From our London correspondent

 STRIKING SUICIDE  BOMBERS  

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to  begin a three-day strike on Monday in a dispute over the number of  virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al  Qaeda management have so far failed to produce an agreement. The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda  announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive  after his death will be cut by 25% next January from 72 to only 60. The  rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of  suicide bombings and a subsequent shortage of virgins in the  afterlife. The suicide bombers' union, the British  Organisation of Occupational Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a  statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately  balloted for strike action. General secretary Abdullah Amir told the  press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the  cause of jihad.. We don't ask for much in return but to be treated like  this by management is a kick in the teeth."
 Mr Amir accepted the limited availability of  virgins but pointed out that the cutbacks were expected to be borne  entirely by the workforce and not by management. "Last Christmas Abu  Hamza alone was awarded an annual bonus of 250,000 virgins," complains  Amir. "And you can be sure they'll all be pretty ones too. How can Al  Qaeda afford that for members of the management but not 72 for the  people who do the real work?"

Speaking from the shed in the West Midlands  where he currently resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden  explained, "We sympathise with our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is  simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not  accepting the realities of modern-day jihad, in a competitive  marketplace. Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic  shortage of virgins in the afterlife.. It's a straight choice between  reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don't like cutting wages  but I'd hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff that they won't be able  to blow themselves up."  He defended management bonuses by claiming  these were necessary to attract good fanatical clerics. "How am I  supposed to attract the best people if I can't compete with the private  sector?" asked Mr. Bin-Laden.

Talks broke down this morning after  management's last-ditch proposal of a virgin-sharing scheme was rejected  outright after a failure to agree on orifice allocation quotas. One  virgin, who refused to be named, was quoted as saying "I'll be buggered  if I'm agreeing to anything like that........it's too much of a mouthful  to swallow". Unless some sort of agreement is reached over  the weekend, suicide bombers will down explosives at midday on Monday.  Most branches are supporting the strike. Only the North London branch,  which has a different union, is likely to continue working. However,  some members of that branch will only be using waist-down explosives in  order to express solidarity with their striking  brethren.