The barminess of the EU never ends...

[Gob]

The EU toy safety directive, agreed and implemented by Government, states that balloons must not be blown up by unsupervised children under the age of eight, in case they accidentally swallow them and choke.

Despite having been popular favourites for generations of children, party games including whistles and magnetic fishing games are to be banned because their small parts or chemicals used in making them are decreed to be too risky.

Apparently harmless toys that children have enjoyed for decades are now regarded by EU regulators as posing an unacceptable safety risk.

Whistle blowers, that scroll out into a a long coloured paper tongue when sounded – a party favourite at family Christmas meals – are now classed as unsafe for all children under 14.

The new rules are designed to protect children from the chance that a piece of the whistle could be swallowed and cause choking.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... rules.html

[Scooter]

Of course a toy safety rule does not carry the power to prevent children from blowing up balloons. As the article says further on, it requires that packages of balloons carry a warning that says they pose a choking hazard. To call this a "ban" on the use of balloons by children under 8 is a falsehood designed to manufacture faux outrage.

[The Hen]

I relish the uninhibited freedom I enjoyed as a child.

Commonsense was not something that was necessary to put in writing to provide protection in legal proceedings.

[Gob]

The "outrage" not that any were expressed, should be that the EU wastes taxpayers money coming up with such stupidity and regulation.

[Scooter]

I see nothing about any concern for waste of taxpayers' money and a lot of space given to people ignorantly or intentionally tallking about "banning" children from blowing up ballons.

If the reactions had been "parents don't need to be told that children need to be supervised when playing with toys they can stick in their mouths", that would have been common sense, as Hen put it. But that wasn't the tack that was taken, was it? Why instead did they choose to manufacture outrage by pretending this regulation does something which it doesn't?

[Gob]

Well if the directive is enforceable then they have banned kids under eight from blowing up balloons unsupervised.

But again, this legislation is a waste of taxpayers money, don't you agree?

Edited to add;

And within the next 18 months ‘scratch and sniff’ toys such as the strawberry-smelling Lots-O’-Hugging’ bear, featured in Toy Story 3, will be banned because chemicals are used to create the fragrance.

The stringent regulations form part of the Toy Safety Directive, which has just come into force.

All teddies and soft toys for children under three must be washable to prevent the spread of disease and infection – and limits have been imposed on how noisy toys, including babies’ rattles, can be.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1aRG6igKl

[Scooter]

Well if the directive is enforceable then they have banned kids under eight from blowing up balloons unsupervised.

After claiming (falsely) that the directive is about banning children from blowing up balloons unsupervised, they explain its actual effect - to require labelling warning of the choking hazard and recommending that children be supervised when using them. So enforcing the directive would mean getting labelling changed, not sending balloon police around peeking in windows to check if kids are blowing up balloons unsupervised.

But again, this legislation is a waste of taxpayers money, don't you agree?

I would tend to think that most children are not stupid enough to try to swallow balloons and that the parents of those who are are not going to be much affected by a label warning them about it. But I have not seen any stats about children choking on balloons and presumably those who came up with this regulation have, so I cannot say with any certainty that it is wrong headed.

And within the next 18 months ‘scratch and sniff’ toys such as the strawberry-smelling Lots-O’-Hugging’ bear, featured in Toy Story 3, will be banned because chemicals are used to create the fragrance.

If the chemicals used have been determined to be dangerous to children, as have several of the chemicals used in similar cheap shit made in China, etc., then I would hope they would be banned.

All teddies and soft toys for children under three must be washable to prevent the spread of disease and infection – and limits have been imposed on how noisy toys, including babies’ rattles, can be.

If unwashable stuffed toys have been shown to pose a significant risk of disease transmission, and too-noisy rattles have been shown to cause hearing loss, then such regulations would appear to have a reasonable basis. I do not know without looking at whatever data was considered in coming up with them, and I suspect the Mail did not bother to ask for it for fear of discovering facts which might get in the way of what passes in that paper for a good story.

[Sean]

It was The Daily Telegraph mate, not The Mail...

[Scooter]

Then I guess it would be a piece that not merely passes for a good story, but would have been considered of almost unsurpassed excellence in comparison to the usual tripe withing its pages.

[Sean]

Sorry Scoot, it's probably me but I have no idea what that sentence means...

[Scooter]

What I originally said was

I suspect the Mail did not bother to ask for it for fear of discovering facts which might get in the way of what passes in that paper for a good story.

When you pointed out that it was actually the Telegraph I amended my comment accordingly.

[Gob]

Yes Soot, yes Scoot, yes Scoot... You were right, you found a loop hole in the reporting ...

Now can we agree that this is a waste of taxpayers money, and an unnecessary legislative and bureaucratic imposition?

[Scooter]

Do you know for a fact that there have not been significant problems that have been the impetus for these regulations? I don't, so I can't say for a certainty that any of them were a "waste" or "unnecessary". Which I already said. You can ignore it again, if you like.

[Gob]

Yes, I think I will.

I'm sure the balloon choking epidemic, the great "sniff and scratch" massacre, and the teddy bear poisoning catastrophe of recent years will soon come to light.

[Scooter]

And I'm sure you would never criticize a piece of legislation without first checking to see that there is no data to support it.

[Gob]

I'm sure you can be even more pedantic if you try.

[Scooter]

If it's pedantic to say, "this might make more sense than appears at first blush because of information of which I am unaware, and so perhaps I shouldn't give in to the pavlovian reaction a biased press piece is attempting to elicit from me," then I gladly plead guilty.

[Sue U]

What I originally said was

I suspect the Mail did not bother to ask for it for fear of discovering facts which might get in the way of what passes in that paper for a good story.

When you pointed out that it was actually the Telegraph I amended my comment accordingly.

To be fair, Gob's second link in fact was to the the Mail.

Funny, I didn't see this story in The Guardian. In a quick googling, I did find this, however:

Is the EU going to ban children from blowing up balloons?

11 October, 2011 - 12:28 -- Amy Sippitt

The Daily Telegraph today claimed children are to be banned from blowing up balloons under a new EU law. We contacted the European Commission to investigate these claims.

3 out of 5

“Children to be banned from blowing up balloons, under EU safety rules” The Daily Telegraph, 10 October 2011

With the Conservative party leadership indicating that they did not support an ‘in/out’ referendum over the UK’s membership to the EU at last week’s conference, the influence of Brussels on British law has again found itself in the limelight.

Today the Telegraph was among the papers to report that the European Commission was now planning to ‘ban’ a smorgasbord of children’s’ toys

It stated the new EU directive would prevent children from “taking part in traditional Christmas games,” while whistles and toys such as magnetic fishing were now deemed “too risky” due to the small size of their components or their chemical composition.

So, is the EU 'ruining' a Christmas tradition? Full Fact decided to investigate.

Analysis

The new EU directive became law in the UK via the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011 which came into force on 19th August 2011.

When Full Fact contacted a spokesman for the European Commission to check the Telegraph's claims they confirmed that the Directive did indeed deal with the balloons and ‘whistle blowers’ mentioned by the paper.

Balloons made of latex must carry a warning to parents that children under eight years should be supervised. Furthermore, all toys aimed at children under the age of three should be large enough to prevent them being swallowed.

However as one former head of media for the European Commission’s London office has pointed out, the EU can only “regulate how things are put on the market, but not how they are used in the home.”

Furthermore, these precautions are not new, as the Telegraph article implies. The Commission asserted the new law is in fact enforces the same restrictions on toy safety which has been in place since 1988.

It is also worth noting that the EU is not unique in implementing regulations of this sort, and similar rules exist in the United States.

So in fact the restrictions are neither new, nor dramatically more restrictive than child safety policies in force elsewhere.

Conclusion

Although the claims made by the Telegraph doesn’t misrepresent the content of the EU safety directive, it does appear to exaggerate its case. The EU cannot in fact ‘ban’ the products mentioned, but merely require that warnings are carried on the packaging. Moreover, these are not ‘new’ requirements as the paper implies, and in fact have been in effect for over two decades

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/EU_Europ ... graph-3026

[Scooter]

So the gutter press was having a slow news day, and had to trot out a 20 year old regulation and completely misrepresent its effect in order to manufacture some anti-EU outrage?

Next thing you'll be telling us that the earth isn't flat.

[Gob]

Thanks for that Sue, interesting analysis.

Shows that the EU has been producing barmy legislation, and silly bureaucracy, for over 20 years!