I always suspected as much

Civil servants who continued working during yesterday's national strike have revealed they were told to pretend to be answering machines to cope with an overload of calls from the public.

Staff at the Department for Work and Pensions in Carlisle said today they were given a brief script to read out before hanging up, in the style found on telephone answering machines. The script read: "Due to the high volume of enquiries we are currently experiencing we are unable to take your call. Please call back later." [Guardian]