Great Britain loses self respect

Britain is reeling tonight following the revelation that its self respect has gone missing. The self respect, last seen in the possession of Tony Blair, is over a thousand years old and is of great sentimental value to the nation. Mr Blair was arsing around with his friend George when it is believed the self respect either fell out of his pocket or was swapped by Mr Blair for some favourable coverage on Fox News.

"This is a tragedy" said historian Simon Shama. "Britain’s self respect goes back to the days of killing foreigners, an ignorant peasantry who lived in constant fear of death and disease, Britannia ruling the waves and the threat of eternal damnation if you were caught chewing on a Sunday."

Mr Blair was dismissive when challenged.

"Look, it isn’t as if we’ve used it much over the past few years is it? It was rather tatty and uncool. I’ve been looking on the internet and we can buy a digital self respect replacement from California for a tenth of what we used to pay just cleaning the old one."

The country’s self respect had been kept in a vault beneath Westminster and has only been seen in public twice in the last fifty years. The first was in 1966 and the second was a brief exhibition in 1982. Even then it was looking rather shabby and could’ve done with a bit of stitching.

Clive Mould of "Brit Pride" called on Mr Blair to find the original no matter what the cost.

"There is a procedure in place for emergencies such as this. There is a test tube in the Bank of England which contains genetic material taken from Pickles the dog. Scientists could easily recreate the dog that found the World Cup and he would sniff out our nation’s self respect in under half an hour. Fact."

Mr Blair dismissed calls for him to clone a dog saying "That wouldn’t be cool."

Other European nations have given the news a mixed reaction. Germany, whose self respect is only sixty years old, called the news "very funny". France called for an immediate ban on exports of British self pity but their calls were rejected when it was pointed out that France’s self respect is a forgery and is only recognised by the French. Belgium said they couldn’t comment as no one would be listening anyway.

Tony Blair is 36.