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Smoke With Fire
The ban on smoking in public places kicks off tomorrow in the UK. Here's Rod Liddle in the Times:
"I can’t decide if I hate this government more for invading Iraq or for stopping me from smoking when I go out of an evening."
He isn't happy...
Many countries have a relaxed attitude to bans on smoking. Not Britain, however, where after July 1st smoking will be allowed only in prisons, nursing homes and royal palaces.
So you'll need to be a criminal, a geriatric or a born into an aristocratic family in order to indulge your habit. That is, at least until "human rights" legislation is enacted to protect certain minorities who see smoking as their inalienable right: The former prime minister's wife Cherie Blair is taking a case on behalf of the owner of a chain of erotic dance clubs.
Meanwhile, owners of hookah bars in London are considering steps to protect what they see as their unique cultural heritage. If the legislation is applied to them, they would have to close.
As for the indigenous people, they'll just have to put up with what Liddle predicts:
"We’re going to have sad little monkeys, sexually frustrated penis-faced Hitler wannabes, desperate to victimise someone, snooping around our bars at the employ of the local council. And soon, we’re told, there’ll be council officials snooping to ensure we don’t drink too much when we’re down the pub of an evening: believe me, alcohol will be next on their list of stuff to ban. Now that politicians have little power – economic policy being franchised out to multinational companies and the European Union, foreign policy on permanent loan to the USA – the domestic politicians must assert their hegemony over us somehow. And interfering in what we like to do is their weapon of choice. They want us to stop being fat, stop smoking and drinking, stop hating certain sorts of people. I daresay that these are noble aspirations, but they shouldn’t fall within the purview of the Government."
