WRITTEN ON October 26th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, What do we want?

I return from a happy day with Clare Short and the Quakers in Birmingham to an unsolicited email from a paranoid-sounding woman called Jacqui Smith. Jacqui’s message, quite out of the blue, as if I had asked for it, is

No-one should have to put up with anti-social behaviour. I want communities to know that the Government is firmly on their side and is turning the tables on those who persistently make others’ lives a misery.

Most adults know better than to play loud music or to strew the streets with their rubbish. Those who can’t behave properly should understand that they won’t just be watched by the police – local councils, housing benefit officers, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the TV Licensing authority will all be watching and sharing information too.

We have put in place powerful tools to tackle low level disorder and the new anti-social behaviour squad will work with local agencies to help them make best use of those powers.

Look luv, stop being so fearful and paranoid. These are local issues – let councils get on with it.

You can’t fight people’s bad manners with your toxic soup of inaccurate data.

Clare said today you used to be quite a nice woman. Now you’re saying the thoroughly impolite TV licence people are to listen to our music, and the DVLA – a bunch of pointless clerical staff somewhere in Wales – are checking where people are leaving their rubbish. Oh for heaven’s sake.

Clare Short warned us today against a coarsening of our standards: “It’s trust in the justice of the system that makes us al safe,” she told us. Well spoken Friend!