Chancellor announces long-term unemployed to be herded into camps

Osborne crosses his fingers for luck as he announces his Big Idea.

Chancellor George Osborne today used his speech at the Tory Party conference to announce a new policy in which the long-term unemployed will be herded into camps and rendered what he calls ‘statistically invisible’.

“There are 200,000 long-term unemployed in this country,” he said. “I’m going to end this something for nothing culture, prise them away from their cigarettes, their massive televisions and their X-boxes and send them somewhere where they won’t keep buggering up my figures on economic recovery.”

“Some people say to me that there are no jobs. To them I say nonsense! If you want a job you ask daddy for one, it’s easy. Others say that they cannot work because they are sick or disabled. To them I also say nonsense! And further more – pshaw! There is no such thing as a sick or disabled person only scroungers whom Atos haven’t declared fit for work yet but they will, believe me they will.”

“Critics say that we Tories scapegoat the most disadvantaged in our society but nothing could be further from the truth. When Vodafone was disadvantaged by a six billion pound corporation tax bill we let them off. When just last week the EU said it would disadvantage our banker chums by capping their bonuses we instantly launched a legal challenge so that snouts can remain firmly in troughs for years to come.”

Getting into his stride the Chancellor gave more details on his new scheme.

“There is nothing sinister about the camps, we are inviting the public to think of them as massive job centres. That way the long-term unemployed will be permanently at the job centre, as indeed they should be, until such times as they find work in our booming economy with its many vacancies that don’t have zero hours contracts and pay a living wage in sectors such as…such as…um…I’ll get back to you on that one.”

“There is of course another way in which jobseekers will be exiting the camps but I’ll leave it to Iain Duncan Smith to tell you all about that as it’s got him really excited.”