It’ll Be Anarchy!

Britain's chief film censor, Andreas Whittam Smith, leaves his office this week with the suggestion that within a decade film certification in the UK will become redundant. 'In the very long-term, all ratings will become advisory,' he told The Independent on Sunday. 'There will be a long pause before the next relaxation, but it will all happen in a 10-year period.' Whittam Smith, whose four year tenancy as president of the British Board of Film Classification [BBFC], ends this week said that his time at the BBFC had made him wonder, 'why the British allow themselves to be the most regulated nation in the world'. In his opinion the board's work should only be used to help parents decide which films their children should or shouldn't see. In that light, he could see a time that while compulsory film classification was brought to an end, new rules would be brought in to ensure that parents took their responsibilities as child censors seriously