Red rubber band relativism

It's perhaps possible to work out how easy/difficult a person's life is by dint of the things they complain about, and one possibly instructive issue in this regard is the mini-hysteria evident in recent years about those red rubber bands that the posties festoon the streets with - ironically, the red colouring was supposed to make the bands more visible and thus easier for the posties to dispose of more appropriately.

Anyway, I couldn't help thinking along similar lines when reading an Evening Telegraph news article recently, which was prominently headlined: "Authority's pledge over anti-social neighbours." The story related a young Forfar family's "misery" and "nightmare" experience in an Angus council flat, and said they would rather "sleep on the street" than endure things much longer. The Tele related a catalogue of anti-social behaviour such as "bags of rubbish regularly left out on the landing", and...er...that was more or less it!

In fact the Courier's version of the article seems to portray things in a slightly dimmer light, and indeed the couple's young boy "cut himself on broken glass last year but thankfully wasn't hurt" (sic), but Angus Council's pledge to "take a tough line on anti-social tenants" should be contrasted with my neighbourhood, where it's an achievement for some members of the 'community' to put their rubbish in a bag at all, but this nevertheless hardly seems worth complaining about.

Which leads on nicely to another recent article in the local press, this time about a meeting of a "community forum" which covers the area in which the Planet Politics nerve centre is located. Forum members are complaining about a gang of youths who regularly hang around in the area until the early hours, drinking "chemical cider"(?) and scaring the residents.

Thus nothing new to report there then but, interestingly, the meeting was held without any police officers or local councillors present, which the forum's chairwoman explained was because sometimes "people don't want to tell you something when there are officials there".

To which a local councillor harrumphed: "I have a great deal of respect for the forum but this idea that people are intimidated by their councillors I find hard to believe because an awful lot of people come to speak to me." He also "praised the efforts made by the police, community safety wardens and the council's youth team"...."diversionary youth activities are good and are going on in the area"...blah, blah.

However, the reason I avoid such forums, police and councillors is not because I feel intimidated by them (well, a wee bit!) but because my perception is that police ignore so-called low-level crime as per the recent Chief Inspector of Constabulary's report pertaining to England and Wales, but community representatives and councillors are in denial about this. In my opinion that's the reality of the situation, and increasing police numbers and proffering rhetoric about 'community policing' and the like won't fundamentally change things below the level of marketing blurb (aka political spin).

Meanwhile, another recent Courier story from sleepy rural Perthshire tells of a father who was fined £600 after a minor assault on a youth. This followed 40 complaints to police and the council over several months, and in March, "the huge front window of his terraced Victorian property in Queen Street was smashed by the pair, who allegedly "patrol the street" most nights threatening to "batter" him."

So it's nice to see that all these extra police officers have managed to get things under control and are targeting the right people.

But perhaps there's a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. The chairwoman of the aforementioned community forum in Dundee says merely that the police are "working fairly hard", which almost sounds like criticism. Or it does so in the context of the normal politician blurb, for example the utterly predictable "police do a tremendous job" from a Dundee councillor in yet another recent crime story. That's more like it!