In article ,
June Hughes writes:
| In message , Martin
| writes
|
| You have the advantage of being innocent until proved guilty under English law.
|
| Yes you do but think of the hassel and inconvenience in fighting it.

No, you don't. The Blessed Margaret made several crimes provable under
civil laws of evidence (i.e. "balance of probability") and Holy Tony
has made dozens more.

Actually, some of those are worse. The Blessed Margaret changed the
law on council bills that you are deemed to have received a bill if
the council has handed it over to a third party for delivery. There
is nothing to say that the council has to do it more than a day before
the deadline, or even has paid for delivery by any ANY fixed date.
You are therefore criminally liable, even if you can prove that you
never received the bill. Holy Tony has introduced a lot of similar
laws.

Forget your bin being stolen; you will be liable for other people
dumping inappropriate things in it. As everyone competent told the
Blessed Margaret, her laws would foster fly-tipping (and they did);
the new laws will merely extend that to the domestic arena. It is
obvious to the meanest intelligence that the way to reduce harmful
rubbish is primarily by reducing its production, and secondarily by
ensuring that it is easy to dispose of it properly.

But one of Whitehall's principles is that carrots should be reserved
for the overlords; the solution to recalcitran peasantry is more
overseers with larger sticks.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.