Traditionally in Britain, the media print false stories as a joke on April the first. These can be quite sophisticated. Famously, in 1977, The Guardian printed a seven page supplement to celebrate the anniversary of the independence of San Seriffe. But in fact they had invented the existence of the country. Read the details here.
Previously, no doubt the most well-known example was the BBC news report on the Spaghetti harvest. You can watch it here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU
Today, with the crisis in progress, extravagant jokes might seem to be in bad taste. Nevertheless it may be that some stories in the news are untrue. Sadly, the ones we wish were not true are not jokes. Today's newspapers see the conservative Daily Mail (normally not a critic of Johnson) criticizing the government, and The Sun praising the role of the army in dealing with the crisis. We also see the light-hearted tradition of British tabloids, with a front page about seagulls.
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