Tessie's Numbers Racket

Putinistic evidence-fetishists at the UK Statistics Office have had the temerity to rebuke the dead-eyed warden of HM Prison UK for, of all things, saying the thing that is not about police funding. Tumbledown Tessie, whose career of rampant truth-telling includes the one about the immigrant and his cat, the one about giving workers a place in company boardrooms and, not least, one or two hints about strength and stability, has been throwing £450 million in largely fictitious currency at the national police budget. The dead-eyed warden's claims were repeated by the Home Office and by the reliably gormless Andrea Leadsom, which should have been hint enough for anyone; but in the view of the UK Statistics Office the joke was still too subtle for the British sense of humour, and mere experts, with their characteristic addiction to pettifogging factuality, have placed their North Korean loyalty to the Labour Party above their duty to Queen and country. Given the likely effect on police morale, it is to be hoped that Tumbledown Tessie's favourite boot-boys, those honest folk at Serco and G4S, can be on hand to beat the more recalcitrant figures into shape.