Down With the Nanny State

( The views of a grumpy old man ) I have now for certain concluded that the nanny state thinks we are fools I have seen our society changing I am staggered at some of the rules No longer do we have the freedom to take risk after weighing the odds When having considered the chances put our fate in the lap of the gods Banned are the daredevil heroes of which our great nation was proud Adventure, thrill, exhilaration are simply no longer allowed Today it’s all stresses and traumas caused by the slightest mishap Not by bombs, poverty or starvation but by insignificant crap We must not get upset or worried or ever receive reprimand Our lives must be like Mary Poppins or we will be mentally harmed Before councillors were invented and you were confronted by strife You didn’t start whinging and whining you simply got on with your life Nobody made a commotion if a schoolteacher gave you the cane For it was considered unmanly if you couldn’t cope with the pain Villains broke rocks up on Dartmoor and murderers paid with their lives Fisticuffs settled a dispute for only a coward used knives Hooligans given a birching, till their backsides were blooded and sore It’s hard to look tough when your crying so very few went back for more Now it seems kids can’t play conkers at playtime unless wearing specs And fireman’s poles are a hazard, I wonder what they’ll think of next Workmen all need to have footwear with steel that’s built into the toes Plus high visibility jackets worn over their normal work cloths What with P.C. and human rights rubbish and constant advice on our food We should tell all do-gooders to "Stuff-it" up somewhere decidedly rude How do they think we all managed before all this twaddle arrived Through wars, poverty, depravation a hell of a lot still survived Don’t patronise us with this drivel, my generations not dense We have learned to roll with life’s punches by just using sound common sense If we could just gaze in a crystal and the next fifty years we could glimpse Then I for one feel pretty certain we will then have a nation of wimps None of us need to be coddled, we don’t need it all on a plate Let’s stand up to all these busybodies and jettison the nanny state The result of this do-gooded nonsense is easy for us to detect By the loss of respect for each other and virtually no self respect Gone are the days of the nit-nurse gone is the headmasters cane Is society better off for it? Perhaps we should all think again