Jacking up firearms fees will cost SMEs £3.5 MILLION. Thanks, Plod

Plus Op Solitaire update: It's not as bad as we thought

Oi, civil servants. Explain these fag-packet numbers

Of greater concern to the licensed firearms community is how the Home Office seems to have swallowed the silly police claim – which even Plod have given up on – that granting a licence costs £200/year.

Lawful: Police and the Home Office want to make firearms certificates 76% more expensive from May next year

Your correspondent took that one apart earlier this year, noting how South Wales Police admitted that administering the grant of a firearm or shotgun certificate cost just £68. Not quite the £196 figure the Association of Chief Police Officers was bandying around at the time.

Although ACPO never did explain how they arrived at £196, it's notable that as soon as the £68 figure became public knowledge they immediately stopped talking about the higher number. Rumours that a pallet of fag packets was seen leaving ACPO HQ immediately afterwards are regrettably unconfirmed at the time of writing.

So how is it that the Home Office managed to use these outdated and probably false police numbers, seemingly pulled out of thin air, as part of a serious economic analysis? Your correspondent asked the Home Office to tell us who wrote the analysis, who signed it off – bearing in mind Ms Featherstone's signature is conspicuously absent from those parts of the consultation where it says “signed by the responsible minister” - and why they'd decided to use figures which the police had publicly distanced themselves from.

A Home Office mouthpiece ignored our questions and instead sent us a press release full of the dodgy stats, along with the statement: “We won't be adding anything further.”

It looks like the government's made up its mind and that's that. Us lowly subjects shouldn't expect an answer when we question its dodgy justifications, seemingly – not that that'll stop your correspondent pestering the powerful.