Thats Taking Liberties!

It seems that the loony Libertarian brigade are still banging on about the 'Ciggy busting' campaign by Hundred of Hoo Pupils a few weeks ago.

This blog was targeted by those on the loony Libertarian fringes along with fellow Medway Liberal Democrat Gary Allanach. We both disagreed on the legality of the event for our respective reasons

Indeed, the flurry of comments on both blogs can perhaps be attributed to the cross-linking by leading Libertarian Simon Clark, who has taken the odd comment out of context, and allowed a flurry of personal bile to remain beneath.

Nice bunch these libertarians!

The Council of course has been dealing with the copious quantities of paperwork over these complaints. One such response can be read on the popular Boiling Frog's blog:

Re: Formal Complaint – Rachael Noxon

I refer to your recent email about the Ciggybusters project.

We have checked with the organisers and all the people who had cigarettes taken off of them, and they were actors or willing participants. At no point did any smokers have their cigarettes taken without their permission.

This project, which looks at the dangers of smoking, was funded through a Community Chest grant by A Better Medway – a health campaign run by Medway Council and NHS Medway. Singling out the Tobacco Control Strategy Co-ordinator specifically as focus for your complaint is therefore inappropriate.

This project was something that was arranged and managed by the people that made the film, but neither Medway Council or NHS Medway would have condoned any activity that could cause offence.

The young people making the film, and the adults overseeing it, carefully stage-managed this to make sure that relevant organisations and participants were aware of the event in advance.

Everyone who took part knew what was happening and were not in any way offended. At no point were members of the public approached without their permission.

For these reasons I do not uphold your complaint.

Yours Sincerely

After receiving the letter it seems that Boiling Frog is closer to boiling point than the namesake blog suggests. The blog quickly retorts that Medway Council has not listened to the issue, and then goes onto cite supporting evidence from Liberal Democrat Councillor Gary Allanach.

Except, Boiling Frog has perhaps over boiled this one. Mr Allanach is not a Councillor. He is however a top 75 award winning Liberal Democrat blogger.

So there you go then. Totally legal and above board it would seem to all. Perhaps now our Hundred of Hoo pupils can return to Facebook without the snide remarks?

The one positive from all this.

With all these libertarians linking to this blog as well as Gary Allanach, it has surely now put its TotalPolitics rankings up from 98th!