Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit
THE Home Secretary's latest piece of rushed legislation, in reaction to the anthrax scares of the past fortnight, is a new law which would see hoaxers put behind bars for seven years. Of course, spreading panic by sending fake anthrax through the post ought to be a crime. In fact, it already is: under existing law people who waste police time in this way can be jailed for up to six months. If that sentence doesn't deter malicious hoaxers, it is difficult to see why a seven-year one would. Longer sentences might even make hoaxing more likely: the most obvious reason for wanting to scare people with fake bombs and anthrax spores is an attention-seeking disorder. The bigger a deal the law makes of hoaxing, the more attractive it becomes to the attentionseeker.
The trouble with a specific law against hoaxing is that it won't just cover the malicious bomb threat or talcum-powder-filled envelope. It will inevitably end up snaring innocent student pranksters. A few years ago, a group of students drew up in a LandRover in a north Wales village armed with theodolites. While locals drew back their curtains wondering what was going on, the students proceeded to conduct a survey of the village street. Just before leaving, they painted a thick yellow line towards the top of the chapel tower and marked it 'proposed high-water mark'. Angry letters were fired off to councillors and the local MP demanding to know about these — non-existent — plans to flood their village. A lot of anxiety was spread and a few man-hours wasted, but is society really best served by locking up the perpetrators of such a jape for seven years?
Joining them in jail might be a certain David Blunkett, who several years ago fooled voters that he was going to abolish selective education by saying, 'Watch my lips. No more selection.' After selective and anti-selective groups had wasted a great deal of time preparing unnecessary campaigns, he said he hadn't meant it: it was all a joke.
Ross Clark
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