It’s a tricky argument to pull off, that the poor caused the debt so they should pay it back. Maybe that’s why most weeks there are stories in certain newspapers about a woman with 45 kids on benefits, who then bought a giraffe and now that’s on benefits but she said it was cramped so the council has put it up in the Shard, and two of the kids have got Compulsive Potting Disorder so they’ve been given a snooker table but she couldn’t be referee because she’s allergic to white gloves so the mayor has to do it, otherwise he’d be put in jail by Europe.

Then they quietly drop the story when it emerges that the reporter missed out the detail that although it did happen, it was in a dream he had while suffering from food poisoning.

So it’s replaced with an article about a man on invalidity benefit who turned out to be secretly competing in triathlon tournaments in his loft, and there’s a woman who hasn’t worked since 1975 who receives so much in housing benefit that she pays Martin Amis to fill in her claim forms for more money.