Last updated at 9:24 PM on 19th May 2008
After Labour's mauling in the local elections, Gordon Brown announced that the hated plans for pay-as-you-throw rubbish taxes would be scrapped.
That was a blatant lie and he knew it. Within days it became clear that 'trials' would still be going ahead. Why bother piloting something which you have no intention of introducing?
Far from dropping the scheme, Labour is ploughing on despite the trivial matter of what the electorate thinks.
That's because ministers are obediently implementing orders from our real
government in Brussels. Gordon couldn't stop pay-as-you-throw taxes even if he wanted to, which he doesn't.
He was the one who cranked up landfill taxes in his last 'green' budget to meet EU recycling targets, which is why councils are cutting back on collections in the first place.
All is revealed in European directive 75/442/EEC on waste disposal. In answer to a parliamentary question from the Tories, ministers have been forced to admit that they are following rules laid down in an EU handbook entitled 'Variable Rate Pricing based on Pay As You Throw as a Tool of Urban Waste Management'.
This 'toolkit' lays down the blueprint for charging every household for the amount of rubbish it generates.
It has been produced by the Dresden University of Technology, which was commissioned by the EU under the 'Fifth European Commission Framework Programme'.
Rubbish! Gordon Brown said plans for pay-as-you-throw taxes would be scrapped. But now pilots are going ahead
The Eurocrats admit bin charges are a ' politically sensitive issue', and warn of 'uncertain and perhaps uncontrollable citizens' response'. But the handbook stresses 'this lack of consensus should not be allowed to intimidate us into avoiding innovation'.
They acknowledge that higher charges, tougher rules and fortnightly collections will be unpopular and will lead to an increase in littering, fly-tipping and dumping of waste in other people's bins and recycling containers.
To combat this, it urges the 'disciplining of citizens' by 'intensive observation of illegal waste disposal through patrol and special task forces'.
Councils should set up a 'police department' to sift through rubbish to search for the addresses of 'offenders' in discarded mail, and issue fines of up to £400.
All those stories about people being punished for leaving the lid of their bin open, putting out the 'wrong' kind of rubbish or dropping an old gas bill in a public litter bin can be traced back to this sinister document.
They weren't isolated incidents, or the result of over-zealous enforcement by bloody-minded local officials - they were part of the great masterplan.
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