Workers' Liberty

Good you must be better to have put blog Janine. I went a big display a Clappam Common. It was one of the best I've been to and it was free. There should be free proffesional displays everywere. If I were carrying explosive in a truck I would riquire an explosives ADR, the course takes 2 weeks. And the truck would require 2 drivers. Tempory shops unders flats sell these, if there was a fire, goodby flats and residents. Kids will always get upto no good and some perants are not responcable. Would you like kids to have hand granades and bombs if they were legal. It would be easey to make them from a few fire's works gun powder. A rocket is like a small rocket powered granade in the wrong hands. Only proffesionals should be able to use gun powder. Also is it politicaly correct for socialist to selibrats guy faulks night, is not the selbration of the burning of a Catholic who tried to blow up Parmiliment due to religiouse disagreemets? Nouthing new about that!

Some sort of licence to store and sell fireworks might be usefull in preventing these temporary firework shops.

I also think a permit would be a good idea. Anyone wanting to buy fireworks should have to write to either the fire service or the local authority for a temporary permit. In the letter the person should state where and when they intend to use the fireworks and this could be subject to spot checks.

By putting the owness of licencing onto both consumer and supplier we might be able to cut down on the irresponsible and antisocial use of fireworks without spoiling people's fun.

Janine, glad you seem to be on the mend. I don't have to walk round with one eye closed to know what its like. 20 years ago I had a very bad detached retina, and had to have an operation. In fact they did some work on both eyes, and for a while I had both of them bandaged over. I agree with your sentiments regarding bans - bans on anything. Allowing the bourgeois state to impose bans gives a precedent for them to censor and limit the liberty of ordinary working class people.

On the other hand. Even in a bourgeois state, we have to accept that some laws are necessary, and protect workers as well as the capitalists. For example, would we argue against Road Traffic Laws because they restrict the ability of drivers to act like idiots? All such laws involve a ban of some sort i.e. a ban from driving over a certain speed, or after you have drunk so much alcohol. And on balance I agree with the ban on smoking in public places, because although it restricts to some extent the liberty of smokers, they have other choices, and not banning affects the health of non-smokers in situations where they have effectively none.

The same I think applies to fireworks. When I was a kid I saw some appalling injuries caused by fireworks, and I know I did some pretty stupid things with them myself. If it were in a workplace we would go through the roof if workers were simply handed explosives (which after all is what fireworks are) and left to use them without proper training or other Health and Safety precautions.

Even with organised displays accidents happen as was the case this year in Northampton. But at least with organised displays there is no reason that those conducting them shouldn't be properly trained, and proper Health and safety for operators and spectators put in place. Besides the possibility of injury, there is also the effect that fireworks have on people in general. When I was a kid, we used to throw the odd banger or jumping jack for a week or so before bonfire night, but the main thing happened on the night and that was it. One bloke whose garden adjoins mine had a fairly continuous barrage of fireworks going off for a couple of hours every night for a fortnight. God knows how much he must have spent on them. And every night my greyhound was on the verge of having a heart attack because of the noise from them. On bonfire night we had to stick him in the car and go and sit in a lay by up on the moors near Buxton before he calmed down.

I think there are similarities between this debate and the debate on guns. Socialists have been opposed to gun control traditionally because we oppose the state having a monopoly of violence. However, as the people most likely to have access to guns other than the state tend to be criminals, and people more likely to be hostikle to than supportive of the organised working class, in my opinion the demand for the right to bear arms should be as it is actually stated in the US Constitution - the right to bear arms as part of a well regulated militia.

In short on balance I think I am in favour of a ban on all individuals being able to buy fireworks. Instead I would favour local communities organising their own displays - either via their own TRA's or by the Local Council organising them.

Arthur Bough