Police slap cuffs on Blunkett impersonator

Anti-terrorist police today hailed the introduction of a national identity card scheme as a great success following the successful conclusion of an anti-terrorist operation. Early this morning, crack teams of heavily armed, black clad policemen swooped when it was reported that a man, claiming to be the Home Secretary, was attempting to gain entry to the House of Commons. Sources later confirmed that a man, purporting to be The Right Horrible David Blindgit, MP, had been apprehended and taken to the high security police station at Paddington Green where he is being held pending psychiatric reports.

Eyewitness Millicent Entwistle, 57, a WRVS tea lady manageress of Ye Commons Tea Shoppe, takes up the story. "It was just after a quarter to nine when I first realised something was wrong. We were running low on Earl Grey and so I thought I would pop over to The Other Place to see if I could borrow a few bags from their Lordships. Well, as I reached the front door there was a terrible commotion going on. Blue flashing lights, policeman shouting through loud hailers, the Serjeant-at-Arms waving his ribbon and garters. I saw a man being dragged away, kicking and screaming something awful he was, most ungentlemanly conduct if you ask me."

Metropolitan Police spokesman, Commander G. O'Bells, later issued the following statement: "At 08:30 hours we responded to a report that a strange looking man had entered the House of Commons and walked straight passed the newly installed fingerprint scanners. Obviously no-one with nothing to hide would do such a thing so we knew right away that we were dealing with a hardened terrorist. We immediately implemented our Emergency Action Plan and armed units were deployed, shooting the dog the stranger tried to use to ward off the Serjeant-at-Arms. Screaming obscenities, the stranger was overpowered and dragged to the Retina Scanning Unit where he was unable to provide biometric proof of his identity. The man was taken to a high security police station where, under questioning and two burly anti-terrorist officers, he admitted that he had been responsible for striking fear and terror into the nation."

Speaking shortly afterwards, President Blair commended the police on their prompt action in preventing a lunatic from entering the seat of democracy and said that The War on Terror™ fully justified the imposition of such identity schemes whose value had now been unquestionably demonstrated, and that only Those Who Disagree had anything to fear.