Ban that sort of thing

By | | , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Ban that sort of thing

We want beer I keep trying to find time to write an article about the latest moves from the new puritans and their ongoing attempts to ban anything they consider immoral, or that any of the rest of us consider fun. The problem is the proposals, white papers briefings and everything else are coming in such a torrent that I can’t keep up. Thankfully there are the likes of Dick Puddlecote and LegIron who do a much better job. Despite that I’m going to try and do a bit of a round up just so I know where we were a week or so back (I make no pretence at being up to speed), part of the problem is that the banistabators keep rerunning the same ideas so they have to be countered time and time again, if we ever stop objecting they’re just going to say “obviously public opinion has shifted and banning fun is now acceptable”. Seriously as soon as they think they can get away with that…

So lets start with the bleeding edge of bansturbation, smoking! That pernicious evil of burning plant matter that can kill at 5 miles, or merely by objects being handled by smokers. Quite frankly I’m surprised that they’re not dropping guns handled by smokers to the Taliban, after all the third hand smoke must by now be more lethal than an AK-47. Because of the terrible danger that smoking represents rather than say out right ban it and lose all that lovely tax revenue, the government is instead pursuing ever more ludicrous schemes, with cigarettes already behind shutters in major supermarkets and being moved around whole sale shops in body bags (ok that’s a slight exaggeration). So having hidden fags from sight in every shop (soon) the prohibitionists have turned their attention to superman who might be able to see the packets behind the shutters and so are demanding plain packaging. Ok they may be worried about people seeing the huge health warnings on packets of fags held by smokers and be concerned that people will think “‘This will kill you’ wow got to have come of that”, after all there’s no way that cigarette cases could make a come back or people start selling nicer containers to put your cigarettes in once you’ve bought them is there? By the way if you think plain packaging is objectionable do sign the petiton, after all to make sure the consultation is far substantial sums of your money are being spent to campaign for plain packaging. Now as I’m not a smoker and never have been and nor am I in the pay of big tobacco I can’t add much by way of personal anecdote except to say I only took up vaping so I had something to do whilst standing outside with my friends, but I would observe this why if this is all about saving lives does anti smoking propaganda get funding when the air-ambulance doesn’t?

Just behind the bleeding edge but following up fast and sharing notes is the banstabators attempt to not learn from history and try to reintroduce prohibition. Even as alcohol consumption drops the efforts to denormalise (demonise is terribly medieval after all) pick up speed. Lets for the moment ignore that the current “recommended limits” on booze are numbers plucked out of the air, take no account of metabolism, body size or anything remotely resembling science, despite that we have calls that we have two dry days a week and that the “limits” which “problem” drinkers ignore are too high and should be just a half unit a day (this is down from 2 – 4 depending on sex). Of course there is a risk that we might all choose to ignore this advice but not to worry we have the beer duty escalator, calls for bigger scarier warnings and minimum pricing to “nudge” us in the right direction. In a fit of utter insanity CAMRA support minimum pricing! They don’t think that this will ramp up until we’re priced into prohibition, but then they can’t work out that 72p minimum price carling is still cheaper than 3 quid pub carling and still think that the smoking ban isn’t responsible for massive pub closures. So yeah CAMRA* not the sharpest tool in the box and unlikely to wake up until it’s far too late unlike some Big booze bosses**. The denormalization of booze is working so well that confusion over 2/3 pint measures can only become more common, much like the you must look over 18, 21, 25, 90 signs in supermarkets.

Following behind booze control is “bad food” control, salt control and the perils of invisible sugar. I expect any moment a study to come out proving that the chemicals produced by the brain when experiencing pleasure or fun are carcenogens and cost the NHS billions a day. Which brings us nicely to the big stick that’s used to beat all us neo-cavaliers who actually like enjoying life- the cost to the NHS, except well the numbers don’t ad up. Us unhealthy types die earlier and so actually cost the NHS less. But that’s ok the banstabators will just keep making up costs, with no consideration for how we value pleasure or the benefits the booze/baccy/fun industry have to the economy (that’s outside the scope of banstabator studies) for more details do take the time to read the wages of sin taxes (I’m over half way through and it’s well worth the time).

So what to do? Well the good news is that all the insane nonsense the banstabators spew is starting to be noticed and people may not be buying it any more. There is also the slight problem of emergents markets that they seem to forget, as costs go up black markets will flourish and even if for the first time ever they prevent black market trading you can grow and process your own baccy and it’s easy as anything to brew your own and avoid tax. None of which will be good for the governments income (which is obviously not a consideration as it’s all about health) nor any reality in future statistics. It gets even worse4 when it comes to spirits as the green agenda means we can now all legally distil our own “bio-ethanol” for “fuel purposes” with no-license we just have to keep records, so if several batches went bad and the rest got “burnt” then that’s all fine you made a note of it. Long term prohibition is on shaky ground as ever, but to preserve liberty and to avoid a phase of dodgy rot-gut whilst we rediscover lost skills maybe we ought to keep fighting the new puritans just to make life that much more pleasant, because they really are out to get us.

* I am a CAMRA member because I like having a seat at the GBBF
** Doesn’t that sound so 1920 speak easy?

0

Vote for a bill

By | | , , ,
Comments Off on Vote for a bill

Douglas Carswell MP wants your help deciding which bill to put forward as his private members bill, so head on over to Guido’s to cast your vote.

The options are:
“1. Bloggers Freedom Bill: the law on copyright and libel developed in an age when very few people ever published anything. Today, millions of people blog and tweet. The law needs to reflect this. While other people’s intellectual property needs to be safeguarded, and people need protection from libel, this law would provide bloggers and tweeters with some protection against being sued, with a 48 hour period of grace before legal action could be taken.

2. Defence Procurement Bill: too much of the defence budget is spent in the interests of big defence contractors, and not in the interests of our armed forces. This Bill would make it a legal requirement to put most defence contracts out to public tender, and prevent those who have worked for the Ministry of Defence from working for defence contractors without clear safeguards.

3. Great Repeal Bill: there are too many rules and regulations. The government’s Freedom Bill, which promised to do something about it, has turned out to be pretty useless. Instead, the Great Repeal Bill – the world’s first Wiki-Bill – would repeal a vast swathe of unnecessary red tape. The details of the Bill are here.

4. Repeal of the European Communities Bill: Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973. It has turned out to be an economic and political disaster. This Bill will get us out.

5. Competing Currencies Bill: having struggled to save the Pound, this Bill will save the value of the Pound. It will prevent ministers debauching our currency to help pay their debts. While the idea of competing currencies is not new, the internet – which allows different currencies to be used seamlessly – is, making it practically possible. Translations of the Bill will be available in Greek, Spanish and perhaps even French.”

For my money they’re all pretty good bills, but getting out of the EU trumps them all – of course if that’s a bit rich for your blood let me recommend the great repeal which we’ve been promised a few times now and yet it’s never happened.Though of course the chances of the whips from any party allowing any of these to get any sort of hearing are the wrong side of feck all, but still one has to try.

0

One step forward two steps back

By | | , , ,
Comments Off on One step forward two steps back

I can see blue sky out the window and it’s a bank holiday so really I should have better things to be doing than writing a blog, but there you go. First off a slight update it seems that a rare bout of good sense briefly inflicted the EU and all three committees rejected ACTA, though that doesn’t actually kill it out right. Of course the European Parliament may decide to go ahead with it in June anyway, after all we’ve already ratified it. Which does make me wonder how many other regulations our politicians blame on the EU we could avoid or at least delay (or failing that implement in a minimal fashion without gold plating).

Anyway that was I’m afraid the good news, not much but I’ll take what I can get. Sadly now to the two steps back Fausty brings us news that the Dfamation bill currently going through Parliament (so time to get writing again) will abolish the two common law defences of “justification” and “fair comment”, oh and no juries either. Now I can see how they can abolish parts of the 1952 act, but abolish common law – that’s a whole different ball game. I would also suggest that the loss of these two defences will have a massively chilling effect on investigative journalism and bloggers – especially those trying to hold the great and good to account. Just consider for a moment how things might have gone in Olly Cromwells recent problems if they could have done him for defamation because calling a Bexley councillor a cunt wasn’t defensible as fair comment?

So as I say time to get writing yet again, meantime as it’s such a nice day here’s a musical interlude.

0