Forums The Vibe Chat Rant Thread! Re: Rant Thread!

#1129330
General Lighting
Moderator

    @p0ly 454662 wrote:

    the thing is that article is clearly 100% biased against the whole thing. Do you honestly think the whole thing is complete rubbish and would never work in any circumstances????

    some of the tactics would initially work as a delaying tactic whilst the authorities tried to work out if the person involved was of normal mental health and intelligence, whether they understood English, if they were deliberately trying to avoid payment to make a political point, or is genuinely skint and has simply read about this idea on the net and thought its worth a chance.

    Ironically its so-called “political correctness” and “human rights” what makes this happen, as public authorities can’t assume that people always understand the rules nor can they kick in peoples doors for crime or seize property for debts until they have clear evidence against them.

    On some occasions the authorities do make a mistake and have to let someone off something but when you start baiting them or even if you come to notice of them for other reasons. They tend not to forgive and forget and it comes back to haunt you.

    A personal example was that in 1990 I moved to London. I was not a anti-poll tax activist – I went to the Council, got a form and filled in I had moved from Reading and needed to transfer to the London electoral register. I did go on a student loans/public services march (like the ones last year but without any rioting) but was far more interested in pills than politics.

    Coincidentally, this wave of dissent caused strike action at the local Council, and someone there either ignored, filed or simply did away with the registration form I had filled in earlier. Reading, however, removed me from the register. This meant i didn’t get a poll tax bill. I dropped out of Uni in 1992, (by such time both Thatcho and the poll tax were long gone), moved back to Reading, moved back to the family home, went back on the electoral register there, and life carried on as normal.

    In 1994 I got arrested for drugs in London. I gave them correct details, and whilst I was in the cells they checked me against the London electoral register. Of course there was nothing there – not even proof that I was a British citizen! On early Sunday morning both Reading Council and the Home Office Immigration (no border agency back then!) were closed, as was the Register office of the London region I was born in (barely 5 miles away from where I then lived) so metpol had absolutely no proof I even had a right to be in Blighty.

    The end result was my mum getting a knock on the door from Thames Valley cops at 6am and being told “your son’s been arrested for drugs in London and the Metropolitan Police have no record of his right to stay in the UK. Could you please show us either his passport or birth certificate so we can tell London he can be bailed” (incdentally the cop mentioning my offence was against privacy as I was well over 17 then but no human rights act either).

    TBH the cops weren’t even being malicious (even the one mentioning my offence as my mum probably thought I had been in a crash or something) – just following the rules – just because I speak perfect English with what might be viewed as a London/Essex accent wouldn’t be proof I had UK residence, could have even been smuggled in as a baby, you used to be able to buy them in Malaysia… thinking about it cops could equally have sent me to Heathrow Immigration detention for at least the weekend. Even I was white they could have said I was a homeless and the address was not a valid one and banged me up for the weekend…

    hadn’t even planned to evade the poll tax and just thought the Council were being slow (they gave me a library card so I thought they must know I was a resident). they couldn’t backdate the payment as it was a Government error anyway, and had I not got caught in London this wouldn’t have happened but if this can happen to someone who didn’t set out to evade a tax (but broke another law) far worse can (and does) happen to those who quite deliberately set out to blag the system and come into conflict with it – even if its not immediate…