Will the tyranny of Boris Johnson never end?

When not threatening teenage girls with his iron rod (1), the Stlain of the Thames is now dreaming up new ways to squeeze money from his long sufferring subjects. Those who seek to enjoy a soothing nicotine rush now must live in fear of being slapped with an £80 fine for enjoying one of the few consolations stilla vailable to those trapped within the Iron Curtain of the M25:

Smokers who drop cigarette butts in the City of London face an £80 fine in a new crackdown on litter.

Every day about 7,000 cigarette butts are dropped in the City. They are accompanied by lighters, matches and cellophane wrappers.

Now 10 environment officers will be prowling - and issuing the fines to irresponsible smokers. Those who give false details will be fined £1,000. (2)

"Ah-ha," I hear you cry, "The fines only apply to those who litter! Surely you agree littering is a terrible thing and should be discouraged?"

Indeed. But I fully expect that the fines will extorted on the flimsiest pretext. Indeed, I would not be at all surprised to learn that Johnson himself - blond mane flopping over his eyes and his ruddy face infused with the thrill of the hunt - sneaks up behind hapless smokers and shouts "Boo!" - or perhaps "OIK!" - so they drop their cigarette in shock, and thus slapped with an instant fine for littering.

I put nothing past that man, nothing.

1 - As described previosuly on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/11/brutal-thug-boris-johnson-harrasses.html. For the perennially hard of humour, again, this is satire.
2 - "Smokers face £80 fine for butts," unattributed BBC article, published
on the BBC website, 2nd of December, 2009. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8390001.stm)