Government figures out yesterday showed it was likely to fail on its promise of leaving more children in poverty.

However, a government spokesmiser insisted its plans were on target. "In particular, our forthcoming bombing of Iraq should destroy a good number of families and certainly boost the level child poverty as never before," he said.

"We've ploughed a lot of money into this project," he continued, "including cruise missile submarines and Challenger tanks, all fitted with instant impoverishment capabilities as standard. If this doesn't make the world a worse place, I don't know what will."