West End Extra - Letters to the Editor: Traffic wardens are the secret police, Mr Benn

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 26 October 2007

Traffic wardens are the secret police, Mr Benn

• IN his excellent opinion piece on the postal strike (Behind the strikes, a big issue: must everything turn a profit?, October 19), Tony Benn highlights the contradiction embedded in the desperate lengths to which the authorities will go to make everything, including public services, turn a profit. He asks rhetorically (and sarcastically), “what about establishing low-cost private police forces to challenge the ‘police monopoly?’”
In one area of law enforcement, this has already happened.
Thirty years ago parking enforcement was the responsibility of the police until they decided it was too time-consuming and the traffic warden was invented. Traffic wardens were directly employed by local authorities and they issued tickets to motorists who parked illegally. They did not have “targets” and were not expected to make a profit.
Parking enforcement was “privatised” and the companies awarded these contracts were encouraged to extort as much money as possible from the public. Thus what was once part of law enforcement inexorably became part of the corporate maw with a licence to extract money from the public more or less at will.
Furthermore, when they indemnified themselves and their new friends against the consequences of their activities, the authorities made sure that they are not only part of the law, but also above it.
If this is legal, I wonder what other juicy areas of law enforcement they will be drooling over next?
Martin Kennedy
Brewer Street, W1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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