Not satisfied with having put pubs out of business and made smokers into modern pariahs; via Mr E and JuliaM, I see that the control freaks are still at it, this from the recent consultation paper:
Question 12: Do you believe that more should be done by the Government to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke within private dwellings or in vehicles used primarily for private purposes? If so, what do you think could be done?
“No” and “nothing” are the appropriate responses to that one. Regular readers will be aware that tobacco has never so much as touched my lips. I have never smoked and never wanted to, so have never tried it. However, in my home and my car, I make the rules, not the government. I decide whether to allow someone to smoke or not. Mrs L smokes the occasional roll-up and it doesn’t affect me. Sometimes I may give someone a lift and they want to light up. So what? It is no one else’s damned business. The government should have no say in the matter.
Unfortunately the clamp-down by government is not opposed by the great British Public as one would expect of such draconian control freakery. Over 8,000 of them, encouraged by the totalitarian nature of hmg, have leaped energetically onto the “ban it” bandwagon and written to the department of health demanding just these kind of measures.
More than 8000 people have written to the Department of Health calling tougher tobacco control to protect young people and put tobacco out of sight and out mind.
This tells us that there is something rotten at the heart of British society. The totalitarians are not just in Whitehall, they are all around us, willing to snoop on behalf of the council and dob in their neighbours to the authorities for infringements of the plethora of new offences created by this administration. The tyrants are all around us and they bask in the glow of self-righteousness. Removing the government will not remove them without a radical change in approach and I’m not holding my breath in anticipation here. Of course, it pays to remember that such self-righteous busybodies always assume that it is someone else who will be banned, bullied, persecuted and fined – nothing they do will ever be affected, so they will never need anyone to come to their defence now, will they?
Interestingly (in the Chinese sense) my car broke down last Friday and I had to be recovered from Kent. The recovery driver turned up with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and lit up several times on the journey – despite clear “no smoking” signs in the cab of his truck. He also took a phone call and drove one-handed while the call was in progress. Clearly he has some disdain for these new laws. However, he is vulnerable to the righteous who could see him pass by, note the vehicle’s details and report him. Actually, he had no way of knowing that I wouldn’t.
What kind of country are we living in?
Didn’t Hayek warn us about this 70 years ago.
Robs last blog post..Re: Resgister to vote or else!!
Iain Dale’s picked it up too now, so hopefully those eCards will start flying in…
JuliaMs last blog post..Quote Of The Month
Hopefully, but I did notice one comment that suggested the idea was a good one – all because of the chiiiiiiildreeeeeen, naturally.
“What kind of country are we living in?”
I think it’s a fascist dictatorship.
I dunno about you but I’m making plans to move to a nicer country! I presume the vast majority of those who still actually fucking do something worthwhile are doing the same.
If all goes to plan, I will be leaving on the 1st December. If not, shortly after that.
I’m another freelancer, working with companies to help pilot them through treacherously Regulated waters, like the smoking rules, with least effect on the business. It was real fun (not) trying to understand where smoking was permitted whilst under cover. No wonder so many adopted the coward’s way out and banned it altogether without a fight.
But what really struck home at that time was an impression that it was nothing to do with smoking at all. Smoking just happened to be a button that they could easily press, because it is validly associated with some health problems. The target was/is to turn the populace into a bunch of obedient sheep who will do what they are told when they are told, and who will not question or fight back. In short it is the next stage in the preparation of a docile population for the … … Person not yet clear, but it is clear that something very nasty is coming.
I think I saw one of those 8000 a few weeks back at the train station on my way to work.
Some poor chumps including myself had had to treck across the station to another platform as our normal train had been cancelled; the track we went to was open-air on the very outside of the station so a builder decided to spark up. This immediately brought the wrath of the scariest fascist I’ve ever seen down on him in the form of a 4 foot nothing harridan started screaming blue murder at him, eventually moving to assault whilst trying to snatch the cigarette from this 6ft odd builders bemused hand.
He was in the wrong, but it was tolerated by all except this very little (in both senses) woman.
It would have been nice to see both parties penalised just to gauge the scale of this young man’s “crime”; £20 quid fine for him, and a night and potentially longer jail term in chokey for her.
Thoms last blog post..Tom’s Economically Illiterate Guide to Poverty 1.0
As someone who has suffered from respiratory problems I believe that the regulation of smoking in public places is justifiable. But the law as passed may have gone too far. The practicalities of instituting a ‘smoking licence’ should have been considered. The licence could have been dependent on providing proper non-smoking areas – a table with a non-smoking sign on it, wouldn’t count – or effective ventilation. Then the establishment could have decided whether the retention of its smoking custom was worth such an investment. But the status quo before the ban, of complete permissiveness, was not acceptable either. Especially to people like me, for whom most pubs and many restaurants were a no-go area.
I certainly don’t take the hard libertarian line that private businesses have a right to make any rules they see fit and tough luck if they discriminate against you. Those businesses operate in a wider society and that society through its elected representatives has a right to regulate what goes on in those businesses. The question as always must be what regulation and can it be justfied on its merits.
I do agree though that trying to regulate smoking in a private dwelling or private car is absurd and more than a little creepy. Really this is the fag-end – pun intended! – of this Labour administration and they are not going to get anywhere with it.