They're Here Already! You're Next!

And, speaking of Caroline Flint and James Purnell and their like, our conquest by the pods from space is now so far advanced that the Ministry for Enlightened Planetary Conquest feels safe in announcing that all future reports of unidentified flying objects are to be destroyed so that they won't have to be published under the Freedom of Information Act. The Ministry recorded over six hundred UFO sightings last year, which is more than four times the average even in a country where the natives welcome aliens with private detention camps and where heavenly bodies like the Daily Star and the Sun are noted for their down-to-earth reporting; and all these close encounters are diverting staff from "more valuable" defence-related activities, like killing Asians and stoking Gordon's nuclear piles. It is not clear whether rendition flights or the London Haystack's public transport plans come under this useful directive - which, in a superbly self-reflexive example of our Hall of Mirrors style of democracy, appears itself to have been released, as a "previously secret memo", under the Freedom of Information Act. Still, it is reassuring that we now have a plausible explanation for the military misadventures of the past few years; and doubtless we may now hope for a swift and crushing Victory in Afghanistan, given that the relevant Government department is no longer being distracted by flying saucers.