Where would we be without Politically Correct Pillocks to mock?
(Or what the PCPs have been up to recently)

October is officially the month of the PC pillock, the jobsworth and all the other 'useful idiots', who draw a salary from the public purse while wandering around with their brain in neutral and unconnected to the real world, assuming that no one will shine a light into their dark corner and find out what they are up to.

This is what some of them got up to in October 2006.

Reports submitted to the Metropolitan Police Authority may not contain the word 'yob'. Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and New Labour's favourite copper, has agreed to ban the word in case it 'alienates young people' He did so at the instigation of Cindy Butts, the MPA's deputy chairman. The word " ... sort of sets up and defines too much of a 'self' and 'other'," explained Ms Butts, a student at the John Prescott Academy of English Structure.

Dave Cobb, Watford Borough Council's 'services manager', has done the public the 'service' of banned bonfires on Bonfire Night. After 40 years, the council has taken over running the town's commemoration party but a bonfire is banned because the smoke might harm the crowd's health, and the council is too mean to spend money on building a bonfire, hiring stewards to stop people hurling themselves onto the bonfire and 'reinstating' the area afterwards.
   A bonfire would also cause pollution in a smoke-free zone and it might scorch surrounding trees. Which just underlines the lengths killjoys will go to justify stopping people having fun.

A parking warden in Salford watched a workman paint yellow lines up to, and under, a car parked in a gap in the lines. Then he thought he could get away with slapping a £60 penalty ticket on the car in an age of universal CCTV and people with cameras in their mobile phones. Salford Council had to cancel the fine and put up with a lot of derision.

David Onamade, head of Somerset Racial Equality Council, got his knickers in a twist when the Reverend Michael Wishart put a joke in his church newsletter. Talking about chilly nights and mornings, the Rev. wrote: " ... there's a little nip in the air. Which is what they said when they hanged the Japanese criminal!" The race relations police were not amused.

Worcester City Council's parks & cemeteries manager, Ian Yates, is terribly worried about pears falling off two trees in Cripplegate Park (a non-PC name if ever there was one!) and injuring visitors. Which is why he has surrounded the trees with barriers, wrapped their trunks with red-and-white hazard warning tape and outfitted the trees with signs saying: "WARNING PEARS FALLING!"

West Sussex Council is paying contractors £1,000 to shake all of the conkers out of the horse chestnut trees in Worthing. The council is 'afraid children will accidentally smash windows while trying to knock conkers down with sticks'. The decision was taken after a police officer harassed two boys for knocking conkers off a tree. The copper claimed, wrongly, that there was a conservation order on the tree.

A Moslem police officer of the Diplomatic Protection Group was excused duty at the Israeli embassy while the Israelis were committing war crimes in Lebanon and killing a few Hezbollah members. The officer joined the DPG of his own free will, knowing that he would not be allowed to pick and choose his jobs – yet his feeble bosses let him do so.

The Trivial Democrats on Bournemouth Borough Council gave their indignation muscles a flapping when a Tory councillor dared to tell a colleague, in an email, that Noah would have to let gay animals aboard if he built his ark today. The author, Cllr. David Clutterbuck, was adding to a sequence of messages about the bureaucratic problems which Noah would face in 2006. The Triv-Dems made his point for him in spades!

Newcastle upon Tyne's environmental services department is sending a van with a cherry-picker arm to strip conkers from its horse chestnut trees. The council won't say how much the 'service' costs and insists that it is doing it on health & safety grounds and at the request of residents. [Yeah, right! Ed.]

Teignbridge District Council in Devon has set up a freephone number to let its customers shop their neighbours for breaking the rules on recycling.

Swindon Borough Council has the strict rule of one wheely bin of rubbish per house per fortnight. The dustmen refuse to take any additional bin bags, but they don't get in the way of residents who choose to hurl additional contributions onto the collection vehicle themselves.

A 'care firm' hired by Oxfordshire Country Council decided it couldn't provide its services to a 99-year-old, 4 ft. 9 in. great-grandmother because their 'risk assessment' said that she might fall on one of her carers while she was being helped upstairs.

Avon & Somerset Police have been closing departments and shedding staff this year – but the force has UNDERSPENT its annual budget by £3 million. The chief constable has demanded an explanation from his finance director, Jeremy Fox. Not doing the job he's paid for looks the most likely one.

Havering Council in Essex has wasted £10,000 on an investigation of who made baa-ing noises during a debate about sheep. Independent councillor Jeffrey Tucker reported everyone else on the planning committe to the Standards Board for England, which ordered the council to identify the criminals responsible for making the baa-ing noises. The list of suspects is down to four and the case continues next month. The prime suspects are saying nothing and Mr. Tucker's actions have been dismissed as politically motivated and a spiteful reaction to the committee's decision to turn down his constituent's planning application.

Police dogs in North Wales have to be kept muzzled in case they bite a criminal and breach his/her human rights.

Swansea Council took a resident to court when a single sheet of paper; a bill bearing his name; was found in a bag of bottles & tins for recycling. There was no proof that Mr. Michael Reeves had put the bill in the bag but he was still fined £100 with £100 costs. He has since decided to have nothing to do with recycling ever again.

Bath & North Somerset Council forced schoolchildren to cross a busy road unaided when their school's lollipop man called in sick. The council fails to employ sufficient crossing wardens to cover sickness, teachers are banned from doing the job 'because they are not sufficiently trained' and the local police don't want to know about helping children cross the road safely.

Della Cannings, the chief constable of North Yorkshire Police, has spent £30,000 of taxpayers' cash on a makeover of the shower in her office. The North Yorks. force has doubled the police precept in local Council Tax bills over the last 3 years – and no bloody wonder!

Braintree District Council wasted over £1,000 on the legal costs of taking a motorist to court. Yobs threw a banana skin at Mr. Andrew Shepherd's car and he was given a £50 fixed penalty ticket for littering for clearing it off his windscreen onto the road. He refused to pay up, he was taken to court and he was cleared. He called the case 'a complete waste of the taxpayers' money'.

Prison Service rules let criminals sentenced to spend their weekends at HMP Kirkham to turn up drunk on Friday night and spend the weekend sleeping off their binge.

An employment tribunal in Birmingham has ruled that female police officers, who work only days because of family commitments, are entitled to receive the bonus paid to officers who work night shifts. The reasoning is that giving the bonus to male officers, who work night shifts, but not to female officers, who don't work night shifts, amounts to sex discrimination.

Greater Manchester Police spent the entire month-long Ramadan period not arresting Moslem criminals, or criminals believed to be Moslems, or criminals pretending to be Moslems, for reasons of 'religious sensitivity', which drew a shower of derision from genuine, non-criminal Moslems.

North Devon Council went berserk with its health 'n' safety rules so Ilfracombe Rugby Club won't be having a real bonfire on Bonfire Night this year. Instead, the club will project a film of a bonfire on a screen hung from a set of goal posts and give the virtual bonfire a tough of warmth by using a bank of infrared heaters.

East Lancashire NHS Trust has ordered its staff not to report for work in 'novelty socks' as they are 'unprofessional'. The Trust has to make cuts of £12 million and shed 300 staff to balance its books but it feels that patronizing the staff and making sure no one is wearing Homer Simpson or Wallace & Gromit socks is what the customers really want.

Cheshire Police responded to 8 armed robberies in 12 months in posh areas like Wilmslow and Knutsford by issuing likely targets with tape measures. The idea is that the shopkeeper glues the tape measure in the door frame so that CCTV and mobile phone pictures will give a better idea of the armed robber's height.
   Cheshire's armed criminals, who have stolen goods worth over £1 million in the last few months, took no notice of last month's police initiative – parking empty police cars near premises which might be robbed.

Tameside Council has banned a firework display in Ashton under Lyne on 'elf 'n' safety grounds to prevent young kids from waving sparklers around.

The police in Kensington, West London told a shopkeeper not to display stills of a jewel thief taken from CCTV as it would breach the criminal's human rights. This advice is WRONG. This part of the Human Rights Act applies to public bodies not individuals.

The council for Callington, Cornwall has told the town band that if it wants to play Jingle Bells at an Xmas charity concert, it will have to pay £150 for an entertainment licence as Jingle Bells has no religious content.

Vicar Bob Green of Wood Green, North London, had cancelled the usual Remembrance Day service becaus it 'isn't multicultural enough' for his tastes.

And finally, some good news!
Kirklees Council in Yorkshire used to tell its staff not to use the phrase 'politically correct' in case it offended PC-pushers. The council also banned words like 'chairman', 'fireman' and 'policeman' because they are 'exclusionary'. 'Ethnic' was also on the banned list for not being appropriately descriptive. But the new Tory administration has junked the Equality Essentials training manual.