Protect me from myself

Like the actions of some politicians in Northern Ireland, it’s all based around vested interests, fear and banning things they don’t fully understand rather than educating themselves. It doesn’t matter what the subject is – it all gets cloaked in the robes of being done for our own good.

It appears that E-cigarettes are more frightening to politicians, and in need of more immediate attention, than the on going conflict in the West Bank. But then, come to that, so too are these vacuum cleaners I’ve not come across. Apparently they have the power of Nico Rosberg’s F1 car, kill pets in the home and are threatening to club baby seals in the Arctic.

If these steps to ban things are really for our own good then why do I always find myself missing them? I remember that once upon a time I could enter a room or climb the stairs without stubbing my toes on a dog bone or treading on Lego. These days I take my life in my hands moving around the house at night due to the light bulbs having all the luminescence of a glow-worm’s fart.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for curbing the excesses of the pointless cleaning culture. A certain relation who shall remain nameless spends his or her life removing every last bacterium from work surfaces – a waste of time, I believe, that could be better utilised supporting the flagging brewing industry and keeping football players in Bentleys.

But banning?

Continuing with our hoovers: our relation isn’t going to spend the same amount of time removing dead skin cells from the carpet. Less power equals less vacuum equals less detritus in the collection area. No, my in-law will simply put in extra hours with the result that the electricity bill will be the same.

I’ve never been a fan of banning anything. Banning alcohol in depression hit America resulted in an almighty fail, the war on drugs continues to be won by drugs and Mary Whitehouse’s campaign to rid the UK of video nasties just raised their profile into cult movies.

I’d also contend that if the real goal was to reduce environmental impact then maybe, just maybe, some serious investment into green energy sources might be a way to save the world, save the country from being held over an oil barrel and prevent the volume of greenhouse gas produced by people talking about it all. But that would be a mad solution; who needs a workable route when kneejerk responses are so much more fun?

“Ahh, Dave” everyone says to me, “what you are forgetting is that politicians are the cleverest and most responsible people in society, elected to office to make decisions on behalf of dim-witted folks like you.” Well, everyone, what I say to you is this: Phillip Hollobone.

Vaping has forced me into contact with my local Baptist euro-septic. It was a coupling as successful as Michael Bolton and Michael Bolton’s hairstyle leaving me with the lasting impression that not only must it be very easy to get into Oxford University but that degrees are now given away with three Weetabix vouchers making them worth 3/5s of an Alton Towers ticket.

If politicians like Hollobone really want to save me from my idiotic actions then they’d abolish the lottery (well, someone has to win, don’t they?), all forms of DIY tools and place an alcohol-related block on accessing social media.

But no, campaigners and politicians don’t want to save me from myself – they just want me to make the mistakes they think I should be making in order to support companies such as JapanTobacco International.

At least writing this piece has given me time to contemplate my position regarding bans. Despite having a pronounced libertarian view to personal choice I’m pretty sure that if someone asked me to support banning people from running for Parliament I’d support it. But it would fail.

Did banning the “misuse” of the WHO logo work? Did it flip. Within minutes of Clive Bates replacing the image it began cropping up as avatars on Facebook and Twitter. Inside of an hour clever wags were dreaming up a variety of novel twists to their corporate identy – conveying the suspected pharma-driven motives for their e-cig position.

Will attempts to curb the rise of vaping work? It may well impact on those smokers who have yet to try vaping as a quit method but for the rest of us the genie is totally out of the bottle. And speaking of bottle, I can hear my Dark Puros-filled Pandora calling funny that never happens with the hoover.