Now they want to ban smoking outside!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 
Interesting to note that on the same day the British Medical Association announced that it wants to ban the promotion of alcohol, reports suggest that "Smokers may soon be banned from their last refuges of pub beer gardens and doorways". According to the Daily Express:
Experts have found that bar staff are in just as much danger from passive smoking on patios as indoors. Scientists measured air quality in areas outside bars and found extremely high concentrations of cancer-causing chemicals. They say only a complete ban will adequately protect workers from second-hand smoke.
The team from Toronto University in Canada carried out a sample of 25 bars with outdoor patios in the city and found that levels of cancer-causing particles in outside smoking areas were potentially enough to cause heart problems. The researchers said their findings proved bar workers passing through outdoor smoking areas were subjected to high levels of second-hand smoke. The study published in the US journal Preventive Medicine said: “Bar workers are not adequately protected from second-hand smoke exposure where smoking is permitted on outdoor patios. “Bans in outdoor areas are needed to provide full protection for hospitality workers.”
If the anti-smoking lobby has its way outdoor smoking areas (like those at Boisdale, above) will soon be a dim and distant memory. The likes of ASH will deny it, of course, but that's the "next logical step" (after smoking has been banned in cars and they've banned the display of tobacco in shops).
Funnily enough it's exactly ten years since ASH denied that they wanted to ban smoking in every pub in Britain. We only want more smoke-free areas, they bleated. Well, they got their wish but that still wasn't enough. And we know what happened next.
I really do think, though, that this time around there will be a lot more opposition. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. Forest launched a campaign ("Fight the ban: fight for choice") in May 2004. We spent upwards of £400,000 (including advertisements in newspapers and magazines) but few people took the threat of a comprehensive ban seriously.
When MPs voted for the smoking ban in February 2006 a lot of people expressed surprise. Even then many smokers appeared to be in denial and it was only on 1st July 2007, when the new law came into force, that thousands of smokers finally woke up to what was happening. It made me wonder whether they ever read a newspaper or watch the television news.
Today, more people seem to be listening but it's still a huge task getting the message across to millions of people who, for whatever reason, seem to be sleepwalking towards a world in which choice will no longer be an option in areas such as eating, drinking and smoking.
That said, I am heartened by all this because I genuinely think there is going to be a tipping point. Unfortunately, we may have to experience complete prohibition before we reach it.
Above: Trevor Baylis (left), inventor of the clockwork radio and a member of Forest's Supporters Council, and Bob McWatt, a member of The Pipe Club of London, at Forest's 30th anniversary bash in June.
Simon Clark
Alex Massie picks up the story on The Spectator blog HERE.
Reader Comments (50)
Well, if there is to be opposition to this, I don't believe we can expect it from politicians and the media. We need to get in touch with, er, smokers, many of whom don't have acces to the internet.
What about Forest producing flyers for distribution to pubs via volunteers recruited from this blog, Forest's supporters and other pro-choice, anti authoritarian groups and blog readers?
(And I think that the message on the flyer should be aggressive - no polite pussy-footing, tell 'em that it WILL be banned and what to do!)
I think we all expected this. The point is they will never stop. Cars next, then the home. It will happen But how many traditional pubs, clubs, restaurants, cafes, bars, and bingo halls will be sacrificed on the alter of smoke free before common sense begins to have an influence on Govt policy.
The only way to wake up the country is for all active, supportive, and isolated smokers to be persuaded to vote for one party. The one that has openly shown that it cares about choice and common sense.
If 12 million lost votes to the main 3 parties doesn't hit home with the politicians, then we might just as well stay in bed and wait to die - miserably!
"Experts have found that bar staff are in just as much danger from passive smoking on patios as indoors.........."
That is to say - NIL.
So what's the problem ?
Possibly - just possibly - the smiling indifference of the 'tolerant' non-smokers to our plight, that's what.
I'm just waiting for some State-sponsored terrorist group - the 'Smokers' Liberation Front', say - to plant a bomb somewhere (which fails to detonate).
Then we could have a REAL pogrom.............
Outdoor smoking bans are already a reality in California and have been for a while.
In San Francisco you can't walk down the sidewalks without tripping over large hanging metal no-smoking signs set up in front of cafe after cafe, doorway after doorway, accompanied by no-smoking sign placards on windows placed overtop of all outdoor seating areas as well as in some neighborhoods no-outdoor-smoking signs made out of metal and bolted across all outdoor table-tops.
If you pay $400 a night and upwards to stay at a downtown San Francisco hotel building then one can expect to have the only smoking area permissible to be a slender post with a hole in the top stuck out around the corner going near the hotel garbage dumpsters as your smoking room, what your $400 buys you in the way of hospitality and appreciation for your business.
Also in San Francisco outdoor smoking has been banned since a few years ago in all outdoor parks and squares with huge fines and smoke-police setup to arrest and fine any criminal activities of the kind banned. 80 and 90 year old Chinese Americans in areas of Chinatown must constantly duck and cover to hide from the smoke-police who patrol for criminal smokers, the kind of respect for having lived that long one would expect from a Chairman Mao or Kim Jong than from a supposedly American democratic property rights respecting junta.
If there is any complaints raised then the controlled media is called upon to jimmy up some hateful diatribes and make it headline news that smokers are horrible and outdoor smoking bans are justified. There are attorneys who write up stories claiming to have a special right to physically punch out anyone smoking outdoors in their vicinity and encouraging such activities among the citizenship, saying such actions would not be considered criminal assault and battery in any court in the nation. There are instances lately where people have screamed, yelled and threatened violence against smokers outdoors and the crowd remains hushed and silenced, as the crowd remained in silence when Krystal Nacht was unleashed in Germany.
The Mayor instituted a 30-cent tobacco purchase fee earlier this year after expert studies proved that cigarette butts outdoor makes up fully 1/3 to 1/2 of all refuse SF trash and street cleaners must contend with.
In the Northern California cities of Davis, Hayward, Belmont and a few down in Southern California outdoor smoking is banned city-wide, in some areas even in your own backyard it is beholding to fine and punishment. In Santa Cruz, California, to the south of San Francisco, outdoor smoking is banned in nearly all locations including the beach and in all city parks possession of tobacco is a criminal offense - not just smoking banned but tobacco possession banned.
After the first of a large forest fire happened in Southern California a few months back, the legislature quickly passed in secret overnight an outdoor smoking ban in all California State Parks, citing cigarettes the cause of all forest fires and thus the excuse. Since then the media has printed stories blaming smokers for forest fires, even without proof of actions other than hear-say drummed up to support what the legislature approved.
Tobacco retailing is prohibited in all San Francisco pharmacies and special permit approvals are required for any retailer who derives more than 20% of income from tobacco related paraphenalia.
So yes, they will ban smoking outdoors and they will ban tobacco retailing. They already did in San Francisco and other California locations based on hateful lies and propaganda drummed up mainly by staff at UCSF campus in San Francisco, the largest employer in that city funded nearly entirely by pharmaceutical interests who pay for such results.
The main industry in San Francisco has turned from the manufacture of things to manufacture of propaganda and a flood of 1,500+ fake-charities, public relations firms, fake-research centers, and the like have come flooding in to drive this agenda further and push it out into the surrounding states and eventually nationwide.
So they aren't just going to ban smoking indoors, they are going to ban it in all public places, including outdoors and then inside everyone's own homes and backyards.
This has already happened. I am surprised anyone is just now waking up to the fact after it's already been the law and trend in California for over 13 years.
In fact, in the US, everyone rushed to put the same smoke-banners into Federal offices, the likes of Pelosi, who cabals with known Marxists in her home town of San Francisco.
So why then would outdoor smoking bans not become common coast to coast in the US and overseas, pushed by the same types of forces.
No surprise there unless one is just waking up from sleeping under a rock and not knowing what has already happened over the last 10 to 13 years on the West Coast of the US as the trial-run for what to expect everywhere else now.
If one is to organize and protest one should do it on the streets of these California cities and hit them in the same spots they already started their movement and hit them hard. It's a little late once the horse is out of the gate and bolting down the street to expect to stop it then. At that point the horse is already galloping worldwide and will turn up in everyone else's neighborhood next.
"Doesn't affect me" and "won't happen here" holds no more water as there's no place left to run, duck, hide and cover. They are as surely coming for outdoor smoking bans next as they are for private home smoking bans along with the rest of it. The writing has been on the wall for 13 long years. This is really nothing new.
David, that's a pretty scary story. I haven't been to the US since after 9/11. It was so unwelcoming I couldn't think why I would ever want to go back. We were in Florida for a conference and we took our (then) 16 year old son and 26 year old daughter with us. Strange visit to an off licence where he bought a bottle of bourbon, but they refused to serve our daughter because she couldn't prove she was over 21!
The US has always been in the vanguard of prohibitions. And equally they have proved beyond a doubt that prohibition doesn't work. Prohibition of alcohol in the US was driven through by relatively few zealots, but in the end failed in the biggest possible way - and they are still paying for it.
I have a feeling that the 'war on drugs' is another US invention. That's going well, isn't it?
The fact is that you cannot stop people doing what they consider to be something that is their personal choice - even if you criminalise it. There aren't enough prisons - remember the Poll Tax?
The zealots get their way, as we have learned on this site, by telling big lies, using emotional blackmail and savvy lobbying (often financed by the taxpayer). Perhaps it's time to tell bigger lies, bigger emotional blackmail, and lobbying via the ballot box.
I've started on the first. When I post these days I exaggerate deliberately - not 52 pubs per week closing due to the smoking ban (nothing else, note) but 100 pubs. I bore everyone I know with a concise but strong case for stopping all this interference in personal choice. At the next election I am voting UKIP.
Thinking about the other string on alcohol advertising, perhaps this will jolt people into realising the problems we all face with the bully state.
Brilliant David. You describe a wolf at the door but too many want to think he's just their 'Nanny'.
"found that levels of cancer-causing particles in outside smoking areas were potentially enough to cause heart problems."
Now, that's a nice one. Or two-in-one?
Has anyone heard whether the G20 had a smoking room contrary to English Law?
Chris,
It's written about here at the time but most likely it was all a bum story run by the Sun that was picked up rapidly because of the controversy then dropped like a lead turd when it nobody 'official' would verify it.
If it did happen, I'm not aware of anything at all in the public domain that verifies things one way or that other. My best guess is that it was BS all along.
No, Blueblackjack, it happened.
Simon, some bloody long posts here, get yer scissors out. ;-)
David, California sounds like a nightmare. One place I know for a fact you can smoke in the US is the UN in New York. I know someone who works there and she reckons it's the destination of choice for those who can gain admittance, fantastic nights of fun had by all amidst an atmosphere of anything goes, must try and get her to take a pic sometime.
David's post re California is quite frightening and should receive wider publication. I still like to think that most people in this country do not want to live in such a prejudiced and bitter fashion. We do after all have so many laws re discrimination. But would they be of any use to us smokers ?
Has anyone any info about the difficulties of getting into F2C and FORCES sites because something called cPanel interferes with access? Or is it simply part of a world wide conspiracy to prevent smokers exchanging info/views etc ? Surely not !
SuG
The building where the servers for F2C and Forces are hosted has been damaged by fire.
Work is underway to get it restored.
This research just insults the intelligence. My other point is, be in no doubt that the end game for ASH and the Department Of Health is the upgrading of tobacco to a class C and then class B drug, like cannabis and be illegal to consume.
"MEP calls for EU ban on cigarettes by 2025"
http://euobserver.com/9/26515
David wrote: The main industry in San Francisco has turned from the mantufacture of things to manufacture of propaganda and a flood of 1,500+ fake-charities, public relations firms, fake-research centers, and the like...
This is what I don't get. "Things" are wealth in ways that propaganda is not. You can't run an economy on propaganda, can you? Well, you can't unless there is a demand for propaganda, and people want to buy propaganda and hang it on their walls like art.
So what drives the real economy of San Francisco? Has all this got something to do with why the State of California is bankrupt?
Bluejack:
There were smoking rooms at the G20 Summit. I helped break that story and are still trying to verify it, someone I know installed the ventilation at the Excel Centre. Security was very tight and only diplomats who were given a special armband were allowed to use them.
Under the 2006 Health Act the Home Secretary can suspend smoking restrictions and I have written a very tightly worded letter under the Freedom Of Information Act to the Foreign Office asking about the suspension. Their reply, as it was so specific was:
"We have lost the papers."
More to come.
These guys never let up do they, not happy with the smoking and now alcohol ban they want to drive us smokers from the face of the earth.
David's tale of the smoking situation on the west coast of america is truly shocking and scary as to fact that it could or will spread here.
I had no idea it was that bad, but I was talking to a smoking friend yesterday who had just returned from Palm Desert in California who told me that when he was having drinks in an outside smoking area there a guy asked him 'do you have to smoke that cigarette here'. He said he put it out as he was afraid he might be shot.
Seems to me that we wont need wars to protect our countries anymore.
All it will take is some frustrated smokers to walk into a state park with a 'legal' box of matches and set fire to the whole bloody lot.
Maybe Californians will think twice before electing the Terminator again, with his hollywood steroid pecks and B movie mentality who brought the state of California to its knees!
This is very depressing and I agree that David's very informative post on the situation in California is terrifying. I suspect a ban on smoking outside would be quite popular amongst some non-smokers who object to littering of fag ends and having to walk through smokers to get inside a building (both things of course that have been imposed on them by the smoking ban itself) ... but surely even those smokers who supposedly welcomed the ban on smoking indoors would draw the line at banning smoking outdoors too?
So what is it that needs to happen to ensure that Britain goes the way of those countries and states who are now relaxing the smoking ban, rather than running after the California model? Can anyone come up with a five point check list that we can all get behind?
There's an interesting parallel here. I didn't know that the state of California is bankrupt (I don't know much about the USA generally). Perhaps all this is happening here because our country is bankrupt and all this is a 'diversion'.
Maybe when the spectre of Zanulabour goes.
The corrupt parasitic quangos will go with them too.
We as a Nation just cannot afford these "creeps" any more.
The main reason for the extent of the bans in California, is the power and reach of the Pharmaceutical companiies in the US and their relationships with the Universties, media and politicians, who know where their bread is buttered. Massive amounts of money have been ploughed into the anti-smoking groups for a few decades, convincing most of their fairytales, in order to market their products of NRT and psychotropic drugs. The first bans were in California based on the EPA's 'criminal' reports on SHS, and their still using it which is unbelievable.
Where are the investigative journalists? I don't think they exist anymore.
They can't afford to pay them, Zitori!
Will Cameron extend the Nanny State? Will Cameron distance himself from the Nanny State? The future depends on the answer.
No Pat, it's because they all prefer the easy payday. Repeaters one and all.
Investigative journalists must be either paid off or threatened with their life if they dont come up with the reports they want to see.
Why else are all these quangos flourishing with no sign of redundancies, when the rest of the population are loosing their jobs.
Investigative journalism has always been risky in all sorts of ways, and today we have a very controlled media, not by censorship, but by omitting and ignoring any threats to the established institutionalized 'truths'. The pressures on journalists are therefore great if they deviate, but many have in the past, and we need them now more than ever.
Investigative journalism has always been risky in all sorts of ways, and today we have a very controlled media, not by censorship, but by omitting and ignoring any threats to the established institutionalized 'truths'. The pressures on journalists are therefore great if they deviate, but many have in the past, and we need them now more than ever.
Some responses maybe in regard to issues or questions raised above, the media in San Francisco is not anything investigative or journalistic about them. It is very much a copy-paste operation to parrot the anti-smoking dialogue handed to them.
In regard to no-smoking in Chinatown among the octogenerians, the Asian News was quick to type up and print an editorial entitled "Filthy Chinese Smokers" to admonish all to quit.
Among the gay community, same thing - smoking banned at all outdoor gay parades and gatherings with bus and subway signage admonishing gay smokers as of higher concern than the AIDS epidemic.
In regard to from where does this orginate among the political elite in Sacramento, on the state level, it is not the governor but the one-party controlled progressive/Democratic legislature, akin to UK's Labour Party, who is in total charge of the government. The governor is more figure-head, the bad-guy to take the blame for what total single-party anti-business anti-smoking anti-growth legislature mandates and probably at the cause of the California bankruptcy.
San Francisco is also bankrupt or nearly so.
Thus anti-smoking has worked out and resulted in the first major bankruptcy of a major economy, that of California - and they had 13 years of hegemony over the system to accomplish their task. As such nobody in California dares challenge the system, the smoking bans move closer to private homes and have since crossed state lines into Nevada (economy destroyed since ban came in a year earlier on false campaign pretenses in the general election that year which included the smoking ban initiative), Oregon (to where Californians fled but are now having smoking bans on state and local levels which seem to follow Californians where-ever they flee, as if they take the ban mentality with them - and so real estate is plummeting and debt along with unemployment growing in state of Oregon) and I am certain similar economic devastation traceable to time periods during which smoke-bans began can be seen as possible cause and effect, correlation perhaps, along the eastern US where New York and New Jersey were so quick to ban - (in Pennsylvania for example, now a crime to smoke if enrolled in college, fines and penalties include writing a 20 page essay on the dangers of smoking and second-hand-smoke and eventual commitment to a smoke-stopping class if the perpetrator is ever caught smoking while on campus again - most campuses smoke-banned).
So this idea is no longer just in California. The horse has bolted the barn and was taken into DC by the likes of Pelosi, Clinton, all the anti-smoking czars installed by Obama - this is not the result of Schwartzeneger whose role seems to be more of playing the bad guy while the good guys use that as cover to enlarge the spectrum of bans. It is a classic good-cop/bad-cop cooperation among the top to paint the blame onto the one who has the least to do with it, thus allowing the ones who are perpetrating the bans to move quietly in the background with no public awareness of what is taking place, property rights further destroyed in the process of slow creep.
As good example of lack of journalistic integrity in San Francisco, beside the "Filthy Chinese Smoker" variety of typical editorial comment and the constant call for actual physical violence against smokers, which is now becoming apparent in reality as seen on the streets from time to time, is that of the San Francisco Chronicle under ownership of William Randolph Hearst in the 1930's during the last period of Prohibition who was quite happy to receive personally written letters from Adolph Hitler espousing the virtues of Socialism and willingly print them verbatim without comment in the San Francisco Chronicle.
In today's media, there are readily available anti-smoking and other healthist/fascist propaganda that is already pre-written and with subscription can by copy/pasted into newspapers - the San Francisco Chronicle among the many who subscribe to these services - healthday.com just one of them, which you will see has an opportunity to "license" their stories - meaning copy/paste mindlessly into print for a fee to them - which is one main source, beside the local UCSF people implanted alongside the San Francisco mayor to give out healthist propaganda and oversee implementation into more outdoor and private home smoking bans and be printed mindlessly by media in California also.
There was a scandal a few years back, Stanton Glantz's right-hand man from UCSF and with whom Glantz shares office space, Mitch Katz, along with Nancy Pelosi, who does cavort with known self-admitted Marxists inside San Francisco political circles, were able to secure an asbestos clean-up contract worth tens of millions for a firm of their own choosing, perhaps a political backer. When the asbestos dust raised because of being improperly handled sickened hundreds of persons in the Hunters Point neighborhood, which is an impoverished area and lacks political clout, the same Katz who recommends smoking-bans galore was in the media claiming that asbestos dust in the air will harm no-one and that everyone is perfectly safe.
And the media printed it, without question. Thus no question was raised and the truth becomes implied that outdoor smoking bans are necessary to protect health whilst flinging asbestos dust over entire neighorhoods is perfectly and unquestionably safe. It is classic Richard Doll and called upon when the propaganda is required as a cover-up.
So why then would the media, as it exists in San Francisco, do anything other than polly-parrot what is said to them by the political elite in charge - which is not the likes of Schwartzenegger but a radical progressive democratic league that has infiltrated all of San Francisco and upon infltration of Sacramento done the same to the State as they did to the City. And currently they have gone national and taken over the government in DC and are working to move the radical left from far left to center of spectrum, taking control of the agenda and thus normalizing smoking-bans in the process, indoors and outdoors both.
So things will not improve but get worse, is my opinion. They will work hard to normalize the idea of outdoor smoking bans so they will become as common and normal as are seat belt laws. And then it will be impossible to overthrow. It will be too late. Radical, I dare say international communist, authoritarianism will have been made centralized politics - normal. Smoking the taboo as retailing is to go next after the outdoor bans are installed.
It may be disheartening and it's not something I like to suggest, but I am only saying what I see going on as I do not get the feeling that the actual hateful and single-minded intensity of what anti-smoking is capable of feeling and the destruction they are capable of bringing is fully totally understood yet in other parts of the world where it may be thought "it doesn't affect me" or "can't happen here" - and I say it in way of warning before the occupation moves in and the battle becomes an underground resistance movement, the type France had which was fully too late once Hitler was already in the streets of Paris.
But in smoke-banned California, after 13 years and since moved beyond the tipping point into the final solution, there can probably be said there is some cause and effect, perhaps correlation, between the bans and the eventual bankruptcy at both state and local levels - soon to be at national level because of the smoke-banners and anti-smokers in charge of DC. Yet nobody puts the blame where it lies and the media is a copy/paste operation that never questions authority.
That is my speculation and to try to clarify any questions I saw raised about the media in California and California government, from where these smoke-ban instruments of destruction arise and a little on how I see the mechanism having already worked inside California and inside San Francisco in particular, one of the most illiberal cities on the planet.
Dave, Is it possible to force the Foreign Office to release these papers. Perhaps the threat of court action may gee them up a bit, although I doubt this would be successful.
Don't they have a duty and responsibility to release information (that doesn't affect the nation's security) when requested by the general public? After all what would be the purpose of the Freedom of Information Act, otherwise?
At the very least they have to give a very sound reason for documents suddenly disappearing.
The media are controlled by whomever owns them.
As a, "drone",in their thrall ,your simply going to tow the the line to the wage payer are you not.
In public of course.
In private you keep your own mind.
This is the doom of all despots ,you can tell the proles what to say ,but you cannot tell what they are thinking.
Thick people like that fall at that hurdle .
Every time.
It's called "dumb".
Now who are the thick ,the slaves or the masters.
Why, the masters of course.
Joyce (the first post on this thread) brings to our attention the fact that most people do not have access to the internet. That is true, but it is also true that most internet users do not blog, or if they do, they do so on face book etc. Only a very few people actually debate.
Joyce thinks that it would be a good idea to distribute leaflets in pubs, and I agree that it would be a good idea, but I wonder what your average publican would say if you tried to do it? Think about the local authority zealots and the publican's personal licence!
Martin V raises the point about the new 'research' about bar staff and tobacco smoke outside. Dave Atherton correctly rubbishes the stats.
I want to float an idea. I am sure that this idea has already been thought - it is too obvious not to have been, but I think that it is still worth proposing in a vague sort of way.
It seems to me that People who Enjoy Tobacco (PETS) need to combine with drinkers, plump persons, motorists, libertarians, independents, and everyone else who is 'a target now or will be in the future'. If such a colaberation could be organised, then it could be possible to acquire the funding needed to advertise nationally in order to gain members and increase awareness of the creeping nazi threat to our freedom.
I think that we all recognise this, but, of course, the question is HOW?
Now here is the idea.
I was looking at The Taxpayer's Alliance a couple of days ago. The organisers seem to be a well-educated, intelligent group. For this reason, I 'registered' myself. I trust that posters here will accept my assurances that, prior to a couple of days ago, I had no connection whatsoever with the Taxpayer's Alliance.
It seems to me that The Taxpayer's Alliance would be a great umbrella group for all our diverse objections to the way in which we are all being bullied and being 'picked off' one at a time.
There is a bit of a worry in that the Taxpayer's Alliance seems to be a bit 'Tory', or should I say 'ex-Tory;' at the top. I do not know whether this matters or not. Also, I do not know where they get their funds from.
The thing is that I like the idea that ALL our diverse interests eventually come down to THE WASTE OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY, whether it be the Health Dept, Quangos, Liverpool City Council or whatever.
This is not to say that INDIVIDUALS (Simon Clarke, Dick Puddlecote, Devil's Kitchen, and, indeed, organisations such as FOREST, could not keep their separate identities.
It may well be that the Taxpayer's Alliance is just a Tory cover - I do not know. I hope not.
If some negotiation took place and, as a result, an umbrella organisation came into existence and funding from wherever was acquired (blatently and publicly acknowledged), there would be just a chance that the PEOPLE (ordinary people) would be given a voice - a voice which shouts, "I WANT FREEDOM!"
Chris: Watch this space ;)
Junican:
The TPA is not a Conservative front. I was drinking a few weeks ago with their Campaign Director, Mark Wallace and had to endure a debate with Polly Toynbee on radio about this point. Only one of the TPA's employees has any direct association with the Conservative Party. Infact they have been critical of some of the Conservative's policies. Most of their employees are economics and politics graduates.
In a time of chronic European, national and local government waste they are a national treasure. Their Chairman Matt Elliott's books include The Bumber Book of Government Waste and the Great European Rip-Off, no prisoners there.
After reading David's second posting which is very revealing to say the least, I can't help wondering what are the tobacco companies doing about the annihilation of their business, especially in america the way the anti smoking lobbyists are so intense.
I wonder is it more lucrative for them now to go the illegal route like the drugs.
Take up any newspaper and you will see that cigarette raids are nearly as prevalent as drug raids and all worth millions in contraband.
Or are more people on the tablets these days with their strong nicotine content and outstripping cigarette smoking, thus making it a better money earner for them.
I cant help thinking the filthy lucre is at the bottom of all this health bullshit.
If the health nazi's were all that concerned about us minions why not ban outright lethal devices like land mines.
As for Clinton bringing his anti smoking to DC, what about Bill's 'famous' cigars, unless Hill put a stop to that in revenge.
And as for Arnie just being a figurhead for Californians, this is the same Arnie (cant spell his name) who said when he heard that ireland had brought in the smoking ban 'It proves to me that I can now ban alcohol in California'.
I think its a good idea for smokers to band together in whatever way to demonstrate our disgust against the hitlers, but at the same time any pub or club owner who would stand idly by and let them totally ruin their business by any further bans on their trade, deserve in my opinion to be totally wiped out.
Why not ask some pub landlord to head the movement and make him put his useless ass where his mouth is!
Junican (and others) -
Those who despair of the apparent lack of any creative (and Freedom-enhancing) thinking among our politicos would do well to get hold of a copy of "The Plan - Twelve Months To Renew Britain".
It's written by Conservatives Daniel Hannan MEP and Douglas Carswell MP, and proposes just the sort of 'revolution' that many on this site are crying out for.
It should furnish the more active among our number with some refreshing ideas to throw at our MPs and PPCs.
The chapter on a proposed (and much-needed) 'Great Repeal Bill' is especially welcome.
Although he's only 37, I like to think of Dan Hannan as a Leader-in-Waiting (of which 'party' I don't really care, frankly).
He - like the admirable Nigel Farage - makes the Cameroons look like a bunch of vapid, incompetent schoolboys.
And he has the passion and fighting instincts of an Irishman, too !
Just thought I'd mention it.....
Junican is right about the need for an umbrella organisation. Smokers can't win on their own. Or rather, they're much more likely to win if allied with other minorities.
I don't really care whether the TPA is made up of Tories or ex-Tories. There's a lot to be said for simple conservatism of the gut-instict variety. There's also a lot to be said for Liberalism of the traditional sort. And also of course for a Labour party which once used to represent the interests of working people. All of these parties had, to one degree or other, the interests of the British people at heart.
We now have a political class which is nominally Labour/Conservative/Liberal, and nominally represents British voters, but which actually all sing from the same hymn sheet, and one which has very little to do with the interests of the British people, but which have everything to do with global or international agendas - like Global Warming or the Global War on Smoking or the Global War on Terror -.
Our present political classes do not look in upon their respective countries and their concerns, but outward to other political leaders around the world. It's all about "keeping up with the Joneses", where the Joneses are the French, the Americans, the Germans, etc, and being able to have the same environmentally-friendly cars parked in their drives, the same fashionable smoke-free curtains, or whatever happens to be the internaitonal fad-of-the-day.
What struck me first about this para:
"The team from Toronto University in Canada carried out a sample of 25 bars with outdoor patios in the city and found that levels of cancer-causing particles in outside smoking areas were potentially enough to cause heart problems."
was the fact that is stated ...carried out a sample of 25 bars with outdoor patios IN THE CITY ....
We all know that where there are vehicles in abaundance there are far more supposed cancer-causing particles in the atmosphere as cars are more damaging than smoking!
From what I have seen of anti smokers lately is that when the weather is fine THEY want to sit outside in the 'fresh air', even if the seating is just a few feet away from the main road, so they object to smokers also sitting outside in the same area! This, IMHO, is why this kind of legislation will get support - if they are clever and undertake such a ban in the warmer months. If, however, they were to try this in winter, I would doubt there would be much support, as the antis are then nice and cosy inside by log burning fires and stoves!
Lyn
'the antis are then nice and cosy inside by log burning fires and stoves!'
You've given me an idea. Can you imagine calling for the banning of these types of fires within homes...after all aren't they supposedly as dangerous as 'passive smoking'
I would like to know how many have been killed by these fires over the last few years.
I think we should be told - don't you!
In reply to the above about Clinton and Arnie, I too was referring to Hillary, not Bill - Hillary instituted the White House smoking-ban, Pelosi instituted the Capitol Building smoking-ban.
Both Bill and Arnie smoke cigars but Arnie doesn't make the laws in California, it is the overwhelmingly ultra-left-leaning legislature who writes up the smoking-bans then he just rubber stamps them and administers.
The ultra-left-leaning legislators in Sacramento, just as example of their power, have a smile-less Sovietesque style bulldog who sits over the Assembly and should any member not rubber stamp approval, they are dealt a mighty blow.
Earlier this year one such legislator who failed to vote "yes" on a one-party-line tax increase bill was excommunicated from her office inside the Capitol building in Sacramento and literally sent packing to rent out an office out of her own funds in a dingy office building across the street - as example to anyone who doesn't vote the one-party line, to beware. She was physically removed over the course of a single night I believe.
Arnie is not of that party but I still get the impression is set-up to play the role of "bad guy" or "contrarian in name only" for the benefit of the one-party, to pass their agendas with no public scrutiny, to offer fake weak counter arguments for the sake of impression, in the press.
It is the extreme-left-leaning-progressive one-party leadership in San Francisco which has been responsible for every and all smoking bans, indoors and out as well as all tobacco retail bans, not sourced from anything even remotely close to be conservative or even central - since that has been effectly pushed outside the spectrum by control of the agenda by the left.
Exactly, Chris. However, I am sure they will be protected by the plus side of keeping people warm, especially the old and frail!
Whatever crap they come up with, it is bound to be hypocritical.
I fully agree with idlex that all govt partys, especially in england and ireland, all sing from the same hymn sheet and have lost the trust of the people.
They are too occupied with global and international matters and to hell with their own people.
Their modus is to have a level playing field for all, to make their jobs easier by rubber stamping all problems up the line to their masters at the top, who they probably will never even meet in their lifetime.
Hopefully the Lisbon treaty will not be ratified on 2nd October and at least one person Nigel Farage is taking a stand to change its direction.
Its been announced today that Declan Ganley of Libertas is back for the No side, so maybe there's still hope.
David, that's what americans get for voting in the leftie democrats with Obama as their figurehead. I wouldnt like to see the state of the place by the time they're kicked out.
Idlex/Ann - you are right.
The main parties have certainly lost the trust of the people and the only reason that the Lab/Lib/Con remain there is because the majority who have lost their trust won't even bother going out to vote anymore.
I really believe that if everything stays the same regarding freedom and liberty after the tories get in (which it will), then this country is in for one hell of a revolution.
The citizens are at boiling point - the government just blame it on booze/the underclass/broken Britain - they need to get real - it is their fault due to their interference where they are not welcome.
I want my life back and will only ever support a party that promises to return it. I have fallen during times recession following Tory economic policy and that of Labour economic policy.
I know that I will never have any money - but I am happy with a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food to continue. My kids are happy and doing well at school, knowing value, experiencing treats on rare occassions, but still in Set 1 for everything.
They understand that money is not everything - freedom and liberty is much more important and what citizens have always fought for.
I like your thinking, Mary.
Be thankful that your children are doing well.
There was a time when we didn't have to teach our children about politics at an early age. The country was stable. If you had a job, you would almost certainly continue to have that job for the foreseable future. You may not have been well off, but you could plan for the future and expect your children to be better off than you - in due course. Education was improving all the time.
Now, we have to start teaching our children about politics at an early age. If we do not, then their minds will be bent and twisted by the lies, deceits and manipulation of the facts currently being practiced by the media and political spin.
It will be interesting to see whether Cameron and Co change anything. I have my doubts.
It is unlikely that your children will do as well as you. There are all sort of reasons for this which are too complex for us to go into at this time - to do with immigration and stuff.
If you can teach your children to be very sceptical about politicians and quangos and special interest groups which wish to deny you your freedoms, then you will have done a good job.
Junican -
"quangos and special interest groups.".......
which would be a good place to begin my Domesday Book for the Revolution.
This would seek to answer the following questions:
How many are there - precisely ?
How many people do they employ ?
What NECESSARY functions do they perform (if any) ?
How much do they cost US ?
Which ones may we safely abolish - without destroying the fabric of Western Society ?
What may we more usefully accomplish with the tens of BILLIONS (in all likelihood) thereby saved ?
Martin V
QUANGOs are 'Quasi-non-gevernmental-organisations. For some reason or other, government has allowed this mystical phrase to perpetuate the air-waves, probably because it is not in their interests that The People should understand. I cannot see that this idea will change when the Tories are elected at the next GE, but we hope for the best.
The fact is that a QUANGO is, in reality, a CIVIL SERVICE committee. These civil service committees have always existed. They are nothing new. Only the word QUANGO is new.
Quangos are set up by Ministers to put into effect their decisions. Every time a Minister receives consent from Parliament to put into effect a new law, it is necessary to create a quango.
That is why it is almost impossible to get rid of them. A law needs a quango, and you can only get rid of the quango by getting rid of the law which required the creation of the quango! Getting rid of the laws which required the setting up of the quangos is almost impossible in the short term and therefore it is almost impossible in the short term to get rid of the quangos.
There are also semi-quangos! ASH, for example.
Now, this situation is quite different. These semi-quangos are very different 'beasts'. They are not necessary for the implementation of a law. They exist, and are funded by government purely in order to PERSUADE. In my opinion, it is not a proper use of tax-payers funds to fund such organisations.
This is why the Tax Payers Alliance is so important. Only an organisation which examines in detail the tax-payer funding of these semi-quangos can call a halt to it by public abhorence. Once the public funding of these semi-quangos ceases to exist, the facts about their lying, cheating distortion of the facts can be fully revealed.
Obviously, it might take some time.
Sorry to be so long-winded. The subject is complex.
i happened upon this site while looking for some info. i am a computer "newbie". anyways, i live in s.w. riverside co. calif (murrieta calif.) and my apt. complex is now going to make our swimming pool areas "NO SMOKING" due to the fact that (someone?) made a city complaint. our city code enforcement quoted the city municipal code 5.23. the complex has taken it upon themselves to follow the law under "sports arenas". the only problem-matic word in that is "public". this is private property. the property is posted with Prop 65 law, and our "lease" also states it and we as tenents sign it. SO, YES IT IS HAPPENING AT OUR HOMES!!!
Debra -
Welcome aboard....
Scary tidings you bring from the Sunshine State !
If things get any worse in the 'free' (ha! ha! ha!) countries of the World, I'll seriously have to consider emigrating to North Korea - before it gets nuked by the MIC.
From the Summer of Love to a domestic smoking ban in just over 40 years.
So much for Progressive Politics !
Keep posting................(Hands Across The Pond , and all that).
Thanks for the explanation on quangos Junican.
If we cant get rid of the ones entrenched in the law set up to save ministers ass, its the useless and jobs for the boys ones that are set up to persuade like ASH etc that everyone wants to get rid of and the money put to better use.
And I cant see how they are still there in these recessionery times when ordinary people are loosing their jobs, left right and centre, that these bastards are still totally unaffected and held unaccountable.
Nice work if you can get it.
Ann -
Concerning quangos...........
As of May 2008:
Total number: 1162
Annual cost: £64 BILLION
(Source: Carswell and Hannan)
Time to get the pruning shears out.............
It's been said before but I think it's worth saying again. If this bunch of puritanical killjoys hate it so much, BAN THE STUFF!! I dare you, Mr. Chancellor. I double dare you........
Careful, Max:
Gordon B isn't quite the Economic Genius he was once promoted as.
And if he has one of those 'Britain-can-lead-the-World' fits again.........