Photo: Public Domain
The existence of a welfare state with benefits available for those who are either sick or disabled and unable to work or who are temporarily unemployed along with a National Health Service free at the point of use for all is a sign of a civilised society.
Further there are rules governing health & safety and numerous other aspects of our lives that are necessary to protect the individual from most wrongdoing. Of course society is far from perfect and attitudes change about what can and cannot be done.
How far should the state go?
A couple of stories have aired over the last couple of days that go far to far in my opinion,
First up was The Telegraph's report:
Road signs on the ground for "zombies" glued to their phones
Road signs need to be placed on the ground to guide "zombie pedestrians" glued to their phones a government spokesman has said.
Shaun Helman, who advises the Government and transport authorities around the world said redesigning streets would have a "greater impact" on preventing accidents from pedestrians than trying to change behaviour.
It could mean embedding strips of red lights on kerbs to signal to pedestrians looking down at their phones to stop at junctions or special lanes on pavements as "text walking lanes" with painted white arrows to guide addicts glued to their phones.
How about telling people to watch where they're going instead. People need to take some if not a lot of responsibility for their actions. Besides how much would this nonsense cost if the entire country is to be covered?
Apparently there are some places like Antwerp in Belgium & and X'ian in china where these crackpot ideas have been taken up in part.
But not here please. It's bad enough with these bloody cyclists on pavements and not taking any notice of red lights. Pedestrians or rather those who walk blank minded down the street without due regard to others are a pain and rather than pander to them should be told in no uncertain terms they are idiots.
Photo: By Source
Then yesterday the Cabinet had a split over the major issue of showing calories on menus. Yes that's right. There's Brexit, a crisis in the NHS and god knows how many other important issues to worry about and our Government is arguing about whether restaurants and other food outlets should show the number of calories in each dish.
The treasury objects on grounds of cost for small businesses, and let's be clear these will be mostly very small businesses that will have to fork out for lab testing of every dish, every sandwich they provide.
Apparently McDonalds and Pizza Express already do so. Can't say I've noticed or would even bother to look. I doubt very much anybody else does either.
As for Restaurant food, the only thing I ever look out for these days is the "heat" of a dish for medical reasons. Miss a Madras I have to say! I'm sure others have to look out for similar reasons such as allergies. But a restaurant visit is normally a treat. Does anyone really care about calories in their curry???
It might catch out some of those poncy high class restaurants that serve tiny dishes at outrageous prices. Not a proper meal if you ask me.
Financial reasons alone should stop such ridiculous legislation.
The state can go too far. We don't need pavement lights for mobile phone users, they simply need to be told to look where they are frigging going.
When we go to restaurants people don't want to worry about calories or they'll just have the salad without dressing. Yuch.
We all know our currys have a high calorie value. Do we care? Nah Just sod off or pass the naan bread please.
Meanwhile .....
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