THE economy contracts when cold, like a scrotum, chancellor George Osborne said last night.
Mr Osborne said the bitter chill of winter had left Britain temporarily embarrassed but stressed the UK economy was becoming increasingly testicular.
He said: “Ever since I was a school boy I have been lucky enough to have an ice cold bath every morning.
“And today, as I lay there reading the fourth quarter GDP figures, I had a sudden revelation. I immediately shouted ‘eureka’, leapt out of the bath and took this picture of my ball sack.”
Mr Osborne then unveiled a 10 foot square photograph of his badly shrivelled scrotum, adding: “D’you see what I mean?”
But the chancellor warned there could be no change in policy insisting scrotums could not be unshrivelled by waving a magic wand and urged consumers to treat the economy to the warm water and baggy, brightly patterned swimming shorts of increased spending.
He added: “While China struts around in tight jeans showing off its burgeoning packet, Britain’s once-proud Linford Christie-ness continues to recede like an Arctic swimmer’s.
“We must stay the course. We cannot simply turn a hairdryer on oursleves as I’m pretty sure we would get badly burned or get our John-Thomas trapped in the mechanism.”
The scrotum theory supersedes all of Mr Osborne’s previous economic metaphors including ‘a tin bath full of shit hurtling down a hill’ and ‘a dollymop’s fandango during shore leave’.