COVID Marshals and the Rise of the Busybody State

UK shows the future: Tens of thousands of hall monitors employed everywhere and against everyone

The government has announced that a new band of ‘Covid marshals’ will patrol Britain’s streets and ensure that no one is breaking social-distancing rules. They will remind people to keep a two-metre distance, enforce one-way pavements and break up groups of more than six.

The Covid marshal is merely the latest incarnation of the yellow-jacketed busybody who has become a feature of public space over the past 10 to 20 years. We have become familiar with the generic officious warden, who goes around telling people off for whatever it is they are doing. We see videos of them on YouTube, telling buskers they need a licence, saying that leafleting is banned or asking groups of young people to disperse.

There are thousands of these officers in Britain. There are an estimated 10,000 neighbourhood or street wardens, over 3,000 ‘accredited persons’ (private individuals given police powers), and dozens of councils employ private security guards to issue fines for minor misdemeanours.

In fact, large areas of enforcement have become more a matter for the officious warden than the police proper. In 2018, there were 200,000 litter fines issued by private security guards subcontracted by councils. Nearly 4,000 council staff are empowered to issue the new on-the-spot ASBOs known as Community Protection Notices.

Some of the job titles of those empowered to issue legal orders include county-park guardians, community officers, street-scene officers, community-safety officers, environmental-health officers, community-wellbeing service officers, neighbourhood-pride managers, street-scene managers, town-centre wardens, anti-social behaviour officers, neighbourhood problem-solving advisers, and wellbeing officers. It will be very natural for some or all of these officers to shift into policing the social-distancing rules.

As I argued in my book, Officious – Rise of the Busybody State, these new wardens do not have any defined public function or role, nor do they have any particular allegiance. Instead, the officious officer is set against free social life itself and hostile towards any relationship based on spontaneity and mutual trust. They will interfere in any unregulated activity, and see any gathering (say, of young people or of crowds) as a public-order problem or potentially as ‘anti-social behaviour’.

Both local government and police are in fact entirely ready to enforce the ‘Rule of Six’. There has been a fusion of the council and police through officious mechanisms, and a high degree of collaboration in areas such as anti-social behaviour or environmental enforcement. These institutions have an ingrained hostility towards social gatherings of any kind. The police issue thousands of dispersal orders each year, while dozens of councils have brought through their own dispersal zones, and others have banned people from standing in groups. The London Borough of Hillingdon, for instance, makes it a crime to stand in a group of two or more unless you are waiting at a bus stop.

The policing of spontaneous social life has always been the subtext of these officials’ jobs. Now, with Covid social-distancing measures – and particularly the absurd ‘Rule of Six’ – stopping social life is now their actual job. The creeping criminalisation of social life has been long in the making. Now it has become the explicit and blanket rule.

Source: Spiked

7 Comments
  1. Mr. Evans says

    Imagine All Lifeforms And Humans Being Placed On A Very Large Platter Inside A Gigantic Microwave Oven, And The Door Being Closed And The Power Setting Set To Medium, And The Start Button Being Pressed . . . . . Do You Understand ? . . . What Happens When You Place A Cup Of Tea Or Coffee, Or A Cold Or Frozen Food Inside Your Microwave Oven And Set The Time For 3 To 5 Minutes And Press Start ? . . . . . High Amplitude Multi-Frequency Microwave Energy Or 3 Thru 5G Energy Is Slowly Cooking Every Living Breathing Lifeform, Which Includes Bipedal Humans From Their Or Our Insides . . . . . Do You Understand Now ??? ….. Simply Turn Off 3 Thru 5G For Several Weeks To 1 Month And Watch Thi$ Sinister Evil Criminal COVID-OP$1984 $camdemic Stop Abruptly, And Watch People Begin To Heal And Recover From The Non Existent Viru$, But From Them Being Cooked From The Insides Out From Deadly Microwave Radiation . . . . . The Sleepers Must Awaken Now Before It’s Too Damned Late . . . . . ;-0

  2. Raptar Driver says

    Easy, if you see these idiots just beat the shit out of them.
    Problem solved.

  3. Mr. Evans says

    COVID-OP$1984 I$ A Sinister Psyop($) Or Psychological Operation In Fear And Control,….And The Totally Useless Ma$k$ Are A Part Of Their Multi-Level Criminal $cam And $camdemic In Fear, And A HUGE $$$ Making $cheme To Drain Everyone’s Bank Accounts, Wallets And Purses U$ing Fear Of A Non Existent Viru$ . . . . . . Fear Is The Mindkiller . . . . . Fear Not Fear,…….But Make Fear Fear You And So You Shall Be Free . . . . . Be Fear-Less And Say No To Their Evil Criminal Fascistic Fear Mongering With The Ma$k Wearing Nonsense . . . . . Be Free And Fear-Less . . . . The Sleepers Must Awaken . . . . . . . Peace Out!!!

  4. Mary E says

    That’s as Orwellian as one can get – so far – but wait, there’s more to come!
    And come it will in the US for sure….FEMA camps were erected over the past two decades in the deserts and ‘no man’s land’ areas of the country and even back then there were those who said they were for caging citizens who fought back against an unlawful and criminal government. And so, here we are right in the midst of that
    nightmare reality.

  5. Séamus Ó Néill says

    It’s a trait of the English, they used the fascist jackboot worldwide for centuries, now their empire has vanished and they themselves have become a mere colony of the super-bully, America, it was inevitable as their power declined that they would use their fascist tendencies on their own people !

  6. ke4ram says

    While governments consolidate control, freedom lovers of the world complain, complain, and complain. As if waiting for the jerks doing this will see the error of their ways and will see the light and undo all the terrible things they have done. LOL,,,, they’re just getting started! Soon, these are going to be the good old days!

    1. Mary E says

      Right! The US military (ordered by Fascist/hegemonist overlords) has invaded all the countries it has been able to for the last 70 years and we always suspected that the US federal government would come after its citizens next (why would they not want to rule Every soul in the world, including Americans??)..and turn the United States into the 3rd world country that it was designed to be by the Fascist overlords who truly rule the country. Trump is just their current tool…he will be replaced by others as he replaced his predecessors…They will continue to decimate the
      US government right up until the next president takes office…if it is trump, then it will continue until there is no more government as we know it…
      Italy and Germany had their taste of Fascism and fortunately for them, they
      got free of it. The US is the late comer….very late, like 80 years late, but that won’t make it passe’ …it will be used very well to rule 335 million people who are oblivious to what is happening to them and will be until it is too damn late. Lessons NOT learned!

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