Smoking ban: Tory PPC supports choice
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 
Yesterday, at the invitation of the local Licensed Victuallers Association (LVA) which represents independent licensees, we held a Save Our Pubs & Clubs meeting at The Bramingham pub in Luton. The meeting was well attended and we made some very useful contacts including Nigel Huddleston, Conservative PPC for Luton South, who even donned a SOPAC t-shirt for the obligatory photograph.
I was otherwise engaged (see previous post) but a colleague attended on my behalf. Registering his support for our campaign, Nigel told her: "We've had enough of Gordon Brown's nanny state. Politicians should respect people's freedom to choose."
The local paper was also present at the meeting which is one of many that we intend to organise or participate in as we approach the general election.
Above: Claire Kerslake (The Bramingham), Sean Spillane (Luton Social Club) and Nigel Huddlestone (Conservative PPC).
Simon Clark
One of Nigel's opponents in the election is TV presenter Esther Rantzen who has chosen to stand as an independent candidate in Luton South even though the current disgraced MP Margaret Moran is standing down.
Sean Spillane, manager of Luton Social Club and a leading Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaigner, tells me that he met Rantzen last week and told her about the campaign. "I can't condone smoking," she told him, but after he described the plight of his own customers, many of whom are in their sixties and seventies and are forced to climb two flights of stairs to a miserable rooftop location to smoke outside, she (allegedly!) relented and said she might support designated smoking rooms.
But don't quote me - or her - on that!
Reader Comments (5)
I've loathed Ranzen since hearing her on QT proudly claim that she plucks cigarettes from the mouths of those she believes shouldn't be smoking...
I do hope the people of Luton realise that a penchant for oddly-shaped vegetables isn't grounds for election.
"I can't condone smoking...."
And what about silly TV presenters blaming cot deaths on secondhand smoke, Esther ?
Another question:
Given that the vast majority of non-smokers clearly never DID mind our presence (down considerably since 1945) in pubs, why don't we merely allow well-ventillated rooms for the shrieking minority of Militant Antis ?
But then I recall certain publicans as having said that when they DID provide similar facilities, NO-ONE used them.
Funny, that..................
Is this the same Esther who sheepishly acknowledged that her campaign to help those in need had actually been accepted - ie, we now have the nanny state that she campaigned tirelessly for.
I'm surprised that she's now embarrassed that what she wanted has actually happened. The woman is an idiot and goes by what's fashionable at the time. She has no foundations or principals and obviously believes everything that is spouted by MSM propaganda
Esther Rantzen is just typical of a 'has been' out of work celeb who cant grow old gracefully.
After the inevitable book launch of their unspectacular lifestyle, life gets rather dull for them and they miss the limelight so..oo much.
The last resort for her ilk is to take up some cause, any cause that is, provided it is politically correct and will appeal to the worried well/bleeding hearts brigade that the media approves of, and of course that will bring in big bucks.
It also amazes me, how these so called rock stars/bands/celebs whose attraction starting out was their rebellious nature and hard drinking and smoking, who then when they're all washed up become paragons of virtue and figurheads for the likes of ASH/Road Safety/African Missions, instead of backing disenfranchised minority groups that were there for them on the way up.
I guess, just like our politicians, the lesson seems to be, that when you 'make it big' you start telling the people that put you there in the first place, how to lead their lives for their own good!!
Ann -
Let's just hope They don't nobble Keith Richards.
That WOULD be the end !