In a curious parallel (that is almost certainly not related in any way, shape or form) to the decline of the police caring in the slightest about what happens to people and their property, there has been an astounding increase in the number of potential transgressions that the average citizen can, well, transgress.

It seems inconceivable that a society that survived and thrived on a handful of laws that progressed to a couple of hundred and then maybe a couple of thousand, should, in the space of about a decade, suddenly require over 10,000 new rules, laws and regulations, including over 3,000 new ways of becoming a criminal.

It’s now perfectly possible for someone to get out of bed, go to work as usual, come home, cook for the kids, watch telly and go to bed, only to find they have actually broken several Byzantinely complex and most important, badly-drafted, badly-thought-through laws. The kind of laws that will keep lawyers in beer for decades to come.

Given that politicians want to be seen to be “getting things done”, they will of course require the police to vigorously enforces these opaque, pointless laws to show how well they’re working. Because they’re so opaque, it’s relatively easy for the police to get the equally politicised CPS to prosecute, and soon it’s trebles all round.

And the rest of tear our hair out as our cars and homes are burgled, we are mugged and scumbags rule the streets.

Eleanor August 4, 2010 at 12:36

Build a Gulag I say. They seemed to work.

English Viking
August 4, 2010 at 19:05

What’s a Gulag? After 13 years of a mad Marxist Government, I’m only
aware of Nazi concentration camps.

woodsy42 August 4, 2010 at 12:16

Q: What has happened to the

Spiral Architect
August 4, 2010 at 10:07

What has happened to the ‘Great Repeal Bill’?

Why do police chiefs need bonuses to complement their salaries?

Why is it that only 1-in-10 of our police officers are out on the
street?

Why is it that Labour was allowed to get away with the claim that there has
been a steadily decreasing crime rate and that crime is at its lowest for
23yrs?

Why is it that we tolerate more and more officers being deployed at
night-time to counter rampant drunkenness?

Why do we tolerate the utterly useless PCSOs?

Why don’t we build more prisons and fill them with criminals?

Why don’t we adopt a penal policy of 3-strikes (convictions on indictment)
and out (15yrs inside)?

Bayard August 4, 2010 at 22:15

Why don

Macheath August 4,
2010 at 09:46

Entirely off the record, an Edinburgh acquaintance tells me that, according
to local gossip, Derry Irvine and Tony Blair recruited a number of senior
Scottish lawyers ( among them school or college friends) to support them on
their arrival in office.

Unlike Blair and Irvine, these lawyers had been trained and were previously
working exclusively in Scottish law. The result, says my friend, was
unsuitable and badly-drafted legislation enforcing the knee-jerk soundbite
policies of New Labour.

Demetrius August
4, 2010 at 12:11

It figures. Perhaps we need a 1381 Society For Active Reform.