Monday
Sep152008
How liberal are the Liberal Democrats?
Monday, September 15, 2008 Off to the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth. We're co-hosting a fringe event tomorrow with the liberal think tank Progressive Vision. Title of the meeting: "How liberal are the Liberal Democrats?".
Funnily enough, John Redwood has just blogged on this very subject. According to the former secretary of state for Wales (and much else), "The problem with the Lib Dems is they are neither liberal nor true democrats." Full post HERE.
Reader Comments (23)
I've been arguing with my dad (Lib Dem supporter) about this for years... Someone should point them in the direction of this:
liberal
adjective 1 willing to respect and accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own. 2 (of a society, law, etc.) favourable to individual rights and freedoms. 3 (in a political context) favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate reform.
Perhaps Rob, if that were put up in 10 feet high lettering at their conference, it might sink in enough that they could stand a chance, so long as they did not renege later!
Just heard on 'BBC Look East' that when somebody said that non-smokers should be rewarded, it was met with a stoney silence.
I used to vote Lib Dem regular as clockwork. They were the 'liberal' party. They were the tolerant, easy-going, live-and-let-live party. They were to be contrasted with the ideological lockstep of the statist Labour and laissez-faire Conservative parties.
All that ended with the smoking ban, which was probably the most illiberal and coercive piece of legislation in 50 years. 95% of Lib Dem MPs voted for that ban, as against 90% of Labour MPs, and a minority of Tory MPs. The Lib Dems had, if anything, led the way in imposing this illiberal ban. As far as I was concerned, no true liberal would have condoned such a law. Tory MPs showed themselves to be more liberal than the Lib Dems.
Well they've just come out with proposals to give 'tax-cuts' to those who give up smoking! I believe their agenda is clear enough now as far as I'm concerned
It was Norman Lamb MP for part of Norfolk, who said non-smokers should get a refund for not costing the Health Service loads of money. No applause from the delegates.
Preventive health care [sic] is part of their tax-cutting strategy, hence tax-cuts for non-smokers (no doubt to be followed by other illiberal health initiatives).
Chas - perhaps there was no applause because the other delegates appreciate smokers' contribution to the Treasury. If anyone should be offered tax cuts, it should be us!!
Tax cuts for non smokers for costing the NHS less!
I can guarantee I would cost the NHS a darn sight more if I were to give up smoking, on anti-depressants if nothing else! Although I am still smoking and have every intention of continuing to smoke, the ban has caused me problems which have, in turn, caused me to require greater medical intervention for depression and anxiety.
I spoke to my daughter last night who is 25 and has never smoked (despite both her father and myself smoking around her all her life) and she works in a pub. Since the smoking ban she has come down with cold after cold after cold and last night when we spoke, she was coming down with another one. I said perhaps she should take up smoking as I virtually never have coughs or colds, have never had flu and my blood pressure is absolutely perfect and always has been, even when I was pregnant with her! Apparently, my blood pressure should be up and I should be constantly seeing doctors and costing the NHS a fortune, because I smoke!
My problems with depression have mostly over the years been kept within manageable bounds, mostly due, I am convinced, to smoking! It is only since this draconian and unfair law was announced (it affected me from then, not just from the actual inception) that I have needed psychiatric intervention, CBT courses, counselling (still waiting for that!) and long term medication.
My husband smokes and is scarcely ever ill. The only thing he has been off work for in the last 10 years was a tooth abcess, which was not dealt with properly at the time by the dentist and so became infected. He still struggled into work until they sent him home! He was only off for 2 days then!
How many more of you smokers find that you are fitter and healthier than the non smokers you know?
Since the smoking ban she has come down with cold after cold after cold and last night when we spoke, she was coming down with another one. - Lyn
Not really very surprising. Wood smoke (and by extension tobacco smoke) is an antibacterial agent. Midges and other insects don't like it much either. So there are probably now far more bacteria in the air now that smoking is banned and the air is 'clean'.
In my case, smoking certainly prevents me from being a ‘drain’ on public health funds. I have ulcerative colitis, which is known to be a “nonsmokers’ disease”. Smoking protects against it to a large degree. I only have the dreaded flare-ups once every three to four years. These are manageable with a minimal amount of meds. My quality of life is pretty much the same as that of people who don’t have UC. I don’t know what would happen if I stopped smoking, but I’d probably be on heavy meds (steroids) continuously. And I would possibly need operations to remove parts of the bowel. Needless to say, no doctor has ever advised me to quit smoking…
Like Lyn, I never have colds or the flu. Neither has my husband. While many non-smokers we know get colds all the time, not to mention all kinds of obscure infections and allergies.
During my last visit to our GP (years ago), she commented on us never coming to see her. Laughingly, we put it down to the fact that we run our own business, so ‘sick leave’ is not an option. “Oh yes, of course”, she said, “The self-employed are usually *very* healthy!”
A report from New Zealand said that infants who were exposed to SHS had better immune systems.
I know of that report too, chas. And there are more like them. But there may be many confounders. Could it be that smokers are less über-sanitized as some nonsmokers? (Like, more relaxed about pets in the home, kids getting their hands dirty, etc., etc. This also boosts the immune system.)
Just to add, my daughter was always very healthy as a child, in fact, even though she continued to go to nursery when the mumps was doing the rounds, she never had it, but she did carry it and give it her dad! In fact, she was 13 and visiting her cousins in Canada (very smoke free atmosphere there as my brother is a total anti everything!) when she got Chicken Pox, Apart from this and a couple of minor ear infections when she was 2 to 3 years old, there was never anything wrong with her. Now she is grown up, not living in a smokey atmosphere at home or work, she comes down with everything going and resorts to vitamins, minerals and other supplements to try and ward all these bugs off!
Sounds totally crazy to me!
The One Show, Last Friday evening showed a young girl eating a carrot, fresh out of the ground with the dirt on it. Adrian Charles showed his dislike, but the gardening lady laughed at him and said most kids used to do it. Again a bit of dirt is good for the immune system.
Years ago, our then neighbour came over to our place for a drink and a friendly chat. She had her six month (or thereabouts) son with her. I put a blanket on the floor and told her to put him on it. She hesitated because she wasn’t sure the floor was clean enough for her kid. Even though it clearly was. (Not to my credit, but our nice cleaning lady had scrubbed it the day before.)
Now, I didn’t mind her being skeptical about the cleanliness of my home. But what *did* bother me greatly was that this woman happens to be a doctor!
Of course, I told her I was surprised, and that she of all people ought to know that “a little birt of dirt won’t hurt” and all that. She admitted she *did* know … but for her “it was an emotional thing”.
I've also noticed that I seem to get less colds than the non-smokers I know and that when I do get one, it seems less severe than theirs and my recovery quicker.
Except that, being a bloke an' all, any minor sniffle gets reinterpreted as Siberian Flu.
How "liberal" are the Illiberal Dupeocrats?
They abandoned liberalism very quickly when it came to voting with their prejudices against we puir "victims of Big Tobacco". As has been noted by others, they were the first major party to call for total-verboten.
As one of their very few dissenters Lembit Opik has said: "You can't pick and choose those issues you wish to be liberal about".
My experience of the LDs is that they are little more than weathercocks swinging with the wind. Weasel words and power at any price. In local government, they are every bit as nasty as noo-labor.
Nick Clegg said that the basic pension is only £30 per week. Perhaps that is what they would allow.
You echo my thoughts entirely, Anna. As a self-employed person I, too, am never off sick. I had a friend who doesn't smoke or drink and likes to think that she eats healthily - and I've never known anyone be off work sick as often. I suspect that her public sector job carried a generous sick pay scheme! Mind you, since she wasn't contributing anything to the economy of the country and was nothing more than a drain on the taxpayer, it really made no difference if she was working or not - the money came out of the same pot whether called pay or sick pay.
On the subject of health and smoking. I am 57 with white teeth and nice skin lol can't remember when I last had a cold and can't remember when I last went to the doc. I have never in my life been hospitalized or medicated for anything smoking related - although an anti smoker would say that everything I have ever had was smoking related, even if it was a wart on my left............knee.
Here is the good bit.
In the mid nineties I left a profession which had taken it's toll on my acute anxiety. Four months before I finally 'threw in the towel', somethnig unusual happened, I was ill! Flu (which I never get), followed by sinusitus (which I had never had before) then tonsilitus (I don't even have tonsils).
Here is the interesting bit. A stressful job which I had coped with until the last three years of that employment, wait for it, one of the things which happened during those final three years was that they banned smoking!!!
Dont know if I'm speaking too soon, but signs show that there seems to be a small relaxation by the smoke police, more so in rural ireland. I wonder is this due to No tangible health improvement in the population since the ban or is it due to the downturn in the ecomomy that revenue is taking precedence or is the that the worried well have more immediate priorities ie no jobs and bleak prospects for the future. Maybe some day they will need the comfort of a ciggy and come off their high horse when they get the urge to light up a Hamlet.
The downturn in the economy might not be such a bad thing after all!
Nick Clegg has just said that the Government were treating us like children and taking away our liberties. Didn't nearly all Libdem MPs vote for the blanket smoking ban?
I have been voting LibDem over the last few elections, and am a member of the LibDems, but am somewhat disillusioned by their apparent stance ragarding Civil Liberties, but in practice have proved rather illiberal like for example by voting predominantly voting in favour the despised, divisive, spiteful Smoking Ban! They too are infected by the sickly, infectious "Politically Correct" bug!
Come on everyone jog off to your local gym, which formerly was a pub!