The last few weeks in British politics have delivered some sharp body blows to the indelicate art of being a little shit. Last month, Prime Minister Andy Burnham unveiled a scheme combatting music being played aloud on public transport with financial penalties, while growing concern around face coverings and anti-social behaviour have crystallised in Edinburgh, with recent calls for a balaclava ban in the city centre from councillors Jo Mowat and Miles Briggs.
Thinking of the Prime Minister’s action on so-called ‘headphone dodgers’ brought to mind a clip of the quintessential New Yorker Frank Lebowitz, decrying a newly-introduced smoking ban. “I know that cigarette smoke annoys people,” she says, “but there are no other laws in this country about annoyance … You’re not entitled not to be annoyed!”
I admit, Lebowitz’s reading of cigarette smoke as merely irritating is reductive, given the well-documented health implications of second-hand smoking that justify restrictions on lighting up in public. But we’d do well to remember the broader implications of her perspicacity on this topic: you aren’t entitled to be annoyed.
I would never suggest that masked teenagers are delightful, or that a hen-do blaring Kylie Minogue on the train brightens my journey as we hurtle through some provincial station. But in the end, these things are annoying, not murderous or kleptomaniacal. How pristinely must we manicure the public realm according to our aesthetic preferences? I look forward to the restrictions on wearing unwashed clothes that bear a funny smell in areas of outstanding natural beauty, and noisy eating on the Number 38 to West Granton.
A year ago, Reform MP Sarah Pochin asked former Prime Minister Keir Starmer if he would ban the burqa ‘in the interest of public safety.’ The Student has previously commented on the double standard between those who wear the burqa and a balaclava, and I don’t seek to draw parallels between the anti-social behaviour of masked men with women exercising their religious freedom. But seeing as the aim of Mowat and Briggs’ prospective balaclava crackdown is to prevent people causing ‘disruption, wearing … face coverings to keep their identity concealed,’ the same logic as Pochin’s, would you really want to give her and her allies something to point to as evidence of the justice of their cause?
At the risk of sounding trite, much of this antisocial behaviour stems from a failure to socialise and provide adequate recreational resources for young people, not least due to the COVID-19 pandemic that depleted such resources and barred the young from socialising. Perhaps if greater resources were put into countering these deficiencies, we wouldn’t see such a problem in the first instance. Instead, what’s coming seems to be a game of miscreant wack-a-mole, with authorities chasing down hooded youths and issuing fines for forgetting your AirPods. Incidentally, when Tony Blair tried something similar, overzealous officials fined a man for dropping a £10 note, and threatened the Women’s Institute with penalties for handing out flyers. Now, that’s annoying.
Image “Prime Minister Andy Burnham hosts first weekly Cabinet Meeting” by Lauren Hurley is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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Balaclava ban bandage
The last few weeks in British politics have delivered some sharp body blows to the indelicate art of being a little shit. Last month, Prime Minister Andy Burnham unveiled a scheme combatting music being played aloud on public transport with financial penalties, while growing concern around face coverings and anti-social behaviour have crystallised in Edinburgh, with recent calls for a balaclava ban in the city centre from councillors Jo Mowat and Miles Briggs.
Thinking of the Prime Minister’s action on so-called ‘headphone dodgers’ brought to mind a clip of the quintessential New Yorker Frank Lebowitz, decrying a newly-introduced smoking ban. “I know that cigarette smoke annoys people,” she says, “but there are no other laws in this country about annoyance … You’re not entitled not to be annoyed!”
I admit, Lebowitz’s reading of cigarette smoke as merely irritating is reductive, given the well-documented health implications of second-hand smoking that justify restrictions on lighting up in public. But we’d do well to remember the broader implications of her perspicacity on this topic: you aren’t entitled to be annoyed.
I would never suggest that masked teenagers are delightful, or that a hen-do blaring Kylie Minogue on the train brightens my journey as we hurtle through some provincial station. But in the end, these things are annoying, not murderous or kleptomaniacal. How pristinely must we manicure the public realm according to our aesthetic preferences? I look forward to the restrictions on wearing unwashed clothes that bear a funny smell in areas of outstanding natural beauty, and noisy eating on the Number 38 to West Granton.
A year ago, Reform MP Sarah Pochin asked former Prime Minister Keir Starmer if he would ban the burqa ‘in the interest of public safety.’ The Student has previously commented on the double standard between those who wear the burqa and a balaclava, and I don’t seek to draw parallels between the anti-social behaviour of masked men with women exercising their religious freedom. But seeing as the aim of Mowat and Briggs’ prospective balaclava crackdown is to prevent people causing ‘disruption, wearing … face coverings to keep their identity concealed,’ the same logic as Pochin’s, would you really want to give her and her allies something to point to as evidence of the justice of their cause?
At the risk of sounding trite, much of this antisocial behaviour stems from a failure to socialise and provide adequate recreational resources for young people, not least due to the COVID-19 pandemic that depleted such resources and barred the young from socialising. Perhaps if greater resources were put into countering these deficiencies, we wouldn’t see such a problem in the first instance. Instead, what’s coming seems to be a game of miscreant wack-a-mole, with authorities chasing down hooded youths and issuing fines for forgetting your AirPods. Incidentally, when Tony Blair tried something similar, overzealous officials fined a man for dropping a £10 note, and threatened the Women’s Institute with penalties for handing out flyers. Now, that’s annoying.
We’ve Preserved More than Just Mummies
Image “Prime Minister Andy Burnham hosts first weekly Cabinet Meeting” by Lauren Hurley is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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