By Blad Tolstoy
Many years ago whilst a martial arts student, I remember my instructor telling us that those who bully the weak show themselves to be weak.
This is one of those lessons that has stayed with me and I reflect upon it frequently when I consider how often this government directs the forces of law and order to persecute law abiding citizens whilst ignoring the actions of dangerous criminals.
Smokers, of course, have been an easy target as our most hypocritical Executive tries to court cheap popularity by victimising them whilst enjoying the enormous contribution the latter make to the treasury.
In the last couple of days, many of us have noted that fact that Nu-Labour now intends to make driving whilst holding a mobile phone an offence punishable by imprisonment. Most of us, however, can see what will follow, as this will provide a "perfect" excuse (well, it will be perfect in the thinking of the feeble-minded) to apply the same penalty to those people who choose to smoke and drive.
For those unacquainted with the details, according to the AAA study, which is one of the largest ever undertaken, smoking at the wheel is the lowest cause of accidents, lower, in fact, than not just mobile phone use but also talking to others and fiddling with radios.
See here, page 12:
http://www.aaafoundation.org/pdf/DistractionsInEverydayDriving.pdf
Note too, that smoking comes out as the lowest cause of accidents on both sets of data, and n the CDS data, which is the result of a far longer study using a larger number of people, it egisters at just 0.9%.
Of course, technicalities such as this are of no interest to a dishonest and inept government because it just likes easy targets so it can fool itself into thinking it's doing a great job.
What a pity, however, that the government has not yet cottoned on to the fact that smokers have now become militant. Then, add to the smokers, who are becoming increasingly irate, all those people whose businesses have and will be damaged by the smoking bans, and you have a very large group of people who will not be voting Labour at the next election. In fact, far more than enough to wipe Labour off the political map as a significant force. Moreover, if after all the damage it has caused, the government thinks it will then be able to salve the pain by some kind of sop or buy-off in the future, it can forget it. Memories are long. We shall nurture them and we shall enjoy our revenge cold...The very best way to do so!
Many years ago whilst a martial arts student, I remember my instructor telling us that those who bully the weak show themselves to be weak.
This is one of those lessons that has stayed with me and I reflect upon it frequently when I consider how often this government directs the forces of law and order to persecute law abiding citizens whilst ignoring the actions of dangerous criminals.
Smokers, of course, have been an easy target as our most hypocritical Executive tries to court cheap popularity by victimising them whilst enjoying the enormous contribution the latter make to the treasury.
In the last couple of days, many of us have noted that fact that Nu-Labour now intends to make driving whilst holding a mobile phone an offence punishable by imprisonment. Most of us, however, can see what will follow, as this will provide a "perfect" excuse (well, it will be perfect in the thinking of the feeble-minded) to apply the same penalty to those people who choose to smoke and drive.
For those unacquainted with the details, according to the AAA study, which is one of the largest ever undertaken, smoking at the wheel is the lowest cause of accidents, lower, in fact, than not just mobile phone use but also talking to others and fiddling with radios.
See here, page 12:
http://www.aaafoundation.org/pdf/DistractionsInEverydayDriving.pdf
Note too, that smoking comes out as the lowest cause of accidents on both sets of data, and n the CDS data, which is the result of a far longer study using a larger number of people, it egisters at just 0.9%.
Of course, technicalities such as this are of no interest to a dishonest and inept government because it just likes easy targets so it can fool itself into thinking it's doing a great job.
What a pity, however, that the government has not yet cottoned on to the fact that smokers have now become militant. Then, add to the smokers, who are becoming increasingly irate, all those people whose businesses have and will be damaged by the smoking bans, and you have a very large group of people who will not be voting Labour at the next election. In fact, far more than enough to wipe Labour off the political map as a significant force. Moreover, if after all the damage it has caused, the government thinks it will then be able to salve the pain by some kind of sop or buy-off in the future, it can forget it. Memories are long. We shall nurture them and we shall enjoy our revenge cold...The very best way to do so!
Poll puts Tories 12 points ahead of Labour
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/21/npoll121.xml
See also this one by Anthony King:
Gordon Brown is staring at election meltdown
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/21/npoll221.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/21/npoll121.xml
See also this one by Anthony King:
Gordon Brown is staring at election meltdown
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/21/npoll221.xml
