Party Vibe

I think the amount of it that exists in Britain shows how divided this country is…

communities seem often incapable of reaching a consensus and end up having to get nanny state authorities to sort things out, and delays are caused by competing groups quibbling over every last detail.

I also think Middle England has a two faced attitude to red tape though – it is also used to covertly enforce “Middle England values” and nimbyism by people who claim to hate it.

The farmers / middle class types who complain about too much regulation when it affects them are perfectly happy to see regulations being used to limit stuff like licensing hours for late night events, freedom of access, keeping youth centres and the like away from their communities for noise.

to compare metpols admin costs you would need to check the admin cost of a similar public sector organisation of that size and I suspect the costs are the same..

Data on computers can be very easily altered, destroyed or falsified.

It is somewhat harder to do that on paper copies (as even re-printing a document on the same make and model of printer will show differences when viewed at high magnification) so paper copies often provide a safeguard by providing a record for future scrutiny which is essential for an enforcement authority or a Civil Service Department.

Just consider the things that are being release through freedom of Information – if the Government in the 1980s had actually gone to a “paperless office” I bet plenty of stuff would have been erased by Thatcho’s mob under “cost considerations”

One thing that worries me though is a lot of regulations have only appeared because people were given a chance to self-regulate and failed…

anti-drugs regulations, PELs, noise limits, many health and safety regs have all come about because of this… until people can actually look after themselves they are always going to have a nanny state doing it for them..

its also a way of showing power and enforcing hierarchies without doing obviously politically incorrect things like beating people up/destroying their property or locking them up

and is a tool of nimbys and those who are fundamentally opposed to a project to try and sabotage it by delaying it…

Also in most large organisations if one team can cause a rival’s project to fail they can bid for the funding for that failed project

it happens in the private sector as well – usually competing groups of managers arguing over “processes” and is probably one reason why British industry keeps going down the pan..