I opened a letter today from Companies House titled "hands up those who'd like to save £50". The deal is that if I get one of my contacts to subscribe to Companies House online system I receive £50 as a subscriber. In other words a government department is using taxpayers money to get more people to spend money with the government, in direct competition to companies like mine trying to make a buck in the private sector. When I pointed this out to the customer services manager, and also that Companies House were currently under investigation for anti-competitive practises, she said the campaign had been sanctioned before the investigation was announced. I bet it was!