MAIL Online: The great puzzle of our time is why some pleasures are official sins, while others are smirkingly condoned by authority.
Understand why and you will know what is wrong with our degenerate ruling class.
In theory, the idea is that we all have a stern national duty to take lots of care of ourselves so that we do not become a burden on the holy, wonderful NHS.
We guard ourselves from self-inflicted illness or injury for the sake of others.
Since my childhood I have been ceaselessly lectured about how to stay safe and healthy, with varying degrees of success.
The simple slogans of the TV campaigns still echo in my memory, and no doubt in millions of others.
'Don't ask a man to drink and drive', 'One for the road? None for the road!', 'Clunk Click every trip'.
Propaganda isn't enough on its own. Law and fear are needed too.
Listen to an Englishman whinge when his driving licence is taken away, and you will see that there is still such a thing as punishment in our society, and it works.
I can remember the measurable change in the national atmosphere when the police began serious breathalysing.
Similar determination made us all wear seat belts. If only they'd do the same about the arrogant, murderous cretins who use mobile phones while driving.
The authorities also quite clearly know that advertising and the behaviour of actors and presenters on TV and in films affect behaviour.
That is why they have banned tobacco commercials and why it now seems astonishing that Joan Bakewell used to smoke while presenting the BBC's Late Night Line-Up in the Sixties. They Rave about the Peril of Sunbeds... Then Let Us Fry Our Brains on Cannabis >>> Peter Hitchens | Saturday, April 25, 2009
