Nanny is going back to basics, do you recall that John Major doomed his Prime Ministership by doing the same?However, this time the "back to basics" campaign is nothing to do with toilets (or is it loos?...ah well, I guess that I will never be able to marry into the royal family for not knowing that) or road cones.
This time Nanny is going back to the halcyon days of the British Empire, ie the Victorian/Edwardian period, when people covered themselves and their chair/piano legs up from top to toe.
Nanny is outraged at the amount of flesh that is publicly on display these days, specifically in the summer months. She is not bothered about what the ladies wear, but is highly concerned about the predilection (can I use a word containing "lic", so early in the morning?) of the cream of British manhood to remove their shirts and expose their pale pink flabby beer guts.
I have to say, I am inclined to agree with Nanny that the sight of wide open empty rolling beer guts is not a pleasant sight for man nor beast.
However, quite how you can legislate against it or enforce a "no chest" policy is beyond me. We aren't a fanatical religious state are we?
Anyhoo, practicalities have never stopped Nanny from coming up with some serious time wasting ideas. Nanny's chums in local councils are considering imposing new local laws banning the exposure of chests and beer guts.
These new laws, how many we do have, would stop men stripping off their shirts in crowded town centres and give powers to police to remove any who defy the cover-up laws.
It's not as though the police have anything better to do is it? After all, there are no crimes in Britain's urban centres these days!
Seemingly Nanny is going to try to use the Anti Social Behaviour concept to ban topless guts. Do you see how politicians bend and twist laws, intended for one thing, to suit their own purpose?
The "masterbrain" behind this "wheeze" is former local government minister, Nicholas Bennett.
Quote:
"There is a problem.
In my part of the country we are trying
to revitalise the main shopping precinct.
But one of the things that is depressing
for anyone going shopping is the numbers
of shaven-headed men, mainly in their 30s and 40s,
who seem to think people want to see their torsos."
Whilst I can empathise with the sentiment, I cannot see how in reality this could be enforced. The baring of torsos is down to "public standards" of "good" and "bad" behaviour. The best way to effectuate change in this respect is to make such behaviour socially unacceptable, thereby shaming people into conforming.
We are already overburdened with petty and vindictive laws, how many more does Nanny intend to impose on us?
