Pligget

Pligget
Little to say for myself

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Free from what?

Pretty soon we're going to be able to sit in a pub or restaurant, in an atmosphere free from.... er, what exactly? Logic? Clarity? Principle?

Most countries' non-smoking policies are drawn up to protect the employee's right to work in a hazard-free environment. It's a simple, clear and powerful stance.

By arbitrarily exempting working men's clubs and working class pubs - er, I mean private clubs and pubs that "don't serve food" (whatever that means) - the Government has sent a clear message that it puts votes ahead of the nation's health.

This is a blatant attempt to secure the Labour Party's shift to the right, by targetting the working class and hardline socialists. Are we going to stand by and allow the voice of the left to be silenced by laryngectomy?

posted by Plig | 10:41 |

Comments: Post a Comment

Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell

I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization

There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi

Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson