Are you prepared to be a snitch?
As a journalist, words are my business and I am endlessly fascinated about how words evolve, fall out of fashion and take on new meanings.
Take, for example, the word “intelligence” that seems to be on the lips of just about every Government-backed agency with the ability to make life more difficult for the average UK demolition contractor.
Not so long ago, the word “intelligence” had two basic meanings: the first relating to someone with an above-average degree of knowledge; the second relating to the secret world of spies and spooks. Indeed, the term “military intelligence” is the average person’s favourite oxymoron.
Today, however, it seems to have acquired a new and not-altogether pleasant definition; one that seemingly requires demolition contractors to turn stool pigeon and inform upon their fellow demolition professionals.
In the space of just two weeks, I have heard both the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency refer to the need for “intelligence” to help their depleted inspection workforces to maintain or even increase prosecutions against the UK demolition sector. Digging through what is best described as politician-speak, what they apparently mean is “we would really like you to keep an eye on your rivals in the business and to grass them up at every available opportunity”.
This feels wrong to me on just about every conceivable level and leaves a very nasty taste in my mouth.
The National Federation of Demolition Contractors – among others – has worked tirelessly to unite its membership since the recession first took hold in a “together we are stronger”, Dunkirk spirit of unity. Asking demolition contractors to effectively spy upon each other surely flies in the face of that much-needed and laudable camaraderie. Shouldn’t individual contractors’ concentration be focused upon improving their own house rather than undermining that of a competitor?
Furthermore, since both the HSE and the Environment Agency are funded from the public coffers, should we really be expected to do part of the work that our hard-earned tax pounds are already paying for?
And while I myself sit at the non-believing end of the Atheist spectrum, isn’t there something spiritually and morally corrupt about all of this; surely in the Karmic what-goes-around-comes-around circle of life, today’s snitch is tomorrow’s snitched?
As a rather popular book once said: “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”
