I have a lot of sympathy for Ana Samways. She has to come up with a whole column of trivial bits and bobs every working day of the year. Her Sideswipes column is worth no more than a fleeting glance most days but occasionally she finds a real gem. Today is such a day and it is very timely that she has uncovered a swag of stupid British statutes when our own law makers are quite correctly being held up to ridicule.
It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament. This was brought in to discourage you going there to have your heart attack on the expectation of a state funeral - to which you would be entitled. This saves heaps of dosh for the nearest and dearest and makes you feel like Winston Churchill - which, as you are dead, is not that important I suppose. It is an act of treason to place a stamp on a letter upside down if the stamp bears an image of the Queen (and they all do). I actually knew that. I have been very careful all my life - takes the shine off sending out the Xmas cards to end up in the Tower. A pregnant woman is entitled to pass urine wherever she please, including in a policeman's helmet. You can see why New Zealand got rid of those. It is illegal to eat mince pies on Xmas day. You always knew I was a bad man. And then my favourite. It is illegal for a woman to go topless in Liverpool unless she is a clerk in a tropical fish shop. Makes you want to go to Merseyside just to buy a guppy, doesn't it?
Not to be left out New Zealand showed it could foot it with the best in the silly law department when the anti terrorism laws were give a real pasting by the solicitor general. In one terse statement the SG has made a whole swag of people look like real dicks. The police have just come up for air after their pasting on all sorts of fronts and then they get this. They probably survive - but only just. They can quite reasonably claim they were working within the framework of the law as it stood. You don't want a police force that is too bright or powerful (think Fiji) and I think their conduct was just about OK. The people that rightly come out looking the most stupid in all this are the law makers. The Parliamentarians and the armies of civil servants who make up the crap that passes as legislation in this land.
Even bloody Helen has agreed that the anti terrorism legislation needs a rewrite (after yesterday she could hardly have said anything else - the lambasting was dished out by a solicitor general she appointed) but that didn't stop parliament last night debating amendments to the flawed law. How daft is that? You have a law that has been shown up as being a crock and a couple of hours later you ignore that and debate changes to it.
That we have had exposed yet another piece of dreadful law drafting is the nub of this particular gist. We have recently had the smacking nonsense and I hear rumour that the grand daddy of them all the Electoral Finance Bill is going to get pushed through next week - you ain't seen nothing yet. All the left wing loonies will say the events of the last twenty four hours justify their hand wringing. The Tuhoi Nation (give me a break) has been victimised and traumatised etc. etc. Same old, same old. It is so same old, same old that it requires a same old, same old response. Bollocks.
This country is run by very unintelligent people.
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