dom.blog

So there will be a free vote on the issue of a smoking ban. And Patricia Hewitt will vote against official Government policy, says the BBC. And if the fox hunting vote is any guide, the Commons will take the complete ban over the compromise ban which left out pubs which don’t serve food and private clubs. It needs to be so, and here’s why.

Firstly, one must be convinced of the need for some sort of smoking ban at all. Now, I believe that criminalising self-harm is a mistake. It doesn’t work (see what happened to drugs?) and you’re treading on extremely dodgy ground civil liberties wise. But this has never been about self-harm – it’s about the very real threat of passive smoking.

You might think that exempting some places from the ban would therefore be a good compromise – because people could choose whether to put themselves at risk or not. The trouble is that the staff still have to work there, and for much longer periods of time than you will. Not to mention the fallacy that there will necessarily be another pub conveniently located nearby.

If the Government’s version was passed, these are the dangers:

• You encourage pubs to stop serving food, which is exactly the opposite of what we should be encouraging given the binge-drinking problem.
• You complicate and confuse the legislation and the message.
• You promote cynicism about your eventual goals anyway. It’s no secret that the Government was planning a ‘review’ in a few years time, or that a future Government would inevitably head this way.
• Our legislation look like a fudge compared to Scotland, Wales, Ireland and others.
• You simply leave open too many loopholes leaving bar and waiting staff vulnerable.

A partial ban would still have been better than nothing, but now that we’ve got the chance to do the real thing, let’s go for it.

My Maths teacher wondered that today. David Cameron is working fast to ditch decades of Tory opposition to redistribution, universial NHS healthcare and – well bascially everything Labour has always been right about. If 1994 was “How I learned to stop worrying and love social democracy” for the Labour party the Tories seem to be undergoing a similar experience now. They might be ditching conservatism instead of socialism, but it’s the same difference. Hooray!

Oh, and to hear the howls of anguish from the right. They didn’t think Cameron really meant change, they thought he meant a new logo and a smiling face on top of scummy old policies like the Patient’s Passport. (Also known as the ‘we still hate the NHS’ policy.) All the more extraordinary that he isn’t doing just that given that he wrote the damn manifesto only last year.

You have to feel sympathetic for Charles Kennedy in all this. He’s a capable politican but honestly, the Liberal Democrats are not where the action is. Surely the internal pressure to move right to occupy the Conservative space will grow now that Cameron is marching leftwards? I don’t know – but it isn’t looking good for them.

I have to mention George Galloway joining the Big Brother house. Ever since he phoned up Nic and shouted at him for something I wrote on DomSez I haven’t been too well disposed to Georgie so I’m a little sorry it isn’t I’m a Celebrity but oh well, this is good enough.

I checked out RESPECT’s website to see if they would mention it, but no, it’s a whine about London’s public transport. (How original.) This article annoys me especially because it’s utterly misleading – prices may be rising for paper tickets but are actually falling for Oyster, which is, uh, the whole point of the scheme! As for making ‘the City and Canary Wharf’ pay – how exactly would one accomplish this? Oh, it’s not even worth it. Enjoy your stay in the Big Brother house George. I hope you pay your own bus fare to get there.