NannyState

We return to one of my pet peeves, the Nanny State. In Britain almost every aspect of our lives is now considered fair game for our political masters.

Not satisfied with taxes, both visible and invisible, too numerous to mention, they now feel quite entitled to tell us what we should eat, how much, when to exercise, what our kids should eat at school, how much alcohol we should consume, how to sift our garbage, what type of cars to drive. In fact the list is endless.

If you go to the cinema in time for the advertising most of it features the things you should or shouldn’t do. Today I went to the movies and there were slots to tell you to conduct safe sex, another to remind you to drive slowly, and yet another to watch out for motorcyclists. This was in addition to the material extolling the virtue of continuing education and surely it can’t be long before they tell us to love our mothers!

Our government is now in the habit of floating some of their more outlandish ideas in advance to the media and then, dependant on the public reaction will decide whether to move forward with the plan.

Over the last weekend the Health gurus floated the idea of creating a minimum price for each unit of alcohol, thus eliminating cheap drink presently available from the supermarkets. The argument for doing this is to reduce the amount of ill health suffered and bad behavior perpetrated by those ignorant enough to over consume the demon booze.

Personally I consume virtually no alcohol so this doesn’t directly affect me, but it isn’t right for the government to use a tax to force anyone to drink less. It is not the government’s business to tell me how to live my life unless what I am doing directly and negatively affects someone else. Politicians should not, must not presume that they know what’s best for the individuals of our country.

Perhaps if the politicians were super efficient and morally and physically superior they could lead by example. But the sad truth is that they are now seen to be useless managers, inept at finance, are mean spirited, pompous and many of them are greedy and corrupt. Secretly many of them smoke, and the majority certainly doesn’t bear close physical examination.

It’s time our politicians concentrated on their jobs and left our lives to us.