Some of you, dear readers, may well think that Gordon Brown is simply going too far with his anti-tax-avoidance measures.

But frankly the iron chancellor has nothing on the tax collectors in the south of India.

Fed up with waiting for notorious slow-payers to settle their bills, taxmen in Hyderabad are hiring 10-strong teams of wedding drummers to set up shop outside the homes of defaulters and play until they pay. So far there are 20 groups of drummers working the city and the £625,000 backlog of unpaid taxes is now steadily decreasing.

Perhaps a similar method could be employed in the UK, but instead of drums, Brown’s Budget speech could be blared out on a continuous loop until they cough up. Frankly, just one repeat would be enough to have TS running to the cashpoint.