Heat is on for drivers

Jun 8 2008 by Alan Ross, Magic 1170

SUMMER seems to have arrived at last. What could be nicer than to invite everyone round for a garden party or barbecue?

But just a cautionary word here . . . before you nip down to the supermarket for the food and booze, make sure you have enough for your friendly neighbourhood police person.

Perhaps the odd extra hot dog or spicy chicken wing would help get PC Plod in a decent frame of mind when he comes to call.

Not content with the huge amount of public money expended every year to remind us not to drink and drive at Christmas, the police are now going to target drinking and driving during the summer. One spokesperson was on record as saying they would pay special attention to barbecues and garden parties.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m totally against drink or drug driving like any other sane person.

Making calls on mobile phones and, God forbid, texting while driving makes me seethe. But this new campaign seems to me to be just another example of how the powers that be are completely out of touch with what the people who pay their wages want.

I suspect that if we took an opinion poll, Joe Public would rather our constabulary spent their time catching people who are burgling our homes or stealing our cars. Not to mention those dealing drugs or gathering on street corners beating folk up and knifing each other to death.

This, however, might involve the use of custody places. These, we seem to have run out of, judging by the 550 so-called low level criminals who’ve recently been released early.

So instead, the Government is wasting £3m more of our money telling kids that knives are dangerous in another brain dead advertising campaign. These are the people who’ve got wasting money down to a fine art.

The Energy Saving Trust — who? why? — is currently pouring our taxes down the drain in a snappy campaign pointing out that they don’t give advice on saving the newt, but on saving energy. Well I never!

And “p***ed as newts” brings me full circle. Police will be spending their summer weekends driving round sniffing the air for the smell of charcoal, and the sound of raucous merriment.

They will then pounce on anyone wicked enough to get in a car within a half a mile radius, shouting “Gotcha!” All goes to boost the crime statistics, squire.