Flag of inconvenience
Saturday, June 30, 2018 at 12:22 
Is there no haven, however inaccessible, where smokers can light up without being harassed?
The government of one the world’s most remote islands and Britain’s second oldest oversees territory (after Bermuda) is going ‘smoke-free’.
With effect from tomorrow St Helena Government (SHG) will become a ‘Smoke-Free Government’.
The decision to ban staff and members of the public from smoking on any government site, including car parks and terraces, is baffling to say the least.
The island - a volcanic outpost in the South Atlantic Ocean - is so windy its new airport has been dubbed “one of the most dangerous” in the world.
Light up and there's every chance that the tiny whiff of smoke you've just exhaled will be halfway to Africa before you’ve taken your next puff.
Despite this the SHG insists that "second-hand smoke ... is a health risk in outdoor areas as well as indoors."
I can't be sure but I suspect that our own Government may be behind the new policy. After all, if you want to benefit from the UK’s international aid budget, going 'smoke free' is now de rigueur.
That airport didn't fund itself and the SHG may have calculated that banning smoking on all government property was a small price to pay.
Either way, anyone who thinks that living on a rock in the middle of the ocean is one way to beat the prohibitionists, think again.
Where there's a Union Flag flying there's no escape.
Reader Comments (3)
Hatred is trendy and mainstream as long as it is aimed at the right sort. People are allowed to hate smokers, exclude them, abuse them and impose any kind of intolerant and harmful treatment on them including dehumanising,, stigmatising and otherising them all in the false name of health.
The hysteria continues. This is especially sad considering there is essentially no risk to others from second hand smoke inside or outdoors. The relentless tobacco control propaganda, desire for totalitarian control, and suppression of dissenting research wins again. The losers? Liberty, Choice, Rational Governance, and of course smokers...
Not just smokers. The dominoes are falling. What next? Junk food free? Alcohol free? Fizzy drinks free? Car free? Smoking and smokers are the gatekeepers of liberty. Remove them and the flood gates open for total authoritarianism and selfish intolerance against anything someone else enjoys.