Bad Taste: dividing by four

The scan: sc-no272.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

This text was corrected by hand against the scan: the strip at the foot of page 12, which the machine reading did not see; image taken from the scan and its lettering transcribed (18 Oct 2026). One of Cormac's Bad Taste strips: dividing by four. Note: unnumbered.

page 12 of the scan

Four-panel cartoon strip: a bowler-hatted Tory explains the government's radical new programme for reducing the unemployment figures — take the returns from the dole offices and divide by four; the Treasury says this will cut them by about 75 per cent. — Cormac, "Bad Taste" (unnumbered), Socialist Challenge no. 272, 3 December 1982, page 12. From the Marxists Internet Archive scan.

The strip, panel by panel

1. BAD TASTE — Cormac. "We in the Tory government have devised a radical new programme for reducing the unemployment figures!"

2. "First we get the returns from the dole offices all over the country — but before we release the figures —"

3. "— we divide by four!!" (He holds a card: "[4],000,000 ÷ 4 = 1,000,000".)

4. "The statistics chaps at the Treasury say that this will probably reduce the unemployment figures by about 75%!!"