Banks to Lend You Your Own Money

The Government is to invest £500bn of your money in British banks so they can lend it back to you with interest. The historic move is being hailed as a lifeline for the financial system as long as nobody asks too many questions.

Julian Cook, chief economist at Corbett and Barker, said: "The government will give your money to the banks so the banks can start lending you that money, probably at around 7% APR. Thanks to all the interest you're paying on your own money, the banks will make billions of pounds again and normality will be restored. After a few years of this the government will cash in the bank shares it bought with your money and use the profits to build a huge fucking dome somewhere."

He added: "In case you hadn't already worked it out - the entire global financial system is predicated on the assumption that you're an idiot."

Meanwhile, building a time machine to take us back 18 months would have been cheaper than the multi-billion pound bank bail out, it was claimed last night. As the government spent £500bn recreating the exact economic conditions of April 2007, Britain's leading time travel engineer said he could have done it for half that.

Dr Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: "You need a Vauxhall Corsa, a small amount of plutonium and something I call the 'flux capacitor'. You simply punch in the date - let's say, April 15th, 2007 - activate the flux capacitor, and accelerate the Corsa to 88mph. At that point a hole opens up in the space-time continuum and in the blink of an eye you've got mortgages being handed out like free newspapers and credit cards coming out of your arse."

"And once you start giving people credit they can't afford and engineering a global banking collapse, you just jump in the Corsa and start all over again."

He added: "Of course, in 2007 there was no such thing as plutonium so we'll have to rig up some kind of giant lightning conductor. It'll be fine."

Meanwhile the National Audit Office has also criticised the government's overspend on recreating April 2007.

A spokesman said: "It would actually have been cheaper to launch an intergalactic space mission to search for the planet Krypton, find Superman, bring him back and get him to fly round and round the Earth until it started rotating the other way, thereby turning back time and opening up the wholesale money markets again."