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Iain Duncan Smith's £53 a week diary

MONDAY: Fortify myself for the week ahead with a half-bottle of the ’05 Pinot Gris Rotenberg.

Cost £62, but if I’d been on the dole for a while I’d have had the £9 spare from the week before. Stick candle in empty bottle and spend rest of day sitting in my bedsit thinking about Samantha Cameron.

Tuesday: Neighbours offer me building site work for undeclared cash. Contact benefits agency to report them and tell neighbours they’re bringing this country to its knees. Use empty Rotenberg bottle to fend them off and barricade myself in my bathroom.

Wednesday: Woke up to see a big dog on pavement. Remained indoors.

Thursday: Get into furious argument with chap at local antique dealers, ‘Cash Converters’, who insists they don’t deal in 19th Century watercolourists. Finally get £10 for the frame. Money stolen by children waiting for me outside.

Friday: Electricity stops working. Investigation shows I have some kind of meter that appears to be empty. Assume this is an annual thing and well outside the scope of my £53 budget. Keep warm by eating a pack of animal nuggets left by previous occupants. May have sobbed a little bit.

Saturday: Neighbours apologise for calling me a ‘jumped-up ballbag’ and offer to pay for an 18-hour holiday to Jamaica if I would ‘run a little errand’ for them. Big Society in action.

Sunday: Final day. Secretly borrow a fiver from old woman who lives downstairs. Use it to buy delicious three course lunch at House of Commons restaurant. That evening the lovely people from ATOS take me to Savoy Grill for dinner.

Should have just done this every day. Would have been a piece of piss.

Are you being persecuted?

LORD Carey’s claim that Christians in Britain are feeling persecuted has led many people to ask: “So what exactly is persecution then?”

The Daily Mash presents a simple questionnaire to help you work out how persecuted you are:

Are you excluded from high office, such as being prime minister or the Queen, because of your religion?

Are you completely excluded from society even though you believe in miracles?

Are you prevented from worshipping in, let’s say, a church, on, let’s say, a Sunday morning?

Are you prevented from constantly judging complete strangers?

Are you prevented from sticking your nose into other people’s personal lives?

Do you believe that Lord Carey was elected to the House of Lords?

Does the Today programme ban you from boring the shit out of everyone with two minutes of sanctimonious drivel every morning?

Are schools, funded largely by people who do not share your views, banned from telling children about your favourite miracles?

Has an organisation, funded largely by people who do not share your views, stopped making Songs of Praise?

Do some of the country’s biggest newspapers ignore you whenever you object to the slightest little thing?

Does Britain celebrate Christmas because it is the birthday of Isaac Newton?

Are you currently enjoying a long weekend to commemorate the untimely death of Judy Garland?


So, are you being persecuted?

All ‘yes’: Britain does not celebrate Christmas because it is the birthday of Isaac Newton. You may actually benefit from some light persecution.

Mostly ‘yes’: Perhaps this really is the time of year when you commemorate  Judy Garland. That is deeply fabulous of you. You’re not being persecuted as much as you used to.

50-50: You’re probably always ’50-50′ in these kinds of things. You might want to shake it up a bit.

Mostly ‘no’: You are probably a Roman Catholic and are subject to some persecution, but only if you really want to be the Queen.

All ‘no’: You are an Anglican Christian and you are not being persecuted. Congratulations!

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