The Express: UK gardeners to be strictly controlled
September 9th, 2008The Express has a front page story detailing government proposals to require that you seek planning permission in order to grow plants in your own garden:
AN army of town hall snoopers could soon be telling people what they can and cannot grow in their gardens.
Fast-growing plants and even lawns could be banned, under Labour’s latest environmental blitz.People would be forced to get planning permission to make changes in their gardens in order to help the Government hit its targets for reducing waste.
Last night Bob Neill, the Tories’ local government spokesman, blasted the proposal. “This is utter nonsense,” he said. “Are they really expecting hardworking people to go along to the council to get building regulation consent to plant their rhododendrons?
“This is another example of the heavy hand of Labour needlessly meddling in people’s lives.”
The astonishing measures are put forward in a policy document commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Some lawns could be banned because eco-experts claim that “mulched gardens” are better for the environment.
They say that lawns need extensive watering and people toss cut grass in with normal household waste.
Gardeners would also be told to avoid plants that need a lot of water.
Backbench Tory MP Philip Davies said: “I am gobsmacked that this is something the Government thinks is worth wasting their time with.
“They should be concerned with saving gardens by stopping developments being built on them, not intruding further into people’s private lives.
“If this is what Gordon Brown’s latest relaunch amounts to, then God help us all.” Doretta Cocks, of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said: “We have already got too many officials allowed to invade people’s homes.
“It is dreadful to think that they are going to start spying on gardens as well.”
Mark Wallace, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign group, said: “The Government and town hall officials should realise by now that they are not doing their basic jobs properly, so there is no way they should poke their nose into the design of our flower-beds.
“The last thing people need is more busybodies bossing people about.”
[…]
and an opinion piece:
THE idea that town hall snoops should acquire powers to vet what plants people grow in their gardens is the latest suggestion from the eco-fascist movement which is destroying freedom in Britain.
It should surprise nobody that those putting forward this preposterous plan do so on the basis that it could allegedly help to reduce household waste.The people who do not want to empty your bins have entered the business of telling you what should be in your back yard.
Naturally enough they approve of plants which like dry conditions but disapprove of those which need regular watering.
Only in a nation where officialdom has inverted its proper role of serving the public could such suggestions make it into the policy documents of government departments.
Under Labour, state commissars have come to believe their proper station is to be masters of the people rather than servants.
The British public are known for regarding their homes as their castles but they are equally proprietorial about their gardens.
In our increasingly overcrowded island a patch of private outside space presents many people with a rare opportunity to assert their individuality.
Any politician – local or national – who seeks to exert state control over such terrain will surely be drummed out of office.
There is an old nursery rhyme that poses the question: “How does your garden grow?” Municipal snoopers who make such inquiries in the future should not expect to receive a detailed list of items but instead to be given the curt reply: Mind your own business.
[…]
http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/60602/Municipal-snoopers-have-no-place-in-our-gardens
What is missing here, firstly is a proper ending to the opinion piece. It should have ended, “…curt reply: Over my dead body you son of a bitch.”
The other, more important point that the Express completely fails to address is the fact that they approve of the government outlawing the growing of other plants. They already heartily approve of the outlawing of marijuana, and if they accept that precedent, then it is completely logical to allow the government to tell you what other plants you should or should not grow.
The principle is very clear; as soon as you let the state govern you in one aspect of your life, they will seek to govern you in all aspects. There is no reason why you should not be able to grow any plant (that is naturally occurring) on your own land. You have the absolute right to do that, and then to make any preparation from those plants that you like for any application that you like, as long as you are not harming anyone else. That is why Genetically Modified plants cannot be grown on your own land, because bees will pollinate your clean plants with the frankenstein pollen from the GM crops, doing harm to your property.
The Express cannot reasonably complain about this. They are FOR the state controlling your garden for plants that they do not like, but AGAINST the state controlling plants that they do like. This is illogically. Either you accept the state’s authority to tell you what you can and cannot plant in all instances where your garden doesn’t harm anyone else, or you accept that you have no rights at all on your own land, and submit completely.
They are now way down the roller-coaster of their own destruction thanks to their own unthinking stance towards liberty, and sadly, wen confronted by the monsters they have created, all they can do is give a limp wristed, milk blooded response.