Wednesday 11 November 2009

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.




16 comments:

westcoast2 said...

The Baroness says I felt I could not renege on my principles even though it might hurt more adults than children in the first instance. I suspect that even more people will be driven to buying tobacco on the black market.

I am unclear to which principles the Baroness is refering to?

Is it a principle to sell tobacco products in a controlled or uncontrolled environment?

Is it a principle to ensure under 18s can not purchase tobacco products?

Is it a principle to ensure employment?

Is it a principle to allow people to sell legal products?

Is it principled to vote in favour of something knowing that it will do nothing to solve the 'problem' of the underage buying tobacco products yet cause other hardship?

Indeed is it principled to vote in favour of something knowing it will have zero effect on the 'problem' and may make the 'problem' worse?

It seems the only compromise she refers to here is as opposed to prohibition. The principle being to ensure that all tobacco sales are made illegal.

----

Mark Wadsworth said...

Fucking bitch. But MPs voted to outlaw cigarette vending machines on 12 October 2009 and that is the end of that.

Never mind, think of all the jobs that 'The War on Drugs' has created in the policing, nannying, counselling, health and prison officering industries. It's all good. Every child who starts smoking will generate several such do-gooder jobs over his lifetime and also pay £100,000 in taxes to fund them.

What's not to like?

Spartan said...

l don't think l can watch HOC or HOL 'live' anymore as it's destroying my will to live.

To see these pompous assholes pontificating over how this country should conform to their egotistical condascending ill-informed views is fucking unbelievable.

Added to that is just how few are actually in the chambers.

Well, fuck 'em ... l'll continue to bring in my ciggies from abroad as l always have done ... and it's particularly gratifying to know l do it legally much to the annoyance of HMRC. Their faces are a picture when l confront them with 10,000 ciggies and tobacco. First they show glee as they expect them being confiscated ... then totally crestfallen as l walk out with them.

lt's worth the effort just for that!

Anonymous said...

I'm finding it harder and harder to understand.

Children (according to the state) should be brought up as in the olden days - to be 'seen and not heard' in every neighbourhood and yet in the next breath they say they should never be 'harmed'.

God help these kids when they have reigns of their own, and we're obviously already reaping the start of he nannyism philosophy.

Why on earth is the Baroness bringing children into the argument?

My children were the first to complain (at the tender age of 6) that they could no longer play like they used to. They then complained that their make-shift 'footie-pitch' was no longer available. Ban after ban afer ban.

The rest is history as we all know what's happened to our youth.

These people are living in cloud-cuckoo land.

Allow kids to play as they see choose; allow adults to socialise as they choose; your countrymen will be happy.

The baroness is talking out of her back-side. Many people in this country cannot afford to feed themselves. She no doubt agrees to feeding all humans which anyone would in an ideal world. This is not an idel world.

Surely the Baroness cannot truly believe that all UK citizens live as she does?

She is installing her well-to -do princles on every citizen?

I'm sorry love - no chance. I can't pick and choose as you can.

Anonymous said...

Oh Spartan!

"it's particularly gratifying to know l do it legally much to the annoyance of HMRC"

How much longer do you think it will be legal?

And clearly in the frame next is booze, tasty food, meat, cars, flights, electricty ...

JuliaM said...

"Added to that is just how few are actually in the chambers."

Which, considering the damage they do, is probably a good thing. But why are we paying for so many of them, if so few of them actually turn up for work?

Spartan said...

davidncl ...then l'll become an outlaw! ;-) ... which l prob am already, as are many others, due to all the new laws that have been brought out.

Tomrat said...

Take it you've seen this then:

http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2009/10/victims-of-high-taxation.html

We are losing the arguement before we start when we accept the unethical nature of a tax designed to coerce, rather than mitigate the circumstances of a particular action; this we need to fight with more vitriol and common sense than can be mustered by mere complaints over how much theft they commit- we should be pointing out they are committing it and draw the line there.

Rob said...

Does anyone know where to get these black market fags in London?? I've been on fags bought abroad for the last year, and am about to run out... i'm going to need a trip to a 'tab house' pretty soon!!

James Higham said...

It's this bureaucratic ability to kill of a legit enterprise at the stroke of a pen which part motivates the Alliance we've set up.

Unknown said...

"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."

This, for the life of me, I cannot understand. Our economy is build on businesses and entrepreneurs who employ people, people who depend on that employment to pay their mortgages and put food in front of their children. Why then should this government take away a roof from over their heads and take food from the mouths of the children? Why, all of a sudden, is working for a cigarette machine manufacturer to be outlawed after all these years of their existance?

I do not know what is real anymore, I appear to be living in a sureal world.

Unknown said...

Sheila Duffy ASH Scotland (spit) weighs in on this very subject, and, of course, it all about the chiiildren, innit'.

"Since the Scottish Government first proposed a tobacco display ban to stop the advertising of tobacco to children, we have witnessed a lot of misinformation and scaremongering from the profit-driven tobacco industry, as demonstrated in the article by Daniel Torras of Japan Tobacco International (Platform, 10 November)."

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/opinion/Tackling-tobacco.5812066.jp

H/T to http://f2cscotland.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3C572D907DF71EB5!165.entry?ccr=6084#comment

BTS said...

"profit-driven tobacco industry" eh?

Unlike Pfizer then who provide money to you worthless pieces of shit?

And your handsome salary Sheila? No profit there for you at all?

What a bitch..

Neal Asher said...

We're all citizens of a totalitarian EU. See my letters to Athens News, Dick? Smoking bans in Greece now. Hat tip to you for 'bansturbators'.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Ta for the heads up, Neal. I've commented. Sad to see more who've been taken in by the science by press release, but then that's why the bansturbators ;-) use that particular tactic.

Neal Asher said...

Interesting to read the letters from them, exactly the same tripe as appeared from them before the smoking ban here. They just don't get that in many cases this won't result in their local bar becoming non-smoking, but simply closing. They don't get that their own habits will be the next target. And they just don't understand freedom and its responsibilities.