Satire writers at The Rochdale Herald have been left doubting their future after a ‘test’ post collected more likes today than most ‘serious’ posts have done so far this year.

“I wrote a really funny article on Brexit” bleated Tom Posset, an up and coming writer clearly deeply hurt by the success of the post.

“The headline came to me at breakfast” he continued, “it took until nearly tea time to get those 250 words of gold all in the right order to make a story.

“That’s how it works at Rochdale Towers. All the words have to be in the right order and funny or we get beaten.

“So far, twenty seven writers have been to see nursey for treatment, tea or maybe just a cuddle. Output on the newspaper has dropped by 64% since the test post went out this morning and levels of satire and comedy have also plummeted drastically.

“So many people commented ‘icle’ and its so much funnier than anything I’ve written for ages” he sobbed.

A spokeshoaxer from The Rochdale Herald earlier told us that the usually hilarious newspaper has even started advertising on social media to try to prop up the ailing satire palace by employing new writers to boost flagging readership.