‘People are tired of the same old ordinary politicians with the same old ordinary faces,’ he continued, ‘I want to inject a new challenge into politics – the challenge of weirdness.’

Analysts say that weirdness is Miliband’s undoubted strength and that it could pose a real electoral threat to the Coalition. ‘To combat Miliband’s strategy,’ one analyst said, ‘ the Tories will probably give much greater prominence in 2012 to Education Secretary Michael Gove.’

The move comes as a damming opinion poll in the Sun reveals just one in 20 voters think he is a ‘natural leader’, for which he apologises. Labour activists say that until Miliband says sorry for being elected Labour leader, voters won’t take the party seriously.

Mr Miliband is also expected to apologise for being Ed Miliband and for not being David Miliband.

But the Tories have already dismissed Mr Miliband’s apology.
‘This is just a cynical ploy by Miliband to distance himself from himself,’ a Downing Street spokesman said.

Pam Ward, prosecuting, said, ‘A witness said he saw two shadow ministers in the small cab of the campervan. Both were said to be crying, red in the face and distressed.  Thankfully, the actions of a member of public prevented them from coming to more serious harm, though Mr Miliband was said to look disappointed on his return to the vehicle.’

It is the second time Mr Miliband has faced allegations of unlawful imprisonment. Thirty years ago he locked older brother David in their garden shed on the day of their school’s Debating Society final after initially promising he wouldn’t enter.

‘I’m crestfallen,’ admitted Mr Miliband. ‘My leadership has been suffering from aggressive, griping Balls for some time. I thought that surgical intervention would help, but scans of my party headquarters have shown that the malignant Balls is still there, ready to finish me off at any minute.’

Mr Miliband’s elder brother David also suffered from an acute attack of leadership problems last year, leading to suggestions among medical experts that the condition is hereditary. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not, though,’ said one unnamed shadow Cabinet member. ‘Our suspicion is that Ed has been a victim of passive leadership, which can be just as dangerous as doing the job yourself.’

There was some good news for Mr Miliband, who has responded very well to a sudden injection of Murdoch in recent weeks, which experts say will have extended his prognosis in the short-term. He insisted he would be back at work ‘very soon’ and that his problematic Balls would in no way limit his ability to do his job. ‘I’m not going to let my Balls beat me,’ he said bravely. ‘But we’ve all got to go some time, so I’m going to live life to the full. I’ve already sent off for tickets to the Labour Party conference in September, if they’ll have me.’

Labour has announced today that former SAS soldier and successful novelist Andy McNab is to replace Ed Miliband as Leader in a desperate bid for the party to have a more recognisable figurehead. The decision was taken after a meeting of the Shadow Cabinet and reporters at the scene were unsure whether Ed Miliband was present.

Deputy Leader Harriet Harman revealed that the party had little option but to recruit a known face for the top job after a survey found that 64% of Labour members were unable to identify their chief from a selection of photos showing the leaders of the three main political parties. As Ms Harman emphasised, ‘many were unable to pick him out even though by a process of elimination they should have been able to rule out Cameron and Clegg and be left with Ed.’

Shadow Home Secretary Ed Balls continued, ‘How are the electorate supposed to identify with Ed Miliband when none of them knows what he looks like? That’s why Andy McNab with his instantly familiar silhouette was the obvious replacement. For sure, some of his policies are a little rough around the edges but he’s been in a few battles over the years so he should be able to deal with the horrific war zone that is the Labour Party.’

Andy McNab was not Labour’s first choice for the role, but The Stig from Top Gear was unable to commit full time to the role and in any case was suspected of preferring to steer to the right.

Lovers of risqué puns could barely contain their delight today as the Ed Balls scandal continued to simmer.  Guffaws were heard when Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, refused to be blamed for the fact that Balls had been thrust into the spotlight.

To compound the controversy, senior Whitehall sources suspect that the leak, which caused outrage in the Commons, can be traced back to Balls.

‘It certainly has a whiff of Balls about it,’ said one. ‘I think this came out now so it wouldn’t come out later. It would be catastrophic to have Balls exposed during a leadership challenge, although I’m sure many Tories would be delighted by just that.’

Tony Blair provided extra unintentional mirth when he spoke frankly about his period of handover.  He told New Statesman ‘I couldn’t help but notice that Brown had Balls wrapped around his little finger.’

Supporters of the Shadow Chancellor accused his detractors of mud slinging, and complained that Balls had been smeared all over most of the morning’s tabloids – an unintentionally graphic image that provoked howls of laughter.

The man at the heart of the controversy seemed relaxed when we asked him for a comment.  ’I think it’s bollocks,’ he said simply.

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Deputy Leader Harriet Harman revealed that the injunction had been accidently placed on Ed Miliband when he became leader back in September and now explains how the oppostion has managed to keep the identity of their leader a total secret over the past eight months.  ‘It was a cock up with the paperwork in the office – you know how these things are.  For months we’ve been racking our brains for why we can never get him in the newspapers or on Newsnight – and now we’ve finally worked it out. Nick Robinson pretended not to know who we were talking about – ‘Ed who?’ he kept saying.’

Ordinarily the press would fight such an injunction on the grounds of free speech, but it turns out they happily accepted the Labour Party’s mistaken application. The editor of The Sun, Dominic Mohan, stated, ‘We decided not to contest the Labour Party in this move despite being supporters of the Conservatives who would have clearly benefited from almost any story featuring Ed Miliband. We did it because we couldn’t contemplate a future in which Labour’s nominal leader was given even a single column inch. So the best way to achieve this was to effectively gag ourselves, just in case the urge arose in some mad young hack to try to slip a story past us.’

Jeremy Paxman of Newsnight was another supporter of the injunction after confessing he was never sure which Miliband was which. ‘I know one of them left frontline politics while the other one seems to have completely disappeared. So I’m in favour of the injunction whoever it relates to.’

Harriet Harman says that while the order prevents any mention of Ed Miliband’s policies, she can reveal what he has been doing since last September. ‘As some of you may know he is shortly to marry his long-term girlfriend Justine Thornton. Claire Short is going to be a bridesmaid, so we are expecting to get as much media coverage as Pippa Middleton.’

‘For months now, Deryck has displayed characteristics which suggest he is fully conscious of the continuing oppression of the proletariat,’ said Dr John Portland, a senior lecturer in Socio-biology. ‘He waxes lyrical against every action of police officers, he blames Margaret Thatcher for almost everything and insists that the labour movement remains the means by which the working class will throw off their shackles. He also only eats fairtrade bananas.’

At first scientists were concerned that the phenomenon was just a case of Deryck repeating, rather than understanding, phrases such as ‘dialectical materialism’ and ‘false consciousness’. ‘It soon became clear, though, that we’d managed to radicalise Deryck by revealing to him the suffering his ancestors experienced in the 1980s,’ explained Dr Portland. ‘After seeing how they were forced to dress in demeaning proletariat garb and move pianos up and down stairs for no greater reward than regular cups of PG Tips, he was a changed chimp.’

‘But we finally knew Deryck had really developed strong socialist convictions when we returned from lunch one day to find he had ‘seized control of the modes of production’ – or the student union bar. The statement he’d pinned to the faculty noticeboard denounced our ‘commodity fetishism as nothing more than the opium of the people’ and heralded ‘the end of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’. We only managed to talk him out on the promise of improving his pay and conditions, and so a tyre on a rope was fitted in his enclosure the very next day.’

Scientists are now celebrating after persuading Deryck to shun his revolutionary tendencies and accept that there is a third way to achieve social and economic equality between peoples. ‘I’ve joined the Labour Party,’ enthused Deryck. ‘That way I can feel loyal to my fictional roots without actually lowering my standard of living like real socialism would.’

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