OVER the next few days, there may be claims that I have engaged in acts of reprehensible greed in exchange for offers of cash.

I wish to make it absolutely clear that I am completely innocent of these accusations. They have been cobbled together by an opportunist documentary crew with a hidden camera and an axe to grind.

The unscrupulous filmmakers posed as representatives of various fictitious organisations and enticed me to say things which were then manipulated and taken out of context.

I was filmed, for example, apparently agreeing to an £8,000 fee in exchange for writing favourable articles in this newspaper about the Association for Stamping on Baby Bunnies.

This group, I was told, was thinking of moving its base to Swindon and needed some good publicity.

Naturally, I assumed the work of the Association for Stamping on Baby Bunnies consisted of gently stamping the delicate creatures with a harmless identifying mark prior to export.

At no point do I recall being told that the association aimed to promote stamping on juvenile rabbits as a spectator sport.

I was, of course, aware that the fictitious organisation’s logo showed a small rabbit, with crosses for eyes and its tongue hanging out, protruding from beneath a large hobnailed boot, but to me this merely seemed a harmless visual pun.

I was similarly misled about the aims of Cigs for Kids, another non-existent organisation used by the filmmakers to entrap me.

You may see a sequence in which I was told: “Our clients are a group of tax-dodging cigarette importers who plan on flogging their wares outside junior schools and nurseries in the hope of getting the kids addicted as early as possible. How much would we have to pay you to say we were champions of free will, and that any objections were just political correctness gone mad?”

I then say: “About ten grand should do the trick.“ However, at no point was it explicitly stated that the cigarettes were made of tobacco, so I naturally assumed that Cigs for Kids was promoting chocolate cigarettes as a way of diverting our precious children from the real thing.

My agreement to promote Speedo-Dins was also secured by trickery. The organisation was presented to me as pioneering a way of improving the efficiency of meal times at care homes for the elderly and similar organisations. It may have been mentioned to me in passing that this consisted of lacing desserts with amphetamines so the recipients leapt from their seats and frenziedly cleaned the kitchens, but I didn’t pay this much heed.

After all, I am not a scientist.

Finally there is the matter of Satan’s Realm, whose purported representatives said: “We need you to write something nice about our great master before he assumes his rightful domain on earth for all time.”

Although I agreed in exchange for the promise of riches beyond my wildest dreams, I wish to stress that I carelessly misread the headed notepaper and thought it said: “Santa’s realm.”

I hope my statement clarifies my position on these matters.

I’m so disgusted by the vile slurs against my character that I’m thinking of an alternative career, perhaps in politics.

In the meantime, in order to prove how innocent I am, I have already referred myself for investigation by a special committee that was set up by me and my mates.

Justice won’t be served with a more pricey pint

LAST month the Great Western Hospital had to cancel some operations because its A&E department was so busy.

Many of the people clogging casualty are there because of drink-related issues.

It’s a similar story at hospitals up and down the country, and NHS chief Simon Stevens says raising the price of alcohol is the solution.

Well, that makes perfect sense to me, I must say.

It’s obviously the mere availability of drink that’s the problem here, not the calibre of the people using it and how we then deal with those people.

Only a fool would draw any other conclusion.

In the last week, for example, our courts have heard about a number of innocent people injured by folk who’d been drinking.

There was the man left needing staples in his head when somebody threw a glass at him, and the two men set on and mercilessly battered after trying to stop two other blokes from abusing takeaway staff. And the man beaten up when he intervened after seeing a woman have a plastic bag put over her head.

In each case, the perpetrators walked free, but it would be naive to think such sentences in any way fail to deter fools from drinking too much and committing offences.

Nor is there anything wrong with making us all pay for the activities of the few who abuse alcohol and harm themselves and others.

No, our only option is to put up the price of all drink to all people, even the completely innocent ones who use it in moderation.

While we’re at it, let’s raise the price of knives to £100 because they can be used to stab people and the price of shoes to £500 a pair because they can be used to kick people.