At least Alistair Darling’s getting into the spirit of the season:

Alistair Darling will make a high-risk bid to lead Britain out of recession tomorrow, when he is expected to cut VAT and entice the British people to go on a pre-Christmas spending spree.

Spending money you can’t afford on crap you don’t need. Isn’t that, at the end of the day, what Christmas is all about?

It’s amazing really. This government has largely been in the business of punishing the poor for being poor. Poverty wages. Cack-handed tax credits. Benefit crackdowns. High-handed demagoguery. Victorian guilt. And yet who do the government turn to when it’s all tits-up? Why, the poor, of course.

Here’s a few quid, peasants, now get out there and save this government’s jobs and pensions. If you can rescue the bonuses of those city types who’ve also shown you nothing but contempt during the good times, so much the better.

I don’t pretend to understand much of the economics behind this. I just wonder how much gratitude will be extended to the great British prole once poll ratings are temporarily inflated, dividends are up, and the taking of city bonuses is again no longer regarded in the same way as taking children from parks.

I’m sure the for-the-time-being-regarded-as-implicitly feckless poor will be regarded as the explicitly feckless poor once again soon. Doubly so if they end up spending their Christmas bonus on export strength lager, fatty foods, and sportswear*.

Really, what I’d suggest is, instead of splurging on tinselly crap, we should all pool our little slices of the government’s bounty and hire ourself a former government minister to lobby ministers on our behalf. They’re quite reasonably priced and willing to bend the rules for their clients.

* Update: It strikes me that the proles should have to submit a list of proposed purchases for approval, shouldn’t they? You know, just in case they end up spending the money on the wrong things like beer, cannabis, illegal wars of aggression, savings accounts, or pensions.