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Nick Clegg has vowed to deal with the “ticking time bomb” of thousands of Liberal Democrat councillors and MPs who will not be in work, school or training after the local and national elections.

The deputy prime minister is due to announce today a £126m scheme to get so called ‘NEET’ Liberal Democrats back into employment or education after they have been turfed out of office in large numbers.

Under the initiative, announced last November in a bid to tackle unemployment, charities and businesses will be invited to bid for contracts worth up to £2,200 to take ex-Liberal Democrat politicians on.

They will receive an initial payment up front, and more money if the party activists show progress.

At least 55,000 Liberal Democrat “neets” – those not in education, employment or training – are expected to benefit after the party suffered a complete meltdown at the polls.

Clegg said:

Sitting at home with nothing to do can knock the stuffing out of you for years. It is a tragedy for the Liberal Democrats involved – a ticking time bomb for the economy and our society as a whole.

This problem isn’t new, but in the current economic climate we urgently need to step up efforts to ensure some of our most troubled ex-councillors and members of parliament have the skills, confidence and opportunities to succeed.

The announcement comes less than a week after the latest unemployment figures showed that the numbers of Liberal Democrat politicians likely not to be wanted in positions of power by voters have increase significantly after the local and are expected to rise further after the next national elections.

A spokesperson for the party explained:

We know a lot of us are going to be unemployed for a very long time. That’s why we as a party are doing our best to support everything the Tories want us to support so we can put off our day of reckoning for as long as possible.

However, some employers have been less than enthusiastic about the idea. One large employer, who wished to remain anonymous, said:

Why would anyone want a bunch of useless yes-men whose only claim to success is that they managed to go back on every principle they ever held and to break every pledge they ever made? Most employers wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.

But a spokesperson for Tesco was enthusiastic about the idea, and said the supermarket retailer would be more than happy to employ ex-Liberal Democrat politicians provided they were out of sight of the public:

We would be happy to take on any unwanted Liberal Democrat politicians as shelf stackers after the next elections. Just so long as they were on a government workfare scheme and did it for free so we didn’t have to actually pay them anything of course.

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