Number Plate Censorship Fever Spreads!

We recently reported that the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority) had banned the SN07 number plate series in Scotland, supposedly because people might be offended by its resemblance to the word "snot", and were considering doing the same with the SN08 ("snob") series next year. A while later we told you of a further exercise in prissy censorship when various other combinations were withdrawn, also for fear that they might cause offence.

While we thought the banning of SN07 and SN08 displayed a rather oversensitive nature, we did see the arguments for a couple of the later withdrawals. On the other hand, some of the others in that batch baffled us even more than the earlier excisions.

Not the kind of people to be put of by criticism or mockery, the ever-vigilant DVLA have withdrawn yet another batch of UK car registration numbers that they consider potentially offensive. The combinations at issue this time are: CNT, FRT, CUM, FKC, CUN, AST and BNP.

The only combination we see a possible argument for banning is BNP. While we resent the fact that a distasteful nationalist organisation could possibly get political mileage (no pun intended) out of vehicles bearing their initials, we do acknowledge the remote possibility. People may find the combination offensive especially if it were affixed to a vehicle driven by an evident racist lout (we understand that such people have occasionally managed to infiltrate the BNP).

But, whether we like it or not (and your correspondent leans towards "not"), the BNP is a "valid" UK political party. Is it appropriate for a publicly funded, government organisation, such as DVLA, to discriminate against one political party? Even broadcasters have to allow equal opportunity, do they not? Will DVLA now be banning LAB, CON and SDP combinations?

As for the others, well, once again we would suggest that smut is in the eye or the mind of the beholder, and in some cases that smutty mind would have to work pretty hard to rearrange or insert letters in order to take offence.

It is largely the seemingly knee-jerk and arbitrary nature of the bans and the inconsistent quality of policy that bemuses us. DVLA was quite happy to issue some very, very obvious fun registrations a while ago. PEN 15 and ORG 45M require neither anagram manipulation nor adding of characters to achieve harmless comic effect, and PEE and POO numbers have been regular and unchallenged releases.

Of course, this lofty censorship is nothing new. DVLA has been withholding, withdrawing and banning various character combinations from number plates since the beginning of the 20th Century. Amongst those combinations famously withdrawn was BF which was progressively withdrawn between 1904 and 1921 because it stood for "bloody fool". Seems absurd now, doesn't it?

Times may change, but it would seem that the archaic, BA57 ARD offspring of Mary Whitehouse and Orwell's thought police is alive and well in Swansea.