Cameron's 'good life' undermined by excessive state intervention
Wednesday, April 15, 2015 at 9:45 Got to hand it to Nigel Farage.
According to the Telegraph this morning, Ukip will today unveil an election manifesto that includes amending the smoking ban to allow separate, well-ventilated smoking rooms in pubs.
The party would also repeal the plain packaging law.
Meanwhile the Tory manifesto, published yesterday, contains the following gratuitous reference to plain packaging and the tobacco display ban:
We are helping people to stay healthy by ending the open display of tobacco in shops, introducing plain-packaged cigarettes and funding local authority public health budgets.
That's quite a kick in the teeth for the 104 Tory MPs, most of whom are standing again, who voted against plain packaging only five weeks ago.
Many of them also voted against the display ban.
Imagine having to promote a manifesto that includes policies you fundamentally disagree with.
Was it really necessary to include like badges of honour policies that have already been passed by parliament?
The display ban wasn't even supported by the Conservatives until this parliament. The legislation - opposed by the Tories in opposition - was introduced by the last Labour government.
Still, at least we know where we stand. In the name of 'health' expect more nanny state policies from a Cameron-led government.
The result is I am slowly coming round to the opinion, expressed by several people on this blog, that a vote for any Conservative MP (even small state Conservatives) will merely encourage the party to pursue more interventionist policies.
As for Ukip, I have a lot of time for Farage, Suzanne Evans, Stephen Woolfe, Douglas Carswell and one or two others, but the pool of talent is shallow.
The MEP who represented the party in the Scottish leaders' debate in Aberdeen last week was an embarrassment and there are too many like him.
I've never had this quandary before. I've voted Conservative ever since I was old enough to vote in 1979.
I don't consider myself a floating voter and I'm not losing sleep over it (the election campaign is far too boring for that), but I'll say this - Ukip's manifesto has made me think.
Reader Comments (10)
#WeSmokeWevote If UKIP gets a very good share of the vote, even if they don't win, it shows that there is support for freedom of choice and that many voters are dismayed at the Nanny/Bully state interference.
I have a UKIP poster in my window with a home made sign saying #WeSmokeWeVote next to it so any other party candidate who passes my house knows exactly where I stand and why.
The only people punishing good MPs who believe in freedom and treating people as adults are those MPs leaders and the unelected quangos they support.
The abuse of smokers by the 3 main parties is totally unacceptable .
If you've voted Conservative all your life then this election is definitely the time for a change.
It's not just smoking issues. The Conservatives are backing the nanny state in all it's forms. Until they quit it with that, there's no reason to vote for them as it will only encourage them.
Particularly now, with UKIP putting the frighteners on them
I truly believe that we, the people of common sense, have got to stand up and be counted Simon, which is why I am standing for UKIP in our local elections on May 7th. Leicester is an area where multiculturalism has gone berserk with more foriegn tongues in the city than born 'n' bred English folk!
Leicester is also a city that imposed an elected mayor upon the people through disgraceful tactics of a 52/54 strong Labour Council. he is a career politician simply ending his days suckling on the public teat of wealthy wagepackets..... and crippling this city in the process!
Leicester is also a city that has persecuted shisha bar owners beyond all reasonability as our 'beloved elected mayor' is a complete smoker hater.
Leicester is also now a city where 33% of the city centre shops sit empty courtesy of rates & rents!..... But the idiots keep voting labour!
UKIP, will be the second party in Leicester at these elections as more and more people are now beginning to realise just what any Lib/Lab/Con government is goin g to do-ignore the people. I may well not be elected Simon but I sure as hell am not going to sit back like many others and simply say "well what can we do??????"
I urge all people, smokers & non smoker alike to get off their backsides and vote for the ONLY party that will right this country.
>>The abuse of smokers by the 3 main parties is totally unacceptable .
The Greens and SNP are even worse!
Patrick O'Flynn's just been interviewed on R4 and expressly stated UKIP's intention to get rid of "sock puppet charities" and referred to the Tories' failed promise to have a "bonfire of the quangoes".
As usual, the disdain of the Beeb interviewer (in this case Martha Kearney) was barely disguised but O'Flynn pulled her up after which her manner became distinctly warmer.
A clip of George Osborne followed in which he lectured voters on the consequence of voting for a minority party, public-spirited soul that he is....
I believe that Cameron is in part directly and personally to blame for the perpetuation of the bully state. Someone senior must be pulling the strings for what ought to be embarrassing public health drivel appearing in the manifesto.
As a disillusioned liberal I didn't vote Tory last time around because of something Cameron said about wanting to rename he NHS the National Public Health Service.
There are reasons why so little separates the Tories from Labour and socialist bully boy Dave is one of them.
Perhaps like policy ASH is now writing LibLabCon party manifestos too.
I'll stick with UKIP now, enjoy the greater support it will get this year and watch the political revolution finally happen in 2020.
It is getting more professional and as it continues to grow from the grass roots up it will attract more talent.
There are plenty of talented people out there with innovative and truly progressive ideas who are not picked up by other parties due to their discriminatory selection processes that choose on just about anything other than merit.
Correction.
It wasn't the NHS.
Cameron wanted to rename the DoH the Department of Public Health.
Here is the story in The Guardian that prevented me from voting Conservative in 2010.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/nov/02/cameron-rename-department-of-health
My friend a life long Tory supporter was all set to personally drive me to the polling station before this set alarm bells ringing and I changed my mind.
Apparently we were to see an end to professionals answering to bureaucrats and the birth of a new era in which they answered to patients. I presume that smokers were excluded from Dave's thinking when he was spouting this rubbish.
Has anyone noticed the promised reduction in DoH bureaucracy yet?
Nobody in front line healthcare has for sure. Dave has been far too busy rewarding extremist public health campaigners.
On the radio earlier today, one LBC presenter was asking why, in the light of the question asked by a journalist at the manifesto launch today, people are still banging on about UKIP being a racist party. Laudably, the presenter himself stated very firmly that he did NOT think they were a racist party and made it clear that he wasn’t prepared to get into a debate about whether or not they were. His question was: “Why are people still saying this when people have, by and large, recognised that questioning the levels of immigration was nothing to do with “being racist.” Most people who rang in were very supportive and several had some interesting theories. But, on thinking about it myself, it occurs to me that anyone who feels threatened by UKIP – either because they are members of one of the newly-threatened Big Three parties, or because they are emotionally wedded to voting for them and are looking for an excuse not to change their lifelong voting habits, or because they work for one of the papers who are wedded to one of the parties and they’re under instructions from their editors – will keep up this “racist” tag for the simple reason that that’s all they’ve got left. It's old news and it's well past its sell-by date, but when needs must, I guess journalists just have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for ancient insults that used to work ...
But now that UKIP’s manifesto is out, there are few policies that many people would reasonably object to. The odd tiny minority might squeal a bit, of course, at their own personal Holy Cows being snatched from them – dedicated anti-smokers, really devoted EU-lovers, and dyed-in-the-wool extreme-left Socialists, for example – but in truth this is a tiny, tiny number of people in the population as a whole. Most of the people I know have pretty much nodded in agreement with all of them - even those who are considering voting other than UKIP, when asked to guess, fondly say that they think that they are from the manifesto of the party they intended to vote for! (It's always a good moment when you tell them whose policies they actually are).
Yes, UKIP are an “unknown quantity;” yes, they’re untried and untested; and, yes, they’re a new party, so they don’t have the pool of experienced, well-known politicians to choose from. So, yes, they’d be a risk. But balancing out these factors – which may be playing a part in discouraging some people from voting from them – is the fact that they simply couldn’t be any worse than the Governments we’ve had in place for the last God knows how many decades. That’s just not possible, especially if you’re a smoker. And as all three of the Big Three parties don’t look as if they have any intention of changing their intrusive, interfering ways (indeed they seem to be positively proud of them), then it must surely now be worth taking that risk. And I’d bet that if UKIP make a good showing in this General Election, we’d see a lot more defections of some very talented politicians from all three of the major parties, including, possibly many of the ones mentioned in your list, Simon, who – like the general public – must surely be getting pretty fed up with their parties’ constantly ignoring them and carrying on regardless …
Fingers crossed for you on the 7th, Phil! Get in there!!