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Ahead of next week's budget, there's growing speculation that Britain will emulate twelve other European countries and introduce a car 'scrappage' scheme, in which people are paid a sum of money by the government when they buy a new car and trade in their old one. In Germany it's led to a huge increase in car sales, but there's now growing criticism of the scheme. Ray Furlong will report for us tonight. These words and photos from him will make the report 36% more enjoyable.

"This is Mr Lensch looking disgusted. He runs a scrapyard, and he's overwhelmed with cars which he says should still be on the road. 'This engine can serve for years,' he said. Then we looked inside - it had 20,000 kilometres on the clock.

Mr Lensch is not allowed to sell the cars brought in for scrappage, so he has to crush them. In any case, the bottom has fallen out of the used car market since the scheme was brought it, hitting him hard. It's also resulted, he says, in a fall in business for his repair shop - there are just fewer old bangers on the road. Oh, and the price of scrap metal has also plummeted.

Mr Lensch isn't alone in his criticism: economists, politicians, even govt back-benchers have weighed in. But this man is happy: Kurt Kroeger runs a car showroom and says business is booming. 'The last time we had this many customers,' he says, 'was after German reunification - the Ossies came over with carrier bags full of cash. It's not quite that great this time, but at times we've been fighting the customers off!'"

I rather think we should have a caption competition (that's not really a competition as there is no prize and no-one will win anything) with that last photo. Any thoughts?

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