Mascot Watch #27: State Jackboots In Your Property Edition

Real life has got in the way in Puddlecoteville so there's been no time to comment on how the country's most vacuous woodentops failed to see beyond the end of their snouts and voted for a ban on smoking in private vehicles. For teh chilrenz, natch.

However, I can't let this pass without comment. You see, mere mascot status is looking a tad miserly for our Phil after reading his contribution to the pathetic charade debate. Here are some highlights.

Philip Davies (Shipley, Conservative) 

I have no quibble at all with Luciana Berger, who represents the smug, patronising excesses of new Labour. They think that the only reason they came into Parliament was to ban everybody else from doing all the things that they happen not to like. What perturbs me is that Conservative Ministers appear not to have grasped the concept, even though they claim to be Conservatives, that we can disapprove of something without banning it. This is just another in the long line of triumphs for the nanny state. 

The Conservative party used to believe in the rights of private property, and that people could do as they pleased in their own private property. Their private vehicle is their own private property. If people wish to smoke in a car with children, that is a decision for them to take. As Conservatives, we should not interfere with that. 

We all know where this is going to end up. The people at Action on Smoking and Health, who appear to be the only people the Department of Health listens to, are not going to hand over their company car keys when this measure gets passed tonight—they will be campaigning for the next one, which is of course to get smoking banned in everybody’s homes as well. Once we have agreed to the principle of banning smoking in people’s private cars, how on earth can we logically say that there is a great difference regarding people’s homes?

Do go read the whole thing, including this part of his denouement which lays bare how comprehensively unfit for purpose the current fuckwitted catastrophe (the correct collective noun, I believe) of modern career politicians now is.

The Minister said that it would be a constraint on the Minister’s power to accept my amendments. Well, I make no apology for trying to constrain the Minister’s power. That is what the House of Commons is all about—trying to make sure that sensible decisions are taken based on evidence, not just on the latest whim of the nanny state brigade whom she has listened to. We are supposedly here to try to defend the freedoms of people in this country. This Government want to trample over every single one of those freedoms.

Which, by a stunning coincidence, is precisely why the entire country despises politicians and wouldn't lose sleep if each and every one were to be strung from a lamp post tomorrow.

Bravo, Mr D! As of now, you are no longer my mascot - instead, arise Sir Philip, official blog Knight.

Watch out, too for an eloquent contribution from Ian Paisley Jr and a Tory MP rubbishing Deborah Arnott's foul bullshit from the green benches of the House.

Charles Walker (Broxbourne, Conservative) 

My hon. Friend will know that one of the main scourges for young people is alcohol. Why are the Government not proposing standardised packaging for alcohol?

Don't know about Debs, but that certainly looks like a domino theory come true to me.

And lastly, kudos to this Labour MP for delivering a speech which is brilliantly ahead of its time (after three tiny edits).

David Winnick (Walsall North, Labour) 

I was also around when we debated banning smoking in vehicles with children, which it was argued at the time was a grave restriction on freedom. Who in the House of Commons today, in 2019, would argue that, apart from the hon. Member for Shipley and a few others? The ban, which was so controversial at the time, has been widely accepted in the country. People said that it would not be accepted and that the law would be broken, but has it been? Where is the evidence that the law on smoking passed in the previous Parliament has been broken? 

I accept entirely that it may be difficult to implement the measures that have been suggested on smoking in private homes, and I do not underestimate the difficulties. I do, however, say simply that it is worth a try. Every organisation that has been mentioned and is concerned with public health has argued that the amendment should be put into law, as I believe it should be. It provides an opportunity to protect children in the way it describes, and it is likely, however difficult it may be to police, that people will accept that the law has been passed by Parliament, and that there will be a greater desire to ensure that it is observed. This measure is worth a try, and anything that can protect children from the dangers of smoking should certainly be supported tonight.

I wonder where he got his Tardis from?