So I thought I’d ring them to find out the status. The website for the Lincoln DVLA local office says:

“For enquiries about vehicles: 0300 790 6802 (Textphone minicom users 0300 123 1279).

For enquiries about driving licences: 0300 790 6801 (Textphone minicom users 0300 123 1278).

Please note, all calls are handled initially by our call centre based in Swansea.”

Which would be fine, if DVLA Swansea actually answered their calls. The recorded message I got today says that due to high call demand they cannot answer my call and so it hung up the call.

“service unavailable
sorry…

This service is temporarily unavailable. Your last action cannot be completed and details have not been recorded.

If you have not received confirmation of a successful transaction then your application has been cancelled.

Please click the button below to return to the DVLA Personalised Registrations home page.”

And that’s how it remains at present: you can search and view the public site but try and log in…

But the irony:

The Oneplace website is busy

Unfortunately the Oneplace website is experiencing high volumes of traffic, please try again later.
We apologise for the inconvenience.

The Government’s new Vetting & Barring Scheme comes into effect next year. As a Youth Football Coach, I will have to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority or face a £5,000 fine. This is over and above my current CRB-checked status (x2 so far…).

So this has to be A Good Thing, doesn’t it, as it will no doubt protect the boys I coach. Well … no, not according to the ISA themselves:

Q21. What does being ‘ISA-registered’ mean?

• ISA-registered means:

- No information is held that demonstrates the person poses a risk of harm to children or vulnerable adults.

- A person’s registration status is continuously monitored and if any new information such as a relevant caution or conviction, or information from employers comes to light, the ISA is informed, they will re-assess the person’s potential risk to vulnerable groups and they may chose to bar the individual.

• ISA-registered does not mean:

- That someone is “safe” or has been “cleared to work”

- That the ISA has scrutinised all information held on them, not least because new information may be coming in all the time.

[emphasis added]

So yet another complete and utter waste of time from yet another quango, especially as this new ISA Registration will not be replacing CRB checks!

I recently travelled through Humberside Airport on holiday. This is not a busy airport: they say they are:

“…a key national and international gateway to Northern and Eastern England, connecting over half a million passengers to 30 destinations every year.”

On the day I returned to the UK, they were handling roughly one incoming flight per hour. Which was just as well, as it took the UK Border Agency over an hour to actually allow me back into the country along with all the other pissed-off passengers on the charter flight.

The UKBA say:

“With tougher checks now in place at the border you may have to wait a little longer to get into the United Kingdom, especially at peak times. We use scanners to ensure that passports, visas and other official documents are genuine. Our officers are trained to detect forgeries and check that people have the right to enter the United Kingdom.

“An officer will check your passport and give you permission to stay, if you need it. We aim to see you within 45 minutes.

“If you are a national of the EU or EEA, you can use the separate EEA/EU channel, where we will usually check your passport or national identity card more quickly.”

ORLY?

Well at Humberside there’s one channel for non-EU travellers and there’s the main bit. The two numpties on duty when I came through looked as though they were on day release from an old folks’ home and clearly relished the opportunity to have a chat with each and every passenger. Presumably these two are what the UKBA refer to as “scanners” because they didn’t actually use any equipment other than their reading glasses and mouths… So after an hour’s queuing, I finally got through their vigorous entry procedures. Just as well it’s not like this at the UK airports I usually travel through on business…

ORLY?

So it cost £8M for 43 days. Or £186,000 a day. For what?

Looking more closely at the report, they claim that:

“About half of the total spent policing the demonstration – £3.72 million – was from additional policing costs, including overtime, the Met said.”

So that’s  £86,500 a day on overtime. Nice litttle earner, eh? I mean, how many policemen are on duty there every day? 100? 200? That’s a lot of overtime or a disproportionate number of policemen.

And that leaves a balance of £100,000 a day for … er … um … doughnuts? Bacon rolls? Who knows? The policemen are already employed, the vans are already bought and will just be parked up there most of the day. So what – precisely – is this claimed additional expenditure on? Mind you, when they closed off Weston Street after a stabbing for a day or two, one of the few police vehicles on the scene was a Met. Police burger van. I kid you not!

Sounds like bollocks to me…

So far, so good.

I have a couple of ride-outs coming up in a few weeks, so it’s time for me to apply for a tax disc to run from 1 April – I’ll do 6 months which will take me through my riding season from Kawasaki Day at the Ace Café London through to the ZRXOC Medbourne Meet in September.

Bearing in mind, you have to allow sufficient time for postage, etc. I thought I’d tax it today to run from 1 April.

No. You can’t do that. The stupid system will only accept my taxing the bike from 1 March, so the Government is insisting I pay tax for the last 24 days, plus however long it would take for the tax disc to arrive after they process the application tomorrow. Let’s see … yes, it would probably arrive around the 1 April and I’d have been unable to use the bike for the first month of the six I’d have paid for, plus I wouldn’t be legal if I wanted to do the September meet.

Absolutely useless!

Of course this is operated by the same people who tried to claim that the latest Budget was all for environmentally friendly vehicles … whilst upping the tax for bikes. Bikes that are perfect for single ‘occupancy’ commutes. And those that do not cause congestion…

According to the Office for National Statistics, inflation is running at 2.2%. Clearly no-one told South Norfolk District Council about this as our new council tax demand is up 4.0% on last year.

Talking of last year, do you remember how last year Norfolk Police Authority couldn’t keep to any sort of budgeting and raised their bill by 6.9%?

Well this year, they’ve surpassed themselves and increased it by 8.3%! Clearly proper business governance is anathema to Norfolk Police Authority/Norfolk Constabulary. They say:

“Budget Issues
Norfolk Constabulary has suffered from successive years of under-funding by Government to the point where we regularly had to dip into our reserves. We can no longer afford to keep doing that.”

Erm, isn’t that what reserves are for? And yes, we know you claim to have suffered in previous years: you’ve been more than happy to share your pain with us by never living within inflation-matching rises and instead passing it on to us.

Oh and they also say that they are “Performing Well”:

“…our detection rate rose to 32% – the highest we have ever achieved…”

Which means they didn’t detect 68% of reported crime. Still, as long as they detect those heinous speeding motorists on the main trunk roads, eh… Yes, they’ve decided to increase transport costs from £3.33M to £4.03M this year, that’s a 21% increase!

Then when you look at South Norfolk Council’s budget, it’s good to see that they intend spending over £28M (out of £50M) on “Finance, Staffing and Property, including Revenues & Benefits, Human Resources, IT Services”. That’s not housing by the way. Nice little earner and a cushy job if you can get it.

Yes, you did right that correctly.

You couldn’t make this up!

How stupid are they? At least the Conservatives can see the tiny flaw in the plan: it was bollocks:

“The shadow communities secretary Eric Pickles said: “What we should be doing is increasing recycling. We can do that without doing it through a bin tax.” The scheme would lead to a surge in fly-tipping, people dumping their waste in neighbours’ gardens and more back garden bonfires, he said.”

Exactly. And don’t we pay Council Tax in the first place to pay for recycling schemes? Just because the money we pay gets wasted on focus groups and committees discussing committees shouldn’t mean they charge us even more.