The Herald has discovered that father Christmas has been denied a visa to enter the UK on Christmas Eve, amid fears he may decide to settle and bring his entire family.

Father Christmas, real name Santa Claus, has never had to apply for a visa in the hundreds of years he’s been visiting on Christmas Eve.

A Home Office spokesperson told The Herald, “We received a visa application from a Mr Claus back in November citing the reason for his visit was to bring joy to millions of children. Well, that wound us up for a start. Here we are, a sitting government trying desperately to make life as miserable, uncomfortable and downright unpleasant for as many people as we possibly can and he wants to ‘cheer kids up a bit’ not on our watch that’s for sure!”

The spokesperson continued, “We also have reason to believe that he goes by many aliases, but that his real name is Nicolas and he’s originally from Turkey. Turkey FFS! So what he’s now doing supposedly living in the North Pole is anyone’s guess, and what if he likes it here in the UK? He’d bring over his wife and family. According to our intelligence reports he has hundreds of children, supposedly Elves but we all know Elves aren’t real so we weren’t fooled. As for his job, well, that was the clincher really. Anyone who only works once a year and doesn’t pay tax, is obviously a sponger, apart from a lot of CEO’s obviously.”

Asked whether there were any provisions for the delivery of presents to all the children of the UK now that Father Christmas wasn’t allowed in we were told, “No, but photo opportunities for MPs to hand out Kinder Eggs whilst pretending they give a toss about anyone other than themselves would be through the roof.”

Of course we all know that Father Christmas won’t take a blind bit of notice and will be here on Christmas Eve as usual.