Ruffians in Rushcliffe

I know I've been quiet recently. If the truth be told, the anger has subsided somewhat. The current government isn't great, but it's decidedly less obnoxious than the last one.

The Womble thrives on fury; if the author isn't angry then nothing gets written. Maybe the blog should cater for a wider range of moods, but it is what it is. It needs sources of resentment; perhaps some mean-spirited, bullying State-sponsored thugs who throw their weight around at the expense of innocent individuals who find it hard to defend themselves.

Step forward, Rushcliffe Borough Council. These bastards have just levied a £35 fine on a 76-year-old disabled bloke who parked his car in a disabled space.

Bet you're thinking "So he isn't registered disabled, then ?"

Actually he is.

Bet you're thinking "Ah, didn't display his disabled badge then ?"

Actually he did.

Bet you're thinking "Must have overstayed his time, then ?"

Actually he didn't.

Bet you're thinking "So why did they fine him ?"

Because...he displayed his disabled badge upside down. Yep, for the heinous offence of showing a disabled badge upside down Rushcliffe Borough Council fleece a pensioner to the tune of £35. No, really.

I did a Google, as I usually do, to see if I could find this story somewhere else, just for the purposes of verification. And I actually found that these guys have previous. They've done it before. They must be proud of the fact.

What is it about local councils that makes them think they're so bloody important that they can treat ordinary people like filth ?

I hope 76-year-old Peter Knott wins his appeal against those pathetic, pen-pushing, pedantic pettifoggers from Rushcliffe Borough Council. I hope when he gets into the hearing he ridicules them, humiliates them, shames them and generally takes them to the cleaners.

In fact, I hope he turns them upside down.

Banned By The State X - Naked Gnomes

This post is based on a story in The Sun, so the normal health warnings apply. I guess it might have been exaggerated, or conceivably might not be true. But it’s daft enough to be true, and in any case it gives me a chance to rant, and that’s good enough for me.

When I’m Prime Minister, I’m going to abolish Bromsgrove Council. Why ? I’ve got nothing against Bromsgrove – never been there. Are they hugely inefficient ? No idea. Do they charge exorbitant rates of Council Tax ? Not sure. Do they let their residents kills their kids, a la Haringey ? Probably not. I want to abolish Bromsgrove Council because they’ve just abolished naked garden gnomes, and in so doing they epitomise the nannying, snooping, micro-managing, voyeuristic, offence-obsessed, harmless-fun-hating Nazis who run our country these days. I’d dearly like to see the back of every one of them and Bromsgrove seems as good a place to start as any other.

If this blog had the readership to justify it, I think I’d run one of those Iain Dale-type competitions, where you’re invited to finish a sentence with some amusing – but apposite – ending.

The sentence I’d have in my competition would be “You know the State’s getting too big when….”, and my own entry would be, ”…Councils have got time to worry about naked gnomes in people’s gardens”.

Have you ever heard something as ridiculous as the State telling someone to dress a garden gnome ? Well, OK yes, you probably have heard of one or two things which are every bit as ridiculous…perhaps you even heard about some of them on this blog, including but not limited to: bans on feeding the ducks; preventing kids wearing football boots; outlawing bouncy castles; a ban on swimming in the rain and God knows what else (click on the "Banned By The State" label at the bottom to see the full series). But what better illustrates the lengths these people will go to interfere with our lives and to tell us what to do ? And what more powerfully demonstrates that the people who can now exercise such power over us use absolutely no common sense and fail completely to grasp the idea of free expression – the principle we used to call “live and let live” ?

“Live and let live”. Whatever happened to that ? Whatever happened to the idea that if someone wanted to do something which caused absolutely no harm whatsoever to anyone or anything, then they should be allowed to do it ? It died some time ago – probably during the lifetime of this government – and Bromsgrove Council have just cremated the corpse.

So, along with numerous other organisations and people, Bromsgrove Council is on the Womble Hit List. They’d better watch out.

When I see this kind of tyranny from a council I reveal the political make-up of its councillors, so that we can see who's doing this kind of thing to us. Bromsgrove: Conservative. Shame on them.

Pratts' Road To The Loony Bin

A few weeks ago I brought news of how the DVLA was banning car registration numbers that might be deemed offensive: examples (just in case anyone from the DVLA is reading this and fancies having me arrested) included H057AGE and B004ZY.

Well, they're not alone in their crusade against the free usage of utterly harmless language. From the very same gutter of needless suppression I bring you: Lewes District Council.

Doubtless relieved that the terrifying prospect of Revolution Through Subversive Number Plates has been headed off by their mates down in Swansea, these numb skulls have decided to wage war on street names. So OUT go names like Hoare Road, Typple Avenue and Coalpit Lane....lest they offend, be subject to "deliberate misinterpretation" or are seen as unflattering. No, really, it's true.

And just so that it's clear what's banned and what (if anything) isn't, Council officials have drawn up a 25-page policy document on the subject. Just remember, folks, these people get paid to to this sort of thing....by us.

Note - From now on, whenever I see this kind of thing, I'm going to record which political party is in charge, so so that I can keep tabs on who's doing it to us. Lewes District Council - Liberal Democrats.

Swedes 2, Parsnips £1 Per Kilo

Today's Sunday Telegraph reports on the State's latest piece of mindless micro-management, this time over a few dozen parsnips.

A working landowner - Mr James Cookson - puts his leftover harvest into bags. He puts prices on the bags. He puts the bags at the end of his driveway, and next to the bags he puts an honesty box. Passers-by take what they fancy and leave their payment in the box. He makes between £5 and £10 per week, and essentially does it so that nothing goes to waste. Can anyone see the harm in this ? Can you possibly come up with any sort of objection ? No, I didn't think so. But Northumberland County Council can.

Some wretched Sate-sponsored bureaucrats who clearly have absolutely nothing to do have written to Mr Cookson, telling him that his produce has to be sold by metric weight. Under EU regulations, needless to say. And along with his warning letter, they've sent him four pages of guidance on how to conform with these piddling regulations.

Mr Cookson is quoted as saying "I have got better things to kick up a fuss about, bit it tickles my sense of humour that someone has bothered to write an official letter about something like this".

I'll tell you what - it doesn't tickle my sense of humour - not one bit. It sickens that they we're paying our taxes so that some good-for-nothing busy-body can interfere in such an utterly harmless thing. You could take the mickey out of them, but they do it themselves. They're beyond parody. Every time you think you've heard of the most ludicrous, time-wasting, intermeddling piece of twaddle, they come up with a new one which breaks all records.

Come the revolution, that's all I can say....come the revolution.

Cut And Dried Tyranny

You might think that offering regular customers a complementary glass of mulled wine is a fantastic marketing ploy for a hairdressers. You might think that it would spread a little goodwill and Christmas cheer. You might think that it's a completely harmless thing to do. And you might think that no one, but no one, could possibly object to it.

You'd be absolutely right on the first three counts. And spectacularly wrong on the fourth.

Norwich City Council (bastards) have written to every one of the city's 104 salons saying that to serve mulled wine you've got to have a licence. Failure to comply with this bureaucratic nonsense could land the salon owner with (get this):
..six months in prison (yes, I really did say "six months in prison"); .. ..
..a £20,000 fine,
..or,
..BOTH !

And, what's more, these fascist bullies are threatening to use undercover officers to catch salon owners out.

Students of the incessantly infantile behaviour exhibited by the State should will also appreciate the fact that they've sent this letter out four weeks before Christmas - doubtless too late for anyone to apply for a sodding licence.

Words are beginning to fail me when I attempt to describe how much I now hate the people in authority in this country. There is absolutely no harm whatsoever in giving customers a tipple when they come in out of the cold to get their hair done. God knows things are depressing enough as it is in this country right now. Why is it that all the people who have no life have to take it out on the rest of us by poking their noses into everybody else's ?

There is another point to be made here, which is that this is just the latest in a long line of crackdowns on the use of alcohol. Having used every tactic under the sun to target smokers, the State is now clearly setting its sight on anyone who likes a drink once in a while.

I guess the logic is that they tried combining economic ruin and Prohibition in the America of the 1920s, so they might us well try it here now.

Watching Us In Bed

So the State has finally done it – they’ve got cameras into the bedroom.

The Daily Telegraph reports today that a local council – not named, doubtless to protect the guilty – put cameras into the bedroom of a couple “with learning difficulties” to look for evidence (there wasn’t any, as far as I can make out) that they were maltreating their baby (who sleeps in a separate room).

Say what you like about the Human Rights Act, but it does have its uses. It can – and did in this case – provide people with some protection against grotesque State intrusion. It shouldn’t have to, of course. Firstly there should be other legislation laid down with gives us recourse in cases like this, and secondly the State shouldn’t be allowed to install CCTV in our own homes in the first place.

In the wake of the Baby P case there are going to be all sorts of calls for closer monitoring of people by the State. They are calls we should resist. Without wishing to pre-empt the Balls Inquiry (or whatever it’s called) what appears to have happened in Harrngay is that officials could have spotted the signs of abuse, but missed them. In other words, it wasn’t the frequency or the extent of the surveillance that let Baby P down, but its quality. That is quite definitely not an excuse for invading the privacy of thousands of other families.

The arrogance with which some government officials go about their work is breathtaking. I can just imagine the smugness and voyeuristic excitement of the snooping Stalinists as they watched the first pictures coming back from this poor couple’s bedroom. I thank God that they’ve been told where to get off but mark my words, they’ll be back; spying on someone else’s bedroom or bathroom or toilet. And they’ll keep coming back until we as a nation decide we’ve had enough of it and make plain to our dear, elected leaders that they’ve gone too far. Or, better still, change our dear elected leaders into ones who don’t need telling.

It’s high time we fought back.

Back Door Tyranny

Red swiggle ? Red Square more like...

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Of all the many facets of the State’s creeping expansion into the everyday lives of ordinary people, one of the most insidious is the way in which councils treat people who want to foster or adopt children.

Hot on the heels of the story that Dundee City Council have banned two couples who smoke from fostering children comes another tale of totalitarianism, this time from east London.

Newham Council have denied a couple the right to adopt a baby girl because, on just one occasion, the father smacked another child for swearing. This decision comes in spite of the fact that:
..the couple have been raising the half-brother of this baby for the last five years;
..the father openly admitted the smacking incident;
..the Council have already had their decision overturned once a by a High Court judge.

What these stories demonstrate is a desire on the part of councils effectively to outlaw completely lawful and legitimate behaviour amongst people whose destiny they have control over. You wouldn’t bet on it staying this way (especially if ZaNuLabour remain in power after the next election) but right now it is perfectly legal to smoke in a house where children live, and to administer reasonable chastisement on children who misbehave. Doubtless the Stalinist administrations in Newham and Dundee wish it were not so, and rather than wait for the Politburo in Downing Street to catch up, they decide to impose tyranny via the back door.

The Newham couple are going back to court to challenge their council’s decision. I wish them luck. But sadly this will not be the last time we hear of councils waging war on foster carers and adopters who refuse to surrender what little freedom they have left in bringing up children as they see fit.