[petercooper]

“The guy told them to p off and then they gave him the £90 public order fine for swearing,”*

This is a common use of laws in the United Kingdom. They put lots of laws on the books around trivial things that they almost never enforce on their own, but then which officers arbitrarily use in "convenient" situations like this. The average person swearing in the street will not be accosted, someone arguing with a cop who wants to make a point will.

[kevin_b_er]

This is called selective enforcement and is part of the erosion of the rule of law in the UK. When you have mountains of laws such that most people are always violating them, you can target anyone you don't like. This leads to abuse of power and is formative in the transformation of police from those that uphold the law to thugs. The thugs decide when to punish on whim.

[noir_lord]

Up to and including ASBO's

Which whatever their intention became a useful 'we don't like your face' tool.

My default position is 'explain why you want these powers with evidence they are nescessary' unfortunately the average person here doesn't pay any attention, which is why we are one of the most heavily surveiled democracies in the world.

[fifnir]

A great loophole to subvert bureaucracy and return the power to the whims of individuals....

[sieabahlpark]

To what, show who is really in control of the land? Sounds corrupt and a slippery slope to me.