My money-saving tips for Rachel Reeves

It is always upsetting to watch a woman enmired in distress and so I thought I might ride on my trusty charger to the assistance of Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, with a few suggestions as to where she might make spending cuts. Rachel needs these cuts because she can’t raise taxes and the British economy is lying flat on its back in an alleyway with wee dribbling down its leg. Growth is what we need, plus some serious savings to the Exchequer.

My first suggestion would be to cut the rate of benefits by 25 per cent across the board. This would immediately save about £70 billion but, more importantly, would convey to those people who survive on benefits the extraordinary notion that getting a job might be a good idea, all things considered. We have approximately 9.3 million people aged between 16 and 64 not in or looking for work, some 800,000 more than before that overrated little Chinese virus struck us in 2020. The gap between what a family gains in benefits each week and the average wage is far too narrow to convince an even half-sentient person that working is a preferable option.

There will be complaints that my 25 per cent cut will harm those who are out of work for no reason other than that they are ‘sick’. OK, sure. But here we need to sort out the malingerers from the truly deserving and Rachel can do precisely that using my new simple chart which categorises some afflictions as genuine and others as being a tad ectoplasmic. So, for example, having no legs, being terminally ill, having half a brain removed in an industrial accident and so on would all qualify those suffering for a perhaps greater rate of state benefits.