Contractors clean up

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of the country's famous figures might like to take on board, the Journal wrote about 'Ms. Redgrave's supposed plans.

'But Vanessa did not like the idea that she might have spoken to us from the Seychelles.

'She instructed her solicitors to write, asking us to apologise for implying that 'she enjoys a life of luxury in a sunny climate' 'We would like to assure readers who might love to have a home in the Seychelles that there is no need to be jealous of the actress.

'We gladly acknowledge that Vanessa Redgrave neither has a home in the SOUTHEND Council, the pioneers of privatised street cleaning, claimed that it would save the ratepayers £500,000 a year -but they forgot about the weather. When they gave the contract to Exclusive Cleaning, they also sold them the council's vehicles cheap and had just renovated the depot, which they now rent to Exclusive, at a cost to the ratepayers of £170,000.

They also had to pay out £472,000 in redundancy. payments and have a continuing cost of £50,000 a year for inspectors to oversee the work that Exclusive does.

You would expect, then, with all these handouts, that Exclusive would manage to make a good job of it.

Not a bit of it. They had already doubled their charges for the collection of trade waste from companies and schools and for ICo garden waste. And now the bad weather has really shown up the flaws in the system.

The council has been flooded with compaints from ratepayers about streets not being cleaned. The last heavy snowfall cost them an extra $20,000 and the latest one will cost at least as much again.

Not only that. Half the buses have been unable to run because the routes haven't been properly cleared.

Several other councils are said to be looking into privatisation. Perhaps they should look a bit more carefully at pioneer Snuthend.

FUMA One million, largely law-abiding, people are the subject of computerised Special Branch files. This figure obviously includes tens of thousands of trade unionists and Labour activists.

huge network of modern computer technology is employed in legal and illegal phone-tapping and surveillance to keep those files up to date.

To imagine that the pleas of a retiring rural Chief Constable will bring an end to this vast operation is the purest fantasy.

Fresh evidence of the ever-present ryes and ears of the state has come in the

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January 21,