Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim has confirmed that Muammar Gaddafi will be cutting short his holiday in Tripoli to return to Tripoli to take charge of the unprecedented disturbances sweeping across Libya. He has warned of severe punishments for those involved including a promise that detention centres and torture chambers throughout the capital would remain open through the night for ‘as long as it takes’ to bring those guilty to justice.

Shrugging off the events of the last few days, Colonel Gaddafi has put the blame squarely on ‘disaffected youth’ attributing it to a broken society that he was absolutely determined to fix. He repeated his ministers’ assertions that it was a ‘one off’, but insisted that, untackled, the unrest would lead to yet more problems down the line and that, God willing, the fightback begins today, with sticks, genital electrodes and lots and lots of cattle prods as ‘it’s the only language these people understand’.

Early indications are that the punishments will indeed be severe with one ‘rebel’ claiming the government’s swift justice meant he’d had both his legs chopped off simply for drawing a moustache on a picture of Gaddafi. ‘I know I did wrong, but still, I think it’s a tad harsh,’ he rued. ‘I won’t be doing that again, that’s for sure, so fair play to the authorities there. It’s not that my anger at the injustice and unfairness of all of this has really subsided. It’s mostly because I can’t reach.’

‘You see these things going on all over the world and inevitably once in a while the problems will land at your door,’ said Gaddafi in an audio message recorded while in transit from his holiday home to his hideaway home to sort everything out. ‘Luckily my good friend and confidant Tony Blair has written about this extensively in the Observer which was very useful and he’s here with me now, helping me pack, and giving me lots of advice on how to avoid the International Criminal Court.’

However, commentators and observers in general continued to assert that Gaddafi was completely off his trolley, but had to concede that his offer to use his country’s oil wealth to prop up British banks in exchange for a little more time to sort things out at home was pretty persuasive. ‘It’s something we’re actively considering if it will help us save money by not having to bomb him anymore, reduce our deficit and let this crisis come to a natural close,’ said a foreign office spokesman. ‘All that money, eh? Coming our way? We’d need something with a certain ring to it, I think, as is customary in these circumstances. How about ‘Lord Gaddafi of Basingstoke’?

‘Obviously, he’d be a non-dom.’

(from the original idea by Deimos and Steve_l)