Blame the bureaucrats
From Dr Michael Lynch Sir: Forgive me if I have taken Andrew Gimson's piece on traffic wardens too seriously (let's hear it for the traffic wardens', 5 July), but how can he defend a body of enforcers one of whose representatives sees it as her mission to make people 'pay for their sins'? Does it not disturb him that every motorist is at the mercy of such psychopaths?
Equally seriously, is he not troubled by the sickening racism of so many councils in employing individuals from ethnic minorities as wardens in a deliberate, though unacknowledged, attempt to stifle criticism of often absurd parking restrictions? Many councils, in effect, apply a double whammy. They know that the verbal and physical abuse to which a minority of motorists will give vent will fall not on officials safe in their offices but on the uniformed wardens, who are ordered to apply zero tolerance to technical breaches of the law. The councils also know full well that if the ordinary, fair-minded motorist protests against the enforcement of petty regulations, he can easily be accused of racial prejudice, since the person he deals with directly on the street is likely to be a non-white.
Is Gimson not angered by this cynical exploitation by councils and their agents of cheap, non-white labour? If he really wants to preserve 'the blessings of order and civilisation' in this land, let him turn his wit and ire on the bureaucrats who daily blight the lives of traffic wardens and motorists alike.
Dr Michael Lynch
Department of Economic and Social History, University of Leicester
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