Ian Duncan Smith, long renowned for his compassionate approach to social security, has named the two researchers who have compiled the statistics on how many people have died since benefit changes were introduced.
Showing the numner of deaths at precisely zero, Zak and Sarah have collected statistics that have been described as 'reliable, dependable and fictional.'
Sarah said of her work 'I was so motivated with this statistic work.'
'After having my benefits stopped for failing to complete my CV, I was promised water and gruel if I did a statistical analysis of the benefit death figures'
'I took the raw data, which was a piece of paper headed 'Number Of People Who Have Died As A Result Of Changes To State Benefits' and upon which was printed a large '0' and ran a Spearman Rank analysis.'
'It turns out nobody has died. Isn't that amazing? And that figure is as honest and realistic as my story, the story of a model in a stock photograph who made it big by having benefits I've never claimed stopped.'
'Amazing. Ian Duncan Smith is my hero. In the same way that AIDS is my favourite disease.'