Polar opposites.

There were two items back-to-back on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning which caught my attention, and which together showed up everything which is becoming wrong with the overbearing, mollycoddling nanny-state in which we are increasingly expected to exist.

Note that I don't use the word 'live'. Living is fast becoming an inaccurate term which can and should no longer be applied to those of us unfortunate to live in Great Britain. Living implies an element of individual thought and, as a result, an element of risk. Risks, as we all know from the Health and Safety Executive, amongst other pointless organisations, are to be avoided at all costs. Risks are 'A Bad Thing'.

So to the news - the first item was concerning a new scheme whereby local councils (or police forces, I'm not sure I can tell the difference any more) are to be allowed to install an 'all-new generation of roadside enforcement cameras'.

Fantastic. That's all we need as motorists in Britain. More enforcement cameras.

So what do these new cameras do, I hear you cry? Well, they're designed to catch those drivers committing that most heinous of crimes - the crime of 'Wilfully or Accidentally (We Don't Care Which) Straying into an (Underused and Inconveniently Positioned) Cycle Lane'. The penalty, we were told, was to be a fixed penalty of £120.

This sanction, it was said, was to underline and reinforce the point that cyclists have as much right to use the roads safely as the evil car drivers out there. It conveniently skirted around the facts - that cyclists don't pay road tax, that there is no requirement for their cycles to be routinely checked for roadworthiness and mechanical safety, that cyclists are not obliged to be in possession of any insurance, that they are not required to wear any form of safety clothing, that they are not required to undergo any formal training nor sit a test, and that they in no way contribute to the upkeep of the road network as a whole.

So, I ask the following questions:

• Do cyclists really have as much right as car drivers to be on the road?
• Is it sensible that the penalty for straying into a (most likely empty) cycle lane be twice that of using a hand held mobile phone whilst driving, or speeding?
• Will the 'cycle lane infringement' cameras be used for the additional purpose of catching and fining those cyclists weaving and wobbling out of control out of their dedicated lanes and into the path of the car drivers using their lanes?
• In light of the protection of the cyclists God-given rights to their own lanes, will car drivers be protected from those who squeeze past cars at traffic lights, banging off the mirrors of the vehicles they pass, scratching their paintwork with pedals and handlebars?
• Furthermore, will cyclists who use the pavement, cross pedestrian crossings, cycle the wrong way down one-way streets, ignore road markings and signage, fail to give hand signals at junctions, display no lights or reflectors after dusk, abandon their bicycles chained up wherever they please regardless of the hazard they cause, or any one more of dozens of bad habits they regularly display be prosecuted and slapped with a hefty fine on each occasion?

Of course the answer to all of these questions is 'No'. Of course none of the ideas presented could really work as cyclists don't have a registration plate advertising their identity to aid the easy generation of revenue. Sorry, I mean 'prevention of crime'.

So, just another example of the state protecting the vulnerable, in this case the cyclist by ironing out a threat to their existence? Maybe... but for the wrong reasons, and in the wrong way. This isn't responsible government - this is nanny state, Big Brother, 1984 kind of stuff. Taking an easy route once again, penalising the easy targets - motorists are used to paying up - rather than addressing the real issues at hand.

So the other news item that caught my ear? The discovery of an unmarked mass grave, home to the remains of over 400 British and Australian soldiers, buried by the German army after the battle of Fromelles which took place during July 1916.

Brave men, who gave up their lives to protect that which was sacred to them.

Freedom.

Freedom. Only seven letters, but the biggest word in the world. Those brave young men died to protect theirs - the freedom to live, and think for themselves. The same freedom which is slowly but surely being taken away from all of us. Not through the actions of a despotic tyrant, nor a government driven by hatred and greed - but through our own apathy, through our own inability to stand up, speak out, and to paraphrase the words of Dylan Thomas, shout:

"We will not go quietly into the night, we will rage rage against the dying of the light"

In memory of those brave soldiers - please take a moment to be silent as you read the following, from 'For the Fallen' by Laurence Binyon.

"They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning

We will remember them."