Remembrance ban load of poppycock
9:42am Thursday 22nd November 2007
THE Burma Star Association was banned from selling remembrance poppies in the Eagle Centre in Derby after its stall was branded a fire risk.
The stall had operated in the centre for several years but management said the group was unable to do the same thing this year for health and safety reasons.
Julie Ralphs, from the centre, said: "We have really had to tighten up on our health and safety. It would have been acceptable before, but we are having to keep all areas quite clear at the moment."
A neighbouring market shop stepped in to let them run two stalls. I wonder what would happen if the soldiers who died had invoked health and safety laws as they landed on the beach under fire?
A bench in the village of East Prawle, Devon, became the focus of white hot health and safety concerns.
Villagers using the bench - the only place where they could get a mobile signal for more than two miles - were told their plans for a replacement stone platform had had to be abandoned.
Parish councillors had applied for permission to build a £100 concrete plinth dubbed "phonehenge" for residents to use instead.
But the scheme stalled after they were told health and safety laws meant safety railings, wheelchair access and a light for safe night-time use would also have to be provided. You couldn't make it up. OTHER minority religious festivals should be given the same cultural prominence as Christian celebrations in order to improve race relations, so says a controversial leaked political think tank report.
The report, according to a national newspaper, will recommend:
- "Birth ceremonies", at which state and parents agree to "work in partnership" to bring up children
- Action to ensure access for ethnic minorities to the "largely white" countryside
- Britain's so-called "imperial" honours system be re-examined
- Bishops not being allowed to automatically sit the House of Lords
- An end to "sectarian" religious education, and
- Flags other than the Union Jack being flown on public buildings.
The report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has helped formulate many Labour policies, including ID cards and road pricing.
The report continues to fight the corner for multiculturalism - the now largely discredited idea that different communities should not integrate but should be encouraged to maintain their own culture and identities.
Compiled by IPPR advisers Ben Rogers and Rick Muir, it says: "We can no longer define ourselves as a Christian nation, nor an especially religious one in any sense," and calls for ministers to promote a "multicultural understanding of Britishness".
This is yet another example of a remote, political elite with no real connection to, or understanding of, the ordinary man in the street proposing fundamental changes that will have far reaching consequences if adopted.
Downgrading and denigrating a culture which has developed over centuries will be seen by many as an odd way of promoting racial harmony.