The Trouble With Roads

Dear old Nanny is getting a little old and senile I fear, symptoms of this can be seen in her mutltiple displays of schizophrenia eg:

• Banning smoking, yet still happily taking tax revenue from the "evil weed"



• Frowning on gambling, yet opening a chain of casinos



• Stamping out binge drinking, whilst allowing 24 hour opening

Now Nanny's chums in the Highways Agency (HA) are displaying worrying signs of schizophrenia.

The HA, which aims to spend more than £1.5BN on road improvements in the next two years, is telling its own staff to leave their cars at home and take the train to work instead.

A tad contradictory wouldn't you say?

All the more so, given the shambolic state of Nanny's rail network.

Anyhoo, the executive agency of the Department for Transport is offering the 640 employees in its Birmingham office a 50% discount on rail season tickets.

Unsurprisingly only 70 have taken up the offer so far.

Steve Williams, HR director at the HA, said:

"We wish to reduce the amount of waste materials from our offices - such as paper and office products. We also wish to support the environment alongside our roads."

It is estimated that UK businesses lose at least £15BN a year because of the country's poor transport infrastructure.

Money well spent Nanny!

Nanny Bans Jokes

I am beginning to suspect that dear old Nanny doesn't really have much of a sense of humour.

That certainly appears to be the case with her chums in Newcastle Upon Tyne Council.

They have announced a rather bizarre plan, to make comedians sign a contract agreeing to avoid jokes which might offend minorities.

Have they not understood that the very nature of humour and comedy is that it does make people feel uncomfortable by highlighting pain, idiosyncrasies and misfortune?

The members of the council, rather than addressing more pressing issues, have devoted their considerable intellects to banning performers whose acts are considered by some to be; offensive, racist, sexist or homophobic.

Step forward another of Nanny's humourless apparatchiks, public sector union Unison, who want to ban the comedian Roy Chubby Brown from playing the City Hall.

Chubby has performed there for the last 20 years but Unison, as befits a friend of Nanny, knows best; and does not believe that the fact that the show is a commercial success (ie people want to see it) should in anyway detract from their mission of interfering in people's lives.

The equalities board of Newcastle council has recommended that the council bans from its venues:

"acts contrary to the council's visions, values and social inclusion agenda, and which conflict with its community leadership role".

The bottom line is that Nanny, like all dictators, hates free speech; comedy is an essential part of free speech.

Nanny's Religious Hatred

As you are no doubt all aware, Nanny has rather a busy legislative programme ahead of her over the coming few months.

Not only has she to get her much vaunted ID card bill through parliament, ban smoking and end world poverty; but she also has to impose her religious hatred bill on her long suffering "charges".

Many argue that the religious hatred bill is yet another attempt by Nanny to stifle free speech and debate.

However, I read yesterday about this disgusting incident which may make a case for the religious hatred bill.

A Sikh couple were trying to hold their wedding at the Baylis House Hotel in Slough this weekend.

The guests had turned up, for what was meant to be a happy day for the couple; yet the day quickly descended into chaos, as a group of 40 youths arrived in a bus and deliberately disrupted the wedding and celebrations.

The priest was attacked and the holy book, which was to be used by the priest to perform the wedding, was stolen.

Needless to say, Nanny's police managed to arrive too late to do anything; doubtless they were too busy chasing speeding motorists and enforcing smoking bans.

The police found a scene of chaos when they arrived, the priest lying in the car park and the couple clearly shocked and upset at the disaster that had befallen them.

The police then stood guard whilst the wedding was bravely re planned with hotel management.

How in Britain could such an attack take place, or indeed be allowed to take place?

The above is clearly a prime example of what Nanny's religious hatred bill is trying to stamp out.

People should be allowed to practice their religions without fear of persecution.

Oh, by the way, I think I forgot to mention one small thing.

The 40 thugs who attacked the wedding were in fact Sikhs themselves. This group, calling themselves "Respect for Guru Granth Sahib Ji Campaign", have been recently disrupting Sikh weddings for religious reasons.

Their prime objection is the fact that the Sikh book of scriptures should not be in a place where alcohol, meat and cigarettes are available.

Seemingly this band of "religious enforcers" scour the net for weddings and other gatherings where the book may be present, and then rush to the scene to rescue the book.

Now this case presents something of a problem for Nanny. In the event that her religious hatred bill was actually up and running, who should be prosecuting whom?

Should the gang of 40 thugs prosecute the couple for bespoiling their sacred book?

Should the couple be prosecuting the gang for disrupting their wedding, on the grounds of religious intolerance?

Should interfering busybodies be prosecuting both parties for bringing the Sikh religion into disrepute?

Those of you who manage to come up with an answer, that can satisfy all, should please forward it to Fungus Clarke. Doubtless he is desperately trying to find some shred of logic, with which to cover the glaring intellectual and moral inadequacies of Nanny's religious hatred bill.

The lesson from this sorry tale is really rather simple. Despite what the politicians claim is the intention of their legislation, and despite teams of lawyers working all hours to take into account all possible scenarios, life is never what you expect.

The more legislation there is, that attempts to control how we live our lives, the greater the opportunity for those with an agenda to use it for their own ends.

To my view, if Nanny is sincere in her claim that she wishes to create an equal and tolerant society; where people of all faiths can practice their religions without fear, less is more.

In other words, remove the blasphemy law from the statute books. This will place all religions on the same level.

Healthy religions, that are comfortable with engaging in open and rigorous debate as to the meaning of life and other issues, will flourish. Those religions that attempt to stifle debate will die.

The trouble is Nanny introduced the religious hatred bill to buy off the Muslim vote, not to protect religious freedom, or am I being just a little too cynical?

Nanny's Gestapo

Nanny really hates smoking, maybe she had an unfortunate experience with a cigarette in her childhood?

Anyhoo, as we all know, Nanny is implementing new powers effectively criminalising smoking in public.

Now banning something is all well and good, but actually policing and enforcing the ban is another matter.

That would require some considerable resources.

As we all know the police are already working flat out chasing those who drive too fast; they then have to worry about lesser offences, such as burglary and robbery, before they could even hope to enforce a smoking ban.

Have no fear, Nanny has a cunning plan.

Nanny's new best friend, Caroline Flint, the Reich health minister has announced an "intelligence-led approach to enforcing the law".

What precisely does Frau Flint actually mean by "intelligence-led"?

Well, in a nut shell, Frau Flint will recruit a network of informers who will be encouraged to report breaches the ban in places such as; company smoking rooms, bus shelters and the outsides of office blocks made no-smoking areas.

Those who transgress will be fined £50.

There will also be penalties for companies that fail to display "No Smoking" signs in areas newly outlawed.

Establishments that attract repeated complaints could be subject to "sting" operations by council enforcers.

Frau Flint confirmed that the policy would be vigorously enforced, with the assistance of informers from the public.

The Reich Minister went on to say:

"I don't think we are talking about brigades of people out on the streets..What we are talking about is an intelligence-led approach to enforcing the law."

The Reich Minister will place the burden of enforcement on councils, which will receive extra money for the task; with informers calling a telephone hotline manned by officials at the town hall.

Those of you with even a rudimentary knowledge of history will recall that this form of "intelligence gathering" formed the bedrock for the Third Reich. People were encouraged to inform on each other; as such political debate was stifled, as no one could trust their friends neighbour's or families.

The system was used by many to pursue private vendettas and to pay off old scores. The same will happen here.

Nanny has gone too far this time.

It is now up to us all to ensure that this disgusting proposal is wrecked, and made to be unworkable, by overloading the system with false reports of smoking.

Those of you who wish to raise the above issues with Reich Minister Flint should email her at flintc@parliament.uk

Nanny's Cardboard Cops

Nanny is very worked up about the increase in violent criminal behaviour in Britain. Not least because it negatively impacts her crime statistics.

One method of reducing criminal activity, or at least making people feel safer, is that of putting more "bobbies on the beat".

However, Nanny already has 7 million people working for her (such as community support officers, you know those people in funny blue uniforms who act like policemen but aren't); and frankly cannot afford to employ more front line staff, such as police on the beat, especially when she has a whole host of expensive new bureaucratic and middle management places that are to be created.

Therefore she has come up with the next best alternative.

Cardboard cut-out cops!

Yes that's right, cardboard cut-out cops.

Two of these new additions to Nanny's forces have been stationed in the A&E department of York district Hospital, in an attempt to deter violent behaviour against staff.

The cut outs have been supplied by the Safer York Partnership.

Now please don't snigger, that's very rude, the cut-outs have actually had some effect. They have increased public awareness about the issue of violent attacks on hospital staff.

Unfortunately, since being introduced 8 months ago, they have made no difference at all to the number of assaults on staff.

In other words they are inneffective.

Erm, isn't it the idea of these things that they should reduce the number of attacks?

To my mind, there is really rather a simple method to reduce the number of attacks on staff by patients.

Don't treat the violent patients, throw them out of the hospital and let them suffer/die.

It's cheap, simple and 100% effective.

I think that would get the message home to these violent morons pretty quickly.

Nanny Hates Democracy

The recent collapse of the EU constitution (see "The EU Constitution The Longest Suicide Note In History"), as a result of the democratic actions of the French and Dutch, has led me to ponder a while on Nanny's schizophrenic views on democracy.

How sad am I?

On the one hand Nanny says that she is very supportive of democracy. She did, after all, happily invade Iraq; in order to overthrow a dictator, and to provide the Iraqi's with the peace and prosperity that they now enjoy.

Additionally, Nanny and her chum Gordon "Smiler" Brown have happily latched on to St Bob's plan to rid Africa of debt; that'll work!

Think I'm cynical about Africa?

Read my recent article "Make Poverty History", on my In Your Face site, and make your own minds up.

Smiler Brown has even encouraged people to demonstrate at the forthcoming G8 summit in Gleaneagles. That could turn quite ugly, so I can't but help feel that the good citizens of Gleaneagles may be a tad pissed off with Smiler.

However, grandstanding on the world stage means that Nanny and her friends can happily forget the local consequences of their actions. Playing the "we believe in democracy" card works very well for lazy politicians, who need a "big popular cause" to be seen to be associated with.

However, when the "chips are down" and things don't go the way that Nanny wants she reveals her true colours.

Nanny's chum Andrew Duff, a Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament, recently said in response to the vote against the EU constitution:

"the experience begs the question of whether it was ever appropriate to submit the EU Constitution to a lottery of uncoordinated national plebiscites".

In other words Nanny thinks that you, the voters, cannot be trusted with voting on what he perceives are important issues.

Nanny thinks you're thick!

His comment reveals the real thinking that goes on behind Nanny's smile.