Via Dizzy I see that traffic wardens are going to get the power to issue instant fines for anti-social behaviour. That’s right – traffic wardens are going to become jumped up police officers. As if the mad little traffic Hitlers needed any more power to abuse. Magic.

The only other time that I have seen Traffic Wardens given the powers traditionally associated with the police was on the TV. In the harrowing, post-apocalyptic film Threads. After an all-out nuclear war and the total destruction of society Traffic Wardens are given additional powers over their fellow citizens. That’s right, it is only in a world where a mother is forced to sleep with a tramp in return for dead rats to feed her baby that people have previously been able to envisage Traffic Wardens getting extra power.

Now I know that after 10 years of Blairism things aren’t great in the UK, but I didn’t realise they were that bad…