A month after Labour’s plans to ban smoking outside pubs and in parks were exposed, research on the public’s view is pouring in. It’s far from a closed case…
Lobby groups like ASH claim that there is overwhelming support for draconian measures on tobacco which is jumped on by Labour, which insists there has been “a consensus for a long time now that we want to see a smoke-free country.” The data doesn’t bear that out…
YouGov’s snap research had support for a ban outside pub gardens at 51%. A new poll from Yonder Consulting now has less than half of the public support the measure. If you remove the don’t knows, 53% say smoking outside should be allowed, compared to 47% pro-ban. Brits usually support a ban on anything that moves – the fact they aren’t behind Starmer on this one is significant…
Simon Clark, director of smokers’ rights group Forest, who commissioned the poll, tells Guido: “What is clear is that the government has no mandate to ban smoking outside pubs. It wasn’t in the Labour Party manifesto and the public only found out about it after the plan was leaked to a national newspaper.” It’s goodnight sweet prince to the hospitality industry, too…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”
