Rogue Quango Rampages Through South-East

Several towns in Kent were in a tightly regulated state of disarray yesterday evening after a crack government squad, code-named 'The A-Quango', escaped from a maximum-security conference room in Whitehall.

In a statement released early this morning, a New Scotland Yard spokesman named the escapees – four men, three women and a pensioner – and described them as ‘highly visionary and armed with disturbingly compelling flowcharts’. 

The eight think-tankers are thought to have escaped disguised as each other in a daring breakout which claimed hundreds of thousands in expenses. They then commandeered a local bus using the new ‘Escape and Running Away’ clause of the Road Traffic Act they themselves had implemented by text message as they left the building. Armed officers intercepted the bus on the M25, but were forced to release it when confronted with superior paperwork. “They're using their own laws against ours,” lamented PC Andy Whitewash, one of the officers on scene. 

While police stood helpless, the gang made their way down the A2, leaving radical reform in their path. Martha Catness of Cobham recalls the impact: “Dreadful. One fire per fireplace? What kind of law is that? I remember when we didn't have laws or an environment, and we did alright back then.”

Meanwhile, in sleepy Snodland, a reckless policy was beginning to cause unrest. “It was unbelievable,” raged local Barry Steele, “the police turned up and told me I had to recycle everything - everything! My car, my money, my doors and windows. When they started taking my family away, I knew I had to act.”

Police were inevitably delayed as Barry and several hundred other residents took to the streets in armed protest of the stated aim of the controversial new law: to turn Snodland into a giant blue wheelie-bin and have neighboring settlements catapult their recyclables towards it.

But the worst was yet to come. Arriving at the seaside town of Margate, the Quango brought about what will be remembered forever simply as Opposite Day.

Our correspondent on the ground phoned in a report during the worst of the chaos. “It's the exact opposite of a total fucking nightmare down here,” he said above the screams and sirens around him. “Cars aren't driving backwards or sideways or shooting straight into the air, the electricity isn't clogging up the wires by moving slower than not the speed of light, giant flames aren't spouting out of the firemen's hoses. The situation is completely normal, and we're all quite happy about it.” Other reports from the area were similarly ambiguous.

This morning, as the madness of opposite day ended and the smoke cleared, the nation had its first glimpse of the aftermath. Hundreds lay dead or dying, run over by their own spoons or stabbed in the neck by marauding horses. Early estimates are placing the damages in the billions, but the true cost of this disaster may be incalculable.