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Placing a tea-time meal of beans-on-toast in front of her frail 86-year-old mother Betty, Ros Figg glanced out of the dining room window to see two squad cars and a police van pull up.

Thinking there must be a major incident going on nearby, she pulled back the net curtains hoping to see what had prompted such an impressive show of police manpower.

One of the officers was carrying a battering ram. Was there a criminal on the loose?

A suspected terrorist in hiding? A secret drugs den, perhaps?

None of the above, as it would turn out. The person they’d come for, armed with a warrant, was poor old Betty – a once sprightly great-grandmother who’d recently succumbed to dementia.

‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when four police officers, flanking two social workers and a doctor, walked towards my house,’ says 55-year-old Ros.

‘One of the police officers was holding a red battering ram and I thought: “What on earth does he need that for?”

‘It’s the sort of thing they’d use to raid terrorists, not people like us.

‘I was so frightened I didn’t want to let them in so I leaned out of the window and asked them what they wanted.

‘One of the social workers said a doctor had come to examine my mother. When I opened the door a warrant, giving them the right to search for and remove my mother, was put in my hand.

Betty was then returned to the residential home which Ros removed her from last Saturday, believing her Mum would be better off in her care.

Social services had opposed Ros’s request to care for her mother at home, arguing that the level of care she could offer was not sufficient, and swung into action with the full force of the law when Ros defied them and took her home.

‘I still can’t believe it’s happened. I was made to feel like an enemy of the state rather than a daughter who just wants to do the best for her mother.

‘I can’t believe these Gestapo tactics can be allowed to happen in our society.

‘After they’d gone, I read the warrant they’d left behind, and I felt even more upset. I was insulted.

‘It said Mum was being removed under Section 135 of the Mental Health Act 1983 because she was at risk of neglect or ill-treatment, with no evidence to support that at all.

Anyone who wants to live their life as they see fit rather than how the State wants you to is an enemy of the state and they are in no way shy with using violence to make sure you obey them.

Which brings us to the next story: Fast food police, Caribbean takeaway closed down for opening too close to schools
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Pot-holed roads, crumbling schools, litter-strewn streets – there’s no shortage of problem areas crying out for their attention.But councils believe they have found a better use for their money: reducing the number of holes in chip shop salt shakers.

Research has suggested that slashing the holes from the traditional 17 to five could cut the amount people sprinkle on their food by more than half.Trickle or Treat: Chip shop owner Carol Ackerman shows off an old 17-hole shaker and the new model And so at least six councils have ordered five-hole shakers – at taxpayers’ expense – and begun giving them away to chip shops and takeaways in their areas.Leading the way has been Gateshead Council, which spent 15 days researching the subject of salty takeaways before declaring the new five-hole cellars the solution. Officers collected information from businesses, obtained samples of fish and chips, measured salt content and ‘carried out experiments to determine how the problem of excessive salt being dispensed could be overcome by design’.

They decided that the five-hole pots would reduce the amount of salt being used by more than 60 per cent yet give a ‘visually acceptable sprinkling’ that would satisfy the customer. The council commissioned Drywite Ltd – a catering equipment company based in the West Midlands – to make five-hole shakers and bought 1,000 of them at a cost of £2,000, giving them away to fast-food outlets in their areas.

Drywite confirms that it has since received orders for the shakers from at least five other councils, including Rochdale Borough in Greater Manchester.

Another giving the shakers away is Labour-controlled Middlesbrough Council, where the idea has run into fierce criticism.Cllr Chris Hobson, leader of the Conservatives, said: ‘This is just silly, a total waste of money in an area where council tax is very high. I’m all for good health but do they really think they are going to stop people using as much salt simply by putting fewer holes in thecellar? They’ll just shake it for longer.’

Beryl Scott, who owns the Chipchase Chippy in Linthorpe in the city, said a council worker had visited the previous week to explain the merits of less salty fish and chips. ‘He said he had a salt cellar with five holes to give me free.I thought it was a joke. It doesn’t matter how many holes it has, people are going to put on as much salt as they want.’

Another local chip shop owner, Carol Ackerman, who runs Carol’s Plaice in the suburb of Acklam, said: ‘People will just put on more salt if they want more. ‘In fact, we have had some people unscrewing the lids to do so.’ Gateshead Council defended its decision. A spokesman said: ‘Research carried out by us discovered customers were often receiving huge quantities of salt with their fish and chips – up to half their daily allowance. The council was so disturbed it decided to commission a manufacturer to produce a salt shaker with fewer holes, which it distributed free to every fish and chip shop and hot food takeaway in Gateshead. ‘We believe the cost to be a small price to pay for potentially saving lives.’The scheme is being promoted by the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services, which is responsible for ensuring councils follow food hygiene rules. A spokesman said: ‘Heart disease costs taxpayers £7billion a year so to say that projects such as this are a waste of money is mind-boggling.’

17 holes?! That seems excessive.

I don’t doubt that increasing the overhead of getting the same ammount of salt would generally reduce the amout used. I believe there have been studies which showed that smaller plates and bowls tend to reduce total consumption of a meal. However, this is simply retarded. If the research they did was so conclusive why not attempt to educate salt providers and consumers? And why did they do research on this in the first place? Isn’t that sort of thing usually done at a national level? Not that I would prefer that. I’d likely be easier to toss out these local busybodies than the national ones.