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« House rules - a reminder | Main | Conservative conference news »
Sunday
Sep052010

Hooray for Swindon!

I don't think anyone would argue that Swindon is an attractive town. I drove through it once but nothing persuaded me to go back. To me, Swindon is just the name of an unfashionable football club and a place that appears on motorway signposts as I hurry along the M4 towards the far more enticing cities of Bath and Bristol.

Swindon Borough Council, however, is forcing me to revise my opinion. First, councillors voted to stop funding the town's speed cameras arguing that the money would be better spent on other safety measures like warning signs. (I'm a big fan of warning signs instead of speed cameras. In Cambridgeshire, where I live, many villages have electronic signs that ask you to 'Slow Down' if you drive faster than 30mph in a built-up area - and by and large it seems to work.)

Now councillors have now decided not to ban council employees from smoking during their lunch breaks as some other councils have done.

Full story HERE. I'm sure that councillors will read the comments on the Swindon Advertiser website so you may wish to add your own.

Congratulations, I believe, are in order.

Reader Comments (6)

What is encouraging about this report is that REALITY is beginning to appear. But we should not be carried away and assume that the members of the Swindon council are pro-smoking or are neutral. It seems to be that they have realised that they cannot ban smoking in the open air. As the situation is at this time, smoking is only banned in ENCLOSED public places – no one has any right whatsoever to ban smoking in UNENCLOSED public places – even if that person OWNS the place. This is more important than it seems to be. A person (or an organisation) may own an area of land, but they do not own the atmosphere above it (this particularly applies to hospitals). But here is a most peculiar thing – it is true that the people of the UK as a whole DO own the atmosphere, even though it may be always in a state of flux. Because this is true, the people were able to stop factories spewing out sulphurous compounds which may have CAUSED lung cancers, etc (did any physicians carry out surveys in the 19th century regarding sulphurous fumes?)

When I read this report, I wondered what was actually happening in Swindon. It may be that persons are contesting the extent of the local authority’s remit, and that the local authority is unwilling to allow the limit of its remit to be examined.

It is certainly absolutely scandalous that MPs passed an Act which was so ephemeral. On the face of it, the ban is perfectly clear – it applies to ENCLOSED PLACES AS DEFINED. But it has become clear (especially as a result of experience on the Continent) that there is a sufficiently large number of people who DO NOT WANT to be dictated to in this way and do not want to be forced to comply.

It seems to me to be true that the Labour Government CHEATED. They told people that they would ban smoking in certain places, but not others. They then changed their minds and banned smoking everywhere.

It is horrendous that MPs of every party did not see that democracy itself was being destroyed, purely as a result of the duplicity of Government at that time.

Finally, it is clear that Forest simply does not possess the financial means to contest the duplicity of the zealots.

I personally do not say that smoking is good for you – who would? But I refuse to accept in any way or to any extent that I have harmed anyone at all, either my friends or my children, by smoking in their presence. This fallacy must be revealed.

Can you see why this is critically important? The reason is that if the powers-that-be say that you ARE NOW harming people by smoking in their presence, then you must have been harming people by smoking in their presence in the past. Where is the evidence? Statistical mumbo-jumbo is not evidence.

September 5, 2010 at 4:11 | Unregistered CommenterJunican

“I believe that we should encourage people to stop smoking."

Herein lies the root of our problem with the Governing Class - in all its shape-shifting manifestations.

What Mr Short - who seems like a decent enough sort of chap - refuses to address is the blood-curdingly radical notion that (for the umpteenth time) it is NOT the business of politicians to 'encourage' anything of the sort.

Not, at any rate, in the sort of 'liberal' polity we THINK we inhabit, and have been conditioned from childhood into believing we actually DO inhabit (it says so in the papers).

And to those among (even) our ranks tempted to respond with a "Well, what are they supposed to do ?", I offer two simple responses:

First, it is clear that even YOU have become conditioned to some extent by the Socialist Control mindset. You now EXPECT to be given instructions from people you've never even met in matters of purely PRIVATE choice. This is how we have managed to creep from smiley-faced Fabianism (Nanny State) to a point in the road just a few marching steps short of full-blown Tyranny (Police State).

You want to be LED - by the Kindly Shepherd into the lush pastures just over the hill.

Then, one morning, you find yourselves being DRIVEN - into a pen. And from there...

To put it bluntly: learn to stand on your own two bloody feet - unless, that is, you WANT to remain in a state of perpetual infantilism, a Child in an Ageing Body.

Second, government - acting as Servant of the People - can best 'serve' the People by using its machinery and vast resources to present us with clear, concise, and WHOLLY unbiased scientific information, upon which we can make our OWN decisions. Again, to put it bluntly: if we're SUPPOSED to be mature enough to VOTE for them, then we should also be mature enough - once they start venturing into OUR domain - to tell them to bugger off and mind their own business, and leave us to get on with minding our own. End of story.

Time to invite the Big Bad Wolf (politely) to leave our cosy little cottage: he's overstayed his welcome.

We should never have let him in the first place...................................

September 5, 2010 at 8:30 | Unregistered CommenterMartin V

It’s possible, also, that Swindon Council are being uncharacteristically (for a Council) far-sighted and realistic here, and that the decision has at least been partly made to avoid any potentially costly and embarrassing tribunal action against them for attempting to unilaterally change the conditions of their employees’ contracts of employment by extending the conditions of that contract beyond the stated, contracted working hours.

As such back-door extensions to working conditions, and thus to working hours, become more common, as they inevitably will do, and the activities to which they apply steadily expand to other areas, as they also inevitably will do, it is surely only a matter of time before some clever lawyer, or union rep, rumbles what’s going on and challenges it, perhaps on behalf of a disciplined client or union member. It may not necessarily be about smoking – it could easily be about any “disapproved of” activity undertaken in a member of staff’s free time (and in many ways, given the lack of objectivity around the whole issue of smoking, it would be best if it were over some other "extended" condition) – but once the principle is established, it will restrict all employers’ abilities to try and control the behaviour of their staff outside working hours, including, of course, smoking or not smoking. Swindon Council may well be understandably anxious not to be the first employer to be made an example of in this way.

As we speak, many employers are at it, of course, and many have got away with it so far, but that’s only because many employees don’t realise what rights they have, as one party, when faced with such a blatant breach of contract by the other, or they simply don’t have the wherewithal to fight it, or they simply don’t want to make waves. But it’ll just take one ……

September 5, 2010 at 9:11 | Unregistered CommenterMisty

Councillor Sharp said, “We must be careful, we don’t want to become a dictatorship.”

We may not yet be a dictatorship (quite) but we do live under the most repressive and authoritarian regime in Europe. Any initial optomism about that changing under Cameron has long gone. The Tories appear to be as bad, if not worse than Labour where the enforcement of petty rules and regulations is concerned. The "end to the war on the motorist" was a downright lie and the retention of the smoking police whilst good things like funding for the Gurkahs and Red Arrows is cut tells you all you need to know about Cameron, Clegg and their band of hangers on. I think they're actually worse than Labour who would at least have kept some of the good things.

September 6, 2010 at 4:42 | Unregistered CommenterJames Trent

James T -

Yes, Clan Cameron is a bloody disgrace.

But SOME of us DID sort of predict that this might happen, as I recall.

Where's all the PRO-Cameron sentiment now ?

It's vanished: like a whisp of cigarette smoke in a windy bus-shelter.....................

September 6, 2010 at 9:54 | Unregistered CommenterMartin V

Whatever the reasoning behind this breakthrough and return to some common sense, it is indeed refreshing.

Whilst endeavouring to drive my truck out of London last Friday evening I was apalled at the signs that stated on every other lampost - or so it seemed - 'Enforcement Cameras' - whilst sat in the traffic my thoughts were that herein lies the main problem; that word ENFORCEMENT - what happened to ENCOURAGEMENT, for example? The word ENFORCEMENT sums up everything about the last government and sadly, so far, little has been done by this coalition to greatly reduce the overbearing ENFORCEMENT in our society that is directed at every normal and law abiding citizen.

I also saw signs that said 'Watch Your Speed'. This immediately conjured up images of what many people actually do do - watch their speedometer to avoid being stung by a fine and points on their licence instead of watching out for the pedestrians, cyclists and total idiots! Surely this is far more important than worrying about whether you are a few miles over some limit imposed mostly in some totally illogical manner!

I know this post is not about smoking directly, but it I believe it is relevant in terms of ENFORCEMENT - Enforcement to not smoke in enclosed public places as deemed such by the powers that be; Enforcement in not dropping your cigarette ash, never mind the butt, on the ground, even if just to put it out! Further threatened Enforcements against smokers, drinkers and those above 'normal' weight, whatever that might be!

Ultimately, ENFORCEMENT against all of our liberties and end result of a Police State.

Scary!

September 6, 2010 at 19:16 | Unregistered CommenterLyn

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