The chancellor, George Osborne, is to announce plans for a giant bag of breadcrumbs to be scattered in the general direction of poor people as a central pillar in his policy to help struggling families make it through the winter.
"Food in winter is often hard to come by for poor people. It may be buried beneath snow or ice. Or wherever it is that poor people look for food," said a Treasury spokesman. "This measure will benefit poor people directly and immediately. And what's more it will cost the government next to nothing as we were thinking of throwing away the bread anyway," he continued. "Even though it's kind of dry and stale, sometimes I throw a big handful out into the garden and soon there's a whole crowd out there pecking away at that bread. It's something to see...," his voice trailing off as if in a reverie.
The truly huge bag of breadcrumbs is just one of several policy initiatives announced over the last week. Other measures will include sympathetic remarks at cocktail parties about how hard it must be to have no money, as well as patronizing advice on household budgeting from people whose bank balance never falls below seven digits as a matter of principle.
