This week 23-year-old chancellor Gideon Osborne will rise on his hooves in the House of Commons and unleash the most brutal series of cuts since the shower scene in Psycho. So what will actually happen? Gloomy predictions abound, but almost everyone agrees the results will be as palatable as a wax-and-cat-hair sandwich. It's frightening stuff. In fact, the preliminary coverage is filled with so much sadomasochistic language – "pain", "agony", "eye-watering measures", "tightening of the belt", and so on – that it sounds as if we really ought to establish a "safe word" now, before Prince Gideon pulls his leather mask on and sets about his business.

The coalition has repeatedly promised that those with the broadest shoulders will bear the greatest load; unfortunately, the majority of people develop broad shoulders by doing underpaid manual work, not trading stocks from the comfort of a Herman Miller Aeron chair. (Or writing for publication: I have the upper-body-strength of a nine-year-old girl.)

But is such suffering really inevitable? What happened to good old British entrepreneurial pluck, as embodied by Lord Sugar or Howard Marks? Rather than slashing the deficit by forcing the nation's ambulances to operate using one wheel as opposed to four, can't we find more cunning means to raise funds? Yes we can. Here are a few suggestions. And if Giddyguts Osborne doesn't use them, he is perhaps the least imaginative monster this country has ever seen.

The military

The problem: we're always reading that our armed forces aren't adequately equipped; that they're forced to wear papier-mache helmets and use rifles made of crayon. The cuts are only likely to make a bad situation worse, because military-grade arms are so preposterously expensive that even Waitrose won't stock them.

The solution: encourage soldiers to create their own improvised weapons. A garden fork with barbed wire wrapped round each spike? Nice one, Private Titchmarsh. A catapult and a blood-filled syringe? Liking your style, Captain Doherty. Not only would it make wars more interesting and medieval, it'd leave existing stocks of bullets going spare for Gideon and his friends to shoot grouse or foxes or dairymaids on their weekends off.

Education

The problem: making kids clever is way too expensive. But failing to educate them at all will eventually lead to the entire nation resembling a giant chimps' tea party.Which it absolutely doesn't at the moment.

The solution: sell bespoke classroom time-slots to corporations. Your child's new timetable: 9am Geography. 10am French. 11.30am Yakult Studies. 12pm Lunchtime sponsored by Cheestrings. 1pm The Story of Rolos. 2pm Just Do It! (formerly PE). 3pm English Literature. 3.05pm GlaxoSmithKline Sing-a-Long Zone. 4pm Hometime (sponsored by Renault).

The police

The problem: truncheon costs have soared and since ITV's cancellation of The Bill there are fewer secondhand uniforms to go round.

The solution: fit officers with live helmet-cams and stream the content to a subscription-based satellite TV channel. Watch live drug busts! Enjoy grisly crime scenes! See relatives sob on their doorsteps as a PC delivers tragic news! Interactive features are available for an additional fee: just £5.99 a month lets you text or tweet in your own questions during an interrogation.

The benefits system

The problem: millions of needy people obstinately refusing to function without access to food and shelter.

The solution: mandatory 24-hour nudity for the unemployed. A sudden influx of millions of naked people on Britain's streets might take some getting used to, but would provide a sharp incentive for the long-term unemployed to seek work, especially during the winter months. Most importantly, it would boost tourism. Overseas visitors currently enjoy posing alongside pigeons in Trafalgar Square, and would doubtless flock to take amusing iPhone snaps of themselves pointing and laughing at our shivering public nudes. Come see the blue bums of Britain! The more deprived the area, the greater the tourist appeal. Also, we could sell footage from the UK's many CCTV cameras to pornographic websites.

Housing

The problem: affordable housing has to be subsidised, if the "affordable" bit of the phrase is going to work.

The solution: replace every wall, ceiling and floor with a gigantic plasma screen and charge for advertising space. The affordable living room of tomorrow is a futuristic cube with a perpetually looping Go Compare commercial in place of carpets and wallpaper. In the event of traumatised residents attempting to remain outdoors for as long as humanly possible, obligatory curfew hours could be enforced using a remotely operated lock-in system. And should the inhabitants kill themselves by smashing one of the screens and desperately hacking at their neck with a shard of glass, the remaining plasma screens will prove easier to clean than regular carpets and walls.

Heritage

The problem: galleries and museums are costly, and there's only so much you can claw back by flogging Pre-Raphaelite colouring books and Make-Your-Own-Dinosaur kits in the gift shop. Factor in thousands of decaying landmarks, castles and stately homes and it all adds up to a gigantic looming number made of coins and money.

The solution: Time for a nationwide jumble sale. Gather up everything we don't need and flog it to the Chinese, the Germans, the Mexicans . . . anyone. The Angel of the North would look great in Kim Jong-Il's garden. The Americans have form, shelling out $2.5m for London Bridge in 1967: maybe this time we could interest them in the whole of Plymouth (we hardly use it, but for them it has sentimental value, being the origin of The Mayflower). Also: once the 2012 Olympics are over, let's cut the stadium into tiny cubes, mount them in little souvenir boxes and flog them at Gatwick to departing athletes and dignitaries.

There. That's the economy saved, in theory at least. Your turn, Gideon.