Local government have been given £29.5m to train up snooping jobsworths council staff to hand out on the spot £50 fines to evil smokers when the public ban comes in to force on July 1st. The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health has said “Officers [seriously, he called these un-needed drains on tax payers’ money ‘Officers’] do not have to identify themselves when they go into premises and they can film and photograph people to gather evidence.” Creepy.
This is not only a waste of tax payers’ money, but also a little sinister. I do not like the idea of having these people who clearly love and crave a bit of power to be able to hand out £50 on the spot fines to the general public. Hasn’t the experience of countless dodgy traffic wardens told us that you can not trust these types of people with so much power? Policemen and women go through extensive training and are heavily regulated and by and large do a good job – but even after all they go through you still get plenty of stories about corrupt and bent coppers. So why invest so much money and entrust the power hungry to carry out such a narrow and easily abused and corruptible task? There will not be suitable checks and balances on these ‘officers’ and will virtually be a law unto themselves.