Feng shui consultant confirms Blair-Brown rift

BBC News 24 today covered the launch of Labour's local election campaign in England with the serious tone befitting of a channel dedicated to in-depth reportage and informed comment.

With both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown taking the opportunity to speak at the same event, studio analysts played their part in connecting the watching public with their organs of local democracy. The news anchors discussed the role of local government, the relationship between local councils and central government, the worrying trends in low voter turnout, and then mused upon some of the issues which candidates at the upcoming election would be pledging to tackle.

Sorry, that was my belated April Fools item...what really happened was that the BBC News 24 hired a 'body language specialist' to commentate on the footage of Blair and Brown at the conference. In dark political times such as these there seems only one thing left for news programmes to do...call the body language specialist. The last thing, that is, if the tarot card reader is double-booked on the Today programme discussing the legal status of extraordinary rendition.

The body language specialist (from California...) studied the footage of Brown and Blair getting out of the ministerial car. He noted - with the seriousness of a man whose career relies on interpreting a man picking their nose as revolutionary act -that Blair walked over to Brown and placed 'two touches on the sleeve' of the Chancellor. From the tone of the body language specialist it was clear that this seemingly trivial gesture was, in fact, a momentous event akin to the signing of the Magna Carta and the passage of the Great Reform Act of 1832.

'Would they do that if they hated each other?' asked the news-anchor, breathlessly, indicating that as BBC News 24 was taking this charlatan seriously then we should all be obliged to do the same.

"Of course they would, they're duplicitous shits who'd sooner spit at each other than endure a moment in each other's company" the body language specialist didn't reply, before going on to say that Brown wearing a suit and tie gave an impression of 'gravy-toss'. Was this an insult or a term specific to the lexicon of the body language expert? No, it was apparently the word 'gravitas' spoken by a Californian.

Once Brown and Blair had exited stage left, Prescott arrived to rouse the party activists with a display of oratory not heard since Kelly Brook left the Big Breakfast. The sight of Prescott in full flow seem to hinder the body language expert's powers of analysis and he was put of his misery by the news anchor's 'okay...we'll leave that there for now...'. It was an ignominious end to a thoroughly enlightening piece of political commentary.

What's next then? A feng-shui consultant parading around No.10 suggesting the two vases facing each other across the mantelpiece represent Brown and Blair's ongoing struggle for power? We can only hope.