Tackling the Obesity problem - it's none of your business!

I caught the tale end of a BBC news report the other day about the 'need to tackle the obesity problem' and this has been bugging me for a while. There are two issues here:

1. This is a political agenda and as such the BBC should have nothing to do with it; they certainly shouldn't be making statements about how it needs to be tackled. God damn lefties are destroying the BBC.

2. It's not the government's problem to solve people's weight problems. If they want to be fat, then they can be fat. If we allow Government to interfere in our personal lives, then they will eventually control everything from how often we wash our clothes to how much exercise we must do each day. Socialist scum want to create a Big Brother state, and attacking fat people is just another step along that road.

It's obviously different with children, because they are incapable of making informed and properly reasoned life choices. I would say bringing up a child is tantamount to child abuse. But once they are adults, then they are on their own.

This isn't a Bill of Rights, it's a Socialist Manifesto

I am coming very late to this, but according to the BBC, the government should adopt a Bill of Rights for the UK, a cross-party committee of MPs and peers has urged.

That all sounds fine - a Bill of Rights or a British Constitution might have prevented the government from forcing through the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum, for example.

However, as always, the details demonstrate that this is less of a Bill of Rights than a Socialist Manifesto.

The first problem becomes apparent very quickly; "the bill should give greater protection to groups such as children, the elderly and those with learning difficulties". A proper Bill of Rights should give inalienable rights to all citizens, not act as a special interests charter. As soon as minority groups are discriminated in favour of, there will be cries for 'protection' for religious groups, ethnic groups and even ginger people. That's why it should be equal for every citizen.

The second major problem is that the report claims that "the bill should include rights to housing, education and a healthy environment". If that doesn't send a chill down your spine then nothing will. A 'right' to housing? So no need to have to earn it, or look after it if the council houses you, because you have a consitutional right to it. And what happens when there simply isn't enough housing? Given that we are in the EU, presumably every EU citizen moving here would automatically have the same 'right' to housing. Will they start forcing home owners with a spare room to provide acoomodation to homesless people?

Add on to the 'right' to housing a 'right' to a healthy environment and we have given the sponging chavs a license to sue the council if they aren't happy with their free housing.

There are so many potential pitfalls it is frightening. What we need is a constitution that limits the powers of the government, not a document that enshrines political ideals and rights that will simply create more problems than they solve.

Libraries need protection from lap dancing clubs

Libraries are under threat from lap-dancing clubs. According to Theresa May, "local people often have legitimate reasons for objecting to the planned location of a lap-dancing club - if it is near a school or a library for instance."

Sometimes politicians just pick on the weirdest things.

Edinburgh Dungeon breaches anti-discrimination laws?

News that Edinburgh Dungeon is refusing access to English people, unless they sign an oath of allegiance to Scotland, raises questions about whether the museum is breaching European anti-discrimination laws.

According to the Telegraph: The Edinburgh Dungeon said the one-day event is in revenge for the Battle of Falkirk, fought 710 years ago July 21st, at which more than 2,000 Scots were slaughtered by the Auld Enemy. English visitors will only be allowed entry if they sign a scroll swearing allegiance to Scotland, while those from other countries will be encouraged to bring in items deemed 'typically English’ to be smashed.

So not only are they being deliberately offensive to people who had nothing to do with a battle 700 years ago, they are simply destoying 'English' items for the sake of it. In an age of when we are all encouraged to recycle and minimise our use of natural resources and minimise our waste output, this can only be seen as grossly irresponsible. Not fun, just wasteful.

What would have happened if they had said that black people weren't allowed into the museum unless they swore an oath of allegiance to white people?

Obviously it is a one day event, and this whole thing is just a publicity stunt. However, such xenophobic nonsense is hardly condusive to better relations.

Update:
According to the Campaign for an English Parliament site, the Commission for Racial Equality has made a complaint and the police have also been involved.

Update 2:
Looks like there were lot of complaints!

"Changing our Drinking Culture" - social engineering out of control

The Guardian has reported that 'Ministers' plans for tackling the problem were unveiled today in a new alcohol strategy entitled, Changing our Drinking Culture'. Isn't this the same Government that introduced 24 hour drinking licences?

The plans involve "limits on 'happy hours' in bars and clubs and the possible introduction of cigarette-style health warnings on bottles and cans" and "assessing whether pub landlords should be obliged to offer smaller servings". Aside from the fact that these are the least imaginative and least effective solutions possible, why is the Government intervening at all?

The role of Government should be to protect and serve the people. The damned socialists are at it again, dictating how other people should lead their lives. In a free society people should be allowed to get drunk. There is NOTHING wrong with alcohol 'abuse' as long as it doesn't negatively impact on other people. In fact, it is part of British culture, if such a thing exists.

Does it mean that a substantial amount of NHS services are required to deal with accidental alcohol related injuries? Yes. But that is what those drinkers pay their taxes for.

If the Government really wanted to reduce alcohol consumption, they should cut benefits payments. I haven't met a single person on benefits yet who can't afford to go boozing and/or smoking.

Government plans e-petitions to waste your time and money

The Government has announced plans to use e-petitions to allow the public to raise issues with Parliament. "Ministers would be expected to reply to most of them, while some would be picked for debate by MPs in Westminster Hall or for select committee scrutiny. "

But haven't we heard all of this before? What is the 10 Downing Street petition website all about then, if it isn't for the public to submit petitions? Why would a Government announce a second petition system that offers nothing that the first one can't provide? If they want petition-based ideas to discuss in Westminster, then look at the existing site, instead of wasting yet more tax money on making a new one.

Is this because they don't have enough to do and need to fill up their time? As Brussels takes over more and more control of our Government at one end, and councils/assemblies/quangos gain more power at the local level, there is less and less for our MPs to do. Perhaps discussing ideas sent in by the public (sounds just like Big Brother's Big Mouth, doesn't it?) is all they can think of to fill up their time.

There are, as mentioned, thousands of petitions already, but what has the Labour Government done with these? Nothing. Why should anyone bother to use yet another petition system when the first one has been ignored? Isn't this really just another way to allow people to vent without Government having to take any notice?

Promoting petitions can take many hours and considerable amounts of money. But what can we expect in return for our efforts? Not a lot. "Ministers would be expected to reply to most of them" - not all, most. So we don't even have a guarantee that it won't be completely ignored, and even then, most will simply receive a 'reply'.

There doesn't even seem to be a system in place to force MPs to debate or act on the most popular petitions; some might get 'picked' (presumably if they are politically advantageous), but there are no criteria to meet.

We should also ask the question - if there are issues that need to be discussed in Select Committees and Parliament, why aren't they being discussed already? What on Earth are we paying our MPs for? Are they so out of touch with the public that they don't already know what concerns their constituents? Any MP admitting to that state of affairs should quit immediately and let someone else do the job.

Has Trevor Phillips drowned under his own politically correct guff?

"The Equality and Human Rights Commission must be given the power to fight the class divide in Britain, its chairman has said" the BBC reports, leaving all sane people with an uneasy feeling in their stomachs. Unfortunately, the BBC forgot to tell us what these desired powers might consist of. Luckily his communist sounding rhetoric is backed up on the Commission's website.

The article brings out that tired old argument of 'The divide between rich and poor has widened to its highest level for 40 years', which sounds awful, but in actual fact means absolutely nothing. It doesn't mean that poor people are poorer, it just means that the rich are richer. It also claims that a survey 'found that 76 per cent of people considered the gap between rich and poor to be too large'. I wonder which 76 percent said that? Hmm.

This is of course typical ugly socialism; the politics of jealousy. Don't congratulate people for doing well and making money, oh no, socialists want to take it off them and give it to people unable to make it for themselves. There is no such thing as a fair redistribution of wealth - it is just extortion under threat of imprisonment. It is one thing to tax people to provide services, it is a completely different thing to tax them simply to give their money to other people. Anyway, I digress.

Oddly, Philips seems to forget that he has made a major case against financial 'inequality' and instead manages to come up with a solution to a completely different problem; citizens’ petitions and local referenda. Or at least that's what I think he is suggesting. It's actually rather hard to tell from the article which is riddled with , as Private Eye would put it, Birt speak.

How allowing individual citizens to "hold organizations to account through their ability to access high-quality, up-to-date information alongside the power to demand action" will tackle the nonexistant issue of the wealth gap is difficult to understand. One has to ask: has Trevor Phillips drowned under his own politically correct guff?