I'm as cynical as anyone about anything to do with politics, but I doubt Chris's speculation there. There's not enough money in it to make it worth the candle.

There are some people around with an instinct for petty bureaucratic bullying, and some jobsworths who are scared they might get into trouble if they aren't carrying out every jot and tittle of the rules; and cutbacks mean that lots of people in local government have got shifted to jobs they don't know anything about.

But I suspect that, if we're becoming more aware of this kind of thing happening, it's more because, on the one hand our communications are becoming better, and on the other there are probably a lot more sessions going on than there have been before, in recent times anyway.