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Life under Labour: the worst of worlds
From MPs' expenses to our over-regulated, badly-governed society. Is
it any wonder we British are so angry?

By Philip Johnston
Last Updated: 5:25PM BST 22 May 2009

Donkeys - Give us our lives back
Before 1997 it was legal to own a donkey without a passport Photo:
LOUIS QUAIL/CORBIS

We need a real life Howard Beale. Remember him? He was the fictional
American television newsreader played by Peter Finch in the film
Network. He became so frustrated at the refusal of anyone to listen to
reason that he invited viewers to open their windows and yell into the
streets: "I am as mad as hell and I am not going to take it any
more.''

Let's face it: we are even madder than that; and not simply because we
have found out that our MPs – or some of them at any rate – have been
siphoning off large sums of our money to subsidise a lifestyle most of
us can only dream about. We were already mad; we were just waiting for
something to happen on which to vent our anger.

Normally when the British get irritated, we respond with a resigned
and embarrassed shrug rather than shout and bellow. We are not like
the French who take to the streets at the drop of a hat to chuck
cobblestones at the police. But our characteristic mildness as a
nation is being tested to destruction by our politicians – whether in
national or local government – who have forgotten that if they must
interfere in our lives, to do so only when it is absolutely necessary.
We have the worst of all worlds – not only are we over-governed; we
are badly governed as well.

We are snooped on more than the average North Korean, harried by
marauding armies of parking enforcers and wheel-clampers; pestered by
health fascists and safety obsessives and shaken by speed humps. If we
smoke we are told where to puff; it we drink we are made to feel
guilty; if we drive a big car we are pariahs; if we hunt we have been
turned into criminals; if we make an "inappropriate" remark we can
expect a visit from the police; if we stand up to hooligans we can end
up in court.

Innocent people have been put on a DNA database meant for criminals
and will stay there for some time even after the European Court of
Human Rights said they should come off – which is a bit rich given
that this government introduced the Human Rights Act in the first
place to wave its progressive credentials around. Our children are all
to have their details placed on a database known as ContactPoint
because one appalling set of relatives killed a little girl who should
have been watched by social services. For the failings of the system,
all children have to be considered potentially "at risk".

In addition, we are all to be considered potential suspects in a
crime, too. Why else would the government want us to be on an identity
register, other than to know where we are all the time? And why should
it? I have nothing to hide and I have nothing to fear but I fail to
see why that means I should be on a state ID database.

How has all this come about? A clue can be found in the expenses
crisis that has engulfed Westminster. MPs have simply not being doing
their jobs properly. They are there to hold the Government to account
but have allowed a torrent of legislation to pour forth. They have
spent too much of their time thinking up ever more imaginative ways to
claim their generous allowances. They have given up their primary
task.

This Government has brought in more legislation than any of its
predecessors. Since 1997, the Home Office alone has introduced 50
Bills, launched more than 100 consultation papers, made at least 350
regulations and created an astonishing 271 new offences.

Overall, more than 3,000 new criminal offences have been created by
Labour – 1,000 of them punishable by imprisonment.

Here are just a few of the things you could do before 1997 but can't
now – many of them, it must be said, forced on us by EU directives,
though our government in most cases agreed them.

» Smoke in a pub or on a railway platform in the open air in the
middle of the countryside, or at a covered bus stop, or in your own
car if it is used for work, or in your own house if it is used as an
office where outsiders may come.

» Own a horse, donkey or Shetland pony without possessing a passport
carrying a picture of the animal.

» Ride off with a pack of hounds in pursuit of a fox or stag.

» Play the piano in a pub without an entertainment licence.

» Stage more than 12 events a year at, for instance, a school or
church hall at which alcohol may be served without a full licence.

» Set off a firework after midnight or be in possession of a firework
if aged under 18 at any time other than the period around Bonfire
Night and New Year's Eve.

» Own a pistol for any purpose, including sport target practice.

» Stage a protest of any sort, even if alone, within 1km of the Palace
of Westminster, without the authority of the Metropolitan Police
Commissioner.

» Fish in the River Esk without authorisation.

» Enter the hull of the Titanic without permission from the Secretary
of State.

» Import into England potatoes which a person knows to be or has
reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes.

» Obstruct the work of the Children's Commissioner for Wales.

» Imbibe an alcoholic drink on a London Underground train or bus.

» Keep a car on your own driveway without tax, even if it not being
used, without filling in a form.

» Sell a grey squirrel (though you can kill one).

Labour has created new offences at twice the rate of the previous Tory
administration, which was bad enough in this regard, and it has done
so at an accelerating pace. Now you may support some or all of these
new laws. What cannot be denied is that we have had a frenzy of
law-making that has changed the character of the nation in a way that
many of us neither expected nor wanted – even those who voted Labour
(especially those who voted Labour, perhaps).

What is that drives the legislative mania of modern governments? Will
any of them really, truly commit themselves to stop frustrating the
activities and livelihoods of Her Majesty's law-abiding subjects with
unwarranted interference, intrusiveness and incompetence? Have they no
sense of history, no philosophical framework within which they can
understand the point at which government activity must end and the
private citizen begins? They have lost all concept of the impact of
excessive law-making on the freedom of the individual.

The expenses crisis has merely brought all this to the surface:
resentment against a Government that raised taxes after promising not
to and then wasted billions of pounds on failed IT systems and
top-heavy administration; incredulity over ministerial claims that
crime has fallen when we can see with our own eyes that it hasn't;
frustration at the inane regulations, the unjustified use of fines and
charges, the bloody-minded parking restrictions, unreasonable European
directives, multiculturalist busybodies, and the vast, overpaid and
largely useless quangocracy disconnected from the rest of us.

It has all gone on for too long and the people to blame are those who
failed to put a stop it: our MPs. That is why we are so angry about
duck islands, bath plugs and second-home flipping.

Nadine Dorries yesterday said that the second-home allowance was an
entitlement which MPs were encouraged to claim and everyone at
Westminster and in the media knew that. She suggested it was unfair to
criticise MPs since they were only enhancing an income most people
would consider inadequate.

Well, the public did not know any of this and this conspiracy against
the voter has been busted wide open. We are as mad as hell so shout it
out the window. You know you want to.