Wrong Dogs, Mr Cameron!

Well, HMRC is to set its rottweilers to chase SME rabbits later this year - but the wolves at the Insolvency Service have had their teeth drawn.

The Insolvency Services' budget was cut last year to just over £4,000 per case - a ridiculous figure given the work involved in managing even an average run-of-the-mill insolvency - and 400 jobs at the already under-resourced service are due to disappear very soon.

So tell me, who is now going to pursue the jackals - the Directors who deserve to be disqualified, and who (in the absence of a well-funded and committed watchdog) will likely be free to evade taxes, significantly fail to keep accurate or proper records, run business after business into the ground and retard economic recovery simply because they are clever enough to manipulate the system?

We certainly need to make cuts in public expenditure - but I can't help thinking that the Government has sent the wrong dogs to the dentist on this particular occasion.

The Insolvency Service has never been a popular body - an icy-eyed, slavering Governmental wolf is a hard sell - but the fact is that we need a strong, committed, well-funded involvency service that is capable of regulating the business community, because, sadly, there will always be people who deserve, one chilly, chilling mornng, to explain themseves to an icy-eyed, slavering, Governmental wolf.