‘DFS is leading the way forward by jump-starting Britain’s economy,’ said a spokesperson. ‘This sale proves Britain is ready to lead Europe out of the doldrums and onto higher, greener, more comfortable and better padded pastures.’

Concerns that the newly slashed prices would spark a consumer riot in DFS Dewsbury where the same sofas have been on sale at the higher prices for over 28 days have been played down as it turns out that no-one actually went in and bought one.

Boutros

Harliton has calculated that £1 invested properly will completely cure the world economy. “The key is to find the correct dilution.”, explained Harliton, “I know £1 sounds a lot but if it’s introduced in 10p doses throughout the year, the economy will soon return to a balanced state. I’ve already written a series of post-dated prescriptions from my chakra book.”

Doctor Harliton denied that his treatment was a licence to print money.

apepper

Paper, cotton and leather make way for dust, scabs and soup, while fourth wedding anniversaries are now sponsored by Chapstick. Smut, phlegm, cheese and Johnson’s Ear Buds mark the next four milestones.

Several gifts have been rescheduled, to reflect changes in value since the list was first drafted. 50th Wedding anniversaries are now celebrated with a two-foot length of copper pipe, but the new 60th ‘Full Tank of Diesel’ anniversary has been criticised as ‘extravagant’ by some economists.

Mervyn King is confident that the move will stabilise the trade in Guilts.

Waylandsmithy, Oxbridge, Simonjmr, Vertically Challenged Giant, Fraserwords

Junior Industry Minister Sally Jones said the scheme was the result of months of negotiating between retailers, the bank and government. ‘“Generous” is a loaded term in these difficult times, but we feel that this recovery package will stimulate consumer confidence, tend the green shoots of economic recovery and ensure no-one misses out on double points when you spend over a tenner on personal hygiene products,’ she said.

‘The Nectar deal alone is thought to be worth the value of one 200 gram box of unbranded cereal for every man, woman and child in the south east of England. And Air Mile collectors with more than 10,000 miles will, as a result, be entitled to a packet of cheesy biscuits on selected flights, provided they travel on the fourth Tuesday of the month in Class Y674 when Saturn is rising in the house of Aquarius.’

There are also moves to make quantitative easing more economic. Treasury spokesman Norman Armstrong said: ‘Printing the £64 billion the government will feed into the economy to help kick start growth doesn’t come cheap. So, in a pilot scheme, the government has emailed pdfs of three twenty pound notes to the whole adult population of Doncaster, along with a licence authorising their printing.’

Sceptics have criticised the scheme, but Industry Minister Sally Jones countered that: ‘With the increase in loyalty points put in place, there’s never been a better time to buy a full colour printer and a range of coloured inks. So get down to Argos.’

If successful in the UK, there are plans to roll similar schemes out throughout the Eurozone to boost the ailing single currency. ‘I only wish we’d thought of it first,’ said one anonymous MEP. ‘If we’d collected Clubcard points on the Greek bailout, I’d finally have enough for a ticket to Chessington World of Adventures.’

Reaction to the announcement in Washington has been split down party lines. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi summed up the feelings of many Democrats when she described the plans as ‘sounding absolutely delicious’, a sentiment echoed by Vice President Joe Biden, who said that it made him ‘hungry just thinking about it’.

Senior Republicans, however, were more cautious or openly hostile. Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, a fierce critic of Obama’s holiday plans last month, said that the President’s dinner plans amounted to ‘nothing more than a reheating of last night’s leftovers, with a few extra vegetables thrown in to court the left-wingers of the Democratic party ahead of the 2012 election’.

Analysts have generally reacted with cautious optimism to the details of the menu. Dan Spengler, foods analyst at UBS, praised the soup starter as a welcome boost to small businesses, especially if the vegetables were cut nice and thick. ‘The soup is definitely a good start. And the choice of ciabatta [an italian bread seasoned with olive oil and marjoram] is a bold move that could signal a more ‘European’ approach of deficit spending to create badly-needed jobs in the economy,’ said Spengler.

The main course has so far caused the most controversy. The combination of Lincolnshire pork sausages, boiled new potatoes with butter, Moroccan ‘zaalouk’ salad and fava beans stewed in a rich tomato sauce caught many off guard. In his speech, Obama referred to it as a ‘coalition of the tasty’, but Aariz Hadad, a Middle East scholar at Columbia University, sees it as tokensim: ‘The inclusion of the zaalouk is really just a fig leaf to disguise the fact that the sausage and new potatoes are going to be doing the heavy lifting in the battle to prevent Sasha and Malia from demanding additional snacks before bedtime.’

Many Republicans, with an eye to their conservative Christian base, are said to be unhappy about the choice of words for the ‘fava bean’ clause in the dinner plan. ‘In our house, and in the houses of honest, God-fearing Americans across the country, we eat broad beans. This is a typical exercise of style over substance for a style-over-substance President,’ said Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

Dessert was the only area of the dinner plan that garnered broad bi-partisan support. ‘The President has reached out across the divide in Washington with his choice of apple pie with ice-cream,’ Vice President Biden said. But while most Republicans were generally in favour, there were rumblings of discontent in the stomachs of others: ‘We urgently need more apple pie, and we need it right now. By this evening I fear it’s going to be too little, too late,’ said Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House.

‘If there’s any left over, can you save me some?’ he added somewhat pathetically.

She has vowed to take off an item of clothing each day the economy grows by 0.1 per cent.

Experts predict that the Italian economy might now grow by as much as 3 per cent by next Tuesday.

The former exotic dancer – no stranger to nudity – is thought likely to go ‘full-on fur-bearing,’ providing just the bounce traders are looking for.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is said to be firmly behind Ms Romagna – given half a chance.

BBC business correspondent Richard Stark admitted, ‘I think at this stage it is very difficult for anyone to talk about this without using expressions like ‘pull it off’, ‘single-handedly,’ or ‘at a stroke’, and then sniggering for about twenty minutes.’

But experts warn that it is not a tactic for all countries.

‘Spain, yes,’ suggests Adam Clarke, an analyst. ‘Greece, certainly, and possibly France if they experience difficulties and things get hairy.’

However, he went on to caution, ‘In my opinion it’s not the right approach for Britain, and I’m thinking at this particular moment of Caroline Spelman.’

Darkbill 2.0

The newspaper claims that the Chancellor, George Osborne, is ‘urgently revising his plans’ in expectation of the £3 billion pay-out and the Greek-style financial crisis that will inevitably follow, with businesses going bankrupt, British workers forced onto the dole and, most worryingly, house prices going into freefall.

‘If the government caves in to this evil woman’s demands, we could see a return to gangs of mainly foreign urchins roaming the streets of London not seen since the days of Fagin,’ the paper warns.

It also says that ‘not one, but hundreds of thousands of mainly British Baby Ps could perish’ as money earmarked for alleviating child poverty could end up in Shoesmith’s grubby, evil pockets. ‘Any suggestion that she should receive even a penny of taxpayers’ money is political correctness gone mad,’ said an editorial.

The paper says that its readers demand that Mrs Shoesmith give her £3.5 billion pay-out to the UK Border Agency, since anything else would be ‘an insult to the memory of Princess Diana’.