Is it time to ban Duncan Bannatyne?
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 On Sunday the Observer published an article by Duncan Bannatyne of Dragons' Den fame. It was headlined "I'll only be happy if smoking is banned" and sub-titled "We should no longer tolerate the minority threatening the lives of the majority".
You can read the full article HERE. Here's a taste:
In my view smokers who currently stand outside a pub or restaurant having a fag should have to stand at least several yards away from the front door, to save the 79% of us who don't smoke from breathing in their smoke when we go in or out. We should curtail the rights of the 21% and increase their responsibilities towards the 79%. In other words, we should stop them killing us and our children.
Telegraph blogger Ed West has responded with a piece entitled "A total ban on smoking? The most sinister article I've read in a long time". Read it HERE after you have read Bannatyne's comments.
It echoes my views and tomorrow I will have a chance to express them live on air because BBC Radio Kent is going to interview Bannatyne and then me. Sadly we won't be going head-to-head because Bannatyne is on at 9.30 and I'm being interviewed an hour later.
I believe there is a phone-in after that so if you live in Kent and want to have your say, make sure you listen to the programme and take part.
Simon Clark
When I wrote this I hadn't read Dick Puddlecote's post HERE. It's very good.
Reader Comments (24)
This coming from a man who operates casinos! There is a limit to how many cigarettes a person can smoke but no limit to how much they can gamble. There are numerous suicides every year as a result of gambling and for Bannatyne to preach about the wellbeing and health of others is hypocrisy and sickening.
I do not advocate banning casinos but the damage caused to the social fabric of society by excessive gambling easily outweighs the wisp of fumes from a cigarette.
YES!
Daddy ,why do you gamble.
Why carrrrn't mummy and me eat propuurly because you blow all the money down Ballantyne's casino-boozer.
Condescending tele advertisment voice...
Gambling is bad don't Be a mug, talk to FRANK.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS ,what a jerk.
Gambling, maybe Mr Ballantyne should watch this film.
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Good film by the way.
Duncan Ballantyne once infamously stated that if his sons or daughters (not sure which) did not give up smoking, he would stop their inheritance.
What a lovely man and lovely father, he is!
He is also, a Labour supporter by the way! Didn't really expect him to be anything else!
A few monthes ago I passed within a few feet ofthe man himself on Felixstowe seafront, if I'd only knowen about his extremist views on smoking then.
By the way he had been driven up from London in a big gas guzzling motor, what a hypocrite.
DENORMALISATION of the Act ?
Or DEHUMANISATION of the Actor ?
In this context, I see little difference.
Mr Bannatyne should take up smoking again: it would make everbody (including him) MUCH happier................
Don't forget that he is 'addicted' to alcohol.
Where do these wankers come from.
Its unbelievable isnt it, another one of the 'do as I say but not as I do' brigade.
Guess Bannatyne made such a whopping donation to Labour that they had to give him a platform to sate his egomania.
Or could it be competitive jealousy, maybe he considers himself so rich and powerful he cant understand why his inferior little minions in govt wont allow his gamblers to smoke in his casinos like they do in Las Vegas raking in more profits than him.
Yes, a Labour supporter who has no doubt given the Party some hefty financial donations in return for fascism against lifestyle choice - unless it's gambling ... and what was that NuLab said about super casinos despite the huge social problems they were warned would follow. ... I wonder...?
Bannatyne is a typical NuLaborite - a bully, a hypocrite, and a liar.
Quote of the month from Leg iron's blog. He is a smoker and features many pro choice articles, but he exceeded himself on a general comment on Labour.
"There are so many nails in Labour's coffin now, there's barely room for the corpse."
http://leg-iron.livejournal.com/
I do so hope he is right, Dave x
Just a quickie, I know where Bannatyne likes a good night out. Believe you me he will get the benfit of my wisdom.
You'd better get there sharpish then Dave!
Sorry, but I don't think that a man who could publically disown his own children for his obvious intolerance against a personal choice, is a man to be reasoned with.
The man is one utter hypocryt. Do as the corrupt money-men say and ignore your conscience and what the people want, is how he comes across to me.
It's a pity that his children haven't been allowed to stand up for themselves. Money, as we all know, is the root of all evil and corruptness.
Helen -
It's not 'money - but the LOVE of money that's the problem.
The ONLY reason I, for example, would like some more is that it would liberate me from having to worry about making it: one of those FREEDOM things.
IMHO, it's the Love of Power that's the REAL source of evil in our Society today.........
As someone once said on this blog, why don't we take smokers off the streets and put them in their own little houses with other filthy smokers. Then put signs on the door to warn normal people that there are people inside who have horrible habits like smoking and drinking. And then ... oh ...
He's a "BUSYBODY".
It's worse than apartheid (which all sensible people know is wrong)
Let's face it - they at least allowed black-only and white-only venues, so that those deemed 'undesireable' by the government and their heavily funded quangos/charities were allowed to socialise in comfort and safety and were given an option.
What do smokers have? Sweet nothing.
Tough luck if you're freezing; tough luck if you're raped; tough luck if you're murdered; tough luck if you don't like it; tough luck if you feel isolated; tough luck, the list goes on and on and on, as we all know.
What uttelry appalls me is how the sick and infirm have to walk (or be wheeled in chairs) into the elements at hospitals. Can someone please tell me how this is supposed to be a so-called health-servce?
Sorry for the rant, but I'm fed up with living in a corrupt regime and have just about had enough.
I'm in a good job at the moment, but the nanny-knows best course that I went on today has done it for me - and for most of the delegates that attended as well.
BTW - I work in education. If this government gains control again, it will get much worse and I can guarantee it.
I think you are spot on with your observations Maria, especially with linking the way smokers are treated to apartheid.
As well as the "black-only and white-only venues" that you mention, there was also busses in America's deep south, where "blacks" were only allowed to sit at the back of the bus!
The civilised world was in uproar about this, how could a society which called itself civilised, treat one section of its community in such an appalling way? Marches were organised, riots became the order of the day, and eventually, after a great struggle, the law was changed, to allow "everyone" the same rights.
What the hell has happened to that law now? Where are the rights for people who smoke?
Why can't they even sit at the back of the bus, so to speak? The back of the bus, it has been decided, is far too good for these awful, smelly people, all they deserve is to be thrown outside, no bus at all for them, no bars, no restaurants, no cafes, no train stations, or airports, or anything else which just might offer them the faintest glimmer of hope of regaining their humanity once again.
This law isn't about health, it is about control.
Both Nazism and Marxism used this method to control their masses, and we, like the gullible fools we are, are allowing ourselves to be goose-stepped along the same path to our eventual destruction as a free society!
The drill sergeants who are pacing this parade, Peter, are, I fear, operating by proxy and remote control. If those who are marching to their beat could recognise them and their horrid uniforms, they might break ranks and flee.
"Truth is treason in the Empire of Lies........"
Thus writes the admirable Republican thinker Ron Paul - one of Dan Hannan's heroes - in his recent book, 'The Revolution - A Manifesto'.
A pretty good summation of where we are right now - here and Across The Pond.
When even we conservatives start talking of the need for a 'revolution', something is plainly wrong somewhere.
Alas, the Left gave up on Liberty a LONG time ago.
You have to admire History's sense of irony !
"Whether by accident or design, the primary colours used on both the outside of cigarette packets and the shelves they are kept on attract children"
Err like fucking Lego and Hannah Montana, and every other product?
How does he surmise a product aimed at adults is actually aimed at those who cannot legally buy them?
And surley the kiddies will be put off with those huge pics of chest cavities and throat tumours on them?
Maybe not, I see plenty kids swapping the most gruesom packets in true Top Trumps fashion everyday at nursery schools...
Duncan Bannatyne can say whatever he wants. He is quite entitled to - freedom of speech, and all that.
The fact is, however, that free, adult Englishmen can follow their own instincts and experience and knowledge as to how to organise their own lives.
I do not know precisely where this discussion may go, but it is possible that the whole question of what a free, adult person may or may not do is being highlighted, perhaps in 'unintended consequences' ways.
For example, why should I, a free, adult Englishman, not enjoy the pleasures of cocaine if I wish to? Why should the State deny me that pleasure, if that is what I wish? I have never tried cocaine and I do not want to, but why should I not try it if that is what I wish? Why is it that 'Celebrities', such as Kate Moss, can indulge themselves to their heart's content and be admired as the most wonderful beings on God's Earth, while the rest of us free, adult Englishmen have to toe the line?
As regards the enjoyment of tobacco and children, does anyone know of ANY child who has actually come to any harm as a result of being exposed to tobacco smoke? Is it not true that children need to be exposed to dust and dirt and smoke in order to trigger their immune mechanisms?
These people who are persecuting people who enjoy tobacco (along with people who let their kids roam around in the fields), in the long term, may well be bringing untold misery to future generations.
Oh my fucking god, you would have to be as a group the stupidest and i mean the stupidest group as a people i have sadly have had to experience. The reason smokers no longer get to sit at the back of the bus is that as addicts you are THE most selfish and arrogant of drug addicts and think your addiction surpasses anyones elses right to freely exist without exposure to lethal and addictive side affects. Clearly eveyone of you that wrote on this site is in complete denial to the fact that you're all addicted to cigarettes and by association corporate agencies that fist you with no regard. Before you all dismiss what Bannantyne has to say why not recognise first that as smokers you strip others of rights by just lighting up!!!