Belinda reports today on a petition in Scotland which has attracted interest from The Scotsman and the Sunday Express (click to enlarge, as usual).
More than six years after Scotland's ban, it's still being discussed. Still something newspapers feel is a live subject and worth talking about - hardly surprising since comments sections are always fiercely lively whenever the matter is mentioned. The same is true of Wales. It was bound to happen, as has always been historically the case when governments pass bad law.
In Switzerland, they have a different kind of democracy. You know, one where they actually listen to what the people have to say instead of fake science and the congenital lies of state-funded activists. They today gave a resounding no to the idea of a comprehensive nationwide smoking ban.
La Tribune de Geneve suggests voters rejected a full ban because they did not want to force the smaller cantons into changing their local laws, and because of resentment at perceived state interference in people's lives.Oh boy! Ain't that the truth!
If our own voters were allowed the same democratic input at the time, the result would have been the same in this country too. The Office of National Statistics were adamant about that in their General Household Survey of 2005 [pdf].
I'll break that down for you, again.
Since 1996, they have split the responses between those who approve of an outright ban, those who favoured some restrictions, and the numbers calling for none at all.
The figures up to 2005 were:
2003: 20%, 70% and 8% respectively.
2004: 31%, 63% and 5%
2005: 33%, 61% and 5%
Note that the first figure is those in favour of what has now been inflicted on us. The significant majority didn't want it. This could have been embarrassing to Labour, in the wake of their authoritarian Health Act 2006, if the ONS hadn't changed the way they presented the stats ... which is exactly what they did. I'm sure they still asked the same questions, but tables were published showing 66% agreeing with restrictions (a flatline from the previous two years by their own admission), without any further detail.
Lo and behold, a majority now in favour, whereas before they were struggling for a third of those surveyed. As Paul Daniels might say, now that's magic.So, if our own government showed as much respect to us as the Swiss equivalent does to their citizens, the same result would have been seen here in 2006. Sadly, Switzerland seems alone in actually trusting their own people to make decisions in a {cough}democracy.
Every single country in Europe - from Ireland in 2004 to Bulgaria this year - have enacted bans on smoking in private businesses without even a casual nod to public opinion or democratic process.
It's why ASH Scotland are still being called on to defend their trouser-filling north of the border six years on, and why they are still required to trot out long since debunked Jill Pell junk science to do so.
It's never going away. Thank you Switzerland for proving that and being an embarrassment to every politician who claims - and 'claims' is the operative word here - to be in favour of democracy and freedom.
