Poor Baroness Scotland of Asthal. We should feel for her in her hour of need. Every decent honest citizen who, just like her, has ever unintentionally stuffed up some minor bit of bureaucracy, or tripped over a technicality, must sympathise with this deeply honourable woman in her hour of despair.

It’s enough to move you to tears, isn’t it? Fined, humiliated, misunderstood, made to feel like a criminal — gosh, all this, when she was just a busy professional trying her damnest to make Britain a better place.

In truth, the only tears being shed are ones of mirth. Beastly and base though such instincts are, there is nothing more delightful than seeing a high priestess of the Government done for breaking her own pettifogging rules. Poor Lady Scotland indeed.

This is revenge, and for the millions of meek, law-abiding people who are increasingly found guilty of inadvertent middle-class crime every day, nothing could be more sweet. This is about the biter bit; about regulators shipwrecked on rocks of their own making.

Lady Scotland, the Attorney- General, neglected to check that her Tongan housekeeper had a visa to work legally in the United Kingdom. According to the UK Border Agency she “took steps” to check Loloahi Tapui’s right to work but did not keep a copy of documents, as required by law. An oversight, then. A mistake, made in good faith. A classic case of an intelligent, righteous person making a technical error. And of course we know why Lady Scotland made the error, don’t we? It was for the exactly same reasons the rest of us make them.

Let’s guess, shall we? She was too busy juggling pressing matters of work and home and family to check. She was in a rush. Her husband had a big project on. The pile of paperwork on the kitchen dresser had got a little deep; the children had exams. There was a holiday to book, and if she didn’t do it no one else would. She didn’t have time to read the small print. There were too many meetings. She trusted other people to get it right. She forgot. The dog ate the document. She was exhausted and needed an early night.

And so it goes, the universal list of excuses that is both lengthy and genuine but, as we all know, also utterly ineffectual. There is no reason why we should feel remotely sorry for the Attorney-General, or make any allowances for her: first because no one ever feels sorry for us, or makes allowances for us; and second, because she helped to formulate the intricate rules on employing immigrant workers which she has fallen foul of.

Now she knows, like the rest of us, how easy and how painful it is to be on the receiving end of unforgiving, burdensome officialdom. Now she is aware of the consequences that small, overpressed businesses, not to mention individuals, must endure for innocently failing to follow correct procedures.

Schadenfreude isn’t just acceptable in this case; it’s entirely justifiable, and if the baroness is clear-sighted she will understand that. This is the important point to take from this comic little episode. In an age of chronic managerialism, with the path of the non-criminal classes increasingly and unnecessarily strung with bureaucratic tripwires, we can rejoice when lawmakers are hoist by their own petard. We are entitled, frankly, to be a little spiteful, because the world as they have shaped it is equally spiteful to us.

Real criminals evade regulation effortlessly. It is the innocents who get caught. Who does not pay their cleaner cash? Who, when faced with that joyful someone who is eager, reliable and willing to do one’s garden, will insist on examining their passport like a member of the Stasi?

Tick the wrong box on a planning application, and you will never get that extension built. Be sold the incorrect ticket on a train, and it will be your fine to pay. Accept a cheque with the wrong name on it, and you will be treated as a money launderer. Enter 13p in the wrong column on your expenses form (note — this does not apply if you are an MP), and be treated like a cheat. Park your car with one tyre on a yellow line, and get a ticket. Fail to declare a dormant savings account with £100 in it, and expect revenge from the Revenue heavies.

My son, a guileless student, driving a car owned and insured by me, was pulled over and grilled in the back of a police car for an hour last week for having no insurance. They told him the car wasn’t on their computer; they were going to impound it on the spot and charge him. After some frantic phone calls, it was established that a typo by the insurance company meant an “F” in the car registration had been misrecorded as an “E”. The police were unimpressed, even after finding the vehicle on their computer with my son as a named driver. It’s your problem, they said; the car is still not insured. Your mother should have checked her insurance document.

Unintentional law breaking is still law breaking. Eventually on this occasion common sense did prevail. The officers referred the decision up to their sergeant, who decided in this instance to be lenient. We had to produce documents at the police station and should, I suppose, be grateful that we “got off”. But it was a nasty experience. Small wonder that the middle classes put up the cry: “Why don’t they go and catch some real criminals?”

But this is what we have sleepwalked into; this is the mission creep from a reasonable society to a petty one. Overregulation has transferred to us the onus to behave like office clerks in every facet of our own lives, or suffer the consequences. It has trapped ordinary, responsible people and businesses in a web of pseudo-offending. From the authorities, there is no leeway, no slack to cut, no discretion, no room for commonsense, no amnesty; because Lady Scotland and her like have deliberately managed such things out of the system. Honestly, is it any wonder we are gleeful?

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