civil enforement officers

Civil Enforcement Officers

Monday 20th February 2012

Read today about a rage incident between a traffic warden and a punter
who was caught without the right parking ticket…quite a nasty exchange
with the punter delivering racist slurs such as **** off back to Poland
you ******* ****’ and so on….such loutish behaviour is everywhere
these days…so far so routine….
But there were 2 elements within this real life story that bothered me…
firstly the traffic warden is no longer a traffic warden….his job title
is now ‘Civil Enforcement Officer’…lets break that down…
‘CIVIL’…’ENFORCEMENT’…’OFFICER’…
doesn’t that suggest rather more power vested in a traffic warden by the state
than is necessary to distribute parking tickets? It sounds sinister doesn’t it?
I probably wouldn’t have noticed this uber drastic change in job description had it not been for the fact that in my day job (public order related) I happen to know that
police, ambulance men, firefighters etc have all been on riot training in case the streets of Britain disintegrate into disorder…and having chatted with a couple of
carpark police hithero known as traffic wardens I get the impression they too
have been lined up for riot training, which would explain the ‘Civil Enforcement Officer’ job title….one of them even told me he had been given a ‘Power of Arrest’
card with instructions to ‘put it away carefully until further instructed…’
…all I can conclude from this strange new emphasis on expanding
powers of lowly traffic wardens….is that changes occuring in the very fabric
of law and governance are being covertly achieved without the
slightest hint of consultation with tax payers.

The second element that bothered me about this situation was that the
‘Civil Enforcement Officer’ was a Polish gentleman whose second language
is English….surely such officers for the avoidance of misunderstanding and for the
purpose of clarity from authority should be individuals whose first language is that
of the country they are exercising power within??(not racist just practical and fair)? I realise we must now treat all EU citizens as equally eligible for each vacancy that arises …..but it does not make it right that foreign nationals can potentially exercise ‘civil enforcement’ powers on the streets of the UK ….for obvious reasons….what next in the evolution of a European superstate?? Military on our streets that cannot speak English at all?? Again this little story reflects a possible conflict of identity
on our streets and yet again predictably occurring without deigning to find out at any stage since the EU has been creatively cooking books what the people the
EH pretends to represent think about this sort of increasingly common situation…
My instinct tells me the faceless EU could not possibly care less about the opinions of
it’s populations. In actuality it is rubbing its hands together ….this is exactly what is planned….once there is trouble on the streets a police and or military state can be
ushered in with incredible speed once all is in place… a small part of which are
‘Civil Enforcement Officers’….