Nanny's local councils, much like Nanny herself, are desperate to raise cash. Their bloated defined benefit pensions schemes and high payroll costs for their executive teams are bleeding the local taxpayers dry. However, council tax alone is not enough to quench local councils' thirst for money, they need another source.
Enter stage left "Fines".
Fines are a brilliant way for local councils to raise extra cash, all they have to do is to make something illegal then watch as the money rolls in from the fines that their "enforcement" officers impose.
One of the latest new "illegal" activities invented by Nanny is that of overfilling your bin, as Gareth Corkhill of Copeland in Cumbria recently found to his cost.
Mr Corkhill has a wheelie bin which is only emptied once a fortnight by his local council, as such it gets rather full and the lid does not shut.
As we all know, in Nanny's Britain, a non shutting lid is a "no no" and exposes the offender to a fine.
Last summer two of Nanny's enforcement officers, wearing stab proof vests, arrived at his home. They issued him with a £110 on-the-spot fine for failure to close the lid of his wheelie bin.
Mr Corkhill did not pay that fine.
The result being that he has just been taken to court and ordered to pay £210 plus a £15 victim surcharge to help victims of violence (note there was no violence in this case), in addition to the fines he has also been given a criminal record.
His local council, Copeland in Cumbria, said that Mr Corkhill's family had caused problems for "the battle to reduce waste".
Nanny is using the criminal law to shore up her crumbling finances. Once the government/state goes down that path, you know the country's farked!
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May I suggest that, hard as it may come for older members of the community who were brought up with certain standards (don't lie, don't run to mummy, MYOB) the best way to defeat Nanny is to lie. Only to Nanny, of course, but about everything. Every survey, every prying question, give the most outrageous, contradictory and responsibility shifting answer available.
ReplyDeleteIn the case of the bin, for example, simply suggest someone else put an extra bag in.
Eventually we shall force her into such contradictions that she will simply grind to a halt.
The bin tax, as indeed do all of the intrusions into our lives, emenates from Madame Nanny in the EU.
ReplyDeleteThe landfill directive forces councils to 'recycle' more or face massive fines for landfill above 2cm or whatever idiot diktat the EU draws up.
Hence, overfill your bin, do not recycle enough, do not put your bin out at the correct angle as defined by EU household waste collection directive 33389 and you will be visited by the bin gestapo and receive a nice little fine for your disregard to your masters instructions.
Stuff the local councils, the local government (formerly known as HM Government) and most of all stuff the EU. Fight them on every level, refuse to pay, say that someone else put the rubbish in, make them prove it is your rubbish, tie them up in court, use every bleeding heart liberal group you can think of to fight your case (if they will) but never never give in and just pay up.
What a nasty little country we are becoming. Or should that be 'have become'?
ReplyDeleteI notice that, according to the Daily Mail's front page, that same council has a ' bin curfew' until 7am on the day of collection. I can understand such things perhaps on privately run upmarket estates in the USA where a flunky can be contracted to put the waste out for collection, but in Cumbria?
On our local 're-cycling' collection day the collectors visits twice now they are collecting glass. Pity the noisy glass collection always seems to be at 6am and the relatively quieter garden waste and cardboard around 1pm.
I found the council 'officer' response, as reported in the Mail, interesting. The criminal taxpayer claims the bin was no more than 4 inches open. The tax grabber says he was wrong - more like 7 inches. Wow. Truly a criminal for an extra 3 inches. Could they not work it out (not that it would really matter) from the photographic evidence? But more importantly, why does it matter at all?
Note also that all offences, except violent ones it seems, attract the £15 tax for 'victim support'. Drive at 34mph in a 30 limit and dispute it? The threat is a higher fine topped up by a £15 victim support tax. Any reports of any victims getting a payout? Are they taxed on it?
I blame the Germans.
If they had not pushed so hard to bring down the Berlin wall the Stasi would not have escaped to infest the rest of Europe and our politicans would still have an external 'enemy' to keep them from turning on their own voters.
Grant
It is amazing how many new offences have been created in the last eleven years.
ReplyDeleteIt seems every new regulator/quango/agency etc etc has the power to issue fines....Kerching!!
Things that aren't illegal are either regulated or banned....It makes one proud to be British doesn't it?
Leaving a bin lid open is deemed to be a CRIMINAL offence? How very Nanny
If any party came forward and said they would put a stop to the Nanny state and the fines culture loved by local Nanny, they would get my vote!!
Grant:
ReplyDeleteThis idea of pay it now or question it and pay more in the end worries me. Ever since this idea was put in place in relation to speeding tickets, I have wondered whether it is fully legal. I have never had a speeding fine, but I would expect to be able to question it in court and see what eveidence they have against me if I should ever get one without the fear of the fine increasing ten fold and being landed with costs and a victim surcharge.
Surely leaving a bin lid open or speeding is a victimless crime, so who does the victim surcharge go to?
I wish someone would challenge this shut up and pay it or else policy through Nanny's own human rights court.....Now that would be interesting!!
Tonk,
ReplyDeleteThe party you are looking for is called UKIP. I make no bones about it, I am a member as all the other parties are sell outs to the EU and its ever increasing hold over our day to day lives.
We could easily halve our waste problem,simply by the manufacturers not selling us this rubbish in the first place,everything is over packaged, why,i bought a pc security system, one of the well known names,and inside this huge box,measuring two by six by ten inches,was an ordinary disc,why?Chip shop owners in the past were responsible for any discarded newspaper wrappers,in the vicinity of thier shops,why are other businesses exempt from any responsibility,these are the resources of our planet that they are using with gay abandon,idiotic free newspapers,beer cans,millions of leaflets from the dodgy take aways,and a mountain of usless cardboard are destroying our environment.It is cheaper to make new glass bottles than collect the old ones,there is so much recycled paper that it is worthless,and it is all premised upon the lie of global warming.But until the people have the intelligence to get rid of the lib/lab/con trick nothing will change.
ReplyDeleteTonk,
ReplyDeleteNanny is quite astute in pricing her penalty products to a point where the challenge, at any level, costs more in time and effort than it is worth. Until, that is, one realises what has been lost along the way. Especially with speeding matters of course where a ban for 3 minor technical infractions (soon to be 2?) may result in loss of job, earnings, and all that that brings with it to society.
Also 'neat' is that introduction of so many 'penalties' which do not really allow a court challenge. However non-payment for whatever reason is a crime for which there is a fine rather than a penalty. - as our Cumbrian friend has discovered.
Then there is the case of the discarded apple core in Wolverhampton.
Once these robots have been set off on a mission there is no stopping them it seems. Unless of course one could use the same strict application of rules against them. It would then be a question of how quickly they could amend their own rules to stay ahead of the game.
Plan B would be to follow the lead of the teachers and others and re-discover the concept of strikes. It seems that One of the Blair sons, presumably teaching for a couple of years in order to avoid having to pay back the student loan, is now a teacher in a state school (complete with degree from Oxford and 2 months training) and is likely to be part of the proposed strike.
That's a good enough signal for me.
Grant
Actually, the party you're looking for is the brand new Libertarian Party. Libertarians espouse smaller government, less taxation, greater personal freedom and no government intrusion into citizen's lives.
ReplyDeleteCheck out their web site: http://lpuk.org/
I'm assuming the trash pickup is done by some government entity, city, council etc: Is this the only choice you have? What I mean is, can you contract with a private waste disposal company ? In the US, at least where I live, I can get my bins from the city and pay them to pick it up or contract with a private company, use THEIR bins and have them come once a week to get my trash. Competition and free markets are the best way to rid ourselves of Nannys stranglehold.
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Debbie:
ReplyDeleteSadly, the charges for rubbish removal are included in the local tax known as council tax here in the UK. ( I prefer to call it rip off tax)
One could contract with a waste disposal firm but in effect, one would pay twice as there would be no refund from the local authority for not using their service.
The local authority also charge a fortune to local companies to dump their waste at the council tips.
Much of the increase in waste disposal charges are as a result of European Union directives, like all Nannies in our vicinity, be it local Nanny or Westminster Nanny, Euro Nanny loves to fine the very people they are supposed to be protecting.
As some of the posters have suggested... you should dispute everything, if necessary even going to Court.
ReplyDeleteFifteen years ago I was once pulled for speeding (I was doing 40 in a 30 limit at 5am in the morning). The nasty cop and his partner (also playing a nasty cop) told me I was doing 73 mph. An outragious lie which was further compounded by their electronic recording equipment not working that day (they claimed) and so they told me I had to take their word (speedometer reading).
Anyway, the summons duely arrived which strangely stated I'd been doing 'just' 55 mph... but like a fool I decided to plead guilty (I was speeding after all) and so wrote to the court asking for their foregiveness. Needless to say I was hit by a huge (and I mean huge) fine and 5 points on my licence.
Since then, I've elected to stand and fight everytime. Minor motoring offences, errors of admin, small stuff really... and one civil dispute with a certain William Gates (apparently a software company owner across the pond). And I've won every single time, although you'd be surprised how often the cases are just simply dropped.
Its been my experience that; magistrates are genuinely decent people that can tell when you're being shafted and state agency prosecutors are gutless wonders that don't have the stomach for a fight. Either way, the scales tip dramatically in your favour.
John, I agree.
ReplyDeleteMy ex-boss tried to threaten me into paying him money, and paying the solicitor for the threat.
I wrote back telling him the idea of my giving him money was 'utterly fantastic' and denying every false accusation.
He folded.
Scum.
By the way, weren't the Cumbrian Borders the traditional stamping grounds of the sheep-stealing Robber Barons?
John said he was accused by the police of driving faster than he actually was in a 30mph zone.
ReplyDeleteI once had the opposite experience.
In the days when I was mad enough to work for a large company, I often found myself getting off the train from London at 1am and then driving home.
On one occasion I was pulled over by the police and asked to get out of the car.
Whether it's police officers or Nanny enforcement officers, their first thought is usually: 'can we make our lives easier by getting this guy to say something to incriminate himself'. Hence the question: "Do you know why we have pulled you over?".
In the initial encounter the best strategy is: don't say yes, don't say no, stay polite and use the minimum number of words (ideally not four-lettered beginning with 'f'), e.g. "Do tell me".
His first excuse was feeble; the second was that I was doing 40mph in a 30mph zone. A voice in my head said "there's no way you were going that slowly but keep your mouth shut".
In the end all he wanted to do was put the breathalyser on me. It went green (I've zero tolerance to alcohol while driving). He was prepared to be reasonable, that my speed was at the upper end of what was safe for the road type, conditions and time of day and so I got off.
However, if things don't go so well after the initial encounter, there are still a surprisingly large number of options available to ensure it doesn't escalate into a court appearance. I recommend: "The Driver's Survival Handbook" by Martin Thwaite as essential reading during these difficult times in which we motorists live (Page 35 in particular explains why you don’t have to take their word for it on calibration of their electronic recording equipment).
At the end of the day, whether the bin is open or closed is irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteIt has no relation to the volume of waste which will go into landfill after crushing.
It's like speeding, it is the only thing they can measure so they put an arbitrary limit in place to make money with no regard to the effect of whatever they are measuring.