The idea was to lampoon petty officialdom that has reached ridiculous levels in the UK.

It was, as they say in the military, a target-rich environment. All I had to do was highlight ludicrous examples of officious, intrusive and bossy behaviour by local and central government bureaucrats who believed it was their mission in life to poke their noses into other people's business.

It turned out that the spirit of William Hodges, the jumped-up, pompous air-raid warden in Dad's Army, was alive and well in modern Britain. The only difference was "Don't you know there's a war on?" and "Put that bloody light out" had been replaced with "You can't do that 'ere, mate – it's more than my job's worth!"

Clipboard Man provided a rich vein of material over the years – and not a few laughs. Who can forget the officials who wanted to inspect your compost bin for signs of "unauthorised materials" and those who wanted access to your home to check on the temperature of your bath water?

We laughed so loudly that some of the more barmy ideas were quietly dropped.

But Clipboard Man didn't go away. Instead, he just bided his time and is now back – more intrusive and creepier than ever.

Take, for example, a number of recent stories; firstly, there were the officials from Poole Council, in Dorset, who used anti-terror laws to spy on the movements of a three-year-old girl to check that her family lived in the catchment area of a popular school (they did).

Then there was the council on Merseyside who denied schooling for
an 11-year-boy for a year because they falsely believed his parents were lying about where they lived to get him into a better school.

And this week, a father from Cumbria was given a criminal record simply because he left the lid on his wheelie bin four inches ajar.

When the story broke this week, a spokesman for Copeland Council issued a statement stating it was "more like seven inches", which only goes to show that
these people have absolutely no sense of the ridiculous.

Something has gone badly wrong with local government when stories like this break on an almost daily basis.

These bureaucrats should remember – they are there to serve the public, not the other way around.


Strike them out

SINCE Labour came to power in 1997, the amount of money poured into our education system has doubled and will reach £74bn in 2010.

But as any parent – or pupil – will tell you, all this extra money has had little impact at the chalk face. About 90,000 pupils a year leave school without five basic GCSEs, and Britain has slid down the international league tables in maths and reading.

So where has all the money gone? Largely in improved salaries for teachers.

After allowing for inflation, teachers' wages have risen 15 per cent over the last 10 years, and money for headteachers has gone up 26 per cent.

Yet members of the far-Left NUT union staged a strike yesterday that closed hundreds of schools and disrupted the lives of millions of families – all because they say that the 2.45 per cent wage increase they've been offered, and set by an independent review body, isn't enough.

Even more despicable, the militants of the NUT timed the strike to cause the maximum disruption to pupils preparing for the exam season.

So much for caring about the education of their charges.

Next time they strike, perhaps teachers should do so at a time when it won't cause such devastating damage. Any time in the six weeks from mid-July to the end of August should do nicely.