Coalition Wishes Everyone A Happy Deathday.

Steve Webb, the Lib Dem Minister for Pensions, has decided that it might be a smart political move to remind everyone that one day they're going to die. To prevent pensioners from spending their pension pots on wine, women, toy boys and song and then squandering the rest he wants to send each and everyone of us an estimate of our life expectancy. "People consistently underestimate how long they're going to live," he told our reporter, "and, under proposals to allow them access to their pension pots, they are in danger of spending their own money, ending up dependent on the state and threatening tax cuts for rich people like me. Of course if we and our Tory mates win another five years in power after May 2015 then this won't matter since most people won't live long enough to get their pension in the first place. The real danger is that Labour might win and completely derail Coalition plans to get rid of all the useless people in this country and prevent us from making it a land fit for the smug and self-satisfied to live in." Opposition to the idea has also come from the insurance industry whose spokesman told us; "These dick heads will ruin our best sales pitch if they tell people they're likely to live well into their 80's. How the hell will we be able to sell completely useless life insurance policies to young people if they know that the chances of dying before they reach 40 is practically nil? Profits will plummet and," he added darkly, "so will our donations to the Tories and Lib Dems if they carry this out."

Clegg Feels A Sharp Pain Between The Shoulder Blades.

After several months of concern over his health Nick Clegg has finally discovered the source of the pain between his shoulder blades. The discovery of a thin Tory blade protruding from his back should have come as no surprise, however, since Nick Clegg has been sinking a very similar blade into the collective back of the entire British electorate for the last two years. What prompted this sudden realisation was David Cameron's "reluctant" retreat over House of Lords reform today - something he's been "forced" into by a few Tory backbenchers who have threatened to throw their toys out of the pram. Nick Clegg has now managed to gain exactly nothing out his association with the most vicious Tory administration in living memory. Nothing except, that is, a total loss of support amongst the electorate who have watched as the LibDems have betrayed every principle they are supposed to stand for. Reform of the House of Lords was the policy that Nick Clegg sold the NHS down the river for and it was his last chance to get something for the LibDems that they could pretend to be proud of. Nick Clegg can no longer fail to see what everyone else in the country already knows - that David Cameron and his Tory pals would sell their own grandmother for an extra quid. Nor can he avoid the conclusion that has been evident to the rest of us for some time - that he is the most outwitted bungler in British politics. Still we can at least now sit back and watch the cat and dog fight between the Tories and the LibDems over the proposed boundary changes that Cameron hopes might save his party at the next election. Perhaps G4S could provide the referees.

Coalition In Near-Death Experience.

It's always sad when a couple split up and, of course, it's always the children who suffer. But, after the local election results, a split between the Tories and the LibDems became inevitable. Last year, when only the LibDems were savaged by the electorate, it was a different story since the Tories, the senior members of the Coalition, went unpunished. This time around, with the Tories now also feeling the full fury of the electorate, it suddenly matters. So seriously do the Tories take it they have decided, inevitably, that a sharp turn to the right is called for while the consensus in the party is that the LibDems can go take a hike. Realising that, after all, they are to be left at the altar, the LibDem party is readying itself to ditch their partner in the hope that the electorate will forgive them before the next general election. Both parties have completely misjudged the mood of the people who simply refuse to understand why they should have to pay for mistakes by the greedy and stupid and cannot see why kicking the disabled and vulnerable is a good idea. The Tories are like a gang of yobs who, suddenly looking up from beating up a helpless wheelchair-bound victim, see the hostility of the gathering crowd and say "What?" For the LibDems, who have been cheering on the Tory yobs from the safety of the gathering crowd, its a matter of running off before the police arrive.