Parking going the distance

Back from a few days off - didn't go anywhere in case you ask - and it is as if I have never been away. The banks - who, let us not forget, caused the credit crisis - are still moaning, Government figures on anything are still works of fiction and there are still more new ways to squeeze yet more money out of us.

Latest wheeze it appears is parking more than 50cm from a kerb will carry a £70 fine and I am sure local councils and the cowboy outfits who crack the whip on traffic wardens in this age of outsourcing will have their rulers ready sharpened as we speak.

Forget any notion that this is to stop nuisance parking, it will be turned into yet another money maker if the proposals go ahead. Give it less than a week before enterprising wardens are seen pushing some car parked close to the limit or measuring where kerb stones are broken or missing. It is a whole new area for fulfilling quotas. Common sense, like the idea of public service, will go out of the window.

It seems officialdom will not be happy until everyone has a criminal record and has been fined for something or other.