Amend smoking ban says AWT
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 
Forest patron Antony Worrall Thompson (above) launches the new Save Our Pubs & Clubs: AmendTheSmokingBan.com campaign.
We were joined at the Buckingham Arms in Westminster by the Rt Hon Greg Knight MP (Conservative) and David Clelland MP (Labour). Lib Dem MP John Hemming sent a message supporting the campaign.
The campaign is supported by Forest, the liberal think tank Progressive Vision, the Adam Smith Institute, which champions the free market, and the Manifesto Club which campaigns for “freedom in everyday life”. See press release HERE.
Apart from Antony, Greg Knight and David Clelland, speakers included Progressive Vision's Mark Littlewood and Josie Appleton of the Manifesto Club.
Other speakers were landlords Paul Lofthouse (Queen's Head, Coggleshall), Simon Esnard (Butcher's Arms, Luton) and Sean Spillane (Luton Social Club).
UKIP leader Nigel Farage made a surprise appearance and said his party would support the campaign in any way it could.
The ASI's Eamonn Butler has blogged about the launch HERE. Likewise Dick Puddlecote HERE.
Meanwhile:
TV chef joins campaign for limited pub smoking (Independent)
Amend smoking ban, save pubs (Morning Advertiser)
Campaigners launch bid to amend smoking ban (Publican)
Update: to support the campaign please click HERE.
Reader Comments (22)
Cracking. Good luck to all involved!!
Very good launch and best of luck from me too. I will be interested to see if the Biased Broadcasting Company covers it.
About time we have some polititions with a brain and a bit of backbone, this is just what is needed, support the people and they will support you. You have my full support.
Too bloody right!! It's about time that this shocking and Fascist ban was amended (Well, I'd like to see it AND the Fascists who voted for it kicked out of the bloody window!).
God's Speed to all involved in this wonderful campaign !!
(Just need to get Greg Knight's head turned the right way round on 'Climate Change', though.........)
Right behind you they have ruined a lot of peoples social lives.
A good start and about time. Hopefully a few more 'personalities' might come on board too and the current proposed amendment could be viewed as the monimim proposal.
A good start and about time. Hopefully a few more 'personalities' might come on board too and the current proposed amendment could be viewed as the minimum proposal.
Brilliant - and the warmest of thankyous. I have almost literally begged Boris Johnson to take some steps for an amendment. Well done to Forest and AWT for this initiative. It is so needed, not just economically but for a return to sanity and some respect for adult choices. The health police must be defeated. Thank you so warmly.
no smoking areas are getting rediculous - for example at Ashford Designer Outlet you cannot smoke at the tables outside the coffee shops but you can smoke in the middle of the car park - without ashtrays so the car park is littered with ash and cigarette ends. Smokers must retaliate by staying away. Where are our human rights
I hope smething comes from this. I voted Labour at the last General Election because I thought their manifesto pledge of smoking in certain pubs/clubs in England was a good compromise. We ended up with a total ban and I will never trust them again.
Same here Schabbs. I will never vote labour again because of this broken manifesto promise, and I know a lot more like me.
They've done a lot since as well that I don't agree with, but had it not been for the ban, I don't think I would have been too aware of it, as I've never really got involved in politics.
It was the ban that got me fired up against labour and everything they now stand for.
Is it my PC, or have all the comments on the article in The Independent been swiped off?
Commenting on Schabbs' post: yes, and useful to recall that Mrs. Hewitt allegedly promised her constituents in Leicester that she would vote to protect private clubs, social clubs and working mens' clubs so that they could retain a choice. Three days later she voted otherwise. So much for integrity. Why wasn't I surprised.
Helen - I have just tried three times to leave a post on the Independent site. The page invited a comment, as an open forum, and then sent me round to register; then opened up unreadable codes in strange typeface no less than three times to be copied. I gave up as probably a few other people did as well. I wonder if Simon could check this with them?
The ban is ridiculous and so is all the legislation that comes with it as a small company I have to have no smoking posters of a certain size and have had 2 visits from the smoking police. I do not have to have signs up saying its is against the law to inject heroin or have sex with anyone under the age of 16years as usual labour are right over the top they lost my vote with the smoking ban
Beverley - all the comments have now re-appeared!
I actually think there is no longer a need for no smoking signs. Everywhere is no smoking now. Why do we have to be constantly reminded that we cannot smoke? They say they are making efforts - like slaughtering small shops with a tobacco display ban - to stop youth smoking but then they shove it in their faces continually with no smoking signs, and announcements that we no longer need in this "smoke-free" country.
When an official says, "passengers are reminded that this is no smoking ... " or a sign that says "No smoking.." what is the first thing a child asks - "What's smoking? and why can't I do it."
No, this issue is not about smoking or health - it is about a bunch of middle class snobs who who look down on those of us who choose to do something they personally don't like and they are now hounding us because of our refusal to do as they tell us.
I hope NuLabour take all their no smoking signs down with them when they go. Spiteful liars, facisits and freaks. RIP Labour. You're dead and you deserve to be.
The trouble is, Pat, that we are under the cosh of today's 'middle class snobs' because their forebears, ironically the free-thinking, radical, angry young outsiders and rebels of the fifties and sixties unseated the then 'middle class snobs' who were at that time seen as the Tory establishment riotously lampooned by the programme 'That Was The Week That Was'. The success of that movement led to its creating a new establishment which attracted those who wanted to be members of the elite. I remember being told of one young man, leaving University, who deliberated as to whether to join the Conservatives or the Labour Party. He reportedly chose the latter and became an MP. Similarly aspirant types will, I suspect, be already sensing the Cameron world's 'cool' and I fear, from the occasional attempts I have made to get a response on amendment of the smoking law from the Conservatives, that their leaders will not take the lead on something with which those showing an interest in supporting the party might disagree. In other words we can't count on the Tories because they are on the way to becoming the new establishment. Full circle. That's politics. I wish the gilded intelligentsia of Hampstead, Chelsea, Westminster and the White City would go and meet some of the people who have to pay all their household bills on what the MPs get for food. I wish they would listen and I wish they would read this website.
Never vote labour again ? I would think no smoker in his right mind would do that now.
But let's not forget the Lib Dems, they sided with Labour wholeheartedly. The Tories where mostly againt the ban but they won't change anything if they gain power. The only party for the smokers is of course UKIP. the party which has already pledged to return our freedom to us.
I agree with you barnie about UKIP but there's little chance of them becoming MPs. Perhaps the best hope is that when the review on the ban comes up in 2010 we will have a large Tory majority. Cameron will hopefully allow a free vote and the minority of Lib Dems/Labour MPs supporting free choice will cancel out any Tories who are for the ban.
I don't agree about UKIP, Schabbs. There are a lot of disillusioned Tory, Lab and Lib Dem voters looking to put their votes elsewhere and they appear to be giving it to UKIP.
I don't think for a minute that UKIP would become the next Govt but people genuinely want change from the three main parties which offer no choice and no difference between them so I think UKIP will at least get some MPs. The Lib Dems, I think, will come off worse, but slightly better than Labour. They have always been the alternative party but they offer no alternatives now and so no reason for anyone to vote for them.
I think we will see an revolutionary change in voting at the next election and so does Labour. Why else would Gordon refuse to call one now? He is hoping against hope that something will happen to turn the tide of hatred against Labour before next year and make people love them again. He doesn't live in the real world after all and has no concept of how ordinary people think.
The only hope I have for a Conservative Govt is that things, hopefully, won't get worse for smokers under them but that is not enough to make me or the 12 million other smokers vote for Cameron's party.