Thursday 23 July 2015

Ulster Farming Union Gets It Wrong

A story on Tuesday about the smoking ban in work vehicles is so bizarre that even the state lapdog BBC is amused enough to cover it.
A farmer who lit up a cigarette in his tractor could face a fine of up to £1,000 after he was deemed to be smoking in his workplace. 
The quiet smoke break while parked at the side of a road in County Antrim was stubbed out when a tobacco control officer intervened. 
The tractor was deemed by the officer to be a commercial vehicle capable of "carrying more than one person".
Well, yes. Under the terms of the law, an offence has been committed because it can carry more than one person ... just not at the same time. The farmer is not the first to be penalised for not harming anyone, nor will he be the last.

You see, according to the lunatics of tobacco control, smoke hangs around forever. It cannot be blown away by open windows, by storm winds, or by the passing of time. Tony Benn may well have been dead for over a year, but somewhere his pipe smoke is still killing people to this day. We know this because tobacco control 'experts' tell us that the laws of economics, physics and dose/response don't apply to tobacco smoke.
Barclay Bell, deputy president of the Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU), said the case was an example of officials taking smoking legislation to extreme lengths. 
"At one level this is a bizarre and even funny example of excessive red tape, defining a tractor as capable of carrying more than one person," he said.
No, Barclay, your understanding of the law - and the BBC's evidently - is flawed. You see, it's not about whether someone can be harmed by being in the vehicle at the same time - nor has it ever been - it is simply a rule designed to inconvenience and bully smokers into quitting. It was never about health, which is why they now call it "denormalisation" and why plainly absurd claims about smoking being harmful on beaches are de rigeur.

The law is working against this farmer exactly as it was planned to do. It was designed specifically to interrupt his freely chosen choice to have a smoke break, that's how vile bullies work. D'you see?

The farming guy did get one thing right though.
But he added that it raised more serious issues. "Regardless of where you stand on smoking, in tough financial times it is justifiable to ask whether this is the best possible use of time and money?"
A question we've been asking ourselves here too. We're supposed to be in a period of austerity, so why the blithering fuck are government still handing our cash to vile, anti-social, economy-harming tax drains like ASH who drove such a repulsive law through parliament in the first place?

The country would be a far more relaxed, happier and richer place without them.


8 comments:

nisakiman said...

This story really does epitomise everything that is so fundamentally wrong with the ever more discriminatory anti-smoking legislation.

In many ways, I hope there are more and more incidents like this, because they will show this spiteful legislation up for what it really is - a pogrom directed at what has now become a minority group, driven by nothing other than naked bigotry.

How long, I wonder, before Joe Public wakes up to what's going on?

Lizzie said...

Much as I agree with you about this nonsense being nothing about health, I'm sure the other side would argue that it very much is: the more difficult it is to smoke in public the less likely youth will take it up. Utter bullshit, of course (because it's worked so well with illegal drugs) but that's what they'll say. I'm in Canada (Ontario) where it's just been made illegal to smoke on patios, as it is in most provinces, if not all. So far nothing on plain packs but it was trotted out 20 years ago and rejected; now it would be more than pointless as the graphic warnings make up 3/4 of packs now.

Tommein said...

a tobacco control officer ?????
Best use of taxpayers money in times of "austerity"

truckerlyn said...

Sadly, I don't think that many will. After all, if so many are that gullible as to believe that a whiff of someone's cigarette smoke could cause them to drop dead from a heart attack, when it would be more likely to cause the one smoking to succumb, if anyone, then what hope is there?

John M said...

Now that this story is out there, the anti-smoking nazis had better beware, because I'm wondering if the next one to try and stop a smoking farmer will get the living f**k beaten out of him

Gray Cooper said...

I do hope Labour & all other smoking ban /tobacco control parties rip themselves apart.

gray cooper said...

How typical of politicians to waste tax.

Legiron said...

A tobacco control officer around dangerous farm equipment? That sounds like an accident waiting to be arranged.


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