God knows, there's plenty to feel grim about, what with the weather, only 104 shopping days left to Christmas and the possibility that Sarah Palin - anti sex educationist and climate-change denier who believes that polar bears will “adapt” to living on dry land and no doubt thinks that you can't get pregnant if you do it standing up - may soon be, technically, the most powerful woman on Earth.

But brace yourselves for another downer. Because the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions may shortly be unveiled as ... Jeremy Kyle. Yes! That's Jeremy the preening, shouting “human bear-baiter” Kyle, whose daytime TV programme can set society's most dysfunctional, damaged and tattooed people against each other before a whooping mob and call it light entertainment. Now the Government wants to slip Kyle nearly half a million quid to make another TV series aimed at benefits claimants, catchily entitled Get Back to Work, You Sponging Scumbags.

Oh, I've just double-checked that and the working title of the show, currently at discussion stage, is Jeremy Kyle Gets Britain Working. Whatever. Jezza would be the presenter promoting the role of the DWP to “motivate and support people into work”, says a spokesman. Right. So that'll involve bellowing: “You're scum! Are you going to get off your backside and find a job? YES or NO? Why are you CRYING?” at some toothless sad sack with 12 kids and a drink problem.

There has been a bit of an outcry over this proposal, with political opponents accusing the Government of stooping to gimmicks and wondering why we should give public money to someone whose show was denounced by a judge as a “morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people who are in some kind of turmoil”. You may remember Judge Alan Berg hearing the case of a man who, when brought face to face by Kyle with the chap who was rogering his wife, promptly headbutted him. The judge suggested that the show's producers should be in the dock with him. So it may seem a bit desperate for the Government to cosy up to a programme whose typical headline could read: “I'm sleeping with my drug-dealer stepfather. How can I tell Mum?”

And yet, the more I think about it, the more I'm persuaded that this may be a genius idea. Don't get me wrong: I think Kyle is a horrid slug-man (albeit a talented one) who rampages around the studio floor exploiting human misery to feed public hunger for emotional voyeurism without a scintilla of shame. His programme delivers instant justice in a 21st-century version of tarring and feathering, then tips its broken cargo back on to the streets (after an optional chat with a psychologist) while the producers busy themselves arranging the next show. Similar shows in America have already had guests who have gone on to wreak revenge on their adversary after the show, and it may only be a matter of time before it happens here.

But Kyle has a voice to which the daytime viewing public listens, and listens intently. Trailer-trashy though it is, the show operates a strict moral system, a crude sort of restorative justice, in which the bullies get bullied back and the victim is briefly re-empowered, having been granted the chance to speak up for himself or herself. If you want to get a message to a certain section of society, why not do it via a medium that they'll watch rather than some slick “No ifs, no buts” TV ad campaign that is about as daunting as a ticking-off from Bagpuss.

A veteran fan of the show, with a relative who once appeared on it, told me that getting humiliated by Jeremy Kyle for being, say, a wife-beater or a drunken parent shames someone within their own community far more than any appearance before a magistrate. I'm obviously not suggesting that everyone on benefits needs shaming. Far from it. But we all know that there are some claimants - let's call them “idle sods” - whose only skills are in milking the system and who may benefit from Jezza's designer boot up their jacksy. The fact that the Government wants Kyle fronting the show and not, say, Carol Smillie, suggests that these are the people it has in its sights. As The Sun puts it: “Kyle will confront the workshy and ask them to justify their life on the dole in front of a heckling studio audience.” Jeremy Kyle as the scourge of dole layabouts? You know, it could just work.

And I can already think of an excellent spin-off: a parliamentary special entitled I've Spent £20k of Your Money on John Lewis Soft Furnishings. Am I Bothered? Or So, I've Paid my Son £50k for Doing Nothing? Get Over it. Anyone got the number of Derek Conway's booking agent?

Hats off to Desmond Morris, who in his new book stands up to those childcare harridans (I think we're meant to say “baby gurus”) who advocate “brutal” and “unnatural” techniques such as not kissing or hugging your poor, wailing infant and shoving it in its own room, presumably so that you can enjoy an uninterrupted viewing of Taggart. As someone who wouldn't let Claire Verity look after my begonia and who threw Gina Ford's book across the room in disgust, I do wonder why we take so much notice of people who seem to think that baby-rearing is all about ensuring that, postpartum, the parents are not inconvenienced for a moment and can plan a mini-break asap. We're made to feel guilty for mentioning that neither Verity nor Ford has children.

Why? There is a reason why it's easier to ignore someone else's baby crying, but hearing your own makes your stomach turn over like a Hotpoint on spin cycle. It's nature's way of making sure that you don't ignore the child, as - guess what? - it's crying because it needs you.

Do such “experts” think babies are miniSatans who have brought about their own creation for the sole purpose of stopping us having a lie-in? Crying is the only thing the bewildered, impotent critters can do to ask for help. If you are capable of ignoring that, you'd be better off getting a goldfish.

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