Starmer brings back paganism with civil service sacrifices

The Prime Minister is to reintroduce 2,000 year-old pagan religion to Britain and has already started by making the first human sacrifice.

Prime Druid Sir Keir Starmer performed the Celtic-style ritual at the Despatch Box in the Commons on a pleasantly boring civil servant called Sir Olly Robbins.

Starmer wished to appease the gods, having suffered terrible misfortunes after appointing Lord Mandelson as UK ambassador.

"Those gods must have really had it in for High Priest Starmer," said one backbench druid, "because out of the blue they produced this huge file of evidence showing that Mandelson was appalling and that Starmer was an utter twit for giving him another public role."

It's rumoured that several other civil servants have been lined up for the chop and that the sacrifices will continue until Sir Keir has managed to shift the blame for the Mandelson fiasco onto someone else apart from his stupid self.

Elves and Goblins made me appoint Mandelson, says Starmer

'I wish to inform the House that evil elves - a gang known as the Downing Street SPADs - put me under a spell and persuaded me that Mandelson should be our man in Washington,' a swivel-eyed Sir Keir Starmer told the Commons.

'Then they told the wicked goblins at the Foreign Office not to tell me the bleeding obvious - that he had come nowhere even close to passing security vetting.

'I know, it's incredible,' said Starmer, in response to howls of disbelief from across the chamber - including from himself. 'But you have to believe me.

'We will now be restructuring processes to redefine the role that civil service elves and goblins play when it comes to security vetting. Then everything will be back in order in Munchkinland.

'Hang on! Who are these men in white coats? Where are taking me?'

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?'

Image credit: perchance.org