Kicking back at bailiffs.

The Guardian is running a half decent report this week on the guidelines issued by the DCLG.  There's not much to pick fault with, either in the guidelines or the Guardian report, to which the councils will pay no attention.  I offer an extract for analysis.

Pickles said: "It is unacceptable for councils to employ burly bailiffs with heavy-handed tactics like kicking down doors, making phantom visits or charging excessive fees – it is unfair and damages a council's standing in the community.

Bailiff behaviour in this fashion is a given.  It's what bailiffs do.  That is why this blog is named the way it it, not "Rundles are lying crooks".  It seems somewhat redundant to make that assertion.  That's what they do.  If Rundles are confident that I am being in any way libellous, they are welcome to sue me and I shall see them in court.

What really "damages a council's standing in the community" is the fact that councils not only refuse to investigate their own contractors, it it is the fact they wilfully support the criminal actions of their contractors without investigation of complaints.

In so doing they move from a position of being benevolent benefactors to the needy to a position of being greedy cash-grabbing corporate monopolies who abuse their 'market position' to extort as much money as they can, for nefarious and dishonest purposes, with little or no accountability to the public.

This in turn creates what Baroness Hollis calls a "culture of non-compliance".  And rightly so.  If we are to pay council tax for them to squander at will without consequence for failure, and will wilfully allow their contractors to break the law in pursuit of their ill-gotten gains, then there is little or no option but for the decent law abiding citizen to refuse to comply.  That is, in part, why this blog exists.  If the state has taken it upon itself to break the law and criminalise the poor, then "non-compliance" is not only an option and a consequence, it is also a moral and civic duty.