05 April 2002

New bible: Queen Mother 'bigger than Jesus'

ThroneOut has learned that from next year the Queen Mother will replace Jesus as the central character in all official Church of England literature. A senior Church of England spokesman said, "The Bible is widely regarded as the original 'papyrus nasty'. The idea of a bearded terrorist nailed to a lump of wood is hardly the kind of story we want to tell to children these days."

Tony Blair strongly approved of the change, "The Queen Mother has done far more good than Jesus, she won the war, saved humankind and also emitted a beautiful glow from her whole body. The sun really did shine out of her arsehole, and I should know, I got my tongue right up there at every opportunity."

Work has already started on rewriting the bible to replace Jesus, the poor carpenter's son who healed the sick, with the new Queen Mother character. Old scenes featuring lepers and prostitutes are to be cut in favour of riveting new incidents including a spectacular six-horse accumulator win and all day drinking binges.

The demise of the central character is likely to be the most eagerly awaited part of the new Bible. In the original, Jesus dies a martyr's death by crucifixion in order to save mankind, returning from beyond the grave a few days later. "I've never liked this part of the Bible, the public is too sophisticated for tosh like this these days", commented a senior clergyman. He denied that the new scenes featuring the Queen Mother dying during an afternoon nap after a heavy meal of roast swan and three glasses of port would be less inspirational. "Everyone likes a happy ending", he said, adding, "She went to the East End during the war you know. All Jesus did was cheap PR stunts like walking on water and conjuring food out of thin air.".

A large-eared man at Windsor Castle yesterday was strongly behind the move. "If there is any servile worship and singing of praises, it should be aimed at us and not some long-haired Jewish communist who hung around with prostitutes and criminals."

The Catholic church had no plans to revise it's own version of the holy book. A papal spokesman said, "The Bible? We're far too busy trying to keep kiddy-fiddling priests out of children's pants to worry about that old thing."