The worlds gone nuts, nuts I tell you!

 It's hard to believe that the sun is shining this Sunday afternoon and the temperature is very mild for this time of year, the back end of October. As I sit here drinking beer and smoking copious rollups I can see many people pass by my window on their weekly ritualistic pilgrimage to the big 'tute' aka the North Ormesby Instute. The majority of which are smoking cigarettes. I have no doubt most of them curse the smoking ban but put up with it rather than do what I do, refuse to give the hospitality industry smokers money because they laid on their backs and and passivly said "shaft me"! And after all, it's a lovely sunny day outside and they have conveniently forgotten the four harsh winters they have had to endure while indulging in their weekly sabbatical.

I'll bet too that the older WMC (Working Mens Clubs) goer will, while standing outside his watering hole in all weathers, let his/her mind slip back to a time before the choices they  made in life were taken away from them by the high and mighty. I wonder if they think how lucky they are to have reached a certain age unscathed as they grew up in the 20th century?

IF YOU’RE aged over 35 and still in one piece, you should probably pause at least once every day and congratulate yourself on the achievement. Because in light of the number of things that were considered normal during your childhood, and are now banned or controlled for health and safety reasons, your continued existence must be either a statistical blip or a miracle.

Well I'm over 35 (well over :¬)) and there are two things I do know, I am neither a statistical blip nor a miracle and I suspect that 25% of the UK smoking public do not fall into either catagory too.

I was reminded of this during the week by a now-annual text from my kids’ school, warning that nuts are “strictly prohibited” from the premises. This is the case all year round, of course. But at Halloween, there is a higher than usual risk of the anti-nut security cordon being breached. Hence the move to code yellow, as it were.

 It says on this site that: It is estimated that up to 45% of the population suffer from some level of food intolerance. I often wonder where all these 'food intolerances' came from, is it the price we pay for modern day living? I know one thing though, we who have came through life intact have to pay hansomly as the ban, ban, ban philosophy takes root in our esteemed lawmakers in parliament.

And I know there are good reasons for the ban. Even so, I can’t help being nostalgic about those crazy days, pre-regulation, when nuts were still central to the educational experience. If you weren’t eating them, you were using them as weapons: often after subjecting them to chemical hardening processes so, that well-aimed, they could have killed elephants.

Not that the prospect of death by chest-or-monkey-nut was your biggest danger. You had probably come to school that day on a bike, without a helmet. Or even worse, your parents had driven you in a car without seat-belts, or with seat-belts the use of which was still considered optional. Needless to say, the lunatics had never installed a booster seat. And to complete the picture of criminal negligence, they were probably smoking too.

I put my hands up guv to all of the above but I'm still here and many a UK citizen are still here at some ripe old age or another despite their vices. It is too easy for governments to criminalise it's peoples with so little evidence. But I suppose the health nuts will have their day eh?

I'm a towney, being brought up in Glasgow made me so but I do like the open spaces where farming is at it's forte but even in Britain's bread basket the bansterbators lurk:

If you grew up on a farm, like me, your chances of survival were even thinner. Never mind the dangerous machinery and bulls and all the other threats to your external security. Consider instead the horror that was daily consumption, for years on end, of unpasteurised milk! What was my mother – who spent her lifetime worrying about us being knocked down on the road – thinking? We used to have a room called “the dairy”. Naturally, it was where the milk was stored. But it was where lots of other things were stored too, including for a time, an old shotgun. Then, when the Troubles started, there was one of those periodic round-ups of unlicensed firearms, and my father handed the gun in to the barracks. I realise now, looking back, it was the milk he should have decommissioned.

These days, children’s whole lives are pasteurised. Which must be part of the reason for their much higher need of thrills, in everything from computer games to fairground rides. Things that would have scared the bejayzus out of my generation are much too bland for them. Hence the ever-increasing realism of the skeletons and zombies and other ghouls that have become standard decor in shops at this time of year.

It’s a bit of a paradox. Brought up in ultra-safe environments, modern kids can’t get enough of pretended danger. Yet here am I, survivor of the minefield that was a 20th-century childhood. And this weekend, I’m almost afraid to go to the supermarket.

Know how you feel mate, know how you feel!

Mark Wadsworth: Be there or be square.

The clock is ticking. Show your support for a referendum on our membership of the EU.

Tora, tora, tora

The headline relates to a 1970 film about the attack on Pearl Harbour during the second world war where the Japanese, when getting close to their goal, their commander uttered those fateful words attack, attack, attack, and I make no excuses for using them because, as an unrepentant smoker, I feel under attack. In 1941 that brazen assault on the Americans brought them into the war, a war they had no inclination to join until that fateful day.

Back then the Germans, under Hitler, were hell bent on conquering Britain to bring us under their yoke of Nazism and cleanse us of anyone who was non Aryan or seen as unfit to draw breath because of their infirmity, sexual preference or lifestyle choice. As with all dictators, the things they love least are the things that spur them on to eradicate that that they hate most, and Hitler, being an ex-smoker himself, hated smoking and smokers. So much so he gave his best scientists leave from experimenting on human beings, ie non Aryans, to foster his hate in anything that he did not enjoy:

...when in power (perhaps with the zeal of a convert), appeared to detest tobacco, which he called "the wrath of the Red Man against the White Man, vengeance for having been given hard liquor." But the antismoking campaign reflected "a national political climate stressing the virtues of racial hygiene and bodily purity" as well as the Fuhrer's personal prejudices. The same could be said of Nazi efforts to discourage drinking and encourage a better diet.

The state performer in antismoking propaganda was Adolf Hitler. As one magazine put it: "brother national socialist, do you know that our Führer is against smoking and think that every German is responsible to the whole people for all his deeds and emissions, and does not have the right to damage his body with drugs?"

The Second World War ended in 1945 and these isles clawed their way back to prosperity, inch by proverbial inch. We threw off a few of the old ways that shackled us and demanded, and got, freedoms hitherto denied us and became one of the most tolerant nations on this earth. We already had a reputation around the globe as being fair minded and just when we made our laws. Justice was our watchword, justice for everyone. After all we fought a bloody war to be free peoples and elected to parliament those that, on the face of it, would deliver everything that us Britons hold dear. And they did...for a while.

 

Please, can anyone tell me why our fathers and forefathers fought two world wars to keep our sovereignty and hard won freedoms only for our traitorous politicians today to hand over our hard earned, earned with blood, sweat and tears, sovereignty to a Nazi like unelected bunch of dictators who do not reside on these shores?

Can anyone tell my why a foreign, unelected by the governed, parliament is allowed to dictate the lives of people on this island? Dictate how we eat, drink or sleep?

We, the people, have no say and your elected MP's will make damn sure you will have no say because they are traitors to the British people and are in the pay of, or are looking to be in the pay of, those gang of thieves that have invaded Great Britain without a fight, the EU!

The EU, and their ever increasing tentacles, like the European Commissioner for Health, no longer try and hide their detestment of you and what you do:

...The review is also looking into extending smoking bans in public across the EU – currently such bans are at the discretion of member states.
Such bans were effective, Mr Dalli said, arguing that at the very basic level they helped undermine the idea of the cigarette as being a social lubricant.
“The fact that you have to interrupt whatever you are doing at an entertainment site and go outside, sometimes in the cold, to smoke a quick cigarette is not very appealing,” Mr Dalli said.

Yes, you read that correctly, Britian is a Member State of the EU, not a member country, because Great Britaon is NOT a country anymore and thats down to the traitors we elected, we are merely a state of Nazi EU!

On the 1st of July 2007 the UK parliament did more than their paymasters asked of them but still their paymasters are baying for more smokers blood. The EU wants to take what little 'descretion' your parliament has left and force the traitors you/we elected to extend smoking bans in the UK on it's not inconsiderable smoking public. As we have said, and Dick Puddlecote has said many a time, smoking bans has nothing to do with health, as Mr Dalli admits, it's about " undermining the idea of a cigarette as being a social lubricant." And when the anti smoking brigade from the likes of ASH et al say that we do not want to denormalise or stigmatise smokers then point them to Dalli's pronouncement that "The fact that you have to interrupt whatever you are doing at an entertainment site and go outside, sometimes into the cold, to smok a quick cigarette is not very appealing." Tell my now, you anti smoking terrorist scum that your intentions are honourable!

And the Hitler comparison finally comes into focus here as Dalli was speaking in Malta to...

He was speaking at the local launch of the Ex-smokers campaign, an anti-smoking initiativ...

Did I say that Hitler was an ex-smoker? Or Duncan Bannatyne Debrah Arnott and Sheilla Duffy, if you can find more then please say in the comments.

Tomorrow, the 24th of October 2011, there will be a rushed vote in the House of Commons and the traitors, especially David Cameron and Nick Clegg, who are conspiring to deprive the British public of an in/out referendum on the EU in a complete turnaround from their election pledges. And Ed Miliband is adding his weight to shafting the British electorate. Come join the Peoples Pledge and let us show these people who's pays their wages!

Tora, tora, tora! We have to go on the attack and show these people who elected them and why we elected them and that we, the electorate, are the masters, not the servants.

Fed up with Facebook?

Freedom2Choose has joined a new Social Networking site called Chime.in. You can find F2C here.

It's much more user friendly than some 'other' SN's.

H/T to Subrosa.

Freedom of Choice–In or Out. Nothing else will do!

Freedom of choice is the very essence of democracy, yet on Monday our soon to be despised leader David Cameron will lead us into further economical deprivation with the proposed vote on Europe.

We applaud the likes of Stewart Jackson, MP for Peterborough and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Northern Ireland Owen Paterson who said:

“Some things are more important than party preferment. The bond of trust with my ­constituents, the views of people who have had no say on our European ­policy in any substantive sense for more than 30 years... I think I owe it to them to give them that say.”

Stewart is absolutely correct, for each individual has the the right of the freedom2choose for him/herself.

Governments are elected to serve the people that elected them yet we have already seen Cameron sidestep thousands of supporters of the referendum campaign group the People’s Pledge who had planned to join a mass lobby of Parliament next Thursday, the original day of the vote. The People’s Pledge yesterday confirmed their lobby would now take place on Monday from 2.30pm outside the House of Commons. Insiders said up to 15 frontbenchers were ready to resign their posts and vote for the motion proposing the first national poll on Britain’s relationship with Brussels since the 1975 Common Market referendum.

We say these MPs are absolutely correct to stand up for their constituents, why should the British people be part of something that is clearly NOT working simply because another man (Cameron) mistakenly/foolishly believes it is? In reality the European Union is exactly the same as the Titanic-and look where that is now!
 
Write to your MP today, use your freedom2choose for yourself-this country needs a referendum...NOW!

Can't get it up? Stopping smoking is the answer...

...yeah, right!

The “science” on smoking isn’t about finding the truth. It’s about getting people to quit, no matter what. The latest research proves again that you can make any wild claim you want as long as it pushes that anti-tobacco agenda.

So there's been another "research" report aimed at the smoker, not any old smoker but us men...well I suppose it's our time as women smokers have been lambasted for many a year now for their enjoyment of lit tobacco.

So what does this "new" hard research have to say about men and smoking?

This time, the Health Police claim that men who quit get the instant gift of firmer, harder erections — and I’m sure the headlines alone had plenty of guys ready to kick the habit.

Well Dr. Douglas, I am not one of them. As I am at the wrong end of 50 and been married for 40 years sex has been off the agenda for some time now but my libido keeps rearing it's ugly head and has a non conformist attitude with it's own armament, (even though it has nothing to shoot at.)

You know how it is: If a study found that hitting yourself in the head with a hammer would produce a firmer erection, lines at hardware stores across the country would be out the door by the end of the day.

Don't think so, pain is not my thang. In the interests of our fellow men what are we do do in light of the evidence, take it with a pinch of sa..

But don’t toss your Zippo yet — toss this study instead, because it doesn’t mean zippo for your penis. For the study, just 20 of the 65 men roped into this one managed to quit smoking, and none of them — not a single one! — actually noticed a change in the quality of his erections.

Phewww, that's a relief, not that I was worried you understand.

You see when it comes to something small, especially in the anti smoking, lets denormalise these filthy bastards world of Tobacco Control, they always find a way to make something tiny bigger by doing some Quixotic research. In this case the findings were so eye wateringly small that they used special equipment and a pair of tweezers to see it:

The “improvement” mentioned in the study was so small it could only be detected by a lab device called a penile plethysmograph. Yet that was all the researchers needed to crank up the old propaganda machine.

I bet that put the researchers off their game eh, bet they downplayed their findings?

“Regardless of if this really does apply to all men who smoke or not, (the goal was) just getting the word out that men could be aware of this finding, so it could influence their decisions to start the quitting process,” he was quoted as saying.

 Gambling was never my forte anyway!

I'll leave the last word to the good Dr. over at The Douglas Report:

I won’t play their game.



I’ll pick science over sensationalism every time, and you’re not going to believe what the objective science says about smoking: Tobacco can help BEAT heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and even cancer.

H/T to jredheadgirl.

Today is the day...

...that Freedom2Choose holds it's AGM. And through marital commitments to my ailing wife I cannot be there but I do hope they have a good one, which I know they will.

Freedom2Choose was borne out of a forum, pre smoking ban, in 2004/5 and went on to become the F2C forum we know today, in 2007. In March 2007 I joined the now defunct The Big Debate after a 7 day stay at our wonderful NHS local hospital for a skin ailment that for years before was called by our esteemed doctors and consultants as eczema but, after much prodding, pulling and a biopsy they came down on the side of Psoriasis? No wonder I have no faith in the medical profession these days.

It was many months before the smoking ban when I was asked to go in and to say I was not happy about it is an understatement. It was not the fear of the hospital but the knowledge that I could not smoke, which I didn't want to do inside anyway, but there where signs up everywhere outside with the ubiquitous red symbol that said you could not smoke...where I/we eventually stood with other smokers underneath those very same signs, smokers with an FU attitude. The hospital even had a very large tarpaulin banner for visitors to see as they drove in saying: WELCOME TO A SMOKEFREE MIDDLESBROUGH. Boy were the anti smokers reveling in their victory to be enacted shortly afterwards on the 1st of July 2007...which started my quest to find justice for smokers who will not bend to lies and deceit by those who seek to denormalise them/me!

I was never so happy when I left that place seven days later.

I was in shock, or denial, that the smoking ban would ever happen but determined to find out if there were other people out there like me who were stunned by this cataclysmic piece of legislation. Things did not bode well when, after release from the hospital, my first port of call was my local for a pint and a cigarette. Talking to a local with my views he said he was not a smoker and he was glad of the legislation as smoking and smokers was foul etc. etc. After that it was then I found The Big Debate on the Internet.

Towards the end of 2008 we on the forum decided to become an organisation getting it's funding by membership and on the 24th of December 2008 I became the proud owner of Membership Card No 1. I managed to go to the first AGM but had problems ever since to get to them, but I have digressed enough.

Today's AGM is our two yearly proposed change of the executive and I am sad to announce that Phil Johnson will not be standing for reselection as Chairman due to health problems. This is a great loss to F2C as Phil has brought the Shisha bar associations as well as the CIU into our way of thinking, not that they had to think much, and kept them onboard to F2C's initiatives and direction.

As Chairman Phil has made a mistake or two, haven't we all, but has stuck by his resolve to bin this vile ban. Like no other chairman before he has been to meet members locally and visited us here in the North East at our meetings at a pub outside Leeds, which has now lost it's anti smoking ban landlord, and you all know why.

Phil will stay with F2C and for six months will mentor our new chairman elect Dave Atherton to get him up to speed. Phil will also stay as our pubs and clubs liaison officer.

To paraphrase: The king has gone, (Phil Johnson), long live the king, (Dave Atherton.)

Inhumanity of the anti smoking kind.

I am moved to tears by this letter published by Cage Canada. How have we let things get to this:

My mother, a recent but hopefully  temporary resident of a Stratford Ontario Nursing facility is 82 years old. She has smoked for 62 years! Some idiots in the health ministry/ Stratford Ontario bylaws have decided to ban smoking within 9 meters of this facility. Also, staff are not allowed to accompany her to smoke outdoors. My mother has become slightly physically disabled and she requires assistance even to go outdoors. It matters not that a verandah of 70 ft or more is in place because that verandah (mostly unused) is off limits also. This facility is a relatively good care place to be but unfortunately the short staff situation has become a problem. If the government would provide even one more staff my mother and others could have a daily cigarette. Has anyone ever seen or heard an elderly person beg for a cigarette while in a nursing home? Sadly, this is the case for my mother. She quite literally begged them to let her have a cigarette. She was independent until a short time ago so begging is new to her.
 
I should mention she smokes 2 perhaps 3 cigarettes a day and healthwise when this is withdrawn, her last enjoyment of life is being denied. Firstly it was her driver license, secondly her partially disabled body was in trouble and now she is forbidden to smoke ( a legal cigarette ) even on the verandah. How anyone in power could do this to an elderly citizen is beyond my scope of understanding especially one who has smoked for 62 years and is unable to defend or protect her rights. Strangely as a smoker she is very beautiful in appearance and looks 10 years younger than her age.
   
Compassion has vanished and so has her right to smoke. They protect her privacy but strip her freedoms. It is horrifying to think what else Canada might do or is doing to its elderly. None of us expected this to be happening in my mother's new residence. For God's sake someone help the elderly who are being denied their basic rights! At some point we will all have to walk the walk and I wonder what it will be like for us in the hands of these fanatics who have decided to remove all of our risk behaviors. I can only say this is not done with

" alcohol" because many of our law makers are drunks! Believe me when I say that I would prefer to sit next to a smoker than a "drunken" arrogant law maker! Only drunks and idiots believe the manipulated stats if it will reduce the payouts for elderly in long term care.

Allow her to smoke on the verandah with the assistance required.. It is her right to do so. Dictated by compassion instead of draconian laws would enable us to rectify this for an elderly citizen, who does not have many years left. She did pay her taxes for decades and this is her reward -- often referred to as the "golden years". Let me mention that my grandmother (her mother) lived to age 99 complete with second hand smoke. She never had a surgery of any kind in her life. My mother had one surgery at age 60 or so.  Health wise the smoking itself had not harmed my grandmother and if in fact it finally does harm my mother at 82 years old that is her own choice from a life time of smoking but not from 3 cigarettes a day at this point in time. Her doctor knows about her smoking and of course he prefers she does not smoke but he does not dictate her life and agrees that a couple of cigarettes a day no longer can harm her at this age. She has told me to be sure and let her smoke as a last wish before she dies.

Part of the year (in winter ) I live with my Italian born partner who has Parkinson's disease and for this reason we must return to Italy for his health and for him to visit specialists and take part in the trials of new medicines. Because of this we had to arrange a compassionate man who will take my mother outdoors once a day. Also, a female caregiver who is willing to take her outdoors three times a week. This is all at our own cost. What do residents do who are living on a small govt. pension? My family is very much anti smoking and believes she is better off to be distracted from her dirty harmful habit. I feel alone in my quest to give her assurance that she is a worthwhile effort no matter her addiction. I believe she has a right to smoke. This is a lady who reads world history and economics and is not easily distracted by child-like activities that take place in many nursing homes today.

It has left a foul taste so I have begun to think of my own aging and will have to make a decision on which country I should live in and what care might be provided. We must begin at a younger age so that we have a measure of control regarding the facility where we will spend our "golden years" should we ever reach them. Who will protect our rights and who will deny us the simple pleasures we have gotten used to throughout a lifetime? Who will it be to lock the doors and inform us we must stay indoors because there is a lack of staff to

assist us to the outside for a fresh air walk, and/or a cigarette? Pity the poor souls who must live in these conditions of fanaticism set down by our health ministries and governments. The elderly have been silenced and have no hope to recover a measure of independence. God help us all for allowing this to happen.

Last night in the rain I managed to push my Mom in a wheelchair outdoors. Having a slight disability myself made it next to impossible but after some effort we managed with an umbrella in tow to let her have the evening enjoyment of a cigarette. She said «thank you thank you thank you" Poor lady outside in the rain like a second class citizen but it was worth it just to see her smile.

"This ministry thought it could de-normalize smoking but what it has achieved is non other than the normalization of bigotry and intolerance. " 

"Principles are never a good enough excuse for cruelty and lack of compassion" -- Dan Romano -- C.A.G.E

"Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad,
 but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison."
 - William Shakespeare

Ethics

ASH UK have teamed up with an organisation called FairPensions to lambaste councils that invested in 'un-ethical' companies, and, surprise, surprise, they have tobacco companies firmly in their sights. 'Doctors' are right behind ASH and their affiliates and they are "shocked" by the revelation that some councils invest in companies that are yielding high dividends for their pension fund:

"I am shocked by the size and extent of south-west local government pension investments in the tobacco industry and I am sure many of those contributing to the funds, as well as those receiving local government pensions, will be as well", said Dr Gabriel Scally, the NHS regional director of public health for the south-west.

Yup, deprive council workers of a decent pension, workers who would kill to have a GP's pension, a gold plated pension that ordinary people in the real world can only dream about.

Of course the good doctor Gabriel Scully has no ulterior motive for his outburst and is only thinking of one's health, isn't he?

"The tobacco industry is destructive, dishonest and deceitful. We need to put them out of business, not invest our hard-earned money in them."

There speaks a truthful anti smoker, his only goal in life is to put a legitimate business out of...er, business and throw thousands upon thousands of people out of work, people who would not be able to contribute to their pensions because of his hatred of something millions enjoy in this country.

Anyway, back to ASH who have gone all ethical on us poor unsuspecting smokers and blind non smokers alike. ASH USA are so devious righteous that they have moved into the home of the smoking American, and published a blueprint on how to take their children away from them if they smoke or come within an inch of a tobbacco substance:

This page tells nonsmokers how to deal with problems of custody and smoking, and specifically how to protect your child from the deadly dangers of secondhand tobacco smoke by raising smoking as in issue in a custody dispute and/or post-custody-determination hearing.

 Now I am not saying that ASH (UK) has the same philosophy as those nutters at ASH USA run by that notorious ambulance chaseing lawer John Banshaf the 'turd' but they have a shared agenda:

• Smoking should be banned in cars where children are present.
• Smoking should be banned in casinos like in other workplaces.
• New York moves toward total e-cigarette ban.
• E-cigarette imports banned indefinitely.
• Why smokers have been and may reasonably be banned from adopting.
• Court rules FDA can again stop e-cigarette imports.
• ASH files a successful complaint against a business violating VA's smoking ban.

Sound familiar? Now that ASH and the FairPensions, (does that sound like an oxymoron to you?) have teamed up I am begining to wonder about the much bandied about word ETHICS.

Things ain’t what they used to be

Guest Post by John Watson

Condemned to death on the 7th of July 2007

Those who follow share prices on the BBC will know that the Pubco’s were a regular feature on the shares scene. They were up there with utilities as a ‘reasonably safe bet’ profit maker for those who speculate on the stock market. Today the BBC are no longer showing the plummeting share prices of two of the big Pubco’s Enterprise Inns and Spirit (Punch Taverns).

Looking at the figures below even a layman can see that they are in serious trouble, and if the truth be known the fact that the share prices began falling immediately after the introduction of the Health Act 2006 in England during July 2007.

The BBC Financial News no longer display share values for…. Enterprise Inns and Spirit (Punch Taverns) which is not surprising given the latest figures:

Enterprise Inns….July 1^st 2007.…689.34p    October 3^rd 2011.…33.25p

Punch Taverns….July1^st 2007.…1230.0p      October3^rd 2011.… 11.24p 

Even the breweries are not immune to serious drops in their share prices:

Marstons Shares....July 2007,,,394.00p.........NOW 89.00p
Mitchel and Butlers July 2007....879.00p.........NOW 235.00p 

No one is suggesting that the recession that began around six months after the introduction of that act has not had an effect, and it is difficult to lay the blame entirely on either event.

Historically though the Pubs managed to survive the great crash of 1929 and depression of the 1930’s in far better shape than they are weathering the current recession. Even Göering’s Luftwaffe could not close them down despite their efforts to demolish London, the South East and Coventry.

Their survival in part was due  to the fact no matter what the country’s finances  were doing, no matter how bad the Blitz got people still used the pubs, they were for the people a refuge as they have always been, a refuge from the stresses of work, home, unemployment and to a degree even the Second World War .

So what is the difference today,  well we do not have a world war to win, we do have a recession which is not even close to the Great depression of the 1930’s. Income is far greater today than it was then, beer prices rose accordingly along with the price of everything else, and of course, every year the Government have taken an ever-increasing cut via taxation.

Granted the Pub scene today is different to what it was then, Pubs became less of a refuge from the Mrs and kids, the job, somewhere to discuss the issues of the day. Pubs developed into family eateries, departments of companies found often on a Friday lunchtime socialising before the weekend bringing work with them and so the refuge was gone. Even those changes did not greatly affect the profitability of the pub; business was good and even in 2007 about 60% of pub patrons was still smokers.

At a stroke in 2007, pubs suddenly lost the majority of their patrons. Smokers who grumbled about the price of a pint were content to pay, who still socialised with their peers and would drink three or four pints in a session and were forced to smoke outside, treated by the law of the land and a small number of anti smokers like lepers. 

When businesses treat their core customers as second-class citizens, even when forced by legislation to do so they suffer for it. It is then little wonder that smokers now prefer to buy cheaper drink from supermarkets, that they are more likely to go to ’Smokey Drinkies ‘ around their friends houses where they can smoke, drink and socialise with their peers while feeling welcome.

So there it is, a ‘perfect storm’, recession , bad legislation  that removed the pubs core customers,  the price differences between pubs and supermarkets, over taxation combined with the ’denormalisation’  of first the smokers and now the drinkers themselves all adds up to the death of the pub and indeed the death of the Pubco’s.

Councillor Bartlett has landed a no confidence vote in himself by 8 votes to 1 (his own probably!)