Friday, February 22, 2008

License to ill...

Scuttlebutt about the intarw3b is that some people in The Place Where Great Britain Used To Be are floating the idea of a ~$20/year licence for the priviledge of smoking. No word on what other forms of self-indulgence are being considered for the same licensing scheme, but I can imagine some pretty dreadful uses for the UK's newfound love of CCTV cameras.

Even Winston Smith didn't need a smoking license.

6 comments:

BobG said...

Any excuse to pry a few more taxes from people.

theirritablearchitect said...

I predict that Guy Fawkes will be resurrected soon.

Can't wait to see how it all plays out. CCTV in the land of Once-Great Britain will turn out to be a blessing for us over here, methinks.

Anonymous said...

If passed, all it will do is serve to drive it further underground. The price of a pack of smokes there is already so high, that some have started growing their own tobacco.

Anonymous said...

The poor Brits also pay an annual license fee on their TV sets, also. That's just for rabbit-ears reception.

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/index.jsp

The unbadged, unsworn enforcement agents of this process maintain a database of residences not currently licensed for a TV...and use it to harass them.

They start with threatening letters, and occasionally send a thug to bang on your door and demand entrance to check for the presence of unlicensed TVs.

Read a few stories here:

http://www.marmalade.net/lime/#people

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm.

Could be a golden opportunity for a non-smoker to set himself up doing Straw Purchases for the truly tobacco -addicted.

(Former smoker here.)

staghounds said...

CSID cards on the way!

It's not a license to smoke- it's to prevent "kids" from getting tobacco!

It's for the cheeeeeildren!