We're turning into a nation of thugs – time to stop the rot and deal with these thugs
OPINION - VIRGINIA BLACKBURN: And the civil liberties campaigners can bore off!
I am writing this from the departure lounge of Frankfurt airport and may, or may not, be flying to Helsinki later on after the best part of two days spent on a journey that should have been less than three hours. I’ll spare you the gory details but flying is becoming a misery these days. My original flight to Helsinki was cancelled at a few hours’ notice; exactly the same thing happened to my husband when we were in Miami earlier this year. But at least something is set to improve: the government, in its one and only moment of common sense to date, is drawing up plans to ban drunk and abusive passengers from ever flying again. They should apply this across the board.
Thankfully I have yet to encounter fights and shouting on a plane, but I see it on trains all the time, especially when football matches are on. There are the rest of us sitting and minding our own business, when the train doors open, a group of drunken yobs match on board and start singing (loudly), chanting and making a menace of themselves.
They may think they are showing the exuberance of youth: in actual fact they are a threatening menace. They should be stopped. Needless to say, civil liberties campaigners think the potential flying ban will “set a dangerous precedent” by allowing the Government and private companies to filter the public’s access to transport and services. What rot.
It merely means that idiots who can’t control themselves in public will have it graphically illustrated that anti-social behaviour is totally unacceptable and will have consequences. And we should apply this across the board.
Standards of behaviour in every walk of life have been slipping for decades now and it’s time we returned to the reputation our country once had: one of manners and politeness. As it is, We’re turning into a nation of thugs. Time to stop the rot.
