Saturday
Feb232008
Tonight on Five Live ...
Saturday, February 23, 2008 Barnsley, it was reported yesterday, could become the first town in Britain to ban smoking outside pubs and cafes. See HERE.
The issue will be discussed tonight on Five Live's Stephen Nolan Show around 11.00pm. Guests include Councillor Roy Miller, head of Barnsley's environment committee, publican Paul McNicholas, chairman of the local Pubwatch scheme - and me.
No doubt they will be inviting comments from listeners so pick up the phone and call 0500 909 693.
Reader Comments (16)
Personally, I would take about as much notice of a ban like that as I would of Barnsley itself.
I shall be listening Simon...so you'd better be on form.
Ask the representative from Barnsley council, where on earth the customers who want to drink and smoke should be allowed to do so, now that they have been socially ostracised from their local pubs.
I'd like to know on what grounds the Council makes the proposal and whether members of the public have been invited to the consultations.
I'd also be interested to know the scope that a local authority has to enact bylaws (or grant licences on conditions) that extend beyond the law of the land, to whom an LA is accountable when proposing bylaws or new conditions and what checks are in place to stop an LA behaving perversely.
I'd like to know what evidence the council think there is to prove that smoking in the open air is hazardous, and how they think it's 'risk' compares to the traffic pollution inhaled on the street. Have they carried out tests to ascertain how quickly both types of 'emission' dissipate in the air?
It shouldn't be necessary to carry out a study because so gobsmackingly bleedin' obvious that even a total cretin could work it out.
Simon
Well done tonight on Five Live…you argued constructively and succinctly, and your opponents were ineffectual in trying to defend their position.
10/10 for effort and eloquence!
Simon
I agree with Chris. Well done 10/10. Why are some people so selfish, in that THEY don't like something, so THEY object to others doing it? Also, it it not against the law to smoke in open areas, so can councils make up their own by-laws? .
Just as well it was the unflappable Simon being interviewed, personally I'd have had difficulty controlling my temper in the face of the moronic positions of those who proposed or supported this. If ever proof were needed that antis' prejudice replaces whatever little reason they have, it was evident here.
Particularly jawdropping was the contention of the owner of the Cotswold cottage who could not just smell but taste (!) cigarette smoke as it wafted through his open half door. Presumably the taste of agrochemicals used in the neighbouring fields, the horse shit on the road in front of his house and the exhaust fumes from passing traffic is palatable
A councillor interviewed believes that smokers are now to be responsible for bringing up Other People's Children (seeing smokers outside will cause them to take up the habit and deny the world a plethora of brain surgeons, Poet Laureates and Nobel Peace Prizewinners) whilst the health of bar workers is now so delicate that it must be protected from wisps of cigarette smoke in the open air.
You have said before, Simon, that, at present, there is not enough support for protest. I wonder if Barnsley Council could cope with a large mob of smokers who are furious to realise that they are now being relentlessly harassed and persecuted on no justifiable grounds whatsoever.
Why is it so many of our north England cities are first in the queue for creeping fascism? Is this some sort of axiological jet lag from the past whereby the north has to prove it has balls and compensate for its inferiority complex by tyrannising people?
A lot of these loud mouthed councillors need better things to do with themselves. Don't you think they'd be better off smoking a pack of Woodbines or something?
Blad, if you are looking for a correlation here, it is probably because they tend to be NuLabour. Conservatives tend to be more laissez-faire, after all the Conservatives voted 2-1 against the smoking ban. I think from a broader point of view the socialists have lost the arguement on a centrally planned economy and like post colonial Britain are looking for a role. Hence the meddling in our day to day activities.
How to double or triple the mass exodus of natural Brits to leave this island to those who want to take it over - the anti smokers and minority religions who want to pratice here what they practice in their own homeland!
You were excellent on the show, Simon. Stephen Nolan tends to be quite sympathetic to persecuted minorities - perhaps in part because of his battle with his weight. Where was ASH? I guess they knew they would be crucified.
Sorry I missed it!
On the other hand, I phoned Mr Nolan on Friday night. He joined the DNA Database crowd and could not get past the 'if you have nothing to hide...' argument.
I wasn't put through though, which was a shame as I would have been calm, collected and I even had notes. Maybe that's why.
By the way, am about to take up smoking. At my age, something else is bound to get me first and it's a great new sideways two-fingered salute!
Simon -
Excellent defence of your/our position on Five Live.
But the zombie-like repetition of all the old canards about smoking just depressed me: if THAT is the best the Antis can come up with, and THEY tend to be the ones who now have the ear of government and politicians, then God help us all !
And what I ESPECIALLY resent is the notion that non-smokers and militant ex-smokers are the only ones to have known/seen 'someone dying of cancer' - as though thereby they, and they alone have been granted some special insight into the Human Condition denied to the rest of us.
Whatever happened to the Age of Reason ?
And, Blad - you can still catch the programme on the Five Live website (as I did ten minutes ago) - so you've no excuses !
I heard it too. Well done Simon! I thought represented us really well. Very strong! I agree with Martin V also, where do these people get the idea that only smokers die of Cancer? Just shows how thorough the indocrination is, and how much needs yet to be corrected in the public mind.
Thanks, Simon!
Really strong! Moderated yet impassioned, Simon articulated the case with vim.
Cottage-man was good ferra laugh, especially when he spat the dummy following the first gentle intervention from Nolan.