Don't misbehave! Poster by V. Govorkov Leningrad 1948.
Well I have made my first contribution to the discourse at Babergh District Council, having piped up during the Strategy Committee to question whether it was really necessary to forbid the residents of Stour House in Sudbury from smoking in the garden that adjoins the council owned centre for the homeless.
The reply, which was imbued with that aura of unanswerable virtue that surrounds any reference to children these days, was that the prohibition is indeed necessary since ‘the garden is small and children play there’. It does seem to me however that since residents at Stour House can smoke in their {often very small) rooms which are shared with their children, smoking outside in what is effectively the garden to their own homes must be preferable, and should be allowed. The council does not presume to stop council tenants from smoking in their gardens, (at least not yet), so why add an additional burden to individuals who are going through what I know from my experience at the CAB to be an extremely difficult period of their lives?
I must swiftly add that I have never been a smoker myself, and on the whole approve of much of the government’s recent legislation aimed at protecting people from passive smoking. I do however also believe that if we are not to encroach too far on individual freedom a person who wishes to continue to smoke despite the fact that she or he knows that it is bad for their health, then they should be allowed to do so in what amounts to their own home. It is absolutely none of anyone else’s business.
But individual freedom has never been more under attack by ‘the powers that be’, and this is of considerable concern. I firmly believe that wherever possible people should be LEFT ALONE TO GET ON WITH THEIR LIVES.
Now we read that those of us who like to have a drink at home in the evening are to be targeted for government action! What an impertinence! and what a waste of time and resources! Why not expend more effort combating anti social creatures such as the yobs busy making the lives of residents close to the Shawlands Retail Park a misery for example? The law abiding are much soft targets of course, and are much easier to tax.
I can do no better than draw your attention to a letter in the Times today which quotes Sir Toby Belch’s response to a high handed officer in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night:
Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think that, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
Well I have made my first contribution to the discourse at Babergh District Council, having piped up during the Strategy Committee to question whether it was really necessary to forbid the residents of Stour House in Sudbury from smoking in the garden that adjoins the council owned centre for the homeless.
The reply, which was imbued with that aura of unanswerable virtue that surrounds any reference to children these days, was that the prohibition is indeed necessary since ‘the garden is small and children play there’. It does seem to me however that since residents at Stour House can smoke in their {often very small) rooms which are shared with their children, smoking outside in what is effectively the garden to their own homes must be preferable, and should be allowed. The council does not presume to stop council tenants from smoking in their gardens, (at least not yet), so why add an additional burden to individuals who are going through what I know from my experience at the CAB to be an extremely difficult period of their lives?
I must swiftly add that I have never been a smoker myself, and on the whole approve of much of the government’s recent legislation aimed at protecting people from passive smoking. I do however also believe that if we are not to encroach too far on individual freedom a person who wishes to continue to smoke despite the fact that she or he knows that it is bad for their health, then they should be allowed to do so in what amounts to their own home. It is absolutely none of anyone else’s business.
But individual freedom has never been more under attack by ‘the powers that be’, and this is of considerable concern. I firmly believe that wherever possible people should be LEFT ALONE TO GET ON WITH THEIR LIVES.
Now we read that those of us who like to have a drink at home in the evening are to be targeted for government action! What an impertinence! and what a waste of time and resources! Why not expend more effort combating anti social creatures such as the yobs busy making the lives of residents close to the Shawlands Retail Park a misery for example? The law abiding are much soft targets of course, and are much easier to tax.
I can do no better than draw your attention to a letter in the Times today which quotes Sir Toby Belch’s response to a high handed officer in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night:
Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think that, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
