Recent allegations in The Times newspaper, detailing an accumulated £31bn of Whitehall ‘waste' – a figure calculated by piling National Audit Office reports like ancient mountain Pelion on Ossa – recalled a lost era of music compilations: ‘Now that's what I call civil service cock-ups, volume eight'.

As the nation collectively spluttered, in the manner of the late film actor, Terry Thomas, ‘What an absolute shower!', readers were treated to a hit parade of shame, including £2.7bn irretrievably lost from NHS IT programme, and 15 Ministry of Defence procurement disasters costing £6.1bn.