But Your Readers Are Middle Class, Government Tells Writers

The government has responded to criticism by some of Britain’s leading writers of its decision to pull £13m of funding from a children’s literacy charity by pointing out that their readers are all middle class and can probably afford to cough up the readies for a book or two a year.

"To put a gift of books into the hands of newborn children and their parents is to help open the door into the great treasury of reading, which is the inheritance of every one of us, and the only road to improvement and development and intellectual delight in every field of life,” complained middle-class children’s author Philip Pullman, while Andrew Motion - who used to write lah-di-dah poetry for the Queen - came out with some airy-fairy effort that didn’t even rhyme

"In these difficult economic times, ministers have to take tough decisions on spending," said a bored spokesman at the Department for Education who was manning the phones over the Christmas break. “And, as usual, they have decided the underclass can take the hit. After all, if the scum can’t read and write, they’ll have a bit of a job claiming benefit. Anyway, all they do with books is draw cocks all over them before tearing them up to make roaches so they can get stoned.”

Rich bastard, Young Conservative, dying peasant - it's the perfect Christmas

“I was fascinated, in the run-up to Christmas, to watch Ian Hislop’s illuminating three-part documentary on BBC2 about the Victorian do-gooders,” explained bloated prime minister David Cameron, as a manservant cleared away the vast quantity of leftovers from last night’s five-course Christmas banquet. “For any Tory, it was a bit like watching a ready-made hit list of all the great reforms that need undoing.”

“It’s understandable, with the French Revolution still fresh in everybody’s minds, why the ruling classes of the day might have felt it necessary to throw a few scraps to the great unwashed,” he admitted, “But now they’re all safely pacified with reality TV, soccer and lager, there’s simply no need for all that rubbish any more. It’s just the middle classes, like the bloody students, that we have to keep sweet.”

“The lower orders used to bump along just fine without literacy, morals, healthcare, rights or freedom before,” he insisted. “I’m sure they can manage again. And I’ll tell you another thing - back in those days, they bloody well knew their place.”

“By the way, did everybody see Doctor Who?” he added with a belch, waving a glazed leg of lamb at his webcam. “In a way that’s just what my Big Society is all about – interfering know-alls taking it upon themselves to make things better for their friends and the rich without wasting a second’s thought on the underlying issues of poverty and ill-health, And if poor people have to die needlessly, well, too bad. That’s what they’re there for.”