Duel report:

One crisp autumn morning four killers gathered on the Backs. The small crowd of spectators noted the renowned and prolific Dial Emma for Murder (Simon Ford) dressed in a dapper black hat, femme fatale Sicaria (Rosemary Warner), mini-Valkyrie The Man of the Timber Industry (Paivi Pasi) and rampant Europhobe Iain Duncan Smith (Matt Laycock). Soon there would be only one.

Three of the four were heavily armed, bearing the latest CPS-branded automatic weapons. However, DilEmma's strict moral code forbade him from using such crude tools. Instead he carried a dozen orange carrot-shaped throwing knives, confident that agility would trump firepower. The Umpire shook his head sadly and hung a spare CPS-1500 on a tree in the centre of the playing area in case he changed his mind.

The duelists spread out and with a word from the Umpire, battle commenced.

Immediately the Caians, Sicaria and Iain Duncan Smith, squared up against DilEmma and The Man of the Timber Industry. Being inferior Dutch produce, DilEmma's orange knives were easy to dodge so Iain Duncan Smith's superior firepower quickly put a big hole in him. Soon after, the Man of the Timber Industry found the trees were too sparse to stop the Caians flanking her, and Sicaria mowed her down.

Then there were two. Sicaria and Iain Duncan Smith turned on each other, spending several minutes taking pot shots and dodging in and out of their weapons' maximum range. Spotting an opportunity Iain Duncan Smith sprinted to the tree with the spare weapon and grabbed it. Mighty muscles bulging, he wielded the spare CPS-1500 in one hand and his own CPS-1000 in the other, still managing to find sufficient fingers to cross-pump the weapons and maintain maximum power. The quiet man of British politics roared and leapt back into the fray!

Sicaria was tiring, the usually precise and relentless assassin was hampered by a bandaged hand from an earlier tragic chopping accident involving Spanish onions. The wound made it difficult to pump so when her gun sputtered IDS took his chance and blasted her to a better place.

For Betsy!

So Iain Duncan Smith did not die that day. His death came decades later when he ate an unregulated baked Camembert and exploded in an apopleptic fit.

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