Britney's knickers nix snappers

There's been an attempt in LA to introduce some sort of law to curb the excesses of the paparazzi - clearly, the city is worried that if it becomes impossible for anyone who has ever had a guest slot on Lost to walk down the streets without having their arse photographed from sixteen angles, the celebrities might take their lovely money somewhere else to live.

However, the local police - seemingly keen to live up to their doughnut-eating, crime-missing stereotype - aren't that keen on having more work to do and so are suggesting that, oddly, there isn't a problem any more:

"If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving; Paris is out of town not bothering anybody anymore, thank god; and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue," [LAPD Chief William ]Bratton told KNBC, L.A.'s local NBC affiliate.

He went on to offer similar sentiments to several other local outlets, calling the would-be crackdown on paparazzi a "farce," and further claiming that interest in candid pics has already waned.

Bratton is a grown man, and yet he believes that Lindsay Lohan going sort-of-perhaps Sapphic has made photographers less, rather than more, interested in her. He should try standing outside his police station and shouting "look - isn't that Lindsay Lohan kissing A LADY" and seeing just how uninterested they are.

"If the ones that attract the paparazzi behave in the first place, like we expect of anybody, that solves about 90 percent of the problem. The rest we can deal with."

Now, it's true that Britney might have drawn a little attention to herself, but given that she was clearly, actually, out of her mind - not to mention hounded every time she steps outside the house - it's hardly fair to just snort "she brought it on herself". Is Bratton really suggesting that the mentally ill shouldn't be protected if their behaviour makes them draw attention to themselves?

Still, let's take Bratton at his word, and see this as a wonderful victory for self-regulation. Presumably he'll be pushing for the city to adopt the same approach to pimping and drug-dealing. LA might wind up not needing a police force at all.