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."