Britain stands on the brink of war as Prime Minister David Cameron presses ahead with his plans for a military intervention in Syria. “President Assad’s regime is presenting a clear threat to Britain with this constant stream of filth being beamed into our homes via the internet,” he told the Commons in advance of a vital vote to gain parliamentary approval for a surgical missile strike against a warehouse in Damascus. “I believe that we have sufficient evidence that the Syrian government is responsible for more than eighty percent of the internet pornography corrupting our children! Our intelligence services are confident that they have identified the building housing the servers hosting this filth. With a single strike we can all but eliminate the threat posed by this internet ‘dirty bomb’!” However, Labour leader Ed Miliband has argued passionately for restraint, pointing out that the intelligence is far from conclusive. “No definite link between the Syrian government and those servers has been established – they could just as easily be owned and controlled by elements of the Syrian revolutionaries,” he pointed out to the Commons. “Or, indeed, they could be controlled by commercial interests external to Syria. By destroying them, we could be facing a political and legal minefield!”

The leader of the opposition was also at pains to point out that, contrary to claims made in earlier Downing Street press briefings, the alleged Syrian pornography being served up on the internet did not contravene the Geneva Convention and was perfectly legal. The government has responded angrily to these suggestions, claiming that covert sources had revealed that much illegal child pornography was emanating from the Syrian servers. “Moreover, we have credible sources telling us that many of the performers in the so-called ‘legal’ porn were, in fact, acting under duress,” a Downing Street spokesperson told the press. “They were told that if they shag, their relatives would be imprisoned and tortured – and the torture sessions filmed and posted on BDSM sites!” Nevertheless, Miliband is adamant that no action should be taken before inspectors from the International Adult Film and Erotic Entertainment Association, currently in Syria to inspect the country’s porn production facilities, makes its report. “They are the experts and we need to give them a chance to do their job,” he declared. “If there are servers pumping out illegal online porn, or studios making adult films under duress, then I’m confident that they will find them.” According to Labour Party sources, Miliband has privately let it be known that he believes the current crisis has been engineered by the Prime Minister to deflect attention from the lukewarm reception to his previous anti-internet porn initiative, which involved forcing web filters onto every internet user in the UK so as to censor what they could see on the web.

“It’s clear the anti-porn filters are a non-starter,” a source close to the Labour leadership has told The Sleaze. “Nobody but a few right-wing nutters are interested. That’s the problem – Cameron just can’t understand why everybody else isn’t as obsessed with online porn as him. Rumours are rife that he spends hours in a secure room in Downing Street looking at the stuff – purely for research purposes, obviously. This Syrian gambit is his last desperate attempt to convince the electorate that internet porn truly poses an international threat!” The source also claims to have seen the intelligence report, prepared by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), Downing Street has been claiming supports its allegations that the Syrian government is controlling the global internet porn industry. “Talk about dodgy dossiers! That report went beyond being just ‘dodgy’ – it was pure filth!” he says. “It seemed to consist entirely of screenshots of the most disgusting hardcore porn sites imaginable! I’m shocked that we pay our intelligence services apparently to spend all day looking at internet smut under the guise of intelligence analysis!”

There are fears that Cameron has become so obsessed with the issue of internet porn that he could launch a missile strike regardless of the outcome of a parliamentary vote. Indeed, preparations for military action are already at a very advanced stage. “A nuclear attack submarine is already on station in the Mediterranean and the targeting data for its cruise missiles is being finalised as we speak,” a Ministry of Defence source has told The Sleaze. “The Navy is confident that they can take out the servers hosting those porn sites with a single strike!” However, Cameron may not have to act unilaterally, with US President Obama currently soliciting support from Congress for a US strike against Syrian internet pornography. “Obama’s proposals for military intervention are somewhat more extensive than Cameron’s,” explains the Labour Party source. “As well as a surgical missile strike on the servers, he’s also planning to take out several studios and apartments allegedly used for porn production. If it is approved by Congress, the strikes could cause carnage!”

Although Obama’s rationale for the strikes is similar to Cameron’s – the clear and present danger to American morals presented by Syrian internet smut – critics have questioned his motivation . “He can present all the satellite imagery allegedly showing porn movies being shot in downtown Damascus to Congress he likes, but the fact remains that the entire premise for these attacks is ludicrous,” Professor Jim Nabbit, an expert on international erotica, has told top tabloid the Weekly World Shopper. “The bulk of the world’s internet porn isn’t held on a couple of servers in Syria! Most of it is made and hosted in Eastern Europe, the professional stuff, anyway. Increasingly it is amateur stuff, which can be made and uploaded anywhere! Blowing up a warehouse in Damascus is going to make no difference whatsoever.” Nabbit suspects that Obama is actually acting a tool for the US Adult-Erotic Complex, attempting to protect indigenous US porn production. “The US adult industry is increasingly under pressure from the cheaper foreign producers,” he says. “With the current production shutdown due to a performer testing HIV positive, they are really up against it. They are worried that there is a stockpile of hot Arab porn in that warehouse which the Syrians are planning to flood the US market with, thereby finishing off our indigenous industry. The truth is that Obama is simply trying to make the world safe for American porn!”