How many bureaucrats does it take to pick a bunch of grapes? The answer is four.

If you don't believe me, ask Bob Lindo, an award-winning Cornish wine-maker.

Mr Lindo was invaded by a bunch of bureaucrats - two from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), a member of the Food Standards Agency and an inspector from the Wine Standards Board. They were all, it seems, on a jolly to Cornwall to enjoy a spot of grape picking at the taxpayers' expense.

"If you multiply salaries for two days, train fares, hotel rooms, breakfasts, lunches and dinners by four, it must have cost something in the region of £3,000 to pick a few grapes," Mr Lindo told the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Lindo, whose Camel Valley Vineyard produces 100,000 bottles of wine a year, added: "We are strangled by Defra and the EU as it is. All we want to do is get on and make wine and not get bogged down with officialdom."

The officials were visiting Mr Lindo to collect a 10kg sample of grapes for analysis to provide "valuable evidence to assist with the policing of the EU wine regime." But as Mr Lindo quite rightly pointed out, he could have sent the grapes to them.

However, what struck me most of all about this story was the incredible response from Defra who, by the way, insisted that the visit cost "substantially less" than the £3,000 estimated by Mr Lindo.

A spokesman was quoted as saying: "The collecting of samples is a legal obligation in all wine producing member states as part of an EU wide requirement to monitor quality and grape varieties in order to sustain the industry's deserved international reputation. Similar visits are taking place in every other EU wine-producing country around now."

How many vineyards do you think there are in the whole EU? And just imagine the cost to taxpayers if every one of them is having a visit from four bureaucrats.

I can't understand why any political party has difficulty promising tax cuts when there is waste like this just waiting to be axed.

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The collapse of Falmouth-based Baltic Pine Conservatories Ltd, with the loss of over 100 jobs, will take millions of pounds out of the local economy.

The company had an annual salary bill of over £4 million and also provided work for hundreds of contractors.

Company boss Tony Murtagh has taken a rather hard-nosed view of the situation. He told the media that the staff should be grateful for the two years employment he provided for them after he took over the loss-making business.

To an extent, he has a point. He sunk millions of pounds of his own money into the company to try and make a go of it and this did indeed keep people employed for longer than they otherwise might have been.

I can't quite, however, forgive the fact that Mr Murtagh pulled the plug on the company the day before staff were due to receive their monthly pay cheques. I think that was a rather cynical act by a man who is reportedly worth millions.

It would have been a far more decent thing to have paid the staff for the work they had done over the last four weeks before telling them that they were redundant.