EVERYONE in Britain north of Birmingham is already very drunk indeed.

Eyewitnesses said the drinking started within seconds of the announcement and was of a ferocious intensity.

Police in Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool and Glasgow have been told to take the rest of the week off as local authorities said they will tidy everything up ‘at some point’.

Nathan Muir, a southerner visiting Derby on what passes for business in the midlands, said: “I was in a meeting when someone spotted the news on their smartphone. The booze appeared instantly. I have no idea where it came from. It was like they had been waiting a very long time and were fully prepared.

“I would say they were all aggressively drunk within four to five minutes. I think it was the adrenalin rush, combined with the funnels.

“Anyway, I quickly felt as if I did not belong, particularly when a half empty vodka bottle whizzed past my head, before exploding against the Derby Enterprise Zone poster on the wall.”

He added: “As I made a dash for the car park, I was almost killed as a desk smashed through a second floor window and completely destroyed a Nissan Qashqai.

“Then this woman stuck her head out of the broken window and shouted, ‘lets find Tebbit and piss on his face’.”

A spokesman for Merseyside Fire Brigade said: “We’re going to let things burn. If we put it out they will just set fire to it again. Plus, we don’t want to seem like killjoys.”