Common sense lacking in disabled parking ticket case

Hardly surprising, as it seems common sense slipped away peacefully in its sleep some time ago when nobody was looking.

Take everybody's favourite powermad group, the traffic wardens who, it seems to me, go for easy targets instead of dealing with areas where there are actual traffic problems.

Case in point is 90-year-old, wheelchair-bound, war veteran George Roberts. On Sunday, Mr Roberts wanted to pay his respects to his fallen comrades at the Remembrance Day service in Shrewsbury. He parked his car, quite correctly, in a disabled-parking bay and displayed his blue badge.

Unfortunately, he put it upside down.

That was more than enough for the little jobsworth with his ticketing machine to leap into action and plant a ticket on the car. And naturally, he wouldn't back down when challenged.

The council has had the good grace to apologise and cancel the ticket, but why did Mr Tickety have to issue it in the first place?

"It is standard policy to issue a PCN if the expiry date is not visible."

Well I'm sorry, but if you need a disabled parking badge then your circumstances are unlikely to change, even if the bloomin thing does expire.

It was Remembrance Sunday. There was a car parked with a disabled badge in it. You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out what was probably happening.

Mr Roberts fought for our freedom.

But not the freedom to be a prat.

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Anyone know if Africa has any good bands? Cos it looks like we're going to need a benefit concert real soon.

Ok, I'm being unnecessarily flippant and no doubt someone will be offended by that opening paragraph, but there is a real issue here.

The year is 2012. Britain is, despite everything, still one of the richest nation's on earth. About sixth, last time I looked (which was a couple of minutes ago on Wikipedia. So it must be right).

Yet so many people in Shrewsbury are struggling to feed their families that they are relying on food banks for help.

The Shrewsbury food bank is dealing with 30 families a week. In posh, afluent, pretty Shrewsbury. How has it come to this? The picture is equally stark in other parts of the county.

Food bank spokesman Peter Baker says there is 'genuine hardship' in the town, and each week they come across 'sad and tragic family and individual situations where food support is absolutely necessary'.

As this happens, benefits continue to be cut and food prices continue to rise, while the supermarket giants continue to rake in the profits (Sainsbury's - slogan 'Live Well For Less' this week reporting half-year profits of £405 million - an increase of 2.5 per cent).

At least one supermarket, the Co-op, is helping out by installing food collection points at several of its stores. But the fact that we need them at all is a worry and something that needs addressing. Mr Cameron - over to you (don't hold your breath).