Are the BBC in effect protecting parking eye et al?

Cornucopia

Clearly the Tobacco Industry and the PPCs are menaces of different types and orders of magnitude.

The Tobacco Industry has wrought death and disease across the World on a scale unparalleled by any organisation outside of the Military. In the 50s, 60s and 70s, they consistently lied to the public and misled the authorities around the World to continue to peddle their product in a relatively unfettered way.

To their shame, the Governments of the day did not impose their own research and did not impose what was actually required - a selective ban on the sale of Tobacco products. Instead, they became hooked themselves on the nicotine of Tax.

The $64000 question on the PPC issue is what the Government's intention was when they introduced the most recent legal framework. There are only a finite number of possibilities:-

- They never intended that consumers should be subject to financial penalties

- They did not know that consumers cannot be made subject to a financial penalty from a commercial company

- They intended that consumers should be penalised, but did not legislate for it

- They knew there would be an issue and left it as an exercise for the Courts to resolve (which is what is happening)

- They are incompetent

Until we know the answer to that question, I find it difficult to draw a conclusion about the conduct of the PPCs themselves.

Scratch any commercial sector deep enough and you will often find similar technical breaches of the rules or of the morality of our society, often because management lacks competence, but drives hard towards irrelevant targets all the same.

Few organisations are as fundamentally flawed as the PPCs, though. TV Licensing springs to mind...

edit: A final thought. The role of Government seems to have changed in the period since the 50s. Back then, they had very much a post-war role of ordering the resources of the country for maximum benefit. Since New Labour, we've entered a period of unprecedented amounts of legislation. There seems to be an unwritten rule that the population will tolerate this, as long as some of the legislation is obviously beneficial to us.

On that basis, I could not imagine the commercialisation of tobacco products being allowed now, even if the level of understanding of its dangers was the same as it was back in the day.

... I'll get my coat.

GingerBob_3

What about penalty fares on buses and trains operated by private companies? I guess there is legislation permitting this, or are they just chancing their arm as well?

da_rule

Or, following consultation with 'stakeholders' such as the BPA and PPC's and based on promises of compliance the government introduced keeper liability in order to prevent too many companies (and jobs and votes) disappearing when clamping was made unlawful (also via PoFA).

Hot_Bring

Stroma wrote: »

I'm coming to the conclusion that the BBC does not really want to bring this matter to the forefront for whatever reason. It was noted on another thread that perhaps a conflict of interest here as the owners of parking eye collects the licence fee.

And run BBC Audience Services.

Cornucopia

GingerBob wrote: »

What about penalty fares on buses and trains operated by private companies? I guess there is legislation permitting this, or are they just chancing their arm as well?

Legislation. (The Bye-laws in fact).

Cornucopia

da_rule wrote: »

Or, following consultation with 'stakeholders' such as the BPA and PPC's and based on promises of compliance the government introduced keeper liability in order to prevent too many companies (and jobs and votes) disappearing when clamping was made unlawful (also via PoFA).

I'm sure that did happen.

However, if the concept of disproportionate financial penalties was always unlawful, then someone has not done their job properly. The Government ought not to have created or allowed a legal framework that was dysfunctional before the ink on the legislation was dry.

Returning to the original topic, I've now watched the Watchdog item, and as someone not completely up to speed with PPCs, I thought it was about as thorough as can be expected from the mainstream media. I think anyone who's disappointed that they didn't get into GPEOLs and other legal details is being a bit unrealistic.