Bohiney Satrical Journalism

Officials insist investment will pay off eventually and request payment immediately LONDON - The Treasury's calculator has withdrawn cooperation after encountering a welfare reform programme expected to require substantial spending before producing savings. POLITICO's London Playbook reports that Alan Milburn has warned his proposals will need upfront investment and will not deliver savings for some time. The calculator responded by displaying a minus sign and requesting a seat opposite the government. Why Welfare Reform Costs Money Before It Saves Money Ministers stressed that spending money now to improve employment later can be entirely sensible. Training costs money. Mental health support costs money. Helping someone overcome barriers to work generally involves overcoming the barriers, rather than printing the word "opportunity" on a leaflet and leaving it near a locked office. The difficulty arose when the political sales department attempted to present thi...

France Burns While Socialists Investigate the Smoke Schools burn; the left debates who may mention it. PARIS — France's political left has responded to the burning of schools, attacks on public buildings and spreading urban disorder by announcing an emergency communications strategy designed to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, that whatever has gone wrong cannot possibly be connected to anything its politicians previously supported. Firefighters have been instructed to extinguish the flames. Police have been instructed to identify those responsible. Socialist politicians have taken on the considerably more delicate job of making sure nobody asks whether years of failed integration, weak enforcement and fashionable immigration promises have contributed to France's public-order problems. The Ministry confirmed that the fire is being treated as an incident and the question about the fire as a crisis. The arrangement has produced three separate emergencies: a fire, a crimina...

Manchester City Financial Case Inspires Westminster to Replace Political Principles With Team Loyalty and Selective Outrage LONDON - British political parties have reached an unprecedented agreement on corruption. It is completely unacceptable when committed by their opponents, and requires considerable historical context, legal interpretation and emotional sensitivity when it turns up on their own side. The agreement follows renewed debate over Manchester City's financial case. An independent commission ruled against the club on all but one of 115 charges, and football supporters have since shown a near-supernatural ability to tell unacceptable behaviour at rival clubs from entirely understandable administrative complexity at their own. Westminster has been studying the technique for years. Competitive Moral Accounting at Westminster Conservative supporters who once treated government borrowing as a national emergency discovered that borrowing could become a regrettable nece...

Kremlin promises impartiality, provided the referee arrives in a tank MOSCOW - The Kremlin has unveiled a streamlined model of dispute resolution in which the person responsible for the dispute also chairs the meeting, drafts the settlement and explains why the injured party is making everything unnecessarily personal. Under the arrangement, Vladimir Putin would bring a uniquely comprehensive understanding of the problem, having taken part extensively in creating it. Officials called this valuable institutional knowledge. Ordinary mediators must read background documents; this one can identify several of the events from the original instructions, including the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 invasion. A spokesman said neutrality should be measured by the calmness of the conference room rather than anything that happened outside it. Provided the microphones are evenly spaced and the bottled water is identical, the process will meet the Kremlin's highest standards of balance...

Rebels agree something should happen, preferably after somebody else organises it LONDON - Ed Davey's position as Liberal Democrat leader has survived an anticipated confrontation after colleagues found out a leadership challenge needs somebody to challenge the leadership. The party's internal temperature briefly rose to the level of a moderately disappointing cup of tea before returning to its usual setting of concerned room temperature. Lib Dem leadership crisis: what happened at the MPs' meeting Reporting on a lengthy meeting of MPs, including ITV News on the marathon session, describes complaints without a formal challenge. Daisy Cooper rejected the challenge claims and insisted MPs were behind Ed. Among the underlying tensions are questions about political identity and the party's efforts to keep former Conservative voters. The resulting crisis has left rebels trying to explain whether their objection is that Davey has no clear message or that some of his mes...

Customers Spend More to Buy Less, Shops Call It Recovery LONDON, 20 October 2026 - British retailers are preparing for a spectacular £94 billion Christmas shopping season, despite concerns that customers have developed the unfortunate habit of comparing prices with the amount of money actually available in their bank accounts. UK Retail Forecast: 2.9% Rise on Slightly Fewer Goods The retail forecast, detailed by FashionNetwork, predicts a 2.9% rise in Christmas spending, with consumers purchasing slightly fewer goods while spending substantially more money. High Street executives have welcomed the forecast as definitive proof that British retail is flourishing, though the British Retail Consortium has so far declined to say how it feels about that. Martin Featherstone, director of the British Association of People Selling Things, said declining sales volumes were actually encouraging. "We used to sell customers ten items for £100," he said. "Now we can sell them ei...