Town hall 'sex snoopers' will today be banned from bombarding people with intrusive questions about their private lives.

Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said he was appalled that residents seeking to access basic services were being grilled about their sex lives, disabilities, religion, ethnicity and employment.

He said they should not have to reveal detailed personal information to get their bins emptied or take out a library book.

Dudley council asked me if I was British, I said no, I am English, they then told me that I couldn't write that, so I asked the man why the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish had their own boxes and not the English, he couldn't answer that one so I just wrote English in the box marked as British, again he said that I couldn't write that, so I wrote Anglo-Saxon, then told him to shut up and put up!
- S. I. Mather, Bradwell, UK., 2/9/2011 7:30

If you pay your council tax you will receive the services of the public servants who are being paid from that tax. These council employees, i.e. our employees, are there to carry out what is required by us of them. If I buy an item from a shop I expect the shop to honour the contract that has been struck, if I do not receive the goods or services paid for then I can take legal action against that business. Council tax payers can expect the same standard of service. The shop does not subject me to an inquisition, nor should the council. The SERVANTS do NOT question their paymasters. Public servants are not Lords or Barons ruling by decree they are there to SERVE.
- Russ., Worcestershire., 2/9/2011 0:52

Town hall apparatchiks are paid by the public, to serve the public-they have no right to intrude into people's lives. Their function is to ensure public amenities are properly administered-that is all. Under the New Soviets, aka Labour, they became the spies of the Government-this and the NS' obsession with so called diversity and multiculturalism, which actually encouraged segregation, ensured a regime of unnaceptable thought policing. I hope CamClegg realise once and for all that true equality means equal rights for all-and this means that someone's religion, sexuality and race are immaterial-everyone, irrespective of NS' tick box criteria, has housing requirements and needs their bins emptied-and marking someone down because they rightfully tell the Council to get knotted, is tyrannical and demonstrates the very discrimination and intolerance they arrogantly presumed was present in everyone else. Cut them down to size! and get rid of the non-jobs e.g diversity monitors for zoos etc
- Combover Mohican, Eastbourne, 2/9/2011 9:40

All councils are grossly overstaffed and will do anything to justify their existence. Council tax is excessive in the extreme to pay these parasites .Even the NHS produces a 20 page questionnaire for patients views of their GPs.Questions about religion,sexuality and hundreds more of irrelevant data to provide jobs for the boys. It is time to stop this nonsense and reduce government (our money) funding of the guilty parties. A 20% reduction in council tax and NHS payments would be a start.
- btbob, hailsham uk, 2/9/2011 8:53

Just goes to prove that Britain was silently moving rapidly to becoming a communist state.
- Seve, Spain, 2/9/2011 7:35

This is merely a temporary damage limitation exercise. Just wait for the legislation which allows ruling governments to install cameras in residential homes, directed from the EU, of course. "Ve haf vays of making you talk...". I'm almost beginning to look forward to dying.
- Withnail Xtreme, Camden Town, 2/9/2011 1:24

Quote:
Dudley council asked me if I was British, I said no, I am English, they then told me that I couldn't write that, so I asked the man why the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish had their own boxes and not the English, he couldn't answer that one so I just wrote English in the box marked as British, again he said that I couldn't write that, so I wrote Anglo-Saxon, then told him to shut up and put up!
- S. I. Mather, Bradwell, UK., 2/9/2011 7:30

I've never filled in any form that asked me whether I liked oral pleasure or took it up the wrong 'un.

Typical of Pickles going around banning things.

- Anne, West Midlands, 02/9/2011 11:43
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A council spokesman said there were no laws which ban blackberry picking on the common but said that 'large scale blackberry or nut collecting would be inappropriate' if it damaged plants and habitat protected by wildlife legislation'.

Soldiers would turn in their graves at this ruling. The Taliban have won. Next ban on kite flying.
- anon, anon, 7/10/2011 13:50

A picture of the Hawthorn's Centre staff (Jobsworths) please !
- Thimbles, Norwich UK , 07/10/2011 14:49

Look ,how could you possibly go and pick this fruit ? everyone knows that Great crested newts absolutely thrive on blackberries, - in pies , - with apple and custard. You always see so many of them up on the brambles,every day,collecting blackberries in their little baskets. I also think that people should be prevented from breathing in air, and fa****g on this Common as its is obvious that it will damage the SSI, and the poor newts, which are obviously critical to the continuation of this Earth. And, - how can the staff at the Centre possibly be allowing people to walk on the grass, bending and breaking the stalks?They must be made to levitate at all times. Personally I cannot understand why the whole of mankind is not just eradicated, because the future of the newts is obviously paramount !
- Worzel, Turkey, 07/10/2011 13:53