Eric Pickles awarded ‘city’ status

Britain’s jolliest MP, Eric Pickles, has been granted official ‘city’ status to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Pickles has carried a cathedral in the folds of his stomach for nearly 20 years, but has only been classed as a large town until now.

Thanks to the boost, he’s now entitled to a ring road, his own Mayor and an opera house on one of man-boobs, plus his name will appear on the map twice a week during weather forecasts.

A bidding war has broken out for the right to provide him with a motorway services, with his left buttock considered to be ideal for weary travellers making their way back down south.

Some of his geography is so unusual it should attract investment from the National Truss, and Disney is in delicate talks to open up some parts of him, to develop a slightly sticky theme park.

Pickles gets city status

Ambitious plans to link his bingo wings by cable car are also on the table, along with a bid to classify a pool of gravy on his underpants as a world heritage site.

But the UN has warned that many of his outlying regions are uninhabitable, being obscured from the sun 24 hours a day and badly polluted.

Pickles is hoping to eventually be twinned with Eamonn Holmes or Russell Grant, both of which were upgraded to wider Metropolitan authorities.

Pickles becomes the UK’s sixth largest settlement overnight, and has been divided into six postcodes and two telephone area codes.

A bank holiday has been declared to mark the occasion throughout the band of satellite towns and villages that circle him, in a constant, geostationary orbit.