Local Lib Dems have reacted to plans by British Telecom to reduce the number of public telephone boxes in use around the country. They have urged Reading Borough Council to take part in a new BT scheme to adopt or sponsor a red phone box in the town.

Warren Swaine, the Lib Dem spokesperson for Culture and Sport, told us: "The loss of these iconic British cultural symbols is is going to hit people disproportionately and we ask the council to act now in the interests of local democracy. Without any 'phone boxes around, where are we going to hold our meeting to elect a new group leader?"

The yellow bellied MP facing both ways at once.

Martin Salter has proclaimed victory in his fight for Gurkha justice after the Government lost the vote in the Commons by 21 votes.

The Reading West MP told us: "I am very proud to have led the fight for justice for the Gurkhas from the front of the photo opportunities that they graciously let me pose in. I don't think at any point they could say that they were misled and have believed that I was going to support them in Parliament.

"In fact I felt it was my duty to hold up my gutlessness, cowardice and big fat yellow-belly as a mirror to emphasise how brave they actually are in comparision with a political pygmy like myself. In that context, I think people will see my actions as a principled abstention.

"In any case, the Government had once again given me assurances that I'm going to keep to myself and I couldn't bring myself to show the slightest sign of integrity. Now, Mr. Brown, I hope that peerage you promised me is still on track? Only 12 months to go... yippee!"

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

Full Council meeting 

[Mayor Enters]

Peter Jones:                    Now sit down. That's enough f***ing Oxbridge pleasantries.

Chris Harris:                  Those are curse words right?

Peter Jones:                    Kiss my sweaty balls you fat **** and shut it, or I'll hole punch your face.

Pete Ruheman:             I’ve been running this place with kid gloves for years... made with real kids.

Peter Jones                     Sorry Pete, you have got to go. You don't leave your boss spinning in the wind then burst in smelling like a pissed seaside donkey.

Pete Ruhemann:           I’m sorry everyone, the JAR report needed some serious spin by the PR department and I needed to slay that particular dragon before it got out of control.

Jo Lovelock                   I am not a monster!

Tony Page:                    Now, we are moving John Ennis to Children’s  Services which leaves us with a bit of a problem. We’ve run out of competent councillors. So Deborah, Jo wants you to take over housing. It’s an important job so talk to as few people as possible.

Andrew Cumpsty:        Well, I think that this just shows the complete disarray on the Labour benches. I would like to draw everyone’s attention to our one point plan to rescue Children’s Services.

Peter Jones:                    What’s that then you fat f***?

Andrew Cumpsty:        Sack the Tory spokesperson for Children’s Services. Er, is that right? Oh crap, I knew I should have rung Rob for instructions first. Rik help me out here?

Gareth Epps:                 Is there lobster on the menu? I smell bisque.

Tory HQ

[Tory strategy meeting, all present]

Rob  Wilson:                  It was a big part of our election campaign to save the King’s Meadow baths, so we need a carefully orchestrated plan of action to ensure that the blue rinse brigade are fully behind us. We’ve been telling them that the baths are safe in our hands and to vote for us. I’ve got the Kings Meadow campaign petition here. You’ve all signed it haven’t you?

All [in chorus]:               Yes

Rob Wilson:                   Good. Now let’s make sure that we deal the Labour party a bloody nose over this. They’re so desperate for section 106 money that they’ll back any development so we have a great chance to wrong foot them.

Rik Willis:                       Okay who’s on the Culture & Sport scrutiny panel? Tim Harris. Oh bollocks. Who put that little meet-puppet on there? Oh, it was me.

                                         Tim, I shall say this slowly so that you can understand what I am saying. It... is... important... that... you... don’t... let... the... developer... option... win. Got it?

Tim Harris:                    Yes, no problemo. I’ll skim read the documents in the meeting.

Culture & Sport Scrutiny

[Part way through, the vote is poised at 2-1 in favour of Kings Meadow Campaign]

Tim Harris:                    ...and sometimes to make peace you have to climb the mountain of conflict. Er, I’m abstaining because I haven’t read the papers, er, it’s a complicated decision and I’ve forgotten to write down which way Rob told me to vote. Crikey.

[Vote is now 3-2 in favour of Askett-Hawk]

Tom Stanway:              Oh, what the hell. We’ve lost the vote anyway. Go on, pave paradise and put up a two storey parking lot.

Back in Tory HQ

[Tory strategy meeting, all present]

Rob Wilson                    Crap, this is beginning to disentangle itself.  Let’s rework our Kings Meadow  Campaign support documents to fit in with our new position of not supporting it, whilst still pretending that we do. Now if we simply delete all references to support and just leave the caveats, then we should be okay.

Isobel Ballsdon:            You can’t just leave the caveats. It looks like we don’t support it anymore?

Rob Wilson:                   In the land of truth, the man with one fact is king. We’ll just make up the facts to fit our group line.

Andrew Cumpsty:        Why don’t we just keep delaying a decision on King’s Meadow until it falls down. We used it before as our strategy for the new Civic. Then we can call the builders in and look like we’re riding to the rescue.

Rik Willis:                       If it isn't Humpty Numpty sitting on the top of a collapsing wall like some clueless egg c***. This wall story is playing badly, there's a cartoon of you in here [holds copy of Evening Post] as a walrus.

Andrew Cumpsty:        A walrus? I'm not fat and I don't have a moustache. They've given me tusks. Look, we called some builders. They didn't turn up when they said they would.

Rik Willis:                       What did you expect? They're builders. Have you ever seen a film where the hero is a builder? No, because they never turn up in the nick of time. Bat-builder? Spider-builder? It's why you never see a superhero with a hod.

Rob Wilson:                   I'm giving this to someone else.

Labour HQ,  413 Oxford Road

John Howarth:                What have you f***ers been up to in my absence?

Tony Page:                    Well Jon, we’ve been following your plan to the letter. Find a popular cause then do the complete opposite.

John Howarth:                Are you mad? At the end of a war you need some soldiers left, or it looks like you've lost.

David Sutton:                Yeah, or you’ll feel a right tit?

John Howarth:                I thought we weren’t going to mention that again?

David Sutton:                No, we just agreed not to report it to the police.

Martin Salter:                Well, that’s it then. I’m f***ing not standing.  I’ve done everything I could to get the Asian vote short of blacking up and it’s not enough. I’m out of here.

to be continued...

Reading Borough Council look set to approve the redevelopment of Kings Meadow Baths. The Edwardian swimming pool has been lying derelict for years and the council have been looking for a developer to take over the grade II listed building.

Graham Hoskin, councillor for culture and sport, said: "Both plans on the table still need further development, but we can't put off making a decision for much longer. If it falls down whilst were still in charge of it we could get sued for neglecting our duties. We've now been waiting over 5 years for a mysterious fire to come to our rescue and it's bloody annoying that one hasn't turned up yet. They've had enough time."

Many patients at the Royal Berkshire Hospital have been left without mobility around the site after a number of the Trust's wheelchairs went missing.

A spokesperson for the Trust said said: “Unfortunately the wheels came off the two companies we planned to use. We tried ones that have 7ft rods at the back to stop people from stealing them but we think that some people have been using them on the dodgems at Carters Steam fair to avoid paying for a ride.”

One patient angry at the lack of wheelchairs told us: "Hospital bosses don't have a leg to stand on... and now nor do we!"

Top Terror suspect

Police have warned people to be on the look out for dangerous terrorists on the loose in Reading after three Al-Gila members were caught acting suspiciously on the banks of the Loddon.

Local MP Martin Salter told us: "These people are dangerous. They wander the pathways and riverbanks of England with devices that are designed with only one thing in mind... to kill. Peter Clarke, who was until recently the head of Scotland Yard’s counter terrorism command, told me about an investigation that in 2004 had arrested a number of terrorist suspects, saying: 'They were minutes away from releasing a net full of fish. Two years later, they pleaded guilty to catching fish for the pot.' You can see the kind of warped minds we are dealing with here. We may have to curtail civil liberties to keep my stretch of the bank free, but it's a lot better to clamp down on innocent people than not illegally invading Iraq in the first place."

Mr Salter has urged people to be vigilant: "If you see anyone wandering around with a fibreglass poles and nets, please report them to your nearest policeman where they will be fingerprinted, DNA swabbed and added to our database of the British public in preparation for Gordon Brown's plans to embed a GPS tracker in everyone. I shall be demanding that anyone else caught in a similar situation should be locked up for 42 days to protect the public. Oh crap! Officer, don't you know who I am?"

Originally planned as a two fingered salute to WOMAD after they took the councillors' freebie tickets away to Wiltshire, the cancellation of "nuLabFest" has come as a bitter blow to the freeloading mock-socialist councillors of Reading. The festival originally planned for the weekend of the 10th-12th July was made free after people refused to buy their policies, but even that failed to tempt people out to back them in public.

Bands scheduled to play the cancelled festival included: 176,891 Maniacs, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead, Faith No More, Garbage, Jane's Addiction and The Who?

Martin Salter MP has pledged to dance in a field in Reading East for the whole of the weeekend to keep the festival alive whilst fellow Labour Party members play Peruvian nose flutes, shake their maracas, pluck their big fat lyres and leg it with lute from the Houses of Parliament allowances.

If anyone would like complementary tickets for the replacement "nunuLabFest" they will be able to pick them up from under the counter.

A Spinless Hedgehog

A Spinless Hedgehog

Mystery surrounds Reading Labour Party's latest attempts to stop being wiped out in Reading East after a spineless hedgehog called Spud was discovered hiding away at the Newtown Neighbourhood Action Group and with the Redlands NAG moving their attention into Park ward, a determined attempt to hang onto one of their last remaining seats looks imminent, but the fate of the spineless hedgehog rests in the balance.

A spokesperson for the hedgehog rescue charity Mrs. Tiggywinkles told us: "We don't know if she was born like this or it was a problem that developed later in life. Most hedgehogs start off with principles, like opposition to the Iraq War, tuition fees, union rights but they tend to lose them by the handful as they desperately try to hang onto power.

"The fear is that come the next election it would get too hot for her, so we can't risk releasing her to the voters. We need someone with more punch.

"Funnily enough we've got a bald squirrel in too, called 'Howie'. Used to come from these parts as well, but he couldn't cope with the traffic so he went in to hibernation just before the last local elections. It may not be a squirrel, it's so hard to tell without any hair, but he does seem to have surrounded himself with nuts."

Chris Tarrant has been arrested at his home in Esher by Surrey police after a domestic incident in the early hours of the morning.

Was it for:
a) A cutlery malfunction?
b) Phantom Flan Flinging
c) Naked Balloon Dancing
d) Assault

You may phone a friend. We suggest your lawyer.

Local Lib Dems have been blamed for the decision by Guardian Media Group to cut back the Reading Evening Post to just two editions per week.

A company statement said: "After the Lib Dems slashed Reading Borough Council's publicity budget for the next year, we had serious doubts on how the paper was going to be able to fill its copy with a drastic reduction on fatuous quotes from lead councillors to print. It makes the whole operation untenable."

A source close to the paper told us: "We'll have our revenge on the Lib Dems. If they thought being relegated to having a 'Second Person' piece on the council tax budget was bad, wait until we start putting all their press releases in 24Seven. No-one reads that!"

Andrew Cumpsty has taken a leaf out of Homer Simpson's book after getting inspiration from the classic episode "Trash of the Titans" which sees Homer Simpson promising the town something for nothing as long as they elect him.

Proof of this fell into our hands, an exclusive transcript of the Tory Group meeting that decided on their council tax strategy:

AC: Our campaign is a disaster, Rik. I hate the public so much! If only they'd elect me. I'd make 'em pay! Aw, Rik, how do I make 'em like me?

RW: Eh, gee, you're kind of all over the place, Andrew, you need to focus here.  You gotta...think hard, and come up with a slogan that appeals to all the lazy slobs out there.

AC: Can't someone else do it?

RW: "Can't someone else do it?", that's it. No need to work out a budget, we'll let someone else do it!