[jambutty]

It has always been the case that the owner of any property could decide to allow smoking or not. In years gone by there were some pubs that didn’t allow smoking in the ‘Lounge’ and only in the ‘Vault’ or ‘Tap Room’. For years now shops and stores have had no smoking signs displayed. Buses used to have no smoking on the lower deck or the front part of the bus for single deckers. Some taxis and private hire vehicles have displayed no smoking signs, whilst others have not. In other words it was recognised that the owner of the property had the final say about smoking.

So this new law has taken away a human right. To decide for yourself whether you allow smoking on your property by visitors to it.

Now it seems that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and extending the law to include outdoor property like car parks. I’m sure I read somewhere that Blackburn Council intends to ban smoking in public parks. Or was it a nightmare?

What is going to be next? Social housing landlords refusing to let a new property to those prospective tenants who admit to being a smoker? How long before this will be extended to existing tenants? Some private landlords already have a no smoking clause in the tenancy agreement. It is their right.

How long before some local authority will decide that as it owns the land on which roads are built and declares them a no smoking zone? They can do, it’s their property. Of course in the meantime vehicles chuck out their poison with carefree abandon.

These gloating anti smoking brigadiers don’t know what they have unleashed and the precedent that it has established in law will come back to bite them too.

The next target is going to be the private motor vehicle. Under the guise of creating a healthier atmosphere (one child in four develops asthma before it can walk, run and talk properly) and reducing the carbon footprint, older vehicles (first less than 10 years old, then less than 5 years old) will be banned. Such a move will kill three birds with one stone. Get millions onto public transport, unclog the public highways, reduce atmospheric pollution. It probably won’t happen in my motoring lifetime but it will come because the government is committed to making it happen.

Having pushed the majority of the citizens into the “you will live a life style dictated by the government” corner, the government of the day won’t be able to resist.