THE government is to take the issuing of sick notes from GPs and hand it to a panel of specially selected sadistic bastards.

The panel will include the 1980s PE teacher who made Kevin, not his real name,  finish the cross-country run with a broken leg, the boss of a Sports Direct warehouse, your ex-girlfriend who dismissed any illness as ‘man flu’ and 10,000 GPs’ receptionists.

Health secretary Victoria, not her real name, said: “We can’t trust GPs to assess whether you’re sick. They’re too easily swayed by medical concerns.

“Instead we’ll be appointing a special assessment panel made up of people who bark ‘Pull yourself together!’ and ‘Have you tried just getting on with it?’ when confronted with any ailment, because we can trust them to be impartial.

“We’re hiring taciturn dads to whom illness is shameful, drill sergeants, thin-lipped HR managers with fixed budgets, your mate Steve who tells you stop being mard and another pint will see you right, and that Brazilian woman who took a corpse for a bank loan.

“With them in place, we’re confident up to 99.8 per cent of malingerers will be certified fit to work and ineligible for any form of benefits. If you want to swing the lead all day, inherit.”

GP Dr Helen, not her real name, said: “I’ll admit the sick note crowd do tend toward the whingey.”