Tomorrow's Proles

Concerned to a degree beneath his powers of expression about the treatment of a few proles by a charity of which one of his party chums is the head, Daveybloke has extruded a spokesbeing to confirm that, for this year at least, it was all a one-off. Abuses of the unemployed are almost always one-offs, just as abuses of unemployment benefits are almost always part of a trend indicating a broken society, a lack of responsibility, the decline of family values and the approaching end of civilisation. In any case, it was all for their own good: "The work programme itself offers experience," lectured the spokesbeing, "and the chance to develop those skills that people really need to get into sustainable jobs"; skills such as changing clothes in public, sleeping rough and doing without a toilet break for twenty-four hours. Although the idea that amateur security work during a diamond jubilee somehow qualifies as "sustainable" has an unhealthy whiff of Osborne mathematics about it, no doubt we may be comforted that the Bullingdon Club's concern for the living standards of the lower orders is just as robust as ever.