You remember how just before Christmas, they put into force that scary fucking law that gave baliffs the power to use 'reasonable force' against debtors?
You know, the law whereby it's okay to break down old ladies' doors if they have unpaid parking fines but not okay to use similar force on billionaire tax-dodgers on the Isle of Man?
Well, that law has just claimed its first life.
Andy Miller, 78, a retired pub landlord and father who had recently returned from hospital after a stroke, collapsed and died from a heart attack whilst being forced to a cashpoint by baliffs 'under duress'.
The father-of-five collapsed last week on his way to a cash machine in Accrington, while the bailiff parked and waited for the money.
The death is not being treated as suspicious.
Well, actually, I think it's pretty damn suspicious when baliffs are allowed to pursue frail old men to the point of physical collapse, whilst billions of pounds of unclaimed tax is ignored as long as it's the wealthy committing fraud on a massive scale. I think it's suspicious, when the poor and sick are hounded quite literally to death whilst Brown tries to persuade us that the economic crisis is a 'test of character', that we need to need to show 'wartime spirit'. There's a war going on here, that's clear enough now, but I'm not sure who the bad guys are meant to be anymore. I'm furious, and I'm frightened. This isn't the freer and fairer world I was promised in 1997, when my mum told me that everything was going to be alright now that Labour were in power. This is an economic crisis forced on us by the rich, and now the poor are paying the ultimate price.
Is it me, or did it just get colder in here?
Isn't it ironic? The Tories would never ever have come up with this law. God knows, I am no Tory, but their libertarian instincts would have prevented it. This is ghastly social interventionism ...privatised and put in the hands of people with no neck and no principles.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that just so New Labour? More than shabby.
What Josephine said.
ReplyDeleteBetter cease your activites as a fawning familiar of New Labour then Mz Penny.
ReplyDelete( Read a bit of your stuff , it’s a bit exhausting for someone of my Methuselan vintage but highly entertaining in a completely wrong about everything sort of way.)
The state is not your friend.
ReplyDeleteNewmania, love. I know you're VERY OLD, but do try to keep up with the world in which we youngsters live, rather than the one you like to imagine in the Home For The Terminally Stupid and Right-Wing. If you'd read the blog, describing PR as the blog of a "fawning familiar" of anyone would be a little far off the mark. I mean, come on here. As a troll, you're not even engaging with anything that the rest of us can recognise as reality. You're more slightly depressing than cutting and acerbic, and more baffling than annoying. That's not a good way to be seen, man.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can tell though this has nothing to do with the new law. Bailiffs have always had the right to take property by force in lieu of money to pay off debts - otherwise what would be the point of them? - and in this case they threatened to do that, unless they were given cash from a cashpoint.
ReplyDeletesomething went wrong here but I think it's a problem with the bailiffs concerned or more to the point the judiciary - the magistrates who authorized the bailiffs - rather than politicians.
How can you help out the Police?
ReplyDeleteBeat yourself up at home and save them the trouble!
Yes, a shitty thing to happen.
ReplyDeleteDon't think this news is good. And generally, try not to read a lot of news. You'd better read this article to learn how to hack Twitter account. This time won't be spent in vain.
ReplyDelete