The World Hype Organisation and the Chief Medical Officer of England and Wales have confirmed that people are definitely going to die this year. In a shock revelation the W.H.O and Sir Liam Donaldson jointly confirmed today what most people have for a long time been too afraid to contemplate: People WILL die. And some of them will die for no other reason than that they have become ill.

"We are seeing the terrifying emergence of what we are calling Celebrity Mortality. We have observed that ordinary people can be panicked into a state of morbid fear by high profile reports of a death. This of course occured last month with the death of Michael Jackson. No one liked the guy much but his death stirred the Guardian and the BBC into round the clock coverage. AND it is also true that if the news media publicise the death even of an unknown but imbue that death with enough gravity, it will panic the masses.

"Let there be no doubt about it," said a government minister. "People ARE going to DIE, and something MUST be done about it." He then went on, "But since nothing really can be done about it, we realise that it is much better simply to scare the living daylights out of people and hope that they will look to the government for guidance... Tamiflu anyone?"

Gordon Brown and The 'Green Man', Ed Windmilliband, yesterday outlined the latest in a range of ambitious new plans for reducing carbon emissions over the coming decades. The government has approved the building of four new eco-towns that will provide 10,000 homes in total and which it believes will showcase green living in the UK. The towns will include the latest in energy efficiency with electric car charging points and new cycle routes.

"Rather cleverly," said Mr Pigswilliband, "These towns will be powered by lots and lots of large windmills that will be constructed upon the bits of English countryside not yet fully utilised. These plans will drag the English Lake District kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. "

"New Labour's plans to commoditise this rather quaint but passé part of England's heritage will make the 'New Towns' such as Milton Keynes seem like Prince Charles' Poundbury... or did I mean will make Poundbury like Milton Keynes? Not that it really matters."

It appears that there are even plans to enhance the metropolitan feel of the new towns by augmenting and enhancing any surrounding farmland that still survives. "We have decided to commission a set of crop circles by the 'cockney' artist, Bansky. We are convinced that the local farmers will be delighted to have the opportunity to host such a distinguished artist on their humble and, may I say, insignificant farmland."

An enthusiastic Mr Brown said, "Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, we are very confident that these new developments will strategically and effectively enhance the gainful desecration of the British countryside. They will leave incontrovertible and lasting evidence that New Labour really does care about the environment."