MPs are currently debating the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill which will ban smoking for everyone born after 2009, forever. Tory MP Jake Berry has delivered an impassioned attack on the policy on the grounds of freedom. He is channeling his inner John Locke:

“The freedom then of man, and liberty of acting according to his own will, is grounded on his having reason, which is able to instruct him in that law he is to govern himself by, and make him know how far he is left to the freedom of his own will.”

Berry also points out the policy wasn’t in the manifesto. There is no mandate for it. No one, apart from sneering control freak lobbyists, asked for it. He says: “I want to live in a free society where I am free to make both good and bad decisions“. The Tories’ lonely attempt to institute inequality under the law by splitting society into those with freedom and those without it is a far cry from anything that might resemble conservatism…