LABOUR WILL BE OUR NEXT GOVT

I wonder exactly who the current Conservative Govt is pleasing other than a minority of smokerphobes and the rich who want them to kill off the poor and the financially struggling.

My MP Karl McCartney only won Labour Gillian Merron's seat by a 1000 vote majority. His refusal to do anything for smokers has just lost him the vote my other half gave him in May 2010 so he's now down to a 999 majority. My other half voted for him to try and keep Merron out. Now he says Karl has proved it makes no difference whether we get him back or Merron.

Take away those voters who voted LibDem (snigger) either because they believed they'd get an alternative or they thought the LibDems would keep their promise to reduce tuition fees. Then there are those LibDem voters who voted for the party believing it was a better bet to keep the Tories out after it became obvious that Labour would lose the election. They will all go back to Labour next time.

Then there were others who voted LibDem after being scammed into believing the rubbish Freedom Bill was about freedom and the ones who voted Tory after being conned into thinking that the Great Repeal Bill would actually repeal the myriad of complex and unfair laws imposed by Labour which dishonestly stripped us of many of our civil rights. Many of those, like me, have nothing to lose by voting UKIP which is gaining more and more of the lost LibLabCon support.

Lincoln is a marginal seat and I don't see Karl McCartney doing anything for any of the above. I invited him to attend the Save Our Pubs and Clubs reception for MPs on June 29 at Westminster but he said he couldn't make it because he has a "prior engagement". He could be washing his hair for all I know. Certainly he keeps avoiding the issue.

The other thing about Lincoln is that whichever party wins the seat reflects the national Govt. It just always works out that way. Lincoln swings the way of the country and it looks very bad here for the Conservatives in a City that just lost the council back to Labour. Perhaps it's time Karl started listening to at least some of his constituents.

Had I not bought my rail ticket in advance, and bought an extra one for a friend as a birthday present who will enjoy the event and the day out in London, I wouldn't bother going as I see no point now.

And I think this latest move to evict those better off council tenants by the Tories looks set to lose them a few more votes.

And let us not forget that the Tories are the reason we have a huge homelessness problem in the first place, and a lack of affordable social housing, thanks to Margaret Thatcher's Right to Buy policy and her Govt's refusal to allow councils to build properties to replace those lost thereafter.

I should state here for clarification that I bought my council house in 1997 - some 10 - 15 years after Thatcher screwed the system. I didn't want to and resisted for all of those years but in the end as house after house in my street went, it became obvious that if I left and bought private, then someone would just move in after us and buy it anyway as happened with the house next door when the elderly tenant died.

Perhaps that makes me a hypocrite or perhaps it just shows that when the pressure becomes intolerably great, I surrender like everyone else.

WHY I WON'T BE THERE

The Voices of Freedom events begin tomorrow but I won't be going because I really couldn't bear to hear this pompous prick spouting his vile prejudices.

Just who the hell does Peter Hitchens think he is and what right has he to believe that I'd want a selfish prat like that saving me anyway? If that's a voice of "freedom" frankly, it undermines the whole debate from the outset.

I'd really rather hear true of voices of freedom and not those calling for oppression of one minority group because of some sanctimonious belief that they know better. Hitchens is right not to use the phrase Nanny State though. We now live in the Bully State but he wouldn't recognise it as a bully himself.

Hitchens says that tobacco use has only been in the civilised world for two world wars. How can such an ignorant columinist be allowed to write such a blatant falsehood? Tobacco use is at least 500 years old and has been used across Europe in civilised society for that long and in the Native Americas for much longer as it was used as a medicinal herb. It still is, actually, and can be found as an ingredient in many Big Pharma over the counter products like travel sickness pills and facepacks.

It has only become something else in the FOUR years since the blanket smoking ban legalised the hate and harassment against one lifestyle group. No amount of idiots like Hitchens can change history as much as they would like to fit their own ideological aims.

I had looked forward to the so called Freedom events and I did consider going to the next in the series but it isn't an event I can take seriously because of Hitchens in the same way I couldn't take last year's event seriously after the illiberal Demotwat Mark Pack was invited soon after telling me his irrelevant Party had no plans to give freedoms back to smokers in it's much lauded ... erm ... Freedom Bill that isn't worth the bog paper it's written on.

I see that Dick Puddlecote's going and that is a good thing. At least there will be one true voice of freedom and I hope he is given voice to put that prat Hitchens in his place.

If I went, it would only be the piss up afterwards that interested me - especially if it's at Boidales which really knows how to go that extra mile to make its smoker customers comfortable.

Meanwhile, I'll be saving my limited funds for an event in London that I see as far more worthy and far more likely to have an effect. I hope my MP Karl McCartney will attend the Save Our Pubs And Clubs amendthesmokingban.com reception for MPs where I hope my voice will be heard about how this spiteful ban has affected me and other lifelong smokers.

SIGN UP TO SAVE PUBS

Sign up for freedom and choice because Pubs really do need smokers and in a fair, free and tolerant society there can be no excuse for abolishing freedom of choice.