While benefits assessors at the Department for Work and Pensions are to be granted powers of arrest, powers of search and seizure and access to claimants’ banks accounts in the coming months, there is another proposal being floated: the authority to reap the souls of benefit claimants.
“I say, it’s a spiffing idea!” said Conservative MP Sir Henry Fiffington-Faust. “It would certainly alleviate the shortage of human souls we currently have in government right now. What’s a bit more paperwork, anyhow? These forms will just be handwritten on parchment and signed in blood, that’s all.”
When asked if DWP staff are physically, morally and spiritually capable of wielding such powers, Sir Fiffington-Faust was eager to reassure us. “There’s no way giving this sort of power to a group of unelected underachievers could possibly go wrong. What’s a soul worth, anyway? Nothing! If they were valuable I’d have one myself.”
In the interest of balance, we asked the opposition party their thoughts on the matter. The official Labour Party response, hastily written on the back of a napkin, was: “Oh, um … Well this obviously doesn’t go far enough! If elected, the Labour Party would propose, um … reaping the souls of every last living family member too! And … and their pets!”
As to how confident they are in exercising these controversial new powers, DWP spokesperson Lucy Fér told us, “We believe filling the workforce with people who can’t work is a necessary step in rebuilding the economy. After all, work is supposed to be soul-crushing … isn’t it?”