Pizza helps criminals and anti-vaxxers!

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly column looking at the lighter side of politics.

First Eurovision, then the European football championship, and now Italy has won … hostage negotiations!

A pair of Swedish criminals took two prison guards hostage this week and had two demands — a helicopter and pizzas for the other inmates (Spoiler alert: They only got one of them).

The two prisoners, both jailed for murder and being held at Hällby high security jail near the town of Eskilstuna, managed to force themselves into an area reserved for guards before making their demands for escape and cheese.

“We quickly sent in a mediator,” said prison official Torkel Omnell, according to the Local, without specifying if the mediator worked for Uber Eats or Deliveroo.

Swedish media reported that one of the prison guards was released in exchange for the pizzas, and the other was released several hours later. According to an EU law passed during the last Italian presidency of the Council of the EU, any prisoner who asks for pizza as part of a hostage situation must receive it, but if they ask for pineapple as a topping they get an extra five years added to their sentence.

Rumors that the tram that looked liked frites from Belgium’s national day parade was actually on its way to Brussels’ Haren prison were unconfirmed at the time of going to press.

Speaking of pizza, if someone on Facebook asks if you’ve met the Pizza King, contact the authorities.

According to NBC, anti-vax groups on the social media hellhole have wised up (as much as you can wise up if you’re an anti-vaxxer) and started using codenames to prevent detection by Nick Clegg and his minions.

So instead of openly arranging a meeting to gather with no masks on and spread the virus and kill yet more grandmas, they are using euphemisms such as “Dance Party” or “Dinner Party” and inserting code words in order to avoid being banned by Facebook.

The NBC report says “danced” or “drank beer” means “got the vaccine.” References to “Pfizer” are often replaced with the terms “pizza” or “Pizza King,” and Moderna is referred to as “Moana.” 

This is terrible news as this weekend I was planning on holding a socially distanced get-together with beer, pizza and the Disney film “Moana.” Those damn anti-vaxxers spoil everything!

CAPTION COMPETITION

“Disappointment as the British competitor fails to show up in person for the Olympics medal ceremony.”

Can you do better? Email [email protected] or on Twitter @pdallisonesque

Last week we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our postbag (there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze).

“Your great grandfather would have wanted the Danes to win anyway,” by Alex Jacobsen.

Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s slot news editor.