[opening music]
Kermit the Frog: Good evening, ladies and gentleman, and on tonight's Westminster Muppet Show we have a host of stars, with all sorts of iffy haircuts, we have so many stars that -
Heckler1: Get on with it!
Kermit: Yes, but -
Heckler2: I don't pay my taxes for this second-rate stuff!
Heckler1: You don't pay your taxes! [laughter]
Kermit: OK, let's move on, then. Please give a warm welcome to my first guest ... MP Jackie Smith!
[limp, half-hearted applause]
Kermit: Now, Jackie, what have you been up to since you were last on the show?
Jackie: Well, I spent a week in Monte Carlo, gambling my expenses allowance every day on red, but black always came up. Then I went on a fact-finding trip to Northern Italy, to see what could be learnt for my constituents about eating out in Italian restaurants. And after that I flew back by helicopter to visit my forest in Devon, a forest I claimed for as an essential expense for my work
Kermit: A forest is a work expense? Why not go the whole hog, and claim for the whole county? [laughter]
Jackie: I was breaking no rules by claiming for a forest, MPs on the Let's Allow Ourselves Forests As Government Expenses Committee carefully set out the regulations, that -
Kermit: Thank you, Jackie. Now my next guest needs no introduction, so I won't even bother asking him on to the stage, but my third is one I know you will give a big hand to - the one and only, Miss Piggy!
[single handclap]
Kermit: So, Miss Piggy, I see your hair is redder than a carrot with a bad case of sunburn! [laughter] How's things?
Miss Piggy: Not so good, I'm afraid. I - I - I've lost my job! [bursts into tears]
Kermit: Oh dear! What happened?
Miss Piggy: It wasn't my fault. [sniffs] I'd got up to see what was in my trough for breakfast, and was surprised my servant hadn't filled it with caviar and truffles, as he usually does. And [sniff] when another of my servants brought me the mail to me in his teeth, there were only two envelopes filled with cash from the sale of Government-owned flats. And then [sniff] my gold-plated taxpayers'-funded telephone rang
Kermit: Who was it?
Miss Piggy: Gordon Brown. And he told he'd got bored blackmailing me with news leaks, and I was sacked. So now I'll have to do a day's work, for the first time in my life! [starts crying again]
[big 'awwwwwwwws' from the studio audience]
Kermit: Never mind, Miss Piggy, Count von Count here will make you smile again
Count: Now pay attention, cheeldren, if I have a Cabinet full of hopeless freaks and thieves that I picked myself, how many will be left after the next General Election?
Kermit: None?
Count: Correct! And how many Labour MPs will lose their seats?
Miss Piggy: 'A hundred?
Count: Correct! And when will this silly article end?
All: NOW!
