Apparently 1 in 10 public sector jobs are going to go over the next five years. 500,000 out of a total of 6,000,000.

According to David Hughes at the Telegraph, writing about this back in July, the “natural wastage” in the public sector runs at 6-7% a year. That’s some 400 thousand people who leave of their own accord for whatever reason every single year. By that figure, 2 million people will have gone by the end of this Parliament, and the Coalition – those evil, evil fiends – intend to replace those lost 400,000 each year with only 300,000 fresh faced newbies.

This will of course provoke hysterical screeching, threats of crippling strikes and predictions of armageddon, pensioners starving to death sitting in their own filth, children forced to sweep chimneys and, the ultimate slap in the social democratic face, communities going un-reached out to.

“We need reaching out to!” the communities will cry, but Clegg, hooded and sinister will spit back: No. No more reaching out. You’ve been reached out to enough.

They, being the victims of this nightmare, will call this period the Great Butchering and, lo, Osborne shall be known as The Tiny Wee Butcher. “Cameron” will be a name whispered in hushed tones and babies, assuming babies are still born which, let’s face it, shouldn’t be taken for granted considering the Great Butchery to come, will no longer be called David. People already called David will change their names to Saddam, just to escape the terrible, terrible stigma of being associated with The Evil One.

Yes, dark times are indeed ahead. It’s been nice knowing you all. I’m going to go stick my head in a bucket and wait for Labour to come back in to save us all.

Mind you, the public sector, at the end of the parliament, will still 5.5 million strong. It will still be hoovering up a huge chunk of the country’s wealth for many, many decades to come. In fact, there’ll still be more public sector workers by the time the Coalition is through with their cuts than there were in 1997.

Once again the Coalition is caught looking like right bastards whilst, in reality, actually doing very little at all, except that we’ll now be paying more money for even less. Perhaps I really do need that bucket, after all.