The poor and sick come to be healed in Iain Duncan Smith’s river of tears

A wicked world. And he should know.

Former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has reinvented himself as a spiritual healer who cures the sick in the river of tears he cries at the wickedness of the world, it was revealed today.

In something of a departure from his previous role of “nasty heartless bastard”, Duncan Smith began his new vocation by breaking down in tears during the filming of a documentary about poverty.

It was several minutes before anyone realised that he wasn’t actually in tears of laughter at the plight of a 19-year-old single mother who had given up all hope of work.

“Life can be so cruel,” Duncan Smith sobbed, “That poor girl, she was a product of an evil system. And I should know.”

The former minister would have been even more convincing had it not been pointed out that he had personally cut the woman’s housing benefit payments, turned off her heating and come round late at night to smash all her windows.

Sitting cross-legged on a bed of nails in front of the bewildered television presenters, Duncan Smith announced that from this moment forth he would weep endless tears of pain on behalf of society’s mistreated victims, bathing their fevered brow in the salty droplets emanating from his great bald head.

“Apart from disabled people, obviously,” he clarified. “They can still go and fuck themselves.”