Five backstop solutions that are obvious if you're thick

ARE you sick of the backstop getting in the way of Brexit while being too moronic to understand what it is? Leave voter Martin Bishop runs down the alternatives: 

Look out for bad foreigners

After Brexit, we’ll only really need a border to keep out bad foreigners, such as Eastern European gangsters, Islamic terrorists and the French. These rascals can be easily caught by sharp-eyed patriotic police officers and sniffer dogs trained to recognise garlic.

High-tech sensors and scanner thingies

Technology will remove the need for the backstop. I don’t need to specify what sort because I’m not a scientist. However on Star Trek they have scanners that tell them all about planets before they set foot on them, and we invented the bouncing bomb so I expect our boffins could easily come up with something like that.

Stop being so fussy

So what if there’s a bit of horse in your lasagne? It’s a delicacy in France. As for the EU worrying about dangerous goods being exported from the UK, let me tell you this: I bought a ‘Chikushou’ clock radio from the Wednesday market last month and it’s still working. That’s good enough for me.

Legalise smuggling

Smugglers in films are jolly pirate types with an admirable entrepreneurial spirit. And who doesn’t want a cut-price barrel of rum or 800 bargain Superkings? Now I think about it, it’s a bloody outrage smuggling is illegal in the first place. Typical EU red tape.

Put the IRA in charge of the Irish border

Set a thief to catch a thief, they say, so why not let the IRA deal with the border? They’ve got the men, they’ve got the guns and they won’t blow up their own customs posts. Crucially, there’ll be an effective deterrent for immigrants – kneecapping. This is so brilliant I can’t believe no-one’s thought of it before.

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Kevin McCloud over-budget, living in caravan and pregnant

KEVIN McCloud’s eco-friendly housing project is massively over-budget while the presenter is living on-site in a caravan and eight months pregnant, it has emerged. 

McCloud, who managed the project himself, has already had to sell his old house, remortgage the property, get financial help from his parents, spend his life savings and abandon his plans to retire.

But the Grand Designs frontman, who has been living in a one-bed caravan with his estranged wife and seven children for the last 38 months, maintains that everything is going according to plan.

He said: “Well, there were always going to be a few bumps in the road, but I’m still confident we’ll be in by Christmas.

“We just need to do the roof, the walls, the windows, all the electrical fitting, the bespoke bentwood spiral staircase has to be shipped from Germany and lifted in by crane, and the entire exterior needs to be hand-tiled while I apply for retrospective planning permission.

“Yes, perhaps I was a little over-ambitious and it’s not the ideal time for a new addition to the family, but the integrity of the build remains intact. And that’s the important thing.”

The project will next be seen in seven years time when McCloud, with markedly less hair, arrives to film a closing segment to find himself living there alone trying to finish the whole thing single-handed.