4 October 2004
Sad end to woman's battle against bureaucracy
A prominent Norwich businessman who has also been a councillor in another place told me a few weeks ago that councils could get away with almost anything – because people were intimidated by them.
They had two main methods of dealing with criticism: one was to ignore it, and the other was to attempt to confuse the critic through red tape and dense procedures.
Neither of these worked with Betty Distill, a 75-year-old former probation office administrator, who died suddenly when she fell downstairs two weeks ago and was cremated on Friday.
She had been fighting a long and vigorous battle with Norwich City Council over their unnecessary and mishandled changes to part of North Park Avenue. Widening the road in a hamfisted way had removed the off-road parking and created danger where none existed before. During a fruitless correspondence with the chief executive, she had at one point been sent a leaflet in Bengali. No doubt the council thought this quite funny – or perhaps it was a mistake.
We kept in touch, and days before she died she rang me, distraught that the council had now installed Permit Parking directly outside her home, which meant that the local authority was going to benefit financially from its incompetence. Mrs Distill was an impressive woman: intelligent, determined and, to start with, amused at the antics the council adopted to avoid responsibility. She came from a background of office management – she had also worked at Boulton & Paul – and was appalled at the way the clear levels of responsibility that once existed had faded away in councils and businesses generally. This was not the first time she had come up against a brick wall when trying to probe impenetrable local government mismanagement.
The city council can hardly be blamed for Mrs Distill’s death. But this is the second case I have come across – the other was outside the city – where a pensioner’s last months and years, which should be a time for relaxation and peace, were spent in a frustrating battle against faceless bureaucracy.
It would be a fitting tribute to Mrs Distill – and if you want to hear other tributes, ask her neighbours and prominent city figures like Rory Quinn and David Bradford – if the city council reformed its procedures so that legitimate queries from the public were dealt with fairly, quickly and responsibly, and the first question on receiving a complaint from a member of the public was not “How can we protect ourselves?”
Violent language against minority views
When the science and the statistics are unclear on contentious issues, we have to resort to other methods to establish the truth.
One is common sense, but a useful test is to look at the attitude of those espousing the different ideas. Regular readers will know that I believe the almost exclusive concentration on speed as a cause of road accidents is both misleading and dangerous. I have explained why on many – perhaps too many – occasions.
They will also know that I have doubts about the widely circulated “establishment” theories about human-induced global warming, as do many scientists, most of whom rarely get quoted in the media.
What has struck me is the linguistic violence directed at those who express such “minority” views. These can be found on various websites, but in the past fortnight I have received e-mails expressing themselves in similarly violent terms.
One, from a scientist and prominent media activist in the global warming doom-monger mould, revealed that he did not know the meaning of words like endorse, propaganda and sceptic, and had a poor memory. He concluded that I was either “similar to terrorists with fundamentalist views” or a “blithering idiot”. Readers may concur, but to resort to such methods must reveal a considerable lack of available logical argument, as well as some desperation.
The other, on the subject of road accidents, expressed disappointment that the EDP allowed space for minority views. Banning minority views has been tried, I believe. There is a word for it.
He went on to produce a mountain of violent and offensive language, including the following – sod you, dishonest bluster, dangerous crank views, ignorant, offensive, blustering bigot, racist, bare-faced lie, dangerous nonsense, death threats, reckless garbage, utter rubbish, barking mad, disgrace and downright dishonesty.
We don’t have to ask if this sort of thing is desirable: it clearly isn’t. What we might ask is what sort of person resorts to it.
All the best people are sliding off barometers
A regular correspondent was intrigued by the comments of a senior policeperson following a court’s mystifying failure to jail a habitual thief.
Chief Inspector Sarah Francis said: "I can't predict the future, but he's someone who we wouldn't be expecting to slide off our barometers."
The clear implication is that law-abiding citizens do slide off police barometers. But where does this happen? And how? We should be told.
Richard “Volcano” Meek (for it was he) responded bravely: “I would like to be among the first to demonstrate my upstanding nature...although doing it standing up doesn't sound wise to me.”
If I were Richard, I would be careful. He could end up behind millibars – or even isobars, which as well as being colder, can be quite close together, if it’s windy.
Red flag on the horizon as downward trend continues
Travelling home the other Sunday in the Brooke area of South Norfolk, I came across roadworks. This is not unusual, of course: they are all essential, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.
These particular ones featured lights governing a short single-carriageway stretch of the B1332. Needless to say, no-one was actually doing any work, or even in the vicinity, but the speed limit was set at a staggering and totally pointless 10mph.
Clearly there is a downward trend. First to the very rarely needed 20mph (originally seen as ridiculous and abandoned in the 1920s), now to an even more bizarre 10mph. What next? The passenger must get out and carry a flag? Or cars must remain stationary until the roadworks are complete?