'I expect to get paid for working' shock statement by pauper

I don't think I am above working in shops like Poundland. I now work part-time in a supermarket. It is just that I expect to get paid for working.

Cait Reilly, who thinks that being ordered ro work for nothing in a Poundland store breaches laws against forced labour, a point of view apparently shared by Apppeal Court judges.

She expects to be paid for working? Did you ever hear of such a thing? The undeserving poor have become shockingly impudent of late.

'Olivia Twist has asked for more!'

There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.

A Department of Work and Pensions spokesweasel was on hand to reassure respectable members of society that, whatever the judges may think, workhouse regulations will be amended to ensure that no urchin will receive an extra serving of thin gruel.

'It is ridiculous to say this is forced labour. This ruling ensures we can continue with these important schemes,' added Mr. Bumble Employment Minister Mark Hoban.

To be serious for a moment, Cait's clear and simple statement nails the lie about so-called 'job snobs' being too picky to do any work within reason. She walks the talk and stacks the shelves.

Unlike, say, highly the privileged pontificators on the front benches who have, more often than not, benefited from expensive private educations designed to ensure they never had to decide between an entry-level job and penury. People who would never wish such a choice on their own expensively-educated progeny. People with the means to parachute their little Tarquins and Jocastas into unpaid internships in professions that are now effectively beyond the reach of the bright kid from the local comp who isn't being subsidised by the bank of mum and dad. If you want to see job snobs, that's where you should start looking.

Happily, I find myself in complete disagreement with contrary Mary, Brendan O'Neill, who is reliably wrong about almost everything.