Secret Police

We are to have a new system of local taxation in England. Local taxes - known as "council tax" will be assessed according to the value of your property. Thus the more your house is worth the more you pay. All very commendable, you may think. But what about the old widow who has lived in the same house all her life? It's big enough to raise the family of five who have all now fled the nest. Hubby died leaving her very little in the way of pension. The house, because of its size, is worth lots of money and - although it's perhaps too big for her now - she is loathe to move. She is old and frail and the trauma of looking for, viewing, buying and moving to a different house is just too much for her. Besides which, she has so many happy memories of the loving family and husband with whom she shared the house that she is wants to live out the rest of her life there and wishes to die in a place in which she has had so much happiness.
So she will be taxed accordingly and - although she is one person using the services of the local government she will have to pay the taxes as if there were six people living in the house. Furthermore if she improves the house, perhaps to make it easier for her to remain there, she will increase the value of the house and thus increase her taxes. New central heating will increase the value of her house. A modern bathroom with perhaps an easy-access bath to help her in her old age will again increase the value. All of the things which would help her have a comfortable old age will go against her when it comes to paying this tax.
She will not be able to hide any of these improvements. There will be a team of inspectors - already being dubbed the "Council Tax Police" who will have an absolute right to enter your home and assess its value. You will not have the right to refuse entry and if you try you will be fined up to £500 for each day their inspection is delayed.
"Hey guys, I've got an idea for some easy money. Let's make ourselves some bogus identity cards and go and inspect some old pensioners homes. We can suss the joint to see what they have that's worth stealing and we might even be able to fleece them for some bogus fines if they show signs of objecting!"
So far no one has given us any guarantees about how these inspectors will identify themselves. So the whole operation is open to the fleecing of gullible, law-abiding people. I don't know of a copper-bottomed guarantee that the guy at the door is the genuine article and I am sure we will get many confused and bewildered old people being defrauded on their own doorsteps.
Now to a more recent announcement. England is to get a smoking ban. Smoking will be banned from every public building and workplace on July 1. The only places where it will be legal to smoke will be in the open air or in your own home. I can see the benefits of this and in many ways, even though I'm a smoker, I agree with the general idea of it. But, once again, someone has to come up with a stupid idea that we won't go along with this new law and so - it must be enforced. Plans are afoot to employ clandestine "smoking police" to go into bars, pubs, clubs and work places and check that the law is being upheld. There will be as many as 20,000 of these spies. They will be allowed to secretly video acts of lighting up which could be used in evidence in a court of law. They will be able to apply on-the-spot fines to transgressors. They will also be empowered to fine proprietors if it is seen that they allow such breaches of the law.
How bloody sad.
In Scotland they have had a smoking ban for nearly a year. They already have a squad of 11 "smoking inspectors". In the time the law has been enacted the inspectors have recorded no breaches and imposed no fines.
In Ireland - which has had a similar regulation for some years - there has been no massive outcry nor many cases of the law being flouted.
Why does this government think we will need to be policed?
The control freaks who seem to run this country cry "it is for the public good".
I think it shows a sign of insecurity. Or perhaps it is just a money-making exercise.
The police state is alive and living in England.