Great news! The British government seem to be serious about reducing their dangerous budget deficit.

More great news! The proof of the their seriousness is that they have realised that they cannot cut their deficit without cutting the number of the bureaucrats who interfere so much in our business and private lives.

Even better news! They have also realised that they cannot do this without amending the employment laws they have forced on us for years, which make it so hard for us to get rid of surplus employees. Now that finally they see the difficulties for themselves – and face paying the bill for themselves – they propose amending the law.

Logically, this should lead on to the best news of all. Logically, they should see that a law that they now realise is wrong was always wrong. Logically, they should see that it is only fair that it should apply the same law to public and private sectors alike. Logically, this means that the change in the law will ease the burden on business as much as it does on the government itself.

Logically... but when did government’s relationship with business ever have anything to do with logic? There are, of course, no proposals to treat the public and private sectors equally.

We get so tired of writing about the ways in which the government makes one law for itself and another law for everyone else that we wonder if there is any point complaining about this latest example. Then, on reflection, this is exactly what the government wants – people so accustomed to double standards that they cease to complain.

It would be all too easy to go to the other extreme and establish a “Hypocrisy of the Week” competition dedicated to the relationship between rulers and ruled.

The problem is that once a week would not be enough. Having read about the employment law double standard, we go straight on to read about the government department that creates fire regulations which is itself in breach of those regulations. The resulting fine for a private sector business would have wiped that business out. The consequence for the public sector? Zilch. (Oh, the wonders of Crown Immunity, ed.)

Then we have the debt double standard. It is relatively easy to get out of your debts to other private citizens, ultimately by declaring bankruptcy, but much harder to get out of debts to the state, such as repayment of student loans. Now whether bankruptcy laws should be more or less lenient than they are is a legitimate subject for another debate, but surely the most basic notion of justice demands that whatever standard is adopted should apply to all equally.

The weakness of our system is that the very people charged with defining and enforcing those basic notions of justice are as often as not the defendants in the moral courts in which they are also the judge and jury.