Drug dealers across Britain are coming under increasing pressure to come clean about whether some of them have been secretly dabbling in sport. One leading drug lord has claimed that an interest in athletics, football and tennis is not only commonplace but tacitly accepted across the industry and that many gang leaders are prepared to turn a blind eye to the practise.

‘Sport is ruining the world of drugs’ said one smackhead from Manchester’s Moss Side. ‘In the good old day, sickly looking dealers used to sidle up to you on a shady stairwell on the estate. Now you have to run after them on the athletics track and they pass you a bag of crack like it’s some bloody relay baton.’

Rural parishes unable to find permanent members of the clergy have been forced to bring in supply vicars whose inexperience and lack of authority has made them vulnerable to disruptive parishioners, says a new report.

One temporary priest was reduced to tears with heckling and catcalling during his sermon, and when he looked up he saw that all the church-goers had turned their pews round to face the opposite direction. ‘These young supply vicars do not have the experience to be able to hold the attention of wayward Christians,’ admitted the Archbishop of Canterbury. ‘The moment they turn their back they are pelted with screwed up service sheets and Alpha Course leaflets made into paper planes, and many of them just don’t know what to do.’

Piers Turner, a City of London investment banker, has hit out at claims that he is being taken advantage of during his regular visits to a local lap-dancing club and insists that he finds the experience ‘empowering’.

‘I know that in our modern, post-feminist world, the professional women that work in these clubs sometimes worry that they’re exploiting the clientèle,’ explained the 42-year-old father of three, ‘But frankly, I’m fat and ugly as sin, and for a tenner I can get a 19-year-old living Barbie doll to wobble her astoundingly pert bottom in my face. It makes me feel sexy and confident.’