Tim Wilkinson on Dan Davies - "Back of Mind"

Before bendy bananas it was the loony left with baa baa green sheep. Thing is that the humour in this genre is intended to ridicule and not just to be engaging. There's a gaslighting element, written on the face of Littlejohn's shtick - 'you couldn't make it up' (said of something you've just made up). But this approach also makes a virtue out of implausibly extreme allegations by making them, specifically, implausibly ridiculous. So they become memorable and useful to repeat in the pub that evening in lieu of wit. Those factors along with the inherent humour of the ridiculous help to cancel, divert or override the reader's bullshit detection faculties.