Labour Manifesto 2005: "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 to be smoke-free. In membership clubs the members will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or to be smoke-free."
Gillian Merron, Jan 2010: "We have given a commitment to review the impact of the smokefree law three years after its implementation on 1 July 2007. The review will take place in the latter part of 2010".
Labour Manifesto, April 2010: "The ban on smoking in public places will be maintained."
10 comments:
I have heard from a reliable source that a total smoking ban in Spain has once more been postponed, allegedly, for another year. It was supposed to happen on 1st January 2010, but it was postponed. A new date, 24th June 2010 was apparently set. Once again it has been 'postponed'. Those pesky anti smokers in the Spanish government just cannot get it pushed through. It's that damn common sense and listening to the people.
THEY PLAN TO BAN THE SALE OF
TOBACCO PRODUCTS IN THE UK
FIGHT THESE BASTARDS NOW
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/19/2/143.full.pdf
The Spanish bar, restaurant and cafe owners would go apeshit. The Spanish do not have the same fear and apathy as the British have. They tend to get off their backsides and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
I just asked our prospective NuLab candidate: You have a commitment to review the smoking ban in 2010. Why does your manifesto state "The ban on
smoking in public places will be maintained"? Have you already decided the outcome of the review? Is this manifesto as mendacious as your last one which promised only a limited smoking ban?
I realise that you will ignore my comments as you have ignored the blindingly obvious evidence that the decline in the pub trade started in 2007, therefore I do not expect to get a sensible answer from you. Prove me wrong.
I won't hold my breath.
I will always believe that those who are most affected in the hospitality industry should dig deep into their well lined pockets…mostly smokers money over many decades…and make some kind of full frontal assaults through the courts.
Labour has absolutely no intention whatsoever of amending let alone repealing this iniquitous shit, so what does anyone with deep pockets have to lose? The tobacco industry has been conspicuously silent on this…perhaps they still make too much money, and have no reason to show loyalty to a captive market.
Do you remember the Italian court case?
‘The contradictory nature of conferring public duties on private proprietors whilst not
affording them public power of any kind is evidence of the irrationality of imposing the obligations in question on private citizens’.
It wasn’t for the landlord to enforce the law…but to simply point out what the law was. He won his case.
I would have thought Dave West of the Hey Jo club in London would have gone down this route.
JJ makes a point that many of us have been making for some time. IE. That it is wrong for the Government to force ordinary people to act as policemen. Was this defence not that put forward by Nick Hogan? But he was found guilty. I wonder if this was because he was accused of 'actively encouraging' disobedience rather than just tolerating it?
It seems that the Italian court agreed with the proposal that forcing private proprietors to act as agents of the State was wrong.
So why, in a pan-European environment is there such a wide discrepancy between the law in England and the law in Italy?
Why do I detect a really rotten STINK of conspiracy and collusion? It seems that the anti-smokers do not detect this STINK.
In this election battle now taking place, it seems that the parties have conspired to exclude the ban by expressly stating their collective agreement with it. Thus, they have agreed among themselves not to mention the ban and to fight the election, come what may, without reference to to it at all (note that, since the Labour party published its manifesto, not a single politician has said anything like, "How can you trust their manifesto when they fiddled the last one?") Why? Because they dare not, firstly because the 'rules' in the House of Commons in effect say that a free vote over-rides and manifesto pledge ("It wasn't me, gov; it was them wot done it"), and secondly, because they might want to do it themselves!
I dare say that come within a few days of the election, one party or another might break the compact and try to grab the smoker vote, although I rather have my doubts - they may fear losing the anti-smoker vote, if there is one.
There is not a lot that we smokers can do about that, but what we can do, to the best of our ability, is ensure that we get rid if this corrupt government. In your constituency, regardless of your own personal preferences, vote for whoever will defeat the Labour candidate. Do not hesitate.
In the long run, after the election, whatever happens, we simply must continue the fight.
Good old Spain! I visited Barcelona in 2004 and, while walking through the airport gasping for a fag, I spotted a sign saying "Smoking in designated areas only". Underneath it was a policeman happily puffing away. So I stood next to him and lit up! Magic.
Watch Panorama tonight at 9pm. Liverpool's Alder Hey hospital will be on complaining that:
There is an epidemic of preventable illness. Was said on BBC breakfast that those preventable illnesses were obesety, alcoholism and PASSIVE SMOKING???
Will be interesting to see what "illnesses" they come up with related to SHS?
Anon: Do let us know if you receive a reply.
Junican: Fine post, sir.
TBY: Broken legs and coma, perhaps? ;-)
The reason why you can still smoke in prison is that if you couldn't there would be some serious shit flying around therein.
The reasons why they allow tobacco to sold are that they can't afford not to, and the reason given above.
So I hope they do ban it.
That would be teh funneh.
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