It has become almost impossible to hand out leaflets in many town and city centres. Local councils including Brighton, Leicester and Leeds have introduced leafleting zones, within which you have to pay a fee (and often wear a badge) if you want…
A new Manifesto Club report shows how local authorities are using litter fines as a money-making operation. People are being fined for increasingly trivial incidents – from dropping a match stick, to a piece of cotton falling off a glove. More worryingly, often these fines are given out by private companies who are working on a commission basis. The report argues that such profiteering punishment works against the interests of justice and public service. We recommend that fines be used only in proportion to the offence, and when necessary for the public interest. Download the report: The Corruption of Punishment Responses to…
You are in danger of unwittingly committing an offence if you stray into one of 435 special zones in London. The boundaries of these zones are often unmarked and within them many everyday activities are either banned or restricted. A new Manifesto Club online Google map, Banned in London, reveals the 435 special zones that now cover half the area of the UK capital. In these areas, people can be fined or prosecuted for activities that would not otherwise be an offence – including leafleting, protesting, dog walking, gathering in groups, and drinking in public. Go to the Banned in London…
This YouTube video shows a standoff between a British citizen and a police officer. The officer is concerned that the citizen’s walking stick is actually a ‘drinking stick’, filled with alcohol, and demands to search it. The citizen responds that he does not want it to be searched, explaining that if you unscrew the pin it will take ages to get back together. Cue surreal conversation. ‘It’s a walking stick’. Officer: ‘It’s not a drinking stick then?’ ‘I don’t drink’. Officer: ‘It’s unusual to see people walking along with objects like this. Sometimes they have a little dagger in it’. ‘I can…
Photographers in the City of London face constant hassle from private security guards (see a film and blogpost on this here). The Manifesto Club’s Peter Lloyd approached City authorities, asking whether they planned to do anything about these over-officious private security guards. With the help of councilman Alex Deane, the City has responded by issuing a booklet for private security guards about the regulation of photography. This booklet emphasises that security personnel ‘do not have the right to stop individuals photographing or filming in a public place’. It also states that security personnel should ‘refrain from acting in an intimidating manner’; that…
This email recalls how a visitor to a National Trust for Scotland site was warned at the entrance that he shouldn’t take photographs of children… ‘I recently visited J.M. Barrie’s birthplace home in Kirriemuir, Angus, a building run by the National Trust for Scotland, holding a camera. I was expressly told, as I purchased tickets, that I must not use my camera to photograph children. Mention was made of both child protection and data protection legislation, and also of the possibility of tracing women in refuges via possible posting on social networking sites. ‘It did make me feel that I was being…
I just received this email from an artist, who was reported to the police by her son’s headteacher, because of photos of the artist’s son on her website. This truly extraordinary story indicates the extent to which schools are seeking to regulate photos of children – which stretches to censoring photos in their parents’ artwork… ‘My son’s headteacher called the police in 2010 to my son’s primary school, after seeing pictures of my son on my website. I had had a performance at the Courtauld Institute and my son’s teacher missed it so I gave her a video of myself and my…
This Manifesto Club report investigates the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS), under which private security guards and other individuals are given police powers. We found that 80% of these individuals are not being monitored by police authorities – yet possess powers to…
After Enfield Council passed a byelaw banning spitting, other local authorities have been queuing up to do the same. So far, Croydon, Doncaster, and Havering have said that they’ll seek to outlaw the habit. Hillingdon Council, meanwhile, has defined spitting as ‘litter’ and is fining offenders under littering powers. Spitting is often rude – occasionally, in cases of exercise or illness, it is necessary. But should it be criminal? The historic ban on spitting was related to the clear public health hazard of TB, which no longer exists. The objection against spitting is that it is ‘anti-social’. Which no doubt it is,…
I just received this email about a man questioned about why he was out walking without a dog: ‘The (male) head of a primary school thinks he better buy a dog! This is because when he was out walking by the river without one, he was stopped by the police and questioned as to why he was out for a walk without one. Why? Because there were some teenagers congregated nearby, it was one of those sunny evenings when they like to “hang out”. So going for a walk without a dog is now suspicious action…’ This is a classic sign of…
The government has launched a welcome reform of the rules governing child actors and actresses. Currently, every organisation working with a child has to gain an individual licence for each child, which makes it very hard for small-scale productions to work with children. Instead, the government proposes ‘allowing producers to apply for group licences every two years, to cover all under-16s performers’. Local authorities have also been known to be over-cautious and interfering, insisting on CRB checks for adult actors or venue managers, or separate changing rooms for children – with the result that many grassroots theatre productions have started to delete…
Hackney Council is advising clubs and bars to instill ID checks, in the run-up to the Olympics. Manifesto Club steering committee member Manick Govinda reports: “Last night Hoxton Bar and Kitchen refused to let me and a friend in because we didn’t have official ID documents. Apparently it is on the advice of Hackney Council, in the run-up to the Olympics, with the aim to keep out troublemakers. The bouncer was very nice and thought it was daft.” Josie Appleton comments: “The Olympics has become an easy justification for any authoritarian measure officials fancy carrying out. In July we are welcoming the…