Westminster digested: how to handle bad news

Moody's 'negative outlook'? Attacks on the NHS bill? Ozzy has a plan to turn every criticism into an endorsement

Everyone working in the NHS: The proposed changes to the NHS are going to be an absolute disaster.

Cameron: Hilto! What shall I do?

Hilton: The tarot cards say it is time for you to stand firm.

Cameron: I am 110% behind the plans to wreck the NHS. Andrew Lansley has my total support.

Lansley: That's me out of a job, then.

Moody's: We are putting Britain on negative outlook. If the country continues to stagnate we will have to take away its triple-A credit rating.

Osborne: I welcome Moody's assessment of the economy. It is a ringing endorsement for the government and shows we are right to continue to make cuts and put people out of work.

Cameron: Are you sure?

Osborne: Absolutely, Cams.

Cameron: Then how come you said the same thing about our handling of the economy when Standard & Poor's took us off negative watch two years ago?

Osborne: Because Hilto tells me to say every piece of bad news is a ringing endorsement.

Cameron: He says that to me, too.

Osborne: Don't blame me. I'm just a fairly dim public schoolboy who has never had a proper job, whom you made chancellor because we were both in the Bullers. I don't know any more about running the economy than you do.

Cameron: That's saying something.

Osborne: Cheer up, though. We're allowed to strip out last year's VAT hike in this month's figures so it makes it look as if inflation has fallen to 3.6%.

Cameron: That's wonderful news. The country has never had it so good.

Osborne: Precisely. With inflation at that level and the economy flat-lining, it means that the average member of the working-class can expect to stay out of the soup kitchen for another two and a half weeks.

Cameron: Tremendous. You don't think the opposition will challenge us on any of this, do you?

Osborne: What opposition?

Milidee: Er, ahem ... Hello.

Everyone: He's alive! We thought he was dead.

Labour party: He is to us.