A long-term unemployed Abergavenny man has claimed an individual assigned by the Job Centre to help him find gainful employment is actually a deep state operative working for a shadow organisation.

Semi-professional paranormal investigator Johnny Turnip told the Chronicle, “I can smell a stooge a mile off and the guy who calls himself my job coach is little more than an asset working for a loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires.”

He added, “They plan to use my unique skill set and firsthand knowledge of other realms for their own Machiavellian designs.”

Turnip explained that he first encountered the job coach called Mike through a back-to-work program he was sent on.

“Because me, Big Tony, Puerto Rico Paul, and Fast Eddie have been on the rock n’ roll for longer than we care to remember, from time to time they insist on sending us upon these silly training schemes that are supposed to make us vastly more employable by teaching us how to use emails, make CVs, and put on a tie,” explained Turnip.

“What these poor saps don’t realise is, we’re already far too busy and clever to commit to the 9-5 grind.

“As well as our adventures in the paranormal, Big Tony does odd jobs for cash, Puerto Rico Paul is an in-demand Simon LeBon impersonator, Fast Eddie sells moody gear on eBay and I do a little bit of this and a little bit of that to make ends meet.

“We view our Universal Credit as our basic salary and anything we make on top of that is all gravy baby.

“We’re the end product of neoliberal capitalism, so don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Turnip added, "Sadly, as well as trying to freeze the pensioners to death, Prime Minister ‘Fear Farmer’s’ government has been making it hard for us boys who just want to live the big dollar life.

“They’re forcing us to jump through all sorts of hoops to keep our benefits. It's always the most vulnerable in society who bear the brunt of cost cutting!”

Turnip explained that he and his friends were told they had to attend a daily scheme in Newport for a month to help them find work or their benefits would be sanctioned.

“As if going to Newport every day wasn’t bad enough the scheme was called Instant Muscle!” Explained Turnip.

“What sort of joke is that? Anyhow, we had to bite the bullet, get our heads down, and see it through. Things had dried up on the paranormal front since we spent New Year’s Eve in a haunted house in Powys.

“And although Big Tony had recurring dreams of dragons and hoards of gold, I was still waiting for a vision to tell me what our next step into the supernatural should be, and so we caught the train to Newport instead.”

Turnip told the Chronicle that being forced out of bed at an “ungodly hour” because they had to catch the 8.45am train, “didn’t sit well with the boys!”

“None of us are exactly what you call early risers and Puerto Rico Paul was puking his guts out on the platform as we waited for the iron horse,” explained Turnip.

“He kept complaining that the early morning was messing with his bio-rhythms, and he had a point. We all felt a bit like moles who had been smoked out of our holes. But by the time we’d all necked our third Stella, we began to feel a bit more civilised.”

Turnip explained that as they all stormed off the train at Newport they almost forgot they had a job club to attend.

“The lager and the novelty of being up and about before midday had made us all a bit excitable and leery,” explained Turnip.

“It was like we were back in the 1990s and heading for a night out at TJ’s.

“Anyhow as Puerto Rico Paul recalled the well-worn, possibly fake story of how he once met Kurt Cobain at the legendary nightclub in 1991 and the two had discussed their shared admiration of Duran Duran songs, we got our heads straight for a dose of job club hell!”

Turnip told the Chronicle that ‘Instant Muscle’ was being held in a room above a cafe in one of the Newport shopping arcades.

“You had to walk through all these Newport-type people who were having their tea and bacon rolls just to get to this second-floor crap house filled with a row of dated-looking computers. Sat in front of them was a couple of jailbird-looking types, who were probably from Pill, hanging around and talking conspiracy theory.

“They eyed us suspiciously because they could probably smell the wealth and taste of Monmouthshire on us and were no doubt resentful of the fact that our sportswear was superior and we hadn’t been raised on a steady diet of frozen burgers and carbonated drinks.

“Big Tony set the tone when he looked them up and down and shook his head dismissively like a farmer would a lame horse.

“The fat one seemed to take offence and said something in his guttural Newport twang, but Puerto Rico Paul just cupped his ear and said in a mock accent, ‘What’s that bra? I don’t speak Port!’

“Fast Eddie joined in the merriment and piped up with, ‘You knows it!’

“The Pill lads rose from their plastic chairs like dumb and dumber and the one said something about country hillbillies,’ but Big Tony just ripped off his top to reveal his Bluebirds tattoo and they just smirked and walked to the tea-making area as Tone started singing Cardiff City songs and embarrassing us all with his open hostility and alpha male freak show!”

Turnip added, “The next thing we knew this guy, who stood out like a cock at a hen party because he was wearing a suit, walked in all brisk and purposeful and introduced himself as Mike.

“Mike asked us to introduce ourselves which we didn’t, and to break the discomfort caused by the wall of silence from everyone in the room he said, ‘Well, I’ll begin then, shall I? I’m Mike and up until two years ago I worked as a manager of a phone shop.’

“He paused for a moment as if to let the gravity of that sink in. And as we all gazed at the ceiling intently he added, ‘When I was made redundant everything I thought I knew about the world was turned on its head.’

“As Puerto Rico Paul yawned and softly sang, ‘Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink,’ Mike waffled incessantly on about how Instant Muscle had rebuilt his shattered self-esteem and how he found a new purpose as a job-seeking guru.

“‘I believe in paying it back,’he said tearfully as Fast Eddie started snoring. ‘And one day you guys will too!’

“It was then his eyes locked directly with mine and he winked awkwardly like he had a nervous tic or something.

“You can call it ‘a gift’ or you can simply just put it down to my experience of dealing with beings who live in other dimensions and on the edge of reality, but at that moment I knew it in my waters, that Mike wasn’t all he seemed.

“He was a deep state operative. Not like Jason Bourne or anything. He wasn’t buff or cool enough, but nevertheless, he still carried the taint of shadowy organisations and men who meet in dark corridors about his person.

“The question was if he was some intelligence agency’s asset, who was his handler? It was a rabbit hole I’m not sure I wanted to explore, but something told me, I must.”