Ok I've had enough. Once upon a time in this country people stood up for their rights. If the people thought they were being cheated, someone would know about it. Now we have the government and local councils telling us how they are going to spend our money, instead of us telling them. The latest good idea is to charge us for waste collection on a per bag basis. I used to get my bin collected weekly, now I have a large wheelie bin sat in my front garden stinking and covered in maggots for a fortnight. This of course brings with it the joy of having to clean this health hazard, or paying one of the growing number of wheelie bin cleaning services to do it.
This massive decline in what was a basic public service irritates me, but what really annoys me is the fact that this stupidity has been foisted upon us without our consultation. We have become the servants of the state, and we are expected to pay up and shut up or face a fine. What has happened to us, are we so used to being told what to do now, that we can't even raise a whimper of defiance when our opinion is being so obviously disregarded?
It is thought that one in seven local authorities have fitted wheelie bins with microchips, this equates to approximately four million homes. The Conservative shadow local government minister, Eric Pickles, said: "We face the prospect of bin chips quietly being fitted in bins across the country to spy on families without their knowledge. I fear now that Labour ministers are forcing town halls into levying new bin taxes, without public consent."
This is yet another case of the government failing to do its job. Instead of getting manufacturers to reduce the amount of packaging they use, the government have fallen back on their tried and tested method of taxing us to sort out their problems. If the roads are congested, instead of building more, or improving the ones we have, or subsidising public transport, they tax us.
Not only are the government failing to do their job, they have the (add any word you like) nerve to them charge us for the privilege of being led by incompetents.
UPDATE: Daniel Hannan of the Telegraph has posted an article entitled: Join the localist revolution Please try and find time to read it.
1 comment:
The problem with localism is that one man's localism is another man's postcode lottery...
I'd just point out that rather than "the government and local councils telling us how they are going to spend our money, instead of us telling them" it's more a case of the Government telling local councils how to run themselves, pressuring them financially and then leaving the councillors to absorb the political fall-out.
Anyway, I've done a nice, thoughtful post on refuse collection which you can find here
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