Thirteen years in Government, Blair then Brown, the invasion of two countries (one of which continues to this day), a poor long-term economic policy, two prime ministers bathed in yes-men and an immigration policy that’s allowed 90% of new jobs in 2010 to go to foreign nationals. Yes, there’s certainly a poignant case for never letting Labour look at No. 10 again, let alone ever having the privilege to stroll in. The Labour Government didn’t preside over an era of political perfection, nor did they function like they meant to achieve it – but beyond the atrocities of the era, I find myself a Labour man, through and through more than I ever have.
Since the party’s inception in 1900, Labour have always been the most progressive force in our politics, from creating the National Health Service in a sick post-war Britain to the birth of the welfare state, they’ve provided the most groundbreaking legislation this country has ever had. At worst, Labour has been a principled gang of thieves, at best, a revolutionary mass for social betterment.
I vote Labour because I believe I have an obligation to provide for those who otherwise could not provide for themselves, I believe that the ‘Social Darwinism’ of ‘survival of the fittest’ is not only idiotic but inhumane. I believe a collective society should be compassionate, empathetic and aware of the erratic blows that life can deal, and as a taxpayer, be prepared to pay for those who are hit – knowing I could experience the very same.
I vote Labour because higher taxes don’t particularly bother me. I’m a low earner and a student, but yet I don’t mind paying a bit more knowing that on any whim I can enter my doctor’s and mutter any old random shit, because he’ll listen to me and help, free of charge. I don’t believe that reverting our National Health Service to ‘capitalist values’ of competition between areas will work, because in a competition there’s always a loser. Nobody deserves to be a loser when it comes to their health. Unlike the US, my health ‘insurance’ isn’t risk-assessed, privately owned or adherent to the laws of supply and demand. My well-being is directly supported by my fellow Brits, and I pay to support them in return. Nobody makes a profit or receives a tidy bonus off my desire to be rid of my ailments, and I know Labour is my best bet in keeping it this way.
It’s their priorities too; unlike a sizable section of the Conservative party, Labour doesn’t seem to capitalise as much on emotive subjects like crime and immigration – but rather focus on social mobility and raising standards of living. Yes, I want crime reduced, a safer place to live and a pragmatic immigration policy – but the reality is that prison will never be enough of a deterrent for some people. Despite what some would argue, rehabilitation is key to being proactive in tackling crime; otherwise you continuously rehash angry, hardened criminals without even the effort to address why they don’t become contributing members of society. Labour more often than not mimic my ideas on these issues.
Call it insignificant, but Labour have the largest variety of socio-economic backgrounds in a major political party. Gordon Brown once called the Conservative Party policy something “dreamt up on the playing fields of Eton” – and he wasn’t too far from the truth. 53% of the coalition cabinet were privately educated, something like only 7% of the population have had the privilege to do so, it’s true, the former prime minister didn’t take too much creative license with this one. Pasty-gate and the allegations of cash-for-access on government policies only go to further my disdain for the Tories.
They’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, the previous Government favoured ID Cards and an excess of security cameras that would make ‘1984’ look like a Sunday Lunch, but to support policy areas where I’ll receive the most benefit – I’m sure willing to make concessions.
July 1st 2007…For me, the day the labour party died.
It’s well known that the majority of smokers are from the lower classes, the very people who’ve been the stalwart of the labour party for generations. When they brought in the smoking ban, a bigger slap in the face I couldn’t imagine. That did it for me, and I’m sure many others.
UKIP is the way forward now, a party which believes in the freedom of choice, and the only party looking to ammend the disastrous, pub-destroying smoking ban.
Forgive me if I’m wrong but, aren’t pubs meant for socialising and drinking? I’m pretty doubtful that people only ever go to the pub to smoke.
You’re a supporter of freedom of choice. People are still allowed to smoke, but others also have the freedom to choose not to subject themselves to second-hand smoke.
I’m fairly certain that any health benefits from the smoking ban heavily outweigh the so-so damage it has inflicted on pubs.
Well the smoking ban has had devastating consequences on the pub trade in various countries around the world, and while people can still smoke, it has ruined the social lives of many people, especially the older population, while removing the property rights of landlords. That’s the big issue for me – although they’re called public houses, pubs are privately owned, hence landlords being able to stop people entering in certain clothes e.g. hoodies and caps. There is something inherently wrong with telling property owners they don’t have the right to permit a legal activity on their property. At the same time, those who don’t want to be around smoke always had the choice of going to a non-smoking pub or staying home. After all, if a ban was necessary it was because so many people smoked in pubs, which means a large percentage of the clientele were smokers. This has been reflected in the dwindling profits (and increase in closures) since the bans.
Pubs are indeed private property but not in the sense that it is their home. Pubs are for the public, they serve the public, therefore they need to be aware of the health of the public.
Also, if I wanted to spend an evening with my friends at the pub but didn’t want to inhale their smoke, then my only option is to stay at home. That doesn’t seem fair simply because I choose not to smoke. When thinking of the rights of the smoker, you have to think of the rights of the non-smoker as well.
Really it is the patrons responsibility. The landlord should have the right to protect their profits – and as smoking is legal, a blanket ban is a blatant infringement of that right. Perhaps they need to be aware of public health, but that does not mean they need to beckon to it – if it did, they would need to stop serving alcohol and letting people get drunk. The very fabric of the pub is to put oneself in ill health – alcohol is a carcinogenic neurotoxin and drinkers literally poison themselves into a new mental state. As all patrons choose to enter, they assume the risks, be it breathing in smoke or getting into a fight with an aggressive drunk.
Thing is, pubs are not leisure centres and people do not go there to benefit their health. So banning smoking because of estimated numbers is not only wrong but hypocritical.
Your argument about smoker vs non-smoker works both ways of course. A smoker could easily say “if I want a cigarette with my drink I need to stay home”. So the question is why are the rights of non smokers more important than those of smokers? It can be argued that as smokers pay more to the economy and make up the bulk of pub profits that they are more important. So much are pubs reliant on smokers that not only has each country with a ban hurt badly from it, but a few places have fought to overturn it just to stay in business – and they have stayed in business as a result. The landlady a couple of years ago in the north of England who found a loophole in the law and allowed visitors to smoke in a separate room saw profits triple in a week through word of mouth alone. So essentially the argument of health means the landlord needs to pander to the minority of guests.
Storm, people have always had “the freedom to choose not to subject themselves to second-hand smoke.” just as they have “the freedom to choose not to subject themselves to loud music” by picking a quiet pub, or the freedom to avoid BBQ smoke by not going to a BBQ pub, or the freedom to avoid the dangers of dart throwing by avoiding dart pubs, etc etc etc.
I can see it being reasonable to have all sorts of rules at places where people are REQUIRED to spend time (e.g. a room in a hospital or a courtroom) but not in businesses where people have the choice of simply patronizing a competitor. And no, don’t try to bring up food and fire regulations: those are completely different since they involve both “immediate and indisputable deaths” and/or conditions that consumers have no easy way of being aware of.
– MJM
Okay.
Your argument here is that “if you don’t want second-hand smoke, don’t go to a pub with smoke”, which is effectively the same argument as “if you don’t have to get pregnant, don’t have sex”, “if you don’t want to get in a car accident, don’t drive.”
You can’t segregate smokers and non-smokers by giving them different pubs. I’m friends with smokers and having to go to a different place than them just because I don’t smoke doesn’t make any sense.
The burden lies on smokers because what they’re doing is unhealthy. I absolutely do not have a problem with people smoking; it’s up to them and nothing to do with me, but I expect the same courtesy as I don’t want to be surrounded by smoke. And I don’t expect smokers to even want to smoke around people who have a serious problem with it, eg. asthmatics.
If a smoker cannot spend an evening in a pub without smoking, then that is the problem of the smoker, not of anyone else.
Same goes for me, Cons=Greed, Labour =Super Nanny, Libs not worth commenting on.
I didn’t realise helping other people not to die of preventable causes meant “super nanny”.
I would sooner help lucifer himself ascend the stairs of heaven than help liebour gain power again; never before or since have we seen such a party so intent on destroying jobs and the lives of the working class they supposedly serve, all in the name of good health. 13 years of propaganda and bull is all the liebour party gave us and a national debt the likes of which war torn countries do not have to endure.
Would it not be better to try and bring about a party that supports your ideals whole-heartedly, rather than any of the current parties who seem intent on pleasing everyone, despite the fact that ‘everyone’ do not have the same ideals.
However, if i had to pick any party that has a chance of winning, Labour would be the lesser of three evils.
Very good point. Is it right to pick a party that has, as pointed out in the article, so much that deserves contempt, just because one or two policies are liked? Especially as those policies are also held by the other parties.
For me it helps to view each party not as a superorganism, but as a collective of individuals with their own distinct (if not explicit) political views. Yes on the surface the trend of ‘PR Politics’ has moderated and centralised policy within the parties, but representative democracy is more complex than that; idealogical differences, characters & loyalties of each of the members actually create a very dynamic system within parties themselves.
For example, the Tories have a very right-wing sect and Labour a staunch socialist one. There’s Blairites, Brownites, Thatcherites and every other idealogical allegiance going. And as it stands, my political views match closest with the Labour collective (although the LibDems carry a fraction of my support). Although they’ve done some fucking stupid shit, like Storm said, they’re certainly the lesser of three evils. I hope the current/next generation of Labour heavyweights will change things, but perhaps that’s a little optimistic.
ah the our belothed smoking ban the problems of wich are
billions to implement
billions to enforce
closing thousands of buisneses
costing hundreds of thousands of jobs
and affecting the smoking rate not a jot
conclusion waste of time and public money whilst stifeling buisness in a time of economic strife the implementors of this ban should be forced to pay reperations to those who have lost there homes and lively hoods due to there unecesary and unwarented ban
Storm, you wrote, “Your argument here is that “if you don’t want second-hand smoke, don’t go to a pub with smoke”, which is effectively the same argument as “if you don’t have to get pregnant, don’t have sex”, “if you don’t want to get in a car accident, don’t drive.” ”
Re the car accident, yes, I’d agree, particularly since by driving you are clearly and inarguably placing others, including children, at a real and imminent risk of injury, maiming, and death.
Re the sex: I’d say it’s more like “If you don’t want to get pregnant, use birth control or be sure your partner uses birth control” while mandating pub smoking bans would be more like mandating that all men get reversible vasectomies unless they’ve got a signed contract from a particular woman who declares she wants to get pregnant.
And you wrote, “I’m friends with smokers and having to go to a different place than them just because I don’t smoke doesn’t make any sense.”
You don’t have to go to a different place. You can go with them and tolerate the smoke for an evening because you know the enjoyment they get from it is important to them (sort of the same way you might not like loud music or BBQ smoke but will sometimes go to such places if your friends enjoy such things); or you can sometimes ask your friends to go with you to places that ban smoking because that’s what you enjoy. I don’t see why it should be a problem?
“The burden lies on smokers because what they’re doing is unhealthy.”
Let’s say you enjoyed going out to eat, but firmly believed that meat products were bad for your health. And let’s say that most restaurants offered wonderfully prepared meat-based menus with only the barest token nod to their meatless dishes. Would that justify a ban on meat-restaurants simply because you could look at the omnivores and say “what they’re doing is unhealthy”? (Particularly when you think about the fact that most restaurants have their cooking areas in the same building — supposedly with separate ventilation, but the Antismokers tell us ventilation doesn’t work. See my BurgerKing 10 second video at :
http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4415
to see what I’m talking about.
And finally you wrote, “I don’t expect smokers to even want to smoke around people who have a serious problem with it, eg. asthmatics.”
I’m sure most smokers certainly wouldn’t want to smoke around people who have serious problems with it. That’s one of the nice aspects of having the choice between smoking and nonsmoking venues: those with serious problems with smoke wouldn’t go to the smoking ones.
– MJM
Why must I tolerate an evening of smoke simply because someone cannot go an evening without smoking?
Smoking is a legal right, yes, but it is also an addiction and my right NOT to put my own health at risk should be infringed to cater to those addictions is simply unfair. It’s not about tolerating something I don’t like, it’s about not wanting to risk something like lung cancer. You can smoke if you wish, but when you do, you have to take the consequences with it, be that having to stand outside when you smoke or refraining from it for an evening because your friends are uncomfortable putting their health at risk from second-hand smoke. And forcing an asthmatic to go to a non-smoking pub is also beyond unfair.
I don’t understand your other argument about meat because being an omnivore on it’s own isn’t unhealthy. You can’t compare eating meat to smoking, they’re entirely different things. Also, if you’re vegetarian/vegan and don’t want to eat meat at a restaurant, you don’t have to. The meat is not stuffed down your throat while you’re trying to eat your own dish. When around smokers, you have no choice but to inhale their smoke.
As for the argument about the profits of pubs – pubs are a business, if they didn’t have the smoking ban they would be catering to the minority (21% of adults smoke in the UK, http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/lung/smoking/lung-cancer-and-smoking-statistics). The pub that would mentioned is likely to have made so much profits because of the availability to 1) smoke, 2) not smoke and 3) not be surrounded by smoke, which is more than just lifting the smoking ban will do. It also had something to do with being one of the only pubs to do that, which meant she filled a niche that other pubs didn’t, therefore attracting more customers. It was innovation, something all businesses need to survive whether there is a smoking ban or not. As well as this, if the bar staff do not smoke, then they are going to be forced into a smoking environment whether they like it or not.
Essentially, my argument is that the health of the public is more important that businesses turning profits. If someone in your pub suffered serious health because of second-hand smoke because you didn’t want to see a downturn in your profits instead of innovating your way through it like businesses are meant to, then what would that make you?
if landlords had the right to say yes or no to the smokeing bans or even the right to supply a seperate room for there smoking coustomers we would not be seeing the massive closures we see across the hospitality sector and while storm lawson thinks its best to force his “frends” out into the cold and rain wouldnt it be better for them to have a seperate well ventelated room where they could go pint in hand for a smoke rather than into our glorious brittish weather and with frewnds like that who needs enemies
First of all, I’m a woman. If you’re going to insult me, at least get my gender correct. And don’t refer to me in third person, it’s hugely disrespectful. If you want to reply to one of my comments, then just reply.
I’m going to bother commenting anymore because you have just really pissed me off. You didn’t produce a structured argument that gave me an insight into why the smoking ban should be lifted. No. You just insulted me. Well done, you have all the social skills of a baked potato.
Storm, if the Antismokers were honest and said up front “Out smoking ban will decimate the pub business and cost the taxpayers billions.” then I wouldn’t criticize the economic aspect of their claims at all. It’s only when they LIE about them that I get somewhat annoyed. And think about this: if they lie about an area where it’s so easy to PROVE that they’re lying simply through the undeniable economic result of thousands of pubs closing… think about what ELSE they may be lying about.
I may be mistaken, but I don’t think you ever answered my question about why BBQ pubs should be tolerated. Using your arguments, I could say, “Why must I tolerate an evening of BBQ smoke simply because my friends can’t go an evening without eating BBQ? Or, to look at another example, I’m sure you realize that sunshine is a much more firmly proven human carcinogen than secondary smoke exposure. Why should workers be forced to get malignant melanoma simply because you enjoy eating lunch outdoors on a patio? You do realize of course that sunscreen and awnings only provide “partial protection” … much the same way Antismokers will claim ventilation and filtration only provide partial protection. And, as long as patio dining is not illegal, you may have friends who you want to have lunch with every afternoon, but they may insist on outdoor dining and force you to risk cancer.
Wouldn’t it be simpler if all patio dining were banned? Do you think that would be a good idea?
The meat argument had to do with you (as a theoretical vegan) not being able to go out and enjoy eating with your friends because restaurants only cater very superficially to vegans. And actually there are *no* meat restaurants that I know of that guarantee the utensils used to prepare their vegan dishes weren’t earlier used to disembowel an innocent lamb.
You make a good point about niche businesses, but then why is there a need for a smoking ban? If pubs are doing well with the nonsmoking throngs, they certainly wouldn’t revert back and lose their customers if the ban were lifted. And if there *were* a few that did… well I hardly think you could complain that you were being “forced” to go into them. You indicate that 79% of adults don’t smoke in the UK, so wouldn’t normal economic forces push 79% of the pubs to ban smoking on their own if indeed that’s what people wanted?
Final suggestion: You might want to read my “Lies Behind The Smoking Bans” at:
http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/PASAN/StilettoGenv5h.pdf
When you see how the research has been twisted it might alleviate some of your concerns and put them in perspective. Feel free to offer any specific, substantive criticisms you might have: I promise I won’t mind, and I’ll try to stop back to respond.
– MJM
Oh! On the meat thing: That was also the point I was making with that video: meat eaters (of which actually, I am one of) force everyone else to breathe their meat fumes from the cooking process. And for some reason they’re allowed to cook the meat in the same building where people and their children are trying to eat.
Would you support a reasonable regulation simply requiring that all pub and fast-food served meat simply be prepared by healthy and fumeless boiling?
– MJM