Colin D Gordon

What is known in Britain as “the silly season” is coming to an end. That’s the period from mid-July to the beginning of September when Parliament and the Law Courts are in recess , the leading media commentators and most politicians ( including the Prime Minister – though not his deputy, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg) are away on holiday and the newspapers are desperately trying to conjure up some “attention- grabbing headlines”. In Hungary and Estonia, it’s called “cucumber time”, in Sweden “news drought”, in France “the dull season”, in Germany “summer hole” and in Spain “summer snake” (Serpiente de verano).This characterization does not, of course, extend to major global calamities  such as the floods in Pakistan, China and Niger or the fires which have been raging around Moscow.

In the UK, however, the apparent annual lull in significant national developments can often be deceptive. The country’s new Coalition Government has continued to issue a stream of often controversial policy statements, most of them relating to the imminent cuts in public expenditure. On August 17^th – which coincided with its first 100 days in power – the Government announced that in November it will be introducing a “Freedom Bill” into Parliament. Some aspects of the proposed legislation have been cautiously welcomed by civil liberties organizations who are otherwise alarmed at the impact the deficit reduction measures could have on the poorer sectors of British society. The declared objective is to “roll back the Big Brother state” and rescind many of the 500 additional powers created by the former Labour Government that have allowed officials, among them bailiffs collecting civil debts, to force entry into people’s homes. According to a “Sunday Times” article published on 22^nd August, the Regulation of Investigatory  Powers Act (RIPA) 2000, which was supposed to be directed against suspected terrorists and serious criminals has instead been widely deployed by local authorities  “to spy on ordinary citizens and workers”. Under plans due to be implemented by Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government,  spy satellite images will no longer be used “to monitor home improvements when properties are being assessed for council tax”  and environmental enforcement ‘snoopers’  will not be allowed (as at present) “to go through bins to check whether households have properly disposed of their rubbish”. He also intends to abolish the current £500 fine levied on residents “refusing entry to inspectors who wish to measure and photograph their dwellings”.

Over-zealous council employees will not be the only people whose allegedly heavy-handed “Stasi”(former East German secret police) style is likely to be severely curtailed by the Freedom Bill. As part of the proposed new regulations, wheel clamping on private land will be banned in England & Wales. This is already the situation in Scotland. Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone has confirmed, in a media release ,that the Government is committed to ending the “menace and unscrupulous tactics” of rogue private wheel-clampers: “Reports of motorists being marched to cash points or left stranded after their car has been towed away, are simply unacceptable”. The “Daily Telegraph” has estimated that the private clamping industry –which comprises around 350 firms and 2,150 individuals across the UK, all of whom have to be licensed by the Security Industry Authority (SIA) – is worth more than £240 million annually. A Channel Four TV programme last year quoted the Automobile Association’s (AA) view that the amount drivers were being forced to pay after being clamped on private car parks had reached “epidemic” levels which “border criminality”. Even the British Parking Association (BPA), which has criticised the proposed law as “enabling inconsiderate people to park where they wish” ,has acknowledged that there is no prescribed limit as to what these firms can demand: The BPA Chief Executive, Keith Banbury, conceded that “You could almost say it’s a licence to print money”.

The AA gave Channel Four TV examples of what , in their opinion, has become an “out of control situation”: A female driver whose car was clamped while the engine was still running: It cost her £300 to have the clamp removed Another woman, in Enfield (North London) had to pay £527 to recover her vehicle, which had been clamped and removed. Many other even more notorious cases have been publicised in the national press: A woman who was bullied into handing over her ring as a deposit for her fine. A nurse in full uniform with an NHS (National Health Service) permit on display who sat in her car until the clamp was removed. She had been threatened that the fine would increase by £50 for every 30 minutes she refused to pay.. A angry shopper in Pontypool, South Wales, chained herself to the inside of her car for two days in protest at her vehicle being clamped. A passer-by who tried to cut the wheel-clamp off was stopped by police and given an £80 fixed penalty notice for criminal damage. In another case featured recently on Channel Four TV, a Mr Haroon Zafaryab remained in his clamped Toyota Prius in north London for over 30 hours while friends and neighbours brought him provisions. The company, ‘City Watch Parking Enforcement’, clamped the other three wheels of the car, increased the fine to £3,865 and placed an additional 40 parking tickers on the windscreen. Eventually, they removed the clamps for just £100. All such abuses will be brought to an abrupt end in November , though the ban will not apply to traffic police and those local authorities who still occasionally clamp illegally parked vehicles: For example, the two luxury sports cars (a £1.2 million Koenigsegg CCXR and a £350,000 Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4) immobilised outside Harrods in Knightsbridge at the end of July, to the applause of the watching public.

Meanwhile, the Coalition Government’s decision to cut £38 million from this year’s road safety budget ( which affects mainly speed cameras) has received rather less approval. A BBC TV survey has revealed that 6,000 speed cameras have been installed alongside British roads since 1992,generating around £100m in fines per annum-  but also that Oxfordshire County Council will soon switch off its 72 fixed cameras to save costs and that other local authorities are considering taking similar action. Good news, perhaps, for motorists who like to drive fast (depicted by  Cambridgeshire Chief Constable Julie Spence as “middle-class anti-social  behaviour”), less so for those who prefer to observe the speed limits or of course for pedestrians attempting to cross the nation’s highways.

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