Brown refuses to meet Gurkhas to discuss Joanna Lumley

By our correspondent Frank Blunt

Gordon Brown’s latest desperate bid to be anything other than a pitiful failure has ended in pitiful failure after the Brigade of Gurkhas slammed him for refusing to talk about Joanna Lumley.

Ms Lumley, a grade II listed celebrity, was for many years that one who used to be in The New Avengers; more recently, she has reinvented herself as that one who used to be in Absolutely Fabulous. But still she has been denied the right to be taken seriously as a social commentator.

The National Treasury says that it has no plans to promote Ms Lumley to grade I, which would entitle her to last-minute walk-on rights six times a year on ‘Question Time’ and the staging of a David Hare play about her.

The Gurkhas – who do not themselves have individual names or personalities but exist to symbolise the contradictions inherent in our self-image as a nation – have taken up her plight, lobbying the government to raise her public profile.

But, in what will be seen (by me, my mates on the other papers and anyone reading this uncritically) as the worst political blunder since Michael Foot pissed all over the Cenotaph while whistling ‘Deutschland über Alles’, Mr Brown has declined to meet them to hear their case for Ms Lumley to be granted more gravitas. The government was in crisis last night as an avalanche of criticism threatened to knock the Earth off its axis.

David Miliband was seen weeping in a Bermondsey gutter, while Alistair Darling was taken into police custody after smashing a near-empty whiskey bottle into Fern Britton’s face during a daytime television interview, screaming “It’s all gone to hell! Why don’t you just leave us alone, you bastards?” Reports of a suicide pact between Jacqui Smith and Ed Balls are unconfirmed.

At a vigil outside Ms Lumley’s London home, David Cameron said: “This is not just about some dough-faced creep sucking up to a bit of posh totty for votes. This is about justice, fairness, change, irresponsible debt, YouTube and the poison turd monster that has turned our fair country into a charnel-house of Lovecraftian horrors. I can promise you that in government I will dote on whichever celebrity happens to emerge at the front of an arbitrary media shitstorm.”

Nick Clegg added: “Excuse me, I was here first, actually.” Somewhere, a dog barked, and the leaves rustled in the wind.

The PM himself was unavailable for comment, but unattributed and indeed unfalsifiable reports said that a low, ghastly Scottish howl was emanating from Downing Street, very possibly causing all who hear it to bleed uncontrollably from their ears. Truly, these are the end times.