Here’s more government in action for you, folks. German Beamte (civil servants). You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them (it’s verboten).

A retiring German public servant has signed off from work by emailing his 500 fellow staff to tell them that he had not done anything for 14 years.

The 65-year-old’s final words in the job were to crow over colleagues and say he had earned more than £600,000 without lifting a finger.

“I do not wish to say anything else.”