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The Nanny State Index — 12 Comments

  1. The great danger in publicising how the regulations are (not) applied is that the idiocrats in Brussels/WHO/etc. will start pressuring back-sliding countries to crack down harder. We don’t want that, do we? Let’s just enjoy our respective countries’ snook-cocking … and feel sorry for those living in UK.

    • That thought crossed my mind too.  Let’s see if the Stasi suddenly crack down on Greece!

    • Heh! Yes, there is that aspect of course. However, I think it highly unlikely that The Great And The Good in Brussels will be availing themselves of copies of the ‘Nanny State Index’, particularly as it has been edited by a self-declared Brexiter! And the EU has been haranguing Greece for years about the smoking bans. I think they’ve ‘introduced’ smoking bans four or five times over the years, and haven’t yet been able to make them stick.

      The problem is that Dimitris, Costas and many of the other local cops also like to go to the bar for a beer and a ciggy, and they don’t want to be standing outside in the winter to have a smoke. So they have no enthusiasm for busting bars for allowing smoking. It’s just not in their best interests to do so. So the scenario is that an order may come down from on high to prosecute the law, and for a week or so there might be a flurry of activity, with fines handed out to a few bar owners, and then everything goes back to normal. Because unless they are actively tasked with busting bars over smoking, they won’t do it.

      It’s the same as the attitude to wearing crash helmets. Occasionally, the cops will stake out a spot and stop and ticket all the people they catch not wearing a helmet (it’s a useful little revenue raiser). But you can pull up alongside those same cops at a traffic light the next day not wearing a helmet, and they will completely ignore you. That’s not their specific job that day, and they can’t be arsed with the paperwork. Ok, you may be breaking the letter of the law, but you aren’t actually doing anything criminal that warrants their attention.

  2. For those not familiar with the phrase:
    To cock a snook: to do something intentionally to show you have no respect for someone or something

  3. I was thinking how often “science” doesn’t actually work! This would not be the only example. I could think of other examples too that are not reality – but only science. 

  4. Yet again a ‘simple’ man on internet, just using his own experience and common sense, debunks some ‘official’ study. I’m am getting (almost) tired of it. Surely ‘fact checking’ is the foundation of good journalism? The first journalist who got this ‘index’ in his hands could have rung colleagues in the various countries up and just checked?

    I can’t say I have read the Nanny Index and but Germany being 27th sounds about right NOW. Until very recently it would have been even lower in the tables but Merkel seems to have suddenly gotten a taste for beating up on smokers. However what the statistics don’t really tell us is that German has already slashed Youth smoking rates to levels that would wetten even Debbie’s knickers and that without all the histrionics of the UK. Maybe German kids are immune to the dangers of instant addiction from flashy packets and parental smoke in cars?

    Well played Nisaki, bloody well played.

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