U-turn tax proposed by Treasury

A new tax on U-turns is being proposed by the Treasury as it seeks to plug the gaps appearing in the figures as a result of the number of U-turns performed by the government over the mosr recent Budget.

A senior civil servant in the Treasury told us that the plan would raise the same as the abandoning of levying VAT on hot baked goods, the reduction in the proposed rate of VAT on static caravans and the reversal of the proposal to allow people of offset tax against charitable donations. "By levying a flat fee on every member of the Cabinet every time they go back on something previously announced", our source told us, "the economy should be back in rude health by Q3 this year as we're anticipating a number of other reversals of their fucking stupid ideas in the near future".

The number of U-turns have left many people unsure where they stand, but our insider unpicked them for us. "It's really very simple. There's now no VAT on baked goods unless they're stored in such a way as to keep them warm rather than allow them to cool naturally" he told us. "That means you can eat a warm pasty inside a cold static caravan and offset that against your charitable giving, but only if you've got a buzzard's nest in the garden. However, a cold pasty inside a warm static caravan is VATable at 20% or 15% if you give a buzzard to charity but only then if the buzzard is cold. No, wait, hang on...." he said as he disappeared back into 1 Horse Guards Road muttering something about having to carry a pheasant.

Coalition policies "massive April fools"

A memo leaked to this website has revealed that government policy has been a huge April fools gag that combined extraordinary planning, but "was completely worth it".

"It's ridiculous", a coalition insider told us, "that so many people actually believed all that bollocks about taxing pasties, selling off the health service and giving big handouts to people who don't need it. I can't believe we pulled this off".

The level of planning is explained in a huge amount of detail in the leaked documents, the original idea mooted as early as 2009. "We thought people would get wise to it when we announced we were going into coalition with the Lib Dems", our contact explained, "and bless them they've done their bit with that whole 'no tuition fees' schtick. But as more of these obvious gags got past an unsuspecting public, we got more and more brazen. I mean, borrowing a horse from the Metropolitan police? Telling people to store volatile, flammable substances in garden sheds? Seriously?"

The fear now is that in an effort to outdo this prank, the stakes have been raised with Labour insiders briefing that "you should see what we're going to do in Iran on April 1 2016".