Full Council meeting 

[Mayor Enters]

Peter Jones:                    Now sit down. That's enough f***ing Oxbridge pleasantries.

Chris Harris:                  Those are curse words right?

Peter Jones:                    Kiss my sweaty balls you fat **** and shut it, or I'll hole punch your face.

Pete Ruheman:             I’ve been running this place with kid gloves for years... made with real kids.

Peter Jones                     Sorry Pete, you have got to go. You don't leave your boss spinning in the wind then burst in smelling like a pissed seaside donkey.

Pete Ruhemann:           I’m sorry everyone, the JAR report needed some serious spin by the PR department and I needed to slay that particular dragon before it got out of control.

Jo Lovelock                   I am not a monster!

Tony Page:                    Now, we are moving John Ennis to Children’s  Services which leaves us with a bit of a problem. We’ve run out of competent councillors. So Deborah, Jo wants you to take over housing. It’s an important job so talk to as few people as possible.

Andrew Cumpsty:        Well, I think that this just shows the complete disarray on the Labour benches. I would like to draw everyone’s attention to our one point plan to rescue Children’s Services.

Peter Jones:                    What’s that then you fat f***?

Andrew Cumpsty:        Sack the Tory spokesperson for Children’s Services. Er, is that right? Oh crap, I knew I should have rung Rob for instructions first. Rik help me out here?

Gareth Epps:                 Is there lobster on the menu? I smell bisque.

Tory HQ

[Tory strategy meeting, all present]

Rob  Wilson:                  It was a big part of our election campaign to save the King’s Meadow baths, so we need a carefully orchestrated plan of action to ensure that the blue rinse brigade are fully behind us. We’ve been telling them that the baths are safe in our hands and to vote for us. I’ve got the Kings Meadow campaign petition here. You’ve all signed it haven’t you?

All [in chorus]:               Yes

Rob Wilson:                   Good. Now let’s make sure that we deal the Labour party a bloody nose over this. They’re so desperate for section 106 money that they’ll back any development so we have a great chance to wrong foot them.

Rik Willis:                       Okay who’s on the Culture & Sport scrutiny panel? Tim Harris. Oh bollocks. Who put that little meet-puppet on there? Oh, it was me.

                                         Tim, I shall say this slowly so that you can understand what I am saying. It... is... important... that... you... don’t... let... the... developer... option... win. Got it?

Tim Harris:                    Yes, no problemo. I’ll skim read the documents in the meeting.

Culture & Sport Scrutiny

[Part way through, the vote is poised at 2-1 in favour of Kings Meadow Campaign]

Tim Harris:                    ...and sometimes to make peace you have to climb the mountain of conflict. Er, I’m abstaining because I haven’t read the papers, er, it’s a complicated decision and I’ve forgotten to write down which way Rob told me to vote. Crikey.

[Vote is now 3-2 in favour of Askett-Hawk]

Tom Stanway:              Oh, what the hell. We’ve lost the vote anyway. Go on, pave paradise and put up a two storey parking lot.

Back in Tory HQ

[Tory strategy meeting, all present]

Rob Wilson                    Crap, this is beginning to disentangle itself.  Let’s rework our Kings Meadow  Campaign support documents to fit in with our new position of not supporting it, whilst still pretending that we do. Now if we simply delete all references to support and just leave the caveats, then we should be okay.

Isobel Ballsdon:            You can’t just leave the caveats. It looks like we don’t support it anymore?

Rob Wilson:                   In the land of truth, the man with one fact is king. We’ll just make up the facts to fit our group line.

Andrew Cumpsty:        Why don’t we just keep delaying a decision on King’s Meadow until it falls down. We used it before as our strategy for the new Civic. Then we can call the builders in and look like we’re riding to the rescue.

Rik Willis:                       If it isn't Humpty Numpty sitting on the top of a collapsing wall like some clueless egg c***. This wall story is playing badly, there's a cartoon of you in here [holds copy of Evening Post] as a walrus.

Andrew Cumpsty:        A walrus? I'm not fat and I don't have a moustache. They've given me tusks. Look, we called some builders. They didn't turn up when they said they would.

Rik Willis:                       What did you expect? They're builders. Have you ever seen a film where the hero is a builder? No, because they never turn up in the nick of time. Bat-builder? Spider-builder? It's why you never see a superhero with a hod.

Rob Wilson:                   I'm giving this to someone else.

Labour HQ,  413 Oxford Road

John Howarth:                What have you f***ers been up to in my absence?

Tony Page:                    Well Jon, we’ve been following your plan to the letter. Find a popular cause then do the complete opposite.

John Howarth:                Are you mad? At the end of a war you need some soldiers left, or it looks like you've lost.

David Sutton:                Yeah, or you’ll feel a right tit?

John Howarth:                I thought we weren’t going to mention that again?

David Sutton:                No, we just agreed not to report it to the police.

Martin Salter:                Well, that’s it then. I’m f***ing not standing.  I’ve done everything I could to get the Asian vote short of blacking up and it’s not enough. I’m out of here.

to be continued...

Andrew Cumpsty has taken a leaf out of Homer Simpson's book after getting inspiration from the classic episode "Trash of the Titans" which sees Homer Simpson promising the town something for nothing as long as they elect him.

Proof of this fell into our hands, an exclusive transcript of the Tory Group meeting that decided on their council tax strategy:

AC: Our campaign is a disaster, Rik. I hate the public so much! If only they'd elect me. I'd make 'em pay! Aw, Rik, how do I make 'em like me?

RW: Eh, gee, you're kind of all over the place, Andrew, you need to focus here.  You gotta...think hard, and come up with a slogan that appeals to all the lazy slobs out there.

AC: Can't someone else do it?

RW: "Can't someone else do it?", that's it. No need to work out a budget, we'll let someone else do it!

Isobel Ballsdon has been sacked from her position as the Conservative spokesperson on Childrens' Services after leading for them in a successful media campaign over the recent Ofsted reports findings.

Explaining the surprise move the Tories told us: "We couldn't have a mere woman showing up the chaps. Hopefully Isobel will enjoy tackling her new portfolio that we've just made up to shut her up. We did think of moving her to be our spokesperson for shoes, but that position is already taken. I'm sure that she is looking forward to her new role where she will be legally banned from taking a view on anything before making any decisions."

Reading is bracing itself for an orgy of congratulations in the local newspapers as editors fall over themselves to praise John Madejski, the man who owns most of the town, donates thousands of pounds to the the local Conservative Party's coffers and has the local Labour party by the balls over funding for the Madejski Academy and the Station Hill development.

The news of the honour for Sir John in the New Year's honours list comes as no surprise after Tony Blair last February openly admitted using the honours system to reward tycoons who gave money to support Academy Schools. At a Downing Street press conference, Mr Blair said he was perfectly comfortable for people to believe that those who helped finance his city academies scheme were rewarded by the government through the honours system. Giving money to a government scheme, the then Prime Minister said, was like donating money to support an art gallery.

"It's not a question of endorsing my policy, it's a question of contributing to society," Mr Blair said. "It is absolutely right that we say these are people who have done something good for our country." He continued: "Especially when it saves Labour from having to spend real money on education so that we can continue to piss tax payers monies up the wall on consultants and PFI contracts."

Rob Wilson has stepped into the row over Reading Borough Council's LIVE Reading magazine. The council rag which managed 17 mentions of Labour councillors in the run up to last year's local elections will cost £56,020 in the coming year – a rise of more than 30 per cent, mainly due to a fall in advertising revenue from the local Labour Party.

Rob Wilson complained: "This is why I believe the council should take a metaphorical leaf out of Boris’ book by scrapping the mag and replacing it with a tree planting programme across the borough, and maybe shagging a few journalists for good measure whilst we're at it. Go Boris!"

A council spokesperson defended the magazine. "This is a much more cost effective way to communicate with residents than producing a raft of separate leaflets containing former leader David Sutton's telephone number instead of the elected councillor's."

Meanwhile tax payers have hit back at the Reading East MP by asking Rob Wilson to save thousands more trees by scrapping his "Parliamentary Reports" sent to every home in the constituency in increasing frequency near elections paid for out of the snouts in the trough Parliamentary allowances.

Reading Conservatives have launched a stinging attack on their own website after independent analysis showed that it failed the standard tests for colour, 508 Standards and suffered from 47 problems on the WAI scale.

Councillor Andrew Cumpsty, Leader of the Conservative Group, commented "This is a damning indictment of the Reading East Conservatives' website. For some time, local Conservatives have been calling for other sites to be improved and pointing out their flaws, but this shows that we can't be trusted to keep our own house in order before criticising others. For Reading East Conservatives site to fail the standard tests when we pride ourselves on having so many Information Technology professionals in our party, is a disgrace. I hope that urgent action will now be taken to bring the site up to an acceptable standard."

A Reading based charity has scooped the jackpot after winning more than £50,000 from The People's Millions. The irony of an organisation getting money from a tax on the poor to help people who get into debt buying Lottery tickets was lost as organisations started fighting to take the credit for the win.

Local Conservatives press released their support of the lottery bid after the win. Andrew Cumpsty told us how he had single handedly won the bid after urging attendees of the Reading 2020 Partnership meeting to make sure they voted. "Without my strong leadership, people present at the meeting would not have taken any notice of the previous speaker who asked us all to vote from them. Without my determined bandwagon jumping, the bid would have been lost and I'm sure that the Credit Union would like to thank the Conservatives for their unceasing support over the last few days which made this press release possible."

Martin Salter denounced the Conservative attempt to hijack the win, proudly proclaiming that it was he 'Wot Won It'. "Without the Labour Party's national policy of ensuring that everyone is in poverty and soon to require Credit Union bailouts because there will soon be no banks left, this bid would not have even been on the agenda."

In the interest of fairness we should also point out the Reading Borough Council, The Evening Post, the Reading Chronicle, the Greens, the unions, the Cats Protection League and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all are also claiming credit for the win.

Rob Wilson has expressed concern at his party's line on getting tough on immigrants after junk mail delivery workers failed to make it to Tier Two of the points-based immigration system.

He wailed: "How the hell will I be able to get out my piss-poor tax payer funded 'Parliamentary Report' if there aren't enough Iraqi refugees to pound the streets of Reading delivering it?"

Long serving former Lib Dem councillor Bob Green was honoured by Reading after being made a Freeman of the Borough at a ceremony in the council chamber. The political groupings took it in turns to praise the former Lib Dem group leader and tell the same joke about Lib Dem amendments to motions. However, proceedings were livened up when, standing in for Tory leader Andrew Cumpsty, Tom Steele read out a poem to the council:

Roses are red, violets are blue
And apart from Bob Green, Lib Dems are poo.

Bob will now have the right to drive sheep over Caversham Bridge, but he told us: "I won't be exercising that right. I think the Tory Councillors should make their own way to council meetings."

News of Barack Obama's victory in the US Presidential election has lead to tributes being paid by townsfolk desperate to jump on a moving bandwagon. In his July tour of Europe Barack Obama came to within 2 miles of the town as he flew over Reading whilst returning to the States via Heathrow. Such close links with the town presented our features editor Anna Dinn with a headache as she spent the early hours of the morning scrambling around to fill as many column inches with tenuously linked stories as possible.

Local Lib Dems welcomed Obama's victory and pledged to carry on supporting his campaign for 2012 by telling their former Kentwood candidate to 'not come back' from his stint manning the phone banks.

The Conservatives, for their part, sent over the former leader of Wokingham council who offered his services if ever the President-Elect had a controversial planning application on green belt land that he'd like help promote against the wishes of the local population.

The local Labour Party were a little more cautious in their praise with Martin Salter telling our reporter: "This is a bad day for democracy. John McCain was quite right to denounce this left wing redistributor of wealth, I thought socialism was a discredited policy that had been stamped out across the world. It certainly has been in the Labour Party."

Fresh from making up community newsletters, Rob Wilson MP does his best to pay back the company that gave him 12 free tickets for this year's Community Shield at Wembley by doing a few hours inpersonating the Hamburglar and at the same time helps preserve Reading's obesity league table rating by serving local salad dodgers.

We have a copy of his job application form.

Reading Conservatives are seeking a refund after sending several councillors on a public speaking course ahead of the last full council meeting. News of the course was revealed by Dave Luckett, but it's effectiveness proved to be a disappointment. A Tory source told us: "In these hard economic times, it's unfair to keep asking Mr. Madejski to pay for our upkeep and Lord Ashcroft's foreign money from Bearwood Corporate Services can only stretch so far. That and the realisation that there's not really much point in taking part in council debates because we've got absolutely bugger all to say anyway. So instead of these costly courses we've decided to buy a big rubber stamp instead."

The local party have cancelled 'Argument Theory for Debaters' and 'How to be an Effective Opposition' citing them to be as much use to them in the coming year as a chocolate tea pot. However, it appears that it was too late to withdraw their councillors from the 'How to Roll Over and Have Your Tummy Tickled by Labour' seminar, which by all accounts was well attended.

Wokingham Conservatives have hit out at local Lib Dems after the party held their South Central regional conference at the Oakwood Centre in Woodley.

Local Tory councillor Keith Baker complained to the local press: "How dare they hire out a venue for the day and put up posters advertising it? I went down there to remonstrate with them about this abuse of their own funds and they had the cheek to kick me out for not having a Lib Dem membership.

"Then they have the audacity to invite their party leader to answer questions from members of the public in Reading Civic Centre that same evening. Heaven forbid that people should now expect a Tory leader to answer questions on policy unscripted. Conservatives firmly believe that when party leaders visit town they should be whisked away to private meetings with local multi-millionaires who are the only people who really understand the plight of ordinary citizens and kept as far away from the hoi polloi as possible. Once again the Lib Dems show that they don't really understand politics in this town."

Reading Conservatives have accused the Lib Dems of actively taking part in party politics. The vicious slur was delivered during a heated debate in the council chamber when local Conservatives repeatedly propped up the beleaguered Labour minority administration.

"It's a bloody disgrace," said Tory group leader Andrew Cumpsty. "Those bloody Lib Dems come in here and propose motions asking for things to be done during a political meeting. That's not how we do it around here. And it is outrageous that they should go out and talk to people, send out press releases and deliver leaflets, is that what politics has come to? Rubbish, politics is about using parliamentary allowances for political purposes and rich donors to spread lies on glossy paper whilst doing absolutely nothing that involves making a decision."

"If the Lib Dems weren't so naive they would know that the correct procedure is to refer all items back to the CCEA scrutiny panel where David Stevens will roll over, waggle his arms and legs in the air and vote with the Labour Party. That's the Tory way."

Local Conservatives have hit out at Government policies which they say have reduced the numbers of council houses sold to tenants under right-to-buy schemes. In a press release, regurgitated uncritically, Rob Wilson and Alok Sharma have highlighted the reduction in discounts given over the last ten years to tenants.

Rob Wilson told us: "In 1998, £22,800 was 50% of the house price. Now the current figure of £25,340 is only 24% of the house price. Conservatives say that councils should be forced to make up the difference and hand out an extra £30,000 of your money to all council tenants who want to buy their houses. It's unfair that council tenants should be denied the democratic right to live in negative equity paid for out of everyone else's council tax." Alok Sharma said: "Vote Conservative, if you want more state handouts to the few."

Tory group leader Andrew Cumpsty has said he is outraged over another fighting event at the Rivermead Leisure Centre, calling it 'unsafe' and that it 'glorified violence'.

Robots Live! will be staged at Rivermead Leisure Centre in Richfield Avenue and will feature machines from cult BBC show Robot Wars. Mr. Cumpsty said: "What sort of message is this sending to kids? One minute robots are saving lives at the Royal Berks, then next they see them disembowling themselves in the name of entertainment. Mark my words, events of this type will have children around the town raiding the pot cupboard, walking around wearing saucepans on their head and hitting themselves with wooden spoons. It's bloody irresponsible."

As students flock back to town, new students starting at Reading University have been warned to beware of shady characters trading on their naïveté as the Freshers Fayre takes place in the Students' Union.

nuGay and nuLesbian Labour, Gay and Lesbian Tories Against the Whale and for the Bomb, the Far Too Damn Liberal If You Ask Me Democrats and the Greens will be fighting to prove to the new intake which one is the looniest party left in town. Already the Development and External Affairs Office has warned students to avoid the Lib Dems for holding an monthly 'Liberal Drinks' session which has been blamed on a spate of students knocking on doors over the past year.

The Highways Agency has also been preparing for the return of students by rushing through the last of the summer's road repair schemes before cone hunting season starts in Earnest, a small village to the south of the Whiteknights Campus.

Henley-on-Thames MP Boris Johnson's one man crusade to insult every single person in the United Kingdom today turned it's attention on Reading and caused outrage in the Tory target ward of Peppard when he claimed that the local residents were drug riddled bucket kickers, living of Donepezil and blocking up NHS beds.

"I think I have been quoted out of context," he told us. "What I meant to say was that I am delighted that the geriatric old crones continue to vote for us in large numbers but can't quite remember why they do so."

Conservative candidates in Reading have refused to comment on a leak of their local election strategy.

Their plans include doing absolutely no canvassing or indeed any local electioneering work whatsoever until three days before the election when a super glossy colour leaflet will drop through the doors of every home in Reading urging the undecided to look at the pretty colours and vote blue. The election strategy hinges on the leaflet convincing the electorate that David is a super spliffing, er, spiffing guy. 

An unnamed Tory strategist commented: "Duh, this leak is quite clearly inaccurate. Obviously we're not going to waste our postage in Whitley."

Your Conservative Katesgrove Ward candidate is Mohinder Singh.

You will probably know him as “Ricky” from “MOTEST READING”, the world famous MOT test centre. Ricky is only too pleased to hear your concerns and issues and will help to resolve them, especially if your clutch is playing up.

If elected Ricky promises to work tyre-lessly to serve on your behalf. If the Reading East Conservative MP Rob Wilson can help you in any way then please let Ricky know and he will personally send Rob an email to save you having to start up Outlook.

Ricky summed up why he is standing in a ward he drives through occasionally on the way to the famous MOTEST READING and on the occasions when he visits the equally world famous MOTEST SWINDON:

“You may be wondering why I have chosen to stand as a Conservative Candidate in your ward. I have lived in Reading for a long time and I offer the best MOT services available. Well, now I want to extend my services to help the wider community within the ward by using my election material to inform you that MOTEST READING is the best MOT test centre in Reading. I don't think I can say that enough. Once again it's MOTEST READING.

I truly believe in community service and am offering myself as the Conservative Candidate because time has come for a change in Katesgrove Ward - a change for the better! One which sees you stop using your local Katesgrove Southampton Street Garage and 4 Bays in Mount Pleasant, but instead will see you visit the excellent MOTEST READING in Abbey Ward.

I hope very much that I will be able to count on your cash when your MOT runs out."