Too Old, Too Costly, Too French

Jury trials too expensive to waste on petty criminals, ministers say

The provisions of Magna Carta are far too expensive to have a place in modern Britishness, ministers announced today.

Reforms are being considered which will enable certain criminals to be punished more cheaply, in accordance with present-day conceptions of human rights.

Originally believed to be inalienable and unconditional, human rights have recently become more contribution-based, as part of the war which Britain's hereditary millionaires are waging against the something-for-nothing culture.

Ministers were impressed with the speed, efficiency and incarceration-orientedness of sentencing after last summer's riots, and it is now hoped that the same treatment can be economically meted out to anyone who steals a bottle of water or writes things on Facebook.

"We have no plans to remove trial by jury," said a spokesbeing for the government which had no plans for any of its other reforms to affect front-line services either.

The Liberal Democrat wing of the Conservative Party is expected to endorse the move, on the grounds that Magna Carta was imposed on an unwilling populace by French overlords.