Guido is a non-smoker (apart from the occasional after-dinner cigar, joint and crack-pipe) but was nevertheless sympathetic to smoker’s liberties. Non-smokers too should have the right to be free from smoke pollution of their clothes, hair and lungs. Surely allowing pub landlords to determine if they wish to be smoking or non-smoking venues would have been the best compromise. Forcing private members clubs to become smoke-free is nigh-on totalitarian. If the members of a private club wish to smoke they should be allowed so to do. It is not the state’s business to determine what private citizens do freely behind closed doors.

After the I.D. cards vote and today the probable ending of the right to advocate overthrowing tyrannies, Guido can’t help but feel that the flame of liberty is being extinguished in England. Will the bars in the Palace of Westminster be exempt?

UPDATE : Danny Finkelstein has a piece this morning in The Times on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, where it seems New Labour intends to dispense with the inconvenience of parliamentary democracy. What the hell is going on?