Police and Crime Commissioners

Here in the UK we are being asked to vote for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) to oversee the police forces.

As far as I can see this is just another figurehead post whereby the appointed person will receive a lot of our money but offer nothing in return. 

One PCC will represent a whole county and therefore has an awful lot of people's views to take into consideration.  These views may well be conflicting with priorities in rural areas being totally different from those in inner city locations.

Furthermore, although the PCCs are elected, if they don't perform we have to wait until the next election for the job in order to try and change them so in reality they are unlikely to truly represent the population of the county and are more likely to follow their own agenda, just as other politicians do.

I say other politicians - aren't they supposed to neutral.  According to the website explaining all of this http://www.choosemypcc.org.uk/about-pccs/ they swear an oath of impartiality and are not supposed to represent any political party.  In Derbyshire we have candidates from the Labour party, Conservative party and UKIP.  This does not sound independent to me, why do they need to mention their politics if it is to have no effect? 

There was to be an Independent but he left the registration process to the last minute and when his payment was delayed in traffic he missed the deadline.  Something tells me he would not be any good for the job with management skills like that!

So far I have not seen any information from the candidates about why we should vote for them, sure it is available on the website but for those who don't have access or don't go looking then they are being asked to vote in an election they know nothing about.  Perhaps I will now be deluged with leaflets, who knows, but the election is approaching in just over two weeks.

We all know however that pre-election manifestos are all about telling the public what they want to hear.  As soon as elected the personal agendas of the PCCs will come in to play and may well reflect their party political views despite their oath of impartiality.  We see this all the time in government and opposition.

So why vote?  I am not sure I will.  Normally I am not part of the apathy section of voters but in this case I am struggling.  I am not prepared to select a candidate based on political alignment and cannot select a candidate given the limited information I have seen so far from them.

I think I will make my stand for the environment and not travel to the polling station (OK, so I would have walked but that is not the point!)

This is yet another instance of the state pretending that the public actually have any say in how things are run and I for one am getting fed up.

Prince Charles and the Black Spider letters

Here in the UK there is much fuss about the letters that Prince Charles has written to the government expressing his views on a number of matters.  These are known as the 'black spider' letters due to the appearance of his handwriting.

Whilst the content of many of them is known about, a number have been kept secret on the premise that the content may harm Charles' position when he becomes King.

This is presently being fought over with a judicial decision that they should be published being overturned by the government.  Clearly they contain something significant that would be embarrassing or at least highly controversial.

Personally I believe these letters should be published in the public domain.  After all it cannot be a surprise to Charles that he is first in line to the throne and therefore should have himself moderated his actions so that there would be no possibility of anything that threatened his position.

There is no problem with him holding political views and although the monarchy is supposedly independent of party politics I don't think we should deny him the right to express his views.  The problem arises because what he writes is being kept secret.

Like many people the world over I express my views via social media, and directly to MPs by means of letter.  The content of my letters and my social media posts however isn't secret, and often I precis my letters and the responses to them in my blogposts. 

Prince Charles and indeed other members of the Royal Family should work within the same constraints and their letters be made available for scrutiny upon request.

This is yet another case where the Freedom of Information legislation is being abused.  FoI is fully supported by the government of the day, regardless of their political persuasion, as long as it doesn't contain that which they wish to censor for their own reasons.

Freedom - what Freedom?

Franchise Restaurant Chains

I regularly eat in my local Pizza Hut and enjoy the food and the experience very much - probably explains my size!

On returning from holiday recently therefore when looking for somewhere to stop for lunch my wife and I chose a Pizza Hut just off our route.

To say it was totally different from our usual experience would be an understatement.  The restaurant was dirty, the staff were uninterested and seemingly untrained and the service was hence appalling.

In view of this I filled in their customer satisfaction survey, expecting to receive a call or email from someone to discuss my concerns further.

When this was not forthcoming I wrote to the manager of the branch, detailing my concerns - this was on the 3rd October.  On the 17th October I received a reply, dated 5th October but as it was posted first class I don't know where the delay occurred. Either the Post Office were slow or the manager backdated it to make it look better.

The reply merely served to reinforce my concerns - apparently I should not have raised it with the manager but gone straight to Head Office!  The manager's explanation was that he was on holiday at the time - apparently his staff cannot run the restaurant if he is not there.

To compensate me for the poor experience, he would like to offer me a voucher, but get this, it can only be used at that Pizza Hut.  So I would have to travel out of my way to use this voucher and would also have to trust his word that all the issues had been addressed - I don't think so!

One of the supposed benefits of restaurant chains is that you should be able to expect the same standards of food and service wherever you go.  We seem to have found the exception to the rule here as we have not previously had a bad experience.

It seems that Pizza Hut are a franchise operation, part of the Yum group.  It is time the big bosses saw what some franchisees are doing to their image and took action.

** Update - November 2012 **

After writing to customer service and receiving no reply I took the next step and emailed the CEO of Yum.

Finally a satisfactory response.  I was contacted by the area manager responsible for that region and was offered a full and genuine apology, a promise that the issues would be investigated, and a gift card I could use at ANY Pizza Hut.

Why it had to get to this stage I have no idea, but I am happy with the outcome and grateful to the area manager who finally did what those below them should have done.

The company's reputation has been restored with me!  Shame it was necessary to go right to the top.

Unfair VAT on e-books

For some time now I have been a keen e-book reader, and am very happy with my Kindle.  I probably have less than one hundred books on it so far but the amount of shelf space that even that number would take up is considerable.

So far so good.

My problem is with the tax treatment of e-books.

If I buy books in the more traditional hardback or paperback format I am not charged any VAT.  If however I buy e-books then I am charged VAT.  Why?  I don't understand the difference because at the end of the day the content is the same, possibly even less as some e-books are without some of the pictures you get in the print version.

This seems to me to be counter productive.  E-books do not require trees to be chopped down to make paper, do not require vast warehouses to store, no fuel guzzling trucks to distribute and no shelf space at retailers.

All in all this should actually be reason for the government to offer an incentive as they are more environmentally friendly.  So why then are we charged VAT to buy them?  The only reason I can see is greed - yet another way to extract money from Joe Public for the government coffers.

I will be writing to my MP and the government.  I am not hopeful for a change of policy however!

Hollow political words

I read in the press that Ed Miliband proposes to split up the largest banks if Labour comes to power.

Apparently he feels that the present proposals by the government to ring fence the traditional retail banking operations from the risk of the investment banking element do not go far enough.

I have to agree that what little money I have in the bank should not be exposed to the actions of gung-ho investment bankers who have demonstrated in the past they can make poor decisions and welcome any protection that can be put in place.

My question is, as the banking crisis started under the last government, why did he not say or do anything then?

It is fine for him to say that the coalition is not doing enough in his opinion, but doing something is far better than doing nothing as his government did.

Finally, how far do we trust politicians of any political belief.  I am certain that if Labour win the next election this promise will be quietly sidelined and forgotten. 

Overloaded Restaurant - Revolution Liverpool

Whilst on holiday recently my wife and I visited Liverpool's Albert Dock area.  As lunch time approached we checked out the various eateries and selected the Revolution Bar which had a promising menu and being a Monday they were running an offer of half price on all food which was good (though to be fair some of the others offered similar offers so it was not unique)

Entering the bar it certainly seemed popular but not what I would call full and we had no problem finding a table.  Shortly after taking our seats we were approached by a waitress whose opening greeting was 'It is about a thirty minute wait for food, as we have the Monday offer on'.  This was not a promising start but we decided that that would be acceptable as we could have a drink and relax after much walking.  She took our drinks order and disappeared.

Foolishly we expected she would shortly return with the drinks and then take the food order - how wrong could we be!  After about half an hour we had still not received any drinks and there was a distinct absence of staff to assist us.

Given that we had been warned it was a thirty minute wait for food, and our order hadn't even been taken we decided we had had enough and went to find another bar to eat in.  As we were leaving we heard an American couple commenting as they were paying their bill that it had taken two and a half hours for them to get a 'quick' bite to eat.  Another table were also complaining that the thirty minute delay appeared to be somewhat under quoted.

I should have checked with Trip Advisor or other review sites before we went, as the reviews are somewhat mixed and it seems to be rated highly for drinks but somewhat lower for food.  In particular there are a number of people who commented on the wait for food and in some cases they had to send it back as it was cold or had some other problem.

Given that the next bar we went to also had a deal on for meals but was able to serve them in a reasonable timescale (and the food was good)  it is clear that it can be done.  Revolution needs to get it's act together and if the offer is to continue they should make sure they can cope with the increased custom. 

The availability of sites such as Trip Advisor (to which I have no connections) mean that where once poor service was reported by word of mouth, now it can spread much faster and wider.  In future I will check even for bars and restaurants - easy with modern smart phones - and not just for hotels and holiday destinations.

Lesson learned!

Bus Chaos

In a recent publication from our local council I was initially pleased to hear that they are proposing to add smart ticketing across the city for the bus services.

As a curmudgeon who has long been hoping for such a thing to spread as this should make life easier for people and perhaps increase the takeup of public transport I was optimistic.

Unfortunately my optimism was to be unfounded.  As I could not find any details either in the document, or on the web links it gave I emailed the public transport coordinator for the council.

It turns out that phase one is for a 'smart' paper ticket!  Basically a day rover ticket that will be accepted on the two major operators in the city and only valid on the day of purchase.  Not exactly what I would call smart ticketing.  No mention of whether the smaller operators would accept it either.

Phase two however is equally disappointing - this will consist of smart card tickets, with each operator issuing their own. 

One of these operators already has as smart card ticket scheme and reading between the lines it appears they are not prepared to make any changes so the second operator will have to adopt their scheme or they will 'take their ball home'! 

As yet however there are no clear plans to make them compatible between the operators, apparently this will be left to the individual companies to negotiate and the council seem to have no plans to mediate.  This seems ridiculous as there is a standard navailable (ITSO) for both the hardware elements (cards and readers) and the software.

At present, we have up to two years to wait to see what develops.

As I was now in bus mode, I decided to also query the signs which are appearing at the bus stops which simply report the time of the next bus based on the timetable.

Apparently the system was intended to use real time tracking from the buses, using a system developed by another county.  That county then scrapped the system forcing a rethink and partnership with yet another county.

This latest system does not yet integrate to GPS tracking from the buses and this is under development.  This is why we get the timetabled times.  When the GPS tracking is enabled it will display minutes to the next bus if available or the fallback is the timetable data as at present.

Having visited the county where it is running and seen it in action I can see it works.  I suppose the next question I shall have to ask is why is the integration taking so long?

Not So Smart Transport System

On a recent train journey I noticed an advert for the train company's smart ticketing system.  No more paper tickets, no more inconvenience - simply purchase tickets on your smart ticket.

So far so good, so I logged on to the website and ordered myself the smart ticket, which in essence is a contactless smart card  like the Oyster system.

After a very short wait, my ticket arrived in the post, branded Stagecoach.  As Stagecoach are the parent company of my local rail operator this was no surprise to me.

Now I started to look at what I can do with my ticket - and that is where it starts to go down hill.  I could see from the accompanying leaflet that I could use it for certain journeys on the network but not all stations on the line would accept it.  I could go to London but whereas with a paper ticket I can include travel within London, that is not yet possible with the smart ticket.

I tried contacting Stagecoach customer services via their website, to be told they only handled the bus and coach smart cards.  Eventually I was put in touch with a very helpful gentleman in the IT department who DOES know what is going on.

After a long conversation I was able to ascertain the following, with the rider on all elements being - we are working towards that.

• My smart ticket can only be used with my network - if I want to use other smart ticket services withing the Stagecoach group I must obtain the ticket for that particular network.
• As I already knew, only certain stations can accept the smart ticket.
• I cannot buy a ticket online to load to the smart ticket, I must do this by phone or at the station.
• There is a limit of how many tickets can be on the card at any one time - and get this, it depends on how much data each ticket contains, as if I am likely to know this - about four to six apparently.
• There is no facility to get a bus smart card on a Pay as You Go basis like Oyster, only weekly and monthly passes.
• There is no interoperability with other smart card ticketing systems throughout the country.

So, all in all, not a very smart solution after all.

I can only praise the chap in IT who was able to both understand and answer fully all my questions, but why did customer services not have this information?

Dates for roll out of the missing features are necessarily vague, but don't hold your breath.  Until then we will have to stick to good old fashioned paper tickets.

I remember reading of a promise by the last government to implement nationwide smart ticketing by the end of 2014.  This was I believe taken on by the present administration without a move of the target dates.  Based on what I have seen from this scheme and Oyster, I think they are both very wide of the mark.

In Nottingham, we have Phase 2 of the tram network - allegedly this will include smart ticketing options.  I will be interested to see their solution.  Perhaps we all need card holders that can hold a multitude of smart cards, remembering that as they are all contactless we will have to take the appropriate card out of the wallet to use it in order to avoid confusing the reader.

The Environmentalists Are Running The Asylum

It seems more and more that our politicians are bowing down to the environmentalists.  It is bad enough when politicians try and run the country themselves, but when they start listening to environmentalists the whole situation gets much worse.

In making these claims I must point out that I am accusing all the political parties, so this covers the present government and it's predecessors.

At various climate summits our politicians have signed us up to reductions in CO2 emissions which are not achievable.  This is just like  a salesman saying his product will do things it clearly does not.  Before agreeing these reductions perhaps our representatives should have taken expert advice on what can and cannot be done!

The same climate summits see other countries agreeing to far less severe reductions in CO2, with some such as China even suggesting they cannot reduce CO2 but are likely to increase.

This leads to unsustainable plans for wind farms, solar farms and so on to produce a fraction of the reduction we are committed to.

So the government attack the issue in different ways by trying to force us out of our cars and make us install ever greater levels of insulation in our homes.

The latest scheme however has to take the biscuit, whereby if you wish to carry out certain changes to your home you will be inspected and presented with a list of other work to be carried out - at your own expense - if you wish to go ahead.  Don't worry though as they will offer you a loan so that any possible savings will be lost when you repay this.

Two examples quoted so far have been boiler replacement and building a conservatory (and perhaps any type of extension).

The first will affect me, and many others. as boilers have a finite life.  My house was built in accordance with the building regulations and insulation standards of the time, but would now fall short and I have no doubt I would be expected to top up the loft insulation at the very least.  My loft insulation is the depth of the joists so in some areas I have boarded the loft for storage space.  This will presumably have to be taken up and more insulation added such that I can no longer use the loft for storage unless I raise the floor in some areas.

Perhaps I should just leave my old boiler in place longer, OK it is less efficient than a more modern boiler but the savings from the boiler are already hard to justify against the cost of installing it, let alone when it comes to the additional expense.

Madness!

What about people in older properties, particularly those with solid walls?  Their insulation factors may well be low.  Do they get forced to insulate the inside of the walls and make the rooms smaller and lose the character of the building, or perhaps insulate the outside, again losing the character.

The lunatics really are taking over the asylum. 

The Church, Listed Buildings and VAT

I read in the news today that the Church of England fears renovation projects could be scrapped because of planned changes to VAT in the budget.

This will mean that VAT will be charged on approved alterations to listed buildings, previously exempt.

There are a number of issues to be dealt with here I think. 

The first of these is that it is not targeted on churches but will affect ALL owners of listed buildings.  This will impact upon private individuals and also the likes of the National Trust and English Heritage who between them must have a large number of properties that fall into this category and will also suffer.

Secondly the wording is that it is for alterations.  Repairs of the fabric of the buildings to allow them to continue to be used should not be affected. Additions of new shops and cafes will be.  That is different from the needs of simply keeping these buildings open as a place of worship.

Finally, the church is not a poor organisation.  A quick glance at the accounts will show that is asset rich and has many commercial investments.  As such it should be prepared to bite the bullet and contribute to the nations coffers with everyone else.  Claims of lack of funds are not acceptable.  If it were essential repairs that were being taxed then maybe they have a point, but it is in fact improvements.

What really annoys me however is the fact that the Treasury has reported that church projects will not be cancelled as there will be provision from the Listed Places of Worship Scheme whereby we the taxpayer will seemingly make up any extra costs!  I have said before and will say again, Church and State should be separate.  What the Church wants, it should fund from it's own significant income.

Religion and the State

Here in the UK our Prime Minister, David Cameron, held a meeting before Easter with church leaders during which he made a number of rather worrying comments.

As surveys and doubtless the 2011 census are showing, the number of people who feel they have a religion is falling.  As an element of this so is the number of those who claim to be Christians.  A recent survey commissioned by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science showed that of those who identified themselves as Christians many just did so because it was their parents religion.  Interestingly, amongst the Christians many feel as I do that the Church and State should be separate.

Having read the reports of this meeting, it seems that not only is Mr Cameron unaware of this, but that he is actively trying to fight against it (democracy?).

I felt driven to write to him about my concerns with his viewpoints and will update this post if I hear back, either from him or from one of his staff.

In essence he made a number of points as follows:

He believes that Christian values would create a happier and better society for everyone.  I will look at some of these below but for now I need to point out that Christians do not have exclusivity on morals and ethics and indeed these existed before Christianity.  Atheists also have morals and ethics and whilst any group will have 'bad apples' there is no reason to put Christians on a pedestal for their values.

He then went on to discuss the values of the Bible - this includes the Christian values he chooses to omit such as violence, explicit sexual references, child abuse, objectivisation and dehumanisation of women, aggressively genocidal racism, explicit animal cruelty and incitement to commit murder and hate crimes (my thanks to Rosa Rubicondior at http://rosarubicondior.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/what-warning-would-you-put-in-gideon.html for the succinct list).

Many of these so called 'values' are clearly unacceptable in a civilised society, so perhaps Christians need to bring the Bible up to date.

Mr Cameron is also very keen to promote the teaching of religion within schools.  If this were objective then perhaps we should not worry because pupils would be taught about the various religions, the fact that many are atheists and agnostics, and then encouraged to think for themselves about what they believe.  This is not the case however, schools teach their own doctrine thus a Church of England school teaches their own brand of Christianity with little or no reference to the alternatives.  I have seen examples of this with my own nephew and niece - though they stood up and thought for themselves. Read more at http://scepticalcurmudgeon.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/religious-indoctrination.html

Finally, he talks of suppression of Christian rights.  The issue that annoys me most here is prayers as part of council meetings.  These were recently declared illegal, however the PM has decided to change the law so they can be made legal again.  We have a very varied society and many council members will not be of the Christian faith, yet Christian prayers are to be imposed upon them.  This is unacceptable.  What is wrong with allowing a period before the meeting and separate from it in which those who wish to do so may pray or have a time of personal reflection - this should be acceptable to all as those who do not wish to partake simply arrive later for the actual meeting which constitutes the business of the council.

I feel that Christianity is being forced upon the country, whether we like it or not.  I doubt my letter to David Cameron will have any effect, but by that means and through this blog I am trying to show that we do not all agree with Christianity, or in my case any religion.

Tanker Drivers Strike

No one can have missed the news now that the tanker drivers are planning strike action to disrupt the other hardworking people in this country.  I find their reasons unacceptable as they seem to have ignored the fact that this country and indeed many others are in a financial downturn.

The key complaint appears to be that their employment package is being attacked, and I think most of this boils down to the pensions.  They should get real and recognise that the high paying pensions they were on are unsustainable in the present economic climate and are these schemes are being closed down. 

I was in a final salary scheme in my previous employment, and that was closed down over six years ago.  The company just could not afford it.  Initially it was closed to new employees but it was then closed to all.  We were transferred on to stock market based pensions, which from my annual updates are doing very badly.

No one was happy, but to have taken action would have been counterproductive as the company would have even less money available to support the pension, and there was no way it could be re-instated.

The tanker drivers are just being asked to join many others in the private sector, with the prospect of having to work longer before they can afford to retire.

The salaries paid to them are quite good, and certainly well above the national average.  They are indeed doing a dangerous job of work, but so are our armed forces and their remuneration package is far worse - and they have a far higher chance of losing their lives at work.

The general public should show that they do NOT support this action, in fact it was only put through due to some very interesting accounting in the vote process - certainly it is clear that the majority of those entitled to vote did not vote for a strike.

The panic buying of fuel should also stop - it can only make things worse, particularly if fuel is stored in an unsafe manner.  People doing this risk injury or death by stockpiling (especially petrol which is far more volatile).

If electric cars really were viable, now would be the time they could prove it!  I challenge them to do so.

Dual Standards on Alcohol by the UK Government

We are hearing that David Cameron and his government are looking to impose minimum pricing for alcoholic drinks to address problems with alcoholism and drink fueled social issues.

At the same time, the Palace of Westminster where the government resides has a subsidised bar, paid for by the taxpayer, to ensure MPs and other staff can enjoy cheap drink.

If this is not dual standards then I don't know what is. Apparently there is already a history of drink fueled problems within this bar.

At the very least, the subsidies in the bar should be removed so that drinkers there pay the same prices as anyone else in pubs in that part of London does.  I think however it should be taken further perhaps and closed completely.  MPs are already capable of making daft decisions on their own without adding beer goggles to their armoury of decision making tools.

How many private sector employers actively encourage drinking during the working day by providing a bar AND subsidising the drink costs.  In many of the workplaces I have encountered drinking is frowned upon during the working day and some go as far as to have a condition of employment that you may be required to take a breathalyser test (certainly in my last employment where you could be asked to go home if the test was positive as safety standards could be breached)

I would also point out to the government that many alcohol fueled problems are caused by drinkers in night clubs and bars where prices are already exorbitant.  A minimum price will have most impact upon the moderate social drinker and not address the problem at all.

Royal Mail Woes

Yet another issue has persuaded me to write this item on the Royal Mail here in the UK.

Supposedly intended to distribute post around the country, over the years the services offered have declined and the standards to which they are delivered has declined even more. 

There are proposals to sell off the Royal Mail to a private sector company and to my mind that cannot come soon enough.  Sure, there are negatives to this as well as positives but at the moment it would seem that the positives outweigh the negatives.

Let us start with the delivery schedule.  Once there were two deliveries a day to most areas.  The first of these was often before nine in the morning, and the second being an afternoon delivery.  The decline in posted matter meant that this was reduced to one delivery per day - quite reasonable. 

The problem is that for many now the ony delivery can be very late in the day and effectively makes the first class delivery effectively a two day service.  The Royal Mail have cottoned on to this as a money spinner by allowing payment to ensure a before nine delivery service.  So we now have a service that is based on how much the recipient wishes to pay (remember the sender pays to send the item)  This doesn't even work as intended - in my last employment the company was on an industrial estate with a number of other businesses.  Fewer than half of these paid the premium - and my company chose not to - yet all received their mail before nine as the postman saw no point in visiting the same location twice in a day and so delivered all as if they had paid the extra.

My next gripe is with mis-delivery.  I cannot be the only one who receives post that is not addressed to them, or their property.  If I know where the post should go and it is close I then take it round myself - and I have neighbours who bring post for me that has been delivered to them in error (or the postman's haste).  Sometimes however the post is for an address some way off or that I do not recognise - so my only option is to put it back in a post box in the hope that it gets there next time through the system.  This does not help if you are expecting time critical post or your neighbours aren't as helpful.

Finally for this article (as there may be others) is the matter of so called 'Signed For' deliveries.  The idea is that the letter or package should be signed for on receipt.  This is intended to provide traceability and a more secure service.  Maybe, but that is not how it works.  Only last week I had a 'Signed For' item just put through my letterbox.  I was at home at the time but the postman didn't knock, merely pushed it through the letterbox with all the other post.

In these instances, what is offered by the signed for service (remember this costs extra)?  Nothing!  If the sender were to track this all they would be able to determine is that it had been delivered somewhere.  No signature would be available and not even the name of the person to whom it had been delivered.  Yet this service is recommended by eBay and the like to protect senders.

I myself sent an item using the signed for service last week.  If I trace now it tells me that it was delivered on the 6th January, and the sorting office it was delivered from.  I ask for an electronic proof of delivery and am told, sorry - not available.  To me that means it was just pushed through a letter box, somewhere.  And if you refer above, it may not even be the one for the address I typed on the envelope.

Roll on the sale of the Royal Mail - maybe a private company can get it right!

Football Chaos

Yesterday I was in Derby and made the mistake of trying to drive though Pride Park.

Why a mistake you ask?  Because Derby County were playing a home match in the Pride Park stadium.  I had not checked the kickoff time and therefore was driving through as the fans left the stadium.

Utter chaos ensued as the fans felt that all the roads were in fact pavements for them to walk along, meaning they were mixed in with the cars, vans, coaches etc which were trying to use the road legitimately.

Add to this the fact that the police who had been present to ensure order during the match were now leaving in their minibuses and leaving the chaos behind.  Could they have marshalled the fans?  I think not only that they could, but they should have.  How much extra time would have been required for them to ensure the orderly departure of the fans on foot and controlled the vehicle traffic.

Effectively, for some time the whole of Pride Park was gridlocked.  I am sure the businesses there are not happy with the scenario as their customers are considerably inconvenienced and probably stay away, as I would have if I had realised that the match had just ended.

Two other points come to mind:

1. The stop start traffic must have a considerable carbon footprint.
2. The number of drivers on mobile phones who clearly considered they were not 'driving' as the traffic was stop start.  This despite the fact that there were still some police officers around (mostly in minibuses and police cars leaving the stadium)

It would not take much effort to put in place a traffic management system, with one way travel using the full width of the roads, to ensure much faster and safer flow.  Locally this is demonstrated very well at major events at Donington Park.  Further afield you only have to look at the management of Silverstone when there is a Grand Prix race on - a very large number of vehicles safely marshalled in and out of the circuit.

Football clubs spend an obscene amount of money on their players.  Perhaps it is now time they spent money on reducing the negative impact they have on their neighbours.