This week’s Spectator features one of the most coruscating attacks on the smoking ban I’ve yet seen from the ever-outspoken Rod Liddle. Make no mistake, this issue is not going away. Not sure I totally agree with him on the Iraq war, though.
Of course, one shouldn’t drop a policy simply because the pubs are having a rather hard time of it as a result. But in which case, don’t bother to pretend that they’re not, that actually there are queues all down the street consisting of shiny, happy people who wish nothing more than to drink in a new, healthy, smoke-free environment. Stop lying. Say, instead, that the smoke ban is putting pubs out of business but actually we couldn’t give a toss.