The Collapse Of Trade With The EU Will Continue Until The Summer

Industry groups have warned that the collapse of Britain’s trade with the EU will continue into the summer after the failure to recruit up to 30,000 customs agents, despite government pledges that normal service has resumed.

Delays and confusion at the UK’s ports, which have resulted in 40 per cent of trucks crossing the Channel with empty containers, threatens to put hundreds of small and medium exporters out of business and cost the government millions of pounds in lost trade tariffs.

The warnings reflect the most dramatic monthly decline in exports from the United Kingdom to the EU since records started 20 years ago.

Exports fell by almost 41 per cent as thousands of trucks failed to obtain admission to the EU, mostly following customs hold-ups due to a shortage of compliant paperwork.

Businesses also reported that a shortage of customs agents meant they were unable to respond to orders from customers based in the EU or found their goods were returned at a tremendous cost.

In January, which marked the first month since leaving the EU on terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, official data revealed that goods exports to the 27 member bloc dropped by a tremendous £5.6 billion, while imports decreased by about 30 per cent, or £6.6 billion.

The Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, has answered critics of the UK’s failure to prepare for border checks by delaying an earlier agreed timetable for imports.

Under a new scheme, controls on animal product imports will be pushed back from April until October and checks on most other goods will only take place at UK ports from next January.

But Brussels has insisted that UK exporters comply with EU rules on imports, forcing numerous British firms to find a customs agent and a vet to confirm that animal products are safe to enter the EU.

Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, said the deluge of exporters requiring help to fill in paperwork meant customs agents were turning business away.

He said that the delay to import checks was welcome but not a universal fix, and that they couldn’t be confident that operators would even be ready on 1 October, and that the amount of skilled customs agents and veterinarians in place across the EU to complete the relevant documentation still fell far short of what was needed.

Of course, this will last until we get rid of this Conservative party government and restore it with a progressive government with common sense, with the hope that it will be able to re-establish our relationship with the EU.

And if COVID cases begin rising again because of the mass return to school, this could again hinder the government’s plans for ending the lockdown and possibly bring about its downfall, and the Conservatives are bad for our economy and Brexit is evidence of this.

The financial news sectors have been predicting a continually slow deterioration in trade, and that’s been going on for some time now, but the real impact will be laid bare once the stockpiles run out.

The thing is, people voted out, and stupidity has its consequences, and even if it had worked out, the United Kingdom by itself is only a middle power. Maybe if Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom had become a reality, then the United Kingdom would be a great power, but still not a superpower.

So, essentially, it’s disruption until the summer, and how strange this all coincides with the end of all the COVID restrictions, but it’s all about Brexit, right?

The Case For The Subway

Long before it became an antiquated and squalid representation of everything wrong with America’s broken cities, the New York subway was a miracle.

Before it, the farms and villages of Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens might as well have been on the other side of the world from the heaving streets of Manhattan.

The subway hastened the city’s financial and cultural growth, and every day it makes it the enchanting, incomprehensible act of both drawing people together and spreading them out, although, in recent years, it’s been falling apart.

However, failing to fix it would be a collective and historic act of self-destruction.

But it’s the billionaires that have destroyed the subway and every other piece of infrastructure that’s been neglected for the past fifty years, and for capitalism to serve its true masters, the working class must be underfunded and neglected.

It should have been updated years ago, and now it’s going to be so much more difficult and more costly to fix it, and at the moment it just looks like something out of a dystopian sci-fi film set.

Alfred Ely Beach built the first presentation for an underground transit system in New York City in 1869 and opened it in February 1870.

His Beach Pneumatic Transit only extended 312 feet (95 metres) under Broadway in Lower Manhattan, operating from Warren Street to Murray Street and presented his design for an atmospheric railway as a subway.

The tunnel was never extended for political and financial reasons, and today, no part of this line remains as the tunnel was entirely within the boundaries of the present-day City Hall station under Broadway.

The Great Blizzard of 1888 helped demonstrate the advantages of an underground transportation system, and a plan for the development of the subway was approved in 1894, and the building of it started in 1900.

Even though the underground parts of the subway had yet to be built, some above-ground portions of the modern-day New York City Subway system were already in service by then.

The oldest structure still in use opened in 1885 as part of the BMT Lexington Avenue Line in Brooklyn and is now part of the BMT Jamaica Line.

The oldest right of way, which is part of the BMT West End Line near Coney Island Creek, was in use in 1864 as a steam railroad called the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Rail Road.

It appears to be a matter of priorities and an immense amount of tax revenues to finance those priorities.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), for decades, had resisted cleaning up the BMT Chambers Station, and it’s by far the most decrepid, degenerate stations in the system.

It kind of changed in 2019, when a limited cleanup was announced, but the station’s murky de-evolution won’t be easily erased with its shambling appearance.

It’s a dungeon-like place, with dilapidated walls, repugnant mould, and wonderful mosaics and terra cotta plaques that were once beautiful, but have slipped into ruin, but it’s over 100 years old and anything that old needs to be radically restored, not just patched up.

Donald Trump Claims He Could Be Cancelled

Donald Trump has claimed he could face cancel culture like Piers if he were to openly discuss the Meghan Markle and Prince Harry interview but added that he believed the Duchess of Sussex was no good.

The announcement came when Donald Trump’s senior adviser Jason Miller appeared on the War Room podcast, hosted by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Jason Miller said that the former president told him he could make a little news by telling the people his feelings about the Oprah interview with Meghan and Prince Harry that included several bombshell revelations about life as royals.

Jason Miller said when relating the discussion with Donald Trump that when talking with the president, he was like, yeah, she’s no good, and that everyone was seeing it, but that if you said anything negative about Meghan Markle you got cancelled – look at Piers.

The former president was referring to Piers Morgan, the polarising host of Good Morning Britain who left his job after he said during a segment that he didn’t believe a word Meghan said in the Oprah interview, including her struggle with suicidal thoughts.

Following the admission and a string of complaints to ITV, including a formal one submitted by Meghan, it was announced that Piers Morgan would be leaving the morning program.

In a tweet, Piers Morgan reaffirmed the opinion he shared on Good Morning Britain that resulted in him no longer hosting the morning show, and that he said he didn’t believe Meghan Markle in her Oprah interview, and that he’d had time to ponder on his opinion, and that he still didn’t.

The latest statement from Donald Trump came after he previously called Meghan nasty when asked about comments made by the Duchess of Sussex that referred to him as misogynistic and divisive.

And according to a news outlet, Donald Trump said in 2019 that he didn’t know that she was nasty, but Donald Trump later tried to roll back the quote by insisting it was made up by the bogus news media.

One reason why the former president hasn’t formally commented on the Oprah interview with Meghan and Prince Harry could be because his tool of choice Twitter was no longer an available method of communication for him to talk to his followers.

Twitter has indicated that the former president was permanently forbidden from the platform following the deadly riots that took place at the US Capitol on 6 January. At the time, Donald Trump issued several tweets that the social media platform said encouraged violence.

But he doesn’t need Twitter when the press are willing to report on his every word, and of course, Meghan Markle described him as divisive and misogynistic and does Donald Trump even know what that means? And the man cancelled himself, he lost the election.

And for those out there saying that Donald Trump didn’t lose – Joe Biden is in the White House being called Mr President, which would clearly tell people that Donald Trump did lose.

Donald Trump was robbed of the election and most of the world knows it. The world also knows that Trump supporters are just as crazed as he is, and we know that the US initially voted for him in the past, but it just proves how brainwashed they really are.

But you have to take your hat off to Donald Trump for attempting to leap on the bandwagon, but people seem to overlook the calamitous visit he had with the Royals a few years back. They disliked him like many others, and he almost knocked the Queen down trying to make sure he had a great position in the photoshoot.

Ireland Suspends AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine

Ireland is suspending the use of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID as a precautionary measure following further reports of blood clots in people who’ve received it, this time from Norway.

The deputy chief medical officer, Dr Ronan Glynn, said Ireland’s advisory body on vaccines had advised that deployment of the AstraZeneca jab should be momentarily suspended with immediate effect, although he emphasised that there was no evidence that the vaccine had caused the blood clots.

The first reports of blood clots in people receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine came out of Austria and created a flurry of concern, leading to several European countries, including Denmark, discontinuing their use of it pending investigations.

Ireland cited the report into a death and three hospitalisations in Norway and Dr Ronan Glynn said that following new data received from the Norwegian Medicines Agency, and following talks with the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) had advised that the administration of the COVID 19 Vaccine AstraZeneca be provisionally suspended from Sunday 14 March.

He said that this recommendation had been made following a report from the Norwegian Medicines Agency of four new reports of serious blood clotting issues in adults after vaccination with COVID 19 AstraZeneca.

He said it had not been decided if there were any connections between the COVID 19 vaccine AstraZeneca and those cases. However, acting on the precautionary principle, and pending receipt of further data, the NIAC had recommended the interim deferral of the COVID 19 vaccine AstraZeneca vaccination programme in Ireland.

And he maintained that the NIAC was scheduled to meet again and that a further report would ensue thereafter.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority in the United Kingdom said that millions of people had already been given the AstraZeneca jab without any significant side effects and that the number of blood clots and brain haemorrhages in people vaccinated recently were no more than was expected in that size of population.

And that very rare cases can’t be detected in clinical trials, but that medical authorities around the world will now want to review any reports of severe or unexpected side effects.

The Norwegian Medicines Agency is investigating the cases of four people under 50 who had the AstraZeneca jab.

The agency said that one died and the others were admitted to the hospital, and all had a diminished number of blood platelets, but we must note that this was only with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Also, this side effect affected only a tiny percentage of recipients, and overall, the vaccine is still reasonably safe, and not everyone reacts the same, and not all vaccines are created alike.

It might not be due to the vaccine, but we still need to be extremely careful.

Millions of Americans have been lining up for their COVID 19 shots, and while some people have had pain, fatigue, or fever afterwards, most of the side effects have been mild. However, there’s recently been a headline about a rare blood disorder – a malady called immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) that reportedly occurred in a small number of people after getting their COVID vaccine.

You also have to remember that these vaccines have been brought to us by warp speed, and many people will choose not to have the vaccine. The problem is that the powers that be all over the world will restrict what you can do without being vaccinated.

Sadly vaccines have become our saviours, and we’re not even sure if this vaccine will work, and if they’d been vigilant enough, these companies would have identified problems with the vaccine while it was being trialled, and before it was approved, but it’s not like the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t have a history of covering up data.

Donald Trump More Upset About Being Banned From Twitter

Donald Trump’s niece wrote a scathing book about once US President Donald Trump which said he was more upset about being banned from Twitter than he was about losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

Clinical psychologist Mary Trump said in an interview with Business Insider that Donald Trump was more upset about being unable to host the 2020 PGA championship at one of his golf properties than being voted out of the White House in November.

And she said that she thought that being banned from Twitter and having the PGA take their tournament away from his golf courses was probably one of the worst things that has happened to him in the last four years, and having to manage without Twitter, he must realise that people aren’t paying attention to him in the same way.

Since Donald Trump was permanently barred from Twitter, the former president has been reduced to issuing press statements that usually mimic the resonance of his former caustic tweets, but don’t have the same scope or influence – the press normally still report on his public communications, though.

And New York Times Washington correspondent Maggie Haberman echoed the claims made by Mary Trump in a January report, saying her sources said the former president was gutted by the cancellation of the golf tournament, and his outrage over that was a different order of magnitude than it was about his second impeachment.

Twitter declared a permanent suspension of Donald Trump’s account on the social media platform on January 8, and the PGA of America said on January 10 that the golf organisation cancelled its contract with Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ, to play the 2022 PGA championship there.

PGA of America President Jim Richardson said in a statement that the PGA of America Board of Directors voted to exercise the right to terminate the agreement to participate in the 2022 PGA Championship at Trump Bedminster.

Both announcements came within days of the storming of the US Capitol in Washington, DC, by a large gathering of Trump followers on January 6.

Participants in the violent demonstration and other Trump supporters were outraged by his failure to win the November presidential election amid what they erroneously claimed was a rigged election and voter fraud.

Twitter’s statement about the cancellation eluded to extensive allegations that Donald Trump had encouraged the insurrectionist event in a speech shortly before his followers stormed the building where members of Congress were certifying Joe Biden’s election as president.

And now for the first time in his life, Donald Trump can’t buy or browbeat to get his own way, and let’s face it, who wants to hear it on Twitter anyhow, the way he continuously rages on about twaddle, while delusion runs rampant through his mind.

Donald Trump ran a game show contest and trashed the US, and Donald Trump doesn’t know the truth from a lie, but he’s pretty much the Pied Piper of Hamelin and this fans seem to follow him wherever he goes – perhaps they’re delusional thinkers as well.

The only real thing that Donald Trump did was to benefit the filthy rich and his corporate buddies because he didn’t do much for the average Joe, that’s for sure, and Donald Trump wouldn’t know the truth if it came up and washed the orange off his face, and narcissists don’t look backwards, they just keep on destroying lives.

There’s barely anything that Donald Trump doesn’t say or do that isn’t rooted in narcissism, and it wouldn’t surprise me that in the future there will be college courses about his tweets.

Prince Harry Did Ride Bikes With His Dad

Photos have appeared throwing uncertainty on one of the allegations made by Prince Harry during his inflammatory television interview with Oprah Winfrey.

The 1990 image shows a young Harry sitting on the back of a bicycle being ridden by his father Prince Charles on the grounds of the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, but Harry seemed to have no memory of such family days out when he was questioned by US chatshow hostess Oprah Winfrey.

Harry told Oprah that he guessed the highlight for him was sticking him on the back of a bicycle in his baby seat and taking him on bike rides – I’m guessing he was talking about Archie and said that was something he was never able to do when he was younger.

Harry said that he could sit him on the back and he’s got his arms out and he’s like ‘whoah’.

But the emergence of the 31-year-old photo, which also highlights a young Prince William riding alongside Charles and Harry, was picked up by social media users, and journalist Martin Jay tweeted, was there anything in Meghan and Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey true?

Another critic tweeted that when Harry tells these lies, he should make sure there are no photos to show otherwise, and another said that Harry said he wanted to ride a bike with his son as he wasn’t permitted to do so when he was younger, yet there was a myriad of images of him quite happily riding bicycles when young.

Buckingham Palace issued a statement on behalf of the Queen in response to the programme which pointedly said that some recollections may vary.

The bombshell interview, which was aired in the US and the UK 24 hours later, has plunged the British monarchy into its biggest crisis since the 1997 death of Princess Diana, William and Harry’s mother.

As the shockwaves continued to reverberate around the world, Prince William denied the royals were racist following Meghan’s allegations that an unnamed member of the family had asked how dark their son Archie’s skin might be.

On a visit to a school in east London, William said he’d not spoken to Harry since the interview was aired, and he said that he hadn’t spoken to him yet, but that he would do.

Asked by a reporter if the Royal Family were racist, William said that they were very much not a racist family.

Perhaps this was a calculated lie or Harry was so young that he just couldn’t recollect such boyhood memories, and therefore not a lie if you simply don’t remember something, and this was years ago when Harry was younger. He’s a grown man now and often we forget things from our infancy, but at least the media has refreshed his memory now by consulting the archives.

As a mother before my children were born we would chat about what our children might look like, or who they would look like, such as if they would have curly hair or straight hair, and talking about the colour of my son’s skin was not an issue, and it certainly wasn’t a racist thing – most new parents talk about how their child might look when born or who they might look like.

It’s a normal thing to do, and all newborns are adorable, no matter what skin colour, hair or eye colour and it’s natural to speculate, but speaking about it openly to the media will only create division.

Harry and William did numerous things we common people never have the chance to do, and their mother Diana went out of her way to give her boys as much of a normal upbringing as possible, but that doesn’t mean that he lied because young children usually don’t remember doing stuff with their parents, especially at a very young age.

Royal Mail To Trial Sunday Parcel Deliveries

Royal Mail is to trial a Sunday parcel delivery service for major retailers this year.

The move is aimed at tapping into the seven days a week delivery market as more customers expect Sunday deliveries as part of their online shopping.

In the last year, Royal Mail said it’s processed unprecedented parcel volumes, delivering 496 million in the third quarter ending December 27.

Royal Mail said construction of its second, and largest, parcel hub is underway in Daventry in Northamptonshire, with the ability to process more than one million parcels a day.

Chief commercial officer Nick Landon said that the United Kingdom now trusts them to deliver their purchases six days a week both swiftly and conveniently, and now for the first time, posties will be doing the same thing seven days a week.

And he said that the last year has reset so many customers expectations and the desire for even more convenient and even more frequent parcel deliveries has unquestionably been one of them and that they always listen to their customers, both senders and recipients.

So, that’s what they’re doing, as promptly as possible, so that they can offer it to more and more customers across the course of this year.

Royal Mail came under attack last year after it emerged the service could scrap Saturday post.

The privatised postal giant is obliged by law to deliver six days a week under what’s called the universal service obligation, but the firm said it had seen a drop in the number of letters it handles because of emails, more billing done online and changing habits.

It said the coronavirus lockdown saw Royal Mail deliver 1.1 billion fewer letters.

Keith Williams, interim executive chairman at the Royal Mail Group, said in a letter to staff at the time that the findings tell them that the best way to ensure the universal service continues to meet their customer demand was to rebalance their service model more towards the growing parcels market, especially urgent parcels, and urgent letters.

But campaigners warned that axing first class post could hit the most vulnerable people.

Jan Shortt, of the National Pensioners Convention, said that older people, especially those living alone, as well as other vulnerable groups unable to access online services, will be the most affected by the decision.

Like those delivering milk and other goods to homes across the country, she said that postal workers are also the eyes and ears of communities, making sure that those known to be alone and vulnerable are staying safe and well.

She said that older people, more than any other group in society still rely on the post as the preferred method of communication.

I guess it would open up opportunities for Royal Mail and potential additional jobs, but to give good competition, it needs to have similar costings and services that others provide, and it would be lovely to be able to schedule deliveries on a Sunday when people know they’re going to be in all day, but I think our postman needs a day off as well to spend time with their families.

But it’s a good idea, particularly at a time when more and more use online is being used and getting our parcels even faster would be a great bonus, but we have to remember that postmen are not robots, and unless Royal Mail hires staff just for the Sunday service, this is not fair on the postmen that have to work a full week because many of them have families at home.

Sharon Osbourne Defends Piers Morgan

Sharon Osbourne, who judged ‘America’s Got Talent’ alongside Piers Morgan for five seasons, is getting some blowback for her analysis of why the former ‘Good Morning Britain’ host is the way he is when it comes to Meghan Markle.

And she supported her friend on ‘The Talk’ and on social media but was near to tears as she proclaimed on the show that neither she nor Piers Morgan was racist, and she said that they pay him for his opinion – he’s a royalist and there’s nothing wrong with that – it was the generation that he was born into and that they were all taught to be royalists.

She said that Piers Morgans family has a strong military background, implying that magnified his royalist leanings, and she said that you fight for your Queen and your country, and he’s a royalist and that she believed that he was hurt by Meghan Markle, and that was why he wouldn’t drop it, and that it was a personal thing for him.

Piers Morgan left ‘Good Morning Britain’ in a huff after fiery clashes with his cohosts over the former ‘Suits’ actress and the highly watched interview she and Prince Harry did with Oprah Winfrey.

The chat aired Sunday in the US and on Monday night in the United Kingdom, and according to CBS, which aired the special again on Friday night, it had been viewed by nearly 50 million people as of Tuesday.

Sharon Osbourne said that Piers Morgan is what he is and that he’s paid for his opinion as well, and Piers Morgan tweeted that when stuff like this happens, true friends run towards you, fake friends run away, and he said that he loves Sharon Osbourne because she always stays true to herself.

Sharon Osbourne also wrote that she thought that Piers Morgan, rather than walking off the set, should have stayed and listened to the very good case that weather presenter Alex Beresford was making.

Alex Beresford himself said he didn’t want Piers Morgan to leave their morning show on ITV, but that he did want him to listen, but ‘The Talk’ cohost Elaine Welteroth saw it differently, and she quoted her mother: “If you can’t stand the heat, you better get out the kitchen”.

And the former Teen Vogue editor said, this is someone who somehow can’t stand the heat even though he dishes it every single day, and that he’d been roasting Meghan Markle and Harry for years. So if he can’t handle someone criticising him, then she didn’t know why he got paid for his opinions.

But Sharon Osbourne is missing the point, and the point was that Piers Morgan was so absorbed in his criticisms of Meghan Markle that he didn’t know when he’d crossed the line, and Piers Morgan has been unprofessional, biased and unethical in the way he’s handled this, and his personal feelings about Meghan Markle has blinded his reporting.

Just because something happens in one’s personal life, it shouldn’t spill over into their professional life, as it did with Piers Morgan, and the implication is, would he have been so harsh and unprofessional had a white person done what he accused Meghan Markle of? And Sharon Osbourne is defending unfairly and is blinded by her friendship with Piers Morgan.

Sharon Osbourne may not be a racist, but she does appear to admire Piers Morgan who seems to be a class A scumbag and a self-absorbed narcissist because everything has to be about him and any opinion he has we should all take with a pinch of salt.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Could Face Charges

A prosecutor in Michigan suggested that Governor Gretch Whitmer could face criminal charges over her handling of deaths at nursing homes in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic as the state attorney general launched an inquiry into the deaths.

The news comes as Republicans in the Michigan legislature said they will hold hearings into a $155,000 confidential separation agreement made to former Health Department director Robert Gordon amid allegations that it may be a hush payment.

Macomb County prosecutor Peter Lucido said he’s unable to get information about the deaths at nursing homes and long term care facilities because of stringent laws that shield patient’s health care information.

Peter Lucido told ABC 7 WXYZ that if they find there’s been willful neglect of office, or if they find there’s been reckless endangerment of a person’s life by bringing them in, then they will move forward with charges against the Governor and that nobody was above the law in the state.

The issues surrounding Whitmer over the nursing home deaths are comparable to the scandal swirling around New York Governor Andrew Cuomo even before his mounting sexual harassment scandal had prompted calls for him to step down or be impeached.

The embattled governor was also dogged by allegations from five women that he sexually harassed them by inappropriately touching or kissing them, and by making inappropriate comments to them.

Whitmer said in an interview that she supports an independent inquiry into her fellow Democratic governor, and she said that she believed the accusations were extremely serious and needed to be taken seriously and that she thought that an unbiased, thorough independent investigation was justified and appropriate.

According to ClicktonDetroit.com, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel will examine the state coronavirus nursing home policies.

Whitmer’s office blasted Lucido in a statement, calling his remarks shameful political attacks based on neither fact nor reality. The statement also said Lucido’s Republican colleagues confirmed they’ve not seen any evidence or proof that says that a nursing home was forced to take someone against their will.

Her office said the state prioritised testing of nursing home workers and residents to save lives, and that early in the pandemic, the state responded quickly to build a network of regional hubs with isolation units and adequate PPE to prevent the spread of COVID 19 within a facility.

Also, they offered 100 per cent of nursing home residents priority access to the vaccine, and both the former head of AARP, as well as an independent U-M study, praised their work to save lives in nursing homes.

And it’s time Governor Tom Wolf answered to the justice system too, especially after the head of state honcho Rachel Levine moved her mother out of a senior centre, and then the following day Tom Wolf mandated COVID patients to be moved into nursing homes with the most vulnerable population.

Residents, already there couldn’t leave, nor could their family visit them, and many of them got COVID and died alone, yet the hospitals were not overwhelmed, however, they moved COVID patients anyhow.

Many people are saying that COVID is a false flag agenda to force vaccines on the people and that we shouldn’t fall for the propaganda. They’re probably right, but who wants to take the chance, and that’s what governments are banking on, that no one will want to take that chance, whether they believe in COVID or not.

This isn’t just political, it’s a travesty if confirmed true, and too many people weren’t even aware of what was happening in nursing homes, and because families weren’t permitted to visit their loved ones, the government could do precisely what they wanted to, and not follow their own guidelines.

Mum Fined £100

Danielle Botcher was left annoyed and speechless after she was approached by three council officers who claimed her child had incorrectly disposed of fast food.

The 28-year-old from Basildon, Essex had nipped to her local Tesco store and was heading back to her vehicle while her 18-month-old daughter Mia was eating a packet of Dairylea Lunchables.

She said that she’d pushed the trolley back to her vehicle and that when she went to get her daughter out of the trolley, she noticed that her daughter had dropped some of the crackers into the trolley.

She said that she saw the crackers in the trolley, so she picked them up, but she never saw the one on the floor, and why would she have picked up the ones in the trolley and not the one on the floor, if she had noticed it.

The stray mini cracker, no bigger than a fifty pence piece, was the reason Danielle claims she was given an on the spot £100 fine, which has since been cancelled after she complained.

She said that she’d put her daughter and shopping bags in the car and was about to close the door as a woman tapped on her window. She told her she was a Basildon Council enforcement officer and that she saw her daughter drop a biscuit on the floor and that she didn’t pick it up.

Danielle, who works as a part-time carer, apologised and said she didn’t realise the mistake, however, she was told that all three officers agreed that she’d decided to ignore the cracker and asked for her name and ID.

She said that she didn’t know what to think and that she was in shock and thought that it must be a joke and that you wouldn’t expect concealed cameras for how absurd the entire situation was, and she said that it took her a while to get her head around what was going on and that when she got home, she was extremely upset.

Danielle’s family helped her to contact a local councillor who contacted the council on her behalf. She later had a call from the enforcement agency to say that her penalty would be reversed.

She continued that they were panicked that they would have to pay it, and she was frantically searching on Google, and all the information she could find was saying they could end up in court, and that it was scary because £100 was a lot of money to them.

This is disappointing from a council that seems to turn a blind eye to massive industrial scale waste dumped by fly-tipping builders but they feel happy issuing £100 fines, and it says a lot about the people Basildon Council employ.

And it must have been a pretty quiet day for the officers, who were bored and petty enough to pick on a toddler, which is essentially what they’ve done, to give a mother a fine for what the toddler did and didn’t know any better, and these guys seriously need to retrain or get a job that will fill their time better.

These enforcement officers are nothing more than traffic wardens in effect, and they’re usually from a third party company that go around browbeating people whilst attired in a uniform, seeking to squeeze money out of people any way they can.

They stalk you, waiting for any opportunity to fine you, and they have no legitimate power, but they’ll attempt to scare and frighten you, and the best thing to do if they approach you is to simply turn around and walk away if you can. Although they will follow you and goad you into threatening them, and this is the method they will use to then call the police.

The best thing to do is to not engage with them and walk off, and ultimately, they will leave you alone, although they will pretend to phone the police in front of you, however, the police don’t do emergency call outs for the dropping of litter, hence why they try to goad you into threatening them.

Of course, the bureaucrats and their officers have a job to do, but when I find out what it actually is, I’ll let you good folks know because you really couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

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