Today it was proposed that smokers should have to buy an annual permit if they want to be able to buy cigarettes. The proposal, by government advisory board Health England, is that smokers would have to choose to “opt in” to buying tobacco by paying £10 a year for a permit. The permit would have [...]
Today the BBC News Magazine has an article on the consequences for people who have been caught drink-driving, which is to be the theme of this year’s Christmas anti-drink drive advertising campaign.
I left a comment via the form, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, they didn’t publish it. So I’ll repeat it here instead (expanded slightly, but I’ll [...]
When booking tickets for a concert or the theatre, there is often a “booking fee” to pay on top of the advertised ticket price. This can add 10% or more to the cost of the ticket. Now, I’m not referring to the fees charged by ticket agents here, but to tickets bought direct from the [...]
It is now three months since smoking was banned in enclosed public places in England, bringing it into line with the rest of the UK. I have to say that, while Tony Blair’s government have been unpopular on some issues, and have been criticised for producing too much legislation, the Health Act 2006 is one [...]
Remarks by the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Community Cohesion in today’s Independent must have left many people feeling incredulous. Sayeeda Warsi, a Muslim woman of Pakistani descent, says that the BNP have “some very legitimate views” on immigration and crime.
Unfortunately, it appears that Ms Warsi (who, contrary to the report in The Independent, is not [...]
First it was reported that a 19-year-old woman, Kathleen Jennings, was appearing in court charged with putting her feet on the seat of a train. Train operator Merseyrail has been running a campaign against this since February, and there are apparently posters all over the trains and stations warning people.
Then this afternoon, it was reported [...]
The latest figure for the average cost of a wedding stands at a staggering £17,000. Now, it isn’t often I can say I agree with what the Church of England has to say on an issue, but the Church has produced a booklet suggesting that people should spend less on their big day, and on [...]
A number of local authorities in the UK have started to fit microchips to dustbins so that they can monitor how much rubbish households are throwing away. Many commentators believe councils will eventually use the technology to charge households according to the weight of their waste.
Now, I think charging according to the amount thrown away [...]
In the run up to the World Cup, it was impossible to avoid the hype in the mainstream media over whether Wayne Rooney’s fractured metatarsal had healed sufficiently for him to play in the competition. Surely, football is a team game, and whether or not one player can make it shouldn’t matter, as you have [...]
A refreshing report from the Consumer Council for Water this week has praised the quality of British tap water and dismissed bottled water as a waste of money.
It has long been my view that bottled water is a con, or an expensive fashion accessory at best. Tap water in the UK is always perfectly safe [...]