Liberty and laws
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 I'm on BBC Radio Manchester tomorrow morning (8.07 to be exact) wearing my Free Society hat. The government is due to announce new laws concerning prostitution so I've been asked to discuss the use of legislation to regulate people's behaviour.
I have just recorded a comment for a trailer to be broadcast an hour earlier, at seven. This is what I said (more or less):
"There have to be some laws to protect those who can't protect themselves, but politicians today are guilty of over-regulation. Increasingly they are trying to dictate every aspect of our lives. They are restricting and even criminalising freedom of choice.
"They tell us we shouldn't smoke and ban smoking in every pub and private members' club in the country. If we ignore the ban they take us to court and fine us.
"They tell us how many units of alcohol we should drink each week, and if we exceed their guidelines they call us binge-drinkers and call for a ban on low price alcohol.
"Prohibition doesn't work. There are some things that will never go away. Banning something drives it underground. Government loses all control and the only people who benefit are the criminal gangs."
If I get a chance I will say that politicians are among the last people who should moralise about our behaviour. Let them get their own house in order before they tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
The other guest is Stewart Dakers who writes for the Guardian. Should be interesting.
Reader Comments (2)
Well done Simon and good luck for tomorrow.
If you get the chance, you might care to mention the horrendous adverse effects the smoking ban is having on people with depression and anxiety and other forms of mental health issues and is ome cases causing them to turn to drink when they didn't before. It is also partially the cause of people recently becoming obese, due to not going out so drinking and snacking at home when this didn't happen in the past!
Just a thought, anyway, know you can't bring up everything and you probably have your points ready anyway.
I've just read a post by someone on the Greenslade article who says that politicians (possibly MEPs) have voted to reduce the duty free allowance from 3200 to 400 packets of cigs!! Does anyone know any more about this? (The poster also says that they've halved the allowance on alcohol.)