Investment firm advising footballers was 'winging it'

A group of former Premier League footballers say that they have lost tens of millions of pounds because of poor financial advice.

The footballers were advised by the Norton Briggs Group in the 1990s and 2000s.  The players lost amounts between one and forty-two million pounds each, although fortunately these losses can be offset against other profits for tax purposes.

We managed to corner Art Daly and Barry Lovejoy, who ran NBG.  They deny any wrongdoing and say that they were always on the ball. They told us: ‘At all times, NBG advised the footballers in good faith and set out the risks and opportunities both before and after any investment was agreed.  We back our advice 110% - front and centre.  We definitely expected to make a net profit.  We are surprised that our clients are now facing penalties.'

One footballer told us, ‘I wish we’d invested in bogus shares, or imaginary gold mines, or pretend vintage wines or NFTs or even the NFT, or dodgy real estate.  Any of those would have been a better story.  I don’t get any bragging rights from telling people that millions of pounds of my money was wasted on investments in top British football clubs, and that I got bugger all back.’

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Bond comes out of retirement to warn Rachel Reeves

A smartly dressed man ordered a martini for Rachel Reeves, asking it to be not stirred, but very shaken.

‘The name’s Bonds. Government Bonds.

‘Your polishies are a dishaster.  You’ve borrowed too much.  You’re shpending too much. I’m Government Bonds, and I’ve come out of retirement to warn you to turn back.  My interest levels in your activities are very high – the highest they’ve been since 1998. They’re heading towards 007 per cent.

‘Don’t try and laugh that off. That period since 1998 includes the Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng debacle, Brexit, and the whole Boris Johnson evil supervillain thing.

People are shkared. They are saving all their money, and they're worried about a tax bombshell.  Government spending is up, living costs are up, taxes are up, the games up. Turn back now, or everything will blow up.

And why are you stroking a fluffy white cat?

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New Angela 'Three Pads' Rayner version of Monopoly launched

Hasbeen, manufacturer of the classic property trading board game Monopoly, has decided to base a special edition on the antics of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. 

The object of the 'Three Pads' version is to acquire three properties while paying as little tax as possible. To do this, players can put properties in trust, or flip them from first to second home and back again according to the needs of the moment.

However, some of the game developers feel that to base it too closely on Rayner’s behaviour would make it too complex to be fun for anyone but specialist tax accountants.

'So you’re saying that if you put this property in trust, you pay less stamp duty on that one… oh, but then don’t you have to pay more council tax if it’s a second home?… sod it, let’s just say that if you draw two 'Keir Starmer has full confidence in you' cards in a row, you go to jail.'

Sources close to Three Pads say the rest of the cabinet tried to take her mind off things with a karaoke night, though it didn’t help her mood when she got up to sing and someone put on 'Should I stay or should I go?'

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