Sunday Express: amend smoking ban
Sunday, June 28, 2009 The Sunday Express has an editorial praising Antony Worrall Thompson's support for our new campaign to amend the smoking ban:
It's great news that Antony Worrall Thompson is making a stand for common sense on cigarettes. The Government ban on smoking is forcing the closure of six pubs a day. Clubs and restaurants are also suffering while the number of smokers shows no decline and the health of the nation is unchanged.
Thompson’s campaign has backing from MPs from the three main parties and the group is fighting for reform when the law is reviewed next year. They’re asking for rooms in pubs and clubs to be set aside for smokers. It is a simple, sensible voluntary move that would improve our right to choose without damaging the health of others.
In a separate article, the paper reports:
Mr Worrall Thompson, who smokes 20 cigarettes a day, is one of Britain’s most prominent smoking campaigners. Though he admits that it is not a habit he is proud of, he says the issue is about liberty and free choice.
He claims that the Labour government chose to implement the most draconian smoking ban available, despite warnings about the dire economic and social consequences such a move could have.
“Why is it that on the Continent, governments gave bar owners a choice? In Spain, premises which are smaller than 100m square can choose whether they allow smoking or not but if they are bigger than this, they must provide clearly divided and ventilated smoking sections. That’s the model we want here,” he said.
Full report HERE.
Reader Comments (30)
Why isn't he proud?
He should be proud.
Smokers built this nation, whether they were scientists poring over equations, or navvies hammering spikes into railway lines.
Good Luck Mr Thompson we are all behind you 100%.
Good old common sense.
Bravo the Express too.
I am so pleased that Antony Worrall Thompson.has put his money where his mouth is and joined the Forest campaign to amend the smoking ban along the lines of how it is applied in Spain. Not just Worral Thompson of course, but MPs from the three major parties as well as UKIP.
It is admirable that people are at last starting to show their true colours on this issue, for far too long we have had the anti-smoking lobby doing their best to brainwash everyone into believing not only that smoking was a dirty habit, but also that the argument on behalf of smoking was dead in the water, and not even worth debating any longer. Well they would want this wouldn't they? What better way to win an argument than to shut your opponent up before they have a chance to answer?
But I am pleased to say that instead of getting their own way on this, the great unwashed, i.e. the smokers and their supporters, are starting to see the light of day, and are fighting back. People are beginning to realise that this whole anti-smoking movement isn't just about smoking, it is about trying to control every aspect of our lives, from smoking, to eating, drinking, driving, education, you name it, they want to control it and take away yet more of our freedom, freedom that our parents and grandparents fought for, and which we thought (rather naively) that we were voting for.
This new campaign to amend the ban seems to be rapidly gaining momentum and I am sure that we will see even more MPs and celebrities joining the movement in the coming weeks and months. There is however, one thing that worries me, and that is the constant mention of the word "legal". I was at the launch of the campaign last week in SW1, where I listened to all those involved making their speeches, and without exception, every single one mentioned that anyone that smoked was not breaking any law, as smoking is still a legal thing to do in this country.
I cringed every time I heard this word used, not because I don't want it to be legal, but because I could foresee the enemies of freedom turning this very word, this very phrase, against us. When they start to see their propaganda programme failing, and more people joining our movement for freedom and common sense, what will they have left, but to say they will force through a new law that does make smoking illegal, even the possession of tobacco products illegal?
What can we do to head this law off before it is even contemplated? I saw we should be very careful about our use of this word, and this phrase. The people who want to stunt our freedom and take away our rights are dirty fighters who will use anything and everything to impose their will on us. They have enough "dirty bombs" of their own without us supplying them with more ammunition.
I've just come back from Spain where their system works perfectly well and tobacco smokers are treated respectfully. In spite of the economic problems in Spain, their bars/restaurants etc. remain busy. As our economy nosedives and unemployment rises rapidly, our anti-smoking contemporaries will have a little more to worry about than persecuting smokers. A little more patience is required. Their oppressive policies will backfire on them.
I do agree with you Peter about focussing on the legality of tobacco which gives the other side ammo to call for it to become illegal.
The way that smoke-free clinics now ask smokers who want to quit if they also smoke cannabis rings alarm bells with me that they are gearing up for a "tobacco use leads to hard drug use and should be against the law," call.
It is not enough to argue that smokers should be left alone because tobacco is legal. This loony Govt has shown with a stroke that something legal (like smoking in public) can quite easily be made illegal - especially when this valuable tax revenue is constantly falling due to the black market availability of cheap tobacco.
A better argument would be that decent law-abiding people would be criminilised if this product was to be made illegal and it is simply not neccessary.
As for the story on AWT, I felt he was a little bit too apologetic in parts when he could have shouter louder and prouder. Still good positive publicity for the campaign, though.
PS - let us not forget how much money they are raking in in fines and penalties from the smoker now and how much more they would get in fines and penalities if it was illegal --- possibly even more than they do in legitimate tax revenues now.
What'that?
EU zealots will this week demand a ban on smoking OUTSIDE pubs and offices!?!!??
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/380565/EU-zealots-demand-a-ban-on-smoking-OUTSIDE-pubs.html
Time to declare red alert or just false alarm??
That link looks pretty nasty. No big surprise though.
Link to Express editorial, please.
Once a casual, perhaps flippant reply to someone who disagreed with or challenged something was: 'So what, it's a free country isn't it?' When did anyone last hear those words said with that kind of jaunty confidence?
Norman, sadly it is no longer a free country, despite what government would have us believe! Well, lets say it is not a free country for most normal, law abiding citizens, anyway! MPs of course have the freedom to smoke in Westminster and drink without the prohibitive tax burden placed on us normal citizens.
brankach. You gave a link to a News of the World article. The comments section brought up that old chestnut Roy Castle.
I left a comment which will most probably not go on. Having reseaerched the Roy Castle saga, here is my comment:
A few facts:
Roy Castle died of lung cancer, his death certificate does not say passive smoking.
RC was not a non smoker, he smoked cigars.
In his early career RC did a comedy act in variety shows, his props were made from asbestos.
RC only spent a few years in smoky clubs, he moved on to films and TV, unlike thousands of club acts, many of whom are still going strong.
Lung Cancer did not appear with smoking, in 1900 before smoking was a widespread social activity, 10% of cancers were of the lung. Everyone dies of cancer if heart failure does not get them first.
Roy Castle did not die from passive smoking, he died from lung cancer.
@timbone:
I don't think your comment would go. The whole article sounds a bit sarcastic. However, I am concerned whether it is indeed true that EU pushes for outdoor bans?
There is plenty of support (and growing) now for amending the smoking ban. However, I wonder which government will have the balls to do it?
For politicians of reasonable intelligence the solution to this dilemma is simple. That being, that they start to release the real figures relating to ban damage for the public to consume first. Secondly, they start to question the truth about passive smoking.
However, having said that, this government doesn't have the integrity to do these things, and it desperately wants to hang on to just one policy it can claim is a success.
Lastly, "Dave" is showing bigger balls than I initially gave him credit for, but I doubt that even he will have the necessary steel or inclination to amend the smoking ban.
Please tell me I'm wrong.
As there seems to be growing support for amending the ban, at least more than we are used to, it hopefully will go from strength to strength, as many who were very dubious about speaking out, for one reason or another,may now find a little more courage, as they see they are not alone.
That's how things work.
The vital ingredient, which is still sorely lacking, to give a solid base to the momentum, is the pushing of'the passive smoking fraud', which is responsible for ALL smoking bans.
Maybe then it will finally appear somewhere in the media, and that could truly give this campaign thunder. Well I'm hopeful!
was also in Portugal recently and their law is very similar to that of its neighbour!!
Do you have a link to the Sunday Express editorial, Simon? Or is it in the printed version only? The link you provide is to the separate article.
The link below is to a news item in Monday's Express about EU Commission (those are the people we don't elect, right?) plans for a
BAN ON OUTDOOR SMOKING
My 40 year old daughter told me about an incident in a store in Bolton yesterday. She went into this store (I am not going to name the store because I am not going to give them free publicity) holding a plastic bottle of water. A member of the store staff, without any courtesy at all, said to her, "Drinking is not allowed in the store". She, being an intelligent,educated person saw at once the fault in this statement, and took a sip from her bottle. The staff person said again, "Drinking is not allowed in the store". My daughter said, "I heard you". She then took another sip. She continued to drink her water as and when she wanted to.
The fault in the staff person's statement is that staff persons DO NOT have the right to dictate what people do in the store that they work in, regardless of what the store managers tell them.
The REALLY, REALLY important thing is this.
If you take a bottle of water into a store (or even a hamburger which you wish to eat) you are NOT doing anything ON their premises. You may be IN their premises, but you are, essentially, IN THE ATMOSPHERE.In SPACE.
This very same fault arose a couple of years ago when the smoking ban, in certain pubs, was merely 'in the bar area'. 17yr old kids were telling grown-ups to stop smoking at the bar. IE, the pub managers (by which I mean, not the actual pub manager, but the TOP ECHELON of managers, were getting kids to do their dirty work.
Click a thought. To what extent did big pubcos tell the government that the 'voluntary' system was unworkable? Too many members of the public were refusing to comply with their child staff's instructions. What was needed was COMPREHENSIVE ban to relieve them of the need to police it. One wonders. One wonders whether or not it is possible, under the freedom of informaton Act, to find out whether or not such representations took place.
What is really weird is that I have noticed, in the recent past, that the pubco which runs one of the two pubs near my home, used to go ballistic if people smoked in the porch of the pub (strictly speaking, the porch is 'a substantially enclosed place'). What I have noticed is that. quite suddenly, the staff have simply stopped bothering about the porch.
Am I right in thinking that the pubcos have 'made representations' about porches and been assured by the authorities that porches are 'out of sight and therefore out of mind'? IE, that pubcos will not be prosecuted if they do not 'not allow' smoking in their porches? I certainly think so. Otherwise, why the sudden change?
Anyway,the critical thing is that 'holes' are starting to appear in the arguement of the 'Smokefrees'. It is becoming more and more obvious that cancers are a condition of old age or genetic aberations - 'carcigens' are a myth, dreamed up by nutty professors.I
n any case, even is there is some drect connection bwtween smoking and death, is it not true that we are all going to die eventually anyway? So, why cannot we enjoy ourselves a little on the way?
The trouble is that I fear tht politicians do not actually THINK about what they do. I think that they feel that they have no NEED to. Go along with what the whips tell you to do and you will be OK. Buck the whips and you are in big trouble!
Politicians passed this law with no idea what they were voting for or why. How sad is that?
Further to the above, I forgot the point I wanted to make.
In the same way that my daughter refused to be bullied, eventually, one way or another, we smokers have to stand up and be counted. WE HAVE TO! It is not a queston of whether to or not - it is a question of HOW.
I doubt very much Idlex, whether the EUs call for a ban on smoking outdoors will come to anything. The man reason being that as most people already know, the majority of Europe already have much more humane rules and regulations with regard to smoking than we do here in the UK. If smoking is already allowed inside bars and restaurants in these other countries, how on earth could they justify banning it outside?
Mind you, there are already some people here in the UK who think we shouldn't be smoking outside already. I was at one of my favourite Spanish restaurants in Clapham in London yesterday, the restaurant, which is called La Terraza, was obviously named after its big outside terrace, where I love to sit, eat, drink and smoke in peace, whilst also taking in some of the passing traffic's fumes (good old fresh air eh?)
While I was there yesterday, a young couple came and sat at the next to us, and within a few minutes, the extremely attractive girl started to do the now very familiar hand jive, which anyone in the know, now recognises as a warning sign, that the person involved positively hates smoking, is much to frightened to actually say in words what they think, so perform this silly ritual instead.
All the attractiveness that I had seen in her disappeared instantly as she got up, pulling her partner with her and giving all and sundry very dark looks indeed, as they marched to the interior of the restaurant, where she proceeded to rant on about all the terrible smokers outside (I could see this through the window).
What is it with people like this, they are happy to send smokers outside in the winter time, when we have to put up with the rain and the cold, while they sit happily inside, laughing at our misfortune, but come the summer months, when we manage to get a few brief weeks of sunshine, they then seem to think that they are the ones who should have the privilege of sitting outside. Where do they then propose to shove the poor smoker? In the stocks maybe, as one anti-smoking nut has proposed on the link you provided Idlex?
Will the EU's new nutty proposal have the effect they want, or will it eventually start to wake people up to the type of people they really are, the type that want to control every aspect of our lives, the type that pander to fellow-nuts (like the attractive girl)?
I learned something yesterday, and that is that monsters come in all shapes and sizes.
From what I have seen here recently, with a great many smoking outside pubs,and what I have seen in parts of Europe, outdoor bans would spell the end of most establishments. It cannot work, it would be disaster on such a scale that it would have to be repealed. Mind you that doesn't mean the lunatics won't be trying, but ultimately they will fail.
Peter Thurgood wrote: If smoking is already allowed inside bars and restaurants in these other countries, how on earth could they justify banning it outside?
I know. It's utterly demented. But since the present smoking ban is already raving bonkers enough, I wouldn't put it past them to descend even further into complete ga-ga shrieking lunacy.
On the bright side, this latest proposal may well make a few more people recognise just how utterly insane things have become.
Perhaps this is what happened during the witch hunts of the 16th century, as the sheer craziness of burning hundreds of harmless old women began to filter through to a growing majority of people.
"...as most people already know, the majority of Europe already have much more humane rules and regulations with regard to smoking than we do here in the UK."
Peter, I have been surprised at comments my wife has pointed out to me on holiday forums. It seems that many think it is going to be the same abroad as it is here. Shock/horror statements like "people were smoking in the bars" are common. There seems to be an aversion to anything to do with smoking now. Take Spain for example, where you go yourself. Their ventilation/air conditioning is so much better that I have even heard tolerant non smokers say that they did not really notice, even after midnight when they have to close doors and windows to keep the noise in. There are however many non smokers who complain if they see someone smoking, even if they cannot smell it - and as you said yourself, even outside.
It has become so ridiculous that I even read recently someone complaining about the smell created by hand rollers making a cigarette before they go outside to smoke it!
I travel quite often to Spain Timbone, as my business partners work from there. The area we work in is Andalucia and Granada, and I can assure you that in these regions, the only complaints regarding smoking come from the Brits and the occasional German.
Nerja is a beautiful little coastal town within the area I work in, which unfortunately caters for the Brits. I am sorry to have to even say that, as I am British, and do try my best to be proud of it, but when I see those certain few Brits in bars, and outside them, giving others, even the Spanish, dirty looks because they are smoking, it makes me feel ashamed to be British. I have even lapsed into speaking Spanish at times in order to hide my true identity, so ashamed am I about my fellow citizens.
I know one particular restaurant there in Nerja, which caters almost entirely for the Brits, and guess what? They stuck a sign on their door stating they do not allow smoking. Needless to say I boycotted that restaurant instantly, and left it to all those namby-pambies and hand wavers. They are welcome to it.
But as for other places in Spain succumbing to the silliness of the PC mob, the hand wavers and the outright nasty brigade, I can assure anyone that this is not happening in Andalucia.
I was in Andalucia in March, a lovely little town called Rute, or, as you speak Spanish Peter, En Marzo fui Rute,en las montanas de andalucia.
Anyway, I know what you mean. It is only in the places por touristas or areas populated by ex pats where it becomes embarrassing/annoying.
I have never heard of Rute, Timbone, where abouts is it in relation to Malaga for instance?
Rute is about 60k inland from Malaga.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
Sorry Peter, think thios link should work.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=rute+andalucia&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=13.492317,33.706055&ie=UTF8&ll=37.329492,-4.371185&spn=0.141685,0.263329&z=12&iwloc=A
Peter, the vinegar goddess in the Clapham bar is, I suspect, exactly the kind of person that 'cool' Cameroons want to attract to vote for them. I do think, however, that when smoking was universally the 'norm' in this country, those who found it unpleasant were ignored. We smokers have learned in the last 20 years or so, to see that minorities have needs which must be recognised: because we have become the minority. In the mighty heave which is always needed to push a social pendulum in the other direction the idea of providing for a minority has been wiped out. When smoking was the norm it came from custom and practice. The new regime is based on dogma. It is a moralistic dogma which sees sick people on drips smoking outside hospitals. I suspect it is the same dogma which some years ago now, saw all the wooden benches by the main entrance to the Royal Free Hospital disappear, the merciless virtue which may allow a wheelchair-bound octogenarian to be charitably pushed into the cold non-smoking courtyard of a hospital to have a cigarette. It is a dogma which has lost sight of humanity in its wallowing in its own sense of righteousness. As I have said before on this site, I think that for some, there is no thrill like the thrill of looking down on others (and I must be careful not to be guilty of the same thing by looking down on those who look down on me). While some smokers were, by thoughtlessness, inconsiderate, a generation and more ago we have now a licensed, deliberate and conscious, contempt-fuelled marginalisation of human beings who are, in a small and still socially very productive way, different: a minority. This is totally not in our tradition. It is probably not a Conservative tradition.It is a very, very deep threat to what our nation has stood for.The Cameroons are missing a huge opportunity in pursuit of the trendy girl and her escort on the Clapham bar terrace.
norman@fanshawe-flyer.co.uk
Thanks for the link Timbone, I had a look and it looks great in Rute, about halfway up to Cordoba as well, is that correct?