Iceland "mis-hears" UK demand for cash

End in sight as Tories outline plans to tackle recession

There was widespread jubilation across the UK this week as David Cameron outlined Conservative Party plans to tackle the recession. Street parties sprung up in towns and cities across the country after the Tories revealed an ambitious programme designed to bring the financial crisis to an end. Excited voters huddled around television sets as Mr Cameron announced the package of measures, including:

• RESTORING Ken Clarke to the front bench
• FREEZING the BBC licence fee
• JUST bear with me a moment
• DRUMMING fingers on table top
• WHAT was that other thing?
• OOH LOOK! A squirrel!

Margaret Thatcher is 83.

Economy: Brown resorts to quantitative easing

Story.

Happy New Year from all at FTSE 100

Story.

Tories respond to crisis

The dynamic duo spring into action.

Barack Obama and Gordon Brown to discuss economic crisis

Taxpayer handed control of bank, hopes to start Monday

Taxpayer Phil Reeves says he is perplexed after he was yesterday handed control of one of Britain's biggest banks. The builder and decorator, who lives in Hornsey, says the news came out of the blue. "I just got a call from some guy at the Treasury, who said 'We've got a problem with HBOS, can you start next week?' " Reeves, 37, hopes to get the job started on Monday. "I've got a little job going in Crouch End which should finish this week, and I'll pop over to the bank Friday afternoon to have a look at it. I'm going to take my mate Mike with me - he's a plasterer really but he does all my money things for me, invoices and everything. We'll start work first thing Monday morning, Tuesday at the latest." The FTSE 100 rose sharply at the news before falling back.

Brown invokes Churchill, sends message to Tories

Story.

Global financial meltdown update

New details of bank rescue emerge:

• Eleventy hundred billion pounds/dollars/whatever injected into/exchanged for/given away or something. More cash to follow.


• Iceland to be abolished (shop as well as country, to make absolutely sure).


• Scotland to be banned from having banks.


• Credit default swaps to be converted into credit default squirrels, in the hope they take all the toxic debt and bury it in flowerbeds. Collateralised debt obligations to become collateralised debt orangutans, so that Indonesia can deal with the problem.


• Banks to institute "once you give you can't give back" rule to ease lending.


• Dow Jones, FTSE, Nikkei, etc to be recalibrated, so that fewer points are better, and 1 is now best.


• Co-ordinated worldwide reduction of 75.5% in the number of people who know where the fuck all this is going to end up.

Icelandic Prime Minister moves to reassure British savers

Story.

In these difficult times we must put politics to one side, says Cameron

Full solemn story.

Capitalism rethinks approach to state intervention

Story.

Mervyn King forecasts good news - banks panic and run around shrieking

There were fears of financial meltdown yesterday as bankers finally lost all reason and became hysterical at the revelation that the Bank of England had assessed the losses from the credit crunch as less than previously feared.
City traders took to the streets, wailing and tearing at their clothes, apparently driven to insanity at the news that the whole thing was containable. Psychologists diagnosed severe neurosis and attention seeking disorder.