Time to take the gloves off
Monday, January 11, 2010 Talking of gloves (see previous post), I have received a lengthy email in support of the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign. It begins quite promisingly ("Dear Simon, thanks for all you do with your website") and continues as follows:
It's election year and time to take the gloves off. Although not politically aligned, I hope like so many that the Tories will win and start dismantling the Nanny State, but there is no guarantee yet that they will do anything to amend/ameliorate this ban.
It's time to start reminding your readers and correspondents that the Total Smoking Ban was NOT in the Labour party manifesto (it pledged a CHOICE for non-food pubs and clubs). The Total Ban has NO electoral mandate!
It's time to tell people which parties are most likely to heed our campaign. I have Hansard from the day the Hewitt bill passed the commons. It was a 'free vote', but very polarised in the parties: the percentage of Labour and LibDem MPs who voted for the ban was in the high 70s percent. Tories voted about 25% for the total ban. I've met no-one who knows these figures, so it's about time they were made public! Perhaps publishing a 'shame list' of Ban-voting MPs should be posted?
And so it goes on ... and on ... for 1875 words (many of which I sympathise with, as it happens).
Finally, and rather unexpectedly, the email finishes with a PS:
I strongly advise you to have nothing to do with Forest. The fact that they are funded by the tobacco industry makes their opinions questionable and ignorable by neutrals, and anyone affiliated to them likewise. It is essential that you be seen as non-aligned. Even if you link them it is essential that you accept no payments from them.
Oh dear, how do I break it to him?
Answer: gently.
Reader Comments (1)
You must despair sometimes. In the meantime let's get it entirely clear the Labour and Tory positions for their 2004 manifesto, I've even downloaded it from ASH. Yes the Tories preferred the "voluntary" approach and had no plans to interfere.
Labour.
“We recognise that many people want smoke-free environments and need regulation to help them get this. We therefore intend to shift the balance significantly in their favour. We will legislate to ensure that all enclosed public places and workplaces other than licensed premises will be smoke-free. The legislation will ensure that all restaurants will be smoke-free, all pubs and bars preparing and serving food will be smoke-free; and other pubs and bars will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or be smoke-free. In membership clubs the members will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or to be smoke-free. However, whatever the general status, to protect employees, smoking in the bar area will be prohibited everywhere."
Conservative.
"You specifically raised the question of smoking in public places. Within three years and before legislation could be implemented, we believe that the industry could and would deliver a voluntary code removing smoking from up to 80% of pub space. The recent announcement by the pub chain, J.D. Wetherspoon, to ban smoking two years ahead of the Government's legislative ban indicates the industry's willingness to achieve this solution."
JD Wetherspoon after suffering a 20% drop in trade reversed their ban.
http://www.ash.org.uk/ash_47zndbeu.htm