You couldn’t make this up.  According to today’s Daily Mirror (thanks to a Government initiative), The Jeremy Kyle Show could lose a fair chunk of its viewing figures – thanks to a special edition of his popular talk show.

Under the working title of ‘Jeremy Kyle Gets Britain Working’, this could be another toe-curling notion of using popular culture to get the unemployed back to work (citing the precedent of a previous Tory Party Conference where Mick Jagger’s awful ‘Let’s Work’ was played).  Ministers are considering paying him £400,000.

The proposed programme could be like a signing-on session writ large, without JSA at the end.  This would follow the familiar format of his talk show.  This has attracted the ire of Don Foster (Liberal Democrats MP) by claiming it “adds insult to injury that they are using such a controversial figure”.

It could be worse, it could be Norman Tebbit.

My question is: if they are seen on the Jeremy Kyle Show about unemployment, are they seen as not being available for work?  Hmm.

S.V., 08 September 2008.