Why do people believe the king's job is to ban things?

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There are a great many things that I dislike. These include men and women who seem to bathe in perfume, scented candles, air 'fresheners' and people who drive at 40 mph in a 60 limit without good reason. I'm pretty sure you have your own list of peeves and hates.

So let me ask you a question. If you were king for a day would you ban some or all of those things you hate? This is after all your chance to make the point and stamp out those horrid and intrusive things you loathe! It is a temptation that people find irresistible - here's lefty news presenter, Jon Snow in the Guardian:

It is midnight, the chimes of Big Ben ring in the ears of the Westminster workers setting up the pedestrian-only zone that extends from Lambeth Bridge to Trafalgar Square and from the Houses of Parliament to Buckingham Palace. As king, I shall join my people on foot and bicycle for the duration of my 24-hour ban on private cars in central London. Delivery trucks have until 7am to make their deliveries, and only then by prior permission.

Faced with all the good and positive things a king could do, time and time again people asked to speculate about the opportunity fall back on banning stuff. In the twee little Guardian series, we've had the banning of Coca-Cola and open plan offices, the execution of morris dancers, the branding of 'trolls' and prohibiting the use of cars. Now I know it's the Guardian and I should expect officious intervention but what a bunch of hideous snobby fascists.

Why do they start with the assumption that the king's job is to stop people doing something? Why the preference for bans and prohibitions? Why nothing positive and sustaining? Instead of banning stuff these lefties could have used the king's powers to help a few folk - maybe remove some trade barriers, perhaps unravel a little red tape, drop some fees or charges imposed by previous kings and maybe get rid of one or two of the more egregious bans.

Not that The Guardian will be asking me but when I'm king for the day I shall get rid of one law for every hour. I'll ask people what laws they want rid of and take the best suggestions for the chop. Other than this I'll have some champagne, go for a walk and have a damn good banquet with some of the most interesting folk out there. This is the job of the king - not banning stuff.

Banning stuff is for fascist and communist dictators not kings. Kings are way cooler than that.

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Things that are true...

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Even when they appear in the comments under a Guardian article:

Lets face it, support for Levinson is all about silencing rightwing opinion

No doubt about this at all. This has been the entire agenda from the start. It wasn't about the wrongdoing of journalists - the police and courts could deal with that problem - it was about muzzling Rupert Murdoch and Paul Dacre. Not to mention anyone else who challenges the sacred certainties of left-wing, progressive ideology. The boy pointing out the emperor's nakedness is to be silenced not celebrated.

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"The fetish of consumer choice..." - an introduction to 21st century fascism

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All the wonder - the liberation - of choice is but an indulgence. Or at least this is the view of one Andrew Dobson writing in the Guardian.

We need to discard the ideological trappings of an increasingly discredited neo-liberalism – such as the fetish of consumer choice, or the notion of the small state.

The fetish of consumer choice! Andrew Dobson would have us queuing outside GUM in drab conformity before returning to a depressing apartment - just the state TV channel braying out the instructions of our masters. And - when the electricity works which isn't every day - Mr Dobson would have our cupboard (no point in a fridge) filled with the dull product of a state factory.

In Professor Dobson's world this control is needed because of "climate change" - the imperative of impending doom demands that the state takes command and leads. All must be:

...brought back under democratic control, and control of the state must be wrested from those whose interest lies in diminishing its democratic potential for reining in the market and acting in the common interest.

Andrew Dobson does not know it but he is a fascist.

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Shooting the messenger...

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The first recourse of those arguing about the dread impact of one or other great sin – the demon drink, artery clogging burgers, short skirts for girls, death-dealing tobacco - is to shoot the messenger. And in recent times this has become more and more insistent, more and more shrill and ever less bedded in understanding.

Let me explain in simple English –

Advertising does not make you buy stuff.

Now is that clear. No?

• Do you become some brainless zombie at the first sight of a McDonalds advert?
• Does the very presence of advertising around us suddenly turn us from intelligent, educated folk into the cannon fodder of the consumer society?

No you don’t and advertising doesn’t – you buy stuff because you choose to do so – it’s called a free society.

However Jackie Ashley – in glorious pig-ignorance – thinks otherwise (or rather rehashes some of the “no logo” piffle via a report from the lefties at Compass):

“We are more brand-driven, more advertised-to, than ever. We are also unhappy, indebted and extremely wasteful; and the two things may be connected. The Compass authors say that during an average day we will see more than 3,500 brand images. The purpose, they argue, isn't fulfilment and happiness – they don't sell products – but "the creation of a mood of restless dissatisfaction with what we have got and who we are so that we go out and buy more". We have become people not, as the religious once said, born to die, but born to buy.”

Uus evil marketing folk have you in our thrall.

Our bombarding of you with brand images isn’t an act of desperation but a cleverly constructed campaign from the demon hordes of mammon. We will make you buy stuff! And Jackie thinks we’re stuck on a “consumption treadmill” and that politicians should confront the advertising industry:

“The more you think about it, the more rolling back consumerism needs to start by confronting the advertising industry. That is, after all, where our wants are manufactured and sold to us. That's the frontline. And it is one area where politicians have fought and won a series of important skirmishes already. The ban on ­cigarette advertising is the best known. But restrictions on alcohol advertising and on advertising on children's TV programmes were also significant victories. They barely touch on the project of constructing an alternative vision of the good life, but they're a start.”

What we want is “manufactured”? No it is not.

Advertising does not create – never has created – the culture of our lives. It reflects that culture – holds a mirror to what we are like. Music, literature, art – and the media of their communication – set our culture. Advertising just piggy-backs, selecting ideas and images that chime with what we’re thinking, saying and doing.

As I said:

Advertising does not make you buy stuff.

But the battle lines are drawn. The Guardianistas – smug in their assumption of ordinary peoples’ gullibility – intend to attack and destroy advertising. Or rather just the advertising they don’t approve.

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The Red Mist descends....

…but it will pass. Have put on lots of twingly prog rock to calm me down. But in the meantime:

Universal average speed cameras on motorways – to “save carbon”

The happy fools who signed up for ID Cards can now get one

Labour MPs – plus Spanish commies – want to tell me my hours of work

We’re to be fined £1000 if we don’t fill in the census form

MPs are calling for the word "regular" to be banned

…and that’s just today.

Dear fascist bureaucrats, pseudo-liberals, greeny fascists, interfering so-called progressives and anyone else who thinks they can run our lives – please just leave us alone. We’re big, ugly and grown-up. And we can get along just fine without your help or guidance. GO AWAY.

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Sue the BNP? How stupid are the Equalities & Human Rights Commission?

The airwaves are full of the news that Trevor Philips' equalities super-quango are to sue the BNP because they only let white people join the party.

Excuse me? What are you thinking equalicrats?

As if we didn't know the BNP didn't like black people. They're racists you know! And trying to use equalities rules to shut them down is pouring high octane racing fuel on a fire - bloody stupid.

Using the courts to "beat the fascists" is using their methods - so what if they only want white members. So what if they break the assorted equalities laws with every breath.

We'll only defeat them by persuading the voters that they are idiots - and we don't do that by being total idiots ourselves now do we?