THIS week Citizen Smith believes it's his duty to warn the public about a gang who are masquerading as policemen and operating in the Lancaster area.

Eyewitnesses have told Citizen Smith how they were enticed from an exciting episode of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire by the sound of a door being smashed by a size ten boot.

Peering out of their window, they saw armed men in head-to-toe body armour bursting into a neighbouring property.

The snatch squad, cunningly disguised as the local constabulary, were then joined by two van loads of men dressed in boiler suits. For two hours they carried out an exhaustive search of the property before disappearing into the night.

The police were not at the scene.

In fact, enquiries made with the local crime desk revealed that there was no mention of the incident on that weekend's crime sheet.

Further enquiries direct to Police Headquarters in Hutton were equally revealing.

"Sorry but we don't know what you're talking about," they told us.

This leads Citizen Smith to conclude that it could only have been a cheeky gang masquerading as our boys in blue.

And this well equipped heavy mob complete with carbon copy uniforms and phoney police vans managed to carry out a two hour operation in the residential heart of Lancaster without the local police force knowing a thing about it.

A bit worrying really... don't you think?

There's been some huff and puff about the spiralling cost of the auditor's enquiry into Blobbygate - £400,000 and rising.

Yes, it is outrageous! Why the victims (local council tax payers) should have to foot the bill to bring about some accountability and justice to this ludicrous situation is fundamentally wrong.

And why the hell are we still waiting for this public interest report two years on?

These days the "suits," whether they are in big business or government, are laughing all the way to their stock options and big, fat pensions.

Take the boss of Railtrack for example. Here is a man in charge of a company which let our rail network rot and oversaw three tragic fatal accidents. Dozens of lives were lost and there's been misery for train commuters.

So what happens here in our modern, super efficient, globally competitive market economy, UK PLC?

The boss is described as a management guru and given a handsome £1 million to help him on his way.

Then there's the Millennium Dome, a spectacular flop and unmitigated financial disaster. You would have thought the directors of this farce would have sneaked off with their tails between their legs but... oh no... they've landed pay offs worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

It's obscene.

These are the days of power without responsibility - where qualities like integrity and accountability are airbrushed out of the glossy corporate picture.

So folks - go to work, do as your told, pay your bills and don't ask any difficult questions.

We can all rest assured that the people in charge know exactly what they are doing.