New Labour stamps on offensive cartoons

Inflammatory scrawls outlawed

by Greg Doublewank

Fed up to the back teeth with Danish flag burners, suicide-bomb-waistcoat weaing parole breakers and other such racial tensioning activities, Emperor Blair of Blairland earlier today announced that forthwith, all cartoons of an even slightly provocative nature will be banned.

This has come as something of a shock to young and old alike who enjoy a cartoon or comic book to lighten up the torpor that is Great British life as we know it. Nonetheless, several well-known and loved scribblings have been given the chop immediately and these include:

George & Lynne — The Sun — Deemed to be offensive to women as Lynne always has her kit off to varying degrees. Will be allowed back onto the pages of the Nation's Favourite Daily if Lynne is depicted in a sensible twin-set and pearls, sipping tea with the Vicar and George is doing the washing-up.

Andy Capp — The Daily Mirror — Highly objectionable layabout who has since 1957 lying on a sofa somewhere north of Watford, thereby reinforcing the myth that Northerners couldn't even be bothered to travel to London to blow up tube trains and buses.

Alex — The Daily Telegraph — Found to contain repeated references to upper-middle class snobbery and the subjection of lower classes. May be brought back on license if Alex is suddenly demoted to tea-boy and each hilarious episode depicts his repeated rise, fall, rise, fall and eventual sacking from this post.

Fred Basset — The Daily Mail — Generally considered so inoffensive it is likely to cause widespread offence among those who are bewildered at its lack of content. The eponymous hero is, however, shown as "belonging" to his human masters — to the fury of animal liberationists country-wide. May pass the censors if the relationship is redefined as one of interspecies equality.

Viz Magazine — John Brown Publishing — Far, far too explicitly urine-extracting out of social inadequates, the travelling community, overweight ladies and those of every conceivable ethnic minority, this publication will only be tolerated if it is put on to the highest of top shelves and every page is blank. Apart from adverts for the Franklin Mint.

Garfield — Various — Absolutely hilarious cartoon cat which reinforces the fantasy among feline lovers that their pets are their intellectual equals, causing them to talk about their charges as if they were human. Known to provoke extreme anger in non-cat lovers around the globe.

Any cartoon — The Daily Sport — Enough said.

New Labour spokeskilljoy, Malcolm Divot spoke to our reporter about this ban saying: "We cannot tolerate anymore the flagrant inflammatory depiction of ethnic and social minorities in Britain today. For too long such groups have been treated as the underdogs where wanton discrimination has been allowed to be published in cartoon form. It's got to stop in order that peaceful, crack-dealing citizens can demonstrate with impunity and won't have to get locked back up and re-clog our over stretched prison system."

We attempted to contact The Guardian's Steve Bell for a comment this morning, but were told by a spokeslackey: "Steve's much to busy being very clever to talk to the likes of you."

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New Labour stamps on offensive cartoons

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