A tongue-in-cheek column by reporter Sam Turton.

As some of you may have seen, the BBC recently broadcast a new series called Press starring, among others, Priyanga Burford and Ben Chaplin.

Since it broadcast, my friends have asked ’is it realistic’? Well no, it isn’t, no one swore, ever.

But above all else, it did nothing to represent our relationship with government, so I thought now is the time to let you in on the secrets of what we dare not report.

Each day we have our morning meeting where our editor Richard Butt, recently outed as anti-American (see letters a couple of weeks ago), sips black tea from his ’Make America Great Britain’s Again’ mug.

Richard never gets to stay long. He has his daily breakfast meeting to attend, where he and representatives from Manx Radio, 3FM and Energy FM meet Chief Minister Howard Quayle and discuss what news we can and can’t report that week.

Among these bits of common knowledge among the liberal media elite include Mr Quayle’s weekly game of Steam Packet Battleships with Liberal Vannin leader Kate Beecroft. There they practise their lines for their two-character play in the latest episode of the increasingly unpopular weekly soap opera ’House of Keys’ narrated by local author and satirist Juan ’Tynwaldballs’ Watterson.

Mr Quayle is not the only member of the Cabinet with a secret as Environment Minister Geoffrey ’Do as I Say Not As I Do’ Boot continues his bid to fuel the island’s future wind farm with oil.

This plan has been stamped as ’Top Secret’, meaning only a dozen or so cashiers at M&S have heard of it before now. Meanwhile, sat in the ivory towers of government offices is Treasury Minister Alfred Cannan, fresh off his Michael Mcintyre-inspired Budget Roadshow where he gave lesser well-known department members the opportunity to meet the people who could one day blame them for government failings.

Having successfully negotiated a deal to purchase two ageing boats and secured the future of the island’s transportation needs, he has his eyes on a bigger prize. For weeks, he has been watching Flybe’s stock price tailspin while he considers a move to buy the airline and relaunch it as Fly Manx.

His plan won’t stop there, the farmers of the north will be providing in-flight meals while the security chaos at Ronaldsway will be deemed as reason to move the island’s airport to his constituency with Jurby Airfield confirmed as the airline’s home base.

There will be no taxis, but plenty of minibuses to take people to the new airport, provided you live north of Kirk Michael of course. As for Infrastructure, Ray Harmer is still insisting the MER will continue to Ramsey, as the empty trams have proved cheaper to run than empty double decker buses.

The most cunning scheme, of course, is that of Health Minister David Ashford, who plans to remove all doctors from the island, leaving only Dr Alex Allinson to treat the sick, hoping it will distract him from future Chief Minister elections.

Enterprise chief Laurence Skelly who, despite ringing up several businesses with the offer of a share of £50m transferred into their bank account, has had no takers.

Minister for Policy and Silly Walks Chris Thomas plots the overthrow of local authorities. And Education Minister Graham Cregeen recently spent an entire summer holiday burning copies of An Inspector Calls.

We, the liberal lefty snowflake media, all know these things. We just can’t report on them, otherwise the government would send us to its secret (oops) gulag.

So don’t tell them you know.