A tax on the poor. Adults Only

Every day in this country many thousands of people incur a fine for parking in the wrong place or for over staying the time they have paid to park for. Fair enough you might say, rules are rules, and if you break them you deserve a fine.

However the rules are supposed to apply to everybody, rich and poor alike, and a fine is supposed to be a penalty, a financial penalty to be exact. Years ago fines used to work. You broke the law, you went to court and the magistrate fined you based on your income. The system was geared to punish people who broke the law and inconvenienced others and to deter them from doing it again.

But then the "on the spot fine" was introduced, justice went out of the window and fines became little more than yet another tax, one that mainly affects the poor.

Last weekend, multi millionaire footballer John Terry drove his wife and kids down to Esher for a Pizza. Rather than pay the 50p to park in a proper bay, and walk a couple of hundred yards, this arrogant piece of scum parked his Bentley in a disabled bay outside the restaurant and left it there for two hours, stopping disabled people who need this facility from using it.

You see a £60 parking ticket means nothing to him. This man earns £70,000 a week before taking into acount any sponsership deals he might have. So why should he bother obeying the law?

These "on the spot fines" be they for parking offences or other so called minor offences are just a quick easy way to make money. They also mean that the only people who have to obey the law are those who can't afford not to. If you are rich you can just ignore any laws you find inconvenient and pay the fine.

And of course under New Labour the use of this type of fine has increased almost daily. "On the spot" fines are now used for just about anything the government thinks it can make money out of.

It is just another example of the way new Labour hammers the poor and favours the rich. So, if you need more policies Peter, how about outlawing this tax on the poor and replacing it with a proper justice system that means the rich have to obey the rules as well?

Here is a stripper.