Jacks-of-all-trades targeted in new government initiative

With the jacks-of-all-trades strike entering its third month, the government today announced plans to retrain the UK's 10 million jacks to become Masters-of-one.

Deputy PM John Prescott laid out the radical new five-point plan to a packed Labour Executive Committee in response to the Tories' criticism of the party's adherence to "outdated and old-fashioned maxims".

"This country has a fine tradition of jacks-of-all-trades," he wheezed, "but in response to an increasingly more flexible marketplace and in the face of open European freedom of labour we must adapt or die. The German johans-von-Allesarbeite are now Meisters-von-ein, the French jacques-de-tous-travaux are now Maitres-d'un and even Poland has its first Gospodarz-od-jedynka. We must not be left behind."

The five-point plan consists of:

• Subsidised retraining for all jacks
• Tax relief for self-employed Masters-of-one
• Benefit cuts for jacks who refuse to retrain
• The lowering of the minimum standard of Masterliness
• New trades to become Masters in, such as daydreaming, hatwearing and breathing

The move left National Union of Jacks president Andy Christ fuming. "All we've asked for is a 400 per cent pay increase to bring us in line with odd-job men and itinerant tinkers. After all, not everyone wants to risk their life turning their hand to anything. We have skills comparable with blue collar workers and think we deserve similar remuneration. In fact make it 500 per cent. No, 600."

The General Institute of Masterly Professions (GIMP) was also scathing in it's attack. "We are a modern and forward-thinking institute with a level of Masterliness unsurpassed in Europe. Our members are sought-after throughout the world. This undermines all we stand for at GIMP," its spokesman Horace Peterson steamed.

Prescott remained heavily planted in a large armchair. "We have to move and we have to move quickly. We expect the first Masters-of-one to emerge in two years, with hopefully Masters-of-some materialising early in 2006. We will not be held to ransom. You've never had it so good. This man's not for turning. Or standing."