An amusing, and IMHO not too unlikely, take on what the Nanny State will look like in the next ten years.
Sir – Further to your recent correspondence, I welcome proposals by the Government to place a CCTV camera in every household fridge. How else are we to stop the forward march of clinical obesity?
The innocent have nothing to fear. Those existing on a balanced diet, including plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, need not expect a visit from the health inspectorate. It is only those who flout the Government’s health guidelines by stocking up on too many fatty foods – butter, clotted cream, full-fat milk, cakes, fizzy drink etc, etc – who will find themselves in court.
Those of your correspondents who remain opposed to CCTV cameras in the fridge are living in cloud-cuckoo land. They are the sort of people who, five years ago, would have opposed our introduction of CCTV in the car.
Yet today statistics show that this innovation has led to a sharp drop in seat-belt crime, and a 50 per cent rise in prosecutions for talking, whistling or singing whilst driving. The benefits are incalculable.
Lord Blair of Great Ham
While this sounds rather over the top pause and consider the lawsuits against McDonalds, the various pieces of legislation to forcibly prevent people from engaging in certain types of behavior such as drinking sodas, and so forth.
Sir – To my horror, while watching an old DVD of the series World at War, I noticed that Winston Churchill was shown puffing on a large cigar, whilst Adolf Hitler, a dedicated non-smoker, was revealed as having lost the war.
This is sending out all the wrong signals to our children. Something must be done. Either, World at War must be re-edited, showing Hitler brandishing a cigar and Churchill as a non-smoker, or the ending of the war should be altered, with the non-smoker Hitler winning.
Baroness Hewitt of Bagshot
Given some of the other dopey things I’ve seen anti-smoking zealots endorse, this doesn’t strike me as all that implausible either.
Sir – Am I alone in wondering whether the spread of CCTV may have gone too far? Lying in my bath the other day, a voice came over the loud-speaker in the tap (which is now, as you know, a legal requirement) asking me to clean behind my ears. It seems to me that the insertion of CCTV in the bathroom is an infringement of civil liberties, and one step too many.
Jemima Askin
Clearly Jemima needs to be sent to a re-education camp.
