Sunday 21 February 2010

There Is No Longer Such Thing As Society

Margaret Thatcher's oft-repeated, out of context, denial of the existence of society generally raises hackles in many. The implication being that the public cherish such an intangible entity and would rue its passing.

Too late. It's long gone.

A headteacher has unlawfully fined the parents of pupils caught smoking in their school playground.

Margaret Peacock, head of Elliot School in Putney, wrongly claimed powers under the 2007 smoking ban to issue the £50 penalties.

Ms Peacock sent letters to the parents demanding the £50 and warned them that if they did not pay, the school's governors would face a £2,500 fine. In the letter, she wrote: “The law, which came into force on 1 July 2007, prohibits smoking on public property.

“Your child was part of a group of girls seen on CCTV who were involved in smoking on the school site and therefore a fixed penalty fine of £50 has been imposed.”

She added: “The governors, as employers and owners of the property, have a duty to enforce this law and have the right to fine any person £50 for breaking the law.”
Yes, she's an arrogant empire building bastard, but that's not the point I'm aiming at here. Just check out some of the appended comments

"I'm disappointed that such a law does not actually exist. What a shame"

"OK,2 things here. She's 14 years old. She was caught smoking in School (be it the playground). I don't want my own children hanging round people like that. I hope aswell as the fine, the child got a hefty detention"

"This story is beyond belief, I can't believe the evening standard actually believe an injustice has been done."

"The teacher should have got a medal instead of a fine"

"I think that head teacher shoudl have been awarded something for such outstanding public service - and the fine should most certainly stay in place"

"What a smart headteacher. And what a dumb Evening Standard ! Whose side are you
on ?"
Forget divide and conquer. The division is now deeply embedded and, if comments such as this are a guide, the public has been comprehensively vanquished.

The debate is no longer whether society exists or not. We've now got to ask ourselves if the British public can be bothered to protect it anymore.

Let's talk about the teacher for a moment. She has massively exaggerated a minor problem, hugely over-estimated her powers as a teacher and, in doing so, misrepresented a legal statute to extort cash from parents. If she did so on purpose, she should be arrested and charged with attempted theft, fraud, or deception. If she wasn't aware of how wrong her initiative was, she is clearly not fit to impart wisdom to kids. Either way, she fully deserves to receive her P45.

Yet many are willing to overlook her woeful incompetence because they hate smokers, young blacks, or incredibly, traffic wardens.

I had some sympathy till I read the mother is a traffic warden, she now knows what it's like to receive an unfair fine.
Irony doesn't get more egregious than this. Yes, the mother is a traffic warden, so therefore it's payback. That appears to be the frame of mind of these odious cock sockets. Hmmm, let me just delve into that particularly perverted logic. A traffic warden imposes hefty fines for fairly trivial matters to raise money for the local authority, which is unfair however legal. So it's perfectly OK for a teacher to bastardise the law and ... illegally impose hefty fines for fairly trivial matters to raise money for the local authority.

Government have divided us so completely that this is the level of self-centred debate now. Do we wish to be beaten with an authoritarian club encrusted with nails, or with glass?

And while everyone goes all Daily Mail, the fact that an ignorant fuckwit has thrown another illiberal stick on the country's bonfire of common sense is almost entirely ignored.

Fuck the law, fuck standing up to horrendous local dictators, in fact, fuck society and community in general. Who needs it?


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is with some difficulty trying
to imagine what kind of life form
goes to the trouble of writing
comments to the LONDON Evening Standard. These Home County drones
make me gratefull we had Spitfires
and The English Channel otherwise
these many sided freaks would have
joined the goose stepping columns up the A1.Not content with living in or near the Arseopolis of Europe
they would gladly add to its imprisonment.

Real World Citizen

Private Widdle said...

I used to imagine that Fascism would never be able to take root in this country- but looking at the attitude of the head and those knobhead comments I can tell I'm very very wrong.

alf stone said...

At risk of going off at a slight tangent did you read about Anna Ford spitting her dummy out over Martin Amis? What was his crime? He suffered from social autism (?), looked right through her and wasn't interested in her (would you be?), he was whingeing and narcissistic (he is a writer) but his real crime was...he smoked at her husband's bedside while he was dying. My God he should be prosecuted, flogged, hanged, drawn and quartered for comforting an old friend while shortening his life with second hand smoke.

paulo said...

Is that right, the kids were spotted on CCTV in their own school grounds?????


Am I fucking missing something???


CCTV in their own school grounds!!!!


FFS!



paulo

watching said...

I too have had a belly full of this unnamed society we are all supposed to belong to and consent to be controlled, registered, browbeaten, taxed, deceived and frankly have the piss taken out of us by 645 troughers in Westminster when they con us into believing that our vote actually makes a difference.

I am also sick to death of people who accept that some or all of these things are actually going on but refuse to hold their hands up and do something about them, even voting.
I have come to the conclusion there is no point in trying to convince anyone else that there are ways and means to change things, peacefully but purposefully because voting one lot out and another in will make no difference whatsoever.

These are the two legalese definitions from Blacks Law Dictionary and neither are applicable to what is termed society in Great Britain.

A society is an association or company of persons united by mutual consent, to deliberate, determine and act jointly for a common purpose.

A society is a community of people, as of a state, nation, or locality with common cultures, traditions and interests.

subrosa said...

When I read your title I though 'auch he's winding me up' because where I live their is a sense of society. Not nearly as much as there would have been 40 years ago but it's still there, although I sense people are less trusting of each other in recent years.

This post just shows the fag end of the Righteous. Back in the 50s if anyone was caught it was detention of a week, washing out all the lavatories and having to run round the school every playtime faster each day. If you didn't run faster than the day before you had to start over again until you had 7 runs which each increased in time.

No harm came to anyone and the boys (was usually boys who were daft enough in the first place) certainly didn't take risks once they realised the punishment.

That was how society operated until the Righteous began bleating.

BTS said...

I was reading this story this afternoon and had a feeling you might have a few words on the subject.

The comments alone provide enough material for a book on mental dysfunction. Some of my favourites included recommending 40 hours community service, corporal punishment and an implication that smokers were not just stupid, but also shoplifters. Not to mention that some good citizens seemed to think that she be punished solely for looking 'belligerent' in her photograph.

And someone called Dan wanted anyone who disagreed with his views to stop commenting.

Thanks for reaffirming my faith in democracy Dan..

It really is beyond a joke.

A whole group of us got busted smoking behind the gym at school (obviously they didn't know what we were smoking as the evidence was quickly stashed the dope) and we were all sentenced by the headmaster to a weeks detention and a letter to our folks. We all figured it was a fair cop as we got away with the worse offence, bar one poor sod who didn't even smoke and was just hanging out with us during the break (we all pleaded his innocence and he got a couple of days just because we weren't allowed behind the gym but, crucially, no letter - his parents would have absolutely killed him).

As it was the head of lower year on duty that week, an evil little bastard who wanted us to work for our punishment, we were put to clearing litter from the trees at the far side of the playing field.

Which turned out quite nicely actually. It was a very pleasant June week and he had a lot of paperwork to do so we were just left to it. A couple minutes ambling around for appearances sake and the rest of the time sat around in the sun. Smoking.

And we all learned a very important lesson.

Don't get caught. Especially on camera.

But then we were reading 1984 at school, not living it..

(As an aside, I'm just watching Dawn of the Dead and I can't help but think that it might be an improvement - at least the get to shoot the braindead..)

Junican said...

I also noticed the silliness of the comments on this story. I do not recall a single person asking how it came to be that the school acquired a right to levy fines. One can only think that this ‘right’ is some sort of consequence of schools acquiring a right (nay, a duty) to levy fines on parents who take a child out of school for a week to go on holiday. We do not know with any certainty that this school has not deliberately done this in order to raise awareness of the stupidity of schools being required to ‘levy fines’. It may be that the school governors have deliberately done this to raise awareness.

What struck me, as it did you, was the utter stupidity of most of the comments. I do not understand how so many people can be so ignorant (meaning, uneducated in the simplest way in matters of logic).

Barman said...

We clearly have a lot of work to do...

I find it absolutely staggering how vast numbers of the population have been completely brainwashed by the anti-smoking lobby. Staggering!

When I was a school (comprehensive) the punishment for being caught smoking was to be caned by the headmaster.

The irony of the massive ashtray on his desk and having to leave his cigarette in it while dishing out the punishment was lost on him!