Two More Nails In The Coffin Of Free Speech

I went searching for a story to blog about this morning. Keying "Council" + "ban" into Google is usually good for a laugh but today it led me to two tales which were anything but funny. They are illustrative of a bloated, arrogant State, full of its own self-importance, which cares not a jot for the basic freedoms and cares of the poor bastards who live within it. They also demonstrate perfectly why people in the blogosphere refer to the governing party of this country as "ZaNuLabour".

In one excellent article we learn of the local council who threatened a family with an £80 fine for, wait for it, putting up posters appealing for information on a child's lost cat. And in another, arguably more insidious development, two climate change protesters (yeah, I know, but bear with me) were kicked out of a local park for handling out leaflets.

The child-and-cat-haters have since apologised, acknowledging that they were "overzealous" (that's not the adjective I'd have chosen) in the way they dealt with this incidence of "fly-tipping" (but not, you'll note, for their assertion that what the family did was illegal). The incident in the local park was "justified" on the basis that the protesters - dressed as penguins - were approaching children, and therefore would need CRB checks and a risk assessment. God almighty. If I say "hello" to a child in town today do I need a bloody CRB check ? Apparently it took just 15 minutes for three members of the park's staff to approach the leafletters and ask them what they were up to. Fifteen minutes. That's how carefully we are being watched.

This is ZaNuLabour's legacy to its people; a monstrously over-bearing, invasive, uncaring and intrusive network of busy-bodies, jobsworths, spies and jumped-up little Hitlers who wish to control us at every turn, not least of all when we try to communicate with one another. Free speech in 21st century Britain is dead. God knows whether we can ever bring it back to life.