Wednesday
Nov022011
PM "nervous" about banning smoking in cars carrying children
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 15:28 The Press Association reports that 'David Cameron has distanced himself from plans to ban adults smoking in cars with children present.'
I shall be discussing the subject on LBC (with James Whale) in approximately 30 minutes (ie just after 4.00pm).
The BBC has the story too.
Note how differently they cover the story, from the headline 'Cameron hails smoking ban' to the implication that despite the PM's misgivings the government will have a "serious think" about banning smoking in cars.
One story, two interpretations. Fancy that.
PS. James Whale (LBC) told me on air that I am charming but I talk a load of rubbish. Pot. Kettle. Black.
Reader Comments (18)
The only reason the smoking ban appears to be a success is because of the punitive fines imposed upon individuals and landlords if they are found breaking the law.
There never was a public consultation, but a public sector consultation i.e., the government asking itself through quangos set up with taxpayers money.
If you ask Smokefree Northwest if the smoking ban is a good idea, they would never say no would they?
If you want to know how successful the ban has been, then ask the people most affected by it – smokers themselves.
or the Publicans themselves
The smoking ban has worked only in the sense that people don't smoke in pubs much. It hasn't cause smokers to give up and if the landlords weren't at risk of large fines it would be working about as well as the ban on using a mobile while driving. Most pubs would have an unofficial smoking room.
'The Ban Has Worked' might be a substitute 'Inn sign' over an ancient building in my town, a pub since 1832, now boarded up and with a gutter hanging forlornly down. A bleak smoking shelter (I think) can be seen beyond the garden wall. Other hostelries are going 'gastro' with varying results. The ban on smoking in pubs has indeed worked, Mr Cameron, if its aim was to close pubs down and destroy centuries of neighbourliness. Your government could right a wrong done to those people, the customers and landlords who have no voice where 'opinion' is formed. And who now have no choice.
**Groan** They missed me out again! Nobody asked me Mr bloody Cunningham!
The BBC is hopelessly biased on the subject of public health as this example once again demonstrates. They are incapable of reporting anything to do with tobacco, alcohol or obesity without applying spin.
Good luck with James Whale. He's a complete authoritarian who want laws banning virtually anything you can think of. He thinks he's a "shock jock" but dreary old bore would be a better description. I listen to his show for a few minutes sometimes until he starts calling for new laws for everything. A real CCTV in the family home merchant, "if you've got nothing to hide" etc.
I wouldn't even bother going on his show if I were you, you'll just get a drearily predictable diatribe of self righteousness.
"Cameron hails smoking ban" - That's just lost the Conservatives a few more votes then.
Who would have thought they could afford to chuck 'em away :>)
...the ban on smoking in pubs "has worked".
'Faint praise' methinks. Not exactly 'resounding success'. Probably the best soundbite option that he had to hand - almost meaningless.Let's hope that it means, "Now that it has worked, there is no longer any need for the vastly expensive tobacco control network in the Health Dept and elsewhere" Prime cost cutting territory I would imagine.
Well, it's 'worked' in terms of people not smoking in Pubs. Lack of tangible improvements in health, any reductions in smoking or Pub closures aren't the issues as far as they're concerned.
The only concern is that they are obeyed and people don't smoke in Pubs. As there hasn't been any civil disobedience, wholesale disregard, riots in the streets or civil war, Yep, it's worked.
Nice to know Govts. now measure success by what they can get away with and no longer what they consider people might want.
About a week or two ago I read that Cameron was still smoking. ASH commented saying that they were not surprised as he has a very stressful job.
Yes, I read he's still smoking. He'll be smoking at the G20 where, I'm sure they'll have a smoking lounge; just as they did at Canary Wharf.
see: http://www.people.co.uk/news/politics/2011/10/09/david-cameron-is-back-on-the-cigarettes-102039-23476035/
"About a week or two ago I read that Cameron was still smoking. ASH commented saying that they were not surprised as he has a very stressful job."
Of course, the rest of us PBI don't have anything to worry about. We've no excuse. We're just killers.
So he should have a serious think before taking that step!
Ban people from smoking in cars with children present is likely to end up killing more people, including the children!
A smoker finds that smoking whilst driving aids concentration and reduces stress, of which there is plenty on today's roads. Children in cars can be the MOST distracting and stressful thing there is. If the driver feels the need for a smoke and either doesn't light up because of the law or does and tries to be covert about it, he/she is more likely to have an accident. This could not only be far more harmful to his/her children but to other roadusers, including other children.
Drivers rarely smoke in cars without the window being open and the smoke is drawn out of the window anyway. Not only that, there is no proper or conclusive scientific evidence that SHS causes any harm whatsoever. If it did then the generation that is now living longer than any other generation should all have died a long, long time ago, probably in their prime, if they got that far!
Finally, before anyone says it - stopping and getting out for a smoke is good, but it is not the same as actually having a smoke whilst driving, especially when the kids are kicking off in the back!
Government need to BACK OFF and STOP running our lives, particularly in such minute detail - that is not what they are there to do. It seems to me that whilst they have been so busy working out ways of nannying us the country has gone to hell in a handbasket! They should get back to the job they were elected to do - RUN THE COUNTRY - NOT OUR LIVES!!! If they did this we might just have a country left to rebuild! Currently it is most definitely NOT a country I am proud of nor proud to be associated with!
The Greeks, French and Dutch, to name a few, have certainly had the right ideas and it is about time we stopped being total whimps and took a very large leaf from their books.
I’ve always thought that the purpose of the smoking ban, despite all the rhetoric, was precisely to destroy the traditional British pub. I see all sorts of things that indicate that this is so, not least that part of the Health Act which allows the Secretary of State to amend the any of the regulations whenever he sees fit without having to consult Parliament - with the specific exception of licensed premises. So that if we suddenly got a massively anti-ban Secretary of State (fat chance!), he could in theory repeal virtually the whole of the smoke-free premises section except for in pubs, clubs and restaurants. What earthly reason could there be for making this exception unless that was the prime reason, and thus the most vital part, of the regulations in the first place?
This is how I interpret all those proudly trumpeted claims of “overwhelming success.” Seen from that point of view, the ban has been probably more successful than its (real) architects could possibly ever have dreamed of. Politicians know that most members of the public will misinterpret what they really mean by “success” and it suits them very well to allow that public to continue with this misconception. And because the reason for the ban was to destroy the traditional British pub (which it has done very thoroughly), it’s “job done” – hence Cameron’s rather lukewarm response to this (and previous) witterings about extending the ban to other areas. It’s not because he gives a tinker’s cuss about civil liberties – it’s because the ban has achieved its true aim, so extending it simply isn’t necessary.
The ban was never about health, any more than any reluctance to extend it is about personal choice or freedom. Call me a raging conspiracy theorist if you will (and, these days, you’d probably be right) but I can’t help but see faint shadows of the heavy, homogenising hand of the EU, ultimately, behind it.
Misty - the EU pushed for it and continues to push for it across Europe and the EU even has it's own army of state funded smoke free scroungers pushing lies as fact and guesses and assumptions as research.
So you are right to suspect the hand of the EU. Without it there would be no smoking ban or certainly there would be an element of choice because fairness until recent years has always been the British way.
The EU is dangerous to the peace and stability of Europe and we should get out asap. Being skint as a country and then rebuilding is much better than hurtling towards war in Europe which is the only place I fear the EU will take us.
However, I'm more inclined to think this war will be between the people and their govts rather than countries against countries. We all want out freedoms back. No one asked to become part of the Communist East where votes make no difference, citizens do as they are told, and fear is the guiding and controlling principle.
I agree that adults should not smoke in the cars when their children are aboard. Children will inhale the so called secondhand smoke.