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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Posted without comment In London this morning:
A letter bomb has exploded at the London HQ of congestion charge firm Capita. A female employee at the office in Victoria Street was slightly injured – she is understood to have opened the envelope….
Capita manages the London congestion charge as well as collecting revenue from TV licensing and other tasks.
More about Capita.
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One man’s terrorist…
Is another mans irate consumer?
I bloody hope not!
Terrorist shoppers are all we need!!
True, but perhaps terrorist taxpayers is an idea whose time has well and truly come.
“The Terrorist Taxpayers” – what a great band name that would be!!
I don’t envy the plods job now.
“Good news, sarge, looks like we have narrowed suspects down to 40 million!”
But yeah – a more effective, more popular action would try and shut down their operations without actually hurting anyone, rather than needlessly terrorising admin staff.
Are you assuming I’m going to snigger because Capita are evil outsourcers and wasn’t the world so much better when civil servants ran all their own admin?
What is this, Private Eye?
I can’t say the poor women who opened the letter is deserving of our scorn, let alone deserved to be a victim of a homicidal disgruntled taxpayer.
Get a grip people.
Let’s take the congestion charge where some of us 🙁 admittedly do forget to pay the charge, even thought there is no excuse now and you can pay up to 24 hours in arrears. What I found particularly vexing was how, having completely forgotten about an outstanding charge the next reminder I received was not some mildly extortionate demand for £100 or so as I might expect, but a ‘judgement’ from Capita’s OWN “penalties hearing committee” (they have their own court?) now demanding £155.00 in penalty and a further £300 in “advance bailliff charges”, necessary to prevent their coming to tow away my car. £455 for an £8 congestion charge incurred 3 months previously is, to my reckoning anyway, on the borderline of criminal fraud anyway.
Having vented that I hope they do catch the bastard and lock him away for his completely disproportionate response and I do hope the poor lady recovers but please don’t expect me to shed any tears for Kuddly Ken and Krapita.
Next: Everyone who drives in the CC area is now a suspect and shall be served with a SCPO…
Are you assuming I’m going to snigger because Capita are evil outsourcers and wasn’t the world so much better when civil servants ran all their own admin?
No, but because Capita does almost exclusively government outsourcing, and is one of those firms that has by its competence permitted a massive expansion of government admin which otherwise would have choked itself. The late Paul Foot’s team on Private Eye hate them because they are capita-lists leeching off the otherwise morally pure body of government; we hate them because they are millers for the government, grinding citizen bones to make its bread.
If Capita’s staff were individual contractors rather than employees of one of the government’s favoured clients, they would be deemed to be government employees by the state’s own rules.
No. And of course, anything like this is wrong (unless Capita have sent you a bomb in the post – which is unlikely, even for them – and even then it would be debatable). It is, though, shall we say… an interesting development.
Guy Herbert raises a good point. We hear a lot from the leftists about “the private sector corrupting the public service ethos of the public sector” and all that guff. I tend to think of it more as the tax-maintained sector corrupting the public service ethos of commerce.
Capita isn’t a commercial company as we know it. Isn’t it, in fact, the very embodiment of the Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation? It’s non-governmental, in that it is, nominally, a public company. But it relies (almost?) entirely on the state for its business, therefore it can’t be said to be genuinely autonomous either. QED, I’d say. When the term was coined, quangos were set up by the state. But who said they had to be?
Clearly, this is the work of someone who is p***ed off to the back teeth with Capita’s behaviour – possibly in their guise as the TVLA?
No, nothing to do with me…
I am, apparently, one of the few people in Britain who do not own a television set. I still recieve, every three months or so, entirely illegal threatening letters for not having a television licence.
This ‘service’ is run by Capita.
Therefore, Capita are, routinely, shamelessly, and as a matter of policy, breaking the law.
The employees of Capita responsible for this are therefore criminal scum.
I would like to know why I should have any sympathy whatsoever with criminal scum.
Since the illegal depradations of Capita are supported by the Police (who are therefore complicit in their crimes) and the Government (who are therefore complicit in their crimes) could someone explain what is to be done about this?
Perhaps we could roll up at Capita Headquarters and effect Citizens’ Arrests? I don’t think so.
I have, therefore, reluctantly concluded that I don’t give a toss how many of these criminal scum are blown to bits; if you don’t like it, all you have to do is stop working for a gang of criminals.
Perhaps someone could explain to me how I am wrong here. I’d like some reason not to approve of secretaries being blown up.
Brian – are the threats getting much worse at your address too? I’m actually looking forwards to the vermin showing up on my doorstep when I’m in. They never do, though.
I’ve a variety of reasons for not owning a TV, these days not least of which is that scumbags threatening may tends to make me dig my heels in.
ThePresentOccupier,
As I don’t put Crapita’s correspondence in the recycle bin, let me say they aren’t doing wonders for the local landfill.
Which reminds me, I must get down B&Q; a freind of mine who’s a policeman recommends a claw hammer for domestic use.
Posted from safely off-shore (good evening, Special Branch)
About time the native Brits showed a bit of backbone and fought back, using the only language the tyrants understand. And an appropriate choice of target too. While we’ve heard about the second and third attacks here, there seems to be almost no coverage in the UK media, or that which is available on line anyway. Is the regime covering it up?