Granny baiting faces chop

The government's new bill to outlaw the hunting of old-age pensioners will come under fire when the Gentlefolk's Alliance stages a rally in Hyde park next weekend. The Alliance, representing those involved in the sport, claims that all the jobs in the country will be lost if the ban takes effect, and Britain as we know it will cease to exist.

"My ancestors have hunted senior citizens since time immoral", said Sir Duncan Pumpkin of the Alliance, "and it's part of what makes this country great. How else would we control them and keep their numbers down? The do-gooders who are trying to stop this wonderful pursuit would be the first to complain if they found their supermarkets full of dazed old people pilfering the pick-and-mix and clogging up the checkouts, or wandering off the pavement with their Zimmer frame, endangering their people-carriers and off road vehicles."

"It may look like fun," he continued, "as we charge through rest-homes on a Sunday afternoon, with red coats and trumpets, cheering our packs of dogs on to rip these vermin apart at the seams, but there's a serious side to it. We do it to provide a national service, not because we enjoy it. People who've never done it say it's cruel, but I can assure you they don't feel a thing after the first four or five minutes, and I'm convinced that many of them enjoy the thrill of the chase. You can see the excitement in their eyes as they try to fight the dogs off."

Open-minded as ever, President Tony Blah is offering MPs the choice between an outright ban, maintaining the status quo, or a third way whereby local authorities would license granny-hunting for anyone who wanted to do it.

"As a regular guy," he said from a nursing home in his constituency where he was seeing a hunt first-hand, "I can see both sides. Old folk can be a real problem, especially when they start telling you about the War and how kids today don't know they're born, or if they're your father-in-law and start criticising your policies. And gassing and shooting are not as humane as people say. Thousands of livelihoods depend on this sport, and whole communities could go to the wall if it were banned. And anyway, many of them are too gaga to vote."

Neil Durden Smith, leader of the Tory party, said that granny hunting was an ancient right in many of the shires. "I don't want to be controversial," he told us, "but most of my supporters go granny-hunting. And even if they didn't, I'd still not agree with Blair about banning it. But then many of my supporters are also pensioners. Hmmm, tricky one."

Charles Canaday, speaking quietly for the Lib-Dems said: "I don't want to be controversial."