A small gathering of VIPs who aim to put themselves in the forefront of the UK's e-government plans have started off small with the launch of a Web site where you can apply for a fishing licence online.

So while you're surfing, pop along to www.fishinglicence.co.uk, grab yourself a licence and go out fishing - the old ways are the best. It claims to deal with an application within minutes but we couldn't tell you if that's true because it's not actually there yet - we hope it won't go the same way as other government Net projects.

The interesting thing though was that while we were checking out the company behind Fishing Licence, iMPOWER, we came across its directors. Which reads like a veritable list of business and local government intelligentsia.

There's Heather Rabbats, chief exec and ex-head of Lambeth council (one of the hardest jobs in local government), BBC and LSE governor; Gavyn Davies, non-exec director and chief economist at Goldman Sachs, ex-adviser to the prime minister; Robert Deveraux, non-exec director and co-founder of Virgin; Alasdair Liddell, renowned top government bod behind modernisation of the NHS; and Peter Mead, founder of Abbott Mead Vickers, one of the UK's biggest advertising agencies.

I bet Britain's fishers didn't realise the strength of backing behind them. ®