Banned wagon
A weekly survey of the things our rulers want to prohibit
THIS column does not usually stray overseas, but the behaviour of the Peruvian President, Alejando Toledo, deserves comment for what it tells us about the international spread of Blairism. Last June, Toledo was elected as the country's first indigenous president, promising an end to corruption — something of a national pastime in Peru — and a crusade to end poverty.
In practice, grand promise has been substituted by emotive gesture worthy of our own Prime Minister. Last week, more than 200 people were killed in a fire that started when the owner of a firework store in Lima decided to demonstrate his wares by letting them off in the shop. It was a foolish act with terrible consequences, but Toledo's response was pure Dunblane: he rushed to the scene and announced that he was banning the production and import of fireworks forthwith. 'We can't go on losing lives,' he explained. Never mind mere regulation: an entire industry has to be disbanded, and all the jobs which go with it lost, because of one incident. The gesture hardly fits well with Toledo's earlier promise to find work for the poor.
Government by gut reaction doesn't work here, and is unlikely to work in Peru. The handgun ban introduced after Dunblane has led to an increase in gun crime, culminating last week in the shooting of a girl in East London for her mobile phone. All President Toledo will achieve is to add another item to the list of wares which fall under the control of criminal gangs.
It is unlikely to be long before Toledo's act is matched in Britain. Already, 31 mostly Labour backbenchers have tabled a motion to outlaw the setting-off of fireworks either side of Guy Fawkes Night. All that is needed now for the cause to win the tear-jerking support of the Prime Minister is a little martyr to stand in the way of a rocket next 5 November.
Ross Clark
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