Fair play to The Spectator.
The magazine has outdone itself this week with a cover and feature article whose headline says it all: ‘How the Tories gave up on liberty’.
Written by Kate Andrews, the magazine’s economics editor, it should be read by every Conservative MP.
Referring to both the generational tobacco ban and the proposed ban on disposable vapes, she writes:
It’s difficult to take away established rights and legal products from adults who already enjoy them. What this government plans to do instead is to take them away from those who are less likely to complain. You don’t miss what you never knew.
That’s why the proposed legislation is so cowardly. The prime minister is picking on a minority whose numbers (in relation to smoking tobacco) have been in decline for decades and are currently at their lowest recorded levels in every age group.
That’s why we’ve read and heard so little about the generational ban in recent weeks. It won’t affect most people, including existing adult smokers, so few people - including newspaper editors - care.
Those that do are dismissed as a ‘tiny minority of the electorate’ whose views, presumably, are irrelevant.
But Kate Andrews has an answer to that:
More important than any single piece of evidence [about the health risks] is that adults should have the right to make personal choices about how they live their lives. Smokers will die younger on average, but this is a risk they are informed about on every cigarette packet.
Crucially, she adds:
It’s not simply smoking that MPs are about to phase out of existence, but the principle that a person should be allowed to determine his or her own destiny.
If you’re a subscriber, you may have read the article already. If you’re not I urge you to buy a copy and send it to your MP, if he or she is a Conservative.
We can dream, but it may give some pause for thought before many of them vote, with Labour MPs, to ban the sale of tobacco to all future generations of adults in the UK.
PS. One Conservative MP who will almost certainly vote against the ban is Philip Davies. (If he doesn’t I’ll be very disappointed!)
I’m pleased to say that next week Philip is hosting a small reception at the House of Commons to address this very issue.
It’s not a big event but it is already fully subscribed. More to follow …
