Oh unless he is deemed to be inactive in the first phase of play or something, something. Amen.  Anyway, the Bible is very clear on this.’

The referee bishops say that the switch will not affect their ability to officiate at matches, except that they won’t be able to run quite as fast wearing cassocks and a mitre.  There may also be slight adjustments to the sanctions; for a two footed tackle; a player will no longer get a red card but will be asked to say ten ‘hail Marys’ and be told to go in peace. ‘Also if we have a quiet word with a team captain, it will be done in the confession box through a lattice screen and we won’t actually know who it is we are talking to.’

The female linesman at the centre of the storm said in a brief statement that she hopes that the controversy will soon blow over and that she will ultimately be judged on how she performs on the touchline; prompting Andy Gray to say ‘All right love, don’t go on about it, bloody hell, it must be her time of the month or something…’

The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton will include a 3D computer generated Lady Di who will appear at Westminster Abbey to give her blessing to the happy couple.

The full details were disclosed by St James’ Palace: ‘We are pleased to announce that the marriage ceremony will feature a full colour moving hologram of the late Princess of Wales,’ adding, ‘This is not in any way creepy and is exactly what the public wants.’

Scientists, in conjunction with The Daily Express, have been working for many years to develop a perfect representation of Diana that can make public appearances and recreate her special magic.

At the beginning of the ceremony, Archbishop Rowan Williams will declare: ‘We are gathered here today to witness the coming together of two young people in love, but before I go any further will you all please put on your special glasses.’ At this point a 3D holographic Diana will materialise in the Abbey before floating magisterially over the heads of the congregation.

The sequence, choreographed by director of Avatar, James Cameron, will see the CGI Di perform a number of aerial manoeuvres, swooping round the Abbey and occasionally dive-bombing Prince Philip. She will then come to rest, hovering ethereally above the happy couple and anoint them with virtual reality tears.

An estimated television audience of over one billion people are expected to tune in to see the holographic Princess, a spectacle that will climax with her performing a duet of Candle in the Wind with a CGI Elton John.

‘There is a lot of pressure to get this right on the day,’ said Royal holograph operator, Field Marshall Peter Chigley. ‘In one of the rehearsals somebody programmed in the wrong hologram and we ended up with Princess Leia saying: ‘Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi’ – which, of course, would be quite inappropriate.’

It is hoped that after making her appearance at the wedding the holographic Diana will be used to open hospitals, host charity events and be hired out to foreign dignitaries and playboy businessmen.

Speaking outside Downing Street, Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the 3D Di, saying, ‘She is the People’s Hologram, and that is how she will stay. But only if you wear the special glasses.’

‘Certain traditional offices of the bishop are in practice impossible to discharge unless endowed with a penis,’ read the Act of Synod published today, ‘and preferably a good long one. While liturgical functions such as the Palm Sunday Pissing-Up-The-Wall ritual and the surreptitious refilling of Communion cups with ‘house white’ could in theory be performed by a woman, for others it is a biological necessity that the bishop is with wang.’

A key sticking point is seen to be the re-enactment of bible scenes for congregations and Sunday school children through the medium of penis puppetry, a popular and central tenet of Anglican teaching. Bishop of Durham Malcolm Possett is believed to be especially gifted in this regard, and his penile rendition of the parting of the Red Sea has achieved fame far beyond the strictly clerical sphere. The Vatican has also waded into the debate by emphasising the important role of the male member in maintaining discipline among altar boys.

Supporters of women bishops have been quick to express their anger at the ruling which threatens to split the Anglican Church along genital lines. ‘What’s wrong with a fanny, for heaven’s sake?’ asked the Reverend Anne Renfrew, priest-in-charge of St Peter’s church in Eastbourne. ‘Are they really saying that having a few inches of pink sausage up your cassock makes you a better bishop? I caught a glimpse of the Bishop of Liverpool’s once and let’s be clear – we’re not even talking chipolata.’

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is due to make a final plea for unity among the clergy at a press conference tomorrow. Sources say he is desperate to avoid causing any more offence and will urge all members of the Church, both willied and unwillied, to come together once and for all and ‘stop bashing our bishops in public’.