A FEW years ago zealous bureaucrats were rounded up in a particularly strict south east Asian country and given hefty prison terms.

Their crime was to create too much red tape.

Some people might consider this to be a bit harsh.

Not me though. My only gripe is that we don't do that over here.

Admittedly, the lot who were jailed had been creating daft rules galore to make life hell for people. And they were doing it purely for their own amusement.

They would sit down and laugh about the crackers laws they were about to create, giggling among themselves about how difficult it would become for ordinary citizens to go about their normal lives while trapped in miles of unnecessary regulations.

But I don't see how things are that much different in this part of the world. We're surrounded by seemingly pointless rules and regulations which are growing in number all the time.

Just look at what's happened to John James. John, from Church, just wants his local council to collect his rubbish. It's a service he pays for after all, just like the rest of us.

The problem is that John generates more household waste than the average family because he is a foster parent to seven youngsters.

But waste collectors, for some reason, won't take more than a wheelie binful - so any extra bags that don't fit in the bin don't get taken. It's the rules, you see?

The large James family recycle plenty of their waste. But every week they are left with an ever-increasing amount of rubbish building up around their wheelie bins.

So the bin men turn up and take some rubbish but leave the rest behind so as not to break any rules. It doesn't make sense, does it?

I suspect it's something to do with insuring the bin men or something like that.

It's too dangerous for them to pick up bin bags in this day and age.

But they spent decades collecting bin bags without this apparent threat of danger - and still do in many parts of the country.

So why the blanket ban on them picking up bin bags?

It's no wonder the Keep Britain Tidy campaign group thinks the council is being plain daft. A spokesman said: "Councils need to find out what residents want and don't just use a one-size-fits-all policy.

"It isn't much good a family with seven or eight people being treated the same as a couple who live by themselves."

A simple point well made.

For the record, the council has given the family an extra bin and will be meeting them to find a solution.

But I can't for the life of me think why local council mandarins can't just say: "Fair enough Mr James, we know you've a big family so we'll make an exception." Where's the harm in that?

I suspect the "only take what's in the bin" rule was brought in for a specific reason.

I'm beggared if I know what that reason might be, but I doubt that it was put in place simply to cause headaches for large families.

It's just another example of modern life being made, quite literally, rubbish, because civil servants feel the need to justify their existence.