The United Kingdom Elections 2010

[Louis VI the Fat]

'Fog in The Channel, Europe cut off'.

Soon this will be: 'Frog in La Manche, Britain cut off'.

Because, did I mention yet that the French Marine for the first time in three centuries replaced the British Royal Navy as the biggest European Naval power?

Behold these Weapons of Mass Destruction, ready to strike England in 45 minutes. And there is notHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT:



Look at all those shiny new ships, Furunculus, that we can, and you can't, afford!!

~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~

Edit: It has begun!!1!

Nuclear subs collide in Atlantic

A Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in a collision with a French nuclear sub in the middle of the Atlantic, the MoD has confirmed.

HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant were badly damaged in the crash in heavy seas earlier this month.
First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band said the submarines came into contact at low speed and no injuries were reported.
Both the UK and France insisted nuclear security had not been compromised.

BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the incident was "incredibly embarrassing" for the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
HMS Vanguard returned to its home base Faslane on the Firth of Clyde under her own power on 14 February.

"Very visible dents and scrapes" could be seen as tugs towed her in to the port on the final stage of the journey, our correspondent said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7892294.stm

Clearly, the Atlantic is not big enough for both our navies. Let this be a forewarning of what's to become of what little there is left of your fleet, or British pride, should the Royal Navy cross our path again.

[Boohugh]

Umm, you do realise that article is a year old Louis? You know...when our navy was still bigger than yours?

I miss those days...

[Furunculus]

Soon this will be: 'Frog in La Manche, Britain cut off'.
Because, did I mention yet that the French Marine for the first time in three centuries replaced the British Royal Navy as the biggest European Naval power?
Behold these Weapons of Mass Destruction, ready to strike England in 45 minutes. And there is notHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT:

Look at all those shiny new ships, Furunculus, that we can, and you can't, afford!!

~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~

Edit: It has begun!!1!
Clearly, the Atlantic is not big enough for both our navies. Let this be a forewarning of what's to become of what little there is left of your fleet, or British pride, should the Royal Navy cross our path again.

lol, you're a funny man Louis, i'll never deny it.

of course its embarrassing, unlike the continent, we tend to give our guys a sound thrashing when they prang their countries warships, it's not taken as given that half your fleet will naturally lie at the bottom of the harbour whether from fair means or foul. its why we titter and you mutter when brest is mentioned.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Planning to revisit Beachy Head eh Louis?

[InsaneApache]

Aye, well, you Frenchies might have a head start but we do still have rum sodomy and the lash. Just goes to show, you can't be too careful.

[Furunculus]

the authoritarian tendancies of labour, necessary to achieve the 'liberal' paradise they seek:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...-a-carton.html

If disturbing eggs is illegal, someone fetch me a carton
With Labour's laws creating a new kind of crime every day, Bryony Gordon is not sure which to break first.

Published: 7:58PM GMT 22 Jan 2010

I don't know what you're planning to do this weekend: a spot of shopping, perhaps. Some household chores. A nice walk in the park with the family. If you're anything like me, you will spend it doing absolutely nothing at all, apart from lying under your duvet with only a good book for company, the good book perhaps later being joined by your close chum, self-loathing.

Anyway, whatever the case, stop! Stop shopping, and cleaning, and walking, and wallowing in self-pity! Drop everything! For I have a suggestion about how to spend your two days off, and it is this: go swimming in the wreck of the Titanic.

Pardon? Eh? What's that you say? You're not sure that exploring a shipwreck is really a safe activity for all the family? You don't much fancy the depths of the north Atlantic in January and, anyway, you wouldn't know where to get a wetsuit at such short notice? Ah. Probably just as well, seeing as it is now a crime to enter the hull of the Titanic – at least without receiving permission from a Cabinet minister first.

This wacky regulation, we learnt this week, is just one of almost 4,300 crimes created by Labour since they took power. I barely need mention the big ones that we all know – smoking in a pub, for example, or hunting a fox – but it's worth taking a look at some of the lesser publicised ones, if only for a laugh.

For example: disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer, selling game birds shot on a Sunday (or Christmas Day), and "reporting to the master or other officer in charge of the bridge a door to be closed and locked when it is not in fact closed and locked" (that one from Merchant Shipping Miscellaneous Amendment Regulations).

Also illegal: causing a nuclear explosion. You'd have thought – nay, hoped – that this would already be classed as a crime. But never mind – I can't imagine there will be all that many police around to ask "What's going on here, then?" in the event of an A-bomb going off.

The law, then, is an ass – but who knew quite how many weird and wonderful ways one could break it? Under Gordon Brown, the Government is dreaming up about 33 a month, beating his good pal Tony, who only managed a measly 27. In total, criminal offences have been created at the rate of about one for every day that Labour have been in office. It's a wonder they've had time to do anything else.

Last night, Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, attacked the Government for an "acute and prolonged bout of legislative diarrhoea". Thanks for that image, Chris. Huhne wrote to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, asking him to repeal some of the laws. Straw, referring to the crime of disturbing a pack of eggs, responded thusly: "Egg marketing inspectors must be able to ensure that eggs suspected of being marketed in contravention of EU regulations are not tampered with." He added that he was "sorry that you regard these offences as unnecessary. In their different ways, they are important pieces of legislation."

So. It is OK for the Government to invade a country illegally, but if you fiddle with a packet of eggs, it's off with your head? The phrase that springs to mind here is, of course, "law unto themselves" – but since, for the time being, they're still running things, here are some suggestions for a few other criminal offences they could create before being booted out later in the year:

• In future, it will be illegal to keep food beyond its sell-by date. Why? Because it could kill you, you absolute idiot. Although you're not allowed to throw it away. No. That would just be wasteful.

• On that point, we don't do waste. Not any more. Waste is bad, especially when your local council doesn't bother to pick it up for weeks on end. Also, some of you stupidly mix your plastics with your paper, which just won't do. From now on, it's a crime to create waste of any kind, unless of course that waste happens to be in the form of legislation such as this.

• However, it is now illegal for supermarkets to sell you something without giving you something else for free.

• After the roaring success of the Asbo, we will introduce the SuBo, under which anti-social beings will be rehabilitated in X Factor-style boot camps under the guidance of Lord Cowell of Wembley.

• Any scrutiny of the spending habits of Members of Parliament is to be made illegal. Offenders will be given community service, which might involve repairing bell towers or sorting out dry rot.

• Thinking freely, for yourself, without instruction from the Government, is also banned. Who on earth do you think you are? A sentient human being? Honestly, the cheek of you people.

[CountArach]

the authoritarian tendancies of labour, necessary to achieve the 'liberal' paradise they seek:

I don't see anyone here claiming that NewLab are trying to create some sort of liberal paradise. They are an authoritarian party and I don't think that anyone could possibly contest that theory.

I've noted a lot of people who think that being more anti-immigration would win either Party a lot of votes from disgruntled people who have moved over to the BNP. This blog isn't so sure.

Every day during the campaign Populus asked 250 people what they recalled the Conservative party saying recently. Over 30% of people recalled the Conservative message on immigration after Michael Howard announcement at the end of January that the Conservatives would impose an annual limit on immigration. Apart from 3 days after the council tax announcement, it remained the most recalled message when people were asked about the Conservative party for the rest of January and February. In March it remained amongst the most recalled issues, but was topped for a while by opposing anti-terrorism legislation, sacking Howard Flight and cracking down on travellers. Once the election was actually called, on every single day throughout the whole of the campaign the most recalled Conservative message was anti-immigration. Immigration is indeed a very salient issue, and it completely swamped Conservative messages on health, taxes, policing and so on. At the end of the campaign Populus asked people to characterise this Conservative campaign which people had recalled as being almost wholly about immigration. The most popular options were negative and aggressive.

There is no denying that Immigration is a huge issue, and that more people want tighter Immigration laws, however it also cannot be denied that a campaign of picking on Immigrants is characterised as inherently aggressive.

[InsaneApache]

I don't think that anyone is picking on immigrants, except the BNP that is. The influx of immigrants has been unprecendented in our history and many parts of the country are struggling with housing, schools, hospitals etc. etc. Especially in the south-east.

That it was a deliberate policy by Blair and Brown, "to rub the noses of the right in it", has come back to bite them on the bum. Many of the white working classes are moving towards the BNP and away from Labour because of this. Too late the realisation has dawned on Labour ministers that they can no longer rely on the white working class vote, hence recent announcements from the politburo. Stable doors and horses springs to mind.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I don't see anyone here claiming that NewLab are trying to create some sort of liberal paradise. They are an authoritarian party and I don't think that anyone could possibly contest that theory.

Most political parties, especially those on the left, are authoritarian. The whole platform is based on forcing people to behave - they are told how they can go about business, how they should raise their children, what car they should drive, that they should recycle, what fair trade food they should buy, what insurance they must have, etc.

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption
of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the
Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers
of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to
govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good
masters, but they mean to be masters."

-Daniel Webster

CR

[Subotan]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...-a-carton.html

If disturbing eggs is illegal, someone fetch me a carton
With Labour's laws creating a new kind of crime every day, Bryony Gordon is not sure which to break first.

Published: 7:58PM GMT 22 Jan 2010

I don't know what you're planning to do this weekend: a spot of shopping, perhaps. Some household chores. A nice walk in the park with the family. If you're anything like me, you will spend it doing absolutely nothing at all, apart from lying under your duvet with only a good book for company, the good book perhaps later being joined by your close chum, self-loathing.

Anyway, whatever the case, stop! Stop shopping, and cleaning, and walking, and wallowing in self-pity! Drop everything! For I have a suggestion about how to spend your two days off, and it is this: go swimming in the wreck of the Titanic.

Pardon? Eh? What's that you say? You're not sure that exploring a shipwreck is really a safe activity for all the family? You don't much fancy the depths of the north Atlantic in January and, anyway, you wouldn't know where to get a wetsuit at such short notice? Ah. Probably just as well, seeing as it is now a crime to enter the hull of the Titanic – at least without receiving permission from a Cabinet minister first.

This wacky regulation, we learnt this week, is just one of almost 4,300 crimes created by Labour since they took power. I barely need mention the big ones that we all know – smoking in a pub, for example, or hunting a fox – but it's worth taking a look at some of the lesser publicised ones, if only for a laugh.

For example: disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer, selling game birds shot on a Sunday (or Christmas Day), and "reporting to the master or other officer in charge of the bridge a door to be closed and locked when it is not in fact closed and locked" (that one from Merchant Shipping Miscellaneous Amendment Regulations).

Also illegal: causing a nuclear explosion. You'd have thought – nay, hoped – that this would already be classed as a crime. But never mind – I can't imagine there will be all that many police around to ask "What's going on here, then?" in the event of an A-bomb going off.

The law, then, is an ass – but who knew quite how many weird and wonderful ways one could break it? Under Gordon Brown, the Government is dreaming up about 33 a month, beating his good pal Tony, who only managed a measly 27. In total, criminal offences have been created at the rate of about one for every day that Labour have been in office. It's a wonder they've had time to do anything else.

Last night, Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, attacked the Government for an "acute and prolonged bout of legislative diarrhoea". Thanks for that image, Chris. Huhne wrote to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, asking him to repeal some of the laws. Straw, referring to the crime of disturbing a pack of eggs, responded thusly: "Egg marketing inspectors must be able to ensure that eggs suspected of being marketed in contravention of EU regulations are not tampered with." He added that he was "sorry that you regard these offences as unnecessary. In their different ways, they are important pieces of legislation."

So. It is OK for the Government to invade a country illegally, but if you fiddle with a packet of eggs, it's off with your head? The phrase that springs to mind here is, of course, "law unto themselves" – but since, for the time being, they're still running things, here are some suggestions for a few other criminal offences they could create before being booted out later in the year:

• In future, it will be illegal to keep food beyond its sell-by date. Why? Because it could kill you, you absolute idiot. Although you're not allowed to throw it away. No. That would just be wasteful.

• On that point, we don't do waste. Not any more. Waste is bad, especially when your local council doesn't bother to pick it up for weeks on end. Also, some of you stupidly mix your plastics with your paper, which just won't do. From now on, it's a crime to create waste of any kind, unless of course that waste happens to be in the form of legislation such as this.

• However, it is now illegal for supermarkets to sell you something without giving you something else for free.

• After the roaring success of the Asbo, we will introduce the SuBo, under which anti-social beings will be rehabilitated in X Factor-style boot camps under the guidance of Lord Cowell of Wembley.

• Any scrutiny of the spending habits of Members of Parliament is to be made illegal. Offenders will be given community service, which might involve repairing bell towers or sorting out dry rot.

• Thinking freely, for yourself, without instruction from the Government, is also banned. Who on earth do you think you are? A sentient human being? Honestly, the cheek of you people.

That's a terrible article. I hate journalists who use "At this rate X is going to happen", as they make it look like X is actually real, and it's lazy journalism.

Probably just as well, seeing as it is now a crime to enter the hull of the Titanic – at least without receiving permission from a Cabinet minister first.

How is that authoritarian? That's just common sense, to prevent looting.

I highly doubt that if either the Tories or the Lib Dems get in that they will fail to stop this "legislative diarrhoea".

The influx of immigrants has been unprecendented in our history

Really?

and many parts of the country are struggling with housing, schools, hospitals

I highly doubt this, especially the last two. Immigrants are usually young men, who have no need of the latter.

That it was a deliberate policy by Blair and Brown, "to rub the noses of the right in it", has come back to bite them on the bum.

I'm not sure if you're talking about EU immigrants or otherwise. If it's the former, then that is the result of other European countries closing their doors to Poles etc, and a communication failure by the government. If it's the latter, again, I highly doubt it.

Too late the realisation has dawned on Labour ministers that they can no longer rely on the white working class vote, hence recent announcements from the politburo. Stable doors and horses springs to mind.

Immigrants are just a scapegoat. The real reason the white working class are defecting from Labour is because Labour's economic policies have disproportionally favoured the rich/Middle England, and because the working class are no longer as influential as a voting bloc as they were in the past.

[Furunculus]

That's a terrible article. I hate journalists who use "At this rate X is going to happen", as they make it look like X is actually real, and it's lazy journalism.

I highly doubt that if either the Tories or the Lib Dems get in that they will fail to stop this "legislative diarrhoea".

what you need to focus on is:

[snip]This wacky regulation, we learnt this week, is just one of almost 4,300 crimes created by Labour since they took power. I barely need mention the big ones that we all know – smoking in a pub, for example, or hunting a fox – but it's worth taking a look at some of the lesser publicised ones, if only for a laugh.

For example: disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer, selling game birds shot on a Sunday (or Christmas Day), and "reporting to the master or other officer in charge of the bridge a door to be closed and locked when it is not in fact closed and locked" (that one from Merchant Shipping Miscellaneous Amendment Regulations).

Also illegal: causing a nuclear explosion. You'd have thought – nay, hoped – that this would already be classed as a crime. But never mind – I can't imagine there will be all that many police around to ask "What's going on here, then?" in the event of an A-bomb going off.

The law, then, is an ass – but who knew quite how many weird and wonderful ways one could break it? Under Gordon Brown, the Government is dreaming up about 33 a month, beating his good pal Tony, who only managed a measly 27. In total, criminal offences have been created at the rate of about one for every day that Labour have been in office. [snip]

oh really, i have to confess i think the cons might have created a whole lot less new offences during their last period of government....

[Louis VI the Fat]

the authoritarian tendancies of labour, necessary to achieve the 'liberal' paradise they seek:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/p...-a-carton.html

Bollox, the lot of it. Populist nonsense. Written by somebody without the faintest clue about laws, regulations and legal matters. Or, more worryingly, as I shall argue in the post below, written by somebody with an insidious political agenda.


Here we go:

1)

However, it is now illegal for supermarkets to sell you something without giving you something else for free.

I suggest any Briton goes to a supermarket tomorrow, armed with his copy of the Daily Outragograph, and insists he must be given something for free with his purchase.
Watch yourself being laughed out of the shop. Watch yourself being laughed out of your lawyer's office when trying to get your due based on this misreporting.


2)

Also illegal: causing a nuclear explosion.

Legislation was brought in after 9-11, to close loopholes that might prevent terror suspects from being prosecuted. 'Illegal to cause a nuclear explosion' - nothing wrong with that law. In fact, it is so bloody obvious that perhaps previous governmets forgot to mention it, leaving room for crafty lawyers to get terrorists of the hook, even when caught red-handed with a nuclear device on the London Underground.



3)

disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer

Spreading salmonella by interfering with eggs declared as contaminated with it?

4)

Others:

Switching the ear tag of an animal which has been declared disease-free to one which hasn’t?
Fishing out endangered species and hiding what you’ve done in an “unsorted” batch?
Gaining some advantage by claiming qualifications you don’t have?

'Legal diarrhea'?
Not at all. I say the people who are laughing at these silly laws, outraged at the Labour 'police state', are either unaware of, or haven't thought through, the underlying issues behind these laws/local regulations/court decisions.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Do you know that genius postmodern text generator? It is a program that automatically produces an interesting (at first glance) postmodern text. Out of just a few words and concepts, endlessly mixed and re-arranged, the programs manages to produce an infinite number of texts.

I say the Telegraph has managed the same. The paper is filled by spambots, several programs written by the Telegraph, which automatically create daily, endlessly repetitive articles based on just a few concepts and phrases, written into a new daily outrage article simply by tossing about the order of these handful of concepts.

I feel like Groundhog Day when reading the Telegraph.



Here you go, if one wants to have a real laugh, instead of laughing at legislation that actually makes Britian safer for British people, read how the Telegraph simply repeats its own articles with intervals of eighteen months. The trick behind this is, the reader vaguely remembers he has read it all before, so thinks to himself that what is written is probably true - since he has heard it from multiple sources.

This is how you are being taken for a ride.

This is the real problem of British politics: the media moguls, the clique of billionaires in London, their lackeys in Westminster.
In the case of the Torygraph, the two billionaire tax exiles who run their channel island - made into and kept a s a private tax haven by London - as feudal barons. And who hold a disproportionate stake in British media, to spew an endless daily diarrhea of false or misleading information to the British people.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Labour has created 3,600 new offences since 1997.

The Government has created more than 3,600 criminal offences since it came to office in 1997, almost one for every day in power.

By Chris Irvine
Published: 7:40AM BST 04 Sep 2008




Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, will reveal the statistic as he sets out a fresh initiative to cut crime.
Critics of the new laws blame a government addicted to pushing complicated legislation through Parliament, and keen on grabbing a cheap headline.

A total of 3,605 offences have been introduced since May 1997, an average of 320 a year.
They include 1,238 brought in as primary legislation, which means they were debated in Parliament, and 2,367 by secondary legislation, such as orders in council and statutory documents.

The worst offender is the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which has created 852 new offences.
This is followed by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and its predecessor the Department for Trade and Industry, which between them have created 678 offences.
Meanwhile the Home Office is responsible for 455 offences.

Among some of the more bizarre criminal offences created in the past five years include disturbing a pack of eggs when instructed not to by an authorised officer, or offering for sale a game bird killed on a Sunday or Christmas Day.
Under Tony Blair, Labour introduced 160 new offences in his first year, but in 2003, 493 offences were created.

Mr Huhne said "In what conceivable way can the introduction of a new criminal offence every day help tackle crime when most crimes that people care about have been illegal for years.
"This legislative diarrhoea is not about making us safer, because it does not help enforce the laws that we have one jot. It is about the Government's posturing on punishments."

Here is a list of some of the new criminal offences brought in under Labour:
- Creating a nuclear explosion
- Selling types of flora and fauna not native to the UK, such as the grey squirrel, ruddy duck or Japanese knotweed
- To wilfully pretend to be a barrister or a traffic warden
- Disturb a pack of eggs when instructed not to by an authorised officers
- Obstruct workers carrying out repairs to the Dockland Light Railway
- Offer for sale a game bird killed on a Sunday or Christmas Day
- Allow an unlicensed concert in a church hall or community centre
- A ship's captain may end up in court if he or she carries grain without a copy of the International Grain Code on board

If disturbing eggs is illegal, someone fetch me a carton
With Labour's laws creating a new kind of crime every day, Bryony Gordon is not sure which to break first.

Published: 7:58PM GMT 22 Jan 2010

I don't know what you're planning to do this weekend: a spot of shopping, perhaps. Some household chores. A nice walk in the park with the family. If you're anything like me, you will spend it doing absolutely nothing at all, apart from lying under your duvet with only a good book for company, the good book perhaps later being joined by your close chum, self-loathing.

Anyway, whatever the case, stop! Stop shopping, and cleaning, and walking, and wallowing in self-pity! Drop everything! For I have a suggestion about how to spend your two days off, and it is this: go swimming in the wreck of the Titanic.

Pardon? Eh? What's that you say? You're not sure that exploring a shipwreck is really a safe activity for all the family? You don't much fancy the depths of the north Atlantic in January and, anyway, you wouldn't know where to get a wetsuit at such short notice? Ah. Probably just as well, seeing as it is now a crime to enter the hull of the Titanic – at least without receiving permission from a Cabinet minister first.

This wacky regulation, we learnt this week, is just one of almost 4,300 crimes created by Labour since they took power. I barely need mention the big ones that we all know – smoking in a pub, for example, or hunting a fox – but it's worth taking a look at some of the lesser publicised ones, if only for a laugh.

For example: disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer, selling game birds shot on a Sunday (or Christmas Day), and "reporting to the master or other officer in charge of the bridge a door to be closed and locked when it is not in fact closed and locked" (that one from Merchant Shipping Miscellaneous Amendment Regulations).

Also illegal: causing a nuclear explosion. You'd have thought – nay, hoped – that this would already be classed as a crime. But never mind – I can't imagine there will be all that many police around to ask "What's going on here, then?" in the event of an A-bomb going off.

The law, then, is an ass – but who knew quite how many weird and wonderful ways one could break it? Under Gordon Brown, the Government is dreaming up about 33 a month, beating his good pal Tony, who only managed a measly 27. In total, criminal offences have been created at the rate of about one for every day that Labour have been in office. It's a wonder they've had time to do anything else.

Last night, Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, attacked the Government for an "acute and prolonged bout of legislative diarrhoea". Thanks for that image, Chris. Huhne wrote to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, asking him to repeal some of the laws. Straw, referring to the crime of disturbing a pack of eggs, responded thusly: "Egg marketing inspectors must be able to ensure that eggs suspected of being marketed in contravention of EU regulations are not tampered with." He added that he was "sorry that you regard these offences as unnecessary. In their different ways, they are important pieces of legislation."

So. It is OK for the Government to invade a country illegally, but if you fiddle with a packet of eggs, it's off with your head? The phrase that springs to mind here is, of course, "law unto themselves" – but since, for the time being, they're still running things, here are some suggestions for a few other criminal offences they could create before being booted out later in the year:

• In future, it will be illegal to keep food beyond its sell-by date. Why? Because it could kill you, you absolute idiot. Although you're not allowed to throw it away. No. That would just be wasteful.

• On that point, we don't do waste. Not any more. Waste is bad, especially when your local council doesn't bother to pick it up for weeks on end. Also, some of you stupidly mix your plastics with your paper, which just won't do. From now on, it's a crime to create waste of any kind, unless of course that waste happens to be in the form of legislation such as this.

• However, it is now illegal for supermarkets to sell you something without giving you something else for free.

• After the roaring success of the Asbo, we will introduce the SuBo, under which anti-social beings will be rehabilitated in X Factor-style boot camps under the guidance of Lord Cowell of Wembley.

• Any scrutiny of the spending habits of Members of Parliament is to be made illegal. Offenders will be given community service, which might involve repairing bell towers or sorting out dry rot.

• Thinking freely, for yourself, without instruction from the Government, is also banned. Who on earth do you think you are? A sentient human being? Honestly, the cheek of you people.

[Strike For The South]

Europe is like....different.

[Furunculus]

Bollox, the lot of it. Populist nonsense.

as i said to subotan, concentrate on the bolded text:

[snip]This wacky regulation, we learnt this week, is just one of almost 4,300 crimes created by Labour since they took power. I barely need mention the big ones that we all know – smoking in a pub, for example, or hunting a fox – but it's worth taking a look at some of the lesser publicised ones, if only for a laugh.

For example: disturbing a pack of eggs when directed not to by an authorised officer, selling game birds shot on a Sunday (or Christmas Day), and "reporting to the master or other officer in charge of the bridge a door to be closed and locked when it is not in fact closed and locked" (that one from Merchant Shipping Miscellaneous Amendment Regulations).

Also illegal: causing a nuclear explosion. You'd have thought – nay, hoped – that this would already be classed as a crime. But never mind – I can't imagine there will be all that many police around to ask "What's going on here, then?" in the event of an A-bomb going off.

The law, then, is an ass – but who knew quite how many weird and wonderful ways one could break it? Under Gordon Brown, the Government is dreaming up about 33 a month, beating his good pal Tony, who only managed a measly 27. In total, criminal offences have been created at the rate of about one for every day that Labour have been in office. [snip]

[Subotan]

what car they should drive, that they should recycle, what fair trade food they should buy, what insurance they must have, etc.

I should be able to have the freedom from the negative externalities that those activities will create.

[CountArach]

2)

Also illegal: causing a nuclear explosion.

Legislation was brought in after 9-11, to close loopholes that might prevent terror suspects from being prosecuted. 'Illegal to cause a nuclear explosion' - nothing wrong with that law. In fact, it is so bloody obvious that perhaps previous governmets forgot to mention it, leaving room for crafty lawyers to get terrorists of the hook, even when caught red-handed with a nuclear device on the London Underground.

Actually that law was brought in in 1998. Other than that I don't disagree with much in the post. On the other hand I get what Furunculus is saying in that it is indicative of an approach to crime that just reeks of Authoritarianism.

Most political parties, especially those on the left, are authoritarian. The whole platform is based on forcing people to behave - they are told how they can go about business, how they should raise their children, what car they should drive, that they should recycle, what fair trade food they should buy, what insurance they must have, etc.

Well that depends on if your definition of Authoritarian extends to economic matters as well. Clearly yours does, and mine does not. Given that difference any arguing by either of us would just be banging our head against a wall.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Well that depends on if your definition of Authoritarian extends to economic matters as well. Clearly yours does, and mine does not. Given that difference any arguing by either of us would just be banging our head against a wall.

Of course it does. Social conservatism is generally authoritarian, just as left-wing economics are authoritarian. You just support fiscal authoritarianism. That's fine, we allow different opinions here, but at least come out and admit it.