It’s a small enough news item; one that could easily be missed among more important ones. However, it is illuminating as it gives an insight into the mind of the politician.
A Labour MP has called for all nail bars to be regulated and for a ban on a potentially harmful chemical glue used in some outlets to fix fake nails.
Ah, yes, a problem is identified and a ban proposed. Obvious, really, isn’t it? What is so bad that it needs such draconian measures?
Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is often used because it is cheap, but has a strong odour that can trigger serious skin reactions or permanent nail damage.
It sounds like pretty unpleasant stuff. I’ve not come across it before as neither I nor Mrs Longrider indulge, but that said, surely if the risks are made clear to people, they can ask at a salon whether they use this substance or not, and if so, then they will go somewhere else. With such consumer pressure, salons will have to choose between using this stuff or an alternative, based upon the risk of losing business and, of course, reputation. A savvy consumer is a powerful consumer.
But, no, that is not the politician’s way. We are all far too stupid to make informed decisions:
Milton Keynes South West MP Phyllis Starkey said the UK should follow the US in banning its use.
This despite:
The government said there had been no recent public complaints about MMA.
So there isn’t actually a huge problem after all.
In London local authorities already have the power to close salons using MMA, but nail technicians say they are still seeing clients who have been harmed by MMA.
So, not only is there not a significant problem, but there are already existing powers in place to deal with it.
This, then, is the raison d’etre of the politician. Identify something that is entirely insignificant and ban it. If nothing else, it gets your name in the News and raises the old profile, eh? This is the same type of obsessive control freak behaviour that DK discusses here:
Prof Richard West, the Government’s leading smoking adviser, has called for a complete ban on smoking at the wheel.
He said: “It may seem draconian but the Government should legislate.”
In this case, it is an unelected, unaccountable self-promoting control freak (as opposed to an elected one) who is making the demands on government to legislate yet more of our liberty away. They are two sides of the same coin, a coin we cast when we elected a Labour government. It is the control freakery of the government that encourages the obsessive bansturbation mentality of these intellectual and emotional cripples who seek to regulate every aspect of our lives in order to further their own agenda.
I think you are too kind to the Hon Member for MKSW to suggest she is capable of forming an “agenda”…:)
Agreed. This MMA is hardly a threat to the nation, is it?
I am doing some work to floorboards…. the mention of banning of nail bars and fake nails had me panicking !
then I realised it was about silly girly stuff.
Haddock, I thought the same when I saw the headline. It does rather sum up the politician’s mindset; heavy handed legislation for the slightest thing. No wonder the bastards managed to create over 3,000 new offences in under a decade.
LR
Fraternal greetings. I came across an article on this theme, ie lefty control freakery that I thought you might be interested in, here
http://www.mutualist.org/id7.html
Sorry to keep giving you all this crap to read but I would be interested in your opinion. He seems to be arguing that the ruling class in America and by extension our own beloved masters are not lefities at at all, but a peculiar form of authoritarian conservatives, but I guess we know that already! Roll on the Libertarian revolution!
Have a bloody good New Year…