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Blair pants not on fire confirms Joint Intelligence Committee

Tony Blair today faced his critics with predictable self-confidence to damn charges that his pants were on fire.

Suggestions by BBC reporter Andrew Comeagain, quoting an anonymous source, that the prime minister had been playing with matches erupted last week but were dampened when Labour director of communications Alastair Campbell cunningly punched the correspondent in the face in a move many see as an effort to deflect attention away from Blair's smouldering britches.

However it was a shock admission by CIA director George Tenant that has put Blair under more pressure. Tenant apologised for allowing a reference to Tony's glowing underwear in a speech by president Dubya. He told Congress: "We did warn our British colleagues that if you played with matches you were bound to get burnt. They decided to ignore that advice but I should not have allowed the reference to go into a speech for the president."

While Tenant is off the hook after president Dubya stood by him, the prime minister is in a hotter situation with the flames thought to be licking his testicles. The prime minister has come out fighting however, producing a third "Pants dossier" signed off by the Joint Intelligence Committee which he claims exonerates him.

The report states that evidence of blazing Y-fronts was also received by another second country that the UK never told anyone about until now but that it really happened and now everyone can go back to believing what Tony says.

"My pants are not on fire, they have never been on fire and I will do everything in my power to see that they never catch fire," Blair told the Commons. However, critics have condemned the third dossier after it was discovered most of it had been copied from the homepages of a 13-year-old girl who lives in Arkansas. Blair was almost shouted down in the house with opposition cries of "hang them up on telephone wire".

He continued on however and countered suggestions that weapons of mass destruction will never be found in Iraq and that Britain went to war on a false premise. "That is absolutely not true," said Blair. "I have no doubt at all in my mind that we will find evidence of the appearance of items that could have been used in weapons of mass destruction programmes."

Despite this, the tide appears to be turning against Blair, with Labour backbencher mutterings becoming ever more critical. An increasing number of ex-cabinet colleagues have come forward to say that they had seen bright lights flickering from inside Mr Blair's trousers. However, as one told us, they had presumed it was simply the sun shining out of his arse. "But now I'm not so sure," our source told us. "Maybe his pants are on fire after all."

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