Britain: petty official capital of the world

ROBERT TAGGART

ONCE UPON A TIME... MAYBE, BUT, IN 'NEW' LABOURS NEW BRITAIN ?.. NOT A CHANCE ! THE DEFINING CHARACTER OF OUR COUNTRY AFTER THESE TWELVE LABOUR YEARS ? CORRUPTION... LOW LEVEL CORRUPTION... SET TARGETS, SET INCENTIVES (FINANCIAL), SET LOOSE ! AS A 'SCROUNGER' ONE HAS BECOME ALL TO FAMILIAR WITH THIS NEW SETUP.

John Levett

I don't know Rod but I have a theory. I'm told that Spain still practises democracy: just possibly, the average Spaniard feels that he exerts sufficient authority via the democratic process to feel that his life means something.

NO2ID and YES2CO2.

Biggestaspidistra

Rod, forgive the off topic, why are you able to write about Neathergate in the Times but not here at the Spectator? Did Head Boy ban it?

Kevin White

The ethos of a country is set by the ruling classes. Recently a lot of stupid people have gone college, then clawed their way into positions of power. And this has led to a ruling class that is earnest and officious. As the great P. J. O'Rourke put it, "Earnestness is stupidity gone to college."

Jez

It happened last saturday to me.

I was picking a wreath up to lay the day after and i was on double yellows.

Once he heard why i needed to park there he said "no problem". When he saw the wreath he wished me the very best of wishes.

Er, that is an exception to the rule i expect though!

Harriet Seacole Mandelson

Rod. Perhaps you should ask all the nice people you cosied up to at those Spectator Awards recently. They are the ones to thank for this Stalinist state.

gareth

The institutionally corrupt government we have today MUST make a song and dance about petty infringements - otherwise they have nothing to say. It's a good way to dominate and stifle real debates - move the goalposts onto minor fields and raise hell!!

Baron Pipin II

One can only guess how we got here. Perhaps, the two party system should take a part of the blame. It may have fitted the country well in times of a clear ideological division. Since this divide got kicked into the long grass, the vacuum has been filling up with a finer split that has the look of at least semi-permanency: the green lunatics, the eurosceptic dreamers, the nationalistic pub rousers plus the soon to be remnants of the three societies of the ‘mainstream’ look-alikes. Keeping the FPTP electoral system going against the new alignment on the ground has left most of us impotent, we no longer have any meaningful impact on how we are governed. Mix this with the gradual, and mostly clandestine transfer of power to an even less democratic institutions over the Channel, and voila, the country can hardly be shocked to be in a straightjacket of a bureaucratic nightmare.

PS: good job of yours in the ST today. It needed saying, the eye impaired creature has had enough in the limelight, the time has come for everyone to stand up and shout ‘enough’s enough’. The other bit, the one about Labour and immigration wasn’t bad either.

Lungfish

Biggestaspidistra- 'Editorial staff always have more news reports that can be fitted into the time available. Their choice has to be selective and no matter how carefully such decisions are made, they are always aware that some people may disagree with them.'

Thats part of the reply to my letter to the Beeb asking them why they chose to ignore that story. Funny how they find time to report all kinds of irrelevant tripe but not a national scandal isn't it?

Nele Schindler

So ONE event in Spain means Britain is doomed? What rubbish. The current political climate here has led to a sprouting of idiocy but that doesn't mean all officials are robots. We're still a paradise of efficiency and humanity compared to most countries.

rod liddle

Mr Aspidistra - no, that's not a problem at all. I have written about it for the spectator (not strictly re neather, but the general issue). Maybe I should do it again.

Here's a link to The Times piece:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rod_liddle/article6917199.ece

They cut out one line; where I talk about the platitudinous drivel how we must all embrace a vibrant multicultural society, I wrote that this was usually said by people who live in areas where they are themselves, late at night, ambraced around the neck by the vibrancy of multiculturalism and relieved of their possessions. I thought that was the best line in the piece but there we are.

Haldane

Statist claptrap - by and large.

Lungfish

Rod- that would indeed of been a good line!- chickens to edit it out.

Augustus

Come to Burnham Market, where there are no yellow lines or traffic wardens, anywhere.

Haldane

How did we become so officious? It's the inevitable consequence of all the statist claptrap we have endured, and which you are in favour of - by and large!

Frank P

Augustus

I would guess that Rod has had the occasional assignation at the Hoste Arms: the haunt of minor celebrity OTS (they must think we dumplings don't recognise 'em).

Seriously though Mr Liddle; your ST article was much appreciated today.

Jane Bodington

In Spain? I live in Spain and I would not dream of double-parking and asking a municipal policeman to keep an eye on my car, they would fine me on the spot.
Mind you, I have frequently parked illegally to withdraw cash from the one-armed bandit.
Not a goody-two shoes.
Maybe he had British numberplates and they knew it was pointless to fine him.

rod liddle

D'you know, I was looking at Burnham Market as a possible home. A compromise with my wife (I'd be in the north east like a rat up a drainpipe if it were all down to me).

I don't think it's anything to do with statism; I think it's to do with our culture and our worship of authority.

Billericay Dickie

@ Augustus Come to Burnham Market...
Which Burnham is that, Augustus - Burnham on Crouch, perhaps? Will I find a Nice Bit of Posh?

David Alexander

As editor of the Today Program YOU presided over much of this nonsense or at the very least let it pass without comment.

GeoffM

Similarly, in France, a friend had some troublemakers arrive on his camp site. Upon being asked to leave, they attacked him and stole his watch.

He responded by getting a baseball bat and laying into them.

When the police arrived he said he was very worried about being arrested for his actions.

Once the Gendarmes understood his mangled French - they pissed themselves laughing.

Two days later a senior Gendarme arrived to officially commend him for his actions.

Not in England.

EC

"I'd be in the north east like a rat up a drainpipe if it were all down to me."

Bollocks. Haddaway and shite man!

rod liddle

David - no I bloody well didn't. It's exactly the sort of thing we covered every week.

David Alexander

Rod, I stopped listening to Today because of its indulgence of anything authoritarian, anything that raised taxes, anything that sought to keep people in line and anything that limited choice. Petty jobsworth mentalities have exactly the same root as the puritanism that oozes from the BBC in general and the Today program in particular.

workie ticket

Could we make this thread 'Why I stopped listening to the Today Programme"?

I stopped after the 1st Gulf War when a couple of days after the invasion of Kuwait the officer in charge was 'interviewed' by those 2 who are normally on it. The bilious tone of their questions was disgusting. The man was only doing his job - he didnt make the decision to go to war - and despite his polite attempts to address their points the tone of the interview didnt change at all. From then on I thought never again.

Oh..and another thing....Mr Seacole, if your missus is scared of going North, tell her not to worry. The place is full of well modulated southern accents from the refugees escaping the NuLiebour economic and social engineering miracle. Sure we dont have many famous people to sup lattes with but there are compensations...a Greggs on every street corner for one.

Sam ARMSTRONG

Spain democratic?

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Matthew

Conversation with British Traffic warden on arriving back 5 minutes late:
"Oh! Have I got a ticket?"
"No. I always try and give people 10 minutes grace"
"Thanks very much. Am I OK waiting a few minutes for my wife?"
"No problem. Take your time, just stay with the car".

Can you get more reasonable?

James Murphy

Dear Mr R. Liddle, you are hereby given notice of the relevant authority's intention to prosecute for bullshit. You have 14 days from the date of this blog to answer the criticisms of hypocrisy incurred by your Today Editorship. Failure to do so will lead to the brickbats being doubled and/or your readership dissolving into thin air.

C Powell

"How did we end up so officious?"

Well, Rod, some of you - you know who you are - voted for Labour, a party that believes that the state and its officials know better than us how to run our lives. I didn't but I still have to put up with this bunch of authoritarian busy-bodies destroying the free country I was brought up in.

All those Labour voters now complaining about all these authoritarian laws should hang their heads in shame.

Dixon

I think you are picking the wrong target in traffic wardens. People who hate them are generally those who like to think that no law applies to them and so resent the remote possibility of being caught that these humble servants of safety represent. Looking at the utterly idiotic and irresponsible way people ark round here...especially the taxis five times a day all around the mosque... I would rather there were more of them.

Then where do all these commenters get this idea that the officiousness of the British began in 1997? Give me a laugh wont you!

EyeSee

We are double-damned. Someone said that in Italy corruption in bureaucracy is rife, but you can get things done with a bribe. Here, we have adopted the stupidity inherent in bureaucracies, but lack the corruption, so you can't even get anywhere with a bribe! Mind you, our politicians are certainly setting the example that larceny is a part of modern British life, so maybe that will change. Can't see common sense and decency returning anytime soon.

Harry Seacole Flashman

Is there anywhere else in Britain but Old Liebour Glasgow where there are litter wardens dressed to look like policemen and who fine people on the spot for littering (mainly school children and students - in fact, generally anyone who looks like they won't hit them)? I don't condone littering but neither do I condone employing uneducated neds to dress like the East German army and bully the weak and scared.

Rainer Unsinn

Traffic wardens have always been odious little Hitlers, it's not a new phenomenon.
However, Britain has certainly changed, for the worse, since 1997.