Britain – The “Nanny State” Strikes Again!
Saturday, 4.02.2012
It has been suggested many a time that Britain is under constant scrutiny and regularly spoon-fed brand new rules and regulations instilled by the government. If we’re not eating right we’re drinking too much, if we’re not drinking too much we’re wearing the wrong t-shirts! Every single day, it seems, the government releases new “guidelines” and new “instructions” about how we should be living our lives – they even have us changing the words to the songs of the Nursery Rhymes we have been singing for years because they are “not politically correct”, sparking the very well deserved nick-name of “The Nanny State”.
Some would call it nudges in the right direction, but other feel that the constant release of guidelines by which we are “recommended” to behave and live is stifling and patronising at best. They tell us what we should be eating, they tell us what we should be drinking, they tell us how we should be raising our kids, they even place rules and restrictions on how THEY think we should be spending OUR leisure time by slapping us with strict controls about things like scratchcards, online gaming and gambling. Ok, so putting an age restriction on things like alcohol and cigarettes is understandable, but not allowing children to sing the words “Bah bah black sheep” and changing the name of a “black board” to “chalk board” because both were labelled “racially dubious” is just ludicrous! We thought the Nanny Culture could not be more ridiculous, until they went one step further and tried to tell us what we can and cannot wear!
Recently, a popular clothing brand hit the headlines after they released 2 controversial t-shirt designs for men. In all fairness, 1 of them was derogatory towards women yet the other could have been construed in any number of ways. However, inevitably, the products of this “Nanny State” – ie. the people who have been brainwashed by this climate of fear – assumed the worst and forced the clothing brand to remove the t-shirts, prompting the public to pose the question of whether political correctness has gone too far.
The thing that seems to have caused the most outrage towards the Nanny State is their opinions towards gambling. Online scratchcards, the lottery, even bingo games – basically any form of gambling or betting has been slammed by the Conservatives and they have often tried to meddle and block the expansion of casinos in the UK and when Tony Blair was in power, he even stated that a whopping 90% of the Governments proposals were directed at the control of gambling! There has already been a massive crackdown in the United States following “Black Friday” when 3 of the world’s biggest online casinos were forced to close and fined millions of dollars – could the Nanny State be heading the same way? It does not look likely that the Nanny State is going to stop dishing out their regulations and “suggestions” any time soon, so who knows what the future holds for fans of online scratchcards and casinos.
