In this country we have developed a new culture, where the silent majority foots the bill for the iniquities of a miniscule minority. It isn’t just one case, it is dozens of cases. Yesterday we were warned by the newsreader that if we did not show the MOT disc on our car windscreen, we would be fined £200. This is because a very small percentage of vehicles are being driven without MOT and probably no licence and no insurance. The reason my savings have gone down the Swannee is because a very small percentage of bank directors, whom we thought we could trust, in an effort to increase their financial situation, have overextended the takeovers of other directors, in other countries, who also took rash decisions. The government, in order to curtail binge drinking by teenagers, has decided to increase the cost of alcohol across the board, which in turn has unreasonably increased the VAT also. I tried to think of how many teenagers I have known who are binge drinkers, and could think of none in 86 years. I tried to think of the number of alcoholics that I have come across in my normal associations in the same period, and it was about five out of what I assume is about 200 people in all. All this business about fining you if you’ve ‘contaminated’ a waste disposal bin in some manner, is another case in point. The majority are being castigated for the few. I don’t really believe there is the level of fuel shortage that has required this hype in the price of petrol, electricity, heating, and in consequence every other aspect of our lives, including a hype in VAT. This business of don’t drink and drive, is not because the whole nation has become totally irresponsible, it is because some drunks, I suspect a miniscule percentage of the population, have killed somebody while under the influence of alcohol. For this, the whole of our social fabric has been turned upside down; where we used to have a convivial evening with a few drinks, and a sense of responsibility, we are now being treated like children, as if we have no sense of responsibility, and the nanny state has to take charge and breathalyse us to make sure we really are responsible. Political correctness is yet another case.
Over the years I have watched this concept, mainly by government, creeping into our existence, yearly tightening the straps on the straitjacket that is now our existence. Fining for so many different errors, in every case has two reasons, one is that it is easy to control in this way, whether it is reasonable or not. The second is that authorities derive income, from yet another source. The worst example of this of course is clamping.