Release The Hound

I'm gutted! Yesterday I attempted to predict who would speak against David Nuttall's ten minute rule bill, and originally had Kevin Barron down as prime candidate before striking him off the list entirely - I could have preened my eyebrows with a smug smile had I left him there. His deletion was because rule bills are usually a backbencher thing, but I suppose I under-estimated the threat this posed to the anti-smoking camp.

Most ten minute bills pass unopposed at first reading as members prefer to make judgment after studying the terms of the bill. But that simply couldn't be allowed to happen in case the amendment was perceived by the general public - as it certainly would have been - to be perfectly reasonable.

It had to be stamped on, then. Hard.

The Department of Health had therefore surveyed their kennel of faithful lapdogs ... and dismissed them in favour of one of their rottweilers.

Barron is a man so odious that he believes he knows how you should live your life better than you do. No, seriously, he doesn't think you should have any input at all.

"We would be a lot better as legislators if we did it ourselves (ie without recourse to public will - DP), because party politically we are frightened to death of the nanny state, but as individuals we can see the need for intervention in all our communities [...]

We are the state's representative in our constituencies and we should not be frightened of taking decisions on behalf of our constituents [...]"

None better, then, to be sent out to kill this idea before it gained too much momentum. So, off he trotted - ASH briefing sheets in his paws and electrodes attached to his scrotum for if prompting was required - to defend the EU civil service, and fake charity, agenda.

He started out by admitting that the Labour manifesto in 2005 had indeed encompassed choice, but that - and you'll like this - the All Party Committee on Smoking and Health had decided it not draconian enough. He emphasised the 'all party' bit as if to imply impartiality. Of course, the fact that ...

The Secretariat of the group is provided by Action on Smoking and Health, which is funded by the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK for carrying out this work.

... is entirely irrelevant and doesn't detract from their impartiality. Oh no. Not at all.

He also stressed that all this had already been debated, and that MPs had made their decision so therefore it was silly to go through it again, before, in the very next sentence pointing to Spain where their MPs had already decided ... but were now changing their smoking ban. I take it then that Mr Barron believes legislative decisions are only final when he personally likes them. But then, what else can one expect from a former political ally of Arthur Scargill?

It was around then that the DH - in a conference call with ASH and other smokefree coalition members - decided that he had skirted around the issue long enough and that it was well past time to roll out the dodgy stats.

The remote button was pressed, 50 volts throbbed through his nutsack, and he sprang into robotic regurgitating of acres of publicly-funded junk science facts and absurd figures.

The heart attack miracles were trotted out one by one, the Anna 'I'll say anything for a tobacco control grant' Gilmore one, the Jill Pell junk stat of 2007, plus New York and Ireland's equally medically impossible garbage.

He proudly mentioned 'denormalising smokers', and glossed over the truth that smoking - far from costing the NHS - is actually a net contributor to the exchequor. If you watch the BBC video of Barron's speech, you can see him flinch as he received a charge to his gonads designed to prompt him into using Henry Featherstone's Policy Exchange extra-planetary cuckooland wibblings. That he didn't could be down to his natural distaste for right of centre think tanks, or perhaps that even a blinkered, communist, self-righteous cocksocket as Barron couldn't bring himself to believe such festering horseshit.

It served to startle him, though, as he inexplicably defaulted to burbling about cot deaths. Because - and I can only guess at the reasoning here - people no longer smoking in pubs means that, err, babies in cots don't have to suffer second hand smoke while they're suckling on their gin and tonic anymore?

Or it could be that Debs Arnott was getting happy with the zappy as he hadn't exhorted the house to think of the chiiildren yet, and that's the first thing that leapt into his head.

By now, his balls were attempting to exit through one trouser leg to discharge themselves, so he completely forgot the reference** which 'proved' 80% satisfaction with the ban, but he threw it in anyway.

The man who argued that forcing newsagents to spend thousands on gantries to hide tobacco displays would not affect their businesses at all, then contended - with no sense of irony, or base in reality - that to force a publican to install ventilation would be negative to their ability to turn a profit. But we'll put that down to trouser trouble, eh?

And then, finally, came the highlight of the speech - and proof incontrovertible that there are no depths to which an MP will not sink to misdirect in the 'mother of all parliaments'. From a total (at time of writing) of 151 comments on David Nuttall's blog, he read out - in full - one of only two posters who didn't congratulate Nuttall on his efforts. Oh yeah, and he mentioned the other one as being a whole host of 'nurses'.

And with the job done, with the noes having been dutifully corralled from just about everywhere but the sparse chamber itself to scotch the bill, Barron returned to his masters to be rewarded with a Bonio and a soothing application of vaseline to his, by now roasted, chestnuts.

There is one aspect of this that even a hideous northern turd like Barron can't possibly lie their way out of, though. And that's that now, more than three years on, the smoking ban is still a 'live' issue, and it isn't going away anytime soon. 86 MPs, and the millions who cheer them every time they exhibit the common sense they did today, are testament to that. Far from just 'moving on', the resentment is growing, debate is still prominently raging, and the only possible losers are those politicians who continue to arrogantly ignore significant sections of their working class vote.

And, for that, David Nuttall deserves our sincere and hearty thanks.

** It was a disingenuous one, natch. The study he quoted was for ALL public venues, and not strictly pubs. ONS figures isolating pubs and clubs have never shown a majority in favour of a blanket ban.

UPDATE: If you'd like to congratulate David Nuttall personally, his latest blog post announces the result of today's events. Just pop something in the comments HERE.