The ever-onward march of the Jobsworths continues! Give a power-crazed little Hitler with a clipboard under his arm a bit of authority and you can bet your life he will do his utmost to abuse it. Now, we are told, Three Rivers District Council is thinking of fining residents who officers believe are disposing of too much rubbish. What next? The proverbial spy-in-the-litter-bin?
Who on earth do these council bullies and neo-fascists, running rampant up and down the country, think they are? We are increasingly being controlled by these morons and automotans. They are people with very tiny and totally unimaginative minds who probably couldn't get a job anywhere else. I suspect some are failed coppers, failed prison officers and probably even failed traffic wardens who, nevertheless, feel the urge to demonstrate their power over others. So what do they do? Become the Rubbish Police! Roll on Nazi/Soviet Union Britain.
The people who will enforce these fines are the kind who would have been first in line to pull on the jackboots, had the Germans won WWII. Has no-one told them they are our SERVANTS, not our masters? We pay their wages. We keep them in a job, even though a great many of them are utterly incompetent and incapable of doing it. Nor are they accountable and answerable to anybody.
But there is a way of fighting back. When the fines start arriving, I suggest people use Freedom of Information legislation to discover who these anonymous, faceless bureaucrats are, find their home addresses and harass them as they intend to harass innocent people. I suggest we make their lives a misery until they understand the error of their ways.

We learn that nasty, snooping little bureaucratic toe-rags working for Poole Borough Council, Dorset, spent three weeks spying on an innocent couple whose only crime was wanting the best primary school for their child.
They actually sat outside the couple’s house, watching their movements and making surreptitious notes to check whether they were trying to fiddle the admissions system. But the council pleads it was perfectly justified in using legislation which was actually brought in to combat terrorism and serious organised crime.
How on earth did we come to this? How did the nation that won two world wars, saw off the Spanish Armada, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler and was once regarded as a bastion of free speech and democracy, allow ourselves to be lulled into a state in which moronic, neo-fascist bureaucrats with clipboards can spy on innocent parents whose only crime is wanting the best for their child's future?
I find it utterly beyond belief - except, of course, that it isn't, because it is happening all too frequently. How the idiot bullies of Poole Council can equate parents trying to get their child into a particular school with blatant benefits frauds is beyond me. I hope the nasty, sneaky little would-be James Bonds who spent three weeks sitting outside the couple's home, making pathetic notes, are proud of themselves. Perhaps they should get themselves roles as extras in the next Bond film!
Surely, this was a gross misuse of the surveillance laws and those responsible should themselves be investigated by the police. One of the worst aspects is that we are not told who the spies were or what qualifications they possessed for this kind of furtive, private-eye activity. Furthermore, surely someone who spied on a child could be arrested as a paedeophile?
We are now the most spied-on nation in Europe, with more CCTV cameras than any other, we have thousands of petty, prying little busybodies who are legally allowed to enter our homes and we are threatened with totally unnecessary ID cards.
All dictators know that the way to enslave a nation is to take away its freedoms little by little, so that people don’t notice. This is what is happening, as foreseen by George Orwell in his iconic novel “1984”. 1984 is now with us and Britain is well on the way to becoming the new Soviet Union, East Germany or Third Reich.

Can anybody believe that Northamptonshire Police are taking even remotely seriously a complaint against Basil Brush for alleged racism towards gipsies and travellers? We are accustomed by now to the lunatic excesses of political correctness, but this really takes the biscuit - or should that be the brush? Will the phrase “Taking the Mickey” now become “Taking the Basil”, I wonder?
Seemingly, some twerp called Joseph Jones, who calls himself vice-chairman of the Southern England Romany Gipsy and Irish Traveller Network - whatever that is - reckons Basil made racist and offensive remarks in a programme on a children’s digital channel. The alleged offence? Basil’s neighbour, Dame Rosie Fortune, tries to sell him pegs and lucky heather and offers to read his palm, whereupon Basil tells a joke about a fortune teller who stole his wallet.
This episode was first shown SIX YEARS ago and has been repeated eight times since. It also appears on a Basil Brush DVD, "Basil Unleashed". So why has the hypersensitive Mr Jones only just noticed it now and waited six years to bring his barmy complaint? Moreover, why don’t the Northamptonshire Plod tell him that unless he backs off he’ll be the one to have his collar felt for wasting police time?
Or will they be issuing a “Wanted For Hate Crimes” poster featuring a Mr B. Brush, described as having a long pointy nose, a reddish-brown furry coat, a bushy tail and with someone’s hand up his backside?
What next in this increasingly mad, mad PC world? Will those other children’s favourites, Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grubb be prosecuted under equality laws for having an all-white crew at Trumpton Fire Station and not recruiting from the ethnic minorities? Isn’t there something a bit odd and unhealthy about Andy Pandy sharing a picnic basket with a teddy bear and a girl rag doll called Looby Loo? And will Bill and Ben, The Flowpot Men, finally be forced by the strident homosexual brigade to come out of the closet and admit they’re gay?
As Basil would say: Boom, Boom!

Donning my Victor Meldrew mode, there are a couple of things in modern society that are increasingly beginning to irritate me. First, it seems to be impossible to go into a pub or shop these days without someone trying to force you to buy things you don’t want.
You can’t buy a simple drink in a pub anywhere in the land without the barman or barmaid asking “Do you want anything else?” Usually, I just growl “No thank you,” but when feeling particularly grumpy I have been moved to reply: “If I had wanted something else I’d have asked for it!”
Giving this response to a foreign barmaid at Euston Station the other night - London doesn’t seem to have a single British bar assistant any more - who had asked me if I wanted some crisps, she apologised and said it was the manager’s instructions that the staff had to ask every customer if there was anything else they wanted. Clearly, the manager of every pub in Britain has issued this edict, since it happens everywhere, even in buffets on trains.
A while ago, I found myself in a late-night queue at a W H Smith’s bookstall at Waterloo, counting the minutes I had to get to Euston to catch my train to Watford. The queue was moving appallingly slowly because the only assistant was trying to palm off onto everyone who appeared before him an offer of half-price chocolate. When I complained about the delay and being offered something I didn‘t want, he muttered “Well, it’s a promotion, I have to do it.”
Don’t these idiot managers realise that this kind of pressured selling is annoying, and probably counter productive to their firm’s reputation, since it only puts customers’ backs up?
And the other thing I object to? I am frequently badgered by charities, both on the phone and by post, trying to get me to make a donation, take out a direct debit or help with their collections. They are becoming as big a nuisance as the double-glazing and timeshare sharks.
When I protest that I am registered with the Telephone Preference Service and don’t accept cold calls, I get the reply that charities are exempt from adhering to the TPS code. Whatever for? They should be made to observe it, just like commercial companies, and not pester people.

A new government report on children reveals what Basil Fawlty would call “the bleedin’ obvious” - that parents believe political correctness in schools is destroying their kids’ education and childhood. Barmy health and safety rules and the ludicrous mentality that “all must have prizes” are cited as examples of how education is being undermined.
The report says parents of children who are exceptionally gifted at sport, dance, music and drama are angry because their offspring are being paired with “klutzes” - kids who are useless at those subjects - in a zeal for inclusion and equality. It even quotes a Watford mother as saying her child’s school cancelled a sports day because the grass was damp!
I wish these reports - no doubt costing thousands of pounds to research and write - would tell us something that isn’t blindingly obvious to all but a mentally retarted budgerigar.
The notion that all children must be equal and everyone must have prizes is pie-in-the-sky, egalitarian nonsense. Of course all children are not equal - for the simple reason that people are not born equal, never have been and never will be.
As long as the human race exists, there will always be those who are born with superior talents and gifts denied to others. These lucky souls should be encouraged and promoted and pushed to their limits, not dragged down to the lowest common denominator of mediocrity by those riddled with envy.
The world has always been divided into winners and losers. However, if Paula Radcliffe was at school today and just starting out on her way to becoming the greatest female marathon runner in history, some pathetic wimp of a teacher would probably tell her to slow down because it wasn’t fair on others trying to keep up with her!
The crackpot PC theory seems to be that some poor little souls will be traumatised for the rest of their lives by not winning prizes - utter bilge, of course. Cushioning kids from the fear of failure is hardly preparing them for the far greater pressures they will face when they leave school.
If we don’t encourage gifted youngsters to allow their talents to blossom in full, where on earth is our next generation of top political and business leaders, scientists, engineers, actors, artists and Olympic champions coming from?
This is not elitism but accepting the fact that there will always be people who are superior in their field. However, all the sanctimonious prattling about diversity, equality and inclusion is dragging us down to the level of a third-rate, Third World nation.

The bearded Welsh windbag - aka Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury - tells us we should recognise Islamic sharia law in Britain. Is this man totally mad, a prattling fool or, worse, a dangerous subversive with a highly political agenda?
Fortunately, his views have been met with almost universal condemnation, including even from many Muslims. However, one imagines that, sadly, he’s not going to go away and disappear quietly into the hole he’s dug for himself.
Surely he must have known the uproar and outrage his barmy opinions would cause? One can only believe, then, that he has provoked the debate deliberately - perhaps because he knows full well that the Church of England is increasingly an irrelevance in the lives of most people and he desperately needs something to get it noticed again!
It’s all very well for the pontificating prelate to stress he wasn’t proposing we introduce the more extreme aspects of sharia law, like the chopping off of criminals’ hands, stoning to death for adultery and the severe subjugation of women. However, he must know that there are extremist madmen amongst the Muslim community who would like nothing better, and by even raising the subject he has given them succour.
The very idea that we should contemplate allowing religious law to play any part in the formal laws of the land is grossly offensive to our democratic traditions, established over many centuries. We booted priests out from having legal control over people’s lives long ago and we don’t want imams and mullahs taking their place.
I want to see the bishops kicked out of the House of Lords and the Church of England disestablished from the state. Britain has had a secular government for centuries, with one set of laws under which all are equal - or supposed to be. The idea that Muslims should have their own laws, in parallel with and equal to the laws of the state, is grossly divisive and would lead to enormous resentment and unrest.
King James I used to be called the “wisest fool in Christendom”. Dr Rowan Williams is surely now the undisputed holder of the title! If he wants sharia law, why doesn’t he clear off and live in a country that has it? Nobody here would miss him.