Cut Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face

My compliments to the good people of Blackburn and Darwen Council who, being loyal followers of Nanny, have a very rigid rule regarding who may speak at their council planning meetings.

In order to ensure that chaos and unsavoury elements do not disrupt the discussions, all prospective speakers must file a request to speak by noon of the previous day.

Fair enough, if you can file the request and know about the rule.

However, there are occasions when maybe a legitimate speaker cannot make that deadline.

In the normal world, that you and I inhabit, an exception would be made and the person would be allowed to speak. However, in Nanny's world there are no exceptions; no matter what the circumstances.

Nanny's chums at Blackburn and Darwen Council maintained their iron rule the other week, when an American millionaire tried to speak at the meeting but was banned by the council because he had not filed a request to speak.

Jim Smith, from the council, said:

"Everyone must be treated the same way".

What Smith and his jobsworths in the council should have remembered, was the fact that the American was offering to pay for the council's massively expensive sports complex. He had just flown in from the States; he was not aware of the rule and was most certainly not able to comply with it, as he was in the mid Atlantic at the time of the deadline.

Nice work Nanny!

This petulant attitude to "jobsworth" rules and petty regulations symbolises the soul destroying nature of Nanny and her local government officers.

Break the rules, and break Nanny's grip on power.