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 And this month I have mainly been learning all about the new army of Government sponsored spies being trained on our doorsteps, and wondering just what the bloody hell people are thinking.
For those of you that, wisely, keep your heads down and don't
obsessively scour the news for the almost daily indications that we're
fast becoming a society of idiots and busybodies like I do, you
probably haven't heard about this latest, farcical scheme being
launched by our ‘betters’ in central and local government.
It is true that misery loves company though, so if I have to get wound up about it, then you deserve to too.
So far, 17 local councils across the UK have signed up to this new
scheme which, at its most Machiavellian level, amounts to ‘upstanding’
members of the community signing up to spy on the rest of us, and to
duly report any wrongdoing we might engage in.
OK, so far it's not too dissimilar to the usual neighbourhood watch
schemes that sexually repressed middle-aged men like to start and then
harass and browbeat everyone else down their street to sign up to.
Just like neighbourhood watch, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt
and assume that it was all started with the best of intentions, and
I'll forgo any cheap comments about paving roads to hell and the like.
However, like with most schemes, it all sounds great on paper until
they introduce the original, and most disruptive spanner in the works:
people.
I'll use the Borough of Islington as a reference for the rest of this
article, as they seem to have a more highly developed scheme in place
than anyone else has thought of thus far, and because they've even
given their volunteer spies a codename: The Islington Eyes.
Any residents of the borough can sign up to be a member of the ‘Eyes’
and you'll receive an information pack and your own security code,
which hopefully gets tattooed onto your arm like they used to do in the
concentration camps.
Newly appointed ‘eyes’ will also have access to training days, where
they will be taught the best ways to spot fly-tippers, abandoned cars
or anti-social behaviour. I'm pretty sure they're also taught how to
dispatch an unwary offender with the standard issue dagger they're also
given in their welcome packs.
OK, perhaps I'm getting a little mixed up with the Hitler Youth
Movement with that last one, but I reckon it's only a matter of time.
The problem I have with all these groups is that they're all volunteer
based. Volunteering always sounds noble on the surface, until you
realise what sort of people are likely to put themselves forward.
The social scientific term for them is: ‘Wankers’.
The usual reasoning behind these ideas is that they promote a sense of
community, but I really don't believe they do that at all. If anything,
they're more divisive to a community than anything else. They're
usually staffed by people that either have nothing better to do with
their sad little lives, or people that just get off on interfering with
other people and who revel in being able to catch someone out and take
the moral high ground.
I'm sure it's not just me that finds people like that abhorrent and
would be much happier if they were all put in their own little
community of spies like in ‘The Prisoner’. (Giant white bouncing balls
chasing them about would be optional, of course, but a rather nice
touch nonetheless.)
Another difference to this latest scheme of self appointed do-gooders
is that they're letting children get involved as well. Isn't that
precious? They can't vote, can’t drive, but they can suddenly be
trusted to spy on the rest of us? (And I'm absolutely positive the
kids will love having their own special spy number and attending spy
training sessions, because I know I would have done too.)
Christ, I can even remember how excited I was when I received my
welcome pack after joining the Dennis the Menace Fan Club; it was an
immensely proud moment when I first pinned on my hairy ‘Gnasher the
dog’ badge with the googly eyes.
While I can understand that the kids will undoubtedly love being part
of the Hitler Youth....sorry....I mean Islington Eyes, the simple fact
is that children simply aren't equipped to make a lot of the judgement
calls that would be necessary in such a role. They're children, which
means that, by and large, they're clueless little bastards.
Creeping Jesus, most of the adults who join up to this ludicrous
twaddle won't be psychologically equipped to actually do the job
properly, yet they're asking children to sign up to it.
One thing this will accomplish is to breed a whole new generation of
sanctimonious, self-righteous little shits, and isn't that something to
look forward to?
Using children to brow beat us is becoming all too common nowadays.
Children are, for some reason, seen as morally inviolate, as not being
tainted with the cynicism that comes from growing up and actually
having a fucking clue about what the world is like.
If a child asks us to do something, such as stopping smoking, being
more ‘green’ or not pissing on their roundabout on the way home after a
night down the pub, we're all supposed to crumble under the weight of
their innocence and instantly capitulate. Using children as a moral
bludgeon to get the unruly masses to behave is a disgusting, yet sadly
unsurprising move by those useless bell-ends in Government, and the
unelected champions of our moral well being.
I want to make it clear that by not agreeing with the principles and
execution of these schemes, that it doesn't mean I'm advocating
complete lawlessness.
Good community doesn't mean everyone having the freedom to crimp a
length into your neighbours plant pots, or whatever, and it certainly
doesn't mean informing on those very same neighbours for every tiny
infraction they commit against 548 billion laws and statutes that the
absolute, unrelenting, utter arseholes in Labour have foisted onto us
over the last decade.
To my mind, good community simply means people getting on with their
lives, without interfering in other peoples lives, and without other
people interfering in theirs. All of us living like that really
shouldn't be that hard to accomplish, should it?
Perhaps if we all tried to do this a little bit harder, we wouldn't
need all these divisive, cloak and dagger schemes in our communities,
and I for one really do hope that we can all make a little more effort
to just mind our own sodding business and live our own lives, whilst
trying not to make other people live their lives like we might want
them to.
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