Gordon Brown, Going Down

Embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown has angrily denied that he bought the support of rebel Labour MPs and Ulster Unionists for new measures allowing police to hold terror suspects for up to forty-two days without charge by promising them sexual favours. "These are absolutely outrageous claims - at no time did I tell any backbenchers that I'd give them a blow-job if they voted for the Bill," he told BBC News. "I can also quite categorically deny that bus loads of prostitutes were delivered to the back entrance of the Commons, or that the Labour whips were sent out into Soho to round up every available rent boy in advance of the vote. The government won the debate through reasoned argument, not sexual bribery!" However, the Daily Excess is threatening to publish the transcripts of several taped telephone conversations which appear to undermine the Premier's denials. "They're absolute dynamite - in one Brown can clearly be heard trying to persuade a rebel backbencher to vote for the Bill," says the newspaper's Deputy Editor, Ron Bigwadd. "Eventually the MP becomes completely exasperated and tells Brown to 'stick up your arse, Gordon'. Brown responds by asking him where, when and by how many inches."

Although dismissed by Labour loyalists as 'Tory dirty tricks', there is no doubt that the voice on the tape sounds remarkably like the Prime Minister. Worse still, several of the MPs allegedly bribed to vote with the government have come forward to explain why they changed their stance on the controversial Bill. "I know that many of my constituents are surprised by the way I voted, bearing in mind the fact that I was implacably opposed to the measures beforehand, but the Prime Minister put me in an impossible situation," says Labour backbencher Harold Toenail. "He just kept on ringing me at all hours of the day and night to try and persuade me to change my mind. It was quite disturbing, but I wouldn't budge. He finally asked me what he'd have to do to convince me to alter my stance - I never thought he actually would ride a bicycle naked around my kitchen, before bending himself over the kitchen table and allowing me to spray his buttocks with salad dressing before spanking him with a stick of rhubarb! But after he'd done that, it would have been rude of me not to keep up my end of the bargain!"

Several Ulster Unionist MPs have also come forward to admit that they too, were bribed by Gordon Brown with bizarre promises. "It is true that Mr Brown agreed to allow me to ride him bareback around my Westminster office, whilst he whinnied like a horse," declares David Arse, leader of the Unionist Bastards Alliance, claiming that his decision to 'blow the whistle' on the government's desperate tactics was prompted by Brown's failure to fulfil all of his promises. "The Prime Minister also assured me that he could obtain some highly sought-after (in Loyalist circles, at least), pornography featuring pictures of the Pope and Mr Tony Blair naked in bed together. However, this has failed to materialise." Niall Nesbolt, leader and sole MP of of the Ulster Naturist Association, has also revealed the incentive which persuaded him to support the government in the vital vote: "Mr Brown has promised us that, in future, every twelfth of July, we will be able to parade naked - apart from our bowler hats and umbrellas, obviously - through Catholic areas of Belfast and Londonderry."

Naturally, the opposition have seized upon these revelations, arguing that they demonstrate just how desperate the government has become. "Really, votes for blow jobs, just how low can they go?" asks Tory leader David Cameron, who points out that this isn't the first time that a Labour government has resorted to such tactics in order to cling to power. "We all know that the Lib-Lab pact which kept Jim Callaghan in power in 1978 was sealed in a sleazy Soho strip club, with the Prime Minister, clad only in a stetson and cowboy boots, entertaining all nine Liberal MPs with a routine involving a lasso." However, some Labour MPs have responded by pointing out that the Tory Party is equally culpable when it comes to using dubious practices to ensure vital votes are won. "Some of us can remember back to the Macmillan government," says senior back bench MP Frank Crutchless, "and haven't forgotten the time he quelled that back bench rebellion over the 1960 budget by having every man Jack of the 1922 Committee buggered to within an inch of their lives by that gay body builder."