Polly should stick to putting the kettle on

I tend not to read Polly, but as it's rather quiet in the office today (and I have a huge bruise on my bottom which makes moving too much rather difficult) I thought I would have a browse round the political commentators. And so here she is...

Here is a Christmas message from the Department for Work and Pensions: there will be a harsh crackdown on lazy, feckless, work-shy scroungers

Ooooh, are all the MPs going to get sacked?

This social contract (hand up, not hand out) has mostly been kept by both sides under Labour. Tax credits and benefits for children have doubled and, for the first time

And unemployment has risen, along with the tax burden, the number of homes being repossessed and personal debt rocketing. Nice.

there are now virtually no young long-term claimants, thanks to the New Deal.

How can you be 'young' and have a long career history? Surely a dubious comment, Polly? Or perhaps you weren't actually thinking what you were writing. Did it all just pour forth like bile onto the keyboard?

Is it that simple? There is a very grey line between the plain idle and those who are illiterate, mentally unfit, psychologically odd, ex-prisoners, unattractive to employers, non-English speakers (Labour has stopped free English courses), drug addicts, alcoholics and other bad prospects. In Glasgow, for example, what are these vacancies? Mostly part-time hotel and catering, bar work and waitering with unsocial hours.

I've had to work anti-social hours. I still do, in fact. So do most people I know. Not everyone can just swan into the office, Polly, write a couple of paragraphs of complete bollocks and then fuck off home, or to number 11, for a quick drink and a fuck on the hearthrug. And as for psychologically odd, well I think you have proved to us that £140,000 a year is a potential salary for someone suffering from that particular mental disorder.

the jobseeker's allowance is a pathetic £57.45 a week, not enough to survive on. I tried, and fell into unavoidable debt within weeks. Those in debt fear taking a job as loans sharks chase them once they start earning.

Champagne is expensive...

Let's look at how the state breaks its side of the social contract. The real value of that £57.45 has halved since 1979: it's now worth just 10% of the average wage and falling every year.

But they're not actually working, are they honey. Why should they get the same wage as someone who has to get up in the morning, travel into work and actually do something all day? Why should I be funding someone to survive through the money I make by spending most of my life working? Where is the incentive there, sweetheart?

Rents are sent sky high, making it impossible for the unemployed to lose housing benefit by taking a job. They will never own a shed in the capital as the gap yawns ever wider between the 70% homeowners counting untaxed winnings every month, while the rest and their children are consigned to social housing forever.

How do you get these housing benefits? I'm still enjoying living with my parents as I coundn't afford to rent immediately when I travelled back from London. But soon, I will be renting and paying those sky high rents. Yes, It'll take me longer to pay back debts, I won't be able to go out very much, or to have so many lovely things. But it's my choice. It's what I have chosen to spend my wages on. And clearly, if rents are that high, then other people have also chosen to spend their wages on it, too.

Why is the language of rights and responsibilities, of the duty to contribute as well as to draw out, never applied to those who dance on the ceiling as they spray jeroboams of Cristal over those living on the floor?

Memories of a night with Gordon, darling? Him shaking the bottle and spraying the fizz over your snatch before licking and sucking it up? Or was that just in your dreams

Actually, that's a bit unfair to you, Pol. You strike me as more of a babysham kinda girl.

But before you despair of Labour,

Too late

wait for next July's comprehensive spending review.

Before I emigrate?

But, above all, he repeated Labour's pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 - no shirking, no moving the goalposts. That means some £4bn of credits and benefits must be announced within the next seven months.

Oh fucking great. No tax cuts for me, then! I'll continue to work my arse off, pay back my student loan and wait until my parents retire before I can even consider getting on the property ladder.