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Imbecile calms fury horror

Markets, businesses and embittered Remainers were possessed by beatific calm today after a proclamation by Iain Duncan Smith that Article 50 will be triggered early in 2017.

Triggering Article 50 would give the UK two years to negotiate its exit from the European Union, which has led to jitters among some deluded persons who seem to think that in any such negotiations the EU would be the larger party.

However, for many years one of the most reliable indicators for any given fact of British politics has been an announcement by Duncan Smith to the opposite effect.

Duncan Smith's time as commander-in-chief of the Idleness Police was characterised by repeated announcements of the imminent and efficient delivery of Universal Credit, which is now scheduled to be rolled out at some point between Brexit and the heat-death of the Universe.

Duncan Smith's department also extruded numerous statements about how much freedom the poorer classes were being worked into, while thousands became dependent on food banks and several unemployed expendables committed permanent acts of social self-cleansing.

Apart from his own long-standing contributions to veracity, Duncan Smith's sources for his assertion that Article 50 will be triggered early next year include Boris Johnson, David Davis and Adam Werritty, as well as a fan of the famously demented Psychoactive Substances Act.