Labour is about to introduce a law which will, quite literally,
legalise daylight robbery. A bill giving bailiffs the power to
break into our homes received its second reading in Parliament
yesterday.
If it passes on to the statute book, any of us could find our
front doors kicked in and our valuables seized.
Supporters of this outrageous piece of legislation claim it is
necessary because so many people are falling behind with their
credit card bills and can't afford even the minimum monthly payments.
Sending in the bailiffs is the only way the banks can recover
their money, they argue.
Hang on, we're talking carts and horses here.
While I've no sympathy for those who recklessly over-borrow simply
to fund a luxury lifestyle way beyond their means, surely the
real villains are the lenders.
They bombard people with offers of unsecured credit and shower
money on them with little regard to whether they can actually
make the repayments.
Wouldn't it make more sense to tighten the rules on loans, so
that fewer gullible fools find themselves drowning in debt?
If that happened, there might not be a pressing need to make
it legal for bailiffs to enter premises to repossess second-hand
DVD players and plasma screens which should never have been bought
in the first place.
Why the hell is the Government giving extra powers to some of
the most unsavoury individuals on earth?
An annual convention of Debt Collectors and Wheel Clampers would
make last week's London Gangland funeral look like the guest list
at Liz Hurley's wedding.
This is not a profession which goes about its business with a
copy of the European Convention on Human Rights taped to the dashboard.
The Citizens' Advice Bureau has a dossier as thick as a builder's
bacon sandwich on the routine intimidation, thuggery and harassment
endemic in debt recovery.
Sometimes the State and these Sopranos wannabes go hand in hand.
Here's just one instance.
Red Ken makes no money out of London's congestion charge. He
relies on the extortionate fines levied against those who either
refuse or forget to pay.
When it comes to collecting his environmental protection money,
Livingstone doesn't ask a sympathetic social worker to pay you
a call. He sends in the scum of the earth.
A friend of mine, a well-known sports presenter, recently arrived
home to find his 22-year-old daughter's car clamped on his own
driveway and his wife in tears.
She told him how a pair of thugs in a scruffy van with its wing
mirrors held on by masking tape had turned up on the doorstep
and demanded she hand over £798.47.
They said it was money owing on her daughter's failure to pay
the congestion charge plus court costs, their fee and other incidentals,
including the hire of a tow truck — and one for yourself.
When the cash wasn't forthcoming, they clamped the vehicle and
said they'd be back to tow it away.
Before they could, my friend removed the clamp and drove the
car to a place of safety.
His daughter was studying abroad and had no knowledge of the
alleged nonpayment.
The debt collectors claimed that four court letters had been
sent and they had made several unsuccessful attempts to recover
the money.
If my friend had received four letters marked "URGENT",
addressed to his daughter and warning that court action had been
taken against her, he would have opened them.
On at least two occasions the bailiffs claim to have called,
he was at home and would have known about it.
He lives in a gated close and no one gets in and out without
identifying themselves through a CCTV intercom system.
None of the neighbours had ever seen these men before and insisted
they hadn't let them in.
So how had they managed to get through electronic security gates
and clamp a young woman's car on her own driveway?
And what gave them the right to do that?
Yet they had the nerve to threaten to have my friend charged
with criminal damage for removing the clamp.
For the time being, I can't identify him or the firm involved
because he's put the whole affair in the hands of Mr Rumpole.
But my best guess is that the letters were never sent and the
previous visits never made.
The kind of hooligans who work for debt collection agencies don't
leave the billiard hall for less than £500.
So they let the debt mount up and wait until it's worth their
while before steaming in and putting the frighteners on.
All this for a disputed non-payment of an £8 congestion
charge.
Imagine the mayhem when tens of thousands of pounds are involved
and the bailiffs are given official powers to trash your home
and help themselves to anything they fancy.
And that's just the private sector. I haven't even got round
to mentioning Gordon's Gestapo, coming soon to a home near you
with their cameras and clipboards and their swag bags marked "Council
Tax".
Nice little conservatory you've got there, wouldn't want anything
to happen to it.
These days, there's little difference between debt collection
and tax collection. It's all daylight robbery.
