The lockdown is forcing good business into bankruptcy and unemployment is on the rise. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has said that the economy will be ‘re-shaped’. Useful jobs are being extinguished. To alleviate public alarm at the ensuing destruction of their livelihoods, the government has announced A Plan for Jobs. Here is your guide to the best of them:

Shopping List Approval Officer

To check customers shopping lists as they enter a shop. You will be provided with a red pen to strike out all items which you deem to be ‘non-essential’. If a customer challenges your judgement, simply inform them that it is now illegal for people to determine their own needs.

Skills required: A prying interest in other people’s personal lives and a judgemental personality.

Town Centre Destruction Facilitator

You will encourage people to avoid pubs, restaurants and shops and buy their food and alcohol online. You will receive additional bonuses for every establishment that erects a ‘For Sale’ or ‘Closed for good’ sign.

Ideal candidate: Jeff Bezos

Random £10,000 Fine Issuer

Become one of the growing army of ‘authorised persons’ who can issue summary fines of £10,000 to people who organise public events. No knowledge of the law is required, because it is now legal to issue summary justice using ‘reasonable belief’. Additional opportunities are available for the acceptance of bribes from third parties who wish to bankrupt enemies and competitors.

Ideal candidate: An individual motivated by an antipathy towards people who enjoy the company of other, especially young people.

Data Protection Officer

You will be required to reject the requests of local journalists for accurate data on the number of hospital admissions and deaths caused by Covid-19 in the local hospital. You will be required to produce imaginative reasons for withholding data and protecting it from wider scrutiny.

Skills required: The ability to not answer the phone and occasionally reply to emails with the words “submit a Freedom of Information request and we might think about it for the next 28 days”.

Thought Re-engineering Coach

You will be required to help people rearrange their thinking in line with the acceptance of New Normal. Some people are having difficulty in accepting the destruction of their social and family life and your job is to help them adjust their thinking. You will help people accept that a life of managed isolation is now normal. You will re-present the tragedy and loneliness as an opportunity for personal growth.

Skills required: Maintaining a gentle therapeutic demeanour, with an understanding smile, whilst inwardly acknowledging that life as we know it is indeed going to pot.

Artificial Sports Crowd Engineer

You will replace the 100,000s of people that are no longer required to attend football matches and rugby games. You will enhance the artificial crowd noise, that accompanies televised matches and eradicate the need for real crowds to return to future games.

Skills required: Experienced sound engineer to capture the humour and passion of real human beings and shape it into a believable artificial soundscape.

Crisis Advocate

You will work to create a permanent sense of crisis. You will be expected to use your initiative to generate anxiety and fear in the wider population, in an attempt to enforce greater conformity with whatever rules the authorities have imposed at the time.

Ideal candidate: former member of SAGE.