the dailymash

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said too many retired naval captains were being forced to bring up six children by themselves because they cannot afford to employ a maverick nun with an acoustic guitar and a sewing machine.

Mr Osborne added: "We can use the tax system to fill Britain's large houses with bright-eyed, confident young women who can teach these children the wonders of close harmony singing.

"If she is particularly winsome then in 90% of cases we predict she will end up getting married to the naval captain and everything will be fantastic - as long as they are able to find a suitable escape route through the Bernese Oberland."

Mr Osborne said Ireland had achieved 'measurable success' with a similar policy in 1970s, resulting in both the Corrs and the Nolans, only four of whom were now unbelievably embarrassing.

The tax pledge is based on research by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith who discovered that families with a piano, guitar or communal tuba were 28% less likely to end up puking in a gutter or staging a hoax kidnapping of one of their fat little children.

He said: "Whenever I visited the ghastly housing estates of Glasgow, Liverpool or Sheffield I would see gangs of young teenagers smoking da ganja and popping whizz, all in desperate need of a singalong and a smart new jacket made from bizarre, 19th Century curtains.

"I'd drop in to the local pub and find it full of retired naval officers who would grab me by the lapels and plead with me to buy them a musical nun."

He added: "These teenagers have become social pariahs, but I'll tell you what, if you have the courage to walk up to them, clear your throat and sing 'raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens' not only will they join in, they'll also stop putting live frogs in your nightie."