Darling annouces new fiscal rules

The fiscal rules widely credited with creating the environment for a decade of economic growth in the UK were abandoned today, as the global financial crisis forced chancellor Alistair Darling to drastically ramp up public borrowing and raised the spectre of future tax hikes. Originally championed by Gordon Brown, as a panacea to the cycle of boom and bust, the fiscal rules have been quietly replaced with a new model which, Darling claims, will “provide the economic platform needed to restore confidence in the financial system.”

Darling said: “These are clearly exceptional times, in which the UK economy is being subjected to global forces which lay largely beyond our control. What Britain needs is space from the atmosphere of panic, to slowly restore the usual market processes which maintain sufficient liquidity in the system. Therefore, the first new fiscal rule is: ‘do not talk about the new fiscal rules’. The second new fiscal rule is: ‘do not talk about the new fiscal rules’. Are we clear?”

Conservative leader David Cameron began describing the new rules as “intellectually bankrupt and economically foolhardy”, before he was set upon and brutally beaten by Meat Loaf and an army of volunteer goons. Party spokespeople report his condition remains constructively critical.