Thursday
May162013
UKIP and the smoking ban
Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 14:18 
Next week's Morning Advertiser will feature Forest's ongoing campaign to amend the smoking ban.
In addition to a four-page cover wrap, the pub trade's only weekly publication will include my response to a series of questions about the ban.
I'll post the article in full when it's published next week.
This morning Dan Donovan dug out a picture he took of Farage speaking at the launch of Forest's Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign in 2009.
I've posted it above. Spot Ranald Macdonald, MD of Boisdale and a member of our Supporters Council, in the background.
From the same event, here's another photo. Whatever happened to them, I wonder?!
Reader Comments (9)
Gentlemen prefer blondes'
That striking blonde holding the pint is my type of girl!
I wonder who she is?
Oh dear Dennis. I can almost guarantee that you are not her kind of man. Perhaps if you took your mind off of your personal and irrelevant preferences and focussed on the issues we could make some progress.
Sarah Wollaston would do well to remember that the Conservatives voted against the blanket ban by a majorty of 125 to 47 (from memory), so the party was very much the party of freedom of the individual - even if that did include "booze and fags".
The fact that people like her have been allowed to infect the party with socialist nannying attitudes speaks volumes for why so many people are deserting the Tories and joining UKIP.
It also explains why I ceased to be a member of the Conservative party in March 2006, a couple of weeks after the Health Bill was voted on by the Commons, and one day after a conversation with my MP (Andrew Plebgate) made it clear that the party would not repeal the smoking ban once back in power.
I have voted UKIP at every opportunity since then (or spoiled my paper if there was no UKIP candidate) and I am tempted to become a member, but only when I can have complete confidence that this policy won't be dropped by UKIP if (when) the political opposition intensifies.
As far as I am concerned, my party - for whom I had voted on every occasion since I was first able to vote in 1970 - has abandoned me, not the other way round.
It also seems that Wollaston actually joined the Conservative party after I left. That figures!
Good luck with the ongoing campaign. We must never let this awful piece of legislation rest on the statute book. It has to be changed.
The smoking ban has decimated the social lives of thousands, particularly elderly people many of whom no longer go out to bingo or their local now even once a week. It means many are excluded from society.
Not to mention losing more than twelve thousand pubs, plus clubs, bingo halls and cafes. The solution to amend the ban is obvious, The Conservatives claiming to be the party of big business, don't care about pubs and clubs or peoples right to have a social life even or they would have amended the smoking ban.
This is not just about choice. People have a right to be treated with dignity and UKIP is the only party listening.
BrianB:
Strangely about the same time I ceased to be a member of the Labour party. Funny old world, isn't it :-)
@ Dennis.
Don't be silly - can't you recognise her? That's Deb Arnott of course! Erm.... or is it Nathanson? Not sure really.....
Sometimes I feel some of these Tory MP's should be in the Labour party. Recently I was involved in the County elections in Dartford, there are many pubs, and a few clubs, so we started giving out UKIP beer mats and every pub we went into they welcomed us with open arms, they put our mats out on the tables, and one landlord and landlady ask me how do we join UKIP, (they received a membership form a few days ago). On the day of the vote count, witch was over by midday we all went out for a few drinks and a meal to celebrate, we didn't win any seats in Dartford but we all did extremely well, we decided to go to a well known pub, in the town centre when we entered we were all wearing our rosettes, within 10 minutes the manager came out and was so pleased to see us all, fully supported us and asked if she could have some beer mats. Believe me the publicans I've engage with in Dartford fully support UKIP's save the pub campaign.
Again many thanks to Simon Clarke. He is doing a sterling job for us smokers and I can't wait for the day when we can smoke in pubs again here. It's right that the campaign has no political tag but its great that UKIP would relax The Ban if in Power. So I am voting UKIP in the next election!
In addition to the comments above, I propose the Tories do a swap with Labour - Wollaston in return for Hoey.