From Wales Online: “Christmas Day rules could include a ban on arguing or hugging“.
Is talking OK? What about looking at somebody and recognising that they are actually there?
I bet picking a phone will remain lawful for the foreseeable future! (Or at least so long as there’s an electricity supply to recharge its battery with.)
The gob that the idea of banning arguing at Christmas came out of belongs to David Spiegelhalter, the “University of Cambridge professor”, “statistician”, “chairman of the Winton Centre for risk and evidence communication” (a David Harding-funded outfit housed by Cambridge University’s pure maths department), and royal-decorated knight of the realm. In other words he is a propagandist for big business and its state.
In his sneering view of what working class families do at Christmas, combined with is fanatical commitment to changing their behaviour by showing them who is boss, he reminds me of Eyal Winter, who said a few months ago that for pubs to reopen drinkers could be rationed to two or three pints of beer before being politely asked to go home.
This is close to what some call “gaslighting”, and it’s deliberate.
When TB was rampant, the authorities didn’t tell people “Don’t spit more than twice in a row”. Nor during WW2 did they say “Don’t smile at babies”.