The Scottish Football Team has astounded the world by failing to qualify for the World Cup finals in spite of playing extremely well, in the toughest of groups. Going into last night’s game against the Faroese a draw was all that was required to get through to the finals in Antarctica next December. The side set out their stall positively with a goal in the first fifteen minutes and held this until the forty fifth minute when Faroese striker Edmundsen headed in a corner.

All to play for in the second half then. It didn’t take long for the opposition to forget that the Scottish Maritime Defence Force saved several of their countrymen earlier this week in grounding off Shetland. They threw everything they had at the Scots defence with inspirational attacking football. The Scots quickly appeared rattled and an altercation between Jock Bremner and goalie Baxter proved their undoing. Following yet another corner Baxter was heard by the fourth official calling his team mate a useless ginger nutcase. Under FIFA equality guidance the official brought the matter to the referee’s attention but not before Bremner “nutted “Baxter. The sending off of the pair was inevitable. Reduced to 9 men it was only ten minutes before the Faroese sank Scotland hopes with a second goal in the 50^th minute. Never mind there’s the Euro’s coming up.

The Holyrood Government today announced big changes to the way the people are assessed as to whether or not they are fit to work. If assessed as unfit they will be entitled to an Ability Support Allowance. The big change is in the way assessments are to be carried out. Before under the UK system assessments were carried out by a profit making company based in France (Atos who’s operating profits increased by 8% last year). This meant public money ending up in shareholders pockets. The new approach means no money will go to shareholders.

The Governments new system means assessments will be carried out by Occupational Therapists placed in local medical centres and paid for by funds previously used to pay the private company.  A Government spokesman said “This means that professional assessments will be carried out locally and we are creating several hundred new jobs for assessors. This means more jobs better assessment and reduced risk of false claims for our support allowance. The system is being brought in over two years region by region.

WELFARE SCRAPPED!

Lex Lamont minister for has announced that the term Welfare is being dropped by public bodies with immediate effect. Mr Lamont  told us” The Conservatives in the last UK Government aided by the Lib Dems and in no way hindered by Labour deliberately set out  to stigmatise and reduce the quality of life of individuals that needed the country’s support. Welfare is no longer perceived as a means to ensuring that we all fare well but   an evil we should be doing without. That is clearly not the view of the Scottish people whose natural instinct is to support others. We will now be operating a Citizen Support System that places the emphasis on providing targeted support to individuals and families to allow them to contribute fully to Society. No doubt that there will those that say we are playing with words, but words carry meaning and generate emotion and we want to create a positive nation”