Bill Carmichael: Thanks EU... for rubber glove peril alert

Why? Because the brave bureaucrats of Brussels have stepped in to protect us from a deadly menace that lurks in every home – the humble rubber glove.

Fresh from its triumph in banning powerful vacuum cleaners, the EU has announced a whole new raft of regulations governing washing up gloves and oven gloves, including specifying that they should be able to withstand temperatures of 200c – more than twice the boiling point of water.

Of course the extra layers of red tape will mean the price of rubber gloves will soar by about 20 per cent – but that surely is a small price to pay to protect us from this evil peril that threatens the very existence of the human race.

So how many people have been killed or seriously injured in rubber glove-related accidents? Er... none.

But look, if we admit that grown adults are able to pull on a pair of marigolds without wiping out their entire families, then who knows where it will all end. We may decide that we don’t need all these petty and pointless regulations – and the whole premise of the EU will collapse.

If you decide to employ tens of thousands of bureaucrats you have to find something for them to do – and inventing entirely fictitious dangers from killer rubber gloves is about as good an exercise in futility as anything else.

And we all know what will happen; our European neighbours will simply ignore the regulations – as they do with most Brussels dictats they don’t like.

Meanwhile, here in the UK, the EU rules will be plated in platinum and an army of clipboard men will be given new powers to kick down the doors of under-sink cupboards across the land to search for black market supplies.

Look out for the job adverts in the Guardian: “Wanted: Rubber glove enforcement officers. £50,000 pa, six weeks holiday, index linked pension.”

There is a serious point here. Countries across the EU, including some of its biggest economies, are teetering on the brink of disaster. Youth unemployment in many areas is above 50 per cent, businesses are collapsing and livelihoods are being ruined.

And the response in Brussels? Well the handsomely rewarded pen-pushers carry on as normal, immune from the harsh austerity their policies have inflicted on ordinary people across the continent and fussing over endless nannying regulations that will ensure growth can never recover.

This week Pope Francis described the EU as “elderly and haggard” and likened it to an old, infertile granny.

He was too kind. The EU is in fact a rotting corpse. The only sign of life is the wriggling of the bureaucratic maggots feasting on the decaying flesh of once vibrant societies.

As for me – the EU will have to prize my marigolds from my cold, dead hands.

Just plain violence

The rioting in the US this week bears striking similarities with the riots that broke out across the UK in 2011.

The homegrown version was sparked after police shot dead Mark Duggan, a known gangster and drug dealer who was on his way to a shoot-out with a rival gang with a gun hidden in a sock.

The US riots followed the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. He was shot after he robbed a shop, attacked a police officer and tried to steal his gun.

The Left really know how to pick their heroes, don’t they?

The US is such a racist society that it twice elected a black president. In truth the reason Barack Obama has proved so utterly useless has nothing to do with the colour of his skin and everything to do with the fact he just wasn’t up to the job.

The Left excuses the violence and arson as some kind of political protest against an unequal society.

Because, you know, nothing demonstrates your commitment to social justice more than stealing a 50-inch television from a looted shop.

Why the reluctance to call this rioting for exactly what it is – thuggery and naked greed?

Sadly the people who will suffer most are those who live in those devastated communities. The vast majority of shops destroyed are owned by black people.

These riots have nothing to do with inequality, injustice or race. They are “shopping with violence”, pure and simple.