Whose business is it anyway?

So Digby Jones, the director general of the Confederation of British Industry, thinks that MPs are a bit dopey when it comes to checking out new EU legislation. You see, some of these new laws are interfering with British business which, Mr. Jones thinks, is a particularly un-groovy thing to happen:

Parliament was not equipped to stop new rules from marching the UK "valiantly towards the 70s".

In response the government says that “they are on the case” and that it’s all down to the "honourable tradition" of faithfully implementing EU laws. Presumably being on the case will mean implementing the laws in an unfaithful manner, or in part, or perhaps in another way that slips my mind.

Of course all this is nonsense. Just a couple of Disco Stu’s arguing over the moves for a particularly naff dance.

The approach to fixing these issues properly is in fact two fold. Firstly, as a preliminary measure while waiting for the implementation of the second stage of this plan, each new legislative document handed to us from the EU should be greeted with a frown and an impatient wave of the hand whilst, at the same time, saying to the messenger in a particularly loud voice ”what is this nonsense?”. The documentation should then be taken and glanced at for no more than about twenty minutes, paying particular attention to the front cover. Then a few simple questions should be asked: ”Is there any similar British initiated legislation awaiting approval? No? Then we clearly have not identified a need for this…..this thing.” It should then be stamped:

REJECTED
RETURN TO SENDER
BRUSSELS
OVERSEAS

Of course, if there does exist some similar British legislation awaiting approval, an immediate inquiry should be held into the appropriateness of the British legislation on the grounds that it bares a passing resemblance to some legislative SPAM that we have recently received. It should then be stamped:

UNDER HM GOVERNMENT REVIEW
RETURN TO SENDER
BRUSSELS
OVERSEAS

If, of course, we already have the legislation and it’s simply a case of someone else stumbling upon our good ideas we should stamp the document:

WE’VE ALREADY GOT ONE
RETURN TO SENDER
BRUSSELS
OVERSEAS

The second stage of the plan, which we should implement as soon as we feel comfortably prepared for the spitting and shouting and general all round grumpiness it will cause in foreign parliament buildings is, of course, to eventually stamp all received documentation thusly:

UNSOLICITED MAIL
RETURN TO SENDER
BRUSSELS
OVERSEAS

Hmmm, I'm sure there's a T-shirt slogan in there somewhere.

Posted by John at August 20, 2004 12:28 PM | TrackBack