Nanny Bans Bells

Tis soon the season to be miserable, and rest assured that Nanny is well up to speed in ensuring that as many people as possible are inconvenienced this Christmas by her anti Christmas nonsense.

Callington Town Band in Cornwall, a registered charity, have found out to their cost that they can't play Jingle Bells in their Christmas shows unless they pay for a licence.

The reason?

The song has no religious content.

The band will have to pay £21 each for seven temporary licences to cover their Christmas programme because Nanny, in the form of the local licensing authority, says so.

Nanny's chums in Caradon District Council's licensing department told the band it would fall foul of the Licensing Act 2003, if it played anything other than religious based carols during its seven Christmas concerts.

The council says that a temporary entertainment notice was needed every time entertainment was provided in venues without public licences.

Now common sense surely dictates that a sensible way around this could be found, eg the fee is waived or the seven concerts are counted as one.

After all, the Licensing Act was meant to cover nightclubs and commercial operations rather than charitable Christmas concerts.

However, in Nanny's Britain common sense has been banned. Local councils are experts in not applying common sense, indeed one wonders if their role in life is to in fact deliberately antagonise and suppress the people that they claim they serve?

One other point of course, that stares us in the face like a syphilitic sore, is that of course the good old boys on Caradon District Council will make some money out of charging seven times for the same event.

Funny that isn't?

Cliff McKane, the band chairman, said:

"We were aghast when we received the letter

telling us that we had to have a license

unless we played on private property.

It was amazing."

The band a raises hundreds of pounds for charity each year, this year they are fundraising for the Cornwall Blind Association.

The local MP, Colin Breed, said that the ruling was an unintentional consequence of the licensing operations:

"It's just total nonsense.

We have to get to the question of whether the band are to play Jingle Bells.

Hopefully common sense will prevail.

I'm trying to get a more localised version of the law

hopefully we will resolve it before anyone plays Jingle Bells."

Nice to hear, but he shouldn't have to waste his time (and taxpayer's money) on this bollocks in the first place.

Mr McKane noted that he was confused with the new licensing laws which he says have meant the band need a license if they perform in a church yard, but not a few yards away inside the church building.

"Fines can be as much as £6,000 I've been told.

A lot of district councils are turning a blind eye."

Caradon District Council's licensing officer, Michelle Brooking, stonewalled by hiding behind the law:

"The ruling was brought in by the Licensing Act in 2003."

Can anyone tell what use local councils are?

They seem to be no use to man nor beast.

Their only rationale seems to be to enforce bureaucratic rules on the local electorate as a means of raising money, which is then spent on their salaries and expenses.

Time to abolish local councils methinks!

What say you?

Send an early Christmas message to Caradon District Council via these links:

Twats!

Chief Executive

Leader of The Council