Understatement Of The Decade

Baroness Murphy, on the Lords of the Blog.

There had been some surprising inserts by the Government in the Commons ... but the most interesting was the amendment tabled in the Commons by Ian McCartney which will have the effect over time of outlawing tobacco vending machines completely. Those of us who want to reduce smoking naturally voted with the Government but I have to say I had a lot of sympathy with the argument that this went much further than the Government’s intention to reduce children having access to tobacco purchase and undoubtedly will create difficulties for companies which make vending machines who have done a considerable amount of technical development to create machines which can be activated by radar to authorise an adult but not a child.

Difficulties? Like having part of your business, selling perfectly legal products, outlawed with the stroke of a pen? Those sort of difficulties, do you mean?

What is also evident here, once again, is how very little these morons actually care about the people whose lives they are entrusted to serve. Baroness Murphy is either clever in drawing attention only to the manufacturers of these machines, or has been led into that position by selective information from lobbyists and government misdirection.

Having lived in two pubs, in different areas of the country, for over a decade, our vending machine supplier in both cases was a small family-run business who bought or leased their machines and profited from the placement and administration of them. That is how the market is serviced. These companies are going to suffer more than a few 'difficulties'. Their businesses, many of which have been passed down through generations, are obsolete overnight.

Their assets are worthless. They cannot sell the business, they are quite simply screwed. And for no good reason whatsoever. No-one will be 'saved' by this spiteful legislation. The Baroness even admits this herself.

I suspect that even more people will be driven to buying tobacco on the black market.

Which, of course, is totally unregulated, and doesn't give a fig who it sells to.

Cheap cigarettes smuggled from abroad and sold illegally in "tab houses" are getting children hooked on smoking, trading standards officers have warned.

About 30% of under 18s admit to buying illicit tobacco, particularly in areas of deprivation, officials say.

The cigarettes are sold from private homes without age checks, creating a new generation of smokers, they claim.

Yet again, incredibly unrealistic ideology has done nothing but cause further harm, both in the destruction of upstanding small businesses, and in the creation of a new impetus for the smuggling of cigarettes. Baroness Murphy and her fellow numbskulls, in their zeal to be seen to be righteous, have simply added to the problem of underage smoking, whilst simultaneously infantilising the adult population, killing profitable businesses stone dead, and making our country that little bit more totalitarian.

And they wonder why we hate them. All.