Chancellor of the Exchequer and semi-professional Steve Martin impersonator, Alistair Darling, today revealed that he had instructed the media to "unleash hell" at his signal when he announced that the UK was descending into a pit of despair not seen since the Romans left the country to fester in its own ignorance many centuries ago.
"Five thousand of my men are out there in the freezing mud," he told Andrew Marr, "Three thousand of them are bloodied and cleaved Two thousand will never leave this place. I will not believe that they fought and died for nothing."
The Chancellor went on to explain that if he had just kept quiet about the problems with the economy, no one would have just noticed and carried on as normal. Instead, he decided to try and make it seem worse, a lot worse.
"I thought that if I claimed that the world would actually come to an end and the economy would revert to a system of barter and crudely made gold dinarii coins, the actual reality would seem a lot better," he claimed.
In response, a Tory spokesman claimed, "Ut classical scholasticus, narro sit sermo purgamentum"
An eminent economist, Marcus Satchel from the University of Basingstoke, later commented that Darling was in a perfect position to make this statement as he was "a loyal servant to the true emporer, father to a murdered son and husband to a murdered wife"
Darling finished his interview with a big hint about the leadership of the Labour party, stating "I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."
Mervin King was unavailable for comment.
