No. 10 forced to deny impending return to Dark Ages as Tory MPs re-fortify their castles

Typical Tory MP's house, with fortifications in need of updating

The Prime Minister has denied that Britain is on the verge of returning to the Dark Ages after news leaked out that Tory MPs are re-fortifying their castles en masse. Most of the castles have not been properly fortified for between three and eight hundred years, but for modern fortifications contractors business is booming.

"They tell us they expect a return to the 'The old ways', as they call medieval times, any day now," one contractor explained on condition of anonymity. "They expect that the withdrawal of government services will create a new class of poor, or 'serfs' as they sometimes call them, and that it will be necessary to keep them at bay with fortifications and heavy weaponry."

The Prime Minister has had to defend his MPs not only against the charge of selfishly fortifying themselves while leaving middle class areas unprotected, but also against the charge that a return to the Dark Ages is in fact the desired outcome of the Tory policies. "There's a lot of nostalgia for Medieval times among the aristocracy and their hangers-on," explained a well-know commentator on stuff. "There is speculation that the government is using the deficit as an excuse to do what the Tories always want to do: cut spending, lower taxes on the rich, increase the gap between rich and poor, and reinstate feudalism."

Tory MPs have individually and collectively denied the charges levelled at them. "It's outrageous that people slander us so," spluttered Oswald Inkleby-Speringforth of Borrenshire when cornered on his estate after a rousing chase. "If I want to have the boiling-oil portals above my gate re-opened that's my business. These accusations get thrown around as though there's something wrong with adding a bit of bullet-proof plating to modernise the battlements. The only nostalgia I have is for when journalists used to show a bit of bloody respect. Now get off my land before I test out my new trebuchet on your head."