We can’t produce anything worth a damn. Even the buy-to-let landlord output - the only thing we’ve been good at for years - is tits up. Our production of dossers is thriving, however…

The number of children affected has quadrupled and rough sleepers have increased by a third, says the follow-up study by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. The trust prompted a national debate in March last year after revealing how many failed asylum seekers were surviving only through charity and church support. Chaired by the broadcaster and writer Kate Adie, and including Sayeeda Warsi, now Lady Warsi, the Conservative shadow minister for community cohesion, the original inquiry highlighted an “invisible population which can neither go home nor contribute to British society”.

I’m stepping up from slapping patriots. The next person to tell me how brilliant we are is getting a plank with a nail through it up the Khyber.

Update: Coincidentally, Gordon pops up with some advice:

Speaking to assembled bishops and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the PM said that poverty can, must and will be eradicated “if we can all work together for change”.

You’ve got your government actively causing poverty on the streets of its own cities and you’ve got the lack of taste and self-awareness to lecture the rest of the world? Do bugger off, you revolting old fraud.