GREECE’S left-wing leader has said he would never unleash the Kraken and called for the monster to be phased out.

The country’s kraken defence programme has long divided Greeks between those who believe it is a costly anachronism and those who say it provides security against attacks by enemy titans.

Prime minister Alexis Tsipras said: “Every year the Kraken consumes dozens of virgins, sacrifices that would be much better made to help improve our health service, or public transport infrastructure.

“If we ever did release it, could we even control it? Or would it just start stuffing innocent bystanders into its vast glistening maw then slither up a skyscraper?”

However shopkeeper Vangelis Petridis said: “The kraken creates hundreds of jobs in the construction industry by flailing about and knocking temples over with its tentacles.

“It is also vital to our security. Yes, the Trojan War has ended, but we know that rogue states such as Atlantis are working to develop their own sea monster?

“And who is to say what the Persians will get up to over the next twenty years?”