Spectator competition winners: Government ministries you didn’t know existed

In Competition No. 3260, a challenge suggested by a reader, you were invited to reveal the existence of a hitherto unsuspected government department by means of a speech by its minister explaining its important policies.

Among those entries with a distinct whiff of plausibility was Alan Millard’s Department for Silly Talks, which aims ‘to encourage the proliferation of senseless gobbledegook amongst politicians, professional groups and the general population so that anything anyone says becomes too unintelligible to understand’ and to thereby ‘disseminate utter confusion amongst the populace forcing them to accept parliament’s decisions by being too bewildered to challenge them’.

Honourable mentions are also awarded to other worthy runners-up: Brian Murdoch, Frank McDonald, Adrian Fry, David Silverman, David Shields and D.A. Prince. The winners, printed below, pocket £30 each.

Department of Absolute Fantasy What is DAF? you ask. I say it is the lubricious mechanism of the state. I say it is the power in the government’s engines.