David Nuttall’s Ten Minute Rule Bill to have the smoking ban amended so that private clubs and pubs would allow smoking, if they wanted it, has sadly just been shot down in the Commons. But the result of ayes 86, noes 141 shows the growing popularity for such an idea. This was a mere lone backbencher’s campaign thrown together hastily on the luck of a draw. With a coordinated movement within the coalition who knows what could happen…
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Cleaning Out Stables | Biased BBC
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Norman Tebbit has a humble brag:
“We Maastricht rebels were derided and abused for opposing the single currency by the wise, clever, Guardianista soft centre left establishment from whom we now hear so little on the matter.”
Mr Bryant and Mr Watson managing to make the whole hacking affair look like a farce – the more they moan the less I care about the whole subject! So partisan it beggars belief at all costs. They cannot rise above it ! If I was to call the PM a ‘liar’ I would want to be VERY sure.
Who would be the frontman for such a campaign ? Fat Ken ?
Tell you what I much prefertearoma of a good pipe baccy or Cigar to the plastic pretend aromas that people drench their homes in. And I would say that the Baccy Aroma is a lot more healthy than the chemical cocktail in a tin
+1
I never had you down as an aromatherapist.
Studies showed that Pipe smokers live LONGER than non-smokers.
Studies showed that kids of smokers are 20% LESS prone to lung cancer.
The brainwash hype against passive smoking is a dirty bastard LIE.
The risk from smoking pipe or cigar is negligible and cig statistics are distorted by the way any disease that would occur anyway in a smoker always gets attributed to smoking when possible.
All the pathetically idiotic anti-smoking legislation just shows that politicians are terminally gullible or ethically corrupt.
Any would be good as long as they get a voting majority to give the Landlord the choice whether to have smoking or non-smoking premises.
They will never give in to the demands of a rapidly shrinking group of leather lunged anti-social air polluters.
The current situation is indeed ridiculous, for it to be legal to buy and sell a product that is so massively restricted in where it can be consumed is daft.
They may as well just outlaw smoking altogether.
They may as well just outlaw smoking altogether.
Yep bring it on.
It looks like the Mafia reads the comments at Guido’s.
?
Did they have to go outside to vote?
very goog
that should of course read ‘good’
Odd that the only legal working and smoking place in the country is in the house of commons. Hypoctritial arseholes.
It is legal to smoke in the members’ bar, but apparently in recognition of the hypocrisy they choose not to do so….which adds just another layer of hypocrisy..pub landlords would like to be able to exercise their free choice too. That’s what the whole debate is about.
Banning smoking was about the only worthwhile legislation that Labour put through in 13 years.
Well up to a point it was,I wholeheartedly agree smoking has no place in a restaurant however pubs should have had the option of buying a smoking license for a certain area or the entire pub if they saw fit.
At the time the ban was proposed all our coke-snorting vegan liberals wittered on about how they would be able to use the pub themselves once it became smoke-free…………..where are they all then?
In the bogs doing a line
Why should they have to buy a license? Surely a private business owner should have the right to run his business whichever way he sees fit.
In this instance it could be a wholly smoke free establishment, a non-smoking establishment with smoking facilities, a smoking establishment with non-smoking facilities or even a wholly smoking establishment. It really dosn’t matter so long as it’s the owner who gets to choose, not the effing state and its busibodies.
Whilst I hate being near anyone smoking, it is still a legal product! I thus absolutely agree with The Remittance Man – the landlord should be able to decide – with the one proviso that his choice should be prominently displayed at all entry points as well as inside the pub (perhaps above each bar) and possibly also at the bottom of any pub signs.
If we want to keep pubs, this might even be an economic pre-requisite! (About 50 pubs per week are closing, I think.)
Agreed.
Pubs are not closing because of the smoking ban. They are closing because it is much cheaper to buy booze at the supermarket and get pissed at home, or round a friend’s house, whilst watching a dvd or what-have-you, in an entirely smoke-free atmosphere.
In countries where people aren’t as gutless as brits, they just ignore pathetic laws by the pathetic for the pathetic.
I concede,you are quite correct,it defies the libertarian principle of private ownership and errs towards total control by useful idiots
I checked , not in the bar, must be outside with the locals, having a roll up.
Why do you say that you wholeheartedly agree smoking has no place in a restaurant?
The whole premis of the smoking ban was “supposed” to be to protect staff from second hand smoke. We all know now that the second hand smoke thing is a complete myth, and about as harmfull as sniffing garlic, so what is your problem with smoke in a restaurant?
If it is just the smell that you don’t like, then what do you think should be done about people who don’t like the smell of fish, or garlic, or lamb, should they be banned from restaurants as well?
Eeerm, candles are known to emit harmful toxins. If anything, candles have no place in restaurants, or anywhere, for that matter (if you’re a health freaking girl’s blouse)
The vegan triads were not interested in going to the pub, they were interested in demonising smoking to ensure more taxes to protect their civil pensions
Vegan triads get eaten alive in the private sector because they’re a bunch of whiny incapable pricks.
Shoot the fook oop aw a’l ‘ave te twat ye like.
Tha’s not Cheryl Cole; tha’s John Prescott in drag.
Unfortunately they never banned prod noses like you instead ya hoon
Here Here
Unfortunately i fear that even with sustained pressure from smoker friendlies in the coalition, we’ll never see smoking in pubs again.
As a result, more pubs will close……..very sad.
But it’s not MPs’ money being lost, so they couldn’t give a chimp’s chuff.
And as a result I am addicted to bloody nicotine replacement lozenges that make me cough. Who do I sooooo.
Nonsense. pubs will close with or without the smoking ban. Pubs are an out-dated throw-back to a time when people used to like each other enough to get off their arses and meet in public.
Now people would rather have 50 cans of cheap alcoholic piss delivered by Tesco and sit on-line all evening, or play on the Wii’s and X-boxes in the comfort of their own homes.
For the price of an evening with your mates in the pub, you can drink just as much supermarket booze, hire a DVD and buy a chinese meal for 4.
Why would one need to go to the pub anymore?
The smoking ban is very popular except for those who sell the drug and those who sell alcohol, as well as the nicotine addicts of course.
Not true Russell. Plenty of non-smokers are against the ban, not least because passive smoking isn’t particularly harmful.
If cigarette smoke is known to greatly increase the chance of lung and throat cancer etc, how is it less harmful if someone else inhales it?
Because you inhale the ‘free and diluted’ smoke and not the carcinogens (tar etc.,) which find their way directly into a smokers lungs by way of undiluted or full on smoke.
If you’re going to be pedantic, no one has ever proved a statistically significant link between second hand smoke and lung cancer.
Neither the EPA or the WHO could. There was some stuff in the WHO report about a 90% chance that it raised the risk of lung cancer by 16% for those in close proximity, but it’s results also showed that children of full-time smokers are 16% less likely to get lung cancer. With the jovial disclaimer that “neither results are statistically significant due to small sample sizes.
Too many variables to get a reliable result.
OK the dosages of the nasties in cigarette smoke are going to be lower for passive smokers, but I just don’t see how it can be argued that second hand smoke poses NO risk.
It’s also to do with the temperature of the smoke. Cigs smoke hot because they’te short, pipes smoke cool because they’re long. . Passive smoking is really,really cool, you fucking puritan.
The same WHO report also showed pipe smokers living longer than non-smokers, which confirms that any hype about passve smoke being harmful is a lie for the consumption of gullible idiotic sheeple.
You’ve been listening to too many bent politicians. ONS figures have *always* shown support for restrictions, but only 30% in favour of a blanket ban for pubs.
Not really a surprise seeing as the public are, in general, tolerant, understanding and rational. MPs, on the other hand …
It was inevitable. The REAL government have spoken and our Provincial Parliament complies. The European Commission is preparing to introduce legislation in 2011 to ban smoking in public places right across the union.
Can have the provinces giving anything back can we.
http://euobserver.com/9/31021
The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durrão Barroso, has offered one of the few utterly honest arguments for European integration. The reason we need the EU, he suggests, is precisely because it’s not democratic. Left to themselves, elected governments might do all sorts of things simply to humour their voters:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100056661/the-eu-is-an-antidote-to-democratic-governments-argues-president-barroso/
In a way he’s right
Look at the last 13 years here for instance. Everything done entirely short term, difficult decisions put off and lots of money thrown at buying votes.
I would like to thank the Chilean Miners wives and families for the kind words they have sent in response to my handling of the mining rescue.
I will be adding myself to my next book on courage
Thanks Mr President Brown
That nice Mr Hancock helped me.
1st class gb quote, lol
WTF are you? Still hiding or has Sarah had you committed at last?
It works well in Spain.
Some bars allow it and some don’t. The difference is that the no-smoking bars are empty.
And the smoking ones are full of lager-swilling football yobbos and their runaway kids. All on benefit, of course.
The difference in Spain (much like in France) is that in the “no smoking” bars nobody takes a blind bit of notice of the ban. I’ve even seen uniformed members of the Guardia Civil smoking in no-smoking bars…
That’s because they have recently been through a totalitarian regime in Franco and they know that a regime like that can only occur when the people play at being ‘useful idiots’ and spy on their own. They know that the government cannot do anything if the people stand together. And that’s what we need to do. So don’t spy on your own and realise you are being ‘re-engineered’ with the whole anti-smoking nonsense.
The closing down of English pubs is a cultural tragedy and anyone who colludes in that is not only an idiot, they are helping to deprive their children and their children from treading on stone slabs trood on by hundred of years of other English people. It is part of the English landscape like Rootmasters, red telephone boxes and red post boxes and little by little the cultural destroyers are taking them all down, but because they do it slowly and change the political ‘actors’ every so often, people do not realise that it is the long term destruction of England that is being carried out and anyone who colludes with that, is worse than an idiot, they are a traitor.
Agree completely.
A professional leftie ex-shag once told me it was somehow “racist” to care about such things, as effnic minorities couldn’t be expected to subscribe to this sort of vision.
It is also racist, apparently, to riposte with “I want my fucking country back”.
Anyway, it didn’t last. There’s only so much fun to be had from doing the nasties on such a smug sense of superiority.
Pubs are also places where people meet to discuss things–like the scum who rule us. They don’t want that sort of uncontrolled debate. They want us watching X-Factor and wanking off over Xbox, not plotting revolution and dissent in a pub.
I don’t know what was wrong with a proposal made years ago, of allowing pubs and clubs to construct a separate designated small out building for smokers on the premisses.
As the “small” building would be where everyone is. So may as well just have a small building for the non-smokers in a pub.
Where do you live? I only know one person who still smokes. When I left school, it was very rare for any of us to not smoke. When people tried to quit smoking the social peer pressure to resume smoking was immense.
Now even though I live in a poor, working-class northern town, I only know one person who still smokes, and he smokes a pipe.
It is not the smoking ban that is killing pubs, it is the fact that they are an expensive and redundant relic of a bygone time.
Like the last 1000 years? We know so much better now, don’t we?
Then how would you explain the BBPA figures then, Mr. Ned? From annual closures in the 100s pre-2007 to accelerating closures in the 1,000s each year thereafter. What else would cause such a pronounced spike?
The evidence of damage is all around. And it’s often the most characterful pubs that have gone. One landlord I knew told me of a 22% drop month on month since the ban came in. He tried to adapt best he could, but being landlocked and with only a tiny outdoor area, he was never going to win. He was in no doubt about what had ruined his livelihood. He sold up a year ago and now what was once a great pub is one of about a hundred trendy-tosspot eateries within three streets.
It particularly gets my goat to see OAPs shivering outside British Legion clubs. That’s socialism, chum. Zero respect for anyone not “on the program” as well as zero respect for debate, with yah boo you’re in the pay of Exxon/Big Tobacco ad-homs against anyone daring to question the comrades’ grand vision for we the little people.
We demand a recount.. it was too close to call on camera, off camera a huge difference .. yea!
“a coordinated movement within the coalition”
is that wishful thinking or do you know something?
I’d have thought thered be plenty of oldstyle conservatives who don’t mind telling other people what to do, and the libdems ? ?
Another thing: sorry to say that pubs were closing long before the smoking ban came in place. Eeeeh I remember the old days when you had to queue to get into pubs on fridays, and they were so full at christmas/new year you couldn’t pub crawl.
Agreed.
They are an expensive and redundant part of our lives. we communicate online more than we used to, we can get much cheaper booze from the supermarkets and have an evening in with our friends, with a DVD or Wii/xbox/playstation games and a few pizzas or a chinese banquet for what it costs to have an evening out on the piss these days.
Manchester United 1 Stoke City 3.
This shows how close Man Utd came to winning their cause.
Still better than your result against Melanie Baddeley.
The coalition may contain a party calling themselves “Liberals” but that’s on a par with the N Korea calling itself The Democratic People’s Republic. Expecting these buggers to voluntarily give up the power to order people around is pointless.
And Remittance Man wins today’s nail head-hitting accuracy award.
In the words of the great Clarkson: “Has anyone seen my hammer?”
Only about a third of MPs voted which goes to show that the majority couldn’t care less.
We should out those who didn’t bother to vote on the smoking licence. Then let these lazy disinterested MPs face the wrath of their constituents who are struggling to keep their bars, bingo halls and social clubs afloat since the smoking ban crippled their businesses. Alcohol is still the number one drug causing most harm to society as indeed are the over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs, like Nurofen.
Yeah and it is the massive availability of alcohol at very cheap prices from supermarkets that is killing pubs, NOT a smoking ban that applies to a very small and quickly diminishing group of people who are commuting suicide by instalments.
Most people approve of the ban and even those who hate labour, feel it was one of the very very very few things the labour government got right.
I am not for any ban. However, if you are going to ban a substance on health and safety, then alcohol should be banned. The hypocritical fascists fail to accept that alcohol is more dangerous than ectasy, cannabis and tobacco.
If I had half a pint, 20 times a day, then alcohol would indeed be very harmful.
I note that in some places its illegal to drink, but not smoke. In fact you could probably get a bigger fine for a can, than a spliff
Hmm. 141+86=227. There are 650 MPs or thereabouts.
I suspect if a concerted campaign was got up a lot more MPs would vote and it would be resoundingly defeated.
Let’s face it, smoking is never going to be allowed in pubs again. (Good!)
How did pubs make any money before tobacco was introduced? Chaucer seems to have had no trouble having a good time at The Tabard.
Unfortunately the other 423 had just nipped out for a smoke
Funny. I’ve never seen you in my local, Fumar Mata, why should it bother you in the slightest what happens in every pub in the country?
It’s a pitiful turnout from our elected representatives for such an important matter, particularly on the day when they all like to turn up to be seen at the farce that is PMQs. I suppose lunch was more of a draw than doing their duty in the H of C, the duty that we pay them for?
Come on. We know MPs have no role in this. It’s a EUSSR thing they’ve been told to do.
True enough, and one of the very few things that the EU is doing that I approve of.
You keep telling us. Make sure you get your message across.
FFS who’s paying this Mr Ed wanker?
I could tell you a long story on the smoking ban, but I’ll keep it as short as I can.
There was a guy who was very ill and had nurses coming twice a day to take care of his needs and give him tablets and medicines etc…
This guy was a very moderate smoker at the time, 2 or 3 a day due to his condition. The nurses would come in his home and smell the air in each and every room for the slightest wiff of smoking, on smelling anything and I mean anything they would inform him they could not work in this environment. They would also write this down in his medical record and leave the premisses without giving him his medicines.
You can be sure they signed their time-sheets—–the nazis!
So how is Mr Brown?
And? what is the point of giving him medicines if he is trying to kill himself? Save the money and let him die, that is obviously what he wants.
He’s here, again. Bit worried, are we?
Smoking’s great. I wouldn’t be the same without it.
ROFLMAO!
+6
Think thats funny, went into a kipper shop in an East Coast town, they smoke them in situ, a feature is you can see the herrings being kippered, smoke from the wood chips billowing everywhere, Red sign on the window before you walk in to the shop: No smoking allowed on these premises (elf and safety), I kid you not.
I would not want to eat kippers smoked in tobacco smoke. The smoke they use is fine.
No it’s not. Wood smoke is equally carcinogenic.
MPs are mostly middle-aged and middle-class, the type of person most supportive of the ban. Even if they smoke themselves, they know that it shouldn’t be inflicted on others. If parliament was full of chav and students, you wouldn’t have a ban.
“Inflict” what on others?
There’s No proof tobacco smoke does any harm to non-smokers whatsoever.
Kitchen stink and candles are actually proven to be harmful but not secondary cig smoke.
Wrong on this one Guido – best thing that happened to the UK and hopefully, no going back.
Thin end of the wedge
True. How long before they make salt, chips, perfume, farting, sneezing, body odour and halitosis illegal in pubs?
If they ever do I’ll miss the farting the most
Is passive farting injurious to health?
Lord and Lady Prescott celebrate their golden anniversary next year.
Engineer – it certainly can be
Always try to save one for the escalator
They’ll make pubs illegal first.
People meeting up and chatting openly without permission? Can’t have that.
Indeed, Mr P.
The smoking ban summed up ZaNuLabour’s brand of fascism in a nut-shell.
Disingenuous: A public heath measure, demanded by the medical profession and few others, was smudged with employment and health and safety rules to make it seem more fair (worker trumps individual, geddit).
Arbitrary: Murderers, terrorists and rapists are allowed to smoke on and pollute Home Office premises. Oil-workers may still endanger off-shore platforms. No health and safety for employees in these places? Or in any royal palace, including Westminster?
Hypocritical: Bernie Ecclestone welcomes Tony Blair to Marlboro Country. Tax-paying motor-sport fans encouraged to smoke more by his adverts, because it benefits the Labour Party by £1m.
Incoherent: Cannabis decriminalised. Public use of illegal, dangerous substances, and its link to gang violence, goes ignored by the police on the streets. But publicans must challenge customers on their own private premises who choose to continue to enjoy a legal product in a nominated environment.
We don’t need these little tyrants making our laws.
You raise very good and valid points about the flaws in the law as it was applied. This does not however make the law wrong, but the loop-holes and incompetent application of the law wrong.
Smoking should be banned.
No. Wrong. Authoritarians like yourself should be banned.
You are a hypocrite who would be up in arms if anything you liked to do was banned
So don’t smoke and Fuck off then, you pointless interfering Hunt.
Drug addicts–one or two per cent of the population–cause a disproportionate of our crime rate. What would it be like if smokers–say 30 per cent of the population–were deprived of their fix? Massive crime rate, more illegal cigarette dealers.
Dark Lord: I thought you were great playing that guy chained upside down in Life of Brian.
A sad day for democracy, smokers and landlords.
A great day for public health, common sense and rationality to prevail.
A great day for ASH trolls.
Get your weird proddy fingers off my tax money weirdo.
Go live with the Amish ,you would fit in fine.
Where were the other MP’s? Nipping into the ladies or gents to powder their noses?
The House of Commons disabled toilet is the favorite venue for nostril abuse.
Those athletes who would not represent their country at the comonwealth games should be banned from representing their country.
And don’t forget a lot of them are subsidised by the taxpayer in one form or another.
Dark Lord,
For you perhaps but the worst thing that could of happened for many others,what is wrong with choice ?
WHY THE FUCK ARE MP’S NOT FORCED TO VOTE. 646 MP’S SHOULD BE MADE TO VOTE ON EVERY SINGLE ISSUE OR THEY DON’T GET PAID.
FFS WE ARE THE BIGGEST NATION OF MUGS ON THE EARTH.
Half of them don’t know what they’re voting on now; they just go through the lobby directed by the whips. Making voting compulsory would be a whip’s charter. The government of the day would control things even more than they currently do.
The pairing system gives most of the votes to the whips anyway.
Given the abject lack of principles held by most members of the HoC, it doesn’t make any difference to the result whether they bother to turn up or not.
Make MPs voting secret.
So we can have more of this?
Do what?
The fuckers already do everything they can to make themselves LESS accountable to the electorate. Now you want to make it even easier for them?
Indeed! It’s part of their job to vote, but they are public sector employees and incompetent. If left unsupervised, they just fill their pockets and skive.
Hmmmm? Smoking gets up other people’s noses and pollutes the air of the non smokers. OK, then maybe these non smokers will refrain from driving, those car fumes get every where. Maybe they can refrain from driving anywhere near children. Sauce for the goose…
Should we ban all fussy bastards
Ban smoking – everyone a little bit healthier, pubs and resaurants nicer places to be.
Ban cars and put the country back 100 years.
You’ve banned pubs, instead of smoking.
Epic Fail.
I know of only one local pub that has closed in the last 5 years – and that was because the new owner got his marketing completely wrong (expensive gastro pub in a hard-up ex mining village)
If pub atendances are down, its probably due to the cost of a trip to the pub vs cheap supermarket alcohol nowadays.
@105
FFS. How the fuck do you manage to extrapolate a trend from and base an argument on one data point?
“The smoking ban is probably the main reason for the recent decimation of pubs and may be primarily responsible for 3 in 4 closures.” – Institute of Economic Affairs
Fuck off with your prescription and conjecture.
Groucho, that has to be the most incredibly idiosyncratic comment here today. Without allowing smokers in, how else is a pub in a ‘hard-up ex mining village’ expected to make the business work?
ASH have said that pubs should start ‘diversifying’ by providing quality food. Your example did that but can’t make up for the loss of his smoking clientele.
You’ve just argued *for* a sensible amendment to the ban. Cheers.
The cheap supermaket booze is what is killing pubs.
As for banning cars, well I do not know of many people who sit with their engines running inside a pub.
Also cars have a valid positive function, unlike cigarettes.
Cars inside pubs, hmmm. That’s a nice little straw man you have there, can I put a little hat on it?
Lord Hip Flask: The comparison is ludicrous but one that is often made by idiots. Just because we cannot preven every hazard of life doesn’t mean we shouldn’t prevent those stupid drug habits which are completely useless except giving more jobs to undertakers.
The credibility of the ban hinges on one fact – passive smoking is harmful. It’s pointless begging for separate indoor smoking facilities whilst kowtowing to this myth. These people are on a roll and are now seeking bans in cars, open public spaces and private homes. So long as the myth is perpetuated, they are virtually invincible. As far as they’re concerned SHS is dangerous anywhere, period.
And beware of e fags. Once they gain control of these, their crusade will be much easier.
“Passive smoking is a myth”
Cigarette smoke, known to massively increase the risk of lung and throat cancers, somehow loses its toxicity if inhaled by anyone other than the person who bought the packet of fags.
Priceless.
Try researching this.
Prick.
Except of course, that there’s no empirical evidence whatsoever that “passive smoking” is in any way harmful.
May I draw your attention to the World Health Organisation sponsored study – The “Multicenter case-control study of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer in Europe” – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9776409&dopt=AbstractPlus which concluded that there was no statistically-significant effect from ETS except in children – where the risk was actually negative, ie it protected children from “smoking-related illnesses” in later life.
I could not give a fuck about second-hand smoke’s alleged health effects, whatever they may, or may not, be.
Smoking stinks end of story. It is a foul and repulsive habit for which there is no rational, nor logical reason to engage in it.
Second-hand smoke DOES effect others. I gave up smoking 8 years ago. Now If I am outside and within 50 yards of people smoking, the cloud of smoke makes by breathing significantly more difficult. Now even if I am in my car with the windows shut, if I am following another car on the motorway within half a mile, and the driver is smoking I can smell it.
I cannot believe how hyper sensitive my body has become to second hand smoke, but that foul smoke is utterly and completely revolting.
I would be in favour of a complete ban on smoking.
“Except of course, that there’s no empirical evidence whatsoever that “passive smoking” is in any way harmful.”
The way my lungs tighten up and the feeling of sickening revulsion upon encountering cigarette smoke is more than enough empirical evidence for me to be satisfied that smoking is a revolting and harmful and illogical, irrational, pointless exercise in slow-motion suicide by instalments.
“Being a drama queen about a bit of leaf smoke” does not equate to empirical evidence.
You’re right. What harm has a little benzene, formaldehyde, ammonia, carbon monoxide, arsenic or hydrogen cyanide ever done anyone?
In the concentrations present in smoke, none at all Groucho. Look up ‘The dose makes the poison’ and then search for ‘World Tobacco Control Conference 1983′ for the person who provided your little bit of dull-witted misdirection.
Christ you are a turd of the highest order.
It’s actually you who is the duped idiot of another major lie perpetuated by your masters. FACT: PASSIVE SMOKING IS NOT HARMFUL
@someone 1:13am
Its not a fact at all. Even if you shout.
And other WHO statistics that contradict the brainwashed consensus. Take Greece for example – high rates of smoking, high life expectancy, around 2% asthma rates (amongst the lowest globally).
http://www.scielosp.org/img/revistas/bwho/v83n7/a16fig01.gif
But, with enough money and determination smokers have been made very convenient scapegoats….
http://www.londonair.org.uk/london/asp/information.asp?view=whatis
http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/MultipageDocumentPage____10269.aspx
Drug Addicts do moan a lot, anyone would think their habit is controlling them.
Oh it is!
Do you drink, Steve?
Dio you drive a car?
Do you fly?
If so, then hhut yer gob, you hypocrite!
Shut yer gob too!
Irony irony theyv’e all got in infamy
Control freaks are controlled by their habit and desire for more control then……
I do not want control over anyone else’s life, just my own and to be able to exercise my right without having my health damaged by the selfish attitude of smokers.
Smoking causes harm to others, therefore it should be made illegal in criminal law as well as common law.
I don’t smoke in the company of non-smokers. By the look of your post, it’s as if smokers follow you around everywhere.
I’m a bit shocked Ned.
I read somehwere that cancer rates in Japan are lowest in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This would mean that a small amount of a dangerous substance provides a resistive response by the body, and if the contributor is correct who mentioned that cancer in non-smokers is lower in households where there is a smoker, then saying that ‘smoking causes harm to others’ is baseless. Btw, I hate smoking and I avoid it: it does make me queasy. But I see no reason to impose totalitarian restrictions on smoking in private clubs. Next will be private houses, and after that, it will be something other than smoking. How about banning right-wing opinions?
Passive smoking does *NOT* harm you, you thick, duped IDIOT!
Jesus, I hope they NEVER amend the current no smoking bill! To be honest its about the only bill in the last gazillion years that England has managed to get right (ie. it affects EVERYONE equally regardless of religion or class).
Besides, I enjoy going home not smelling like an ashtray and then being able to stumble to work an hour later!
You could visit a pub where the landlord decided he didn’t want smokers, (as you obvious think there must be a massive demand for them).
Or you could visit a pub that sells alcohol at a price that competes favourably with supermarkets….
Oh yeah, except there aren’t any are there. Which is the REAL reason pubs are closing at a rapid rate.
It has nothing to do with bans on smoking, as believe it or not, smokers are allowed in pubs too! I know, I have been to a pub where there were some smokers, who huddled outside to indulge their foul, pointless, functionless, stupid habit, before returning inside to continue with drinking their massively overpriced alcohol.
This is NOT (as some people claim) a conspiracy to close down the location of where people can meet and grumble about government and plan rebellion.
There IS a conspiracy of the supermarkets conspiring to supply a market demand for cheap alcohol.
Even if the government did reverse the ban, it would NOT save our pubs as they are still not competitive at supplying the market with cheap alcohol.
The only way to save the pub, is to outlaw any other retailer from selling booze cheaper than pubs can.
Thank you David Nuttall! I love you for this.
You are so right too, Guido, as our priviledged MPs have their onsite smoking areas, so must we have smokers’ pubs.
Don’t be hypocrites, Westminster village, listen to your constituents for once!
I am also a consituent and think Nuttall’s proposals are very much like his name. Keep the smoking ban and keep healthy.
So you don’t walk past or live near any roads then?
You’re wasting your time, VOR is full of shit.
“Don’t be hypocrites, Westminster village, listen to your constituents for once!”
They are! A clear majority of people are in favour of the smoking ban, and would LIKE to see it extended.
Source?
@groucho. I was merely pointing out many non smokers are hypocritical and if they are going to go along with the clean air argument then how far should a ban go.
Well, when hydrogen powered cars become commonplace, the only exhaust emission will be water vapour.
I guess that then we could ban all smoking everywhere at that point then.
Oh please get over it! Smoking is banned, live with it! The reason all these pubs are closing is nothing to do with smoking, it’s because their greedy owners and the brewers are charging ridiculous prices for everything from flat ale to fizzy sodas, the ultra greedy govt. is then charging duty and VAT at an extortionate rate on top of that and besides most of these pubs that are going out of business are in places where people have to drive to them, the ‘don’t drink and drive message’ is clearly getting through to most people and with ever stricter enforcement and harsher punishments, plus a change in attitudes, people just aren’t using pubs like they used to. Another raft of pubs that are going are your typical ‘dive’ pubs, the ones the breweries or the companies who own them have left to rot, most of them in a state of disrepair or dilapidation for years, infested with the dregs of society and prone to violence, drug use and general yob culture, good riddance to those shitholes! The smoking ban may well have driven some people out (in many cases just outside the door to litter the pavements) but it’s not the main reason for failing pubs. As for private business deciding wether to allow smoking, I don’t think so, businesses may well employ people, they also have a duty of care to their customers and their employees so given the undeniable evidence of the effects of passive smoke this is a backward step and i’m sure Mr Nuttall would tell us all if he had any conflict of interest or was in the pay of lobbyists for the tobacco or drinks industry wouldn’t he (not). As for Troughminster being exempt from the ban, that stinks (almost like the pubs used to before the ban) it should be banned there too, what’s good for everyone else should apply to the piggy’s as well!
@Voice of Reason. Then you are arguing for a ban on alcohol. Thousands of drinkers fill the morgues, more drinkers than smokers. Fact.
Smokers stink to high heaven and there is no law on Liberty which allows them to pollute MY air so they can fuck off the smelly yellow stained bastards.
You going to ban airplanes next for polluting your air with chem trails thicko?
You can smell when a plane travels overhead at 36,000 feet? I seriously doubt it.
Surely it’s the same as you being able to smell someone smoking a cigarette in a car a half mile in front of you? I repeat: Prick.
Err, the point of this exemption was to allow somewhere separate from people like you so they, err, don’t pollute YOUR air.
Another Aye, then.
Standing next to someone reeking of booze and having to put up with their incoherent chit chat is not much fun either. But hey that’s life.
You don’t have to, you could always tell them to fuck off.
Fucking hell Ned, you’ve been running up and down this thread going berserk.
Chill out man…
He’s one of the thick wankers from ASH. They don’t have many members so he has to do all the posting.
Frying or grilling a piece of steak creates toxic fumes full of cancerogens. Should it be banned?
Google it if you don’t believe me.
Hang on a sec.
Wasn’t it Guido and his band of Apologists, who harped on about the smoking ban as an infringement of their civil liberties. Wasn’t it the Tories who opposed the ban, claiming it would mark the end of the public house; wasn’t it Guido and his Tory clan who were up in arms about the ban, huddled outside under their umbrellas cursing Tony’s Neo Labour prohibitive doctrine; haven’t Right wing blogs been foaming at the mouth about the ban.
Now in power, had chance to change it……did nothing….NUFF SAID…..APOLOGISTS UTD !!!!!!!!!!!
So from this day forward, can all postings about Blair’s Smoking ban be erased. No point complaining about something that your own party couldn’t be bothered to do anything about. But if fact the Tories did agree with the ban, but hadn’t the balls to admit it, and fooled all their supporters along the way. Hay Hoe
Many tories agreed with and voted FOR the ban as it was the right thing to do.
You obviously never go to real pubs here the majority smoked ,yep the majority of punters smoked.
They used to be called men’s pubs.
Dunno what a non smoking gay bar looks like .
The non smoking gay bars left round here are pretty empty – everyone’s outside.
Sorry pet.
I luved a ciggy in the bar
@Yes, Mr Ned but some of these guys are likely to kick off if you so much as look at them the wrong way. Smokers are not usually aggressive unless you nick their fags.
I do like a fag.
Heeeeey buddy I gotcha !
No probleeeemo.
3 bucksh foe twenee.
Knock 5 times.
Ma boysh ul short ya.
I own a traditional English country Freehouse.
I’m told not to let people smoke in my premises because it’s a burden on the NHS.
So should I only serve salads to Fat people?
Which part of “passive smoking significantly increases cancer risk” do you not get guido?
Source (and I dare you to find one not funded by CRUK, ASH or pharmaceutical interests)?
@144,
[yawn] Which part of pseudo-science conforming to the political agenda which funds it do you/i> not get? The. dose. makes. the. poison. Tobacco-smoke does not possess any special magic chemical nasties not present in, say, wood smoke.
Antismoking, like the CAGW scare, is all about puritanism and anti-capitalism. Lefties – the corrupt control-freak sociopathic left – imposing a moral vision. Wake up.
IT DOESN’T, YOU THICK, DUPED FUCKWIT.
We have a residential noise problem as a result of the ban where I live. Customers congregate outside the pub in order to smoke with all the boisterous racket you’d expect. Before the pub was no bother at all since the noise was inside.
They knew this would happen, of course. It is twisted to become further demonisation of those already singled-out for punishment.
Those horrid smokers, rather than that stupid ban.
I do not know about smoke but there is definitely a whiff of Eau de Hypocrise. I thought you guys were Libertarians.
Smoking can kill, so does drinking, falling down stairs, being fat, choking on lobster, going to bed and never wake up, going to hospital then contracting MRSA, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, being stung by a bee, being blown up, and jogging etc, ect.
FFS nothing is completely safe and without risk so ban everything just to be on the safe side.
They spilled the jar of Eau de Fascism while they were about it. Something in the fumes obviously got to them, for they then went completely berserk and, again without asking anyone else’s permission, they went and signed our country over to the EU.
Now we’ll never get the smell out.
Best thing with anti smokers ,what my Chav mate Dazza says,
a good head slapping and a decent kicking first time round,
second session of nannying wins a brace of Glasgow kisses.
As for non smoking semi circles taking space up at bars,no problem,
a sprinkling of Dr Feelgoods joke powder in the unguarded jugs allways
guarantees a scream.
Not nice we know ,but thats just the way things are.
If any nanny boy or jessy metroman fancies coming from behind his mummy
to say his bit,they are sure of an hearty soiree behind a few Mancunian
sink estate sheds.
Bring Mr Ned ,sounds like a real wow of a night out.
Only trouble is,as the sheds shut down,Dazza and his mutants have
to look for some aggro in nannyman taverns…..Nice
As leader of the Labour party I must state ,all smokers must be persecuted vilified ,hunted down like animals, they are the biggest threat to the future of mankind .
In fact …
I would go as far to say they are a bigger threat than global warming errr Cooling err climate change errr Tories err the Tea Party !
Cut !
Did I come across well ?
Yes Mr prime minister ,
perfectly.
Ah, Mr Ned is extremely bright and his contribution to many a discussion is usually bang on the nail. But every month around about this time he has his moody, monthly, sulk. Leave him be and in a few days he will be fine.