The news that eleven pubs facing closure over the Easter weekend because they were caught selling alcohol to young people and instead been given the option of squeezing it in at a time when they'll stand to lose a lot less money has met mixed reactions, the most common of which seems to be the 'one law for them' type of response.
Curiously, the 'enforcer', Roly Schwarz, said:
"This decision is not made lightly but the number of premises involved here makes for unusual circumstances and could give out a message that the towns themselves were closed for Easter,'which makes a number of truly bizarre assumptions, not least being that the visitors are either potential inebriates or too stupid to read properly. Either way, when we're talking about encouraging under-age drinking, neither he nor the council emerges with much credit.
On the national front, the Government's desire to make every one (except lawyers, interestingly) totally accountable is finally coming back to bite them, as yet more tales of MPs holding down multiple 'jobs', taking free holidays (and the tax payers), and selling their souls generally emerge. One blogger - the Jobbing Doctor - has an answer of sorts. He's proposing that it's high time that MPs were themselves governed by a quango of independent non-elected folk:
First thing I would do is reform the holidays. We are allowed 6 weeks a year, so that can be the same for the politicians. As we are having HMRC crawling all over our tax returns, let's do the same for MPs. We have targets, so there should be some for politicians. We also do not have proper training for MPs, so they should all pass a language, competence and probity test before being allowed to be an MP.
Finally, Obama is busy making history, as the USA takes its first steps towards a reform of their wobbly health-care system, by bringing the powerful insurance companies into line.
Fascinating times lie ahead.
No comments:
Post a Comment