Subsidising mini-skirts

Shamubeel asked yesterday why the Government is asked to fix every perceived problem. As inspiration for his forthcoming post I present the latest initiative from a city councillor in Essex:

A council is considering urging taxi firms to provide cheaper cab fares for women who wear revealing clothes.
Brentwood Borough Council is considering the bizarre move in a bid to stop women wearing short skirts or low-cut tops becoming a target for sex attackers.
The council is considering discounted taxi prices so that ‘provocatively dressed’ women can be driven back home and have less of a problem getting a ride.

I have a feeling that he hasn’t really thought through the incentives it would provide.

2 replies
  1. Bill Patterson
    Bill Patterson says:

    Between Shamubeel’s comment and your post the issue morphed from “whenever something goes wrong, the reaction is ‘what will the government do about it?'” to “why the Government is asked to fix every perceived problem”. These can be seen quite differently. What the government does in response to something can include knowing where it can play a positive role and where it can’t. Where the government can actually do the fixing is another question – and of course “every perceived problem” is actually an impossibility 🙂 But perhaps I should note this post is filed under Humour.

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  1. […] and specific, unintended consequences pop up somewhere else, like a bad 1980s waterbed (eg as James wrote). But that is what we risk if we ask the gummint to regulate and intervene for all perceived […]

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