I've just put that quote up,on the BBC2 site, because I think it's a very useful one for anyone in a dispute with a local council.

I can only speculate why people don't post about this. But I suspect it is a by-product of what I talked about in the last post, a feeling that making any kind of fuss about this might end up making things worse. There's a phrase "repressive tolerance" and I think it's relevant here. It is often possible to buy people off with crumbs. The crumbs have to be just enough to make them valued - and the recipients have to believe that they can be taken away, if there is any trouble. Instead of rights, people learn to make do with privileges.

It's a very very English way of dealing with things. The last people in the British Empire to rise up and demand freedom.