The media always tell us that ‘good news’ is not what interests the public. Perhaps that is true. But sometimes the ‘bad news’ is really ‘very good news’ for the public even if not for the person at the centre of the story.
This week the story of the trial and tribulations of ex-Warrant Officer Mr Fitzmaurice have been recounted in the media.
Not a good week for him, in fact an appalling one for him in the manner in which he has been treated by the state, nominally in our name.
At the root of the story is the iniquitous Council Tax.
Introduced by one Government after the momentous failure to impose a poll tax.
A move the public refused to accept and by their actions reminded the then Government that any Government, that is not a dictatorship or police state, can only govern with the consent of the people.
The imposition of that tax in Scotland, before it was introduced in England and Wales, blew on the smouldering embers of Scottish nationalism and produced the heat that lead to what was the United Kingdom effectively disintegrating into it’s individual nations and the present constitutional mess.
That Govenment, intent on saving face and still hell bent on abandoning the rating system introduced the Council Tax.

The fundamental reason for abandoning the rating system, which was to ensure every resident paid rather than every house,.was lost and forgotten. The individuals who the poll tax was designed to target got clean away.
The Council Tax banding system was then surreptitiously used to transfer much of the tax burden from the owners of higher value houses onto the owners of lower value houses.

That underhand action passed a nice on-going financial sweetener to their traditional supporters.
Along comes a change of Government who then introduce their half-baked concept of devolution and decide to use the council tax system, introduced by the previous government, to underfund the vastly increased responsibilities they placed on local Government and at the same time move funding to the countries and areas their traditional supporters occupy.

Up and up go the council tax demands, the earnings of those in employment go up, various bureaucratic manipulations protect those on state benefits.
This saga has left, stuck in the middle, those pensioners who it turns out pointlessly served their country, worked, slaved and saved just to find they had lifted themselves above the level at which their financial concerns would have been taken care of by the state if they had not served their country well and had instead idled their lives away.

Hence the steady mounting numbers of pensioners prepared to launch their protests against the governments use of the badly flawed council tax.

They realise that they have been left with little to lose and much to gain by ensuring that the publicity their treatment receives reminds younger members of the population what is in store for them. Unless of course they are MP’s and ex MP’s who self-interestingly will protect themselves, come what may.

Public Service employees and quangocrats may think their generous inflation proofed state pensions will protect them from the troublesome pensioners plight. They are just kidding themselves because demographic changes, giving an increase in the number of pensioners, and the demands of population movements, which it seems the government can no longer control,.will continue relentlously until the nation is going bankrupt.

Then their pensions will have to be cut to suit the then Government’s reduced tax income. There is, I believe, no pension pot to fund their pensions.

The protesting pensioners, often it seems with health conditions that sensibly should exempt them from taking on the government, are in fact probably fighting more for the benefit of future pensioner’s than for themselves, allowing how slowly the wheels of Government can turn.

Note particularly how the protesting pensioners are treated.

I understand ex-Warrant Officer Mr Fitzmaurice, a senior non-commissioned officer with over 20 years loyal service to our country, and 76 years young, is hand-cuffed and kept in a police or prison van for 10 hours.

The feeble excuse given, with echo’s of the excuse given by certain camp guards was “we have to follow procedures”.

The cost of incarcerating ex-Warrant Officer Mr
Fitzmaurice in one of Her Majesty’s prisons, with none of the remission the state would grant to any common criminal, will be very many times more than the un-paid council tax.

He will by all accounts be well looked after, well feed, kept warm and comfortable, entertained and receive the best health care. I hope he takes the opportunity to get any dental work he needs done and perhaps some new spectacles if he needs them.

If he does not get these things he presumably will be able to sue the Government for those failures. Whilst also pressing the case he probably already has against them for their “cruel and inhumane punishment” whilst he was needlessly hand-cuffed. I have a certain lady lawyer in mind to take his case to court. Can you guess who?

But I bet she does not volunteer.
To ex-Warrant Officer Mr Fitzmaurice - Very well done Sir!

To the Government-”Shame on you for so treating a man who has done his duty and served his Queen and Country”.