I may have spoken too seen when I suggested last night that there no longer existed the political will to impose further draconian smoking bans. Dick Puddlecote has the news that Baroness Gardner (Con) has tabled an amendment to the Localism Bill. It reads:
193 Insert the following new Clause—
“Power to make byelaws about smoke-free places
(1) A local authority may make byelaws designating as smoke-free any place or description of place that is not smoke-free under section 2 of the Health Act 2006.
(2) The place, or places falling within the description, need not be enclosed or substantially enclosed.
(3) The byelaws may provide for such places, or places falling within the description, to be smoke-free only—
(a) in specified circumstances,
(b) at specified times,
(c) if specified conditions are satisfied,
(d) in specified areas,
or any combination of those.
(4) Terms used in this section have the same meanings as in the Health Act 2006.”
No attempt is made to justify this on health grounds. If enacted, this will allow councils to ban smoking everywhere and all the time simply because they don’t like it. And if they can do that with smoking, they can do it with absolutely any other behaviour they happen not to like.
I suppose that, on the positive side, this is an amendment to a Bill, and it’ll only become law if not only the House of Lords passes it, but also the House of Commons agrees to the amendment. If the government had really wanted to, they could have included this amendment in the original bill. So it looks like somebody(ASH?) has managed to get a peer to introduce this nasty little amendment. And again, looking on the bright side, it suggests that ASH may not have quite the influence they had 5 years ago, if this is the only way that they can sneak in a ban.
Also, since it’s about giving powers to local authorities, if this amendment became law, you’d probably find that smoking outdoors would be banned everywhere in left wing Labour/Lib Dem/Green councils, but not in neighbouring Tory or Independent councils. You’d not be able to smoke outside pubs in many Labour-controlled cities, but you’d be able to out in the Tory countryside. There’d be a patchwork quilt across Britain of smoky and smoke-free boroughs.
I took a look at the voting record of Baroness Gardner. She’s anti-EU, anti-foxhunting ban, anti-gay, anti-transexual, anti-ID cards, and anti-detention without charge. But she’s 100% antismoking. So she probably didn’t need to have her arm twisted much by ASH or whoever to introduce this vindictive, spiteful little amendment.
And she’s Australian. And a dentist.
If you feel like letting her know what you think of her, her email address is gardnert@parliament.uk
Frank Davis 
I am very tempted to email her and say:
“So, you want local government to be able to ban smoking wherever they want. Obviously, this is for no other reason than that you do not like smoking. I don’t like Australian dentists, but I would not ask for them to be banned from the House of Lords, but then, I am not as nasty as some people”.
Shall I?
Go on!
I’m still wondering what I’ll say to her.
We knew this was coming … Thanks, Frank, for the heads-up (as they say in the US)!
Hmmm….I think a history lesson is in order here.As far as I know,none of my descendants has a criminal record worthy of deportation,so I,ll be buggered if I,ll be lectured by some-one who has…..
Not specifically,you understand……many apologies,M,lud
Hmm. Interesting. I haven’t perused the draft Localism Bill in detail, but my (admittedly limited) understanding of it was that it would in any case under its general terms, permit local councils to enact smoking bans above and beyond the existing law if they wanted to, albeit that it wouldn’t allow them to relax the regulations. So why the need for this specific amendment? And in any case, aren’t councils able to impose such restrictions anyway – as tried by Cllr Bartlett of Stony Stratford?? And I’m curious as to why this ageing antipodean harridan has felt it necessary to put in all that guff about “certain times” and “certain circumstances” and “certain conditions.” Surely, as a dedicated anti-smoker she’d want any councils so inclined to be able to ban smoking anywhere, any place, whenever they wanted? Curious ….
Maybe someone else on here is more conversant with the proposed content of the Act and can indicate the answers to these questions, but my immediate reaction was the same as it is these days to all of the latest “proposals” and health scare stories about smoking – this is yet another rather pathetically-desperate attempt to put smoking and the smoking ban back at the top of the agenda and to bring it back to the public’s attention, from which it is so steadily waning, day by day.
And who knows? If this amendment does get slipped into the Act (and, like you, Frank, I think that there must surely be some resistance to this, or it would have been in there anyway) it might be just the push that pub landlords and club owners need to finally get off their backsides to make some effective joint protests against any further restrictions. After all, it’s much easier to get 100 or so people together to form some kind of joint action against the local council than it is to get tens of thousands to do the same against the Government. And of course there’s nothing like seeing your customers simply driving (or, indeed, walking in some locations) a little further to patronise another establishment which is still allowed to (semi) cater for their requirements (something which isn’t an option for us under the conditions of the existing ban) to galvanise people into standing up to these bullies and putting them firmly in their place. I wonder if maybe, just maybe, this might be precisely why any mention of extended/outside smoking bans was omitted in the first place – and indeed the reason why any such amendment will be given the political body-swerve. Perhaps, with the benefit of hindsight after the imposition of the original ban, politicians have, finally, recognised that there actually is such a thing as an “unintended consequence,” and perhaps their fingers are still feeling just a little bit burned ….
In a way, I hope this legislation passes. Unlike the smoking ban in pubs, an outside smoking ban is totally unworkable and better still totally unenforcible.
Let’s be brutally honest here, picture the scene, Stabby McChav (hat tip Joolz) and his mates all toking on their Bensons stood at the bus stop. Along comes local gobshite smoking enforcement warden, demanding a valid form of ID as he’s about to give the lads a fixed penalty notice for illegally smoking in public. Now one of two things are likely to happen here, one, young Stabby and his mates contrite and with sorrow, tearfully accept said FPN (Yeah right, like that’ll happen) or two, GSEW gets a long term spell on the sick and acquires a taste for hospital food.
They’ll just pick on little old ladies and women with kids, I hear you say, Not if every time they do, they’re surrounded by chain smoking ex-prop forwards with bent noses and cauliflower ears, enquiring as to “Ere mum, is this bloke giving you a hard time?”.
You’re right, of course.
But there’s another thing, which is that the current indoor smoking ban largely relies on a system of “collective punishment”. That is, smokers won’t light up in pubs not so much because they’ll be fined personally, but because the landlord or proprietor will be fined far more than they are. But with one of these outdoor smoking bans, there’s no landlord. So there’s no collective punishment. And so it’s up to the individual whether he’s daring enough to light up and (maybe) take the consequences. So Stabby McChav and his mates will be vying with each other to see who’s got the bottle to light up. And maybe quite a few other people will too.
A couple of questions come to mind.
If Gardner is conservative, then would it necessarily stand to logic that only the left-leaning local governments would implement the outdoor smoking bans, but that conservative leaning local governments might not do the same – since the proposal is coming from a conservative to begin with?
The other has to do with inside the US, I have read that anti-smoking tends to like getting smoking bans implemented at the state level first, so that it applies everywhere inside the state and local communities can not opt out – where-as tobacco lobbyists like to have local governments determine whether to enact smoking bans or not, simply for the fact it does allow people to go outside of communities that ban smoking into those that do not – thus hurting the economies of any local governments who dare ban smoking.
Thus requiring the bans be done on a local basis is more to the favour of the tobacco companies, smokers and related hospitality industries, where-as banning it at a higher government level is more to the favour of anti-smoking lobbyists/fake-charities.
If that is true, which I have read might be the case, then could it be the perpetrator of this bill is actually working in favour toward the tobacco companies, hospitality industry and smokers and against the interests of anti-smoking lobbyists/fake-charities – by proposing to push it to the local levels, knowing full well it would result in the “patchwork-effect” and thus hurt those communities that dare to ban smoking – thus discourging any more bans?
Other than anti-smoking playing on the prejudices it whips up in people to create spite to enact bans that ultimately favour expansion of the fake-health enterprises, self-serving fake-charities, certain politicians and pharmaceuticals as being the motivation for someone of conservative bent begging to create local patchworks of smoking/non-smoking outdoor-banned communities, could she in fact be being encouraged by tobacco and hospitality industry lobbyists – a strange bedfellow to be encouraging more bans extended to outdoors indeed – but could that be possible – as a devil’s advocate type of questioning, I wonder.
I think you’re right about antismokers wanting bans introduced at the highest possible level. If we had a world government, they’d want a world ban on smoking. Since we don’t have one, they go down to the next level, which is a national ban (or an EU ban). And so on down. It allows them to concentrate their limited forces on one objective at a time. The more dispersed their efforts, the less effective they are.
But I think it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest that this amendment is favoured by tobacco companies because of this, even if it is from their point of view, or from a smoker’s point of view, the least worse option. They would surely prefer that there not be any bans at all.
Article 8]
24. This creates an obligation to provide universal protection by ensuring that all indoor public places, all indoor workplaces, all public transport and possibly other (outdoor or quasi-outdoor) public places are free from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.
No exemptions are justified on the basis of health or law arguments.
If exemptions must be considered on the basis of other arguments, these should be minimal. In addition, if a Party is unable to achieve universal coverage immediately,
Article 8 creates a continuing obligation to move as quickly as possible to remove any exemptions and make the protection universal.”
Click to access art%208%20guidelines_english.pdf
“possibly other (outdoor or quasi-outdoor) ”
“possibly” does not mean mandatory, so it would appear to be something that we were NOT previously signed up to in secret for a change.
More than a million fewer smokers since 1998, UK
16th December, 2004
“On the same day as these statistics were published, the UK ratified the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.”
http://gov-news.org/gov/uk/news/more_than_a_million_fewer_smokers_since_1998/77507.html
I dumped my dentist years ago after the “twat” tried to lecture me on smoking.
I have an Asian dentist now who never mentions it,third worlders generally don’t seem to have the anti smoking neurosis, I am a private patient after all.
Oh and he’s a better dentist than the “twat” as well.
I’m quite surprised that there appears to be little interest from pro-choice bloggers on the build up to the UN summit on ‘non-communicable diseases’ set for 19/20 September, when it looks like it is a big event for the ‘healthianty’ movement and a major initiative from the WHO – calling for urgent action.
“Draft outcome document of the High-level Meeting on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases” -(Dated June 2011)
Click to access UN%20High-Level%20Summit%20Zero%20Draft.pdf
This is the first I became aware of it;
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/health/21stcentury-life-blamed-as-cancer.6832526.jp?articlepage=1
There has been quite a bit of media coverage about the increase in global ill health. Here is part of the build-up in Washington;
http://washingtonpostlive.com/conferences/ncds
I commented in this article;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/who-warns-of-growing-epidemic-of-premature-death-from-noncommunicable-diseases/2011/09/12/gIQANgtiPK_story.html
**
This WHO ‘warning’ is a work of art – in the selection and use of statistics to support their agenda.
Someone earlier asked what are ‘non-communicable diseases’. The answer is simple – It is just the new name for so called ‘SMOKE RELATED DISEASES’.
The reason for the change? The anti-smoking agenda has failed to prevent any diseases and in fact ‘smoke related diseases’ continue to increases at a rapid rate – They admit that Worldwide cancer has increased by a fifth in 6 years to 2008 – BUT- in the USA for instance Lung cancer has increased by a whopping 31% in 8 years to 2008!! DESPITE the substantial reduction in smokers!
They needed to break these frightening stats to the public – BUT rather than admit to abject failure – they merely blame the increases on other lifestyle choices and hope the public will not notice the damning evidence of the waste of $Billions of public money to denormalise smokers, and the anti-smoking agenda’s contribution to worsening public health. (Smoking has many health benefits such as preventing certain breast cancer, alzheimers, asthma etc.)
The reason for the release now, is to influence the forthcoming UN summit on “ncd’s, organised by the WHO to influence world leaders to impose MORE restrictions on individual liberty under the guise of ‘public health’!
They claim, and It may (or may not) be true, that 80% of ‘non-communicable’ diseases are in developing countries such as China – but the wide population difference would explain why; eg China’s pop alone is over 1.3 Billion. Look at the detail however and a damning picture emerges.
For instance, It is known that male smoke related disease in China, in percentage terms, is about half that in western developed countries where smoking prevalence is around half that of the Chinese.
eg. All cancers male (age adjusted);
USA – 407 per 100,000
China – 205 per 100,000
Male smoking rate;
China; around 60%
USA; around 25%
The contrast is even more stark in the heaviest smoking Asian countries; eg.
Indonesia; Male smoking rate nearly 70% :all cancer incidence rate, only 95 per 100,000 !!!
Less than ONE QUARTER the rate in USA (407 per 100,000). USA smoking rates are ONE THIRD that of Indonesia!
**
Does anyone agree with me?
Is this a rebranding exercise, much like from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change”?
“Non-communicable diseases” sounds so much better, doesn’t it? And suitably vague.
“Does anyone agree with me?”
Cancers are diseases associated with old age. If you have more old farts, you will have more cancers. :(
When countries are listed by life expectancy, we find these rankings and ages.
36. USA = 78.3 years
80. China = 73 years
110. Indonesia = 70.7 years.
You might consider working with data from here.
http://www.kidon.com/smoke/percentages.htm
Thats exactly how I see it Frank. It is a way of outing bad news and putting a different ‘spin’ on it. I have known for a long time that smoke related disease has been increasing despite the reduction is smoking and so they will have known too but it has been kept quiet. This simple fact challenges, to a large degree, all the anti-smoker ‘science’ of the past.
This is a re-branding to hide the failures of the anti-smoker campaign and being used to move their agenda forward in the hope that no one notices. I hope the ‘heads of state and their representatives’ who are the targets of this initiative are not deceived by it.
I hope the ‘heads of state and their representatives’ who are the targets of this initiative are not deceived by it.
I wouldn’t bank on it. They’ve been totally taken in by all the other cr*p – why not this lot, too?
1. ‘Diseases’, by definition, are communicable.Any ‘condition’ which is not ‘communicable’ is not ‘a disease’. OK? DO NOT ACCEPT THEIR VOCABULARY!!!! In the same way, we must not accept SHS ‘harm’ – the antis must prove ‘danger’.
2. I do not think that there is any need for ‘conspiracies’ and ‘ulterior motives’ here. The woman is simply a ‘front organisation’. She is a creature of ASH.
3. How much expertize does she she have about anything? From Wikipedia: “”She was ennobled for her two decades of community and local government work”” – she was a dentist – she was also a JP. What does she know about the science of SHS? Why should she believe that Local Authority Councillors know anything about SHS?
4. Is this not a clear example of the reason that the House of Lords should be reformed? By ‘reformed’, I mean ‘RE-FORMED’. Some time ago, the ‘hereditaries’ were chucked out. Is it not time that the ”politicals’ to be chucked out? If ever there was evidence that they should, this is it.
5. She is just another ‘silly, old moo’.
‘Diseases’, by definition, are communicable.
Hmmm… A disease is surely a “dis-ease”, i.e. a lack of ease or comfort. And there are surely plenty of such diseases which are not communicable. Any disease that is due to a diet deficiency isn’t going to be communicable. And I don’t think that most cancers are communicable either. Also any disease which is the result of a genetic defect. There are probably quite a few of them. So I don’t think that I’d knock her for that.
What I do object to however is the idea that there is a smoking or tobacco or obesity ‘epidemic’. I don’t think smokers or fat people are diseased. And they aren’t diseased because these people aren’t suffering a ‘lack of ease’ because they smoke or are a bit tubby. They are ‘diseases’ which are not only not communicable, but which also don’t have any adverse symptoms either.