That Lobbygate Statement in Full

Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome this opportunity to set the record straight regarding my recent interview with Sting Productions Ltd for the post of imaginary lobbyist to Freshco Supermarkets Inc (“A Whole Lot More Than You Bargained For!”)

In retrospect, and with the benefit of hindsight, the absence of any framed photographs of Mr Gordon Sumner in reception, and the fact that the company’s address on its letterhead was given as “c/o H. Hill, Freepost You’ve Been Framed” should perhaps have heightened my perception that all was not entirely as it should be.

However, I can reveal today that I have been diagnosed with a very rare medical condition, which has what scientists call a “cluster” in the geographical area of London SW1, called Dementia Cashblindia, where the sufferer’s judgement and vision is temporarily impaired by the dazzling reflection from huge piles of currency.

I also accept that the fact that the interviewer was a nubile young blonde strumpet, who smelt vaguely of patchouli, giggled at my jokes, and had a chest like a bouncy castle, may have led me on this occasion to make exaggerated claims about what I could achieve for Freshcos in return for a daily jiffy bag stuffed with fivers.

Now that I have been found out, I have of course referred myself to the appropriate authority, the Maldive Islands Tourist Board, and I am sure that my honourable friends will hold a full and frank enquiry around the public bar of the Mog-Mog Hotel, before retiring to the pool terrace to consider their verdict. Lessons must be learned, and this iniquitous system, so dreadful that I could barely bring myself to fleece it, must be replaced with a public register of spoof film companies, so that a man knows at the outset who he is talking to.

I would also like to point out to members of the public, who perhaps are fortunate enough to have nothing more to worry about in their everyday lives than queuing up in the rain for the bus to the jobcentre, just how difficult and demanding the work of an MP can be, with the constant need to manage a complex, shifting portfolio of sources of huge wads of cash.

I would like to thank my wife, who is standing behind me in this matter, as so many times before, calmly twitching and brandishing a carving knife, and I would ask that my privacy, and that of my solicitor, be respected at this difficult time.

Thank you.