No smoking in public places today and forever more. I suggest we hit back by all cutting out booze (except homebrew and boozecruise bootleg) for a month, minimise driving and if you can stop smoking altogether (no prob for me.)
because make no mistake, the ban may be good for lungs but it is bad for freedom.
Nobody is suggesting that smoking is not every bit as bad for us as the anti lobby claims. Some of the effects are a tad overdramatised but all in all it is not going to enhance anybody’s life in any way. But our health is not the main point on the anti smoking lobby’s agenda.
Today ciggies, tomorrow the world.
Machiavelli reported a few months ago on the case in a town in which Nanny (an amalgam of do goodeing pokenose groups who are determined to protect us from all risk however slight)had persuaded the council to ban drinking in the street. The political correctness police subsequently raided a pub where, on a pleasant spring day, drinkers were sitting on an outside bench enjoying a pint.
“Gotcha,” cried Nanny, clapping her hag hands with glee,”you are abusing the freedom of non drinkers to enjoy public space.”
It turned out the bench was not in the street but on the pub forecourt or “beer garden.” Well there were window boxes.
But Nanny will not accept defeat gracefully and will not rest until drinking in public places is banned as smoking has been. And that will include while eating in pavement restaurants or taking a bottle of wine along on your picnic in the park.
See what I am getting at. Nanny claims to have the general good at heart but really she is on a power trip and the ultimate aim is to stop us all thinking for ourselves. Because if we lose the power to think for ourselves Nanny will have undisputed control.
Jeez, it reminds me of a scary Bette Davis movie.
Little Nicky Machiavelli 
I don’t know any Bette Davis movies (I don’t even know who Bette Davis is if I’m honest) but the constant erosion of freedom is very scary. James.
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Bette Davis, old movie star probably most famous for playing scary women late in her career. The film I was thinking of is called The Nanny. It is really creepy.
Well worth watching
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Fascism hits France next February, but most places have gone smoke free all ready. Even at the wedding I went to yesterday , you could not smoke in the function room. I’m off for a ciggy and a glass iof wine now. Care to join me?
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I’m sure the French will be quicker to take to the streets than we English.
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You pose an interesting dilemma. I approve of the smoking ban, but I also agree that it is an affront to freedom. How do I choose? Does Freedom always trump public health?
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Its a much bigger question than just smoking though. Traffic fumes are more carcinogenerous (hope I spelled that right) than tobacco but who is going to suggest banning the car? Freedom to drive = freedom to die. But rather than invest in public transport to get us off the roads, successive governments have made cars a necessity for those who have to get around.
As long as profit trumps public health then I guess freedom will.
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For so many, smoking has been a sacred rite accompanied by drinking alcohol before, after and in between intervals – for centuries.
PB Shelly: Hell is a city much like London –
A populous and smoky city.
Smoking should have been banned in public and work places when open hearth coal burning fires were banned.
Quite apart from the health risk non-smokers have been forced into passive smoking for aeons.
It’s easy to tell a heavy smoker by their fetid breath, stale smelling clothing, yellow fingers, yellow teeth and premature wrinkled skin. Yuk!
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Well yeah, they are minging… but there are a lot of non smokers who are minging too.
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C’mon guys it’s nothing to do with fascism or big brother. Stop buying into the drivel spouted by the over exaggerated opinionated media. The reason for the smoking ban is down to litigation. Everybody is scared of being sued to high water. As I’m sure you can all appreciate it’s very difficult to have one law for one and one for another without the laws being abused by the beligerent i.e. it would be ideal if we could have no smoking pubs and smoking pubs for instance but it would be ripe for someone to take advantage of and at the end of the day we’d all end up paying for their compensation through higher insurance premiums, higher restaurant prices etc etc. It’s quite simple, enclosed public spaces means no smoking. it’s not as if smoking has been banned, which is how the media and the pro smoking lobby would have you believe is happening. jeez they’l be trying to tell us it’s an invasion of our civil liberties next and that we should be able to wear seat belts and drink and drive if we want to!
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Huh? This is a local Blog for local people. What you suggest may be the case in California where a jury might just be stupid enough to find that because you once spent half an hour in a smoking allowed bar, your lung canger can be attributed to that but in British courts PROOF is still required. And correlation does not prove causation.
BTW Litle Nicky Machiavelli does not repeat “the drivel spouted by the exaggerated (NB Its not possible to over-exaggerate something as to exaggerate means to overstate) opinionated media. We write our own exaggerated, overstated drivel and were commenting on erosion of freedom long before the date of the smoking ban was fixed 🙂
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I didn’t know this was Royston Vasey? I suppose you didn’t burn anyone either?! ‘Outsiders’ not welcome? The motives behind the ban is still potential litigation. Unfortunately conspiracy theories prevail whipped up by the most ‘popular’ media and it’s getter harder and harder to read any reasoned sense anymore. Personally I don’t think the ban goes far enough but that’s another heated ‘debate’. For now I think it’s quite reasonable to expect cigarette smoke to go outside alongside all the petrol fumes etc.
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When I say local I mean not Californian. How is anybody going to be able to sue anybody if they cannot prove responsibility. Could it be proved that Benson and Hedges caused on person’s cancer and Embassy another person’s. Could anyone prove that they developed cancer as a result of drinking in a particular establishment. You’re welcome here but stick to the case in point which in this instance is the British smoking ban. It is you my friend who is deceived by the conspiracy theorists.
There used to be a chemical works in Accrington where the antiseptic TCP was made. People who worked on the process for a few years tended to develop lung cancer about ten to twenty years later. The company is still going, they were not sued to bankruptcy quite simply because causation and therefore responsibility cannot be proved. There are other causes of lung cancer.
And as the Government which has pushed the ban could not be sued and the Tobacco companies have opposed it because they know they have nothing to fear I feel your agument is based in emotion rather than intellect.
As you don’t think the ban goes far enough would you ban sex. After all lots of people like a ciggy after sex so it can be said to encourage smoking.
I BTW am a non smoker but I am constantly appalled by the inability of the anti smoking lobby to present a rational argument.
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So people who contract cancer through secondary smoke don’t have any rights then or maybe it should be them who are made to stay out of pubs, public spaces? If it’s just being done so there is more of a pleasant breathing experience all round e.g like when they banned smoking on the tube, then good.
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Now you are putting words in my keyboard. There is a whole galaxy of difference between what you would like to be the case and what actually is the case.
A chat with a friend who is (was, he’s retired to enjoy his ill gotten gains) a lawyer suggests prosecutions under the ban are on dodgy ground. While an office, a public building such as a library or a railways station are shared space, in a pub or restaurant customers are legally guests of the owner and so the law should not apply.
I don’t know if my friend is right or wrong, I’m not a lawyer, but another point he made and was certainly right about is that bad laws weaken society and this is a bad law.
As for non smokers having no rights, that is a ridiculous point. Non smokers have the same rights as anybody else. Where the anti smoking lobby’s case falls apart is that they demand their prejudices supersede everybody else’s rights. What I was telling you is that before anyone could sue they would have to be able to prove responsibility. And of all the smoky rooms we have all been in how could a cancer sufferer point to one specific place?
Let’s put this in a different context for you. A vegan has the right not to eat any food the production of which has harmed or exploited an animal. Fine, no argument. But would vegans have the right to demand a restaurant went vegan because they demanded the right to eat there?
I have the right not to watch overpaid chavs chasing a ball round a field. So do I exercise my right by ignoring football or should I refuse to be bullied and demand all football games be cancelled because they infringe my right to use stadiums without being offended by footballers.
Two extreme examples, but maybe they show you that your argument is not viable.
Why not sign up here and join in the fun.
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it will be like the 24hr drinking thing i think. there was a big hoo haa about people drinking themselves to oblivion. in the case of smoking, im sure there’ll still be discerning places that will let people smoke. there is always a way around these laws!
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Yeah I think private clubs are excluded, if that’s right it would be good news for all the old working men’s clubs in the north, also golf clubs, conservative clubs etc.
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Thanks for A Good Day For Lungs and Fascism – Little Nicky Machiavelli buy twitter followers
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