I wonder how many people remember the time when the BBC was responsible, well as reliable as any rolling news channel can be. In the eighties and nineties ‘Crimewatch’ was produced by the broadcasting service for half an hour, once a week, re-enacting violent crimes and offering clues to help in identifying the villains. If they were to revive the programme for current events, they would need a lot longer than half an hour.
Nick Ross was the original lead, describing events in the images, the ‘news real shots’ or the acted scenes of vicious crime. The programme would finish with Ross saying. “Don’t have nightmares, violent crime and murder are very rare. Good night.”
How life has, and is continuing to change especially in the UK, daily events covered by the news now reveal how groups of youths are hell bent on ignoring civil values and have their own belief in the way they act out their lives, which in a civilised society should not be, and is not acceptable, demonstrating a lack of control or discipline in their upbringing.
The figures for knife crime are terrifying, The reports of arrests for last year are nearly three thousand children, many as young as ten who have been taken into custody for carrying knife blades, which range from swords to kitchen knives, with a resulting death toll of over three stabbings a day
There are 99 postcodes in the United Kingdom. One of them is the East London town of Romford, which, in my mind, is still in Essex. The town is rife for anti-social behaviour (ASB) with 9600 incidents recorded in 2022. The town’s answer in controlling these numbers aannounced in April this year was the Council in conjunction with the police banning hoodies and any form of face covering in the town centre.
The new rules are controversial, there has not been enough time to see if they work in reducing the crime level. The debate amongst the people argue that it would have been easier and more effective to have more police patrolling the streets.
Six months before these new rules in Romford, in the north-west of the country, the seaside town Maryport in Cumbria has seen ASB reduced by forty nine percent by the introduction of just one Community Beat Officer, who patrols the streets of this delightful town
ASB crimes vary, mainly those of causing fear or intimidation to residents by vandalism, harassment and trespass. Following their success in reducing this type of misbehaviour the Cumbria police see it as the way forward encouraging Police forces across the UK to take note of the result.
LACK OF SMALL CHANGE:
I am sure most readers will notice small everyday things changing, it could be the way the internet works or perhaps variations to the service on your phone, small, sometimes annoying things which one shrugs off.
It was in 1925 that Hitler wrote ‘Mein Kampf’ which means ‘My Struggle’, in it he wrote about his future plans for Germany. One of the passages in the book, and I quote from it. ‘The best way to take control over people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and imperceptible reductions’. Sounds familiar, to what is taking place today.
For example, there is concern amongst the elderly and I guess by people who do not want to be dragged into this modern world, where the mobile phone is ‘king’. Enfield in North London is the latest of a string of councils to remove the option of paying for parking meters by cash. Gone are the old machines and along with them the lovely people with yellow braid around their caps who march up and down ensuring compliance with complicated parking laws.
Instead, there are new ugly machines standing to attention at the side of the road. If you are not computer literate then they are foreigners with a language you will not understand, as they demand you to put something called an App on your mobile phone so you can pay the parking fee.
Tough! If you haven’t got a phone or one that is capable of downloading this magic group of letters or you do not understand the instructions, then be a good fellow. If you cannot comprehend then either go elsewhere or pay the penalty for parking in the zone covered by the stationary robot. That is another small step toward a cashless society.
MOBILE METAL CONTAINERS:
It was Henry Ford who said when buying one of his similar looking cars ‘you can have any colour providing it is black’, very little has changed, cars still look similar but now you can have any colour you wish.
Now once you have settled on the colour you can drive away one of these wonderful toys, but I do not expect Henry Ford or others in the developing motor industry appreciated what they were flooding onto the world.
For a very long-time towns and cities have tried to control the growing number of vehicles invading their streets, until it was recently decided that people should be cycling to work, this decision has triggered the narrowing of thoroughfares to lay cycle lanes to restrict traffic.
Quite frankly I think it is a senseless idea to try and convince people in a chilly and often wet country to arrive at work cold, damp and miserable. I don’t think so. No, the cycle will stay in the shed, and most will continue using their cars, no matter how difficult the traffic.
A realistic answer to the traffic problem is comfortable, fast, frequent and low-cost public transport at a price that compares very favourably to the cost to using your own vehicle. Take care.
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