Tasked by his coalition masters with thinking the unthinkable and speaking the unspeakable Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has come up with dramatic new plans to deal with Britain's growing youth unemployment crisis by making workless youngsters stand farther apart.
In April this year, more than 1million 16-24-year-olds remained out of work, many of them so called 'Neets' - not in education employment or training.
"If nothing else, it's damned unsightly," said Duncan Smith, a former Conservative Party leader and army officer.
"They're clumping, and no-one wants to see that - it raises the unpleasant spectre of the 'dole queue' and even the scenes of widespread riotage, rapine and lootery we saw just last summer."
Duncan Smith will now release tough unemployed youngster density targets for local authorities. He hopes to involve retired police and armed service personel to stalk the land issuing a terse, 'move along now' and 'spread out a bit' to groups of young workshys.
"Wherever the young unemployed are gathered together in groups of two or three I'd like to see them shouted at," said Duncan Smith. "The United Kingdom has an area of nearly 100,000 square miles - 10 young fecklesses will have little impact spread over a square mile."
In the Big Society spirit of 'we're all in this together', hard-working families will be encouraged to log Neets on an internet map and shout their own 'stop that loitering and get a job' advice to them.
Anthony Norman of the Centre for Actually Finding Jobs for the Unemployed said the proposed measures were 'little more than medieval'.
G4S and A4E are among companies believed to be preparing bids for herding contracts said to be worth in excess of £20-per-youngster moved.
"Shouting ineffectually at people is very much in our skillset," an A4E spokesman said.
