Tag Archives: Planning

Notes about Attitude to Minorities and Tyranny of the Majority

Attitude toward minorities by public servants.

 
While I was challenging the attitude of a planning authority toward a man struggling against malicious neighbours backed by overwhelming bureaucracy I came across a senior civil servant in power who sat on his hands when I appealed to him for help.  We were talking about rigidly sticking to rules that were clearly disadvantaging my friend and how to change that in the UK planning System when he simply invalidated my friends rights because he is in a minority – “planning won’t change just for you – you’re in a minority.”  I realise now why I felt so uneasy about this.  Our rights were being trampled over as a justification for doing nothing to help.  I persevered and later joined in with a public consultation on the topic which was more fruitful.   See this link for a definition of what a  Tyranny of the Majority is.  I see this reflected in every day life;  “There are only 55000 of us, we will never get a petition through parliament (which needs 100,000 signatures) etc”.  A further concern I have is that my friend had his planning application refused by this local planning authority on the grounds that one neighbour might object to his proposal despite no objection.  I conclude my friend is being punished by a tyrannical organisation who will go to any length to smite him without a fair trial on the say so of a bogus complainer.