In the end, his team avoided relegation by three points but the chairman of West Ham United has vowed that they won’t be in the same position next year. Along with an overhaul of the team’s organisation, Eggert Magnússon has ordered subtle changes to the club’s badge to incorporate mystical symbols from his native homeland.

The biggest change is the replacement of the club’s famous hammers with the so called ‘Lucky Herring of Reykjavík’, which are thought to bring great luck to all who wear them. Chairman Magnússon believes that the fish will make a bigger impact next season than Carlos Tevez has made since his controversial move to the club last year. ‘Do not underestimate the power of the herring,’ said Magnússon from his office in East London. ‘The herring know all, see all, and smell all. They are also very nice with a knob of butter.’

Dietary experts will also bring an Icelandic methods to team nutrition. ‘I want every player to eat a plate of Súrsaðir hrútspungar before each match,’ said the chairman. ‘I eat them every day and I can honestly say that everything I’ve achieved in life I owe to rams testicles. In fact, friends often joke with me and say that if I eat any more of them, I’ll begin to look like a ram’s testicles. Which, of course, is quite ridiculous…’

The chairman closed his end of season statement by asking fans to move with the times. We are no longer ‘The Hammers’, we are now “The Herring”,’ explained Magnússon. ‘And I promise you now that next year, every team in the Premiership will learn to fear our smell.’

Gordon Brown has launched his leadership bid by confessing that he’s a really nice guy.

‘I’m a really nice guy,’ he told journalists before demonstrating the fact by smiling to photographers. Later in the day he met school children who he surprised with an impromptu display of smiling. ‘This is my smile,’ he then told a group of seven year olds he’d managed to corral in one corner of the classroom. Teams of specially trained psychologists are now working through the night to help these first innocent victims of what commentators believe will be an ugly one horse race.

The Chancellor finished his first day of campaigning by appearing on both the BBC and ITN where his indiscriminate smiling continued. ‘People want to see continuity in government,’ he told BBC2’s Newsnight. ‘They want to see teeth. They want to see gums. They want to see a man grinning like the local village idiot. I aim to be that man.’ He was then asked if he believed that personality was important to a Prime Minister, Mr. Brown replied: ‘I have personality. I really do. I mean have you seen my smile?’

The government plans to reduce the escalating cost of ID cards by printing them on paper already purchased by the Treasury. ‘This is creative government thinking at its best,’ said Dr. John Reid. ‘We’ve used lateral thinking and come up with a scheme that’s economical on both the public purse and the environment.’

The use of £10 notes is seen as the most effective way of managing the production of the cards and will incur a fixed material cost of £10 per card. ‘The genius part of this scheme is that each piece of paper already has anti-fraud technology embedded into its surface,’ explained Dr. Reid. ‘This way we’ll save all that money we would have spent on smart chips and biometrics.’

Meanwhile, the Treasury have announced plans to increase the production of £10 notes. Said a spokesman: ‘This gives us an excellent opportunity to get rid of the old notes and introduce newer notes which will have smart chips and biometrics embedded into them to help reduce fraud. This should cost us no more than £5.31bn.‘

I’ve produced a couple of graphics for Channel 4 News’ blog. They mark Blair’s ten years in power and you can see them here and here, alongside some superior examples of political satire from Beau Bo D’Or, Matt Buck, Morten Morland and Royston Robertson.

I originally did three graphics but this was the runt of the litter. I thought I better use it quickly before we move on into the post-Blair age and forget that the newest member of the reformed Bee Gees was once our Prime Minister.

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Hat-tip: Trixy