The Office of Budgetary Responsibility is to be renamed the Office of Hypothetical Spending and will devote 100% of its time to costing up Opposition spending plans.
‘It’s all very well saying how you’re going to improve the nation’, a Government spokesman said ‘but where will the money come from? Hmm? Answer me that if you’re so clever’.
Labour politicians have denied being ‘clever’ – an insult so potent in Westminster that it’s considered unparliamentary language – but point out that improving the nation used to form part of a government’s job description.
Some Tories have pointed out that they might be the Opposition quite soon, so the change could be an own goal, but Rishi Sunak has a Cunning Plan. ‘The new OHS needs an inspirational CEO, somebody who will tirelessly ask Labour where the money is coming from, and that is why I have decided to appoint Fiona Bruce to the role. She can carry on chairing Question Time, we don’t want that awful Victoria Derbyshire taking over’.