Common Decency

Despite generous help from a plucky little nation of curtain-twitching, tale-tattling, tut-tutting amateur sleuths, and undoubtedly despite the best will in the world, the Department of Workfare and Privation is having some small difficulty maintaining a satisfactory quota of skiver-busting. Out of nearly three hundred thousand denunciations on the government's Shop-A-Shirker hotline, about eighty-seven per cent have proven false, even by the DWP's largely undemanding standards of fairness. With the noted food-bank fan and cripple-kicker Esther McVey only recently put in charge, it remains as yet unclear whether the DWP plans to set up any hotlines for those who suspect that their friends and neighbours have not been properly informed of the benefits to which they are entitled and are therefore receiving less than their due.