But I am getting more and more concerned about the level of petty bureaucracy that is beginning to control all aspects of our daily lives. We now seem to have groups of people who preying on everyone else, looking continuously to catch people who have broken the rules! But there are now so many rules it is almost impossible to avoid breaking some some of them!!!.

For example the act of dropping a piece of paper can get a person a fine even though they immediately pick up the paper. Effectively we are being fined for the act of dropping something even if it was not deliberate and we pick it up immediately.

During the second world war there was only one Hitler. Now in a so-called free society we seem to have hundreds of them!

When an ID card is used to verify a purchase or an identity, this fact is recorded on the Big Brother computers.

We have already had the tax office saying that they are going to use these computer records and match them to the person's tax record to pick up anomolies. This means that they are looking for where the person's income appears to be at odds with their pattern of expenditure.

If they are willing to do this then is is a small step for other actions!

Perhaps they could refuse the transaction on the grounds that people have outstanding tax bills, penalty tickets, etc. and they want to stop them spending their money on other things.

Perhaps the tax office, the social services, the company that issued a penalty ticket, etc. could simply refuse the transaction but divert the payment to where they want it to be!