Message to the Conservative party
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Shane Frith, director of Progressive Vision, one of the four coalition partners supporting the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign, has posted a blog on Conservative Home: "Why you should support the campaign to amend the smoking ban".
Shane writes:
This Labour government has infantilised the people of Britain with an enormous growth of the nanny state. The smoking ban, affecting private property, is one of the more egregious examples of this attitude. I, as a non-smoker, have never been forced to walk into a smoke-filled bar, yet Labour’s nanny state believes I am a victim and need to be protected. If given a choice, I will prefer to stay in non-smoking sections of pubs or visit non-smoking pubs, but as an adult I deserve that choice.
The attack on smokers is just part of Labour’s “government knows best” attitude. It is this attitude that brought in the hunting ban, is leading to greater restrictions on alcohol and has produced the hysteria about fatty foods. Even if you are a non-smoker, you likely have something to fear from Labour’s nanny state.
It goes without saying that many Conservatives (including a large number of MPs) are in favour of the smoking ban. Conservative Home is read by thousands of Tory activists, including prospective parliamentary candidates, so this is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate your support for our campaign and get your message across to the party that could, within a year, be in government.
You can read the full post - and comment - HERE. Please keep your comments short and to the point.
Note: if you have voted Labour in previous elections I would suggest that your thoughts will be equally interesting to Conservative MPs and PPCs.
Simon Clark
Good debate taking place on ConHome. Definitely worth commenting. Click HERE.
Simon Clark
The debate is still going strong on ConHome! Glad to read that the majority of comments favour some element of compromise - but how smug, sanctimonious and patronising are those antismokers! Unfortunately they have the whip hand because the law is in their favour but it's good know that our views are not as marginal as the antismoking lobby would have us believe.
Reader Comments (9)
There is an excellent article in today's Guardian about the effects of the ban in psychiatric hospitals.
I have already left a comment on Shane's excellent piece, as I receive the Conservativehome email on a regular basis.
I do hope everyone else here will do the same. I also left a link yesterday to the same site to fill in the questionnaire which includes "which new laws that Labour brought in would you like to change"
Come on everyone, get behind these, both of them!
At the last General Election Labour won with just 22% of the electoral votes, about the same percentage of smoker in the UK.
Is this deja vu? I swear I have just seen that somewhere else Chas
Peter. Many people have made that comment. If you look at recent elections, the labour vote has declined and UKIP (who are against the ban) have seen an increase, which shows that smokers are voters and their votes count.
I was jesting to you Chas. I had just read your same comment on the Conservativehome site.
I've just posted a comment on Conservativehome.
Labour's nanny state is more than an attitude it in fact an industry.
And indded an industry that truly deserves to go to the wall unlike other ligitimate industries gone to the wall recently under Labours mis management of UK PLC.
Lift the ban ,dismantle the nanny state.
I would definately put my cross on that.
how smug, sanctimonious and patronising are those antismokers!
And I wonder how many people reading their comments will see just how sanctimonious they are. Quite a few, probably.
Antismokers are probably in their element when they are working in secrecy, out of sight, lobbying for further restrictions. Once they step out into the light of day, and air their opinions, it rapidly becomes clear to everybody just how awful they really are. And what better place for them to parade their views than on Conservative Home.