Read More:  UK Observations Page 9

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Save the Pub comment from overseas
June 18, 2010
Dear MP Binley,
I have heard of your efforts to relax the very unreasonable complete smoking ban in England. Why would someone from California care? I fly to Europe and Africa. To get there I choose to go through Europe vs the very long direct flight from the east coast to S. Africa. In the past we have used Virgin or British Airways. And we enjoyed Heathrow and even took the time during long layovers to take the London Underground and visit downtown to shop and eat. My last trip, this year in Feb, I took Swiss Airlines for the sole reason of being able to smoke in the Zurich Airport - where they have 24 separate smoking lounges. I have taken my family of three, or sometimes we have a small group. My last ticket, business class, was $8100 USD. While in Zurich on my layover, I spent roughly $500 USD on gifts and food items to take home to the US.
This is business that did not go to England or English companies because of the smoking ban. Common sense would dictate that Airports should have been exempted at the very least. We do not have the reasonable option of leaving security just to have a smoke. And if we do, we are not spending money in your airport or city - which we have done before. And just last week a member of my Safari Club spoke with me on their trip this year to Africa, 2 people, and I let them know how nice Swiss Airlines and Zurich was. They are going to take them - they were going to use Virgin.
So, if your records show that you are loosing business locally, that would be correct. Here in California many of us now hold parties and view football at home where we used to go to bars. This is over 10 years after our ban. But you are also loosing money - alot of it - from travelers through or staying short term in your country.
I hope you are successful in your efforts to repeal this ban. Zurich is nice, but is is much easier to take the London Underground from Heathrow and there are more choices. But the next time I fly through Heathrow I will be able to smoke there, just like the last time I flew through it.
Regards,
Robert Deitz, II
USA

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The tide doth turn
30 June 2010
Tomorrow sees the 3rd anniversary of the smoking ban, inplemented 1st July, 2007 thanks to the worst government this country has ever had to endure - and 13 years worth at that!
Since the chief fabricator (Godber) laid out his dastardly plan to eradicate smoking & tobacco in 1975 the anti smoking movement has marched on relentlessly in pursuit of a smoke free world.
With the pharmaceutical industry investing $millions in 'smoke free' and reaping $multi millions in return, smokers are up against a formidable enemy.
Unbelievably the pubs & clubs sleepwalked their way into smokefree legislation, fully believing the crap that was fed to them by the likes of Flint, Hewitt & ASH. "no business closures reported in other countries".Hogwash! "no detriment to business". Hogwash! "millions of non smoking customers ready to invade the pubs & clubs". Yes - even more Hogwash!
Punch Taverns & Enterprise Inns (Englands 2 largest pubcos) botgh ignored the warnings issued and now sit, very unhappily, at the wrong end of £3.8bn balance sheets. Neither can pay the interest on their borrowings, such is the cvolossal effect of the smoke ban and smokers walking!
For Flint, Hewitt & ASH, your 'success' story is this:- 'you have, in your zealotry hatred for all things tobacco, killed 6,000 businesses, caused poverty & bankruptcy, homelessness and despair. You cannot, howver, prove that you have saved 1 (one) single life!'
Maybe the pubs & clubs 'rolled over' in the face of this law but in many countries determined resistance has been forthcoming. The myth surrounding passive smoking/smoke has been well and truly exposed to all with a semblance of normality as many scientists wrestle with their conscience. Indeed, we now have a situation whereby scientists can sign the "Brussels Declaration of Scientific Integrity" or remain on the highly lucrative payroll of the anti tobacco movement. Anti Tobacco fever has swept across the western world like a plague!
However, the signs are there that 'for germany's highest courts have ruled that smoke bans are detrimental to bar owners livelyhoods (Flint, Hewitt, ASH???) and have therefore lifted such. bBar owners are now returning to making a living!
The Dutch bar owners association all chucked £250 in a pot to fight the smoke ban - and won! it was noticeable that ashtrays seldom disappeared from the tables in Holland as bar owners knew their fate if bereft of smokers.
The Danes have just declared that the next step in the anti tobacco story will NOT be happening in their country as the proposed Tobacco Display Ban has been dismissed; ie, it will not be happening - much to the chagrin of some!
In France the ban is hardly noticeable as the french continue as before.
The Spaniards, ever mindful of tourism, have ignored their smoke ban as best they can.
The Italians are of similar mind, with very little actual enforcement going on.
Croatia has relaxed its policy as they have seen the economic damage cause by smoke bans.
poland recently relaxed their stranglehold on smokers for similar reasons.
Bulgaria did the same after only 3 days, much to the fury of some female director of the WHO, who felt the need to write to the Bulgarian government in the strongest terms about their audacious decision!
The Czech Republic went even further and refused to entertain a smoking ban at all! The'WHO' must have had an apoplectic fit with that news!
Talking of the 'WHO', I find it somewhat hilarious that in their self righteous efforts to rid the world of tobacco they were forced to hold a top level meeting 4 weeks ago to discuss the raising of $billions to further pressurise world smokers. Not only are smoke bans causing havoc with individual nations economies but the 'backroom boys' are suffering economic stress too.
Under Labour we would be expecting the smoke ban review any day now, but happily the new coalition government has put such action on hold as 'non important' in the light of our dire economic status. This is excellent news, and a breath of fresh air for our 16 million smokers for the planned Labour review was not a review at all but a means to impose further restrictions. Some of the planned review paperwork was written 2 years ago by certain universities employed (for astronomical sums)to ensure the ban was a'storming success'. There was very little in the reports to indicate smokers had been hard done to, which, when you realise that the review papers were ordained by one Gillian Merron (deposed Lincoln MP) is of no surprise!
Happily, there has been a storm of protest from small shopkeepers concerning the banning of tobacco displays. More 'fibbers' from ex-government have been exposed as small retailers objected to the redesigning of their shops to accomodate 'under the counter' cigarettes & tobbaco.
'Under the counter' is quite the term at the present time as smuggled goods into this country and S Ireland are rising rapidly. Indeed, S ireland has now been dubbed as the tobacco smuggling centre of the world- a far cry from the initial successes claimed by their government upon implementation of their smoke ban. Actually, they are bemoaning the fact that they are now £400m down due to loss of tobacco tax!
Over in America, home of the bans and home of the anti smoking lunatic John Banzhaff, things are changing slowly as we're seeing bars boycotting state gambling in response to Michigan's ban.
Ohio: people still making a royal stink about their ban with courts holding bar owners not responsible for enforcing it in some areas while in other areas local health departments have refused to take responsibility to enforce it. Illinois: supposedly the ban being widely ignored in various areas.
Kansas: the ban being put on hold in their major city of Wichita because of a conflict between the city and state and the noninclusion of casinos.
Missouri: Springfield City Council withdrawing a ban from a vote because it would have been filled with exemptions - so now no ban at all; and on the Federal level a split decision by the Supreme Court: the tobacco companies lied and were racketeers, but the government can't grab money from them as punishment (Obama wanted $280 BILLION dollars from them).
So, after 3 years of misery for the good people of this country we can see that smoke bans are starting to crumble - and they will crumble simply because they cost countries farm too much money to implement. They cost far too much money in upkeep. They have no great affect on smoke cessation. After all, the only figures government can produce in defence of spending £253m last year is the number of 'quitters' over a 4 week period - which in reality means diddley squat! many people stop for 4 weeks just to get the financial reward offered for quitting.
Smoking rates have decreased decade after decade since the 1950's but smoking bans have reversed that trend with smoker prevalence on the up, tobacco sales on the up and tobacco shares on the increase - indeed, hypocritically, many local councils are investing their pension funds in BT!
Smoke bans are ridiculous for they deny smokers the right to smoke in certain places. They deny owners of pubs & clubs the right to earn a decent living. They seriously damage a nations economy. They do not prevent the death of any human being - despite the wild claims od supposedly 'saving 400,000 lives'.err...Hogwash!
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Smoking ban U-turn appeal
29 June 2010
By Emma Harris
FYLDE coast clubs and pubs have hailed a review into the smoking ban as a huge boost for the industry.
Ministers will launch the review into the ban, which was introduced in 2007.
Since then there have been fears it is crippling the pub and bingo hall trade.
Resort landlords have welcomed the review, earmarked for later this year, and are calling for rules to be relaxed.
Smoking ban rebel Hamish Howitt claims he was forced to close his Happy Scots bar because of the smoking ban.
Mr Howitt, who flouted the ban at his DelBoy's Sports Bar on Rigby Road, Blackpool, for 18 months, racking up many court appearances and thousands of pounds, said: "This blanket ban has destroyed the industry.
"If I've got 20 people standing outside my pub in the winter, freezing – those people are subsidising the heating and electricity inside the pub.
Tory MP Brian Binley, of the Parliamentary Save the Pub Group, added: "It's crazy pub-goers are forced to stand outside."
It is expected the review into the smoking ban will be carried out in the autumn.
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Cypress Hill, Brixton Academy, London
21 June 2010
It's been nearly two decades since their debut record, and Cypress Hill long ago cemented their reputation as one of the best-loved rap groups, even if their output since the turn of the millennium has been inconsistent at best.
In April the Los Angeles band released their eighth studio album, and first in six years, but tonight's show is an exercise in nostalgia. Fair enough – their self-titled debut, and follow-ups Black Sunday and Cypress Hill III: Temples of Boom, remain landmark LPs, and a blistering opening barrage takes heavily from them, with tracks including "Hand on the Pump", "How I Could Just Kill a Man" and "When the Shit Goes Down".
It is not just the music that is taking people back though – clouds of smoke are already rising above the crowd before the band take to the stage. It could only be a Cypress Hill show when such flagrant flouting of the smoking ban is taking place. It follows then that perhaps the biggest roar of the night comes when B-Real holds a suspiciously large roll-up above his head and "I Wanna Get High" – just one of their many paeons to marijuana – begins.
Yet it quickly becomes clear that, despite the energy coming from B-Real and Sen Dog, the PA is struggling to keep up with them; the beats frequently get lost in the mix and there are also problems with feedback. It is something of a surprise for a venue such as Brixton Academy, especially since the set-up (the two MCs mainly only have percussionist Eric Bobo and Julio G on the decks on the stage with them) is hardly complicated.
Still, the band don't seem too fazed, and although it is disappointing not to be able to appreciate B-Real's unique nasal rapping properly, during the gig's best moments – such as "Insane in the Brain" and "Pigs" – the crowd is more than happy to step in whenever the sound is found wanting. Not the most polished concert then, but a lot of fun nonetheless.
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MP wants smoking ban lifted

15 June 2010
By Wayne Bontoft of the Northampton Chronicle
The Government will be asked to reconsider the smoking ban by one of Northampton's MPs.

The Conservative MP for Northampton South, Brian Binley, has been made vice-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group.

The politician said he will use his position to lobby the Government to allow pubs to have separate rooms for smokers, rather than force them to go outside.

He said: "I think if pubs can prove they've got proper extraction fans or a room set aside for smokers, they should be allowed to operate in that way, not shove people outside in all weathers into these shanties and so-called smoking shelters.

"It's just crazy that people are being forced to stand outside and people who live near pubs are left complaining about the noise generated by them.

"So I'll be calling on the Government to ensure that if pubs have proper extraction systems or special smoking rooms, smoking should be allowed in those rooms.

"We need to do away with these awful lean-tos."

The smoking ban came into force in July 2007.

In the first few months of the ban, more than 60 pubs and clubs across Northampton were caught without no-smoking signs.

Officers found 61 pubs, restaurants and workplaces not displaying the right signs, and eight people were caught smoking in pubs between July and September 2007.

Fines for companies which fail to put up no-smoking signs range from £150 if paid within 15 days, to £1,000 if the case ends up in court.

Mr Binley said he would also push the Government to clampdown on supermarkets selling alcohol at very low prices.

He said: "When some supermarkets are selling beer at 54p a pint, you recognise just what pressure our pubs and clubs are under."

His stance has been welcomed by Jonathan Mail from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), who said: "The Save the Pub Group will undoubtedly play a key role in ensuring the coalition Government bring forward a package of policies to support well-run pubs."
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Children are being used as a smokescreen
Campaigners will not be happy until Britain is completely cigarette-free, says Alexander Chancellor.
24 Mar 2010
By Alexander Chancellor
In proposing a ban on smoking in cars and outdoor spaces, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) says that its only concern is for the health of our children. But I simply don't believe it. It seems perfectly obvious that this is the beginning of a final push by the British medical establishment to make this country completely cigarette-free.
We are used to accepting sheepishly the most implausible medical statistics, but when the RCP report into the impact of passive smoking states that more than 300,000 GP consultations and 9,500 hospital admissions result from children breathing second-hand smoke, one's credulity is strained to breaking point. How could anybody know this? And how could anybody be sure that passive smoking is responsible, among other things, for 100 per cent increases in the risks of meningitis and cot deaths and for a 35 per cent increase in middle-ear infections? Nobody could be sure of this, just as nobody could plausibly claim to know how much passive smoking by children costs the NHS in treatment (£23.3 million, according to the RCP).
But no matter. These claims are made only for propaganda purposes in the furtherance of the final objective of ridding Britain entirely of smokers. Buoyed by the success of the 2007 law against smoking in enclosed public spaces, and by opinion polls showing that a large majority favour ever-tougher smoking restrictions, doctors believe that they now have public support for measures that would eventually lead to a ban on anyone smoking anywhere, even in private. A car, after all, is a private space belonging to its owner, just as a house or a flat is. If it is acceptable to stop people smoking in their cars, it should be equally acceptable to stop them smoking at home.
And to pre-empt accusations that either ban would infringe the basic freedom of the individual, the medical establishment invokes the welfare of children as its justification. Although most car drivers don't have children as passengers, the RCP wants a ban on smoking in all vehicles because it would be easier to enforce. Even Martin Dockrell, the director of policy at the anti-smoking group ASH and one of the authors of the report, admitted yesterday that this would be an "injustice" to the drivers of cars without children in them, but added: "That injustice is completely outweighed by the current injustice of the harm that's done to kids."
There is still controversy about the effects of second-hand smoke on the health of non-smokers. Smokers who have inhaled first-hand smoke for decades without suffering any apparent damage to their own health (and such people do, believe it or not, exist) find it hard to accept that they are endangering others with their habit. One such is the artist David Hockney, who was yesterday quoted as saying: "I don't believe a word they say about passive smoking. I have smoked for 52 years and I'm still here working away very ambitiously." But even accepting that, in all probability, smoking in an enclosed space doesn't do anybody any good, it is hard to disagree with Forest, the group that lobbies on behalf of smokers' rights, when it says: "Smoking in outdoor areas poses little nor no threat to anyone's health." Professor John Britton, chairman of the RCP's Tobacco Advisory Group, implicitly accepts this when he says that the report "isn't just about protecting children from passive smoking, it's about taking smoke completely out of children's lives".
The justification for banning smoking in parks is not, therefore, that it has a deleterious effect on children's health, but that they are going to be corrupted by seeing adults puffing away. It is claimed, perhaps rightly, that children whose parents smoke are more likely to do so themselves later on – and the aim of the RCP is to arrange things so that no child ever again sees anyone with a cigarette in his mouth. Fortunately, even the RCP recognises the impossibility of enforcing a smoking ban on people in their own homes and therefore does not, for the moment, propose it. But when smoking has stopped everywhere else, the attention of the medical authorities will doubtless turn to the scandal of parents smoking at home and it will be redefined and made criminal as another form of child abuse.
Everybody now agrees that smoking is bad for you, the number of smokers has fallen dramatically in recent years, and a survey last year found that 78 per cent of people now do not allow smoking in their homes (and 47 per cent even forbid it in their gardens). The propaganda war against smoking has been immensely successful. The Government and the medical authorities are entitled to be feeling quite pleased with themselves. But they are not entitled to stamp on the liberty of the individual to indulge in a harmful habit if he so desires, and especially not to use children's health as an excuse for such persecution.
David Hockney has a point when he says that doctors have a "ghastly view of life; it's all quantative, not qualitative". "A little bit of what you fancy does you good," he goes on. "That's an old observation lost on petty, mean-spirited, dreary people who look only at figures, not at life."
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Is there now no area of our lives that the Nanny State won't poke its nose into?
By Stephen Glover
25th March 2010
A group of the country's most eminent doctors is calling for a ban on smoking in cars and in public places where young people congregate, such as parks. They trot out an impressive sounding array of statistics about medical problems in children which they say result from 'passive smoking'.
On the face of it, the doctors would seem to be talking good sense. Surely young children - who are likely to be ignorant of the dangers of passive smoking, and unable to stand up for themselves - should be protected from careless or inconsiderate adults.
And yet when you study the doctors' proposals you see they are not merely recommending banning smoking in cars in which children are passengers. They would like to ban all smoking in cars on the basis that children might be present.
So, if these distinguished medics get their way, I will be unable to smoke a cigarette by myself in my own car. Actually I don't smoke, but you get the point. Similarly, people would not be allowed to puff away on a park bench because a child might happen along and be exposed to passive smoking.
Maybe you don't rate this a very serious curtailment of personal liberty. Certainly one can imagine worse examples.
But, whatever we think of smoking or smokers, it does seem presumptuous and probably dangerous for the State (for this is what the doctors would like) to say that we cannot indulge in what is still a legal activity when we are by ourselves and most unlikely to harm anyone else.
And if cars, why not houses? After all, many rooms are small and, proportionate to their size, may well have fewer easily-openable windows than an average car.
If the smoker retires to the privacy of a sitting room or study, will he or she find a policeman tapping on the window out of fear that a child might wander in and be exposed to the danger s of passive smoking?
In fact, it is pretty clear, if one thinks about it for a moment, that these proposals are intended to restrict, and probably ultimately to ban, all smoking.
These doctors are smart enough to realise that even now, when the nanny State pokes its nose into many aspects of our private lives, most people would resist a blanket ban. So they suggest a plan based on the supposed interests of children which could soon be extended to make smoking generally impossible.
Enough! Once upon a time doctors presented themselves as people who might, if we were lucky, cure or mitigate our ailments. Now they increasingly tell us what we may and may not do in order that at least some of these ailments may not develop in the first place.
In the past month alone, the government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has instructed us to eat less meat. he has inveighed, as he often does, against alcohol consumption, as usual not drawing any distinction between the drunken yob who may go on the rampage in a city centre and the law-abiding citizen who chooses to drink half a bottle of wine at home.
As recently as last week, Sir Liam announced that parents of children deemed unfit will be sent warning letters by schools, and secondary school pupils be forced to take an annual fitness test. he claimed - how these chaps like to chuck about wild statistics! - that lack of exercise was costing the economy £8.3 billion a year.
To which the obvious response is that, instead of chastising parents for allegedly stuffing their offspring with Turkey Twizzlers, the government should have ensured that thousands of school playing fields were not sold.
Of course children should be encouraged to exercise, but they cannot easily do so if their football pitch has been flogged off to accommodate the latest Tesco superstore. health advice is usually welcome, so long as it is not burdensome or hectoring, but too often it becomes coercive.
Threats against citizens who do not follow a particular course of action are almost always justified by the government on the grounds of saving money. This does not prevent it from squandering billions of pounds on its own account.
And whose money is it anyway? Not the government's. Drinkers, smokers and meat-eaters pay as much tax as teetotallers, non-smokers and vegetarians, and it is difficult to see why they should be punished for their lawful indulgences.
I would suggest that it is not only, or even primarily, out of a desire to save money that the authorities try to ordain the kind of lives we should live.
They act partly out of the bossiness of those who are sure they know what is best for us, and partly because it is so much easier for governments to bully ordinary people in the name of righteousness than it is to solve near intractable problems such as mass immigration and ever rising welfare costs.
The habit of intrusive bossiness is not limited to medical exhortations. This week the Welsh Assembly banned the use of 'electric' collars that deliver very mild shocks to wayward cats and dogs, and are used for training.
Though I would never dream of employing such a contraption myself, I cannot see what business it is of politicians to interfere in such matters. It is insanely disproportionate that those who break the ban could be sentenced to six months in prison or face a fine of £20,000.
I would not be at all surprised if it soon became a criminal offence to give your dog a gentle admonitory smack, or fail to administer its monthly worming pill.
Where will it stop? The State advances on two fronts. on the one hand, it takes more and more of our money so that - ignore the little blandishments of yesterday's Budget - taxes for ordinary taxpayers have soared since 1997, and spending on the public sector during these years has risen from 40 per cent of gross domestic product to a staggering 53.4 per cent.
And, on the other hand, it pokes its fingers more and more into our private affairs, telling us what to do and not to do, banning this and banning that, and sometimes threatening us with penalties if we do not follow its instructions.
What is both extraordinary and pretty depressing is that the Conservative party, which used once to regard the ever encroaching State with suspicion, now seems barely concerned about its inexorable expansion.
I hope the Tories win the election, but I'm afraid I don' t really see them championing personal liberties. Would Andrew Lansley as health Secretary chide the medical establishment for suggesting that a lone adult be criminalised for smoking in his car?
Most law-abiding adults do not behave like children. They have a pretty good idea of the risks involved in any activity, and they make their choices. Our lives belong to ourselves, not to the State or to the chief medical officer or to eminent doctors, and within reasonable bounds it should be left to us to decide what is best for ourselves and our children.
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Woo-hoo!! Government unblocks Forest website
March 4, 2010
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Conservative party chairman Francis Maude had tabled a question in which he asked the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to explain why "websites featuring tobacco content are banned; if he will give examples of the types of tobacco sites which are banned; and whether the internet ban includes the Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) website".
Hansard has just published the reply from Gerry Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South and Minister for Sport in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It reads (wait for it):
Mr. Sutcliffe: The filtering software used by my Department has a standard range of categories that are blocked by default. Filtering is switched off for those categories that are directly related to the work of my Department, currently tobacco remains blocked. The tobacco category covers tobacco promotional websites such as www.marlboro.com.
The Forest (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco) website was inadvertently covered by this category by default. It has been unblocked.
Woo-hoo!!
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Tobacco control: press comment
In the media spotlight
February 1, 2010
Well, you're probably all now aware of the government's latest tobacco control strategy paper which includes a raft of proposals including plain packaging, plans to extend the smoking ban to doorways etc etc etc.
The only "good" thing to emerge from the announcement is Health Secretary Andy Burnham's preference for smokefree homes and cars without regulation. The problem is, who can believe that a Labour government would stick to this voluntary code? After all, the party promised it would only introduce a partial ban on smoking in enclosed public places. There was no mention, in its 2005 election manifesto, of the comprehensive ban we are now subjected to.
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Hypocrisy, Or Down-Right Lies? You Choose.

27th January 2010.

Confirmation from the House of Commons Commission has confirmed what we already know.
 
Regular readers have witnessed on numerous occasions the big cover-up at Westminster regarding their members-only smoking rooms.
 
Courtesy of Nick Harvey MP (North Devon, Liberal Democrat) we now have full confirmation that they do exist:
 
“Members and their guests have access to all the bar facilities listed above. Also, the Members’ Smoking Room is provided for the exclusive use of Members of Parliament….”
 
Any chance Nick Harvey MP could advise why a smoking room is allowed for the exclusive use of Members of Parliament, but isn’t allowed for the exclusive use of any other private club?
 
I know – we’ve asked that question on many occasions. I believe it’s one that will eventually have to be answered, rather than denied.
 
As we all know, too many lies and you stumble, yet hypocrisy will not be tolerated.
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House of Commons Commission
Written answers and statements, 26 January 2010
Members and their guests have access to all the bar facilities listed above. Also, the Members' Smoking Room is provided for the exclusive use of Members of Parliament (Monday to Tuesday 14.00 to 17.00 and 18.00 to midnight; Wednesday 14.00 to 17.00 and 18.00 to 23.00; Thursday 13.00 to 17.00 and 18.00 to 19.00; closed Fridays).
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UK: Watch Phil Williams: Two faced lying bloody bastards.

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