IS THE WORLD GOING MAD OR IS IT JUST ME?
Posted: 22 Apr 2026, 01:32
IS THE WORLD GOING MAD OR IS IT JUST ME?
28 April 2005
I know before I start that this is going to sound like an extended whinge and to be honest, I am not too sure how much of it is a product of my old-fashioned unreconstructed mind and how much is legitimate indignation. I’ll leave it to my readers to decide.
News on Farming Today on Radio 4 of a farmer who has got herself into trouble with DEFRA (The Department of Environment, Food and the Rural Economy. Commonly referred to as the department for the eradication of farming and the rural economy in scurrilous publications like my beloved Private Eye!) because inadvertently a ewe heavy in lamb was included in a bunch of sheep sent for slaughter. When the mistake was discovered, the ewe was turned out into a paddock adjacent to the slaughter house, lambed and is, as I write, suckling two healthy lambs. The intention is to let the ewe rear the lambs to weaning weight and then slaughter her but retain the lambs.
Nowt wrong with that you might say but DEFRA has different ideas. They say that the movement conditions for the ewe were contravened and that the ewe must be slaughtered immediately, in effect condemning the lambs as well. The farmer’s response, God bless her, was to refuse to do this and she has told DEFRA if they want them shooting and disposing of they can do it themselves. DEFRA would appear to be considering a re-think. In strict legal terms, DEFRA is right, there has been a contravention of the regulations and what they have proposed is correct in law. It would tidy the books up, console the bureaucrats and the machinery of government could roll on again, undisturbed and intact.
So what’s my problem? Why do I see parallels here with the schoolteacher who was convicted for driving without due care because she was eating an apple? (Estimated cost £1200.) The introduction of a disc parking scheme into Barlick under which an overstay of five minutes costs £60 and it is an offence to park with a wheel on the white line dividing the parking spaces and this in a town with no traffic or parking problems? A supermarket refusing to accept delivery of a batch of apples because some were 2mm larger than the contract specification?
I see a common thread in that what we are seeing is a rising tide of regulation that stifles individual responsibility. When independent thought and action is constrained people get out of the habit of exercising essential skills like assessment, decision and action. Once this has happened the result is corporate incompetence. In everyday terms, common sense flies out of the window and people accept impotence as the norm. In a climate like this, is it any wonder that levels of participation in public life have fallen, perhaps the most telling example is the low voter turn-out.
There are some small signs that give me hope, the lady who refused to slaughter the ewe and lambs is a good example. Can anyone contemplate Johnny Simpson at Bancroft poring over the DEFRA regulations before making a decision whether the ground was hard enough to go muck-spreading? You may laugh but under present regulations this is exactly what he is supposed to do. It is this core of competent, intelligent people who will, in the end, prevail but it may be a long time before the tide is turned.
What evidence do I have for my optimism? History demonstrates that increasing centralisation of power in any system of management inevitably leads to degradation of efficiency and in the long run destroys it from within. This applies to government, business and even families. The sad thing is the collateral damage that accompanies any readjustment and the cost to society and the economy.
All I can do to advise you on how to do your part to combat this trend is to recall the words of Mary Ann Pacheco in California in 1980 when she exhorted me to consciously perform one anti-social act a day. It might be refusing to open your mail, deliberately littering or taking a sicky. The actual act doesn’t matter, all that counts is whether it is genuine independent action counter to the flow of regulation that governs your lives. You will feel a sense of empowerment, you will have exercised the most precious right you have, independent thought and action. It may not be popular with our ‘masters’ but that in itself is a powerful recommendation. Go forth and transgress!
28 April 2005
28 April 2005
I know before I start that this is going to sound like an extended whinge and to be honest, I am not too sure how much of it is a product of my old-fashioned unreconstructed mind and how much is legitimate indignation. I’ll leave it to my readers to decide.
News on Farming Today on Radio 4 of a farmer who has got herself into trouble with DEFRA (The Department of Environment, Food and the Rural Economy. Commonly referred to as the department for the eradication of farming and the rural economy in scurrilous publications like my beloved Private Eye!) because inadvertently a ewe heavy in lamb was included in a bunch of sheep sent for slaughter. When the mistake was discovered, the ewe was turned out into a paddock adjacent to the slaughter house, lambed and is, as I write, suckling two healthy lambs. The intention is to let the ewe rear the lambs to weaning weight and then slaughter her but retain the lambs.
Nowt wrong with that you might say but DEFRA has different ideas. They say that the movement conditions for the ewe were contravened and that the ewe must be slaughtered immediately, in effect condemning the lambs as well. The farmer’s response, God bless her, was to refuse to do this and she has told DEFRA if they want them shooting and disposing of they can do it themselves. DEFRA would appear to be considering a re-think. In strict legal terms, DEFRA is right, there has been a contravention of the regulations and what they have proposed is correct in law. It would tidy the books up, console the bureaucrats and the machinery of government could roll on again, undisturbed and intact.
So what’s my problem? Why do I see parallels here with the schoolteacher who was convicted for driving without due care because she was eating an apple? (Estimated cost £1200.) The introduction of a disc parking scheme into Barlick under which an overstay of five minutes costs £60 and it is an offence to park with a wheel on the white line dividing the parking spaces and this in a town with no traffic or parking problems? A supermarket refusing to accept delivery of a batch of apples because some were 2mm larger than the contract specification?
I see a common thread in that what we are seeing is a rising tide of regulation that stifles individual responsibility. When independent thought and action is constrained people get out of the habit of exercising essential skills like assessment, decision and action. Once this has happened the result is corporate incompetence. In everyday terms, common sense flies out of the window and people accept impotence as the norm. In a climate like this, is it any wonder that levels of participation in public life have fallen, perhaps the most telling example is the low voter turn-out.
There are some small signs that give me hope, the lady who refused to slaughter the ewe and lambs is a good example. Can anyone contemplate Johnny Simpson at Bancroft poring over the DEFRA regulations before making a decision whether the ground was hard enough to go muck-spreading? You may laugh but under present regulations this is exactly what he is supposed to do. It is this core of competent, intelligent people who will, in the end, prevail but it may be a long time before the tide is turned.
What evidence do I have for my optimism? History demonstrates that increasing centralisation of power in any system of management inevitably leads to degradation of efficiency and in the long run destroys it from within. This applies to government, business and even families. The sad thing is the collateral damage that accompanies any readjustment and the cost to society and the economy.
All I can do to advise you on how to do your part to combat this trend is to recall the words of Mary Ann Pacheco in California in 1980 when she exhorted me to consciously perform one anti-social act a day. It might be refusing to open your mail, deliberately littering or taking a sicky. The actual act doesn’t matter, all that counts is whether it is genuine independent action counter to the flow of regulation that governs your lives. You will feel a sense of empowerment, you will have exercised the most precious right you have, independent thought and action. It may not be popular with our ‘masters’ but that in itself is a powerful recommendation. Go forth and transgress!
28 April 2005