Good grief, Nanny comes up with some stooopid ideas at times but this one really takes the proverbial biscuit!One of Nanny's special chums, Prof Julian le Grand a former advisor to Tony Blair, has come up with the really potty idea that smokers should be forced to apply for an annual £200 licence in order to purchase cigarettes.
For fark's sake!
He also proposed banning food manufacturers from adding salt to products, an exercise hour for all employees during the working day and free fruit in offices.
Clearly this man doesn't get out and about very much.
Anyhoo, Prof le Grand is of the view that his idea would make healthy choices the norm and force those who object to make a conscious effort to opt out.
Force???
Has it come to this?
Is Nanny really going to force people to do things???
Now we see Nanny in her true colours.
Once this guy's scheme was up and running, it could be extended so smokers had to get a doctor's signature that their health was not at "massive risk" by smoking in order to get a licence.
The prof wants people to fill in forms and have photographs taken in order to apply for his permit.
What a total knobhead this man is.
Here's why the idea is bollocks (aside from the very obvious point that it is not Nanny's place to do this):
1 Enforcing it would be almost impossible.
2 People with a permit would simply buy fags for their mates who don't have a permit.
3 It would require a special force of smoking permit inspectors to check on people who were seen smoking in the street.
4 In order for each smoker to see their GP every year, to have their permit renewed, it would take up 25 million appointments annually and rob millions of sick people of the chance of seeing their doctor.
What a total "pr*ck" this man is.
Even by the standards of the nastiest of the health fascists, I think this is about the most sinister suggestion yet made. It also, needless to say, bears other NuLab hall-marks by being essentially unenforceable at enormous cost. Brilliant!
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Yet another nice little earner for our Starlinist government...Kerching
ReplyDeleteI suspect there would be a nice little fine....opps sorry penalty, for non compliance....Kerching
Think of the extra data Nanny could collect during the license application process.
Even poor Winston Smith was allowed his Victory cigarettes and gin in relative peace.
ReplyDeleteNanny once again eclipses the imaginaton of Orwell.
"His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. . . . to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy; . . ."
That last bit seems to summ up Professor le Grand's position rather nicely.
Ken said: "Clearly this man doesn't get out and about very much."
ReplyDeleteThat's because he only sees the outside world through the barred window of his padded cell.
Pete
Surely a candidate for your prestigious Prat of the Week award!
ReplyDeleteNever mind this fantasy of 'unenforceable'; it can and would be enforced.
ReplyDeleteIn Nazi Germany the biggest single industry was prisons.
Bigger than their army.
Well said Ken (even though I'm a lifelong non-smoker....)
ReplyDeleteYou know Ken I think this (the smoking part) would be relatively easy to enforce on a scale that would have some effect, though whether that effect would prove to have any beneficial component at all is another matter entirely.
ReplyDeleteWay back "when I were a lad" in my first year at senior school I recall a Christmas 'Revue' performed by the more senior pupils as a series of mostly comedy sketches.
One stand out sketch from the very first year I saw the revue and that I have never forgotten revolved around having to get a 'chit' to be allowed to do anything. AIn those days a 'chit' was a piece of paper, usually signed by a teacher, that authorised you to be somewhere you would not normally be at that time should another teacher or prefect query your activity. A licence is rather similar in the way that it 'authorises'.
The sketch progressed from asking for a chit to go to the toilet or visit the school first aid office through to, eventually, needing a chit to be aloowed to breathe.
It was of course hilarious on many levels (to an 11 years old) but not something that one would ever have to take seriously.
A licence to breathe? What tarrif could they place on that? Should I suggest it to our Darling Chancer?
Hi Ken,
ReplyDeleteGood article as usual. Is the government taking the mickey. I mean a licence to smoke, the salt thing i don't know. It seems that the control freaks and reich's fuhrer Brown are taking far too many liberties. But hey that will stop soon as we will have Euro Fuhrer Blair to answer too soon, conversion to catholocism, Middle East ambassador. Come On. The dog and pony show is horse manure and people are waking up. Great sit Ken
All the best
As a non smaoker, I feel the need to light up..............
ReplyDelete