The Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell has angrily denied that he had to issue Prime Minister Gordon Brown with a verbal warning, following complaints from Downing Street staff that Brown had savaged several of them during the last full moon. “These claims are absolutely ludicrous,” said O’Donnell in a statement released to the press. “I have never had cause to speak to Mr Brown over any such incidents, nor have I received any complaints about his alleged lycanthropy from any civil servants.” The extraordinary claims were made in political commentator Andrew Corybungo’s new biography of the Prime Minister – Howling Mad. “The fact that Brown carries the curse of the werewolf is an open secret in Westminster,” he claims. “Just like Michael Howard’s vampirism, and that David Cameron was bred in a test tube as part of an experiment to produce the perfect Tory. Not to mention the fact that Menzies Campbell was actually a 3,000 year old Egyptian mummy revived by the High Priests of Karnak.” According to the book, Downing Street staff live in fear of the full moon, which causes the Premier to transform into a hairy half-man, half-beast. “When it happens, he just flies into uncontrollable rages, tearing up furniture and attacking staff,” claims Corybungo. “At least two junior civil servants have had their throats torn out by the beast!” According to the journalist, the bodies were later dumped in a skip round the back of Downing Street by Education Secretary Ed Balls, the deaths blamed on illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe. There is controversy as to how Brown contracted lycanthropy, with some sources claiming that it is the result of a gypsy curse invoked by Tory leader David Cameron. However, most political experts are agreed that be became infected after being bitten by his predecessor’s press secretary, Alastair Campbell. “Most people thought Alastair was just rabid,” one unnamed Downing Street insider is quoted as saying in Corybungo’s book. “But once a month he’d go completely berserk and turn into a slavering beast, tearing up the furniture and howling at the moon – it was terrifying!” It is thought that Brown was bitten during a furious confrontation with Campbell, who had accused the then Chancellor of briefing against Prime Minister Blair. “At first Brown didn’t seem any different, most of the Treasury staff were used to his ranting and moodiness,” claims Corybungo. “But eyebrows were raised when, in dead of night, he broke into Number Ten and chased a pyjama clad Tony Blair up a tree in the garden, apparently howling that the Prime Minister had ruined his life.”

The tree incident, which had reportedly followed a row between the two earlier that day over when the Prime Minister would step down, resulted in Blair’s resignation. “He and his family were living in fear of their lives,” says Corybungo. “Once Brown took over as Prime Minister, the lycanthropy seemed to get worse – it was as if the pressures of the job were pushing him further into the arms of his inner beast.” The writer claims that a massive cover-up of Brown’s werewolf rampages has ensued, with several of his closest political allies colluding to keep the facts from the electorate. “Most of the time his lycanthropy is kept under control by Ed Balls and Lord Mandelson strapping him into a chair fastened to the floor of a dungeon in the basement of Number Ten every full moon,” Corybungo explains. “They usually throw him some raw meat before locking him up, although on at least one occasion they reportedly gave him some live sheep to tear apart!” However, Balls and Mandelson haven’t always been successful in caging the Premier during his lycanthropic episodes, with Brown managing to escape and roam free on several occasions, terrorising Westminster. “It isn’t just civil servants who live in terror of the fiend when he goes on the rampage – even cabinet colleagues tread in fear of his bestial rage,” Corybungo says. ” Whilst in werewolf form, the Prime Minister once chased Jack Straw down Whitehall, snapping at his heels, after he suspected his involvement in a plot against him – luckily for the Justice Secretary, he’d taken the precaution of wearing wolfsbane in his buttonhole, which repelled the beast.” Indeed, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling recently spoke of how the ‘forces of Hell’ had been unleashed against him following his remarks that the economic recession was the worst on record. “He was foolish enough to come out with that just before a full moon,” says Corybungo. “Next thing he knew, the wolf was literally howling outside the door of Number Eleven!” According to the book, a terrified Darling fled to the Treasury, where he started melting down anything silver he could find and casting it into bullets. “There wasn’t a tea spoon or candlestick left in the place,” reveals Corybungo. “Although it isn’t clear what he intended to do with the bullets, as he didn’t actually have a gun. Perhaps he was intending to use the crude slingshot fashioned from paper clips and an elastic band, which was later found under his desk, to fire them at the Prime Minister.” Luckily, a group of Downing Street aides armed with tranquiliser darts and a net were able to catch the Prime Minister before he could break down the doors of the Treasury.

Whilst Corybungo concedes that his book is based entirely upon the unsubstantiated claims of anonymous sources, none of whom ever actually saw the Prime Minister turn into a werewolf, he stands by the allegations. “There’s physical evidence to support it – Brown’s eyebrows clearly meet in the middle, and he has low slung ears,” he says. “Not to mention his aversion to silver – when he first met the Queen after becoming Prime Minister, he reportedly shrieked and fled the Palace after she got out the silver tea service!” Senior Labour party officials have vehemently denied Corybungo’s allegations, dismissing his book as being ‘pure fabrication’. However, some have conceded that if Brown was a werewolf, this wouldn’t necessarily be seen as an electoral liability. “Voters like to see an assertive leader – they’ll know that he’d quite literally fight tooth and claw for the country,” muses Assistant Party Secretary Frank Crutchless. “Besides, he wouldn’t be the first supernatural being to hold power: Winston Churchill was a mouldering living corpse for the last few years of his premiership, and he didn’t do too badly, did he?” Nevertheless, although denied by cabinet colleagues, the story has been given some credence by the revelation that the South Yorkshire Occult Society’s supernatural help line had received at least three calls from Downing Street staff enquiring about defences against lycanthropic attacks. “People have every right to feel safe from supernatural attack in their own workplace,” said the Society’s founder, ‘Bishop’ John Salford. “I think that it is important people realise this sort of thing isn’t just confined to Gothic castles and haunted mansions. It can happen anywhere – only last week we had a call from someone working a call centre whose boss was a witch, and abusing their magical powers. But they should also be aware that there is help available for such situations.”