Protect us from petitions

THERE is a rather extreme view that this ‘tinterweb’ thingymabob is a good thing. But given the recent British Government initiative on e-petitions, we are wondering whether those with access to the ‘tinterweb’ should have to pass a stupidity test before being allowed to connect to the world wide web.

The first e-petition out of the blocks is the death penalty. The ‘weight’ of opinion for this means Parliament will get to debate something that will never happen.

Well, of course we do have a contingent of ‘hang ‘em high’ Tory backbenchers...

Nevermind that the death penalty doesn’t reduce crime, or that the risk of miscarriages of justice has too high price...

However, it was nice that it gave Jeffrey Donaldson a chance to go on the air and repeat the DUP stance, which roughly equates to “death is too good for them”.

Can’t wait for that debate in the Assembly, let alone Westminster!

Moral panic fear outbreaks across the nation

THE United Kingdom is in the grip of fear, a fear induced by unprecedented moral panic.

Politicians, pundits, op-ed columnists and everyone who can dial into a radio show have been caught up in the rampant theft of clichés; charges are likely to be brought on those who have trotted out with armloads of unfounded opinions.

As a people we must fight back against this fever of fervent fundamentally flawed wafflers.

This post-modernist world we have plunged into is one where airtime is given to anyone, where we fear that everyone with an opinion is granted equal weight – everyone has a rear end too, but we don’t want to see those on the air either.

The fight back begins now.

We urge every broadcaster, every leader column writer and every numpty of an excuse for a politician to be silenced. Then perhaps we can make sense of this moral panic...

Yes, there have been riots and looting and criminality. Yes, it has shocked us all – well apart from those with a nice new shiny 42” plasma screen TV gratis.

So, what to do?

If the recalled MPs and the pundits hanging on their words were to think for a moment then, rather than polluting the airwaves in a competition to seem more outraged than the last punter, they might think that the obvious thing to do is ask a question.

Why?

And ask the question to the right people.

In the meantime we have the prospect of anyone covering their faces being potentially charged by gallant police men.

Yeah, we can see that working in Norn Iron – we have to cover our heads and pull hoods tight to survive the vagaries of the weather...

And, while the PSNI are capable of many things we can’t really see them having a wee chat with the rioters at Ardoyne shops next year urging them not to cover their wee fresh faces...