The most striking thing about these figures is how low they are...

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Bradford's Telegraph & Argus has revealed the findings from a 'freedom of information' request relating to the number of offences recorded at individual licenced premises in the city. Now we should note that the approved narrative when discussing crime and drinking is to use terms like 'drink-fuelled violence and anti-social behaviour' accompanied by a load and judgemental implied 'tut'.

So how much crime is there - of any sort - recorded at Bradford's busy city centre pubs and clubs? The answer - although the newspaper doesn't report it quite this way - is close to bugger all. The worst venue - a busy bar/nightclub - witnessed a staggering 23 offences during the year to 26 March 2015. That is less than one a fortnight. Given the bewildering array of possible offences (at times it seems the police can arrest anyone for anything) available to the enforcement authorities we should, rather than tutting about crime, be celebrating just how incredible safe Bradford's night life has become.

The truth is that, with violent crime at the lowest levels since the 1970s and consumption of alcohol (whatever the health fascists want to pretend) at similarly low levels, going out on a evening in a place like Bradford is pretty safe. Of course this isn't the same as saying it's pleasant but that's an aesthetic judgement not a matter of personal security - there will be plenty of swearing, oodles of testosterone and plenty of drunkenness but what there won't be is that violent crime the police and other assorted nannying fussbuckets want you to believe is inevitable wherever people (and especially young people) gather to party.

We should be celebrating - with a large drink, of course - the fact that licensing reform and the promotion of sensible drinking has resulted in a turnaround in the safety of our town centres. Instead newspapers in search of a cheap headline, scaremongering politicians and assorted fussbuckets still present it as if our town centres are places of untrammelled behaviour, dangerous places of utter chaos. This is complete nonsense. But I guess that's always sold newspapers!

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More panic in Leeds...

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Last year (according to the figures in Wikipedia at least) over 25 million people trooped through Leeds station on their way to work, to shop or to enjoy Leeds celebrated nightlife. And in that same year 0.00089% of those passengers injured themselves:

In the past year 179 people have been injured at Leeds, and Network Rail said most incidents occurred when people lost their balance after a night out drinking.

Revellers have fallen off platforms, down stairs and escalators and slipped on the station concourse.

Injuries suffered included fractures, cuts and bruises.

Apparently this is a 'high' figure (although the BBC don't report any comparative figures from other stations) and is entirely due to booze:

Ahmed Abdalla, 20, said: "It's the city centre, people are drunk everywhere. From the afternoon they start, early drinking, partying all the time.

"They should be more careful, it's stupid. They're putting themselves and people around them at risk. It's mostly young college boys, uni boys, and girls sometimes."

Network Rail have panicked and are putting up posters telling people to be careful when they're smashed out of their brains. This is to cope with about three incidents a week.

Seems like another moral panic. What is it about Leeds and moral panic?

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"Big Oil! How the EU works...a reminder

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There has been a hoo-hah about the proposal to force restauranteurs to sell only factory-produced and approved olive oil. It hasn't quite been described this way rather as a ban on those cute little dipping bowls and in unlabelled bottles. The proposal has been dropped  - a welcome and unusual reaction (I guess that the EU was found out). And this is what the industrial olive oil folk have to say:

Copa-Cogeca, a farming association that represents industrial olive oil producers who would have benefited from the ban by getting a higher price for factory packaged bottles, attacked the climb down.

"It is totally ludicrous that the commission just withdraws this measure due to political pressure - it has been discussed for over a year and passed through all the correct legal procedures," said Pekka Pesonen , the general secretary of Copa-Cogeca.

"Perhaps it wasn't explained well enough. But it was necessary to ban refillable bottles and the traditional aceiteras found on restaurant tables. It is totally unacceptable that the Commission has done a complete U-turn and has succumbed to political pressure like this." 

You will notice a couple of things here - these producers "would have benefited from the ban by getting a higher price" and that the proposal has "been discussed for over a year". Moreover the ban, we're told is "necessary" - presumably for the owners of these industrial oil companies.

This is how the EU works. Organised lobbies corral officials and MEPs to browbeat them with proposals to protect their particular interests. We see this with the car industry and OEM parts, with industrial cheese manufacture in Italy and Greece using PDOs and PGIs, and with the pharmaceuticals business over herbal supplements (and more recently e-cigarettes).

All of this is wrapped up in warm words about 'health', 'safety' and 'protecting business' when, in reality, it is simply a ramp for the interests of the lobby. As a European consumer my interests are not served - and I am the poorer for this - by the failure of those who represent me (politicians, ministers and so forth) to do so. Now this is a feature of government everywhere - you only have to peek at the sugar industry in the USA to know that - but the EU has managed to achieve its perfection.

This olive oil ban is overturned (it will be lack, trust me) but ask yourself how many restrictions, bans, privileges and preferences have damaged our interests that haven't made the papers and haven't caused an outcry? The EU may have grown too large for us to take it round the back of the barn and finish it off with an axe but we have to option to leave.

We should take that option.

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...and they want these all over Bingley Rural?

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They burst into flames, they kill birds and the don't generate much electricity.

Oh and the wind blows them over:

The £250,000 tower, which stood as tall as a ten storey building, was hit by gale force gusts of 50mph. 

The structure then collapsed at a farm in Bradworth, Devon, leaving a "mangled wreck".

Yep, wind turbines are such a brilliant solution to our energy problems!

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