Friday 26 March 2010

The New Blackout

I haven't said a lot about the call for smoking to be banned in all cars but, if I may, I'd like to point out that I did predict it last summer.

It must have caught the fake charities as cold as it caught Forest though, as they were all wibbling at cross purposes.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), said the charity was in favour of a ban on smoking in cars.

The risks were not just to children but to adults suffering from conditions like heart disease, she said.
That's the problem with being caught off-guard, Debs wasn't able to tailor her junk science quickly enough to the nonsense in hand so had to just grab what she was working on at the time - the total ban on smoking in cars, with or without children present. An interesting view into the future, I thought.
Of course, telling the likes of Arnott and the RCP to go suck on a Toyota Yaris exhaust pipe isn't a course of action our incredibly short-sighted MPs are capable of contemplating, so the unintended consequences concertina and buckle as they pile up in the queue of things that must be addressed.

Two letters to The Times today illustrate my point very well.

Sir, Based on the numbers of drivers I spot every day using a handheld phone, most still feel there is little chance of being caught breaking the law. A law on banning smoking while driving will be just as ineffective unless a better method of enforcement is found.

The deterrent must be more severe. The enforcement of penalties, such as an automatic driving ban, would undoubtedly help towards achieving a higher level of compliance.

William Garman
Dittisham, Devon


Sir, If we have to penalise drivers for causing smoke, why not introduce spot fines for sitting parked with the engine idling? The fumes are concentrated at ground level and do not disperse. Edinburgh City Council introduced fines for doing this in 2003. Why not make this a national policy?

S. Macreynoldson and M. Hughes
London N6
Off you go then, you dim-witted parliamentary fucknuts. You want smoking banned in cars? You'd better start working on automatic driving bans for phone use and spot fines for idling engines, too.

Those damned smokers looked such an easy target, didn't they? But now the motorist lobby comes into play, and they will be a different matter entirely. But hey ho, all risk must be eliminated, remember?

OK, since I have proven that I'm Mystic Dick on the machinations of swivel-eyed anti-smoking goons, let's float my next prediction, which is admittedly a trifle bold.

Drum roll please ... smoking to be banned in private homes within the term of the next Labour government. Ta da!

The incredibly impartial Anna Gilmore - who has taken over £10m in grants from legislators requiring anti-smoking junk science, and is conveniently in charge of the smoking ban whitewash review - points us in the right direction [Powerpoint - page 8].

The key factors influencing children’s exposure are modifiable (i.e. we can do something about it):

- whether parents smoke
- whether carers smoke
- if smoking allowed in home
While Laura Jones of Nottingham University cuts to the chase and lets the pussy wander from the wildly wriggling sack [Powerpoint - page 6].

Need to promote smoke-free homes

- Mass media campaigns
- Behavioural interventions
- Legislation
Final confirmation of 'the logical next step', then. Just a few months later than I had previously envisaged.

The smoking wardens peering through your windows ordering you to "Put that fag out!" aren't far away, people.


17 comments:

Spartan said...

Will the WWF list smoking wardens as an endangered species? ... or won't this species venture into no-go areas where their prey tend to be dangerous unlike the easy prey in suburbia?

carbchick said...

Thanks for making the bile rise once again.

when I die of apopleptic rage I hope my cause of death is registered to 'anti-smoking legislation'.

Angry Exile said...

Banning smoking in private homes would certainly appeal to the authoritarian pricks in government as well as the health nazis that lobby them, but it'd be close to an outright ban and will they give up all that tobacco revenue? What is it now, £10 bill or something? And of course smoke tax is politically safe to put up since so many sheeple will nod approvingly at the suggestion. On top of that the cost of any serious attempt to enforce it would make the money situation even worse (I'm sure they'd love to hire smoking wardens but with the recent news that the government now spends 52% of GDP I think they've hit the buffers). No, they'll treat you as second class citizens in your own homes by demanding you stub out whenever one of their Mini-Me Stasis come to visit for any reason, but they don't want people to actually stop. ASH might be prepared to kill the golden goose but the government, being marginally less insane, only want to squeeze it.

Spartan said...

.... and it just gets worse:-

Budget 2010
"From January 1 next year, every additional 3cm, or part thereof, beyond this length will be treated as another cigarette. This means that an 11cm cigarette will be treated as two cigarettes, while a 12cm cigarette will be counted as three."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/25/budget-cigarette-tax-smoking-darling-chancellor


Years ago l ran a consultancy that was specifically catered for buying your cigarettes abroad. l accompanied the customers over to Spain and arranged where they could get their goods and then came back with them. That was the easy part.

The hard part was educating them as to their rights on EU shopping, how to deal with Customs and their guideline of 800 cigarettes etc.Preparation was the key because of all the 'traps' that Customs set as a means to confiscate the cigarettes off travelers.

lf the shopping trip is done properly you will always get your goods home.

l may start it again but this time it will be Bulgaria and the sunny resorts of the Black Sea.

I am Stan said...

Yo Dick,

I have developed a strategyfor dealing with people who peer through my window.

Neal Asher said...

Going non-domicile is looking better and better.

Anonymous said...

IF SOMEONE TOLD ME I COULD'NT SMOKE IN MY OWN HOME I'D END UP DOING TIME.
FOR MURDER.
I'M SERIOUS.

I am Stan said...

Orhere,maybe!!!

I am Stan said...

GRRRRRRRRR!

Anonymous said...

Dick and mates,
Who cares anymore ,even if hanging
was brought back for smoking on
Saddleworth Moors ,the smokers
would should vanish down Catacombes
still blithering via Wi-Fi Netbooks
or wall scribbling verses of anger.
Dont worry,Motorists,nanny aint
worried about you ,only noise you make is the occasionall backfire
or irate horn at a sheep crossing.

Wandering Minstrel

Anonymous said...

Of course there are already towns in California (the land of the 'free') where smoking in your own home is banned if it attached in any way. So Dick's scenario is quite feasible on the same basis.

Re: the letters in The Times, there has been a massive amount of vitriol thrown by non-smokers and anti-smokers alike since the RCP report came out. Some of it is quite horrendous calling for massive punishments for smoking in banned places. What I don't get is that these people can't see how all these things lead to further losses of freedom - even more than we have lost.

What we need is the population to be as motivated as they were about Poll Tax. But I'm not sure we've reached a tipping point loss of freedom yet. However the righteous are picking on ever bigger minorities - smokers 22% or more of the adult population is their biggest yet. Fox hunting, gun owners were small beer. Perhaps alcohol will be the tipping point as most people drink.

Chris Oakham

Dick the Prick said...

Couple this with being able to open & seize mail to err...combat free trading of baccy and it's a party.

Hmm:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7520941/Budget-2010-HMRC-officers-to-get-powers-to-open-peoples-post-without-asking-permission.html

Furor Teutonicus said...

IF they were actualy CONCERNED about smoking to the degree they appear to be, they would ban it out right.

The fact that they would loose the tax from smokers by doing this, is not really relevant. They are happy enough to bring in all kinds of legistlation that reduces the possibility to smoke to nearly nill any way. So effecting their tax take.

It is OBVIOUS that the only purpose the Downing Street Dictatorship has in all this is their desire to CONTROL.

Like a ten year old pulling bits off a fly. They know it will eventually die any way, but why not get some entertainment out of it before it does?

Not a sheep said...

I would say a dead cert if/when Labour are re-elected.

Standard-Issue State-Funded Troll said...

I think what California has done is brilliant, and really shows what can be achieved when democratic states behave democratically and use the LAW to stop people doing things I (and lots of non-smokers too!) don't like. I hate it when I'm sitting on my balcony, looking at myself in the mirror and admiring my hair, when a selfish smoker's smoke gets in my hair and wafts into my apartment, putting MY health at risk! Not forgetting the CHILDREN next door!

It's about time that these selfish smokers realised that their smoke can defy the laws of time and space and seep EVERYWHERE, giving children cancer and making my cats fur feel like GRAVY! These selfish smokers wouldn't be so smelly and selfish if they'd seen a loved one die of hair cancer!!

Tony_E said...

Chris Oakham has a good point about what a motivated public might achieve. However, there is a problem with those from a libertarian background.

The left who effectively rioted to end the poll tax were well organised, the unions were involved, probably the Labour party also, the CPGB. All were previously aligned socialist groups with publicity machines and local government positions - the Labour party generally used the poll tax to raise huge amounts of revenue in local authorities which they controlled, much more than the rates ever drew.

Libertarians are not built that way. We do not join organisations which tell us what to think or where to congregate to cause the most disruption. We do not exist to disrupt - our whole model of living is that we look out for ourselves and in doing impose the least inconvenience and cost to our fellow citizens.

To truly attack authoritarians, we have to do things which make us more like them.

Would a libertarian riot? Destroy property on a mass scale? Block the streets? I don't think we would unless we were in such a majority that we believed that in our actions we were carrying the will of al but the government we were trying to topple.

Mrs Rigby said...

"The smoking wardens peering through your windows ordering you to "Put that fag out!" aren't far away, people."

Cold Steel Rain points out that you won't be able to shut your curtains to stop them looking - because if you do you must be a terrorist.

http://coldsteelrain.blogspot.com/2010/03/truly-frightening.html