This is a First!

It is rather disorienting to be posting about an issue where the State has contracted out a service it should itself be providing! This may never happen again! But is is such an obvious thing that it is mind blowing that it needs to be said.

Because of the police 'cuts' so the narrative goes which I will dispute later no doubt local councils have been contracting out police services would you believe to private companies mainly in rural areas where they have been diverted to the ever growing crime in urban areas.

This is staggering. Practically the only service the state and the state alone can  should and must be delivering is policing. The idea that this can be hived off to the private so called sector violates all basic fundamental principles of what the state is for and represents a grave breach of state functions that goes to the heart of a liberal society

Even more alarming is that these private entities have the power to prosecute and send people to jail! Hand in hand with such madness we are told the local councils can no longer afford to provide such fundamental services while at the same time they are busy operating libraries, swimming pools, heritage centres, musuems, creches ,nursery places, theatres, meals on wheels, mobile libraries, drop in centres, drop out centres, drug rehabilitation services - fill in all the scores of things I have left out.

Just as it is important to point out all the things the state should not be doing its hard to get one's head round the fact that here we have the state abdicating responsibility for the very number one thing it exists or should exist to provide.