Not Your Castle Anymore

A quite wonderful innovation from the current regime, something we should indeed all celebrate. No longer will scofflaws be able to hide behind the archaic and outdated hangovers of the law when they try to hide from the just exactions of the parking attendants! Finally, something is being done about the millions who try to defy the fines and penalties that have been rightly imposed upon them for staying too long in a parking bay and thus stealing from the community at large!

More than a million motorists a year face having bailiffs force their way into their homes to collect unpaid parking fines under legislation before MPs.

Action could be taken even when the motorist is unaware that a ticket has been issued or that the debt has been pursued through the civil courts.
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It will put town hall parking fines on the same basis as criminal penalties, which means a bailiff will be able to force entry to collect them.

Currently, their powers are limited to seizing a car or confiscating goods from the debtor's home - having gained entry by consent.

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A spokesman for the Department for Constitutional Affairs said that there would be safeguards to protect motorists. But the nature of these safeguards - such as whether a motorist would be entitled to a special hearing to challenge the bailiff's right of entry - had yet to be decided.

There will be those revanchists, those pining for the old regime, who say that  this power can be misused but how, I ask, you, can the State misuse power? Does not all power belong to the State and therefore it is ineffable? We should no longer rely upon the excessive individualism, a hangover from the days of capitalist exploitation! If a parking fine is issued then of course it is right that it was issued, completely correct that any and all (including the very house itself!) of the citizen's so-called "belongings" should be forfeit to the authorities for their infraction. There is no need for there to be further "notice" given, the citizen knew they were doing wrong when they parked illegally.

No, the opposition to this comes only from those who are stuck in 20th century, nay 19th century, thinking, where they raise the individual above the collective.

I for one welcome our new Local Authority Overlords and would like to honour the one man who has made such an obviously just and right decision.

Spassiba Comrade Stalin,  Bolshoi Spassiba!