Conservative Coldplay? Biscuit roads? April fools!

LONDON - Rock star Chris Martin has joined forces with Britain's right-wing opposition to unseat Prime Minister Tony Blair, after his Hollywood wife Gwyneth Paltrow met the Conservative leader's wife at yoga class.

Meanwhile, Blair's own wife Cherie has removed the landmark black door of his Number 10 Downing Street office and swapped it for a red one.

And engineers have discovered that ginger nut biscuits are the ideal material for paving roads.

It's April Fools day, and Britain's newspapers are up to their usual annual mischief, with a series of hoax news stories presented as if they were true.

The left-leaning Guardian came up with the tale of Martin - vegetarian frontman for the rock band Coldplay - joining forces with David Cameron, the trendy new face of the once-staid Conservative party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

A phoney photo showed Martin and Cameron sharing a microphone. Martin is quoted saying he had lost faith in Blair.

"I invited him round to explain himself to me and a group of likeminded friends - about how he was going to make poverty history and all that. But he never turned up. Madonna walked out and Stella (McCartney) was totally gutted."

In his new song supposedly recorded to support the Conservatives, available from the paper for download, "Martin" sings that recent events "smashed my illusions about Tony Blair/ His shoes, his suits, his terrible hair."

The Daily Mail newspaper showed workmen carrying a new red door to replace the landmark black door of Number 10 Downing Street. The headline read: "Has Cherie gone too far with the redecorating this time?"

And road workers are depicted in the Daily Express crushing biscuits with a giant steamroller to make a better highway surface.

"Years of experimental research revealed that crushed up ginger nuts are the best biscuit for a road's sub-base, as they are more porous and allow water to drain away," the paper said.

- REUTERS