I hate cigarettes. I loathe smoking. But if smoking is legal, then surely the consumer has the right to choose the brand of cigarette he or she wishes to smoke, and the cigarette companies have the right to design the packets in any way they want to, as long as they include the government health warning.
The proposal to ban any form of branding of cigarette packaging is a ridiculous overreaction by cowardly nanny staters. They also want to ban the public display of packets of cigarettes and for them to be sold from under the counter on the basis of what the eye doesn't see...
The real agenda of the people behind these authoritarian proposals is to ban smoking outright. At least that would be an intellectually honest position. As it is, the constant chipping away of the rights of smokers is typical of the authoritarian drift among so-called health professionals.
Either ban it outright or leave people to make their own decisions.
..yes , and fishing , and drinking , and hunting and where are so called Liberal Party whenever a Libertarian issue crops up.
ReplyDeleteNowhere
Quite agree Ian.
ReplyDeleteI have fiends who are tobacconists, that would be their livelihood destroyed over night.
A proper tobacconist shop at that, not the local papershop selling fags. Going into their shop is an experience in itself, with the aromas from the different tobaccos to be savoured. A whole myriad of Cigar boxes, and pipe tobaccos in glass jars, hand rolling tobacco, pipes, pipe knives, cigar cutters etc. As you say this is all legal, who the F$£$ do these nanny state politicians think they are saying all this must now go under cover?
I do like the smell of fresh tobacco, can't stand second hand fag smoke and enjoy the smell from a lit pipe burning a fragant blend. I am slso an Ex smoker.
It really is tine for Dave to come of age and start behaving like a proper opposition leader, he let the 10p Tax through with hardly a whimper when it was announced, it is still legal to kill human babies 24 weeks old, this time he must make a stand against the Government and prove to Conservative voters that he can cut the mustard.
Can anyone tell me whether or not Formula 1 racing cars still show cigarette adverts?
ReplyDeleteSpot on, Iain.
ReplyDeleteI'm heartily sick of this continuing attempt to nickel-and-dime smoking to death. It's both authoritarian and cowardly at the same time. On the one hand, the government is attempting to direct how people should behave, while on the other it lacks the courage of its convictions to ban smoking outright.
Do we really have to tolerate two more years of this?
If only we spent as much time, effort and money keeping our hospitals clean, we could save thousands more lives every year.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not nearly as much fun as stopping other people enjoying themselves.
State control is the agenda. In 11 short years, Britons have lost their centuries of freedom of speech; they have lost their right to walk the streets without fear; they have lost the right to defend themselves and their homes and to be protected by the police, who arrest people for the crime of self-defence; the government now intends to remove consumer choice from the agenda.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't happen little by little. Eleven years in 1500 years of history is all it took. Less in scale than the time it takes to sheer a sheep, so have your freedoms been shorn off the British body politic.
Well said Iain.
ReplyDeleteThe Supermarkets are in a "win win" situation again, as they will construct "Adult Smokers Only Display Rooms".
The Administration will be a nightmare for the small store, and will mirror a Prohibition scenario which will give the bootleggers a field day, smuggling in branded lines.
Why doesn't the Conservative Party stand up for Liberty and Choice and get the smoking vote on its side now!!!!
"The proposal to ban any form of branding of cigarette packaging is a ridiculous overreaction by cowardly nanny staters."
ReplyDeleteWorse than that.
It's utterly futile, and the sort of hare-brained 'idea' that could only emerge from a party that is sunk.
Busted.
Holed beneath the waterline.
And just imagine, if this is the policy proposals that leak out to the press as intentions, what do you suppose is the quality of the ones that go no further?
The ones that cause Department heads to blanch, choke, and hurl the folder at the wall, cackling wildly...?
From 'A Worried Smoker'
ReplyDelete"The real agenda of the people behind these authoritarian proposals is to ban smoking outright."
No it isn't Iain, all Governments for several decades have increased the price of tobacco to enhance revenue without seriously cutting consumption ( O level economics, elasticity of demand/supply ).
Just this week the 30 year Rule revealed that Macmillan was more interested in keeping income tax down rather than discouraging smoking.
The current proposals by Dawn Primarolo are just one more set of " seeing to be doing something " stunts.
1. Outlaw brand images. Did that ever stop anyone taking up cannabis ?
2. Ban packs of 10. No cool kid ever buys packs of ten since it labels them stingey or, worse, poor.
3. Ban display in shops. What ? Just like pornography.
4. Ban Smoking paraphanalia ( sp ) when did you last see an ad. for Rizzla ?
5. Ban cigarette vending machines.
They exist only in pubs, clubs and gambling dens which teenagers have no business being in anyway.
I am told that I, as a smoker am a liabity and a leach upon the NHS but in fact, as a tobacco taxpayer I do not get my monies worth and demand a rebate
I liked the proposal to ban packets of 10 on the grounds that they are popular (because they're half the price of a packet of 20) with the young.
ReplyDeleteIgnoring how ridiculous this is anyway (ban packets of 10 - introduce packets of 9 or 11!) quite how forcing people to buy packets of 20 (ie. more cigarettes) is going to reduce smoking is anyone's guess.
Well you cant ban smoking without banning drinking (which harms health and other people) ....i find myself in agreement with the general thrust of this though...banning smoking indoors was necessary and something as a smoker I was prepared to accept...however this is going too far, especially as one way for smokers to cut down is to go to packs of ten....
ReplyDeleteDawn Primarolo is the physical embodiment of all the pious nannying, snooping, interfering, we-know-best, self satisfied new labour smugness that we've had rammed down our throats these past 11 years. Seeing her on television this morning was enough to drive a non smoker like me out to buy a packet of fags and light up..
ReplyDeleteanonymous 3:32pm:
ReplyDeleteno, F1 banned Tobacco advertising a few years back now. however Ferrari are still sponsored by Philip Morris (Marlboro), and show a 'barcode' design on the cars.
Is a million pounds still the going rate for exemption or has it gone up with inflation?
ReplyDeleteThe biggest cancer in Britain is that perpetrated by the socialists in the 1940s: the NHS.
ReplyDeleteThis is a tool of iron-fisted control that Ghengis Kahn, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin could only dream about.
You are not allowed to find your own way to perdition - by smoking, by over-indulging in alcohol, by stuffing yourself with sugar - because the government, simpering, poses as a "responsible keeper of the public purse" and cannot allow the citizens to waste NHS "resources" on such destructive behaviour. (Is sky-diving allowed in Britain, btw?)
As long as you have this grotesque millstone around your necks, you will be held immobile so the government can keep its boot on your necks. It will soon decide on the maximum number of calories you can consume per day, and you will be obliged to carry calorie ration books.
Dump the NHS but keep NI deductions but the worker should have a choice of private health insurance companies to which to direct his payments.
Once, I thought I would allow the NHS to continue operating in competition with four or five or 20 private insurance companies, but now I think it has to be destroyed. Like the BBC.
Don't you understand? This grotesquerie is a means of iron state control. You would get more bang for your buck from private healthcare arrangements because they wouldn't also be providing a free healthcare service to the world.
There should be those travel insurance dispensers outside (the runway side) of Immigration for travellers to Britain to purchase health insurance for the duration of their stay. Without presenting this paper at the desk, there would be no visa.
No hospital or doctor would be obliged to treat a foreigner or anyone who had not contributed for five years (barring OAPs and those under age 20).
The NHS is a controlling monster. I don't know why you tolerate its existence.
Juliam makes a very good point. How crazy are the ideas that don't get through?
ReplyDeleteWhat a daft argument: "Either ban it outright or leave people to make their own decisions".
ReplyDeleteBy extension, the same argument would mean that any rules/limits on advertising or selling any legal products (including eg pornography; gambling) should be abolished. But most people think it is perfectly sensible to balance adult freedom of choice with other objectives (including child protection and broader social/cultural preferences).
Is Iain's position really that the choice is a ban on tobacco, or its sale without restrictions at all?
Would you abolish the age limit?
Would you allow TV, cinema, press advertising of tobacco? Would you allow any claim at all to be made in such advertising - eg 'smoking is good for your health' - without regulating that?
Would you abolish all regulations on where it can be sold?
If not, what is the point of principle. You might think these particular measures won't work. But that isn't the same as saying 'if it is legal, you don't regulate it'. (You won't want any speed limits on the roads then?)
Smokers should be left alone, but Labour won't stop until they have regulated every little detail of our lives. I'm so looking forward to the general election, it's going to be great seeing this nasty controlling authoritarian government kicked out.
ReplyDeleteIt would be wrong (and extremely stupid) to ban smoking Iain, but it's equally wrong to want to send pot smokers to jail for up to five years so your party have hypocritical double standards I think.
I posted on another comment on your blog that I have signed the LCA's cannabis pledge http://www.pledgebank.com/cannabis-votes
I've written asking politicians to legalise drugs for years and they won't even debate it properly so it's time for users to make their civil rights a red line in the sand at the ballot box.
It's not the government's place to try and dictate how to live, constant spy on us and seek to control every little detail of our lives.
This rubbish comes as usual from the EU elite. They know that taking control over the minutiae of people's lives makes their power more secure.
ReplyDeleteTanks were used to consolidate power in the Soviet block - in the EU they reckon health and safety is easier and works better long-term.
Aonymong 5:24 "It would be wrong (and extremely stupid) to ban smoking Iain, but it's equally wrong to want to send pot smokers to jail for up to five years so your party have hypocritical double standards I think."
ReplyDeleteIrrational. Smoking is legal. Cannabis is an illegal substance and carries a prison sentence. That is the law, whether you like it or not.
I wonder if the Tory party will see sense and introduce exemptions from the smoking ban for certain pubs or for ventilated separate areas within pubs.
ReplyDeleteOur rural pubs in particular are badly affected with over 1700 having closed since the ban came in (v's 200 in 2005).
Why can other countries introduce pragmatic restrictions which allow people freedoms rather than the Calvinistic total ban?
Tobacco grows quite easily in this country; the first time I tried it many years ago in Suffolk I had a vast forest of 6' high plants completely covering a small 250sq.ft bed in a very short time. The problem is home curing. Back then I had little guidance except a few poorly-remembered tips from old boys in the village, but now the web is rich with detailed advice on how to 'ferment' and store tobacco.
ReplyDeleteUnlike home-brew beer, home grown tobacco is taxable in the UK. Duty is payable at the point at which the tobacco becomes smokeable - when it's shredded - and of course if I grow my own again I will be meticulous about submitting a return for every ounce shredded to HMRC.
For now, as for the past ten years or so, all my cigarettes are bought in France, no longer as attractive from a price point but still hugely satisfying in avoiding paying tax and duty to this repulsive shower.
Much of this kind of nonsense from Labour is motivated by a kind of jejune spite, but I for one am all in favour of them bringing these sort of measures in as soon as possible. And bin-charging. And any other measure guaranteed to enrage some significant proportion of the population. In fact I think Primarolo's other fave policy, alcohol rationing, should have another outing. The rage of the middle classes restricted to purchasing 3 bottles of wine a week each would be wondrous to behold.
I smoke, but never near anyone else and always outside .
ReplyDeleteI'm sick and tired of this Govt.
How does it suppose a single handed corner shop is going to cope with keeping hundreds of packets of cigarettes under the counter ?
The sales assistant at the kiosk in Sainsbury's says it's going to be a nightmare for them as well!
As a life-long non-smoker I agree wholeheartedly with your points Iain.
ReplyDeleteBTW did you hear Prawn Dimarolo on this morning's Today programme on the subject? She was SO patronising - she has obviously been taking lessons from Mrs Balls!
Just ban Dawn Primarolo from everything to do with government and interfering in people's lives.
ReplyDeleteAbout time her Moustache was banned too.
I just wish everyone would leave us smokers alone, the smoking ban in public places has already caused the closure of numerous pubs & clubs and this was brought in without any evidence about the harmful effects of second hand smoke.
ReplyDeleteIf second hand smoke is so bad for you why do we have more elderly people than ever before bearing in mind that these elderly people lived through some of the heaviest smoking times in our history.
At Manchester Airport the other day, every 15minutes a message about not smoking in the terminal not ONE single message about unattended bags etc. I take it that smoking is more henious than possible terrorism.
I think you will find that Formula 1 still shows branding but only in certain countries.
"... and the cigarette companies have the right to design the packets in any way they want to"
ReplyDeleteIf that sentence had ended there I would be foursquare behind you.
Once upon a time before new Labour came into power, the people of Briton could:
ReplyDeleteProtest outside Parliament.
Put their rubbish in a dustbin.
Call a spade a spade.
Place apple cores on grass verges in order to rot down.
Say the Government should be blown up, even though we all knew this was just an expression not intent.
Take photographs in public places.
Carry a leatherman.
Heckle at the Labour party conference.
Read out the names of soldiers killed in war.
Be refunded if illegaly fined by the local council.
Hunt the fox killing their livestock.
Call a Mad Mullah, a MAD MULLAH.
Walk the streets without fear of being stop and searched by the police for no reason.
Expect a decent pension.
See bright yet poor children getting Grammar school education way beyond their financial means.
Expect people who do not fit a police profile to be gunned down by a posse of firearms officers.
Could see their children clipped on the ear for a minor transgression rather than their DNA, photoraphs and fingerprints automatically going on the criminal database (even if innocent)
The list is endless.
The upstting thing is that the official opposition does not seem to give a S%^&! and most people affected who were just ordinary law abiding citizens have now got a crimminal record.
I could WEEP.
"Aonymong 5:24 "It would be wrong (and extremely stupid) to ban smoking Iain, but it's equally wrong to want to send pot smokers to jail for up to five years so your party have hypocritical double standards I think."
ReplyDeleteIrrational. Smoking is legal. Cannabis is an illegal substance and carries a prison sentence. That is the law, whether you like it or not."
That's not irrational at all. If they banned smoking tobacco would be an illegal substance that carried a jail sentence too. I said making it so would be wrong and criminalising cannabis was also wrong. I said both tobacco and cannabis should be legal - that's perfectly rational and consistent. You're the one that's being inconsistent and irrational.
Anyway, debating this with socially conservative Tories and puritanical controlling Labour MPs isn't going to get me anywhere. That's why I'd advise everyone who believes in legalisation to go to http://www.pledgebank.com/cannabis-votes and pledge to use their vote at the election but not for any candidate that wants to keep cannabis illegal, regardless of their party or other policies.
Prohibition doesn't work. It was supposed to protect people by stopping them using drugs by criminalising them if they did (all for their own good, apparently). It's failed completely. Countries like the UK have higher drug usage than places like Holland and prohibition only makes the harm the drugs cause (health problems, crime, etc) worse.
In short the prohibition of cannabis isn't based on evidence or any genuine concern for public health so making health and evidence based rational arguments won't help remove it. It's about politics and only politics will remove it. Votes is all most politicians really care about.
If you believe in decriminalisation or legalisation simply refuse to vote for anyone who doesn't. Nothing else will work. Please sign the pledge if you believe that the criminalisation of cannabis users should end.
I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of sweet-shops with no sweets on display, and butchers where all of the meat must remain under the counter. How else will we abolish obesity?
ReplyDelete(and while we're on, I'm planning to confine the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph to the top shelf in newsagents...)
Agree with every word.
ReplyDeleteTrouble is, there are loads of people who like being told what to do and how to think, and do not value freedom at all. Most of my friends who are smokers even agreed with the ban in pubs. Talk about turkeys and Christmas.
Here are your third and fourth paragraphs with small amends:
ReplyDeleteThe real agenda of the people behind these authoritarian proposals is to ban abortion outright. At least that would be an intellectually honest position. As it is, the constant chipping away of the rights of women is typical of the authoritarian drift among so-called (ex-)health professionals.
Either ban it outright or leave people to make their own decisions.
The nanny state hilariously overreacts like a bag of morons every time it dawns on them that their ludicrous anti-smoking policies turns out to have been turned down by the public. The public, no matter how they want it, will always be more powerful than our pathetic governing class of health fascists and liberal lunatics.
ReplyDeleteIknow, I know, I was only saying to that Boris Johnson, 'Thank God you can unwind with a nice cool can of beer on the tube, at least Ken hasn't banned that!'
ReplyDeleteBloody socialists they'd ban everything if they could, at least a Tory Mayor will never ban drinking on LT.
I had to switch the radio off this am, as I heard this ridiculous idea been brandished - and thank God I did, as my day would have been totally ruined if I had to listen that utterly ghastly Primidiot talking
ReplyDeleteThe economy is shot to hell, our hospitals struggling, to cope under the barrage of meaningless rules and regs, as are our Police and underfunded armed forces. Public transport is a total joke and its costs highway robbery
I seem to recall that this woomin had something to do with the scandal of child tax credits and lied to the House and now she comes up with this insane proposal. Ande Neill once tried to interview her on his Daily Politics show and left her goggling like a goldfish in a bowl as she would not answer even the most straightforward question. Up with her mealy mouthed lectures we should not have to put and I hope that hers is one of the vulnerable seats.
Grats on grasping basic libertarianism, Iain.
ReplyDeleteSmoking *is* legal, despite it causing, directly, an infinite number more deaths that marijuana which is illegal (cannabis consumption has never been causally linked to a death, anywhere, ever. Unlike tobacco).
As such, people should have the right to indulge in smoking and ALL these measures designed, expressly, to curb it are fundamentally opposed to the liberty to smoke, by definition. By using laws to say 'you can smoke but if you do, we'll treat you like sh*t' we more-or-less criminalise the behaviour in all its manifest forms while clinging to a tiny figleaf that it is, in fact, legal per se.
For me the worst part is the nationalisation of personal responsibility for health. If you smoke, you are more likely to die of cetain diseases. If you don't smoke you may still die of them. Either way, your life WILL end in death, barring some kind of transhumanism or evangelical rapture.
By removing people's right to choose the manner of their own departure, even remotely, the State is doing them a great disservice, restricting their existential rights as human beings; the basic rights to die as we choose, to live as we choose. I don't need a government telling me which aspect of the moon is preferential for cutting my toemnails and I don't need one restricting my right to live and to die as I choose. This is the same tangent of thought that seeks to nationalise our organise near-death under a compulsory donation scheme and needs resisting by all who value individual freedom.
I am, btw, an ex-smoker.
Well, said Iain! You are a top bloke! Thank you do much for that.
ReplyDeleteWe love you Iain Dale
Oh, yes we do
All of us smokers
Through and through,
We love your cotton socks
It's true
Oh, Iain Dale, we love YOU!
xxx
Though, hang on a mo'
ReplyDelete"Either ban it outright or leave people to make their own decisions."
I take that love song back, every word of it. How COULD you invite Brown to ban smoking, Iain? That's like a red rag to a bull.
BRAVE BBC Have Your Say curently has a reactively moderated topic
ReplyDelete"What would make you stop smoking?"
Some of the most recomended responses follow:
The only priority of this rotten government, is to screw as much cash out of people under the guise of various 'Green Taxes'
...................
Get off my back!!!
...................
Vomit in the hedgerows, urine in the doorways, used condoms in the road. Binge drinkers running riot, increased STI's, violence against overburdened NHS staff. Super casino's and increased gambling, breakdown of family relationships.
Mum can't afford the train to work, Dad can't afford the fuel to drive to work. Granny is freezing death out of fear of stupendous heating bills.
Can't effect real change? Introduce mysterious packaging on cigarettes instead then, that will work well...
....................
Unbeleviable!!!!!!!, ive been out of the UK for a week, I think ive seen at least two if not 3 fatal knife attacks reported on TV whilst away and heres good old Gordon worrying about fag packets!
...................
What would get me to stop smoking?
An election.
...................
All these attempts to make it more difficult make me want to start again to defy the nanny state
My feelings entirely. I don't like tobacco smoke, but I can't see why a) people shouldn't be allowed to smoke where they don't affect the air I breathe and b) companies who supply them shouldn't be allowed to compete for their markets with branding. This lot are way beyond the limits.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought, every pensioner alive today grew up at a time when almost everybody smoked everywhere, and I mean everywhere, cinemas, theatres, shops etc. even recall an ashtray by the bed in hospital in the 60s, so how come we are still alive? and the longest lived ever. Asthma was unheard of until there were so many cars on the road. I don't mind some of the current restrictions but they should never have been applied to private clubs or all pubs, I see no reason why we can't have smoking and non smoking areas or even pubs. Maybe a ploy to get rid of older smokers from pneumonia standing outside in the winter! as for the current suggestions, they are too stupid to even comment on.
ReplyDeleteThese proposed measures appear to attempt to reduce recruitment and retention of young smokers, though not stop them; and to leave established smokers with the choice of getting help to stop or persisting.
ReplyDeleteThe only restriction of liberties is on smoking indoors where there are workers or other citizens. Which seems the correct balanced view to take.
I don't think there is any evidence of anyone in parliament trying or wanting to actually ban smoking.
This horrible labour dictatorship is at it again.They have done enough about smoking. just now leave people alone to make up their minds. Its all this sort of thing that have helped Labour to be hated.They just dont get it. Power has gone to their heads.
ReplyDeleteSTOP TELLING PEOPLE HOW TO LIVE THEIR LIVES.
I know you loathe smoking, Iain. As a smoker I know there are many libertarians who will argue that I have a right not to be witch-hunted for doing something that is legal.
ReplyDeleteThis is a half-baked proposal from a government that is on its way out.
I can't see how New Labour claims to stop deaths. The only thing we can All be certain of is our own death, whatever the cause.
ReplyDeleteI would have thought that ALL NHS patients die and the same fate goes for private patients.
The Brown Broadcasting Corporation are running this for their lives. And, boy, are the gullible taking the bait!
ReplyDeleteLet this lying bunch of scumbags ban everything (except how I vote). It will simply alienate more and more voters and ensure their own demise.
And, just one other thing. I simply love our our new, Labour/liberal inspired 'tolerant' society! Tolerant of everything they believe in !
Chris Paul said:
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is any evidence of anyone in parliament trying or wanting to actually ban smoking.
Tell that to the, newly formed, smoking fraternity that nulab have single handedly created.Because we simply don't believe you.
The smoking fraternity are the 13 million of us who have been criminalised and treated like lepers and outcasts for engaging in our perfectly legal pleasure which provides the country with over £9 billion in tax.
Now forced to stand out in the street, come pouring rain or icy blasts, we've discovered that we have a great deal in common:
We all now detest the clown Brown and nulab's guts with a vengeance for the apalling, discriminatory manner with which they treat us.
Many of us were labour voters prior to your new law which made us social pariahs and outcasts.
13 million, that's....25-20% of UK's adult population?
Another great move, Gordon, alienating much of your core vote.
Chris Paul said:
ReplyDeleteThe only restriction of liberties is on smoking indoors where there are workers or other citizens. Which seems the correct balanced view to take.
What utter nonsense. There are FOUR smoking areas in the palace of Westminster where our uniquely privileged and elitist MPs can smoke - indoors and without any regard for the health of HOC staff or the law the rest of us must live by - the cigarettes they alone are empowered to buy in UK at duty free prices.
Why doesn't this 'correct balanced view' you advocate apply to MPs, Chris?
How very telling of the real agenda behind your post that you totally ignore MP's privileges in respect of smoking at Westminster.
This is the new "fox hunting" issue for Labour, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteApart from the fact that it should be a crime against humanity to have to listen to "Red" Dawn Primarilo on any subject, this is just another soft target to ensure that Labour garners a few extra votes from those people attracted by single issue politics.
But you are absolutely right in your analysis, Iain. Until the day when the Politbureau decrees that smoking tobacco is illegal, then smokers have every right to be treated equally with everyone else.
The point has been made elsewhere that there are many things which aren't "good for you" but we don't restrict the way they are available to those who want to buy them.
7:17 - You and me both.
ReplyDelete7:22 - The vast majority of people in this country don't care that you personally wish to indulge in smoking pot. We don't care, or should I repeat that? You are not important enough to go against the wishes of the majority. How much lobbying power do you think a bunch of potheads have?
What are you going to offer the government? Your votes? If you can remember the date and find your way to the polling station that day, and remembered to register.
Get lost, creep.
NewWelshRight said...
"The nanny state hilariously overreacts." No it doesn't. It reacts with a well-aimed kick of the jackboot. It's not funny.
Shaun said: "For me the worst part is the nationalisation of personal responsibility for health."
Dump the NHS.
I agree with you that this has a lot to do with the ghoulish greediness of the transplant industry.
David Cameron smokes, so presumably will be kinder to us smokers when he is PM?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't Cameron's former spin doctor, Steve Hilton, smoke too?
Speaking of Hilton, by the way, is his departure to America as much a reflection of the success of Cameron's newer spin doctor, Andy Coulson, as it is a result of Hilton's wife's new job in the US?
Cameron's poll ratings have certainly gone through roof since Coulson was appointed.
Hmmm. Don't suppose we'll hear too much from Canvas for a while.
ReplyDeleteStop the persecution of cigarette smokers and legalise cannabis. I don't do either but I'm an adult and I simply will not tolerate being told what to do with my own life and body, that's why I will not vote Labour or Conservative again.
ReplyDeleteauntie Flo' said...
ReplyDelete"Hmmm. Don't suppose we'll hear too much from Canvas for a while."
Expliquez, SVP. We have watched the wheels coming off the ravenous Obama's gravy train.
He doesn't seem to have much grasp on America. The other day, he referred to Hawaii - where his family lighted in his very chequered history - as a territory. As in, forty-eight states and Hawaii and Alaska, both of which have been states for around 30 years. After the madrassa, he grew up in Hawaii that he didn't even realise was a US state?
He doesn't even know the country of which he is greedy to be president? Manchurian Candidate, anyone?
"I agree with you that this has a lot to do with the ghoulish greediness of the transplant industry."- Verity
ReplyDeleteThe 'duty' to keep our bodies in condition suitable for mandatory transplant, in the Dystopian NuLab world we now live in, can only be around the corner. Less cream cakes for you, fatty! If you get hit by a bus we may need your heart so don't clog it up!
That sort of thing irritates me and if my innate paranoia about the nebulous definition of 'death' in relation to organ harvesting hadn't precluded me for being an organ donor, that certainly would've! The good thing about having MS, tho, is that my organs are autoimmune POISON!! and so are significantly more likely to remain MY organs regardless of statist nationalisation of the corpus.
Women over 60 should be banned from walking, as they suffer a high incidence of serious falls resulting in broken hips.
ReplyDeleteMotorbikes should be banned, as there is a high incidence of serious/fatal accidents involving them.
Ditto skiing, getting pregnant and giving birth, using your eyes (can result in macular degeneration), using your ears (can result in deafness), oh yes, and ...
living, which unfortunately still has 100% fatal outcome.
When is Guvvinmint gonna doing sumfink abaht all that?
verity said...
ReplyDeleteauntie Flo': Expliquez, SVP.
If the rumours I hear are correct, I imagine she'll be too busy buying nappies and packing, Verity.
7:22- Go and peddle your toke-head ideas elsewhere, i.e., on some socialist site where all the other little tokies nod in slow-mo sage agreement.
ReplyDeleteAuntie Flo' - Iain's friend Woman on The Tube was sure Canvas was an adolescent boy, but her posts had the fervour of adolescent girl plastered all over them. Packing,eh? The move will be permanent, one hopes?
I see the bedsit revolutionaries are out today, flaying around with their pot-addled arguments.
ReplyDeleteLook, clowns. The last time I looked at the periodic table there was no such thing as 'cannabis'.
Are you really proposing that we legalise a group of drugs that are highly variable in effect, that are sourced from who knows where and are part of the greater illegal dugs trade?
It's quite simple. Nobody knows what they are buying the way the drugs trade is currently configured.
Would you drink water out of the gutter? It might be clean, it might not. Would you allow anybody to wander in off the street and cook school meals?
You just carry on with your common room rebellion in the privacy of your own pit and leave the rest of us out of it.
Wider society should not be dragged into giving you lot a pat on the head.
Unless, of course we produce cannabis under food safety-style regs, the police get roadside testing kits for intoxication and you become a registered drug user...
That legit enough for you? After all, the intoxicant known as alcohol has to meet those standards...
As A lifelong smoker I will not be lectured to by this profiterole woman given that all Governments have facilitated and profited from my addiction to tobacco since age 14.
ReplyDelete"Unless, of course we produce cannabis under food safety-style regs, the police get roadside testing kits for intoxication and you become a registered drug user...
ReplyDeleteThat legit enough for you? After all, the intoxicant known as alcohol has to meet those standards..." - Anon- 4:35 PM
Yeah because there are so many people who have to register their alcohol use. So which standards were you talking about again?
"As A lifelong smoker I will not be lectured to by this profiterole woman given that all Governments have facilitated and profited from my addiction to tobacco since age 14." Anon - 6:33 PM
ReplyDeleteIf you're 15, that's not such a strong argument...
Shaun
ReplyDeleteRegistered users.....Yup - wrote it in a hurry. I was thinking about making harder stuff legal with people becoming registered users. Another topic entirely.
The other two requirements stand...
http://www.petition.co.uk/smoking_in_mental_health_units
ReplyDeleteThe NHS is currently attempting to ban mental health patients from smoking by refusing to set aside smoking zones, making it in effect illegal for free citizens who are in care voluntary to smoke, giving them less rights than criminals in prison.
Anonymong 7:42 - "Prohibition doesn't work".
ReplyDeleteWell, you're right there.
Prohibition against entering premises illegally and stealing doesn't work in today's Britain. (They go to prison for a month and get parole after a week and if you try to defend your home, you'll banged up for a couple of years.)
Prohibition against murder doesn't work. Prison guards have been warned to be familial and kindly to convicted multiple child murderer Ian Huntley because he is upset.
Prohibition against rape doesn't work. Prohibition against unthinkable abuse of children doesn't work.
There is no political will.
Why?
Because social chaos and destablisation suits the inching forward of the Gramscian agenda.
Tony Blair has been a fine little soldier and is being rewarded with private jets up his arse.
David Cameron is next up, to reassure the Tories. Yet why hasn't he spoken against banning cigarette brands? Doesn't he understand that consumer choice is a pillar of capitalism?
I think he does.
He knows and will inch forward the Blair agenda anyway. Polished shoes. under. top . table. Brussels. Trough and glory.
No European nation has been as eager to embrace the destruction of the nation state as Britain.
Cinnamon - You mean people in prison have their rights constrained?
ReplyDeleteAre you sure?
I just read that Ian Huntley's guards have been told to be friendly and charming to him and treat him as one of their own families, in fact, because he is a little upset that he's in prison. He may get depressed.
Not as depressed for the rest of their lives as the parents of the two little girls he murdered, but still ... If he's depressed, never mind cuddly prison guards, couldn't they just give him some nice, friendly pills?
Are his organs on register for transplant, by the way? I'm assuming wards of the socialist state do not have opt-out rights in the people's socialist paradise of Britain?
The best way of encouraging smoking is to make it illicit - rather like those furtive porn-mag-under-the-counter days of yester year.
ReplyDeleteI think that the government has went overboard taxing cigarretes. Has anyone even thought of all the jobs that go away when cigarrettes go. and if so what do they think is gonna happen doesnt this country have enough economic problems right now. Smokers will smoke but we dont smoke in public or anywhere else we are told not to and that is not good enough. I think taxes should be doled out fairly not just taxing one thing to death. I thought we lived in a free country and it seems lately that it is becoming more and more not a free country. Let us decide whether we want to risk our health not someone else. Cigarrettes are as legal as steak so someone please tell me when will this stop.
ReplyDelete