The Sun’s splash on Labour plans to extend Sunak’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill even further has been all but confirmed by the government:

“We do not comment on leaks. Smoking claims 80,000 lives a year, puts huge pressure on our NHS, and costs taxpayers billions. We are determined to protect children and non-smokers from the harms of second-hand smoking. We’re considering a range of measures to finally make Britain smoke-free.”

Smoking is to be banned in pub gardens, outside nightclubs, on restaurant terraces, in small parks, and on university pavements. From 1980 to 2007 the annual pub closure rate was 0.65% – since the previous smoking ban it has shot up to 2.8%. Tory leadership hopefuls Jenrick and Patel have come out to warn that this new crackdown will savage the industry. No wonder Starmer’s banned from Jeremy Clarkson’s boozer…

DBT warned against the ban on those grounds only to be overridden by Downing Street. Simon Clark, director of smokers’ rights group Forest, rails against the move:

“If it’s true that the government intends to extend the smoking ban to a raft of outdoor areas, Britain will no longer be a nanny state.  We will have crossed a line and become a bully state in which people are punished for the terrible crime of lighting a cigarette outside a pub or in a park.”