WHATEVER anybody thinks, society has always been led by rules.

That’s not a major revelation, although if you read some of the local and national headlines in the last week you might think so.

Once we get into September and the new school year, we get pupils returning to school in the wrong uniform. The clue here is in the name – uniform – in which pupils dress alike to give them a better sense of academic purpose and of being equals.

If you let your child go back to school with skintight black trousers or soft shoes instead of black leather ones, then expect any headteacher worth a candle to take action.

So we have 100 pupils sent home from a West Midlands’ school for wearing the wrong shoes and 60 more at a Newcastle school for the wrong trousers. And in their wake, plenty of aggrieved parents are whingeing about bureaucracy when we all know it’s really been about letting children wear what they want.

Then you have the news that town halls are to get new powers next month to ban parents from parking near their children’s school or face fines up to £100. Everyone knows that parking close to schools causes danger to pupils, but parents continue doing it each morning and afternoon – usually in spite of pleas and letters home to parents.

In the same edition of the Bolton News on Friday were reports of a police crackdown on drivers still using mobile phones behind the wheel or not wearing seatbelts – 10 culprits just on Deane Road.

There was also a report about the ridiculous amount of litter people chuck onto our local streets, with residents and businesses asked to help clean up the borough. Then there was a court report about a Halliwell woman fined a total of £155 for dropping a cigarette butt in the street.

Now you may think that some, or all, of these rules are pathetically unimportant in the grand scale of things and simply implemented by jobsworths justifying their existence. But can we please just imagine what local life would be like without rules?

If we all take the stance that we are fully entitled to do whatever we want – “hooman rights” again – then chaos reigns and a safe, democratic society disappears. When it comes to rules, we simply cannot pick and choose.