Our ministers are bears in disguise, admits UK government

The UK is actually run by voracious bears in human costumes, the current management of the once-fashionable North Atlantic island group has admitted.

Popular suspicions were first aroused when the prime minister was discovered to be a hairy 'big beast' called Boris that was always chasing after honeys.

Now footage has emerged of ministers shuffling around Whitehall on all fours, chasing immigrants up trees and looking for public sector picnic baskets to raid.

Political zoologists have welcomed the government's clarification. 'Previously we thought only Russia and the stock exchange were run by bears,' said Professor Griselda Adams, 'although I suspect that Westminster may also be home to a herd of wild pigs with their snouts in the trough.'

Meanwhile, a statement issued by undisguised bears distanced "the ursine community at large" from the "all too human greed and mayhem caused by our suit-clad cousins in London", and hoped they would "return to their natural ways before all our habitats are ruined".

Mortgage holders urged to drink 150 pints of beer per day to break even

Disappointing children’s action figure Rishi Sunak has urged homeowners to work harder on their drinking in order to overcome rising mortgages.

‘Look, I realise most people are paying an extra £500 per month, and that’s apparently challenging for many of you’, he told reporters. ‘That’s why we’ve reduced the price of a pint of beer by 11p. A mere 151 pints a day is the break-even point. Obviously it would be better if you just bought the house outright, but if you will insist on using a mortgage you can now offset some or all of the additional expense with cheap beer’.

Critics have pointed out that beer duty hasn’t fallen, it’s stayed the same – in pubs – while rising 10.1% on cans and bottles from off-licences.

‘Ah’, said Sunak, ‘I’m glad you spotted that. Inflation means that a price freeze is the same as a price cut. Glad we cleared that up. I want to get people back into pubs – don’t ask me why, I assume Infosys has just bought a few thousand – so I’m making them more competitive’.

If the beer thing proves popular with voters Sunak has promised to take a look at bread and circuses.

In France, abattoirs are called 'pig-mashings'

An undercover investigator working for NewsBiscuit has returned from France after an in-depth look at the abattoirs of Nice. He was there on holiday anyway, and as they say in France, "two chickens one stone".

Arnold Cullins (not his real name) gained access to a series of animal processing plants a short way inland from the Riviera paradise, and learned an uncomfortable truth about how the unpalatable background of the meat on our plates is disguised. In a world exclusive, he shares this information with British consumers for the first time.

'In the UK, we call them abattoirs,' explained Cullins. 'Because we think of the French as sexy and chic, the word abattoir conjures the image of a mysterious place of beauty and finesse. Or maybe we don't even think about it at all. In fact, our high-end meat production plants which supply Michelin Star restaurants in the UK are run by a company called L'Abattoir Garnier. But If you put lipstick on a slaughtered pig to charge more for it, it's still just lipstick on an overpriced headless pig swinging upside-down from a hook on a Swindon industrial estate.

'In France, they call abattoirs "pig-mashings". For some of the general public with a basic understanding of English, this generates mental images of efficient culling without workers standing around stubbing out their Gauloises cigarettes on hanging carcasses, shrugging, and calling all-out strikes for six weeks. For the rest, they don't even stop to think about what pig-mashings means, and either way It makes the French feel more comfortable about all the slashing and blood which needs to take place to serve up a lovely cut of pork.

'Ironically, they don't serve Corned Beef in Cannes. But I went to a well classy restaurant in Nice and they don't call it Michelin Stars over there. They call it Dunlop Rings.'