Some people say the most stupid things
Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 10:40 Covid, like Brexit, does the weirdest things to people.
Prof A C Grayling, a highly regarded academic, is now better known by many people for his persistent and intemperate anti-Brexit outbursts.
Entrepreneur Luke Johnson, former chairman of the Royal Society of Arts and Channel 4, has also been driven a little mad, but not by Brexit.
Yesterday, responding to the PM’s latest Covid briefing, Boris’ namesake tweeted:
We are now paying the price for surrendering our basic rights and freedoms so cheaply last year. This lying and incompetent govt seem unwilling to return them. So many seem to enjoy living under house arrest in a tyranny.
Living under house arrest in a tyranny? If you say so, Luke, but as I explained a couple of weeks ago I have visited political dissidents living under an authoritarian government and I can assure you that what we are currently experiencing in Britain does not bear any comparison with their experience.
Then again, it’s not the first time Luke Johnson has over-reacted. Twenty-one years ago, for example:
Restaurant boss Luke Johnson stormed out of the BBC's Back To The Floor programme when he found life in the kitchen of his Belgo Centraal restaurant too hot.
The multi-millionaire - who has Belgo restaurants in five places around the world - was told to chop onions at Belgo's in Covent Garden.
But after an earful from the head chef, Tony La Castro, he tore his microphone off and told the film crew to "stick your programme".
It’s also worth noting this passage from a 2004 profile in the Guardian:
Mr Johnson is aggressively anti-smoking and has been known to storm out of parties when too many people have lit up. In his writing, he has often criticised the tobacco industry, asking why protesters target oil and drug firms when Big Tobacco kills so many.
I don’t know if Luke Johnson supports the smoking ban. I would guess he does. The irony is that the current loss of liberty he complains about can arguably be traced back to that ban.
In fact, to use Johnson’s own words, we are “now paying the price for surrendering our basic rights and freedoms so cheaply” not in 2020 but in 2006 when MPs voted for a comprehensive public smoking ban.
Overnight property rights and the freedom to choose were torn asunder on the precautionary principle that the health of some bar workers might be at risk if they were exposed to so-called secondhand smoke.
Evidence of harm? Very little.
It’s an extreme position but I know some smokers who feel as if they’ve been under house arrest since the smoking ban was enforced. Or, to put in another way, “Smokers have been in lockdown since 2007.”
Unable to smoke in the pub and facing increasing restrictions on smoking in the open air, you can understand why some smokers might think like this.
In response, anti-smoking activists dismiss that as nonsense. Far from being excluded from society, smokers are very welcome to spend an evening in the pub on one small condition - that they don’t light up in comfort, indoors.
Describing smokers as under “house arrest” is probably going too far, but it’s no more silly than the argument that we are currently living under house arrest thanks to the Government’s Covid regulations.
My point is simply this. When smoking was banned in all indoor public places - even places with separate smoking rooms or good air filtration systems - where were all the lovers of liberty who are now complaining about restrictions imposed to combat an infectious global epidemic?
To be clear, I believe we must have faith in the vaccine and that the current restrictions must be lifted - albeit cautiously - taking into account the number of adults that have been vaccinated with at least one jab (30 million) or are still at serious risk from Covid (an increasingly small number).
Where I draw the line is the absurd suggestion that, until every restriction has been lifted, we are living under some sort of tyranny.
Not only is this far from most people’s experience, it is profoundly insulting to the millions of people who have lived and suffered at the hands of genuine tyrants.
As I explained a couple of weeks ago (Soviet dissidents put Covid freedom fighters to shame), I met political dissidents in the USSR in the early Eighties and the daily restrictions on their liberties (enforced with the threat of long-term imprisonment) bear no relation to anything we might currently be experiencing.
In fact, the idea that we are ‘living under house arrest in a tyranny’ is frankly obscene.
But what do I know? I’m just someone who has observed genuine tyrannies for over 40 years and can tell the difference.
Unfortunately, in today’s febrile headline-grabbing environment, there are many who can’t.
Reader Comments (3)
The self righteous and entitled attitude of antismokers like Johnson is something we all have to put up with today.
It isn't an extremist position if you smoked practically all your life and found yourself welcome and catered for everywhere to suddenly find you are treated like a second class citizen for no other reason that you refuse to be politically manipulated and you disagree profoundly with the bullshit used to exclude you.
And worse, any old Tom, Dick or Luke are encouraged to look upon smokers as enemies of the state who stop everyone living in their perfect utopia because they are "too stupid or too selfish to quit smoking" and live how anti smokers expect them to.
As you say, there was no evidence to suggest we were killing bar staff, many of whom lost their jobs after the ban when their pubs then closed down, and indeed, even the anti smoker industry never mentions bar staff now when gloating about the ban but rather that it helped to force smokers to quit by making them socially unacceptable.
To me, saying a smoker can come in a pub, bar or other public place, but leave the cigs behind, is like saying a gay couple are perfectly entitled to book into a B&B together as long as they have separate rooms, or don't hold hands in the breakfast room.
Smokers smoke. You cannot have one without the other. If we really are an inclusive and diverse society, smokers would be allowed to freely associate with other smokers in their own bars , hotels, cafes, restaurants and pubs.
A blanket smoking ban with no avenue for choice, and the anti social war against smokers with a view to inciting hatred, disgust and stigmatisation remains the most extremist and discriminatory act by goverrnment this century.
For the first time since 2007, the pampered anti smokers like Johnson are getting a taste of what the last 14 miserable years have been like for smokers. I honestly think that without the precedent of the smoking ban legitimising exclusion and making extremism from Government acceptable, there is no way we would be facing lockdowns now.
I think they would have found another way but the smoking ban proved people are pushovers and will put up with anything if they can be made scared enough.
Smoking bans are the ultimate affront to liberty. They are based on lies (manipulated data and omissions) and extreme biases. The alleged harm is not supported by the data and the data that directly contradicts the tobacco control position is suppressed.
A small group of fanatics promoted the smoking ban to sate their personal grievance. That is tyranny. Smoking bans must be reviewed and amended to allow choice and end the persecution union of smokers.
"My point is simply this. When smoking was banned in all indoor public places - even places with separate smoking rooms or good air filtration systems - where were all the lovers of liberty who are now complaining about restrictions imposed to combat an infectious global epidemic?"
Unable to comprehend that they were putting their own necks on the block in the fullness of time. As Pat said, it set a precedent in law, and they do breathe whether people can see it or not.