Farewell to a friendly service?

Dear Editor

I did not see the lorry which emptied my three-parts empty black bin this morning, while my already full recycling bin must wait another week to be dealt with. I am not sure who was given the contract but, in my experience, Grundon?s service has been superb.

If we are no longer to receive their swift, courteous, flexible and totally reliable attentions that is a matter of very great sadness. Their staff, jogging, sometimes sprinting behind the vehicles, gathered up everything they could reasonably be asked to deal with, bed-sized cardboard flatpacks for example, or maybe the odd broken broom or pram wheel.

It seems from national publicity that this is all about saving the planet and doing what we are told by the European Union. Well beware the former. Pocket Hitlers love good causes, as has been seen elsewhere in the country, when the the might of the state has descended on the disposer of a harmless apple core by the roadside, for example ? and many other instances.

As for the planet, I read somewhere recently a serious assessment that the world is getting cooler. And on national politics, I wonder whether the Labour Party?s troubles at the moment result from an instinctive revulsion against interfering social controls, enforced by the faithful followers of the busybody State.

Not yet, not yet, maybe, but how long before I get a visit from a ?counsellor? if too many cake boxes are spotted in my recycling?

Norman Brand 08/06/09