Looney bins

Here in Gordon Brown's Looking Glass Britain, the Land of Perverse Incentives, there has been a steady shift of focus in law enforcement. While the underclass continue to beat their children to death, while honest citizens are stabbed in the street and gangs of feral youths are allowed to roam free,

Leicester City Council recently began fining residents £100 if their wheelie bins were put out on the wrong day.

[From The laughing policemen: 'Inaccurate' data boosts arrest rate - Crime, UK - The Independent]

The idea that law enforcement is about revenues and targets rather than right and wrong is hateful, but you can't blame the police. The government's plan is clear: criminalise things that middle class homeowners might do (eg, overfill the recycling bin) and then target them to push up the revenues, since they are easy to catch and will always pay up

Householders who fail to nominate a neighbour to turn off their alarm while they are away from home can be breaking the law.

[From Blair's 'frenzied law making' : a new offence for every day spent in office - UK Politics, UK - The Independent]

I notice, by the way, that under the torrent of new laws introduced by the Labour government since 1997, such as the crackdown on the wheelie menaces, it is now an offence to set off nuclear explosion in the United Kingdom.

It is now illegal to sell grey squirrels, impersonate a traffic warden or offer Air Traffic Control services without a licence. Creating a nuclear explosion was outlawed in 1998.

[From Blair's 'frenzied law making' : a new offence for every day spent in office - UK Politics, UK - The Independent]

Presumably, had the Iranians managed to float a fission bomb up the Thames and set it off outside Parliament before 1998, we would have only been able to charge them under some noise abatement regulations or perhaps press a more serious case under environmental protection laws. We can all sleep more safely now, knowing that it is a criminal offence.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]