Correction, it causes no physical harm.

Anyway we seem to have narrowed this law down to enforceability.

A bit like not using mobile phones in cars, dangerous driving offences, insider trading, assault where there is no physical indication of the injury after the event etc

All which are extremely hard to enforce, involve matters of opinion, and the law still dictates as illegal.  Just because something is hard to enforce it doesn't mean there shouldn't be a law discouraging it.

Plus in your example there are likely to be witnesses to such an event.  Anyway I'm not going to give you exact situations as I'm not gaing to start drafting the legislation with all caveats and exemptions attached.  It is wrong and should be discouraged via the law.

MJ

If I wanted to listen to an arsehole, I'd fart!

Erm.

Using a mobile in a car is not a matter of opinion, either you were or you weren't. Whether or not you insult someone and whether your words may be considered offensive is.

You haven't really thought that comment through have you?

Well if you feel its the responsibility of the police to stop people being 'rude' to each other thats how you feel I suppose. Society has generally made the assumption that an adult is perfectly capable of dealing with such a situation on their own. Laws already exist for situations where the line is stepped over into physical harm or reputation damaging comments.

Shelford,

Interestingly enough I believe France places that responsibility on others.

Thanks for the condescending comment, no offence taken :-)

Anyway.  I HAD thought it through, it's just a matter of grammer.  Whether or not someone is using a mobile phone in their car may not be a matter of opnion but is highly difficult to enforce.  I didn't intend to actually state that all 3 offences mentioned involved both opinion and unenforceability.

Anyway all you've done with that statement is be picky with one of three examples I gave.  You haven't actually dealt with the other examples.

Also I don't believe that the law should ban rudeness but 'offensive behavbiour' and to be honest there are lots of laws against this anyway.  I just think civil liberties enthusiasts often forget about the rights of victims.

Matty J

If I wanted to listen to an arsehole, I'd fart!

I imagine it generally comes under Breach of the peace..... for anything more sustained than a passing comment anyhow.

I think the issue is that people should be allowed to be rude if they want, leave it up to public opinion to judge them. Sticks and stones etc.

So leaving the issue of practicability aside... indeed lets leave aside the entire issue of whether we can really make a judgment call on what is or isn't 'offensive'

Assuming as a given one could catch these people being offensive then, what sort of punishment do you think is merited for rudeness?

Do you really think this is a sensible use of court and police time, given that they arguably have far more important things to be doing?

What 'rights' of the victim are you referring to? Why do you think that people have a 'right' not to be verbally abused?

Dont you love interesting quirks in law, and so even in the view of a police offer not much could be done really in the posters examples except in the social worker case with that I aam not sure but a complaint to the statutory body for social workers could have him struck off I suppose?

Sorry for the rant but I have a lot of crap to deal with day to day.