UK unions may scupper Bush war plans

There was complete and utter chaos in Washington last night as reports of the British TUC's opposition to any possible attack on Iraq began to sink in.

John Edmonds of the GMB and Derek Simpson of Amicus are among those who have thrown their members' weight behind a "peace and love and 10 per cent pay increase for union members" campaign.

A visibly-shaken Ronald Dumsfeld stammered: "If this really is the case then I'm not sure that we can, or should, go ahead with the war. There is no group of people anywhere whose views we take more seriously than the British Trade Union movement."

Taking some consolation from the fact that train drivers' leader Mick Rix had said he wouldn't "piss on Saddam Hussein if he was on fire", vice president Dick Cheney managed to be upbeat: "This is good news indeed. Were our pilots to bomb downtown Baghdad and engulf the Evil One in a hellish napalm inferno, I'd like to think that Mick would not intervene with a soothing stream of urine." Cheney then went on to express the hope that Rix be similarly sparing with the use of his faeces.

President Bush himself joined the fray. After spending most of the day on the phone pleading for a green light from Edmonds and Simpson while watching the final of the US Women's Alligator Wrestling Championships and snacking on jumbo pretzels he spoke exclusively to The Rockall Times: "I reckon we can cut some sort of a deal. These TUC honchos are a fine bunch of guys and I fully endorse their struggle to crawl their way up from the gutter of slavery. In return for their support I'll be offering the use of US special forces and laser-guided munitions in their noble war against scabs and strike-breakers everywhere. Amen."