'There was a time, not very long ago, when the British State was our servant and not our master. A lot of us still remember town or county halls that had small staffs on modest pay, who emptied the bins and swept the streets, mended the roads, and provided public libraries that were full of books we wanted to read, and schools that taught children how to read, write and count in orderly classrooms. We also had small local police forces that knew their neighbourhoods and patrolled them on foot. They didn't need CCTV or ASBOs. Despite having no computers, BlackBerries, or even mobile phones, these organisations were surprisingly efficient and comparatively cheap. And they were usually polite to us too. That, until recently, was the British State; modest, effective, small and our servant. A history should be written of how and why it became our master as it has done. We see the change in the smallest things. Instead of collecting our rubbish, a task it is amazingly bad at, it monitors our bins and fines us for putting the wrong things in them.' Read more...
'There was a time, not very long ago, when the 