Dale Farm

Today will be remembered for the shambolic eviction of travellers from the Dale Farm site in Essex. I use the word 'shambolic' as I believe this to be an apt word to describe Basildon Council's handling of this whole matter.
Now I'm on the fence as it were when it comes to whether it is right or wrong to evict them. It is clear that they are flouting the law and as such action should be taken. But I do think the council have made a complete hash of the whole thing and that 10 years is simply a ridiculous amount of time to elapse before anything is done.
I find myself blaming both sides. On the one hand, there is the 'true' traveller way of life and culture which is certainly persecuted not just in the UK but all over Europe. There are members of this community who have scant regard for others or the law and this minority give the traveller community a bad name. The council are 'saving face'. It's all about image. I find the £22 million cost of the exercise obscene and it will be up to the electorate at the next local election to decide whether it has been money well spent. The council should have acted sooner and a solution should have come about many years ago. They have been incompetent, inept and frankly stupid in their handling of this matter and heads should roll.
Enough said.

Our first CCJ

To add to our woes, my wife and I received a CCJ in the post today from our friendly and helpful South Holland County Council. This follows our recent visit to discuss our financial problems where we were both assured that we should do nothing until they'd assessed our situation and issued a new statement of the reduced charges. I couldn't deal with much more today so it fell upon my darling wife to call them to express our displeasure at their action. We now have to wait until next Tuesday for someone to call us to discuss our plight, leaving this hanging over us for the weekend. Fantastic. So does that now make us criminals for not paying our council tax? Our credit rating can't get any worse - we must be into the minus figures by now. This would be the icing on the cake. Can things seriously get any worse..?
At least the weather is good!