From the Right Side

Another nail in the coffin of the liberties of free-born Englishmen:

Thousands of council staff are being trained to police the smoking ban in bars, restaurants and shops in England.

Exactly what sort of "training" is required to know if someone is smoking? Are these people completely stupid?

Ian Gray, policy officer for the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and chief trainer for the government course, said..."These officers do not have to identify themselves when they go into premises and they can even film and photograph people to gather evidence..."

Another bunch of snoopers added to the public-payroll, at a cost of £29.5m - but that is a government figure, so I expect you can double that, and add the number you first thought of.

This country has moved beyond satire.

Colin Parnell, the chairman of the Peterborough branch of the Federation of Small Businesses, on government support for small business:

The Government is spending £2.6 billion each year supporting small businesses, but we don't know where that money goes.

I think that Mr Parnell has neatly summarised the attitude of many of us towards government spending as a whole.

The quote of the day comes from an (unnamed) Labour MP reacting to yesterday's speech by Tony Blair to Labour Party activists:

If he genuinely believes that this is not doing serious and lasting damage, we don't need the 'men in grey suits' to tell him to quit - we need the men in white coats.

Tags: Tony Blair

Labels: Tony Blair

...and, finally, the Alice in Wonderland Award for believing something impossible before breakfast goes to old blubber-mouth himself, that old-Labour stalwart and failed politician - Roy Hattersley - for the headline to his story in this morning's Times: How Prescott can save the party and his reputation.