The forthcoming election was no different. The Prime Minister asked the Home Secretary what the crime figures were like. “They’re up,” he was told. He asked the Chancellor what the budget deficit was like, “Up,” he was told. Every figure was up, except the ones that he wanted to get higher and they were down. The Prime Minister was despairing, and asked the Cabinet to ask all their senior civil servants if there was one figure that could be easily altered to make the government look better.

Three weeks later he got a report back from the civil servant in charge of the unemployment figures. “There is one figure that might work,” he was told. “The average time the unemployed are out of work is slightly higher, but this is skewed because of one man. Our records show that he has been unemployed, according to the claim he made, for the past 73 years.”

The Prime Minister was beginning to get a familiar feeling. But he had to ask the obvious question. “How can someone be unemployed for 73 years?” he said. “You don’t have to be that old before you can retire.”

The civil servant pointed out that when the man in question had first filled in the forms he had given his date of birth as around ninety years ago, which means that he was entitled to back pay for the years he’d been unemployed before he claimed. When this had bnne questioned by the dole office clerk he was shown photographs of his house, his car, his children and their pets. The claimant was then given a cheque to cover the oversight, together with an apology and an assurance that his claim would not be questioned again.

The Prime Minister now knew the identity of the claimant. He asked what all this was leading up to and the civil servant replied, “If we can get this man into work it will reduce the average time to below the level it was when you took office.” The Prime Minister asked if he knew how hard it would be to get the man a job and the civil servant said that he had been involved with the 2012 Olympics and had managed to stop Boris Johnson from handing over the gold medals. The Prime Minister agreed that this may have been a difficult task, but did the civil servant really think that it was anywhere near as hard as finding a job for Barry Lose?

The civil servant admitted that he had never heard of Barry Lose and the Prime Minister pulled out a file from under his desk. It was a large file and he struggled to hold it.

“That’s not a particularly big file even for one man,” the civil servant said. “This is the index,” the Prime Minister replied, and pointed to a large door in the corner of the room. “The file’s in there. Take a look.” The civil servant opened the door, and found himself in a room the size of a small football pitch. He pulled out a file at random from the section marked ‘S’.

“Soccer,” he began. “This is what football is known as in America. Barry Lose has on several occasions attempted to enter the United States only to be returned as an undesirable alien. The UK government has attempted on each occasion to have him sent back as we don’t desire him either, on the basis of ‘Finders Keepers’.”

He looked at another section at random. This one was marked ‘D’. “Death. Barry Lose has claimed on many occasions to be dead, as it is impossible to try, convict and sentence a man once he is dead. This was stopped with the Life is For Life if Not Longer Act passed by Parliament in 1986 which held that being carried into the court in a coffin and claiming to be Dracula is no defence.”

Then he looked at ‘L’. It covered two walls of the room. He did wonder why so much space was given up to ‘V’ as well, but a very brief glance soon enlightened him.

By now he had realised that getting a job for Barry would be extremely hard work. But the Prime Minister had declared it Top Priority so the full weight of the civil service was put to work on it, and they responded in true civil service fashion.

First a committee was established to examine the problem. They listened to evidence and commissioned a report which recommended the establishment of a sub-committee, which proposed a steering group, that opened a regional office, which employed a consultant, who arranged a conference on the subject of ‘Finding Barry Lose a Job’.

Delegates came from around the country, guest speakers spoke, workshops were set up, advice groups established and there was a phone bank of specialist staff ringing anyone who might be willing to offer Barry a job.

Barry himself was enjoying the attention. At a specially convened press conference in the Josef Goebbels media centre of the Handcuff’n’Handgrenade, he announced that he was more than happy to take the right job, should it ever become available.

A journalist asked him what particular trade he was interested in. Barry’s media representative Brains said that he didn’t mind, as long as the work was interesting and expanded his horizons.

A TV reporter then asked Barry what qualifications he had. Brains explained that Barry had been unable to complete his schooling due to an unavoidable and completely unexpected clash of environment between Barry and the education authorities.

Another reporter asked what experience Barry had. Brains replied that Barry had wide experience in social skills and was willing to undergo any on the job training which may help overcome his lack of practical knowledge.

One of the civil servants who was involved in the case then asked Brains if he fancied a job in their PR department. A man in Hong Kong rang and said he needed someone to help run a hairdressing business while he was on holiday. Barry said it was too far to get back home in his dinner hour, and anyway didn’t the man have a brother he could ask?

Two men in the east end said they needed someone to help shift some furniture because they were renovating theior new premises and the woman who worked for them kept going on about hiring an apprentice. The civil servant who took their call said that this was proof that the economy was on the up and how much did they pay for their premises? The men went quiet and put the phone down.

An American wanted some help selling some supplements he claimed would turn third-rate footballers into Champions League standard. The civil servant asked where he intended to store them and the American told him that there were some derelict sheds that his business associates had bought cheaply.

The office was about to admit defeat when someone phoned and said they had been looking for a new employee for months but had bene unable to get anyone interested in their job.

Barry, of whom it was said that he must have been hypnotised, such was his willingness to work, spoke to the man, who said, “You’ll hear a lot of bad language. Is that alright?” Barry assured him that it was fine and he had heard bad language before.

“You might be under threat of physical violence. Can you handle that?” Barry reminded the man of who he was.

“And finally, you’ll be a member of a scorned and persecuted minority, regarded with suspicion and spurned through the ages. Could you put up with that?” Barry told the man that this was the curse of the Blose down the generations and assured him that Barry’s ‘eart was ‘is to be broken.

“That’s great,” said the man. “You’ve got the job.”