British farmer Ronald Norcliffe has been keeping cows for 30 years. Not a herd of cows, mind you. Mr. Norcliffe is a poor man and right now, he possesses just a cow and a calf. They are his companions as well as an economic resource. He treats his animals with kindness and careful attention. Besides these animals and his dogs, Mr. Norcliffe lives alone.Nevertheless, the 65-year-old farmer was targeted by busy-body bureaucrats after they learned that his cow and her calf were wintered in the barn under Norcliffe's house -- a comfortable, dry, warm place, to be sure, but without what the Kirklees Environmental Health Department and the U.K. Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs considered "adequate lighting."
Without enough light, the argument went, Mr. Norcliffe was failing to meet the "psychological and ethological" needs of his bovines. The poor farmer was fined £150 (plus £50 court costs and a £15 "victim surcharge.")
But the Nanny State can pride itself for being most merciful in Mr. Norcliffe's case. After all, the law allows a maximum penalty for this crime as being 51 weeks in prison. And offenders can also be banned from keeping livestock.
Helping his case was Mr. Norcliffe's recent purchase of an electricity generator to provide power for more lights in his barn. It was an expensive investment for the farmer but he desperately wanted to keep his cows -- and to keep the niggling nitpickers off his back.
By the way, Mr. Norcliffe's cows now enjoy what he himself cannot afford.
His own house doesn't have electricity.
