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"Business bad? fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? fuck you, pay me!"

Some of our officials have become so self-important that they not only charge through the nose for imposing their regulations upon us, they even want to charge those who can no longer afford their attentions. Last year I reported on the Scottish care home which, when it was forced to close by the cost of regulations imposed by social services, then received a bill for £510 from the same department for giving the owner permission to go out of business.

A similar problem has been presented to John Swain, whose metal finishing firm Anopol employs 30 people in Birmingham. Some years ago, as a service to other metal finishing companies who used his chemicals, he offered to accept their used chemicals back for storage in holding tanks and safe, environmentally-responsible disposal. Under EC directive 91/156, however, he then had to acquire a waste management licence, for which he had to pay the Environment Agency £3,897 a year.

This helped to make Mr Swain's service uneconomical, so he told the agency that he wished to surrender his licence. He would continue to use the tanks for his own waste chemicals, but could no longer assist his customers. The agency sent him an eight-page questionnaire and a bill for £2,427 as a "surrender fee".

This isn't 'government', it's Goodfellas!