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Charles Clarke health scare rattles Downing Street

In the wake of last week's Commons defeat for Tony Blair and Charles Clarke's laudable plan to bang up without trial anyone who even thinks about boarding a Tube with a rucksack, Downing Street doctors say Clarke must attend to his health or pay the price.

Despite the righteous arse-kicking delivered by almost 50 Labour MPs who decided — despite clear guidance from the UK's top police officers, the Daily Mail and the Sun — to reject proposals guaranteed to keep Britain's streets clear of kamikaze towelheads and therefore safe for freedom-loving Brits to go about their business as normal, subject to the restriction of certain freedoms as a lamentable, but necessary, sacrifice to ensure the Security of the State™.

Clarke, however, has not heeded physicians' advice to take a well-earned break from the crusade which they fear will cost him everything. One sawbones told The Rockall Times: "Charles is heading for burnout. It's simply not possible to maintain his level of pompous self-righteousness indefinitely. Just look at his TV appearences since the Commons vote. The same relentless, patronising hurrumphing coupled to protestations of absolute certainty as to the legitimacy of his cause."

Indeed, a quick scan of recent Clarke interviews show him still totally convinced that he is right about absolutely everything and anyone who disagrees with him is misguided, if not completely insane. "We call it Blunkett Syndrome," sighed one expert in political psychology. "Once you get it into your head that ID cards are the only way to fight international terror, nobody can convince you otherwise. When anyone disagrees, you simply counter: 'I hope you'll be happy when your kids have been killed in an suicide-bomb attack by someone who could have stopped by a properly-implimented biometric ID card scheme which is, I hasten to add, backed by senior police officers and security analysts.' There's no cure, I'm afraid."

Asked whether Tony Blair had not too succumbed to BS, as it is known for short, our man offered: "It doen't look too hopeful, does it? 'Better to do the right thing and fail', blah, blah blah. Complete dogma tinged with a touch of the old 'history will absolve me' line of attack. Nasty."

Back in Downing Street, meanwhile, doctors have issued Clarke with a stark prescription: put a sock in it or you too will be doing the Blunkett Walk of Shame™. And lay off the pies and beer, lest you too go bang like a rucksack-bearing raghead.

Previously

• More suicide bombers may go bang, UK warned
• Clarke hails London intelligence coup
• ID card vote is victory for democracy and the British way of life

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