Dear Chums

I write firstly applaud Uncle Eric and all at DCLG in allowing me to take part in a truly wonderful street party to celebrate the Royal Wedding last week - wow what a day we had! There were about 6 of us for most of the day, though Mrs T did have take the twins to a birthday party at 11am for a few hours. So it was left to me, Bob with the dodgy knee from number 3 and his collie called Shep to get the party started.

We sat about in the street drinking Stella and munching on a KFC family feast bucket (one each natch). We were having so much fun we forgot to put the tv on to watch the wedding, but we had a blinder of a day. Really magic and the the only downer was we had to deal with a few irate motorists and a nasty incident when an ambulance tried to spoil our fun but we continued to exercise our right to party. So thanks chums.

Before the wedding I was pleased to see poor Grant Shapps comments in The Mirror. (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ne...).

I love it that poor Grant Shapps appears to be a fan of Dizzee Rascal, more of a Scrufizzer fan myself. Mr Rascal once sang:

“I wake up everyday it’s a daydream
Everythin in my life isn’t what it seems
I wake up just to go back to sleep
I act real shallow but I’m in to deep
And all I care about is sex and violence
And a heavy bass line is my kind of silence
Everybody says I got to get a grip
But I let sanity give me the slip”

B.O.N.K.E.R.S!!!!... Indeed. Sounds like my life – apart from the sex and violence reference. Respect MC Shappsy….. but sooo last year really.

Mr Shapps , in his considered think piece in The Mirror, quite rightly attacked councils for their ‘bonkers’ approach to applying Health and Safety laws. I am so glad this he is the voice of reason. I now hope that he will tackle other bonkers acts so that I can continue to send one of the twins up the chimney from time to time – or at least until they get too big and not have to justify a little spring cleaning to some interfering social worker. Also it would help if he could stop those busy bodies forbidding me from fitting my own gas boiler and finally allow me next week to use the job lot of out-of-date sausages that I picked up down the boozer at the twins schools sports day next week. I am sure that with a little ketchup they will be fine after a couple of minutes on the BBQ and will really get the kids going.

Anyway time to get to the substantive request. Can you please supply me with the following information?

1) A list of councils who DCLG are aware applied ‘bonkers health and safety rules [to] prevent simple celebrations taking place’
2) Any evidence that councils were going, in Grant Shapps, words ‘bonkers?’ Please include the name of the council and details of the ‘bonkers’ decision, act or intent.

Yours bonking

D:Eric