11:37am Friday 12th June 2009
Isn’t it interesting that the nanny state has no trouble at all in getting pointless rules and regulations enacted and enforced, but drags her inelegant heels when it comes to the ones we all want enforced?
Heaven help me, if I ask for more than a handful of painkillers to stock up our medicine cupboard. You used to be able to buy them in bottles of a hundred.
Now in order to get sufficient quantities for a family of six, I have to visit half a dozen shops in quick succession, which anyone with an IQ that was measurable and wanting to take an overdose would be similarly able to do.
But no. As usual the majority must suffer for the hypothetical acts of a few who can still do whatever they’re trying to prevent without significant impediment.
Another example? I take pills, the same four every day.
But because the local Primary Care Trust is one of the 40 per cent who advise doctors not to prescribe more than month’s supply at a time, I have to traipse back and forth, bothering the doctor and pharmacist regularly, as they all run out at different times.
The reason I cannot get more than one month’s supply? Not my health, but a hypothetical loss of money.
Were I to shuffle off this mortal coil, there might be more pills wasted.
At least, 60 per cent of PCTs have a little more sense.
Sadly, not ours.
What about the hours of wasted time for surgeries, pharmacies and the poor patients – many of whom have to travel considerable distances without the benefit of convenient public transport?
What about our time?
In May, a new swerve test was introduced for motorcyclists as part of their driving test – to reduce accidents.
There have already been 15 incidents of crashes and broken bones during the test!
And with all the regulations about who can use ladders and when, the jokes about how many people it takes to change a light bulb are now being eclipsed by jobsworth reality.
But they still can’t stop cyclists riding on the pavement, or rogue clampers luring motorists into parking on waste ground and then blackmailing them (with legal authority) into buying their own cars back.
And they can’t construct a system of government that encourages the best MPs to stay in post. Mr Goodman – you will be sorely missed – a proper, decent, constituency MP! An endangered species.
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