‘Libertarian’ Tory MP wants restrictions on smoking outside pubs and cafes

A Conservative MP is calling for new rules on smoking if the Government relaxes the lockdown on pubs and restaurants with outside seating.

Mark Pritchard, MP for The Wrekin, told the Shropshire Star:

“If cafes, restaurants and pubs with outside areas open next week then new rules on smoking in external public areas should be introduced by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

“Outside seating should not be dominated by smokers exposing customers to secondary smoke."

As it happens this is not the first time Pritchard has complained about smoking outside cafes. Last year, in a debate about heated tobacco, he told fellow MPs:

“As a non-smoker, I think there is nothing worse than sitting outside a café in London or Shropshire and having my lungs full of somebody else’s smoke, or indeed trying to walk to Parliament and taking in a street full of smokers’ smoke.”

Could he therefore be using the Covid crisis to further a personal anti-smoking agenda? I think we all know the answer to that.

If restrictions were introduced we also know there is a strong possibility they will never been lifted.

But wait, what’s this? In the same debate last year Pritchard added:

“Having said that, I am a libertarian - if people want to smoke, they should be free to do so.”

But not, it seems, inside and or outside cafes, pubs and restaurants.

One thing I do agree with him on is this: “the campaign against smoking is not over” he told MPs.

You can say that again and it’s because of people like Mark Pritchard.

As for calling himself a “libertarian” while complaining about some mythical street “full of smokers’ smoke”, he’s either a fantasist or he’s having a laugh.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

He is a smokerphobic. They do exist especially in fake libertarians. It is down to your hate campaign tobacco control - and I know you are watching what we say here. Creeps.