'Trump's coming along well,' says proud Putin

'My protege Donald is a model oligarch,' an admiring Vladimir Putin told his house-trained hacks in the Kremlin press corps.

'The way he destroyed Jimmy Kimmel's career was right out of the Goblin Vladimir playbook.

'A comedian mocks you and your allies for taking advantage of someone's death to smear your opponents. What you don't do is go charging in there trying to arrest the guy, because everyone will play the hero and defend him to the hilt.

'So you secretly work on the TV corporation which airs the show, threatening to confiscate its broadcasting licence and to stall on approving its merger request.

'Then you leave it to the board of directors to make their own, totally independent, decision to sack Kimmel for exercising his right of free speech.

'Since the people who own America's media care more about money than freedom, within a matter of months you'll have every one of them in your pocket, just like I have.'

'If you ever wondered what Trump and Putin chatted about in the presidential car in Alaska with no civil servants listening,' said a White House Stepford wife, 'then now you know. He's been learning all that FSB greaseball stuff.

'And you can judge for yourselves just what a grip we've now got on the media in our country after seeing how all the US journalists cravenly stood up and applauded Mr Trump during his state visit to the UK.

'Actually, that was a bit too obvious,' the spokes-robot continued. 'We'll have to order these slavish minions to dial it down a notch.'

'Trump's slavish minions gave him a standing ovation, did they?' roared an incandescent Putin at his press conference in the Kremlin. 'Right, on your feet, you miserable muzhiks! I want relentless clapping for half an hour minimum!'

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To test British empathy, mention Inheritance Tax

Despite only five percent of estates liable for any Inheritance Tax, with the first £1 million completely tax free and often with another large tax free chunk with careful planning any mention just of the tax, let alone increasing it for a small subset of those in scope, results in outrage from people who are never, ever going to pay IHT in a month of lifetimes.

For people to howl at the injustice for those about to inherit multi-millions even though they will probably struggle to survive the rest of their own miserable existence is a demonstration of British empathy. Forget children starving, youngsters saddled with renting forever but rail against a tax only applicable to a minority.

'In reality fewer than 0.05% of the population has an estate subject to IHT in any year,' said a financial spokesman today, noting that scrapping IHT would need other taxes being increased. 'To be fair, the government has tried increasing taxes on families and taking benefits off the elderly so it's a possibility,' he said.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Evil doers: 'Morecambe or Sheffield Wednesday - which team can we destroy next?'

As another 100-year-old football club is potentially being run into the ground by a sad excuse of an owner, see which other opportunistic scumbags are ready to ruin your local club. Most of these should never pass a school never mind the EFL's owners' and directors' test.

Let’s have a look at the evil vultures circling the lower league.

Baron Silas Greenback Currently an evil toad and the main enemy of Danger Mouse, he is interested in buying or stealing clubs in the first step towards world domination. He has passed the EFL's owners' and directors' test.

The Kid Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Taking particular interest in the youth teams and academy setups of struggling clubs, he is quoted as saying, “There are children here somewhere. I can smell them” He has passed the EFL's owners' and directors' test.

Hans Gruber After surviving the fall from Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard, Mr Gruber has put together a team of specialists from Europe to acquire clubs in desirable areas. He is aiming to sell the land and then blow up the stadiums, then in the ensuing chaos, disappear off and sit on a beach earning 20%. He has passed the EFL's owners' and directors' test under the name Bill Clay.

Jason Whittingham The current owner of Morecambe since May 2018, soon to be prowling the lower leagues for a new target. He has been a director at 25 companies during his career, 18 have been either dissolved, voluntarily dissolved, put into administration, put into liquidation, or put into receiver action (the precursor stage to liquidation), but he still passed the EFL's owners' and directors' test. (All True)

Jabba the Hutt Jabba eat doe football team um staff um dwana doe ground tah Saudi Arabia. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Jabba has passed doe efl's owners' um directors' test.

Image: Newsbiscuit Archive / Wix AI