Cameron: Unemployment In This Country Is Caused By The Unemployed

On the eve of the Tory Conference in Manchester, party leader David Cameron has bravely stuck his neck out, risking public censure by identifying Britain's unemployed millions as the root of all evil.

"Just as we all know that rape, murder, fraud and burglary are entirely the fault of the victims, it goes without saying that jobless scum are the sole cause of all this unemployment," Mr Cameron whispered seductively into Andrew Marr's flapping ear this morning. "I know this is not going to go down well with the do-gooders at the Daily Mail and the rest of the liberal media, because the unemployed are loved by all and have powerful vested interests lobbying constantly on their behalf - but I will not shirk from saying it anyway."

"And the same goes for those feckless, workshy bastards in wheelchairs too," he added.

"The theme of our conference will be to get Britain working again," he continued bravely. "We will scrap Labour's disastrous policies which, instead of creating real, worthwhile jobs, served only to mask the true levels of unemployment in this country. Useless schemes like New Deal will be replaced by a one-to-one personalised service, whose aim will be to twist those bone-idle dossers' arms into signing up for training schemes. We could call it Big Deal, so people will see just how radically different and original it is."

When Mr Marr suggested that training schemes were by no stretch of the imagination equivalent to proper jobs, however, Mr Cameron disagreed vehemently.

"Not so," he countered. "Let's say, for sake of argument, that I am an employer and I need some oik to clean the toilets. I have two options. I can squander some of my accumulated wealth - which, as everybody knows, is so essential to the recovery of our economy - by putting an ad in the paper, going to the time and trouble of interviewing candidates, after which I put an employee on the payroll. I am then forced to pay wages, national insurance and god knows what else, possibly for years and years.

"Or I can ring up the Jobcentre and tell them that I may be willing, for a small consideration, for them to select and send over a trainee for a fixed period of time, during which they will gain priceless workplace experience as they practice and develop the skills necessary to scrape shit off toilets. Then, when the toilets are nice and shiny, I can get rid of the lazy little runt until such time as my toilets are overflowing with crap again.

"So you see, a training course is indeed every bit as good as a job," he concluded. "If not better."

"Vote Conservative," he added.