The Loneliness Triblogology - Part 3

The Scream

Can't see the video above? Then click here.

We conclude this third and final part of our trilogy predominantly by letting some of the 15 million people who still smoke in the UK and Ireland, and their non-smoking friends, speak for themselves about loneliness and the personal impact of the smoking ban.

Some of the quotes we have collected are taken from the blog site of Frank Davis, and from those who have made comments there. Frank has posted regularly and movingly on the subject of loneliness and the smoking ban, and particularly its effect on older people.

We open, however, with a poignant letter written by pensioner Jane Daniel in the evening of New Years Eve 2010.  (Thank you to our commenter on the first Loneliness Blog, The Witch of Essex, for posting this.)

“I have accepted all of that and never smoked where I was not welcomed to do so.

I am now in my mid 70's and can now only smoke either at home or in the open air.

I am now disabled (accident damaging my hip) and so can not get out as much as I would like to. So now I only smoke in my own home. This is a very lonely existence and I would love to be able to go to a pub for a drink occasionally. However, as a smoker I know that I can't do this and enjoy a drink and cigarette in safety and comfort in a pub.

I accept all this and am sorry that my pleasure upsets so many people. I wish that my life was different, but after smoking for over 60 years it is difficult to stop.

It really hurts me to hear that smokers are now classed as disgusting filthy death carriers as I really hadn't considered myself to be thus.

Now that I am all these horrible things I am glad that I am nearing the end of my life.

How cruel and malicious are these people that have ostracised me and cast me out from society. I am so sorry if my 'habit' has offended people and wish that I had never taken that first cigarette all those years ago.”

We believe that legislation should never be used to force anyone, never mind a pensioner, to apologise or demean themselves because they indulge in a lawful activity; it should not force anyone into a way of life that they do not desire.

Here is Frank Davis talking in his own words about a tragic suicide:  

“For some people, like Lawrence Walker, it was too much. He took his own life about 6 months after the ban came into force. He had become, in that time, a complete exile. He had lost all connection with everything and everyone. He probably didn't have an internet connection, deep in the Cornish countryside. I at least have that, and so belong to the strange virtual communities which flourish within it. Such communities are - like e-cigarettes - better than nothing. But they don't compare to the real thing, the actual experience of meeting people and talking to them.”

This 67 year old describes what has happened to his group of friends:

“We once were a happy crowd.

Ernie. Disabled .Parks his wheelchair behind a wheely bin to keep out of the draught

John . 86  Far East Veteran huddles in a doorway with two other Veterans

Doris 82, Widow .Stays in 7 nights a week now

Meryll 72 Widow . Friends dont go out anymore

George 82 Manchester Reg (sic). isolated

Jeff 74 Lancs Fusiliers, Non smoker. Friends dont come out any more

Beryl 78 misses her friends at bingo stays in

Joan widow 59, Pat 64, Helen 74 widow, local shut

Jud:  Ex Para Suez Drives round looking for friends

Me 67 smoker (55 years) used to be 7 nights a week in the pub ,now once a fortnight. “

Another pensioner writes:

“We are all as we get older becoming hermits on account of this ban & I know this is not the way I wanted to end my life being denied a pleasure to me that I have done all my life (since 16 anyway) & denied the social activities that I looked forward to. I have considered myself a good, honest, hardworking, tax paying citizen all my life & now feel like a 2nd class citizen. Go figure!”

A 74 year old widow says:

“I am getting too old to stand outside pubs or restaurants. Plus I was taught that it was only 'ladies of the night' that stood in the street smoking.

I have been 3 years away from any social contact other than the odd hello with neighbours.

Being a widow with no family it was always going to be hard to get back into some semblance of normality with regard to socialising, but I didn't think that it would be this bad.

I used to meet up in a cafeteria with some lady friends, but now that has stopped as a few of the ladies were smokers and didn't want to stand in the street to have a cigarette.

I went to a quiz night at the local pub as there were quite a few elderly 'singles' there. That has stopped. I also played bingo once a week and that too has stopped as there is no pleasure in having a drink there with no cigarette.

I am now on anti depressants and wish that I had the courage to kill myself and join my dear husband.

Thank you politicians for making my life not worth living after working from age 14 until 68. I am now 74 and have lost my soul and will to live in this lonely place.”

An elderly Irish man writes:

“I'm still lonely over this smoking ban. I miss all the great laughs we used to have together without any interruption what-so-ever. I feel lost standing outside the pub door. I feel like a naughty school boy put into the corner of the classroom. It seemed so much better before. I think we have lost something very precious.”

June Brown, the 81 year old actress who plays Dot in Eastenders, said:

“You can't go anywhere and smoke now - it's ruined my life. It's ruined the whole end of my life.” 

Another smoker from Ireland writes:

“I'll be the first to admit that I am a die-hard smoker. It's lonely now being a die-hard and I was acutely aware of this today when I had an outside coffee with my daughter. It felt as if there were all these little Berlin walls all around me denying me access to other people. I certainly felt left out but it doesn't stop me smoking if you know what I mean. I don't know if it will stop many people at all. I felt today that the whole thing is just a useless adventure and was made worse when I saw a 12-13 year old walking along the street smoking. Are you sure you have done the right thing by bringing in this smoking ban? I think it's all a bit of a mess and needs to seriously be looked at.”

And a wonderful comment from a teenager written not only in the teenage style but also from the heart!

“OMG these ladies are my nans age and its people who are younger than them who made these horrible laws that make them stand out in the cold and they should be ashamed at throwing their parents in the street, my nan smokes and says she would rather be at home and i thought it was because she was old but now i think its because she dont want to stand in the street, i cried when i read this letter and wish that my nan could go out to see people and not sit indoors unhappy, they are bastards who do this to old people.”

Even the mainstream news services have begun to pick up on the theme:

“It has hastened the death of many elderly people either from being shoved outside to develop pnuemonia (sic) or to face a lonely existence in their own homes devoid of any social interaction. It has caused arguments between family members and instigated positive hatred towards a large section of law abiding citizens”

And finally, the Government itself now considers mental health and wellbeing as being as important as physical health. On 2nd February they launched their new strategy “No Health without Mental Health”

“New plans to transform the mental health and well-being of the nation and ensure – for the first time – that mental health is given the same importance as the nation’s physical health, were announced today by the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg and Andrew Lansley and Paul Burstow from the Department of Health”

Our conclusions

Our trilogy of blogs on loneliness shows that:

Loneliness is a serious and wide-ranging condition that strikes at any age, although it can be particularly hard for older people. Loneliness is the leading cause of premature death. Loneliness severely impacts people’s social and mental wellbeing.

We believe that the total smoking ban is a major factor in creating loneliness, premature death and poor mental health, and has substantially increased the breakdown of communities, the dissolving of supportive social networks and the fragmentation of social cohesion.

This has been the unintended consequence of our public health anti-smoking legislation, and the people whose stories we have quoted are a tiny fraction of those millions suffering “collateral damage”.

It is obvious to us that loneliness has increased since July 1st, 2007. It is the silent killer that is creeping up on our nation.

We cannot understand why anyone would choose to promote (as ASH have done) or to pass (as successive governments have done) legislation that increases the burden, that makes more people lonely: after all, it should be the role of politicians to serve, represent and protect their constituents, not to put them in harms way. 

Our conclusions beg the question: Now that our political representatives are aware of these facts, what are they going to do about it?

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Frank also said on his own blog:

"May I suggest to anyone who is reading this that, if they are elderly (65+) and they smoke, they send me an email at author@idletheory.info setting out their personal experience of the smoking ban.

And may I also suggest that if you know any elderly smokers, you get in contact with them, and ask them how life has been for them, and write it all down, and send it to me.

I say elderly, not because I'm unsympathetic to less elderly, but because I think that this ban has disproportionately hurt elderly people, who are the most vulnerable. I'd like to be able to tell their story.”...

“What is happening .... is happening to millions of people. I know a 75-year-old who used to meet up with friends at a pub once a week, and with other friends at a cafe. That's all ended. "I'm too old to stand outside," he told me, when I last visited him in his little flat, which is the only place I see him these days. It's the same everywhere.

If we had media with any sort of social conscience, stories like this would be found in every single town and village in the country. But instead we have a political correctness which regards smokers as being non-persons, and they never get a hearing. It's utterly shameful.”

Hat Tip to Frank Davis.


Writing team for this The Loneliness Triblogology were:

Karen Bunn

Brenda Orsler

John Watson

Phil Johnson

Carol Cattell

Graphics by John H Baker and music by Paul Kearns.

Announcment.

From Phil Johnson, Chairman of Freedom To Choose.

Freedom To Choose UK will hold a meeting in Northampton on Monday 20th September, 2010 starrting at 11am at the Kingsley Park WMC, Northampton.

Attendees are:

Phil Johnson (Chair)
Dave Atherton............f2c
Inez Ward................ Director/Founder JFL
Barry Slaney..............President, SE Midlands WMCIU
Dr Ruth Cherrington.....Cultural Consultant
Philip Holobone..........Conservative MP
Chris Heaton Harris.....Conservative MP (Speaker-progressive conservatives)
Brian Binley..............Conservative MP ***
UNITE.....................representative Northants area
Steve Corbett............FairPint
Suhayl Ismail.....,,,,,,,,shisha bar community
Steve Winnings..........Licensee

Also Invited:-
BII
BBPA
FVLA
CAMRA
AMLR

We have an article promoting the meeting appearing in the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, not only supporting the meeting but to encourage local licencees & club owners to attend to put their views forward.

***Brian Binley has written to me regretting that he will be on holiday but wants the meeting 'minuted' and to meet with f2c representatives upon his return.

Yep, it's still missing

As I mentioned here, there is a supposedly miraculous Labour achievement which is missing from Gordon Brown's list of his government's brilliant highlights. D'you reckon he might be a bit afraid it will come back and bite his depressed arse?

Can you guess which "single biggest improvement in public health for a generation" was not mentioned?

Clue: It's not the cuddly toy.



H/T GOT

Iain Dale the wallflower

The country's top blogger, Iain Dale, has just discovered a large downside of the smoking ban for non-smokers.

Dale is ambivalent to the smoking ban debate - he neither agrees nor disagrees - but errs occasionally on the side of freedom of choice, so his discovery of state-enforced bad manners isn't cause for gleeful gloating.

UPDATE: As Iain himself points out in the comments, he more than errs on the side of freedom of choice, he is an opponent of the ban. Very happy to put that straight. Now onto the issue raised by his tweet.

However, it does bring up a salient point about the authoritarian nature of the ban. That of the personal predilections of the individual being steam-rollered by government who profess to 'know better'.

As a Conservative, Dale will be very familiar with the toast to 'The Queen' at sumptuous feasts and fund-raisers. This was a respectful nod to the monarch, always once everyone had finished eating, and mostly before the after-dinner speaker.

Dining guests who wished to finish off their evening with a cigar and an entertaining orator would strictly obey the rule of 'no smoking before The Queen'.

Smokers can understand that many non-smokers would find it irritating should someone light up while they were eating, but 'The Queen' was a threshold that none would cross in respect for that very reason. The result was an atmosphere of good manners and tolerance of the wishes of others.

While the modern pack 'em in and turf 'em out, eat whenever you like, approach by restaurants doesn't lend itself to such niceties, there are other restaurants which apply rigid seating times, to which such an arrangement would be perfectly feasible. Unfortunately, Labour have decided that no owner of any establishment should be permitted such a choice.

The hard-line authoritarian nature of the ban is even more stark in pubs where, prior to the 2005 general election, they had a choice, smoking or food. Many would have chosen to keep their smoking customers and dispensed with the deep fat fryer. They were denied that choice entirely undemocratically by a government which reneged on its manifesto commitment in outrageous fashion.

And as for 'cigar bars', such as this fine one in Belgravia, the legislation is even more oppressive and disgraceful. The clue to the air-wavers and fake-coughers is in the description of the premises. No like? No enter.

Dale may well have preferred that his guests continue the conversation, with his permission, at the table (he may not have, but he doesn't have a say anymore). The owner may well have no objections either, or any of the other customers, yet all that is swept away by the opinion of Labour's nanny front bench. They know better, you see.

The same scenario is played out in every pub, up and down the country, on every night of the week. It is always rude for friends to leave a conversation to go outside for a cigarette/pipe/cigar, but what other choice is there?

None, because Labour have taken it away whether the non-smokers in attendance, or the owner of the property, care or not.

The only rude ones here are those who thought the Health Act 2006 was a good idea.

Tories in glass houses

Raedwald recently picked up on the above picture which Nanny Knows Best has been using for a while. It was drawn in the 1950s but is acutely accurate when applied to the current Labour administration.

The Tories seem to really like it too. It attracted rave reviews from some of their MPs when it was sent to them recently.

Very good. Thanks for sending it to me.
John Randall (Conservative, Uxbridge)

A great poster which I hadn’t seen before. How very true. Thank you
Peter Luff (Conservative, Mid Worcestershire)

Thanks!
Peter Bottomley (Conservative, Worthing West)

A classic! Thank you.
Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Thank you for sending this to me - very true!
Andrew Rosindell (Conservative, Romford)

Excellent!
Presumably the same goes for a Welshman's home?
David Jones (Conservative, Clwyd West)

Kudos to David Jones for at least studying the message enough to spot the small writing about an Englishman's castle.

None seemed to notice any irony in the rather larger "If you want to call your soul your own" bit though, seeing as all of the above were quite happy to enthusiastically vote for the blanket smoking ban.

As they were party to legislation which detailed the subsequent powers to be installed as a result, they were well aware that the Health Act would create a brand new layer of interfering clipboard-carriers and surreptitious busybodies. Whether measuring the width of tarpaulin to ascertain if smokers are cold enough, or peering through windows when the premises are closed, their entire existence is attributable to self-serving hypocrites such as these.

Remember that one of the exemptions blithely rejected by these 'property rights advocates' was that of private members clubs being permitted to apply a policy determined by their members. Instead, such places are now beholden to the gleeful intervention of peak-capped curtain-twitchers such as those in the 1950s picture.

It would seem that choice of self-determination and the right to call your soul your own, are concepts only afforded to those who fall in line with the personal prejudices of some Tory MPs. The fact that a comprehensive ban was not presented to the public democratically in 2005 makes their insistence on introducing more nannying and local authority interference even more baffling.

Those pointy noses above may be enjoyable for the aforementioned MPs to laugh at, but for every one in the picture, these Tories have approved the installation of another few hundred in real, full technicolour, life.

Well done guys.

What you didn't read about smoking stats yesterday

Yesterday's released statistics on current smoking trends were highly-trailed all day on Comrade Beeb media outlets, naturally, but one wonders why, when they were largely conspicuous only in illustrating the ineffectiveness of post-ban anti-tobacco hectoring.

The big revelation was that there are now a million less smokers since the smoking ban. Except that was apparent from last year's stats too. It was noted by an 'expert' on the BBC web-site, for example.

Dr Jennifer Mindell from the Faculty of Public Health said the drop in the numbers wanting to quit showed 2007 was "basically a blip".

"It's more or less what we would have expected. The smoking ban was a good trigger for some people but many people quickly realised they could carry on smoking."

Well of course people could carry on smoking. What else did she expect? Wasn't this ban not actually about making people stop smoking, but the health of the bar staff? Or were there incredible porkies flying around?

It would seem so, and the responses to the ONS survey show that, even with millions upon millions spent on convincing the public of the lie of second hand smoke, it is still not the preferred excuse for intolerant individuals to dislike the practice (click to enlarge).


Yep. The smell and the clothes having to be washed trump such concerns yet again.

Remember that the ban was brought in to protect bar workers? It was a workplace ban after all. Well, click here and you can search the PDF file yourself. I tried "bar staff" and "bar workers" but there were no matches. Likewise "pub staff" and "pub workers". So, dispensing with the description of the premises might have a chance, eh? Not so. There is no occurrence of the words 'staff' or 'workers' in the entire 127 page document.

Doesn't that appear strange?

Well, not really. We are all well aware that it was never about protecting bar staff, and this document merely emphasises that. The fact that no measure of bar workers' health since July 1st 2007 has been conducted, merely an exercise in extolling the virtue of the ban via quit figures, puts paid to the sham behind its introduction, whilst simultaneously proving the Department of Health as a bunch of liars.

This is what they said in December.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: 'Smokefree laws were introduced to protect employees and the public from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. The legislation was never intended to be a measure to reduce smoking prevalence.'

In which case, why are you not measuring the effects on employees along with the prevalence of smokers? And why is this all over the BBC when the legislation was argued, in parliament, for one reason and one reason only?

MPs should hang their heads in shame at being conned so very comprehensively, but they won't. They could, however, partly right the wrong by lending their weight to a redress in the form of an amendment which would allow some form of choice for the 11 million smokers identified in the ONS document. Like this one, for example.


Mark Easton at the Beeb is one of the few who has interpreted these figures properly.

But the 11 million remaining are a steadfast band - banished from offices, pubs and restaurants, you will see them huddled in doorways, sheltering from wind and rain as they light up.

Within this al fresco routine, a camaraderie often develops; a spirit of solidarity and doggedness with undertones of rebellion. Loyalty grows, to each other and perhaps to the weed which unites them.

Today's attitudes survey from the Office for National Statistics finds that among Britain's smokers, there is a larger proportion who smoke heavily - up from 24% to 29%.

Steadfast band indeed. And government need to understand that they have well exceeded the limits of what is value for money spending under Pareto's principle.

In economics terms, there is diminishing marginal benefit. This is related to the law of diminishing returns: each additional hour of effort, each extra worker is adding less “oomph” to the final result. By the end, you are spending lots of time on the minor details.

Unfortunately, despite the conclusions of this study, no matter how clear it is that further expenditure is throwing good money after bad in a vain cause which is doing nothing but calcifying resistance, economics will be roundly ignored in favour of blind, wasteful idiocy by bansturbating morons.

Taxes are an ever-running tap to the unthinking public sector, and smoking is a never-ending avenue for wasteful spending however little the returns are proven to be.

Smoke Free Catastrophe

Two years on from when the final and largest piece of the UK smoking ban was in place, even the Government sponsored spin from the health lobbies is being drowned out by the undisputed failure of the legislation.

Are the pubs and clubs full of non-smokers?
Well ASH convinced the Trade Organisations that they would be swamped with smoke-averse new customers, and so would be foolish to not support a blanket ban.

So, what happened?
Soon after publicly mocking the pub trade, ASH moved on to tobacco display and vending machine bans with no evidential basis, and continued promoting hatred of smokers- job done.
Meanwhile the pubs are closing at 50+ a week and while those with egg on their faces, scapegoat supermarkets(always sold cheap alcohol), or blame the recession(started a year after the ban), as the elephant in the room merrily tramples unhindered over the livelihoods of thousands of licensees.

But have any lives been saved?
We have seen no unusual increase in the population, but have witnessed 100,000+ jobs disappear from the hospitality trade. We have seen the usual science by press release from the health lobby, citing a huge drop in heart attack admissions to hospitals, in Scotland, then in England. The same contrived reports have appeared after each ban in each country worldwide. Of course when the true, published results came out, the actual figures revealed (as always), quite a different story altogether.

Is there a more pleasant environment in hospitality venues?
Yes if you like empty pubs, or a constant transit of people walking in and out, doorways decorated with huddled smokers, and an environment devoid of atmosphere, plagued by unventilated smells of body odour, perfume and stale beer.
Otherwise no, especially when instead, you could have the choice of a pleasant, convivial environment, where smoking is permitted.

But there must be fewer smokers now you can’t smoke inside?
Yes, if you believe the Cancer Research UK survey of their own supporters paid for by the Government and generous grants from the companies that make nicotine patches.

No, if you read the NHS figures from detailed lifestyle questionnaires (Health survey for England 2008) conducted year on year, and compared with pre-ban habits. In fact smoking numbers have risen in the age group (16-34) mainly targeted by the subtext of the legislation itself. Of course similar rises were seen in Scotland and Ireland, who implemented their bans sometime before the rest of us.

So, instead of saving the NHS money the Government has spent £2.6 billion (£1bn over budget) on the ban, and lost countless millions in duty, as disenfranchised smokers show their contempt by choosing to buy tobacco abroad or from ‘tobacco dealers’. The trough continues to feed the Pharmaceutical companies with the free promotion of their products, subsidies, and NHS staff employed to ‘encourage’ their use. Unfortunately for the tax-payer, it was recently announced that Nicotine patches, gum, inhalers etc have a 98.4% failure rate. - More wasted money.
Think how the NHS could really have benefited from such loose purse strings.

So, what are we left with?
A choice. But unfortunately not for everyone. No, the choice lies within the walls of the Palace of Westminster, and it is this:
Continue to play the tune of the unelected ‘health’ lobby groups who have no regard for personal choice, jobs (apart from their own), or social cohesion. Continue to mistrust adults to co-operate to agree their own arrangements. If the ban continues in its current form there will be no traditional pubs left. There will be no Workingmen’s or private members clubs. There will be no Bingo halls. There will be no rights for property owners who might like to allow a legal product to be consumed on their own premises. There will be no rights for patients in secure hospitals, the repercussions on staff this entails hardly make for a healthy workplace.

Or

Allow hospitality venues, and rooms within these venues and other workplaces to be set aside for smoking. Utilise relatively inexpensive modern Air Management technology to negate concerns about/aversions to tobacco smoke. Hospitals use such technology to protect patients and staff from airborne viruses in isolation units. Simpler variants on this technology exist to remove tobacco smoke, and prevent it from reaching non-smoking areas, where a measurable high standard of air quality can be guaranteed.

The much publicised chemicals in Tobacco smoke are still present in indoor air from soft furnishings, cleaning products, perfume, and cooking smoke from kitchens. These often go unchecked as ventilation systems are not now as prevalent since the ban, and modern building regulations mean rooms are becoming sealed.

It’s interesting that welding shops can be 100% enclosed and not breach the HSE Workplace Exposure Limits for the smoke that welders inhale. Yet we ignore the same guidelines we already had in place for the constituents of tobacco smoke.

There is a simple solution to what was a relatively small problem. That same solution can prevent what is now becoming a catastrophe.

AMEND THE BAN!

Pub closures 2005: 2006: 2007

It is, to some, hard to believe the extent of pub closures due to the SBE (Smoking Ban Experiment) so it is helpful to have a graphical reminder of the carnage wrought by this despicable ban. Basil Brown gives such a lucid reminder.

If you have not already signed up to the campaign SOPAC (Save Our Pubs And Clubs) then I urge you to do so today.



UK Pub closures [British Beer and Pub Association figures]

2005: 102
2006: 216
2007: 1,409

Big H/T of gratitude to Smoke Alarm:

UPDATE: Now included are the figures for 2008 and the overall figure for all pub closures since ground zero 2007 to 2009.

The UK Smoking Ban Experiment, two years on.

We here at Freedom2Choose just knew there would be a plethora of 'news' stories from fake charities and their obedient mouthpieces [the media] with some dubious, not to say fraudulent, surveys, polls, unscientific studies extolling the vertues of the hugely popular Smoking Ban Experiment now that it is two years old. And they do not pull their lying punches:

Smoking ban supported by 80% of people

The Shields Gazette proudly boasts.

THE smoking ban is still supported by the majority of people in the region, two years after it was introduced, according to new research.

Oh chit, another bloody survey...by whom, I wonder?

In a national YouGov survey, 80 per cent of people in North East England say they support the smoke-free legislation.

If the ban is so universally popular why then do these gobshites have to press the issue?

Oh, a YouGove surv....WAIT A BLOODY MINUTE, I live in the North East of England! Nobody asked me, or anybody I meet on the wild, wild streets of Middlesbrough, the people I meet and talk to, smokers and non smokers alike, have never been approached for their opinion on such a contentious subject, let alone know what the hell YouGov is? Anybody that represents a body with the word Gov in it would see middlesbroughonians scurrying to the nearest hardware store enquiring about the price of rope then looking for the nearest lampost!

But I digress.

The mortality rate in the borough due to smoking-related illnesses, such as heart disease, stroke and lung cancer, is 202 per 100,000.

Yawn... Let me see if ASH (spit) have some truthful insights into the ban two years on?

Two years on from the changes in the smoking law, a national survey shows that banning cigarettes in public places has been a popular move.

Ohhhh FFS! Who told you this pile of horse poo?

The 2009 national YouGov survey of 13,000 people, broken down by region, found that in the North-East:

* 80 per cent of people in the region say they support the smokefree law, with just 15 per cent opposing;

* 90 per cent of people say the law is good for the health of workers;

* 82 per cent of people say the law is good for their own health...

God give me strength, bloody YouGov again! You mean to say, out of the near on one million pounds you receive from taxpayers money you couldn't come up with your own pidgeon poo on your car windscreen type of survey?

I've had enough of this nonsense so I'll eagerly await the next aniversary with baited breath but meanwhile lets see how some smokers, publicans and the public celebrated last years joy at having a killer smoking ban being foisted on us.
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On the 29th of June 08 I took my video camera with me to witness a small rebellion in a small part of Yorkshire known as Westgate and the pubs we went into are known locally as part of the Westgate Run.



More from the Westgate Run:



Photo heading by an F2C forum member called Visigoth.

Observations on the smoking ban by Frank Davis

I readily admit that I do not have a way with words nor am I a literate blogger but I do try to learn from more seasoned bloggers like Dick Puddlecote, Leg-iron or Old Holborn et al. So it was like a breath of fresh air that I happened across a fellow blogger, new to blogging in his own right. This erudite blogger is Frank Davis.

I feel no shame about reproducing his blog entry entitled Hanging on in Quiet Desperation as he has put into words what I couldn't when refering to this evil smoking ban.

Here is Frank's story:

Hanging on in Quiet Desperation

It wasn't that I encountered nobody who looked forward to the smoking ban. At one bar, when I asked if anyone was looking forward to it, the old man beside me said, "I am." He had, it emerged, been waiting for 60 years, ever since as a soldier he'd had to endure watching films in smoke-filled cinemas in North Africa. But when I left, I realised I'd neglected to ask on which side he'd been fighting.

Nobody at the River wanted a smoking ban. But nobody complained about it either. Most people seemed to see it as just another impending fact of life, just like any other fact of life. It was something to take in one's stride. Some saw it as an opportunity to give up smoking. The landlord of the River was one of these, loudly declaring that he was going to stop smoking when the ban came into force. Magnanimously, he was going to set up a large covered area outside for the smokers.

"It'll be no bother," another customer told me brightly. "You'll just nip outside for a quick fag now and then."

Others were not so sanguine. Some of the older people said they'd stop coming. As for me, I couldn't see myself enjoying any more afternoons of quiet contemplation inside the River, sans cigarettes. But I really didn't know how I'd feel about it.

In the months leading up to the ban, the River's landlord started gradually closing down the large smoking area, and shepherding the smokers into a smaller bar. Evicted from my familar seat, and with too few bar stools for the throng, I started taking my pint outside to a table by the river.

The day the ban came into force was rather unreal. Everyone was outside. And once inside, it felt like I was being watched, and the welcoming landlord and his staff had become law enforcers. The No Smoking signs plastered everywhere may as well have said No Smokers. I felt unwelcome.

"It's not a free country any more," someone said to me outside.

"There's nothing that can be done about it," said another. "Except to wonder what they'll do next."

They. They were the faceless powers to whom there was no appeal. They were the MPs to whom there was no point writing.

"There's no point. Nothing's going to change. They don't listen."

And I started to feel angry. Angry at the ban. But also angry that nobody was revolting. And angry that I was myself so docile.

But what could be done? I think that if it had just been that smokers who flouted the ban were liable to get a £50 fine slapped on them, more would have been encouraged to revolt. Some were certainly angry enough. But the law would also punish landlords in whose pubs smoking was discovered to be fined £2500. An individual smoker who dared to smoke inside would be making his landlord liable to a far heavier fine than he. It was a sort of collective punishment. A bit like punishing partisans by shooting entire villages. Only this wasn't Oradour, but England.

I never had another drink inside the River. On dry and windless or sunny days, I'd buy a pint and sit outside by the river, like one expelled or banished. My sense of being a member of a little pub community began to die. I no longer felt at home inside the pub. I no longer lingered to chat and pick up the local news. I no longer nodded to familiar faces. I'd buy my pint, and head straight outside. The once welcoming pub had become an unwelcoming place. And when winter set in, and it became too cold to sit outside, I ceased to go at all.

Months later I encountered one of the River's non-smoking regulars.

"We never see you at the River," he said. "Have you been away?"

"No. It's just that if I can't have a cigarette with my pint, I don't want to go."

"It's a bad law," he sighed. "They ought to change it. The bar's empty these days. A few nights back, when I went in, I was the only one there."

And I began to encounter strange denials of reality.

One day the following summer, I'd walked into the River, and ordered a pint, but the barrel needed changing, and the barmaid said, "Would you like me to bring it to your table?"

"And where am I sitting?" I enquired.

"Why, where you always sit," she said. "On the table in the corner."

"I haven't sat inside this pub for a year or more," I replied. "I always sit outside now. Had you not noticed?"

One afternoon I encountered some of the regulars sitting outside, and joined them in conversation. They were talking about the numbers of pubs that were closing. They listed five or six pubs that had closed.

"The smoking ban?" I suggested.

"Oh no, " they replied. "It's got nothing to do with that. It's the bad weather. And nobody's got any money. And there's the credit crunch."

I mentioned one pub that I knew was still open.

"That one's doing really well," they said.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Because it's got a large covered smoking area."

The landlords I spoke to were uniformly upbeat, and strangely oblivious to what was happening in front of their noses. One afternoon I dropped into a little town pub which I knew quite well, and which would usually have had a dozen customers or more on its bar stools and its tables. It was completely empty.

"A bit empty today," I remarked to the landlady as she filled the half pint that I intended to gulp down before leaving.

"It's always been like this at this time of day," she said. "It fills up at night."

No, it's not always been like this, my lips would not say, as I felt for loose change in my pocket.

It was as if all concerned were in complete denial. The pub had always been empty like this, when it had not been. The smoking ban was not the cause of pub closures, but was the reason why some pubs thrived. And I had been sitting at my customary table for an entire year, when I had not been. It was always possible to pop outside for a quick drag, even when it was impossible.

All concerned had just bitten their lips, and tried to make the best of the new situation, about which nothing could be done anyway. The customers had kept soldiering on uncomplainingly, hanging on in quiet desperation. And because their customers weren't complaining, the pub landlords did not complain either. And because the landlords weren't complaining, the pubcos that ran them didn't know what was happening. And they put their catastrophic collapse of sales down to the weather, or the credit crunch, or the fact that nobody had any money. Anything but the smoking ban, which had been declared to be a great success.

When the landlady had said, "It's always been like this," I had bitten my lip and left the truth unsaid, just like everyone else in this strange conspiracy of silence. I had not wanted to shatter her illusions. I had not wanted to break the news to her that the army of non-smokers who were supposed to fill the pubs after the smoking ban were never going to arrive.

Outside the River, the landlord did indeed set up a covered smoking area. It was not large. It was a sort of tent, with seats inside sufficient for about four exiled souls. I never saw anybody sat inside it. A few months after it appeared, it abruptly vanished.

That universally welcomed smoking ban again

Gamblers don't seem to think it's that great, either.

Smoking Ban Nearing An End? UKIP's General Election Odds Slashed

UKIP could gain a massive boost from smokers in the next General Election as they are the only main political party to have stated in their manifesto that they intend to repeal the highly Unpopular Smoking Ban which has closed thousands of pubs, clubs and bingo halls throughout the UK.

William Hill have opened a book on whether Labour or UKIP (UK Independence Party) win most seats at the Euro Elections and make UKIP 5/4 (2.25) favourites with Labour 11/8 (2.37) and a tie 11/4 (3.75), indicating further that smokers and tolerant non-smokers have been spreading the word about UKIP's policy.

It has long been argued that pubs, clubs, etc. should have the right to determine their own smoking policy. Independent evidence and statistics indicate that smoking bans INCREASE, rather than decrease, the number of smokers - the likely reason being that the general public do not appreciate being told what to do by a nanny-state Government.

To date, neither The Conservative or Liberal Democrat parties have announced any planned changes to the smoking ban.

Looks like the Tories and the Lib Dems are backing the wrong horse. 12 million smokers are a hell of a lot of voters to mess with.

Perhaps one or other of the parties might one day join the bookies in slashing the odds on a return to common sense and a repeal of the smoking ban, but then just as one will never meet a poor bookie, you'll also find it difficult to find a strapped politician recently.

The difference is that bookies deal in hard facts, they have to in order to turn a profit, whilst politicians (especially Labour) lie.

Still, the bookies have insured themselves against disaster, they are generally very astute at such practices. Politicians are a different matter entirely, it will take being voted into oblivion before they notice that they have been listening to bullshit and lies from the healthist minority.

They'll wake up one day, but meanwhile let's just revel in the fact that we have one less corrupt shit to deal with.

She is already paid between £45,000 and £50,000 a year as a consultant to the Boots chain of pharmacies, according to the House of Commons Register of Members' Interests.

She also pockets between £55,000 and £60,000 as an adviser to Cinven, which paid £1.4billion for Bupa's UK hospitals and runs 25 private care facilities in Britain.

Thanks for the smoking ban Ms Hewitt, I hope one day that the people you have put on the dole queue in order to increase your payout from your pharma paymasters, come to your house and burgle everything they can lay their hands on.

It would help tackle 'health inequalities', don't you think?

Tell the Lib Dem leader what you think about their stance on prohibition

Remember the Lib Dems and their overwhelming backing of the Health Act which marginalised 22% of the voting public?

You must surely recall those 'Liberal' guys, 95% of whom decided that there should be no exemption whatsoever to the smoking ban?

Well, their leader Nick Clegg has a blog. Why not tell him what you think of their liberal policies?

Just click here and post a comment. As a politician, he should be very happy to read your views.

I'd be quick though, if I were you, censorship moderation will no doubt come soon once the disgust becomes publicy noticeable.

H/T Old Holborn

Lord Adonis slams 'some' railway station facilities

Lord Adonis recently embarked on a whistle stop tour of the UK's railway facilities and came to the conclusion that they were pretty poor. Not earth-shatteringly surprising to those of us who use them, but one barometer which Adonis deemed significant was the lack of facilities for indulging in a cup of tea.

In a daily blog for Times Online written during his tour, Lord Adonis described his frustration at being unable to buy a cup of tea at 8pm at Southampton station, which is used by 5.5 million passengers a year.

I take it that the right honourable gent isn't a smoker (he voted for the smoking ban, after all), or else he may have noticed that there are bugger all facilities for having a cigarette anywhere in the entire UK rail network. Not just after 8pm either seeing as it is banned on every platform, despite no study ever even hinting that smoking in the open air can possibly be harmful (mostly because there's no point spending money on studies which have no chance of proving something so laughable).

When smokers have mentioned the inconvenience of this in the past, the reply tends to be a sneering condemnation of their lack of fortitude in abstaining for the duration of their journey, or that they should step outside the station.

Well, Lord Adonis puts the first one to bed with his irritation at not being afforded a cup of tea. He is obviously a weak individual if he can't forgo his cuppa for a little while, n'est-ce pas? Perhaps he should step outside the station and buy his hot drink at another outlet. He might miss his train, but if he wants one that badly ... (as we are are often told).

For example. The journey from Euston to Bolton is nigh on 3 hours with a mere 5 minute change at Stockport. Previously, smokers were able to step off the train and partake in a cigarette before continuing their journey, but since 2007, that isn't possible, so tough titty.

I know it's taboo to even mention such things these days, but perhaps Lord Adonis might like to consider facilities which are denied for a quarter of adult train travellers thanks to an illberal and nonsensical railways bye-law as well, not just options he, personally, may wish to enjoy. To put it in perspective for him, it's like having no chance of a cup of tea either at the station or on the train, at whatever time of day he travels, and on whichever class ticket.

From Lands End to John O'Groats.

Brussels is "too clever or civilized"

Time to ditch those Belgian clichés, it would seem.

Remember the days when we used to snigger at that irrelevant, uninspiring land which was somewhere near France? When The Sun used to laughingly challenge their readers to name famous Belgians and come to the conclusion that most only knew two, one of which was the fictional Poirot?**

How things change once a government hell bent on the destruction of everything British get their teeth into closing down every avenue of enjoyment for its citizens. The Guardian is now extolling the virtues of Brussels as a city with a thriving hospitality industry. It's never been so cool.

Untouched by the EU anti-smoking directive, Brussels' cafe culture is buzzing. Here are some great local spots to grab a coffee, or something stronger

As one commenter to the Guardian's piece put it, "Still don't understand why in Brussels there's no smoking ban though...maybe they're too clever or civilized?"

It's a global recession, says Labour. And the smoking ban is universally popular. Considering the vibrancy of Brussels nightlife, one must come to the logical conclusion that both of these statements cannot simultaneously be true. In short, Labour are lying (yes, I know it's an obvious one, but there is a chance that a hermit crofter in the Outer Hebrides may not have noticed it yet).

If even the Guardian are talking up the benefits of not enduring an over-arching smoking ban as a partial reason for a burdgeoning interest in Belgian bars, when pubs in Britain are currently being read the last rites, Labour are in serious danger of having their life support system switched off themselves.

The only beef left-leaning Grauniad readers can find with the story is that the EU might be looked on as authoritarian by the implication that smoking bans are directly attributable to the unelected commissioners (hence the article headline being changed to correct the misconception at 4:47pm today) instead of being laid directly at the door of our weak and illiberal government.

Patronising goons like Patricia Hewitt and fatty Liam Donaldson can bang on about health costs as much as they like, but as this article shows, there is a reciprocal degradation in social welfare which is entirely ignored.

The unelected EU commissioners may well not have passed the legislation which is destroying the social fabric of British pubs, but why the need when we have a lardy unelected cock of our own to do it for them? Liam Donaldson hasn't gained a single vote from any of Britain's 44 million electorate, yet has pushed through the UK smoking ban and is now after your beer whilst his minions are going for your chocolate.

Belgium are too clever for such nonsense. Their objection to silly rules has resulted in a benefit to their country in city travel, at least, and a more relaxed and happy life for all of their population, not just some.

So the answer to the Sun question of naming famous Belgians can now be answered with "all 10 million of them".

** The other was Jean-Claude van Damme, if you were interested.

Should we support this?

It seems some wag has started this petition.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign.

Submitted by Kalvis Jansons of http://kalvis.com – Deadline to sign up by: 22 October 2009 – Signatures: 3,343

Now, we should consider very carefully whether we should support this. Let's do just that by looking at his voting record on our pet hate (click to enlarge).


Yep, I think we should, don't you?

Get stuck in.