Smoking persecution

Last week, a Brummagen painter & decorator was pulled over by officials from Cerydigion council in Wales and given a £30 fixed penalty notice for smoking in a place of work.

Some newspapers reported the story in a vaguely tongue in cheek manner. Some played it dead straight. Only a small minority questioned what kind of society encourages petty officials to bully the public they are, ostensibly, employed to serve.

Yet, the smoking painter and decorator was just the latest in a long line of ordinary people who have been criminalised and persecuted using laws that were passed in haste to satisfy the demands of a few vocal minorities. Since New labour came to power it has done its level best to honour its manifesto commitments - not to the voting public at large, but to the minority interests that helped it obtain and retain power. Thus, the first laws it rushed through Parliament were designed to satisfy the special interests of the anti-hunting brigade, the homosexual lobby, the Green lobby, the anti-family tendency and the various pressure groups that regards anyone who smokes tobacco products as a prime candidate for euthenasia.
Strangely, for an administration stuffed full of lawyers, its record on law making is pretty pathetic. The Anti-Hunting legislation has proved to have fewer teeth than a 12 year old vixen. Laws intended to enable the security services to monitor potential terrorists have been used mostly by local councils keen to stalk their own tax-payers or, by Labour itself, to eject crusty old dissenters from its party Conference.
Now we have the unedifying story of the painter and decorator being fined for smoking inside his own van. To be strictly accurate, at the point that he was fined it wasn't a workplace since he was using the van to go and pick up a takeaway for dinner.However, that cut no ice with the Jobsworth who issued the fine. So, now it begs the question of what, precisely, constitutes a workplace? Indeed, what constitutes work?
If, for instance, he had been a self-employed doctor, lawyer, accountant or consultant who uses a car for both work and leisure, would the same rule be applied? And, if it does, how far would it stretch?
It is reasonable to assume that most self-employed people work from home. Now, the question is, if they light up a fag while doing the books, are they in breach of the no smoking at work rule? At what point does the house become an office and vice versa? One thing is for sure, there are smoking fascists all over the UK already salivating at the prospect of being able to extend their persecution of smokers into the only place that has so far evaded them; private homes.

It takes many more than two to Quango

A couple of weeks ago ( OK, I'm sorry; I've been busy making a living) I passed a few comments about this Government's favourite form of non-government; the quasi-autonomous government organisation - the dreaded QUANGO for short.
I mentioned then that one of the beauties of this particular beast - at least from a minister's viewpoint - is that it takes the decision making process one step away from the ministry to which it is attached. Now, it may seem odd that people who have gagged all their life to grab the reins of power should be so quick and eager to hand them over to someone else. Especially when said people, politicians and top civil servants alike, are always bleating that their enormous talents would be much better appreciated - and rewarded - in the Private Sector. But, the truth is that, for the most part, they are limited intellectually, have little or no practical talents and are really, rather glad to be in a position where blame can be shared while, if they play their cards right, success can be enjoyed in splendid isolation.
That wonderful invention, the QUANGO, was invented for just this purpose. Should one of these bureaucratic monstrosities somehow contrive to stumble over anything remotely like a good idea, you can bet your bottom dollar the Minister ultimately responsible for it will rapidly find his or her way to the TV studios to take the credit. When - as is more likely - they spend our money like a drunken matelot on shore leave and still manage to cock everything up, the same Minister can rapidly distance him or herself from their actions.
The latest example of this elegant method of blame avoidance is provided by the monumental cock-up over the marking of the SATS. Despite the fact that the two bodies charged with setting and monitoring exam results both, ultimately, report back to office of the Child Czar - the wonderfully named Mr. Balls - and despite the fact that they - and therefore he - knew that the US company hired to do the marking would fail to meet its deadlines as far back as June, he has managed to distance himself from the fiasco by placing the blame firmly on the lackeys.
Thus, the QUANGO has fulfilled its main purpose.
Not, as one might reasonably suppose, the creation of an exam setting and marking system that works better and is less expensive than the old one of form teachers marking their own pupils' work.
No, this system costs enough to fund a reasonably large modern hospital. It employs myriad odds and sods and is administered for some obscure reason (but look for the backhander) by a company based in Atlanta, Georgia in the good ole' USA. Not only that, by most accounts, it is so inept at what it is meant to do, it marks down good pupils with an excellent command of English while bumping the marks of those who demonstrate frighteningly little ability to write their native tongue.
What it has done, and very effectively, is place several layers of bureaucrats between the Minister - the eponymous Mr. Balls - and the silver bullet of blame that might, otherwise, have shot him straight out of his very comfortable ministerial chair. In that strictly limited sense, most politicians would probably judge it a raging success.

Be careful what you wish for

Word is that, while wee Gordie is pretending to be a statesman alongside the rest of the G8 leaders, the other members of the pygmy tribe are plotting aong themselves to replace him. One of the leading contenders, unbelievably, is Harriet Harman.
Harriet - I would not recognise reality even if it siezed me by the throat and shook me - Harperson wants to be the Prime Minister of the country with the sixth largest economy in the world; the country that is fighting serious wars in two very hostile environments and the country that is facing its most serious societal and economic challenges for thirty years.
Harriet who has never had a real job and who, therefore thinks that forcing small businesses to grant limitless leave to pregnant women, mums - of whatever gender -and people with small dogs would not seriously harm their prospects wants, to run our country.

Quick. All of you who raised your hands to the question: Do we want to get rid of Gordon Brown; put them down again. Your wish could come in a package labelled: Harriet Harman.

And while we are talking about women who enjoyed an enormously privileged education, made the right contacts and have parlayed very limited talents into positions of great influence....here's Cherie Blair.
Now Cherie is one of those people about whom political journalists of a certain ilk, i.e. bone idle, cannot help writing without mentioning how clever they are. This applies to Cherie Blair and equally to David Milliband, Ed Balls and Tory Politicians like Michael Gove. At some early stage in their careers all of these people have either personally - or through friends - circulated personal profiles stressing their wit, intelligence, education and suitability for high office. One lazy journalist after another then refers to a clippings file rather than do any research when interviewing or preparing profiles on these people. So, as they move inexorably up the greasy pole, the self-awarded label of super-brain follows them. In a recent profile of Ed Balls, for instance, the lickspittle journalist who wrote the piece referred to his having a brain the size of two planets, even though all the evidence of his actions as Minister for Children etc, would seem to indicate that he barely has sufficient brain power to wipe his own arse unaided.
The same is true of Cherie Blair. Even though the only real ability she has ever demonstrated has been a talent for acquiring free holidays and clothes and doing dodgy real estate deals in equal measure, subservient journalists insist on prefacing any story about her with a rehearsal of the incredible intellectual powers that have got her to the position she occupies today: mother, author, barrister, part-time judge and, oh. yes in case you might have forgotten, wife to some geezer called Tony Blair.
Given her enormous intellectual powers, what are we to make of the awful, trite, patronising garbage that she has written in the Daily Telegraph today on the subject of knife crime?

" The impact of knife and gun crime on victims, families and whole communities is devastating"
Well, there's nothing like stating the bleedin obvious to get everyone's attention. is there? But not too much evidence of thought, let alone anything approaching original thought.
What about this one: "As a mother I am deeply concerned that knives and guns are becoming a part of everyday life for young people.."
What does that mean? That if our Cher weren't a mother she wouldn't be quite so deeply concerned? Or, perhaps what she is saying is that only a mother can feel and express such deep feelings about the role of weapons in modern society? If you are a dad, an uncle, an aunt or completely childless, presumably, you either have no opinion or are not entitled to express one?
The article occupies about a third of a broadsheet page in a quality national newspaper. The sentiments it expresses could be summed up in one, handwringing sentence; something ought to be done. Granted, she does actually recommend a course of action or, to be more precise, inaction because what she wants is yet another commission - or in this case Unit - to be set up by the government to work with "partner agencies to seek to achieve long-term social change". In other words, another talking shop for which she probably already has a friend or old colleague in mind to run it. In the meantime, she can probably parley her involvement into another round of highly-remunerated speeches along the lines of " Knife-crime and how to tackle it." And add another line to her CV emphasising the awesome intellectual power she brings to bear on the situation so that some other, gullible journalist can trot it out all over again at some time in the future.