I have to say that there does remain one area that does need to be addressed and that is the issue of second hand smoke inhaled by prison officers in their workplace. Obviously, it is a thorny issue due to the fear of revolt on the part of the inmates. However, this is still the one profession that is still made to risk exposing itself to the dangers of second hand smoke and is denied their right to a smoke free England. The Isle of Man has shown that, with the correct approach involving counselling for smokers etc, it is possible to implement a smoking ban and make prisons totally smoke free environments along with all other work places. Once smoking was banned in cells, the prison swiftly moved towards an all out ban on smoking which now includes outside areas. At first it does sound rather draconian, but only fair for the wardens since it took away the problem of having to distribute and then take back each individual’s cigarettes as they leave and enter buildings. Obviously, there was some apprehension at the prospect of several; hundred smokers going ‘cold turkey’. But not anywhere near as much as they had expected.

I am so glad that England is smokefree now, I think it is so much nicer to be in a pub and not get other people's smoke on your clothes and into your lungs. I would say that, having asthma I would always have supported the smoking ban, despite that the Tories opposed it, only for objections sake, not for anything else. However, I think Labour done well and met one huge need of mine and that of many others, an environment for all rather than just the few. I hate the Tories because they only think of objections, no matter what they object even if it's my health and that of my kids (like in the café...) I think the Tories are unable to recognize people's needs and subsequently cannot accommodate people's needs at all.

I would agree with a friend that most cancer and other chronic deseases are caused by 'Depression' or mental health issues. 1 in 4 people at any one given time has a 'mental health' problem, I wonder what the fraction is for all health issues, especially seeing that we are condemning peoples lifestyles by publishing anti smoking. Where are the people that will stick up for the children who are not yet polluted by society in ways of dementia like depression, do you think you are still right after reading this statement.

Going smokefree was probably one of the finest things Liebour have ever done. I visited New Zealand where they have been smokefree for a while and it was amazing. Coming back to this country, even though depressing, and having it smoke free was even better. Going out and not coming back smelling of fags was like a breath of fresh air. HOWEVER. There is a downside to this. The reason tax is going up on Fags is not because it's about health but because tax revenues are falling from them. If everyone gives up their ciggies then we can all expect Income tax to go up by quite a bit.

I'm getting sick and tired of the government attacking smokers, many of which are good, honest, contributing members of society, turning them into second class citizens. First the change of age to 18 if you wish to buy cigarettes, then the ban and now they want to take them off the shelves of shops. Don't misunderstand me, do not think that children should be smoking but the government attacking smokers only makes it 'cooler' for young people who want to rebel against the system. Believe me, I'm 16 years old and many of my friends hold this view. The ban has had a huge negative effect on pubs and clubs. The labour party may claim that it has not caused many pubs to shut down, which may be true in a sense. However, pubs, in the traditional sense are in decline, with many having become chain resturants. The traditional English pub, which was part of our culture, may soon disappear. Non smokers have suffered as well, having to choose between sitting outside in the cold with their friends who smoke or sitting inside with their non smoking friends, leaving their smoking friends outside dividing their group. The government seem to spend more time attacking and making new laws against smokers than they do dealing with important issues such as knife crime, the Iraq War and the AIDS epidemic. Attacking smokers, taking the moral high ground, is a way of distracting us from the governments failings. Smoking is a bad habit that damages your health but so is eating fast food and many other things. Why not ban advertisements for fast food or eating fast food in public places (just kidding!). I don't honestly believe that passive smoking is very dangerous. I'm sure anyone who dies of lung disease and has not smoked but has come into contact with cigarette smoke the government claims has died of passive smoking. Finally, I'd like to imagine what the great Winston Churchill would say about the smoking ban. no doubt something like, 'stop whining about passive smoking, go and fight a war, then you'll have something to whine about. hold on... gotta light up another cigar'

First they came for the Fox Hunters, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Fox Hunter. Then they came for the Airsofters, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t an Airsofter. Then they came for the Target Shooters, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn't a Target Shooter. Then they came for smokers, and there was no one left to speak up for them. It's the same with every party, once they're in power, they do exactly what they want. Originally they said "we'll ban smoking everywhere that food is served" - and then proceded to ban it everywhere. What of those of us that voted for them, only to find that they have reneged on their promise? Can we claim "breach on of contract"? after all, the contract was "you vote for us, and we will do these things". All of the major parties wonder why they seem to be unable to get young people to vote - the young people that I know are realists - they know that whatever they do, whoever they vote for, however they shout - no one listens. Personally I now no longer vote - there is no point in this country. I will vote when there is a box at the bottom of each ballot paper that says "none of the above". Perhaps then the "powers that be" will find out just how unpopular they all are. I'm just waiting for my visa application to be approved and it'll be one more IT professional off to sunnier and freer climes!

Sounds like EU is pulling the strings.. It doesnt add up; the government wants us to stay healthier by imposing a smoking ban in public places (improve life expectancy) so that they can pay our pensions for longer?? Caring or what..

absolutely the sums are wrong. and who the hell thinks its the governments business how healthy i am? if i want to smoke i will, thanks. i am really annoyed by the proposal to double the price of 20 cigarettes to 10 pounds. this is INSANE. 77% of the price NOW is tax, what would it be at 10 pounds a pack?!! It is NOT the governments job to propose this. If we allow this then what will they choose next to limitlessly increase the TAX on?? It will end in stressed out single parents buying 20 fags after a hard days work instead of buying the kids dinner. Well done labour. GO AWAYYY!

This is the only good thing Labour has done, but why did we have to wait years longer than Wales and Ireland?

its all smoke and mirrors. If everybody gave up smoking then they would live longer. They would take up more resource in their old age than a smoke who dies sooner. The sums are wrong

Good news every one. FORCES INTERNATIONAL has presented an official complaint based on rigorous scientific analysis of the 2006 surgeon generals report on passive smoking to the office of research integrity in Washington. Maryetta Ables president of the organization stated "innocent smoking citizens have become target practice for discrimination and social hatred. They are accused of any thing from being killers to child abusers, all based on junk science, propaganda with an appalling blindness to scientific and social ethics". This ban is not about health this is about control. Ask your selves do you want to live in a free country or do you want to live under a system of state control with the constant abuse of science to scare you into behaving in a conformist manor.

I laugh so much i hurt myself, smokers of the world unite your stuffed. Labour is now planning to stop people smoking in shop door ways and outside of offices. and yes it is freedom freedom for me not to suffer idiots who think smoking is anything else but a stinking habit.

Well, I'll be glad when the streets are nice and clean on a Saturday morning - no mess from the Friday night - you know - after they ban drinking. Well, I'll be glad when I'm able to breath freely in towns again - you know - after they ban automobiles. Well, I'll be glad when I won't have to wait in a queue at the hospital - you know - after they ban any risky behaviour, like rugby. After all, anyone that participates in anything risky and gets injured, shouldn't be a burden to the rest of us. Well, I'll be glad when they ban all the fast food outlets - you know - to stop all the fat people being such a drain on the NHS. Well, I'll be glad when they ban all the refind sugars in our diet - you know - to prevent all the diabetics being such a drain on the NHS. What do you mean you want to have the freedom to have a drink on a Saturday night? 78% of T-totalers agree with it, stop being so selfish! What do you mean you want to have the freedom to drive your car when you want? 78% of pedestrians, cyclists and non-car owners agreed with it! stop being so selfish! What do you mean you like to play sport? 78% of couch potatoes agreed with it! stop being so selfish! Starting to get the idea? You want to go somewhere where people aren't smoking? go to a non-smoking place. You want to stop smokers standing around on the streets? Then let them smoke in their smokey little pub - you know - the one that you don't go in..............

And here you show your true colors. I here you shout and scream of how unpredudice how politicaly correct you are. You call me a racist for my genuine concerns of immigration. Yet here we see the truth you are intolerant and small minded you have not even bothered to spend a little of your time educating your self to the history which shaped the ounce free country i lived in and your happy to see history rewriten in order to protect your own socialistic views you are a in reality fascist. Let's hope the intolerance and small mindedness never spreads to a point of well why should we pay out for the disabled.

I suppose we have to get use to the big brother state. There bringing id cards make it illegal to smoke in tradition places not that the gov does not make so much money from our legal drugs alc and cigs. Only reason I would want to give up but have given up giving up is the cost. The gov dont want us to give up really as it would hit the income to the gov which must pay for the nhs countless times over. Ive stopped going to my local and now have a cig at home with my cheaper super market drink we dont need this nanny state people need to make there own minds up not be told what they can eat drink or smoke

Fine smoke so long as smokers do not get NHS treatment, I've no problem.

I must have said this on this forum alone 20 times and i will say it again. 8.1 billion a year raised by direct taxing on tobbaco 1'5 billion a year spent by the NHS on smoking related illness. Smokers more than pay for their own health care.

Before any one makes a point of it that was 1.5 not 1'5.

That's like arguing that it's ok for people to kill themselves and use up NHS time for being aloholics because they VAT on their booze. What a ridiculous argument. How about the people that suffer because of pasisve smoking? Should they feel good because a "smoke has paid for their healthcare". Ridiculous.

If i want to smoke and that is how i meet my end that is my business not yours or the states. And yes after spending a life of paying tax i do expect medical treatment. If you had bothered to read the message i left at the top you might have even spent a minuet to investigate forces internationals argument. But no instead you just recite word for word what has been drummed into you by the media. I will state a fact now the anti smoking lobby spent an absolote fortune on report after report to confirm their belief that passive smoking can harm non smokers when these reports did not find in their favor they did not exaggerate the truth a little they bare face lied about it. It's about time people started to develop a brain of their own all be it that is not in line with the EU, the UN, the soon to come American union and the new world order.

Passive smoking kills you work in a room filled with smoke you might as well smoke, I do not care if you kill your self, and I am happy for you to do it in your own home, but smoking kills end of story and you will never again be allowed to smoke in a café or shop great news , 100% back Labour.

i know this is slightly belated BUT: Roland you're beeing stupidly over sensitive about the whole thing and it is perfectly logical that if someone breaths out gases which are harmful to them it is going to be harmful to others as well. if you want to smoke it is your decision but you dont need to shout that from the rooftops. also i think Treborc although you are right but you are over reacting slightly with the whole 'smoking kills' thing. It does bring on serious medical conditions and smokers should get NHS treatment. They are taxpayers just like you and me are and the theory is that if less people smoke there will be less billing to the NHS because of this therefore cancelling out the profit and no NHS argument.

Its been a while since I posted. But I have to say that since the smoking ban all my local haunts in Newcastle have been smoke free and I cant remember the last time I came away from a night out smelling of smoke. Ive not seen anyone complain about having to go outside and Ive actually seen very few people smoking in general. All the pubs I drink at are sticking to the ban and it all seems good to me. I cant see any negative effects. :D

What world do you live in because it is not the same as the rest of us.

Im sorry you seem to be having a bad time with it, but just because you're not enjoying it doesnt mean my good experiences shouldnt be taken into account.

Well Roland as you know i hate smoking,but reading Simons posts, i cannot help but think is he a real person or just a propaganda spreader?

Roland are you trying to suggest that my good experiences after the smoking ban are invalid just because yours apparently arent? Sorry to break the news to you, but from all the pubs ive drank in around Newcastle over the last few months, I havent seen any issues and I love being able to leave a pub after a night out and NOT smell of smoke! Ive not seen any complain about smoking outside, ive not seen any reductions in drinkers, ive not seen any hassle at all!

Well simon i actually agree with you but where is this all leading to what are they going to stop next? eating sweets,crisps,jam doghnuts?

Well firstly I am a real person Peter and my good experiences of the smoking ban are just as worth listening to, as Rolands are! Secondly why do people always resort to making such rediculious comments like "first its smoking, next they'l ban sweets and doghnuts"? Be realistic Peter. Smoking was hazerdious to non-smokers due to second hand smoke. Whether it was trace amounts of not, I (as a non smoker) didnt choose to inhail it, and I didnt have the luxary of going elsewhere because every pub had smokers in. While smokers had the choice to simply NOT smoke for a few hours on a night out. So its not a simple case of that one smoker choosing to smoke in a public place, because it effects everyone around them. To then compare that to sweets and crips and doughnuts really isnt very mature. This arguement which smokers love to use of "well first they ban smoking and next they'l ban wiping your arse with paper" is just childish. Its an attempt to try and hide the fact that smoking didnt just affect the individual smoking. It effected everyone around them. Whether it be health effects, making your clothes smell, making your eyes hurt (which it did me) or something else. You can argue that eating a doughnut is going to impact the person next to you at all!

Obviously I meant "You cant argue.."! Please dont make comments along the lines of "first its smoking, next its doughnuts" because that really is a sad thing to say. And it adds nothing to the debate other then childish comments.

simon is your typical labour brown noser! only morons and immigrants love labour!

i would just like to point out that this is not me and infact a different Tim note the lack of capitals this means he is wrong. What you have said is so ridiculous i can't believe it just because he has good experiences with the smoking ban dosnt mean he loves new labour. he could be a Tory for all i care but hes still right. im from Durham (about 20 miles south of newcastle) and i have also had good experiences with the smoking ban. As to your comments about immigrants WTF how can you be so ignorant as to think that everyone else is wrong but you. whilst i may believe that i am right it dosnt mean that i am. added to the fact that i am neither a moron with 4 A Levels or an immigrant and yet i support labour.

I rather vote Lbaour then your lot BNP soory UKskip

shame you cannot spell eh moron boy?

Ah well it the way I write so thick white racist can read it.

You are so ignorant being Muslim is a faith many are white, think it's pretty obvious Treborc is right your a racist white boy without to much of a brain. Then again most thick white boys from the ghetto are racist BMP thugs but your to thick to even be a thug BMP Brits mental Party

Esesfsef and Time, is it possible you could spare a brain cell between you both and concentrate for a second. Just because Im anti-smoking and happen to like the smoking ban, that means I like labour and i cant wipe my a r s e? Do you both not realise how immature you sound!!! Is this what went through your head before you wrote that..."right, we need to get your point accross, so lets use foul language and accuse him of being a labour fanboy.. that will really make people respect our opinion!!" Because if it was... you need to spend more time thinking before you post! 1) I actually think the labour party is a complete joke, mainly because of how they attempt to tackle anti-social behaviour 2) Esesfsef your attempt at slagging me off was just pathetic and it made nooo sense!! Its amazing how the smokers are complaining their views and opinions arent being heard and complaining their liberties are being taken away. Yet the minute I try to post a mature and intelligent pro-smokingBan post all I get is immature replies, accusations of being inlove with labour, being fake, swarn at or told I cant wipe my own a s s! So its ok to complain about the smoking ban, but if you try to defend it you're subjected to taunts and abuse! And you want me to believe you pro-smokers are worthy of an opinion and rights? I have to just laugh at that! Until some of you learn how to express your opinions in a mature manor, then I couldnt care less if you're have to suffer not smoking for a few hours a night!

And ive seen your other attempts at advertising your website on these threads. The last one I saw, you just plastered foul language accross in upper case letters like an immature child. Now you're resorting to calling people "a brown noser" like its the school playground. Is it really impossible for you people to speak like adults and with some maturity?

Wake up to reality people, there is a high % of people in the UK who love the smoking ban. But apparently you find that hard to believe, because as pro-smokers you dont care about the effects you have on the people around you!!! Its sad and its pathetic and im glad you cant smoke anymore, if that is the attitude you take towards pro-nonsmokers! I hope you have fun sitting outside the pub in the rain and having withdrawl symptoms while im having fun drinking my pint. Ill get back to respecting your opinion when you learn to talk to people with respect.

Do not worry a vast majority of people agree with you, and the no smoking ban in my area is to be used for outside on public pavements, also café's have been using tables outside to get around the ban, this will also be stopped. great news.

Actually I dont mind people smoking outside if its like a certified smoking area. In our local village we have a shopping center, with a big red line around it where your not meant to smoke beyond. And as much as I love the smoking-ban, is a bit extreme because this line is quite a distance away from any doors. At the end of the day, I dont mind people smoking in the beer garden or outside, because we can sit inside. Its then our choice to go outside if we want to. Its smoking in confined, un-ventilated areas that causes issues.

Why the hell should I have to put up with you lot smoking and then paying to treat you lot for NHS and cancer. Smoke your self to death at home, but no more in the shops offices factories and next the streets. vote Labour or not i could not care a dam but no more of me having to put up with you bunch smoking.

I agree but why should i pay for all the people in third world countries?

That's very christian of you. By the way 8.1 billion on direct revenue a year through tax on tobbaco, 1.5 billion a year on smoking related disease so you were'nt paying anything. And we were paying for a hole lot more.

Well your right you are paying for a hole six foot deep, and I've enough problems without having to die from somebody Else's smoke, this is one good point of Labour and one I would vote for.

Once again i will state hand on my hart having looked at the evidence on all sides of the argument the myth of passive smoking being a health risk is a lie. Don't take my word for it google it. Take time to read the truth. I would not have an argument to defend smoking in public places if that was not the case. I should be concentrating my eforts on giving up not arguing with the brainwashed and i stand by that comment.

My god mate you google everything perhaps working a bit might help you stop the habit of googling.

Once again as I said myself, its not just about the suggested passive smoking. Its a question of subjecting someone to inhailing smoke or being effected by the smoke in ways they dont choose to. Making your clothes smell, irritating your eyes and ashma, irritating your throat and others! I've said myself before that being in smoke filled rooms irritated my eyes, especially with contacts in. Ive also said before that being around smoke on a night, makes you stink when you leave and come the morning your entire house smells of it. Yet people arent choosing to sit there and be subjected to it. You all talk about how as smokers, your rights are being ignored. What about the right not to inhail that smoke or walk away after a night out smelling? Its all well and good saying we could go elsewhere, but until the ban, what pub didnt have smokers in it? My local pub in newcastle would (at times) been filled with smoke that you couldnt see your hand! Is that acceptable for non-smokers? As non-smokers we were expected to either endure it or go elsewhere and its not easy finding pubs where people dont smoke. So lets compare! One person is asked not to smoke for a few hours on a night time, or an entire room of people are subjected to smoke and leave at the end of the night smelling and having the smoke irriate them? Who is worse off? One person or an entire room of people?

'Tis a sad day indeed when an individual gives up faith in a government because of problems other people have caused in the pase. If everyone was as narrow-minded as you we would never move on regarding ANYTHING. We would all simply wallow in our own pity and moan about mistakes that we've made... rather than saying "oh well, that was stupid. I've learned from that mistake - and this is what I'm going to do to make it better".

What i don't understand. Why are some people so busy telling every one else they should be healthy they should not smoke they should not eat mcdonalds they should not drink they sould not go sun bathing they should not prossed meat get on with your own live's stop telling every one how to run theirs and before you say it after paying tax on everything i buy or earn for the hole of my life YES i do expect medical treatment. As far as smoking gose every second of every day it was becoming less and less fashionable it was banning it's self. It did not need a bunch of control freaks who have nothing better to do than poke their nose into other peoples business to do it.

See, i aboslutely agree with this idea that if you want to kill yourself smoking, make yourself fat from macdonalds or binge drink until you puke... then go ahead... aslong as it doesnt impact or effect me as an individual and my individual choices about my life. If your smoke effects me then I would expect you not to smoke around me. If making yourself fat from macdonalds upset me and I was a family member or a loved one, I would expect you to stop. If the binge drinking led to you ruining my night out, even if I didnt know you, I would expect you to go away and leave me alone! As a people, we have every right to lead our lives how ever we want, even if it damages us. But only if it doesnt effect anyone else in a negative way, and especially if you know its hurting people around you.

At the last election i voted labour i am now thinking of changing to support cameron not that i think much of him but anything is better then this lot.

For most of my life I have been aligned with the Labour Party, but not anymore after I discovered the untruths about the smoking ban. The ONS stated only 33% of the population wanted a total smoking ban, this means that 67% didnt. The government took the poll done by YouGov that was paid for by Cancer Research instead of the ONS survey. The YouGov survey asked loaded questions to get the desired result. The consultation was a farce from beginning to end, it was mainly directed at Cancer Research, ASH , BHF who represented smokers? Smoking Bans are a gross infringement of private property rights. Pubs are not publically owned they are privately owned, the public is invited in not forced in the same applies to those that choose to work there. High Quality ventilation could have been installed, but even this option was removed. The Jamrozik report was quoted frequently by the government representatives, but this report was highly flawed and has been highly critical. To obtain the results it required Jamrozik included smokers in his estimates on passive smoking. Lying to achieve an objective is never acceptable. This government has put 14 million people out onto the street, their crime they buy a legal product, the cost of which 4/5ths is tax. Not one single study has ever proved that passive smoking on its own kills ever! The lies and deceit that have surrounded this draconian ban have destroyed my faith in the Labour Party I will never vote for them again.

Pubs etc might be privately owned but they are still public places just like anything else shops etc. Shopping malls aren't as you put it "publically owned" and I suppose that means "they are invited" but this is the definition of a public place surely. I myself have been involved in research projects regarding the damage that passive smoking does and if you look harder you will find the answers that you don't want to look for. I don't want to have premature hardening of the arteries and increased risks of lung cancer and heart attacks because of a choice other people have made. I don't understand why people can't see this as justice.

Can we please stop using the myth that pasive smoking causes any harm to any one as an argument for state control it is a lie.

It,s a happy day for me reading that. Weather your a smoker or not no government has the right to lie to the public to back up it's own voter pleasing mandate which have no mitake they did. The smoking ban was already a self implimenting ban eg. the people of this country could show they did not want smoking in a restaurant by going to a non smoking restaurant. Most restaurants were no smoking or at the least mainly no smoking with the smoking areas being in the least desirable parts of the restaurant this was not forced by the heavy hand of state law this was a consumer protest. Pubs would have followed suit as the consumer (the british public) had required that pubs do the same. To bring this in as law was nothing but a direct assult on private buissness, private property, and our ability to think far ourselves.

Just one question to the Labour party... If all of the above is to be believed and Labour are SO concerned about the nations health, then WHY is smoking tobacco still legal? Just a thought.

As a person who generally aligned myself with the Labour party, I am sick of the mobocratic rationale employed to justify the smoking ban. And it isn't even true in the case of pubs and clubs! According to the Office of National Stats in their survey published in July of last year: “ … 33 percent favoured a ban, while 48 percent wanted pubs to be mainly non-smoking with smoking areas.” According to the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health, the relative risk from second hand smoke for heart disease is 1.23, and lung cancer 1.24. The alarming figure is therefore that this increases your risks of those diseases by 23% and 24% respectively. But let's just have a look at what relative risk actually means. Take lung cancer: according to cancer research UK, there were 38,313 new cases of lung cancer in 2004. Given that cases of lung cancer are decreasing, that may be even less in 2007. So, to work out a person's risk of contracting lung cancer is a simple case of calculating percentages. 38,313 x 100 / 60,000,000 = 0.063855. So second hand smoke increases a person's chance of that figure by about a quarter = 0.0159%. Have such infinitesimal risks ever been used before to justify wide ranging prohibition of a legal product? I was under the impression that a risk of 3.0 (or an increase in risk of 300%) was typically required to restrict the usage of a product.

As much as i despise this government,this to me is the single one thing they have done correct and i support them 100% on however"what will be next"

Peter i disagree it is not up to the government to tell us what we can and cant do.

Peter from what i've read your having difficulty with your business due to legislation imagine watching the pub you had run for years shutting down and not being entitled to a penny compensation and knowing the reasons behind it are nothing but a lie. Fair enough you don't like smoking but please do not believe the junk science and brain washing that surrounds it. 8.1 billion pounds a year get raised a year (directly not indirectly) through smoking 1.5 billion a year gets spent on smoking related disease that is not easy information to find i found it looking through parlimentry records. That is just one example of information that the likes of ASH would rather you did not know and like you say what next.

Roland last month a mate died from lung cancer,i used to smoke very heavy myself and gave up in 1991 since giving up i can and do enjoy my life much more for example i now go for 20 mile cycle rides wich i would not have done as a smoker also my friday visit to the local conservative club was always the same me reeking of other peoples smoke wich was not nice,my drinking mates usually four of us two smoked and two did not for us non smokers it was not pleasant.Perhapes a compromise would have worked by having seperate smoking rooms etc whilst i do support the ban and accept that my mate would still be alive if he had not smoked along with longer lives for both of my late parents,i do agree with you in the fact that"where will this intrusion into our lives go next" will it become an offense to disagree with the government? ordrive a classic car?"i own five" so that would annoy me the smoking is really only one issue and i worry about the level of control this dictatorship is trying to have over our lives.

Don't get me wrong i agree smoking is bad for your health and stinks. But giving up is some thing you do because the day haas come when you make the decision with in your self not because the state turns you in to some kind of second rate citizen.

POINT TAKEN but it really is not pleasant as a non smoker to have to endure smoking,last year i stopped in gloucester at what appeared to be a nice fish restraunt i was just about to eat my meal when a young woman in a family crowd lit up,whilst still eating her meal i politely asked her to put out the ciggerette wich she refused even the owner sided with her,roland i am sure you have better manners then that woman but some smokers do not realise how unpleasant smoking is to others.

This is true if you smoke your obviously oblivious to the smell and yes i would have more manners and i think most smokers do although i can not speak for all. I am also oblivious to the smell i just know all my non smoking mates moaned about it when we were eating so it was obvious they felt offended at that time but in the pub it was never or at most rarely mentioned and in clubs never at all.

I left a message on the 16 july 2007 requesting that some one from the labour party remove the lies written above as they have not done so i will rewrite it for them++++++++++ ENGLAND WENT DEMOCRACY FREE ON THE 1 JULY 2007 Labour achieved a big step today on removing your human rights. It,s for your own good as let's face it you do not have the abillity to make simple desicions for your self. YES we,ve finally removed those dirty smokers from are pubs and public buildings and made them stand outside. Despite that our own surveys have proved that 67% of the population did not want a ban but just restrictions we have carried on with our campain and rigged the figures statistically speaking thats not hard to do. We also spent a great deal of time and money on reports connecting passive smoking with health risks unfortunatly these reports did not find in our own favour so we just bare face lied about them. It's for your own good though and the main thing is smokers are now outside the pub don't you just hate them. Lets hope they don't all decide to give up though as finding 12 billion pounds a year would require a hole lot more casinos and speed camera's. Any way we've got more pressing concerns we've got to take some shovels to iraq and dig up those weapons of mass destruction they must be some where. Lots of love NEW IMPROVED LABOUR with vitimin c extract.

I totally agree, we are now well and truly an Undemocratic country. The 'so-called' ex-Communist, Marxists, Fascists within labour must be foaming at the mouth to see what they've dedicated themselves to for years has actually been achieved with almost no effort on their part, the downfall of England, and the end of democracy. These disgusting 'supposedly' liberal people don't give a damn about health, it's all about dictatorship, 'we can, so we will. They are evil incarnate, along with that other group ASH, who are earning more money than all those who think they are a credible organisation, can only dream of. Through this Pharmaceutical backed group and labours lies we now live in a state with diktats issued from that other EVIL organisation, the EU, and fascist enforcers everywhere you look. To say I hate what politicians, especially Labour, have done to the decent law abiding is an understatement, they are a scourge on all decent people. The Second Hand Smoke propaganda that's been bandied about by ASH and their sidekicks has become so lucrative to their bank balances that they daren't admit the truth. They are solely responsible for alot of violence being meted out to smokers, and for them being persecuted. I've heard it said that smokers are now the new jews, how telling seeing that Hitler and his fascist regime introduced a smoking ban. Wake up people, fight back before it's too late and you end up in a Gulag or some other such camp for dissenting.

If any one feels my comment's are a bit over the top please visit http://www.freedom2choose.co.uk/news1.php?id=290 it shows how a official document from the health and safety executive (HSC) has quite clearly been doctored to suiet the needs of those who seek to lie to the public to gain weight for their own personal opinion.

Haha.. hmm,yeah..visit the website HE recommends. Wise. Ok. So Roland,Itake it you are a smoker. Passive (thats right, two S's not one...) smoking has been proven harmful to others. As a 19yr old female, I also enjoy being able to go out for a drink, and not leave stinking of dirty cigerette smoke! Now, lets move away from passive smoking. The new smoke-free laws, I hope, should encourage more people to give up smoking. The majority of smokers I have spoke to do not actually want to smoke, and have tried to give up numerous times. Smoking is a dirty habit, and frankly should not be inflicted on others. The effects of smoking are facts, it is not arguable. (However, they have clearly had an unexpected and extra effect on yourself, as you seem unable to spell!!) I think you are naive, very narrow minded, a little selfish and frankly rather dim. As a law student, and as a person (who by the way, most people are glad the ban has come into place..? Majority and all that....), I think the new legislation was a good idea, and should have happened a long time ago.

You talk about the filtering idea, and I agree with it. It would be great to have filters in pubs that cleaned 99.7% of the air, but how long does it take to actually filter that smoke out? I'm in sat opposite a table of 6 blokes who are heavilty smoking... will that filtering system remove 99.7% of that smoke before its able to float over to me and before Im able to either inhail it, or have it iritate my eyes? Because I have a sneeking feeling it wouldnt filter the air fast enough to do that. Yes it might eventually clean the air and remove the smoke.... but its not very efficient if it doesnt do it fast enough to stop the smoke travelling.

Well i think your now just being completly unreasonable. If your that worried about your health you should concider buying a gas mask as every breath you take is full of thousands of invisible poisonus toxins from every thing from chemicals used in agriculture, industry,the planes that go over head, to the fumes that come from cars. The fact is your body deals with these toxins on a day to day basis that is how your immune system devlops. A small amount of anything is a good thing that is natures.

hear hear

roland i would keep quite on that one as i fear another tax rise coming on.

Could I not agrue that its unreasonably for smokers to complain they cant smoke inside a pub anymore because it effects me? Thats my entire point. You're trying to say its "ureasobale" for me not to want to breath in any amounts of toxins from another persons cigarette. Yes we could have better ventilation and air-con in pubs, but I would still have to endure the lingering smoke until it was sucked away. But you saying im being unreasonable because I DONT want to inhail that lingering smoke until its gone? Thats why I called your a hypercrit! You talk about smokers having their rights removed, but you true to argue i'm being paranoid just because I dont want to smoke in small amounts of cigeratte smoke! But thats my choice, thats my right, thats my freedom to NOT want to inhail it. But your dismissing that like im being a hypercondriac (cant spell). This is why I'm being dimissive about smokers not being able to smoke, because im just returning the same attitude. I say "why cant smokers just not smoke for a few hours a night" because your expecting us none-smokers to put up with small amounts of cigarette smoke because we're being "unreasonable"!

Unless you say to me "yes Simon, it is completely unacceptble to expect a non-smoker to breath in ANY amounts of cigarette which they dont choose to", then I wont agree with you. Until you admit its against a non-smokers rights to be expected to inhail ANY smoke, then I cant agree with your view! I accept better air-con and ventilation was an option, and it would have helped, but I dont agree it was a 100% effective solution. The smoke would still linger until it was removed. Call me unreasonable if you want, but if I dont choose to inhail that smoke, then I dont see why I should. And you saying that im being unreasonable is dissmissive of my rights as a peron. And that makes you a hypercrit because your talking about the rights of smokers, but dismissing the rights of non-smokers and calling us wingers because we dont want to inhail some smoke.

Well we have hit upon a stale mate then as i'm being stubon because their are absolutely no provisions made for smokers what so ever right to the point of telling smokers they have to stand 4 meters away from their place of work. So lets see if their is any common ground here would you say it as exceptable for a government to lie about documents stating quite clearly that their was no health risk as far as they could find to non smokers from second hand smoke.

But Roland, thats the point. I dont really care whether a report has proven that second hand smoke isnt bad for me. If I dont want or choose to inhail that smoke, I shouldnt have to, to any degree! Whether it be huge amounts or filtered amounts! I dont trust any report that states inhailing trace amounts of toxins isnt going to do me harm. Those are still trace amounts that I dont choose to inhail and it CAN be avoided with this ban. But it isnt just about health issues as I've said before. I find that smoke irriates my eyes and occassionally my throat. On a night out my contact lenses dont last more then an hour in a smokey room. I also find I stunk of smoke in the morning and my ENTIRE room and house smells too. You cant just jump on the "second hand smoke isnt bad for you" bandwagon, when there are other issues caused by second-hand smoke. It isnt all just about health. Its also about bar staff (who maybe cant get a job anywhere else) having to be in that smokey environment for hours on end, day in and day out. You cant tell me that a non-smoking bar attendant, inhailing second-hand smoke 24/7 for hours at a time isnt going to feel the effects in a negative way? You talk about choice, and how smokers dont have a choice anymore. As a non-smoker, I had NO choice before now, to whether I sat and inhailed smoke in my local pub. It doesnt matter whether that smoke is harming me or not, because I didnt choose to inhail it!

Simon it was a simple question please read it again and answer it.

I didnt quite understand what you wrote. Are you suggesting the government lied when stating that secondhand smoke is harmfull? If so, then I dont know fine well that isnt true. You have shown me a website yourself that states a person can inhail the equilivant of 19 cigarettes in a year from second hand smoke (worst case scenario). How is that NOT harmfull? But if they did lie, then no its not acceptable. But as I've said it doesnt matter! I dont care whether some report states that second-hand smoke isnt harmfull, because I find that hard to believe. I'm using my own common sense to realise that inhailing smoke that contains toxins isnt going to be good for me. And even so (as ive said) its not just about the harmfull effects to your health. Its about the other negative effects that it has - irritation, ashma and smelling clothes. Are you going to suggest that Ashma suffers arent going to feel any effects from smoking? Does this smoking ban not help them?

I can not possibly answer for every single scenario placed before me but i can say both the government and the anti smoking lobby bare face lied about the dangers of second hand smoke. It came as much of a supprise to me as it has to you. Like you say it would seem common sense that if smoking causes cancer etc.. then being around smokers it might affect you in the same manor. You have the right to disslike smoking you have the right to clean ventilated pubs thats fair enough, you have the right to exspect those who do smoke to have a bit of respect for the fact you don't. I'll give you a good example of how far the paranoia and brain washing has gone. Lutton council have stated that any one smoking in multi story car parks will be fined as they are not 50% open. How can any one in their right mind claim that some one smoking in a multi story car park can affect the health of another person. It is deemed safe enough for adults, children, astma sufferers to stay in there with car fumes then why not smokers. Car fumes are far far more dangerous than any thing a cigarret can throw out. Think about this if you was given the choice which one would you rather be looked in a garage for just one hour with a smoker or a running car.

The issue with car fumes compared to smoking is that smoking is avoidable and you dont have to do it around others. Cars (unfortunately) are a necessity... its not a great and its not perfect, but the fact is the country would fall apart with out them. But (and you know my opinion by now) even if a scientist with 10 diplomas in some kind of medical science, stood infront of me and said "second hand smoke wont hurt you" I would turn to him and say "I dont believe you or care because I dont want to breath it in.". And as I've also said, its not just health issues that Im concerned about, its more how smoking irriates my eyes and makes my clothes smell. You can say "well just wash your clothes" but its a bit late when you wake up the next morning to your entire room smelling or smoke because the smell lingered. I just feel smoking has FAR to many side effects on the people around them (health wise or not) to be concidered acceptable in a confined space. The thing with smoking as an activity is that it is just an activity. Its not a necessity and it is avoidable in public places. You dont have to smoke around other people. You could just go outside and be conciderate. Unlike cars which are unavoidable. But its not right to agrue that "cars poison you anyway, so why cant we smoke around you?" because thats a very ignorant attitude to take towards non-smokers. I dont see us agreeing to be honest, but its been fun talking.

Yeah your right we're not going to agree on this looks like the brain washing has gone to deep for me to bring you out of it. The point about which would you rather spend an hour in a garage with a smoker or a running car was not about weather we need cars or not, the point was to show how minute the risk of breathing in second hand smoke was. If you were to spend an hour locked in a garage with a running car that would probably be your last hour on this planet. Yet when we're in a multi story car park or walking down a busy high street we don't all say 'oh my god this will probably kill us. I hope if nothing else you won't be quite so quick to believe everything a government tells you or a scare moungering bunch of do goders tell you. I should worn you though regardless of your feelings regarding smoking the fact is the law came in against the will of this country and with out going throw the judicial process it should have gone through that is state control not democracy. I know you like a pint. That same bunch of people will be telling us we're not allowed that next then when they get that they will tell you what you can and can't eat. If we're not careful a night down the pub will consist of a pint of fresh orange juice and a healthy fat free salad, followed by a bit of good old fashion line dancing at the local night spot. I'm not joking either.

Personally, I hate the smell of marijuana being smoked. I find it intensely sweet and sickly and the smell of it from others smoking it nearby leaves me feeling nauseas, probably something along vaguely similar lines to how Simon feels when subjected to tobacco smoke in a pub. A few years ago, I lived in a country where people are allowed to smoke it and where I lived there was a bar where it was smoked and everybody knew it was smoked there. In short, it was known to be a ‘marijuana’ bar. As far as I was concerned the fact that people smoked marijuana there did not bother me in the slightest; they were all adults and had made their choice. However, instead of jumping up and down and trying to insist that it was stopped and interfering in their legal pursuit that affected nobody else whatsoever except for themselves, I simply never went in there for a drink and went elsewhere instead. A pity that some other people here cannot think the same way about pubs where the people enjoy smoking tobacco and are perfectly willing to accept a separate room or special licences for smoking pubs. There again, tolerance and compromise are not fashionable concepts any more, are they?

You cant use the ‘marijuana bar' as an example to talk about people "knowingly" going to smoking pubs. Until this ban started, how many local village pubs had you been in that didnt allow smoking? Had the land-lords and owners of clubs been given a choice to be either be 'smoking' or 'non-smoking', the vast majority would have continued to allow smoking. I couldnt see any of my local pubs in my village going 'non smoking' given a choice. It wasnt and wouldnt have been a case of "oh should I go to the smoking pub or the non-smoking pub at the village tonight", because they would ALL still be smoking in them. So what was or would have been the alternative for non-smokers? You either never went to the pub, or the bar or clubbing because you didnt like smoking or you sat there and endured it. It wouldnt even be a case of "well lets just go somewhere else" because EVERY pub would have been still been smoking pubs. What choice does that leave non-smokers? The entire point here is that smokers can still smoke at home, and just not light up for a few hours on a night out. While if a non-smoker goes to a smokey pub they either have to just leave and go home, or endure it. Is it worse for a smoker to not smoke for a few hours, or for a non-smoker to sit there and breath in second-hand smoke with no choice about it?

Simon why do you keep saying their was no alternative for non smokers when you have already admitted that air cleaning systems would have been an alternative (message left 01.46pm friday the 13 july 2007) you claimed that it would be to exspensive for pub's which it quite clearly would not have been considering that pub's have had to spend vast sum's of money on outdoor smoking area's or face closing down.

I'm talking about before the ban!!! But lets assume the air-filtering thing wasnt an option, and the ban didnt exist. It just really annoys me when smokers have very little concern for the health of non-smokers. They talk like it doesnt matter that non-smokers have to inhail this smoke (regardless of whether its trace amounts)! They talk about smokers rights being removed to enjoy a tab down the pub, but they pay no regard for the rights of the non-smokers to not inhail that smoke. Non-smokers (until now) were basically expected to either sit there and endure it, ask a table of blokes to stop smoking who would most like laught at you or leave and go elsewhere! Yet no one EVER concidered that! Its all about how the smokers rights have been infringed upon. But yes your right... if we had better air-ventilation which removed 99%-100% of smoke from the air, it would be great! But I still wouldnt want to sit directly opposite someone who was smoking, because I would get the majority of it before it was filtered out.

Here is a little look into the future+++++++ BOSTON: I see in the paper that Massachusetts may become the first state in the union to ban trans fats in food. Truly, this is the best of all possible worlds! Only in Massachusetts, for instance, can gay people get married, eat healthful doughnuts, dodge secondhand smoke, and not have to worry about being hit by slingshots, which were banned here many years ago. Here is a thumbnail list of The Things We Have Lost: the three-gallon toilet tank, which actually works; shower heads that actually deliver water; smoking inside; smoking outside; M-80s and cherry bombs; drinking on television; drinking in the baseball clubhouse; ad hominem attacks in respectable newspapers; drinking soda pop in schools; serving peanut butter in schools; ferrets (California); hokey Indian mascots; plastic bags (San Francisco), skinny models; fat models; smoking on stage (Chicago); foie gras (Chicago). Welcome to the United States of Ban-erica.

Seeing as the discusion below has more or less proved that their is no link between passive smoking and any health risk to other people which the governmant was fully aware of before changing the law and seeing as 67% of the country did not want a full ban according to the govenmants own servey can some one from the labour party please change the absolute lie's written above. Thank you.

I second the motion!

I can remember reading about pubs, especially in the North of England flatly denying the ban and reports came in that possibly a thousand pubs were doing so. These reports were on the 2nd and 3rd of July and anyone can find them by simply googling the words ‘smoking ban defy/defies’ or look into the Daily Telegraph’s website and you will find an article dated the 3rd of July. Since then, there has not even been a whisper about how things have gone on. I find it believe that such a flagrant defiance simply disappeared without an ‘end result’. There is a limit number of options as to how this blatant defiance on the part of thousands of people could have ended. 1) they are simply continuing to defy the law with impunity. 2) They were all threatened with fines or actually fined. 3) They paid these fines and accepted. 4) They refused to pay the fines. Whatever the end result, it is news worthy. Yet, from what I can find, after searching for updates, is nothing. I cannot believe that the problem simply went away and it leaves me wondering as to what is going on here and even leads me to ask questions about the media in this country. There would be clear advantages to the population of this country never knowing the end result (whatever it is) and giving the appearance that nothing is happening, for sure. And I find it very hard to believe that all these people simply gave up without anything more happening, can you? As an after thought, try logging into the free2choose website that was probably the principle anti ban site. It has been ‘under construction’ all this week.

But is it acceptable to incourage a country where we blatenly flaunt the law and do as we please. A good example being the ban on fox hunts.... people are still going out and performing those events. Something which was banned for good reason due to cruelty to animals. We seem to be living in a country where more and more people are just ignoring the laws and doing as they please, and yet we trying to teach young kids and teenagers "obey the law" and dont "behave anti-social". Then dad goes down the pub and smokes when its illegal!

If a law is unjust and undemocratic it should not be obeyed and should be fought at every opportunity other wise we fail to be free people and we fail to be a democracy. The majority of this country did not ask for or want this law. so why then is it now law. Their is a massive differance between stealing from another person which the hole country would agree should be an offence that is against the law and a law that was against the wishes of most of the people of this country and was bought in off the back of bare faced lie's.

I bring up my kids to think about WHY a law exists. In the vast majority of cases, laws are indeed there for a good reason and help us to live together in peace and harmony. However, if a law is either unjust or makes absolutely no provision to provide a fair compromise between two conflicting interests, then it is right to disobey it. Blindly following laws or orders without reasoning is highly dangerous as history has shown us.

I cannot say that I feel much sympathy for fox hunters as being torn apart by a pack of baying hounds is barbaric and cruel. However, provided that there is no violence, threatening behaviour or malice towards others, I feel that a certain measure of defiance is a healthy sign and shows that the population is not willing to just jump at every command that is issued by the State. I bring up my kids to be law abiding people, but I also encourage them to have a small spark of rebellion also. Non violent rebellion is healthy and part and parcel of the human spirit and shows passion for what one believes in; something much needed in today’s world.

Its a matter of perspective though. I consider smoking in a pub, with no regard for the people around you as malice and harming others. But I expect alot of smokers dont see it that way and stand by the "it wont do you any harm" stance. But fox-hunters try to defend their actions by saying "its tradition" and "its necessary to keep fox populations down". So by their perspective the fox-hunting ban is an unjust law which they feel they can flaunt. But obviously others dont. So where do we draw the line at what is an unjust law and what isnt? Its great to rase your children to question things and to question whether an action is justified, but they could turn around and twist a situation and say "Well I dont see why I cant do that, it doesnt harm anyone". But I expect someone else would disagree.

I have been reading with interest your replies to Roland and the other Simon, and nowhere do you mention 'compromise', WHY. What happened to that great British word Tolerance. I can fully understand that you don't like the smell of smoke, and actually think SHS is going to kill you, there's nothing I can argue that would change your mind on this, you believe what ASH feeds you and that is that. But why can't you see the sense of having smoking/non-smoking establishments, this way everyone gets a choice, no-ones rights are trampled on. Maybe it's the case of 'spite', smokers have been smoking in my presence for too long and now it's my turn, they deserve all the persecution they get. What I will add Simon, is would you persecute and demonise people from an ethnic minority, and please don't say it's different, persecution and demonisation is the same in all forms no matter who it's aimed against.

I wonder who that 'someone else' is that you are referring to! I do not set unnecessary rules for my kids and if they think that a rule is unnecessary, I am not offended if they question it, provided that it is not in an insulting or belligerent manner. I am willing to reconsider my ideas if they do so and even change the rule on occasion if they have seen something that I didn't see. In like fashion, I agree that civil disobedience does have a a place in society and if no harm is done to other's rights, safety or reasonable pursuit of happiness, then it is morally justifiable. Also, likewise, I see no need for violence or even rudeness when defying an unjust law. Just dogged determination and quiet resolve are required much in line with Mahatma Gandhi who is the father of the world's largest democracy and Dr King who brought dignity to his people.

I'm all for protest and expressing your opinion and having laws and rules changed if need be. Aslong as its done correctly with passionate and commitment and peacefully! But I think it should also be done carefully, so young children who see it understand how and why these laws are being flaunted. Otherwise you just end with a bunch of teenagers who will try to cause chaos about everything without reason.

Foot note! I also think that, compared to having a prime minister who entered an illegal war with a right wing nutter of a US president, old dad having a crafty f*a*g in his local pales into insignificance rather!

Do you think if bush and blair we're both faced with a on the spot fine over lraq they would have maybe thought a a bit more seriously before sending the counries troops to war maybe someone should surgest it to the u.n.

I was thinking more along the lines of being slowly led around the streets of London and DC behind horses and then put in the stocks for a couple of days. I would gladly provide the rotten tomatoes.

Been on this sight a week now so far i have not had one decent argument for why the smoking ban has been bought in. It's was bought in with out going through the judicial process all laws are supposed to go through before they become law, it will close down pub's /cafe's people will lose job's, it's a blatent violation of human right's, smoking levels that i've red of in other countries that have the ban have gone up , the government keeps trying to tell us it want's to discourage smoking when the truth is without it the country would be financially ruined, and the whole passive smoking causes health problems for non smokers has been proved to be a lie or at best a compleat distortion of the truth (before any one comments on that you have the gratest research tool in the history of man kind at your finger tips please come back at me with fact's not reterik or scare mongering).

Roland do you not understand what a hypercrit your being? You talk about smokers having their rights and choice taken away because they cant smoke in a pub. Yet you completely dismiss how non-smokers have abosolutely NO choice but to sit there and inhail that smoke or feel the consiqences to that smoke. It makes no difference whether that smoke contains TINY amounts of toxins or HUGE amounts of toxins. Non-smokers are still being forced to inhail it. And I read up on the same report you did about studies showing the you "only" inhail the equilivant of 19 cigarettes a year from second hand smoke. How is that acceptable? 19 cigarettes is still 19 more then I DONT want to inhail, and 19 cigarettes IS going to do me harm whether you want to accept it or not! I accept that smokers are having their rights to choose removed, but I outweight that by the overwhelming fact that smoking DOES effect those around you. I explained to you bellow somewhere, that smoking causes my eyes to hurt on nights out when wearing contact lenses. You're responce was "well I've never heard anyone say that before" and completely dismissed it! I explained how it makes your throat burn and your clothes smell, which are all valid reasons against smoking and you just dismissed it! You (like alot of other smokers) simply refuse to accept when someone gives you a valid side effect to smoking on people around you. You just say "well wash you clothes" or "dont sit near smoke" or "its only 19 cigarettes" or "its only trace amounts". Its amazing how smokers so easily dismiss the suffering it causes of non-smokers and how it goes against their rights NOT to inhail that smoke. But the minute you're asked NOT to smoke you all blow up and cry and scream about your rights are being taken away! We're only asking you NOT to smoke in a confined space for a given amount of time, so as not to hurt people around you. You can still smoke outside, at home and anywhere you want aslong as its not a public, confined space. Is it really that hard to concider non-smokers for a few hours in the afternoon or on a night out? can you really not manage to smoke for a few hours?

You talk about Toxins Simon, have you not read the reports that say the toxins in office machines are on a par with SHS and can KILL you, so if you work in an office, or you going to give up your job or demand your boss bans them. Or what if you come into contact with any of these machines are you going to push for them all to be banned. If people just admitted that didn't like the smell and would prefer pubs/clubs etc., to have a choice whether they allowed smoking I'd have more respect for how they feel. But when I see and hear the rabid zealots and gullible non-smokers I think maybe I've been transported to the Nazi Germany I've read about. I'm of a mind that it's absolutely futile trying to have a reasonable debate with those that rabidly agree with this ban and brook no dissent. In fact I feel quite sympathetic towards them at times because it's like they have tunnel vision and no mind of their own. It's like they belong to a cult. It's a rocky path you tread when you advocate the banning of a perfectly legal activity on the grounds of unproven scientific junk spouted by ASH and scientists desperate not to lose their funding/grants.

Well sorry mate i don't think i'm a hypocrit i don't smoke in restraunts, i don't smoke round non smokers when we're eatin,i don't smoke round kid's, if i'm in my own car with a non smoker i leave the window wide open and make sure i blow the smoke out the window, it's called respect for other's. It's about realising that we all live here and have to put up with each other. Your argument's started with it kill's and badley affect's the health of 1000's of people a year. you now know that is not true. Now all we have left is the truth. The truth is that you put your self before the pub's that close down,the 100's if not 1000's of job's that we'll be lost, the kid's that are now wondering what's so great about this smoking that it's caused all this fuss' you put your self above the fact that a law has been washed through parliment with out giving care or consideration to those it will affect which is against the human right's bill and is also against the judicial process that all laws must go through before they become law. The truth is clear all you care about is your self. The one place a smoker had left to go out with his mate's and have a laugh and a drink with out listening to the do gooder brigade winging on was the pub no one complained about any other building or public place the fact is smoking was becoming a thing of the past but it was becoming that off a changing socierty and for no other reason. so if there are any hypocrits here it is the like's of you.

Call me the DoGooderBrigrade if you want, I dont care! Myself and other non-smokers are the ones who had to sit in pubs and confined spaces and inhail smoke that we DIDNT choose to do. I dont care whether that smoke contains trace amounts of anything, I DO NOT WANT TO INHAIL ANY AMOUNTS OF ANYTHING. And its staggers me how you try and agrue that inhailing the equilvant of 19 cigarettes in a year wont harm you. Thats like having one cigarette every 3 days. You being completely moronic if you try to tell me that wont do a person harm. Your just completely dismissive to the countless good reasons I have given for NOT smoking in confined spaces. You refuse to accept that i causes peoples eyes and throats to hurt, you refuse to accept it makes your clothes smell and you refuse to accept that its wrong to make a person inhail ANY fumes they dont want to. Yet you say you DONT smoke around non-smokers and you DO concider their wants. So why are you arguing in favour of being able to smoke in pubs when it will effect the people you care about?

It was the one place smokers had left where they could socialise with out having to feel they we're putting the rest of the world out. It was the one place non smokers genrally tollerated smoking with out complaint. Your rights as a non smoker are the same as my rights as a smoker, yet it's now all take on the non smoker's side.

Alot of non-smokers dont "tollerate" smoking. They dont say anything, because their scared to. Would you ask a table full of 6 lads to not smoke? I wouldnt have because I know id either get told to f'off of punched. Pubs arent just places for smokers to socialise, its also places for non-smokers to hang out. But the general atttitude is "if you dont like the smoke, go elsewhere or put up with it". Yes alot of smokers might stop if asked, but we live in a country where not everyone is nice and you would get greif if you asked someone to stop. And yes (as I said bellow) if we had these air-extraction facilities or seperated pubs with smoking rooms, it would be great. But that would cost money and alot of pubs couldnt afford that or wouldnt. And if given a choice, most pubs wouldnt go non-smoking. A total ban was the only solution to stop its completely. Its unfortunate, but it what had to be done.

Right we've now argued the toss over every thing. And the fact is we have now hit a common resolve which is air cleaning system's. You say pub's would not pay the money well all the pubs round my way with garden's have spent starting with the smaller pub's around £3000 to the larger pub's/bar's with garden's around £35,000 on out door smoking area's. So you can not say they would not have paid the money. I say we've argued the toss over everything and now have hit a common resolve to a problem so why did this conversation happen in parliament as it is the duty for mp's to have done so, not just morally but leagaly. Why is even canterbury cathedral expected to pin no smoking sign's to it's wall's you would have thought GOD! (that's the person that created the earth and all living being for those that did not know) might have been above the tyranny of the anti smoking lobby. There we're alternative's to a ban it just did'nt suite a small group of control freaks who do not like smoking at all. They hate it so much they we're quite happy to lie to us, when they did not have the argument they wanted which was to throw the health card at us, they lied about the very reports they had paid for that proved them selve's wrong. This is not just about smoking. It is about those that have an opinion on how the rest of us should live our live's and have the time on their hand's to inforce it. If we let tham get away with this next they will start on alchole, then they will start on food, then they will start on how many miles your allowed to drive, then they will tell you what you can wear etc.. you may at the moment believe this is over the top but slowly this is all happening all around you. These people genuinly believe their greater than the people of this country,they believe their opinion is above democracy, and if they feel churches should have no smoking signs then they obviously believe they are above god.

Putting no smoking signs on a church is extremely offensive and, as far as I am concerned, when a Christian walks into a church, he is in the presence of a higher law than New Labour to say the very least. I am very tempted to say that people of all denominations should feel highly insulted to say the least. Even outside of churches, these signs are insulting to the people in many cases. I have seen them stuck to museums, leisure centres, libraries and such like. In such cases, it is very revealing of the arrogance of these politicians as well as the disdain and contempt that they hold for us, the ordinary people. It presumes that the people of this country are inconsiderate pigs that would enter such places and puff away with impunity if it were not for them, that we people lit up in libraries and museums before they intervened, that people blew their fumes around in gyms, nursery groups and art galleries before the day they made us put up their signs. Personally, prior to this ban, I never once saw one single person light up in such places and quite rightly so. I wonder when our politically correct lords and masters will rewrite that soon to be little known fact from our collective memory . . maybe at about the same time as they airbrush Churchill’s cigar from the children’s schoolbooks.

I find it a bit odd your trying to push this debate into churches. I had actually assumed people didnt smoke in churches and that they were smoke free. Maybe its just me, but I would personally have assumed it rude and dishonourable to smoke to in a church! Like you dont wear a hat at dinner.

I really hope that message was not aimed at me. I was not the person who bout this argument into the church i was pointing out as simon emil pointed out how far these people will go in their little hate campain that they do not even think the church should be exempt from it. And no i have never heard of anyone in my life lighting up in a church so why should they have to pin up no smoking signs on their building. The same applies to both synagogues and mosques. I am not at all religious although i surpose i'm fundermentally christian but i don't believe any one in their right mind would walk into any one of these building smoking a cigarete i don't think we need to deface any of these building's with anti smoking signs (propaganda) to let us know. to let us know

I agree and that is why putting such a sign on a church is both insulting and supremely arrogant. I am wondering if they will be extending the ban to Catholic priests who waft incense. They have already interfered with the policies of Catholic adoption agencies, knowing full well that gay adoption is against the religion. Their arragance knows no bounds.

The ... in my last message is for the word G*A*Y.

When I worked at a place with a smokers' room, absolutely nobody minded. The non smokers thought it was a very good idea and the smokers were happy to oblige and keep their smoke to themesleves and not impinge on their colleagues' rights. This is how adults in na adult world sort the,selves out. We come to solutions that suit both sides and leave everybody with their rights and dignity in tact. We do not need the State to treat us like children and, from my experience, we are perfectly able to sort our own affairs out and make sure that both sides are happy. There again, our new politically correct masters are not interested in people managing their own lives and reaching accords. All that they are interested in is alienating groups that they do not approve of and bullying us into accepting their conformist vision of the world.

It's like they have a fairy tell little image of how the world should be in their head's. A world where no one smoke's a world where no one shouts at their kid's, where no one drink's more than the odd glass of wine, where every one's gardens are perfectly kept, where teenage kid's all stay at home and play trivial persuits with their families (not computer game of course) rather than tearing around the town, a world where no one ever behaves in an unpollitcally correct manner. Well i'm sure we'd all love to live in that world but we don't we live in the real world and they can't control the way the human race is. As mr emil say's they seak to bully and alianate those who do not want to conform to their own vertion 'final soloution'. My grandad's fought throw a war to protect us from this my grand mother's had to sit in air raid shelters listenig to bombs hitting the flaw not knowing if their house would still be their to protect us from this. One way or another whats going on now is oppresion and a start of the end of freedom to live your own live's, well not in the way that certain indivisuals believe it should be. but in the the real world.

God save us from those who promise a perfect world. As far as I am concerned, those people who offer us such a vision, whatever it might be, are unsavoury characters who are perfectly willing to ruin ordinary people’s lives as a result of their ‘wonderful’ visions whether it be Nazis, fascists, communists, religious fundamentalists or the present politically correct élite that hold sway over our lives. They all have one thing in common; that they have some kind of pre-ordained right to change and mould others according to their pet theories and, in my view, history is not about the class struggle, the struggle between races, the struggle to bring about God’s will (whatever that is), but rather the struggle between ordinary tolerant, let live people and those who want to impose their views upon us and take away our freedom to live our lives as sane and tolerant individuals without effecting others. If we let them, the present government will continue to erode those very freedoms that our parents and grandparents risked their lives for during the 1940s. I am not saying that they would go as far as Stalin or Hitler. But they will continue to increase surveillance, make decisions such as changing the present constitution without a referendum, brainwash our children with politically correct twaddle and stimmy us into narrow conformity over how we should lead our lives. Already, Mr Brown is making changes to the relationship between the Monarchy and Parliament. I am not saying that these changes are necessarily right or wrong, each of us has our opinion over the Queen’s prerogative and her role in our constitution. What my bone of contention here is that it is being decided by a closed group of middle class New Labour ideologists (Fabian Society) that represent a tiny minority of this country’s population. Such important changes should be the decision of the whole people and voted on as a referendum. If we decide as a majority to lessen the Queen’s role, then fine, the People have spoken. In any other democratic country in the world, changes in the constitution are decided by referring to the electorate after much deliberation by legal experts, constitutional councils etc. Not so here, not so with Mr Brown, not so with New Labour . . . obviously they know better than us peasants!

I am sorry, Roland. I had severe doubts about your comment that smoking levels have risen in countries with a smoking ban. I googled and found that you are right and it is particularly prevalent among teenagers and youngsters who are taking up the habit more. Also, overall numbers of smokers have risen there since the ban sinilar to the one we have here. Just goes to prove that social engineering does not work as the human animal is very complexe indeed. Mosty people are happy to conform with something that is reasonable and will sacrifice something of their own way of life for the general good. But once a certain mark is overstepped, they rebel an drefuse to go along with anything. I was going to give up this year. Once my stock runs out, I was planning to quit. Now with the draconian measures and general moralising going on, I feel a lot less inclined to quit, to be truthful.

there's another reason i think smoking level's are rising amongst the young. kid's will now be thinking what is so great about this stuff that it's causing all this fuss. But yeh there is apart of us that rebel's and even hitler wanted to ban smoking and used the same methods that are being used now and even he never managed to pull it off.

Do you honsetly not think this smoking ban is a good stop towards stopping young people from starting to smoke, or to atleast make them quit sooner? How could you say otherwise!!! If a young person cant join their mates at the pub or on a night out due to smoking, its going to be a huge incouragement to either stop or cut-back. How is that a bad thing? You're honsetly only thinking of yourself, and trying to think up excuses why you dont want to stop.

So lets NEVER ban anything or make anything illegal, because then it wont incourage kids to do it MORE! Lets make drinking legal for under 18s, lets make smoking legal for under 16s, lets make it legal to have sex under 16. That way it will all be legal, no tabos and kids will stop doing any of it because it wont be cool anymore to break the rules!!! Roland get real.... kids were smoking long before any smoking ban, and yes they do things because we tell them not to. But a smoking ban IS NOT going to incourage that even more. Why? because now they cant smoke at the pub when their mates go on a night out! Did you concider that one!!! How many young kids want to be stood outside a pub or club smoking, while their mates are inside having a good time?

No simon better still why not ban every thing. lets ban alcohol let's face it's killed a lot more people than passive smoking, let's ban fatty food so the N.H.S. dose'nt have the expense of putting up with over weight people like the prime minister, let's make driving so expensive it only allow's the rich to have their own car's or better still make people apply to the council to prove that they need to make a journey and have no alternative but to use their car, let's face it most of the country can live on public transport this would stop so many people a year getting run over, let's ban people from taking thier shirts off when it's sunny to stop them getting skin cancer (you think that's over the top well thay have on building sight's), let's ban children doing cart weal's in the school play ground as they have done for all time for fear they might break their arm (woop's sorry they've already done that), let's have the state control are live's as we obviously can't make simple decisions for our selves. As a anti smoker you had ONE good argument for banning smoking in pub's which was it kill's 1000's of people a year WELL IT CLEARLY DOSE NOT. As a pro smoker i have a wealth of good arguments for over turning the ban the biggest of which was THE PUBLIC HAVE QUITE CLEARLY BEEN LIED TO IN ORDER TO BRING IN THE BAN the law should be over turned then if the anti smoking lobby still want to persist then the law should go through the propper judicial process where the public and parliament are given the genuine fact's and have considered the genuine alternative's.

I had ONE good arguement? Are you telling me its acceptable to expose a person to the equilavant of 19 cigaretts in a year? its acceptable that they dont choose that and have its endure it? Its acceptable they have to endure the damage those 19 cigarettes will do them? Its acceptable for people like myself to have their eyes and throats hurt? Its acceptable to have our clothes smell in the morning? HOW CAN YOU SAY I HAD ON GOOD REASON! YOU SIMPLY REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE COUNTLESS GOOD REASONS. How can you possibly agrue that inhailing the equilivanto f 19 cigarettes wont harm you? Roland your being completely arrogant if you're trying to tell me its acceptable to expose a person who doesnt smoke to ANY levels of toxins in smoke that they DONT want to inhail. That smoke DOES contain toxins and whether it does little or no evident harm makes no difference. THEY DONT CHOOSE TO INHAIL IT!!! Can you not grasp that? You cant compare smoking to any other activity, because smoking DOES effect those around you all the time!!!

Well i do think that inhaling the equivalent to 19 cig's over the course of a year (which was a worse case scenario assuming you spent 20 hours a week in a smoky pub) will not do you any harm and neither dose any one else including most in the medical profession.It's not like any one's holding you down and forcing you to smoke 19 in a row. I also need to point out that the air cleaning systems i was on about that i surgested could leave could leave the air 99.7% clean i was wrong about it was infact 99.97% clean that's cleaner than the air out side so why could we have not forced clubs an pubs to install them. Every one could have kept their jobs, pubs would not have to close down, the worlds hypocondriact's would'nt have to worry, human right's and democracy would have prevailed in finding a sollution to a problem that would have kept the hole country happy and your cloths would not smell in the morning and you would'nt have to spend your intire night in the bathroom washing out you eye's to stop them stinging. Now even the most nick picky of people can not say that 99.97% pure air is going to affect your healt. So why was this not even discussed as an option.

If pubs had these air filtering systems in them and they did remove 99.7% of the smoke, then fine I would sing and dance. But my main point was that you behave completely dissmissive to the fact that non-smokers dont choose to inhail of smoke, AT ALL! You act dissmissive to my clearly stating that smoke hurts your eyes and throats and makes you smell come the morning. All im asking is you accept that its NOT acceptable to expose non-smokers to that? You talk about pubs being the last refuge for smokers to socialise. Pubs are also the last refuge for NON-smokers to socialise. Yet your suggesting non-smokers should get up and leave and go somewhere else if they dont like the smoke! How is that hypercritical? The simple fact is that you as a smoker can still socialise in the pub without smoking. But a non-smoker in a smokey pub (before the ban) would either have to endure it or leave. It WAS far worse for non-smokers. But as I say, if we had good air-con in pubs and the air was cleaned and we didnt have smoke lingering in the air, or if we had good segerated pubs with seperate areas then great. But we dont and not alot of pubs would invest the money for that! I couldnt see any of my local pubs coughing up money to install high-tech air-con or putting smoking rooms or areas in. My local pubs would just remain 100% smoke-able if they had the choice too. I stick by the belief that a complete ban was the best option. I am sorry for smokers, but I feel the effects on non-smokers takes priority.

Obviously, to compare what is happening to smokers to the terrible plight of those who were victimised by the nazi Regime would be absurd. Nonetheless, certain aspects of the methodology and approach is reminiscent of the way that some far right regimes (the Statuts of Vichy concerning aliens for example) harrassed 'undesirables' in the very early days in order to 'encourage' them to move on. I am supportive of a government working towards a reduction in smoking through education, free cessation courses, allowing smoking strictly among over 18 year olds in specially designated rooms in the work place. However, I am very doubtful that the present quasi nazi approach will ultimately work and that is without mentioning th edangerous prescedents that are being established through it in regards to choice, civil rights and the relationship beteen the individual and the State. Deliberate alienation of any section of law abiding society is a very dangerous precedent, especially in the light that smoking was going down thnaks to previous, more enlightened policies and personal choice and the fact that the vast majority of smokers would have happily accepted going to special rooms as they did in te past. I can remeber having a smoking room in a place that I worked in and not once did anybody abuse it and this was due to respect for our non smoking colleagues and not use to fear of the State. Let us have grown up governemnt for grown up citizens.

Alot of small minded people commenting how many people when on this website that dont smoke are currently considering what there day to day ways of life effect others around them. Your car emmits much more toxic fumes than a cig but will you walk or run to work i guess not it wont stop your turning the key on the car will it. most of you state smoking cant be in moderation etc neither can car emmisions and where all sellfish to one another to our planet this is no more than tit for tat and crap like this stops the goverment working on much more important things like trying to get us out of the crap where in with the planet you may laugh scientist arent so confident of our future despite what we do, goverment was told years ago about global warming and look where our prioritys got us soldiers in flaming iraq and a smoking ban. And just to point out im a non smoker so im not been one track minded im againts smoking im more againts the reasons its taken untill now for action to be taken and why the goverment decided to deal with matters like this instead of working on more important issues we have very limited time to sort out our planet if the floods isnt giving out enough warnings i dont know what will.

The unfortunte truth is that we are now dependant on cars. We have no choice but to use cars, public transport, trains and plains to move around. Without them the country couldnt function. Its not a nice thought, but its true. We are stuck relying upon them and having to endure the side effects. But smoking isnt a necessity, its an addiction and a habbit that you can live without. It may not be easy to quit and im sure lots have tried. But it can done and smoking can be avoided. You cant really compare a necessity to a luxary/habbit.

It always shocks me how wasteful most people are in this country and how slow it has been to adapt to the concept of sustainability and how fixated it is on self-centred consumerism. I am speechless about how the media and individuals bemoan the idea of cutting down household rubbish collections inorder to encourage more recycling and the amount of waste in water, electricity, packaging etc etc leaves me with a dim view of these people. So when I hear these people maralising to me about smoking the occasional roll up, I am inclined to take no notice as I do not feel that most of them are in a position to lecture me about our environment at all.

I was not aware that any particular anti smoking campaign was included in the "Labour" party manifesto. As a Pipe smoker of several decades experience I am concerned at the duplicity of allowing the continuing sale of this evil substance for consumption (and allowing its use in the Commons (Palace) bar) -and yet ignoring technological methods of enhanced safe usage in premises which could have been of continued use for the general population. (-quite practical you "pure" air adicts might wish to know! Surely any government -so concerned as to the well-being of their subjects- would have imposed a total ban on tobacco - irrespective of taxation income? I for one would have accepted such an altruistic decree ( with much regret ) However I do not consider the beligerent stance taken by this government ( and its late un-lamented Health Secretary) to be in the fullest interest of the people of England. Once again,Spin has en-shadowed reality. Let us re-visit this ludicrous ban with a technologically open mind. Ban smoking TOTALLY or leave the people who appoint you to resolve the situation sensibly themselves. Government is obviously incapable of thinking at sufficient depth to achieve this. ( And what are you doing about Road Diesel Fumes?) I have been a (Real) labour voter for over 30 years. Can I have a real Labour party again please?

I think its fantastic that the public places are now smoke free. For the past two years ignorant adults have smoked at my bus stop without a thought for us children trying no to inhale their poisonous fumes. Now at leastwe wont have to suffer at the hands of others

Message for (blub). qoute-(Now at leastwe wont have to suffer at the hands of others)-qoute You will always suffer at the hands of others every car that drives past you every power station every darm lightbulb smoking is only scratching the surface of the problems. And lets all face it theres a great deal of people living to a very respctive age that have smoked years some heavily and we only assume we know the damage passive smoking is causing passive smoking is only increasing the chances of effecting your health slightly its not gonna be definate that you will get cancer. Also has another consideration id like people to consider think about when you go on your holidays and the fumes from that aeroplane where all having to suffer becuase you wont a holiday please try to go on holiday in "moderation" lol Smoking ban should be left optional to pubs and clubs it should be discretion of the owner wether he wonts a smoking venue or non smoking i bet most would choose smoking. i disagree with smoking around young children and exspecially at bus stops etc or near schools theres a time and a place just like alchohol.

I said this above somewhere. The use of cars, plains and buses is unforatuntely a necessity. It cant be avoided, unless you want us to completely remove the ability to travel vast distances in a short time. Smoking on the other hand is not a necessity and can be avoided with concideration for others. The poster was quite obviously being subjected to smoking, which could have been avoided with no choice. Im not devaluing the issue of cars and plains poluting the atmosphere and poisoning us, but unfortuntely we have to endure that until the big companies get off their bums and do something about it.

I have spent a big proportion of my life living and working in different countries and the experience makes you see things through a different prism. One thing that stood out for me is the ways that priorities are so different. A few years ago, I returned here and bought a house. New Labour had been in power for a few years and I was rather optimistic about what things would be like. I soon found out just how very very mistaken I was. I live near a family where one of the children never attended school since the age of 11 despite the authorities knowing all about it. No action was ever taken and he has been involved in trafficking drugs, petty crime and smoked on his doorstep thanks to his mother who supplied him with cigarettes. I am sure that this scenario is replicated above and down the country where authorities are so wrapped up with paperwork and political correctness that they dare do nothing. I am also surprised at the lack of basic respect and manners of many children in this country due to the lack of parental control within so many families and the state of the education system where the notion of punishment is replaced by a softy softly approach and those children who know what is what use it to their own advantage. The situation has gone on for quite a few years now and nothing is done about it and when this government does decide to get tough, who does it select to crack down on? Parents who don’t send their kids to school? Kids involved in petty crime? People that show no respect for anyone? Bullies and disruptive elements in the country’s classrooms that stop others from having the right to a decent education that we pay so much tax towards? No. They crack down on hard working people that enjoy a drink and a smoke in their local. As usual, it’s the law abiding, tax payer who loses out every time whilst the country is allowed to go to the dogs and nobody does a thing about it where it really counts.

I completely agree that anti-social behaviour in this country is a major issue and should be a high priority. But in my view smoking was a high priority too (not as great though), and needed delt with. But which was easier to deal with? Smoking obviously because its alot easier to inforce, so why not get that out the way?. Dealing with anti-social behaviour wont be dealt with by making a new law and having it all end over night. The government needs to get their hands dirty and actually teach these kids a lesson before that ends.

Never was a truer word said. Don't know about 'tough on crime tough on the causes of crime' should have been 'tough on smokers tough on the causes of smokers'. I think a lot of people looked at labour with optomistic eye's when they got in but they have been a big let down . How are kids surpossed to learn when teachers are not even allowed to send a disruptive kid out of the class.

What are the causes of smoking? Kids buying tabs underage which you can get fined for, loose your job or close the store. Peer pressure, if someone is stupid to copy their mates what can you do! Is stress a course? Maybe meditate or change your life-style! Advertising, buts already been stopped! The main cause are the multimillion dollar companies that add addiction and harmfull substances to cigarettes!!! Cigarettes dont require half the stuff they contain, yet the companies add them in to make "nicer" = "addictive"

You are right there, Simon. Many cigarettes conatin a veritable host of extra chemicals to keep them burning and to be 'nicer' to smoke. I cannot smoke the ready made cigarettes as I come away with a dry tickly throat, a tight feeling across my chest and a headache when I smoke them. This is why I only smoke pure tobacco as it 'should' be smoked and I would strongly recommend that people who cannot/do not want to give up to smoke this instead. However, I cannot vouch for it not being addictive and I am addicted to the enjoyment of it. I can honestly say that I have never not enjoyed a cigarette and some of my greatest inspirations have come to me whilst sat smoking a 'thoughtful' (for you, thoughless) cigarette. There again, I enjoy my indulgences and some (non smoking) women have even found it appealing and have allowed me to smoke in their bedrooms. I shall finsh now!

I have to respect you for making your own rolleys and not buying corporate brangs which are packed with god-knows-what. Atleast you have the sense to kill yourself slower :P

If it was good enough for Chief Sitting Bull, then it is most definitely good enough for me!

Individuals must have the liberty to choose what they want to do, but this liberty must not impinge on the rights of others. The smoking ban that came into effect on July 1 is to be commended, because it protects smokers and non-smokers. As a doctor, I routinely treat people who have had heart attacks caused mainly by smoking. Smokers often quit smoking after they have had a heart attack, but much damage has already been done. The smoking ban will encourage more smokers to quit - this will protect themselves, others and save a lot of money for the NHS which can be put to better use.

I am against this authoritarian total ban on libertarian grounds. Landlords should be free to decide whether their premises or section of their premises will allow smoking. Likewise people should be free to decide whether they would like to patronise a smoking or a non-smoking establishment. To take away a people's liberty in the way that this government has is wrong, we shouldn't be in a nanny state.

The problem with giving landlords a choice, is that most would choose to allow smoking. It wouldn't change anything. And to have a truly effective segregated pub with smoking on one side and non-smoking on the other, you have to prevent the smoke from traveling otherwise its anti-productive. Having a full ban was the only effective solution to achieve the aim of removing smoking in confined spaces. Yes it removes freedom to choose, but we had no choice.

No we did have a choice as i said already air can be purified through air conditioning 99.7% that is cleaner than the air outside why was this not even disscused as an alternative to an out right ban as it should of been as part of the dudicial process that legally should take place when any law is changed along with things like the economic impact ie. people losing their jobs and pubs closing down.

Simon go to google type in "passive smoking the truth" theres an article in the telegraph you really should read it.

I read it and it states..."In a three-hour period in a smoky bar, non-smokers were found to have inhaled the same amount of nicotine contained in less than one twentieth of a cigarette. Even the highest reading found in our experiment would add up to just 19 cigarettes a year - and that's only if a person was to spend 20 hours in the pub every week."...So its ok for me inhail 19 cigarettes a year, via passive smoking, even though I dont CHOOSE to? Do you not understand that I dont want to inahil any cigarette smoke AT ALL? I dont care how small the quantities may be, I dont care whether it only adds up to 19 tabs a year! I DONT want to inhail that!! Are you going to honestly suggest that the equilivant of 19 cigarettes a year cant do you harm?

I will, but somehow I expect it will say "passive smoking contains Trace amounts of toxins", which your going to say is your entire point. But I dont care whether passive smoking contains trace amounts, or isnt proven to cause illness. The point is that I dont CHOOSE to inhail that smoke and I DONT want to. I dont care if it contains tiny amounts of anything, because I dont want to inhail it in the first place. I dont want to breath in ANY amounts of anything. But this ISNT just about passive smoking..... smoke from cigarettes hurts your eyes, your throats and makes you smell. If I go out on a night out, and im wearing contact lenses and I walk into a smokey bar or club, my eyes are in absolute AGONY. Why should my night out by ruined because of that?

Funny i went to a club the other week and all you could smell was sweat you go out for a night you will smell of something in the morning and it won't be rose's. sorry if your eye's are that sensitive but your the only person i've ever heard make that comment in my life contact lenses or not. So you think it was right to lie to the entire country if not the world. And no i really don't think the equivilent to 19 cigs a year is going to cause u any sort of damage at all and neither it would appear dose any else. most places before the ban we're non smoking and no one really kicked up a fuss. The only real argument the anti smoking lobby had to change the law was it causes as i've red in countless article's 1000's of deaths a year well it quite clearly dose not. so you think pubs closing, cafes closing, people losing their job's, violating the right's of 14,000,000 people a year who at the end of the day subsidize british tax to the tune of 12 billion a year (that figure was off memory but i beleve i'm correct) is o.k as long as your eye's don't sting a little once in a wile. You say you go to pub's an club's well mate the same bunch of do gooders will start on alcohol next so i hope you like orange juice.

If things continue along this path, I think that it is quite conceivable that, in ten years from now (or maybe less), that the State will be installing cameras or other sensing devices in the homes of parents' houses who continue to smoke. I can also see scenarios where parents who lose a partner do not gain automatic custody of their own children if they smoke as well. We are entering a brave new world, a very brave new world indeed; a world where the all embracing, all seeing State feels braver to encroach upon our personal lives by the day.

Roland do you not understand how its WRONG to force someone to inhail the equilivant of 19 cigarettes a year, if they dont want to? Pro-smokers talking about their liberties being taken away and their freedom of choice being removed. What choice do non-smokers have if their inhailing around 19 cigarettes a year, and they have NO say in it? Regardless of whether its trace amounts, makes no difference. You are still forcing someone to inhail toxins, which can be avoided! I really dont understand how it could be concidered acceptable for a non-smoker to inhail the equilivant of 19 cigarettes a year and you then complain about YOUR rights being abused. Sorry but that warrants the term hypercrit!

Well I am sure that most of us inhale far more by way of carbon monoxide and other lethal gases due to cars, than cigarettes. When I have had my lungs tested for toxins due to tobacco, the results are that I have the equivalent to about one cigarette per day in me (due more the way I smoke and type of tobacoo I smoke) and I am told that it is 'negligeable' even by the non smoker administering the test. That is 365 cigarettes per year, far more than 19.

And actually smoke does irritate peoples eyes. I had a g/f who smoked all the time, and when ever I was in her house my contact lenses would last about 10 minutes before I was rushing upstairs to clean them. You talk like you have absolutely no concern for non-smokers and the effects it has on them. Your completely dissmissive about it. I would rather go to a sweety smelling club or pub then have my eyes be in absolute agony.

Thanks, Roland. I have always suspected as much through common sense rather than any scientific approach. However, the ideoligically driven have never been noted for having any interest in the truth will continue to believe that which they have opted to believe whatever. Best Wishes, Simon.

The bottom line is, we have been duped again, by B.Liar. Take the time to read the 2005 Labour Manifesto. It states that smoking will be banned in all restaurants and bars where food is served. Pubs and clubs, not serving food can opt for smoking or not. It's up to the landlords discretion. Where we got stitched up is, someone planted an amendment to ban smoking outright, and B.Liar, on cue, removed the whip from Labour M.P.s and gave them a free vote, knowing the outcome. So this Government was elected, on a manifesto, that was changed once they were elected. Choice. A year before the ban came in, J.B. Wetherspoon, banned smoking in all it's pubs, sonon smoker's had a choice, where to drink. Likewise, bar staff. Now, as a smoker, I have no choice. I either drink, or I smoke. I cant do both. If I want a fag, I have to go and huddle outside on the pavement like the great unwashed. There are roughly, 12 million smokers in the U.K. About one fifth of the electorate. That's 12 million votes. Does Gordon Brown, think he can rely on those votes? I think not.

The labour party has done far worse things in 10 years, then go against their original plan for the smoking ban. Anti-social behaviour is rampent, the NHS is falling apart, education is rediculious. The list goes on. Compared to everything they have done in 10 years, the smoking ban is one of the few good things they've achieved. We have far more important things to worry about then a smoking ban.... anti-social behaviour for one needs sorting out alot more then whether you can smoke in the pub.

I don't think they mannaged to keep to any of their pledge's did they! I read the figure was 14,000,000 million smoker's we do have a bigger voice than i think any one realised. supprising thing is though the amount of non smokers i know and have talked to (who generally moan about the smell and look down upon and condem smokers) are against the ban. It's about time we put our foot down we are not the minority we have been made to feel we our. Smoking might be bad for you but it's healthier than fascism.

I have to admit that when I went in for a meal the other evening in a large family pub, I noticed that there were a lot of families with small children everywhere and I thought to myself that I didn't want to light up ban or no ban and happily nipped outside willingly for the sake of other people's food and their small kids. Such places probably are better as smoke-free zones and I hav eno arguments there. However, whe I go into a non-family-orientated pub where a large proportion of the clientele are smokers and the place is more 'traditional' in style, I resent it. An intelligent solution, to my mind, is to grant different types of licence to different types of pub. A family pub or one centred around food etc should remain strictly non smoking since smoking with food and kids is not a good mix and I think that most smokers will agree with me there. However, other types of pub can be licenced to permit smoking provided they have good ventilation systems, strictly enforce the age limit and have a notice at the door 'enter at your own peril' type of thing.

"However, whe I go into a non-family-orientated pub where a large proportion of the clientele are smokers and the place is more 'traditional' in style, I resent it."... How can you tell if the clientele in a pub are mostly smokers? The local pubs around me (before the ban) were mostly non-smokers, but the odd person or group still smoked. What if its a pub you've never been in before, would you automatically assume most people in there smoke and light up (before the ban)?

I think that is great that the smoking ban has come into place. I also think the ban should of happened years back, but like they say ''better late then neaver?''

I am a smoker and at first was totally against it but then I support it because I always go in the non smoking section of the pubs and was tired of always having to smell my clothes every single time of coming out of there. One thing though I have alwaysd gone outiside to have one and England should have issued this the same time as Wales, Scotland and Ireland, but glad it is here one can breathe and still have normal smelling clothes. I do intend to give up yet but it has been a long time coming. Maybe then they should ban smoking in the street aswell and only do so at their homes and in parks and their residential areas where there is hardly anyone. Thank for this ban it was well needed.

If I was a mafioso, I would be jubilant if smoking was banned altogether - a lot of regular customers would come my way once my 'boys' had staked out our patch in da barrio, know what I mean?

Alot of effort must have gone into making so many stupid points. Thanks for your time Simon but seriously now how old are you? 14/15?

And if smoking were to be totally banned (like any other product), you think that inferring that it would be the mafia that would control the supply is a stupid point, then?

Are you suggesting they legalise class A drugs, to stop drug-peddling? Its the exact same situation!

I am not suggesting any course of action. I am simply stating what happens to the supply of something when it is made ilegal.

Its NOT illegal. You can smoke anywhere you want, except inside a confined public place. Your arguement is void.

It was not an argument, it was a hypothesis based on 'what if'.

In terms of a hypothetical situation then I agree. If smoking was made illegal, then we would end up with criminals selling it at high prices and people resorting to crime to get it. But because the big companies have so much control over the world, it would never happen. Making smoking illegal in the UK wouldnt get passed pen-and-paper before the cigarette companies stuck their noses in and threatened to remove funding for countless government and military projects.

Apartheid. That's what the ban has 'achieved'. The 'health' case against passive smoking has been thrown out of every court both here and in America. I's based on extrapolating a 1 in 10,000 to a 1.5 in 10,000 risk with big empty words like "a 50% increase in risk of.." Sounds a good health argument but actually it's no more than extremist triviality. If Labour is listening do you take repsonsibility for the 20-30% downturn in Pub and Club trade after your Scallio Study said there'd be no economic damage? Do you take responsibility, are you accountable, for the 800 Pub closures and loss of livelihoods and loss of 10,000 jobs. Are you aware of the damage to communities, social lives, ripping up of peoples cicivl rights and to provide a democratic choice for Pubs and Clubs? Labour willfully ripped up peoples rights with central dictate. Labour hit a nut with a sledgehammer and hasn't been held accountable for what is social apartheid. Listening Labour?

It seems to me the smoke band is displacing second hand smoke, where smokers went to the pub to smoke now there more likely to smoke at home and children and other adults have to suffer. Alcohol is worse for our society stricter measures to keep people over indulging or abusing alcohol would save this country millions!

With regards to the drink issue. I don't really see drink culture in the 30+ range to be that much of a problem. It’s mostly the 11-25 year olds (of which I’m just about in) that either cant handle their drink or drink to the brink of alcohol poisoning then start fighting people. Banning or restricting drink would be a step too far in reality and would only force people to seek other means of obtaining a high level of intoxication. Testing 24 hour licensing as in European cultures and making the handling of alcohol by minors a criminal offence and actually doing something about it would be a step in the right direction. Better still just let the cops give the kids a belt for drinking, we've become a nation of soft gits who are unable to punish bad behaviour without first watching some trash on TV like Super Nanny who works through a bunch of soft punishments like a naughty step (like old school punishments of standing in the corner, didn't work then, doesn’t work now.) The only way to create a new generation with respect is unfortunately to beat it into all the Mercedes and kylies out there and bring an end to this chav culture. In turn the drink related crime will drop.

You are probably right!

Think your comments on letting the police take a belt to kids is a bit over the top. Kid's are kid's at the end of the day and much as no one like's to admit it fighting is an instinctive part of human nature after having woke up a few time's in police cell's, or hospital bed's and then having to watch your back for the next month wondering if their are going to be reprisal attak's most do grow out of it. Damn right about the supper nanny thing though it's all right if your a middle class house wife with a couple of hours to spare asking your kid to sit on the naughty bench (before going to the local do gooder society meeting and discuss why the rest of the world should not smoke) most people only have time to say no means no you don't have to beat your kids with a stick to get that across to them but you do need a degree of fear and you do need their respect.

I do not see why the majority who drink sensibly should suffer for the antics of a minority of people who cannot drink alcohol intelligently. I do not drink a lot and never have been into going out to get drunk. But I do enjoy a bottle of chilled beer in the summer or a glass of wine in the winter and it is also good for the health, especially when it is real beer such as Czech, German or Polish ones.

From my experience, alot of people who smoke at home, smoke outside anyway in their gardens. If thats the case, then people wont be smoking inside their homes. But if people do smoke at home anyway, I doubt this smoking ban will increase that. The kind of people who would smoke around their kids, are the kind of people who do it anyway. The ban wont increase that anymore then it alreayd happens.

Hi! I am living in Sweden and a few years ago Sweden went smokefree in all official and public locations. E.g. restaurants, etc. I am a smoker myself and I don't have anything against having public locations smokefree. I don't mind, but, I think it should be up to the owners of the restaurants to have it smokefree or not. The government should run the country, not control the people. Cheers, Per Edin

I can see the sense of restaurants being smoke free as they are family places and I like to see families doing things together. But I think that the proprietor should be allowed to make a little room where people can go to have a cigarette if they want without wafting smoke across meals etc. In Southern Europe, it is not a problem as the weather is better and you can just sit outside on the terrace and watch the world go by as you smoke, but I should think that, in Sweden, this is not quite the same. I agree, as long as both sides are happy, the owner should be allowed to make a room. It's about the freedom to choose without impinging on others' rights.

Recent studies at both the University of Southern California and the UCL have brought substantially conclusive evdidence that laughter can unduly strain the muscles around the chest cavity and bring on early heart attacks as a consequence of this. I am worried by this, deeply worried and have already passed on this information to the governemnt with the hope that something can be done in order to prevent people from laughing in public places. On many occasions, I have had to endure thoughtless people in pubs, cafes, restaurants putting others at risk with their jokes, puns and humour and feel strongly that the greater good needs to be considered here. Of course, we could limit the places where telling jokes and being humurous are allowed, but this would only be flaunted by these anti social people who are fats becoming a minority in today's Britain. Therefore a total ban is needed in order to decrease the amount of premature heart attacks brough on by this and I have also urged the governemnt to ban all forms of humour in front of children and also send officers to schools in order to encourage childrne to challenge their parents if they engage in humour at home and seriously jeopordise their own children's future health and life expectancy. I hope that I can rely on EVERYBODY's support in this discussion group. Thank you.

Update on 'let's make England laughter free' campaign. I have recently contacted the Government and the department concerned claimed that my criticisms of their inaction in this area were unfounded and that they have been making considerable efforts to make England more laughter free through many areas of legislation over the past few years. Nonetheless, they did seem very open to my suggestion of adopting the rather catchy slogan of "England - laughter free from 1st July 2008". Let's make sure it happpens for all our good.

Why make England laughter free we need to laugh or we will scream at the amount of ridiculous people and the trials and tribulations that life has to give what a ridiculous concept. English are known for their humour to take that away is like taking away air. Unthinkable.

You can always laugh in the privacy of your own home provided that the Environmental Health Officers have checked that the thickness of your walls and double glazing meets standard government requirements.

I'm loving how you're trying to compare breathing in trace amounts of toxins from cigarette smoke, to laughing yourself to death! Lets turn your sarcasm on its head..... the person chooses to laugh just as the smoker chooses to smoke. So the person is choosing to kill themselves, regardless of whether they have been informed that its deadly. The difference is that someone laughing isn't going to effect the person next to them, unlike smoking! Which DOES!!! I think you've lost!!!

Laughing is a psychological phenomenum which spreads around people resulting in people laughing that do not necessarilly wish to laugh. I am not saying that you cannot laugh in your own home and I suppose you could laugh in the street provided that it is not a hazard to others i.e. to loud. It is obvious that you are one of these humurous people and will find the new measures difficult. Just live it!

Infectious laugher! It does exist, but it would have to be something extremely funny. I could keep the banter going about comparing smoking to laughter, but I get the feeling all I'll get nothing back.

To be very candid, I find it hard to imagine you keeping up a banter. Pardon me, if I'm wrong. But that is the impression that is given.

Your welcome!

I'm very pleased that the Labour Government is now taking this step in the rest of the UK. As a smoker myself, I've noticed how the ban here in Scotland has helped people consider and reconcile with every cigarette they light up. Over a year on here, the idea of smoking indoors in shared public spaces now seems at best completely presumptious and rather inconsiderate. The health benefits of having to think about every single smoke cannot be doubted. I'm smoking a huge amount less.

Great I could not wait. I think this is the ONLY thing that any goverment has done that I has realy wished for.

The smoking ban is actually an excelent bit of spin. The government has got everyone riled up and arguing about the smoking ban, meanwhile no-one notices that the economy is going down the pan, the publics services are falling apart and the rich-poor divide is bigger than any time since the magna carte. There was actually no particular reason to ban smoking other that to raise a huge debate. "Stop looking at how we've destroyed you country and lined our pockets and get on with pointless heated arguements about burning leaves in paper..."

"There was actually no particular reason to ban smoking other that to raise a huge debate."...... yuhu! 1) Passive smoking 2) Makes your clothes stink 3) Effects people with Ashma 4) Burns your eyes 5) Makes your throat burn 6) Bar staff have to be in and around that all day! Wow.... you right, there are no GOOD reasons to ban smoking in confined spaces!

They could simply have required bars to have smoke free areas and actually give pub landlords the ability to enforce those areas easily... The problem was that 10% of smokers simply ignored no smoking signs and sparked up anyway, making no smoking areas pointless. All the landlords could do was make a scene and upset customers by asking the person to leave. Thus follows a drunk smoker getting annoyed, shouting, swearing, and upsetting everyone even more. It made it too much hassle to enforce it.

If landlords had a choice to be smoke free, do you honestly think most would? Most wouldn't, most would still allow smoking because they would worry about loosing custom. Absolutely nothing would change. And you cant have an effective isolated smoking area, unless it stops the smoke from traveling, otherwise its completely pointless. It was a full ban or nothing at all.

I always thought we lived in a Democracy but it seems I was so very wrong. I have always voted Labour but what you have done to us smokers is deplorable. You expect us to sit out in drafty shelters to enjoy a pint and a smoke? Do you feel proud of yourselves for making even old age pensioners sit outside? I for one will never ever vote Labour again and all my efforts from this moment on will be to help any party other than Labour to win at further elections. You all disgust me with the way you treat the electorate. We all have rights but you as a party have taken ours away from us. Where is my right to have a place to smoke and drink? If you think this has done you any favours you are very wrong and you better be ready to be the opposition party after the next election. I am now an ex Labour Party supporter and I am not alone. This is the biggest mistake you have ever made and the people will teach you a lesson for doing it.

"but what you have done to us smokers is deplorable. " what about the countless times someone has inhailed your smoke in the pub, woke up in the morning to have their clothes stink from your smoke, felt their eyes and throats burning from your smoke? I'd personally say its deplorable they had to sit there and endure that.

You do know that smoking has been becoming more and more unpopular with the public as they years have gone by. So i think that this is a good decision that will bring a much faster end to the smoking problem. And if Labor keep making good decisions like this i will definitely vote Labor in years to come.

lol.... what on earth made you think you live in a democracy? The unelected house of lords perhaps? Or maybe the way the government can move boundaries around to change the election results? Or Labour getting 60% of the seats with 30% of the vote?

The problem is now that this bonkers ban has actually gone through will any other party overturn it. On the other hand this might just be the thin end of the wedge. The public health zealots have plenty more nasty tricks up their sleeves. Ban fast food, ban video games and turn us all into pompous middle class health freaks with nothing better to do than threat about their own mortality.

. . . and die of woory, anxiety and depression instead! Words of jest, but with truth in them. What these middle class do gooder types fail to understand is that most people simply do not wnat their advice. We can die of a hundred different things and we all live just one heart beat away from eternity and can die just like that at every moment of our lives. We just have to learn to accept this as our lot as living cretaures that are conscious of their own mortality and enjoy the pleasures that are available to us. These pompus self appointed preachers have to live with the idea that we might die at any moment and stop fussing like pathetic wimps and making life dull and unfun for the rest of us. They are cowards, really.

What do you mean?! This is the best thing Labour's done for 18 months!

Yes it was nearly as good as invading iraq

invading iraq was to benefit their own needs not 2 help the people, banning smoking cannot be compared with that. find a better comparison next time.

Sorry it was a sarcastic remark. i know it is the lowest form of wit but as a smoker i'm obviously the lowest form of person.

ditto. It is a fundamental lack of respect of basic freedoms and rights. The Labour Party has become a very sinister organisation which seeks to control and co-erce rather than to enter dialogue and reach solutions that make both sides happy. I think that this is because, fundmentally, they do not trust the British people to be able to make their own decisions and to be responsible for themsleves. The democratic solution is to find a way that leaves non smokers with the right to not to have to breath in smoke as well as to allow smokers to pursue their recreational choice with dignity. However, the Labour Party wishes to divide people and to use smoking as an issue in which to experiment with our lives and practice bringing the state into everyday persoanl sphere. This is just the beginning and the smoking issue is just a way to 'flex' the muscles of the all encompassing State dictatorship that we are heading for.

It's ashame i would'nt say people don't see that, but they just don't realise how scary it is becoming.

Wednesday 11 April 2007 What’s worse than Big Brother? Little Brother Tessa Mayes reports on how the British government is recruiting children to spy on and ‘re-educate’ the adult population. Tessa Mayes The revelation that Britain’s New Labour government plans to install talking CCTV cameras across the land has rightly been greeted with shock and indignation. These new cameras will not only watch and record our movements, as Britain’s already-existing five million CCTV cameras (that’s one for every 12 citizens) currently do; they will also tell us off. Faceless operators in the CCTV bunkers will use microphones to tell the great unwashed to stop loitering, gathering in crowds, littering, spitting, vandalising and graffiting. However, one aspect of the new talking CCTV regime went virtually uncommented on: the fact that the government is planning to recruit well-behaved and right-minded children to become the voice of the cameras in certain towns and cities. That’s right – you can now look forward to the prospect of some self-righteous 12-year-old barking orders at you as you walk down the street. John Reid, the home secretary, announced last week that the government will spend £500,000 on fitting loudspeakers on to CCTV cameras in 20 areas around Britain, including Southwark, Barking and Dagenham in London, and also Reading, Harlow, Norwich, Ipswich, Plymouth, Gloucester, Derby, Northampton, Mansfield, Nottingham, Coventry, Sandwell, Wirral, Blackpool, Salford, South Tyneside and Darlington. Speaking cams were trialled in Middlesbrough, England, last year – and according to Reid they were a great success. ‘[The cameras] help counter things like litter and drunk or disorderly behaviour, gangs congregating’, he told the morning news show GMTV last week. ‘They are the sorts of things that make people’s lives a misery. Anything that tackles that is better.’ The number of CCTV cameras in Britain has risen exponentially over the past 10 to 15 years. Someone going about his or her daily business in London should expect to be picked up on around 300 cameras over the course of one day. New software breakthroughs mean there are now cameras that have ‘suspicious behaviour recognition’ (they monitor the movement of clusters in the images recorded by CCTV) and even ‘gait recognition’ (cams that judge whether someone is walking too fast, oddly or in some other suspicious fashion). The rise of the cams speaks to a suspicious and fearful streak in New Labour’s New Britain. And much of the ‘anti-social behaviour’ they are designed to record looks to me less like seriously anti-social behaviour and more just a product of modern living. For example, we all consume more fast food than ever before, yet the decline in street bins (previous governments got rid of them in response to the IRA bombing campaign and the current government never bothered to replace them) means we don’t have anywhere to put our cartons, McDonald’s bags, cups and so on – hence littering. There are also a poverty of public benches, which have been removed by local authorities who feared that they would encourage drunks and gangs of young people to group together in city centres – and not surprisingly drunks and young people have tended to group together elsewhere, in parks, at bus stops, etc. It is the government that is becoming increasingly anti-social by littering public space with spycams and now noisy megaphones that will embarrass people into changing their behaviour. Instead of providing us with enough bins, street cleaners and park benches, or creating public spaces that encourage free and easy interaction, the killjoy authorities plonk ugly cameras everywhere to monitor our antics. Strangely, few of the news reports that covered the talking CCTV story mentioned the fact that the government plans to co-opt children to provide the stern voice of reason for some of the cams. This is odd considering that the government seems quite proud of this fact. The Home Office issued a press release headlined ‘Children Remind Adults To Act Responsibly On Our Streets’. It stated that: ‘Children from across the country will be very publicly calling upon the small minority of people who think it is acceptable to act anti-socially on our streets and in our towns to change their ways and take responsibility for their actions….’ The government’s Respect Taskforce has launched a competition in schools around the country, where the top prize kids can win is to become the ‘voice’ of certain CCTV cameras. In the 20 towns and cities that will soon install talking CCTV cameras, schoolchildren are being encouraged to design colourful posters that ‘challenge bad behaviour’. Explicitly, the government says it is ‘encouraging children to use their “pester power” in a positive way – reminding grown-ups how to behave’. Here, the government seems keen to harness the self-righteousness of some kids in an effort to shape and mould adults’ behaviour. The winners of the poster competition will be ‘invited to become the voice of the Talking CCTV in their town or city’s CCTV control room for one day – the day of the switch-on, later this year’. As Louise Casey, head of the Respect Taskforce, says, children will force adults to ‘face the shame of being publicly embarrassed’. The introduction of talking CCTV cameras looks less like a case of ‘Big Brother gone mad’ and more like ‘Little Brother gone mad’. The government is turning to children in an attempt to get its patronising good-behaviour message across to the adult population. According to Casey, ‘the vast majority (of children) know how to behave and recognise the bad behaviour of others, young and old alike’. The relationship between child and adult is reversed – instead of adults leading and guiding children, children are used to correct the ‘bad behaviour’ of adults. Worryingly this use of children to advance New Labour’s moral message to adults is not a one-off initiative. The Respect Taskforce and the police have held numerous art competitions encouraging children to draw pictures that show the dangers of anti-social behaviour – the winners’ pics have been used to illustrate safer community leaflets. A recent government report on energy proposed that schoolchildren be used to spread the word about eco-living. As James Woudhuysen pointed out on spiked, the report, titled Our Energy Challenge: Power from the People – Microgeneration Strategy, advances the view that: ‘Education of the next generations in a way that energy efficiency and the need for cleaner energy become an integral part of their mindset can help to influence their future behaviour (and maybe even that of their parents) and move us towards the desired cultural shift….With schools often being the focal point of communities, the installation of renewables could help to shape attitudes in the wider community.’ In short, children can help to instil in adults the new ‘mindset’ on green living. (See Windmills of the mind, by James Woudhuysen.) Children have also been used in the Department of Health’s adverts warning about the dangers of smoking and lung cancer. One ad featured a mother in the terminal stages of lung cancer. Her daughter was shown expressing her anger and grief at the fact that her mum will die shortly as a result of a disease caused by her own smoking. As spiked contributor Dr Michael Fitzpatrick argued, this was another case of the government using children to chastise adults: ‘This advert is clearly designed to make parents who smoke feel guilty – and to make children of parents who smoke feel angry. Its objective is to use children as an instrument of the campaign to deter adults from smoking.’ ‘At a time when a wide range of civil liberties are under threat it is alarming that the strategy of using children to police their parents’ behaviour - reminiscent of totalitarian regimes - provokes so little public disquiet’, wrote Dr Fitzpatrick (see The stigma of smoking, by Dr Michael Fitzpatrick). And now, the recruitment of children to use their ‘pester power’ in order to publicly ‘shame’ adults has also provoked little controversy. The government seems to be turning to children because it cannot justify its petty moral and authoritarian campaigns on their own terms – instead it hopes that we will change our behaviour and become more green / responsible / better-behaved for the sake of the pleading kids. Also, children, as anyone who has come into contact with them will know, can be sanctimonious and self-righteous. Where adults disagree and argue over what counts as civilised behaviour, and what should be done about allegedly uncivilised behaviour, children tend to lap up fairly uncritically messages about what is right and wrong. The government seems keen to harness children’s simplistic views of good and evil in order to whack the adult population over the head. Using children as spies or educators is the mark of an authoritarian regime. In Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, children are co-opted by the authorities and tend to become the most vociferous promoters of the right way of thinking. In Chapter 9, Winston Smith finds himself surrounded by a huge crowd on the sixth day of ‘Hate Week’: ‘It was night, and the white faces and the scarlet banners were luridly floodlit. The square was packed with several thousand people, including a block of about a thousand schoolchildren in the uniform of the spies.’ One character, Parsons, ‘proceeds to boast about the “achievements” of his horrible children’: ‘They had tracked a man down and handed him over to the thought police as a traitor on the sole ground that he was wearing strange-looking shoes and had set fire to a woman’s clothes because she wrapped a parcel in a poster of Big Brother. Finally, they had been eavesdropping at their parent’s bedroom door with a listening device to see if any thoughtcrime remarks were made. All of these are presented by Parsons as exploits of which he is very proud!’. In Orwell’s fictional world, adults become subservient to irresponsible, ill-informed, not-yet-developed, gullible and nasty children. Is New Labour in danger of creating similar kinds of kids in Britain 2007? We need a more critical attitude to the government’s installation of talking CCTV and its recruitment of children as part of its crackdowns on anti-social behaviour. Mike Fagan, community safety co-ordinator for Hastings Statutory Crime and Disorder Partnership, turned down the offer to have talking CCTVs. Why? ‘We didn’t think that talking CCTVs would suit the context of Hastings, the environment here. It was perhaps more appropriate to a larger urban area. I personally don’t think that talking CCTVs are a good thing and that they would achieve results in terms of regulating people’s behaviour,’ he told me. We could all do with saying no to talking CCTV cameras – whether we live somewhere like Hastings or in ‘larger urban areas’. Yet while the children’s talking CCTV initiative will last for one day only, the day of ‘switch on’ later this year, the political philosophy behind it – that adults are untrustworthy and it is acceptable to get children to tell them off – looks set to stay in place for a lot longer. Tessa Mayes is a regular contributor to the Spectator magazine and author of the spiked-report Restraint or Revelation: Free Speech and Privacy in a Confessional Age. Email her at info@tessamayes.co.uk. reprinted from: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3079/

I think alot of the people who are anti-SmokingBan, arent looking to the long-term benefits. This may not be easy in the short term, but isnt it worth it if this ban helps to discourage young kids and teenagers from smoking? Isnt it worth it if it reduces deaths caused by smoking? Stop being so narrow minded and look to the potential benefits. Is it really too much to ask that you dont smoke for a few hours during the afternoon or night? Is that really so hard?

Most kids start smoking young sitting round in bus stop's (which you'll be pleased to know are generally 70% ventilated if in some cases not more) with nothing better to do

"Most kids start smoking ", and then they reach 15, 16 and 18 and want to go drink down the pub, but guess what.... they cant smoke inside and drink with their mates! What do you think they do?

I lived in an era where kids got caned for smoking which was the old fashioned short, sharp, shock tactic. However, they still did it. What seems to work better is information about the possible consequences of deciding to smoke and it has obviously worked quite a bit over the last twenty years as a lot less kids smoke nowadays than ten or fifteen years ago and can tell you why they don't do it.

I agree totally. Education about the reasons not to smoke is one step to helping it. But I have to believe that a ban will do nothing but help too. It cant make it worse. But education about smoking has to come from their peers, and not people they wont respect.

Guess what the point is that time their smokers.

More that when smoking was a lot more common, the rules or punishments for kids were a lot harsher. I am not saying that a kid should not be punished for being caught smoking, but information seems to have worked a lot better on them as there seem to be a lot young people who smoke and this is not due to restrictions, but more to do with adverts, warnings and the like.

yes but if we can make them quit at a younger age, its better then waiting until their older when it will be harder.

Yes you may be right it will discourage people to take up smoking. But should we legislate to protect people from themselves. Un the USA they do this all the time. I was once threatened with a fine for sitting on the edge of a speedboat. Why because I was putting my life at risk. I used to enjoy mountain climbing (not so much now my lungs are in decline)I want to quit so I can climb again and had better get going before mountaion climbing is banned. I was once kicked out of a cafe in Florida for not wearing footwear, this is a health and safty law apparently??? Personally I would rather face some risks to haelth and live in a FREE society.

In short, you are a man and not a wet ninny that needs mollycoddling by the State.

If it DIDNT effect anyone, in anyway at all. Then we wouldnt have a ban. But it does and we have alot of smokers who simply dont care! This ban is to punish those smokers who arent conciderate enough to not smoke in a confined spaces. Its a shame it effects the nicer smokers, but you either need a full ban or nothing at all.

"to punish" I thought as much. Vindictive bastards, aren't they?

Its vindictive to sit in a pub and puff away, with no regard for the non-smokers who are choking on your fumes, their eyes are burning and they wake up smelling of smoke in the morning.

I was virtually forced to smoke in a non smoker's house yesterday. I wnated to go outside and insisted quite a bit as I quite like looking at the scenery when I smoke and thinking about things . . . smoking can be a very contemplative activity sometimes. She and six other non smokers kept insisting so I smoked a cigarette there, but only half smoked it as I thought they might just be being nice to me in view of an injust law.

lol, well atleast your getting something good of out it!

I don't smoke in my own house and haven't done ever since my wife showed me two thin blue lines. I am not arguing about smoking per se here. It is the political and civil issues that re at stake and the precedence that is set by the undue State interference whereby the two sides of the coin are not considered and non punitive measures are taken which protect BOTH sides. That is my gripe.

I do see your point, and smokers are being victomised. But I if there was a way to allow smokers to be in the same place as non-smokers, and not have the smoke travel and be inhailed then I would sing and dance. But I dont see a cheap alternative that land-lords would be willing to invest in. I would love it if my smoking friends could sit in the pub and smoke freely and have it not effect me, but thats impossible. For that reason I have to personally consider the health of the non-smokers above the smokers. The problem is that smoking effects those around you, so its not an activity where you can sit and say "well its only hurting me", but i've said that loads now. I dont anyone ever been happy about it. Because the only alternative is to have sectioned off pubs where one side is either strongly ventilated (but that wud still let smoke escape) or to have air-tight rooms (but thats some scarey sci-fi rubbish)!

The difference is that you rock-climbing, or sitting on a boat wont effect anyone else. Smoking effects the people around you, and that is the fundimental arguement in favour of this and it cant be argued against. Smoking (whether people want to admit it) harms those around them, it makes their clothes smell, it effects Ashma, it hurts their eyes and its generally intoxicating. Its one of the few legal activities which does. Even drinking cant be said to effect the people around you all the time because drinking in moderation will only effect you. But smoking, to any degree, harms the people around you, and they have no say in it. This is why Smoking is a unique case and cant be compared to other restrictions which may seem stupid.

People behave more violently when they consume alcohol. Therefore if I go into a public house I am more likely to be hit. For this reason I do not visit public houses. So please please ban alcohol from pubs so that I can be free to visit them. If you actually believe that passive smoking will harm you don't go to places where people smoke.

You can drink in moderation and NOT effect anyone around you. You CANT smoke in moderation, because it will ALWAYS effect you. Just dont hang around with people that drink too much, they become violent. I've never know anyone in my local pubs to drink until theire violent.

If this is a free country then why cant we have smoking and non smoking pubs and let the people decide which ones to go in?. Its because we are no longer a free country because the do gooders have become dictators. I have the right to be fat or smoke and you have no right to do my choosing for me

If pubs had a choice between being smoking or non-smoking, then ALL if not MOST would choose to be smoking. You wouldnt get very many choosing to go non-smoking given the choice. You need a FULL ban or NO ban.

My gran is particualry pissed off she started smoking during the war she lived in the east end during the blitz, she worked in a factory putting her life at risk every day to protect this country and its freedoms. Now she is not allowed to smoke in her own room in the care home she pays £300 a week to stay in.

We live in a very free society I want more freedom not less. Pubs should have been forced to set up smoking and non smoking areas with adequate extraction equipment to prevent cross pollution.

If you were a local land-lord and you were choosing between paying 100s if not 1000s of pounds on a state of the art ventilation system that was air tight, or accept the ban! What would you choose? No land lord is going to pay 100s of pounds on a high-tech ventilation system that requires the pub to be air-tight on one side.

I agree. And this is what may well happen ultimately.

well elizabeth as hit it on the head we look after the migrants better than our own people.. my farther was in both wars and he and my mother got nothing from the government... now we have no car industry we have no mines we have nothing i am sick of all the stealth taxes we have to pay and more on the way and now i cant smoke a fag in my own shop and office... and it was the government who got me hooked on fags in the first place.... all these do gooders are full of sh** and do no good for our society.... great britain... im sick to my back teeth

Not much great about it

i think that this country is slowly going to pot... i have been labour all my life and so were my parents... never again.... we need a new leader... did i vote for gorden brown ... no ... the british public didnt vote for him ... get him out he will bring the country to its knees ...

NOT HAPPY. AS A PUBLICAN I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT THE SMOKING BAN.NEITHER ARE MY CUSTOMERS.I DID NOT ASK FOR THE BAN YET I AM EXPECTED TO PAY THOUSANDS OF £ FOR A SHELTER TO KEEP MY CUSTOMERS DRY AND WARM.AS 90% OF MY CUSTOMERS ARE SMOKERS YOU CAN IMAGINE MY DOOR IS NEVER CLOSED.ITS JULY BUT ITS FREEZING INDOORS. YOU ALSO WANT US TO CONCERVE ENERGY.HOW THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT PUBS TO DO THAT WHEN THEY HAVE TO PROVIDE EXTRA HAETING AND LIGHT OUTSIDE TO KEEP THE SMOKERS HAPPY.AND INCREASED HEATING TO OFFSET THE COLD FROM THE EVER OPEN DOOR.ARE THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT TRYING TO KILL PUBS OFF ALTOGETHER WITH THIS INFRINGMENT OF OUR HUMAN RIGHTS.THIS GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO GET ITS HEAD OUT FROM UP ITS ARSE AND GET ITS PRIORITIES RIGHT.STOP OR SLOW DOWN DRASTICALLY IMIGRATION THIS COUNTRY CAN NO LONGER SUPPORT COUNTLESS THOUSANDS OF MIGRANTS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES.BE FAR MORE SELECTIVE OF WHO YOU LET IN.IE TERRORISTS.BRING OUR BOYS HOME FROM IRAQ AND AFGANISTAN.THIS IS OUR VERSION OF VIETNAM. A WAR WE CANNOT WIN.HOW OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY ARE YOU? SITTING IN YOUR LITTLE IVORY TOWERS IN WESTMINSTER.YOU WOULDN'T KNOW REAL LIFE IF IT JUMPED UP AND BIT YOU ON THE BACKSIDE.IF ALL SMOKERS GAVE UP OVERNIGHT THIS COUNTRY WOULD BE ON ITS KNEES WITH THE LOSS OF REVENUE.BUT THE EFFECTS ON THE HEALTH SERVICE WOULD STILL GO ON FOR YEARS.PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE.THERE SHOULD BE SMOKING AND NO SMOKING PUBS.IF YOU DONT LIKE SMOKE DONT GO INTO A SMOKING PUB!!!LABOUR DOES NOT KNOW BETTER.THIS ISN'T BIG BROTHER..OR IS IT??NO WONDER SO MANY BRITISH NATIONALS ARE LEAVING THIS COUNTRY.YOU LOT COULDN'T GIVE A TOSS ABOUT THE ORDINARY WORKING MAN. AND YOU'VE KICKED THE GREAT OUT OF BRITAIN.I USED TO VOTE LABOUR BUT I NEVER WILL AGAIN . YOURS VERY ANGRY WITH AN EVEN BIGGER CARBON FOOTPRINT J . HARRISON

Have you considered that you might actually get MORE customers into your pub now that people arent smoking. By the sounds of it, your pub was a den of smoke. If I had walked in there, I would have walked straight back out. Now that it'l be smoke free, you might find you get more people in who like the clean air. You were probably alienating a large number of non-smokers from your pub until now.

Dear Elizabeth, Have you stopped to think about the health cost of smoking? The ban is a matter of life and death! i bet your customers will look back with admiration and gratitude to you, for whatever support you give them to quit a life threatening habit rather than promote it. The extra cost for heating is negligible compared to how many lives that would be saved by the ban. I sympathise with you as a business woman; but you would make up for it somehow. Good luck!

One day you will die what ever uncertainties life has to offer that is the one certainty. You may get one of the many cancers available, you may get hit by a bus, you may decide it's all to much and decide to leave this world off your own back. The term save's live's is suggesting that it will save people who have many years to live from a threat of immediate death not it's going to save people who have over stayed their welcome on this planet for a few years.

So the non-smokers should just sit in a smokey room, breath in all the second hand smoke and think "hey im going to die anyway"!

Apparently, about a thousand publicans permitted smoking in their pubs yesterday and not one fine. And Scotland is apparently joining in as well. Nice to see the two nations struggling together together to overcome political correctness. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

Do we live in a country full of children, who cry and winge because they get their toy taken off them? I bet once the summer really hits us, and people are sitting out in the beer gardens, they wont be complaining about it!

Funny you should say that because thats how i feel but i'm not a child i'm 32 years old. Funny thing is i would have thought they bout the ban in now hoping. there would be good weather to soften the blow and have less of a back lash.

England has had enough! Thousands of smokers defied the introduction of the smoking ban across England yesterday by lighting up in pubs, claiming that the legislation was an infringement of civil liberties. Liam Mullone in his Civil Rights Response Unit, which offers outdoor smokers comfort as they contemplate ‘the death of civil liberties’ Councils, which have the power to fine smokers who light up inside work places, pubs or any public building, admitted that not a single fine was issued as they tried to implement the ban in a "softly, softly" way. One pub defying the ban was the Dog Inn in Ewyas Harold, near Hereford, whose landlord is Tony Blows, part of the campaign group Freedom2Choose. He argued that as his pub was also his home he should be entitled to smoke anywhere within it. "I'm doing it for the simple reason that this is my home. My wife and I work 200 hours a week in this pub. It's private property. There's no way they can stop us doing it," he said. About 1,000 fellow publicans had also allowed their customers to light up yesterday, he claimed. advertisement Mr Blows added that he would refuse to pay any fine, which can be up to £2,500 for publicans or other businesses that allow smoking on their premises. "I want my day in court. And I am prepared to go to prison, if needs be. At least I can smoke there." There are about 1,200 council enforcement officers who will help police the ban, but few of them were on duty yesterday.

I bet you the only places that allowed their customers to smoke, were small village or city pubs. The larger establishments wont have! The unfortunate truth is we either have a full ban or NO ban! And having NO ban isnt an option!

Like the Poll tax, I suppose. There was no option there until people thought differently. In any case, quite a few are allowing smoking around my area and the police don't seem bothered. I suppose they've got better things to do, like catching real criminals. In any case, I intend to pop out for a quick pint and a ciggie in a pub, this evening and, quite frankly, if they sling me in prison forn a few days for not paying trhe fine, I don't give a damn. My country, my life, my choice. Either give us smoking rooms or push off.

The police, catch real criminals? You're avin' a laugh. The police are not catching smokers since there is no money in it for them. They're off catching motorists, and sharing the loot with the magistrates. The police are just as corrupt as any politicians. They want their hands in our wallets like any functionary in the parasite sector.

Just to comment how proud I am that the government has brought in a measure that will save many lives, and I was particularly proud that my Labour MP, Claire Ward, acted as one of the tellers on the vote. Many people start smoking in their teens and become addicted and more work needs to be done in stopping teenagers taking up smoking in the first place

You might be proud i am disgusted at the most blatant undemocratic law that has just been brought in contrary to the human wrights bill, with not a shred of evidence that there is any connection between passive smoking and health risk, and with out any real debate in the public domain. The smoking ban is unjudicial and a massive blow to democracy. It is nothing but fascism

But this isnt just about passive smoking. Its about non-smokers waking up in the morning to have their clothes smell. Its about ashma sufferers who cant breath and get irrotated by the smoke. Its about the staff who work for hours in and around those conditions and are effected by it. This isnt just about passive smoking, because there are far more side effects to being in and around smoke in a confined space! I dont exactly love going out on a night, and waking up in the morning to my ENTIRE room smelling of smoke because my shirt and trousers and hair and body stink of it.

No evidence of passive smoking! The last I knew, a famouse celebrity died from passive smoking not so many years ago! What more proof do you want?

No it was assumed that's how he got lung cancer people get lung cancer as an unfortunate part of life same as they get any form of cancer. Having done my home work and u are more than welcome to do your's and correct me if i,m wrong. From what i can tell there has not been 1 death in the whole world that has been proven to be as a direct result of passive smoking. Further to this the like's of ASH and the rest of the anti smoking lobby have spent an absolute fortune on report after report on the subject the worst of the report's said that it might pottentialy affect the health of a cupple of hundred (out of a population of 60,000,000) of people a year which the like's of ASH converted into kill's 1,000's of people a year. I am fully aware of the dangers of smoking but it is my legal choice. Just one more point those worried about the smell of thier cloth's spare a thought for those who's one last joy in life is to sit in a pub by the fire in a pub with a pint and a pipe who lived and fought through the last world war so that we have the freedom to have the conversation we're having now who are now expected this winter to stand out in the cold. please also spare a thought for those who will lose their job's, the pub's that will close down and those that at the end of a hard day's work like to go an have a quick pint in piece.

It isnt just passive smoking (as ive said soo many times)! An example... I wear contact lenses on a night out because I dont feel confident in glasses when out on a night. But the minute I walk into a smokey pub or club, the hurt like absolute AGONY and last about 2 minutes before I have to take them out. I try to actually avoid places like that due to this.

So why then did the government do it's judicial dutie as a democracy and even consider alternatives such as forcing pubs to have air conditioning installed which can leave air 99.7% clean.

The air might get cleaned, but if the smoke still lingers, then it would effect me in the manner that I mentioned above. I know it sounds nick-picky but even if that 0.3% can be avoided by not smoking.... then im all for that ban.

Like me, Roland, you probaly feel that there is a lot more to this than just smoking. It is about the relationship of the citizen to the State and whether the latter is our servant or master. To my mind, the State only has a legitimate right to exist if it only restricts those factors that allow for the harmony and mutual rights of various parties within society. One it goes beyond this and restricts activities that only potentially harm the individual concerned i.e. smoking in an enclosed place that does not affect others, it is tyranny and it is the duty of the active citizen to fight this element of tyranny until the State accepts its role as servant and having no right to choose for its citizens in cases where their activity affects no one other than the indidividual concerned. As far as I am concerned, the social contract has been broken by the State since it has made elements of the law tyrannical (i.e. attacking citizens' choices with no legitimate reason other than to alienate them from the right to personal choice that harms no other party. Unless, this law is revised in order to include the right to enjoy a lawfully aquired product without harm to others in a similar, yet separate environment, the State has violated an intrinsic freedom and can no longer be considered as democratic until this element of the law is revised or repealed.

"One it goes beyond this and restricts activities that only potentially harm the individual concerned i.e. smoking in an enclosed place that does not affect others," Why do you keep lingering on this miss-belief that smoking doesnt harm those around you. IT DOES!! We all know it does, the evidence exists. Whether it be in small amounts or large, make no difference. It is an infringment on a persons rights, if they are forced to inhail fumes from a cigarette when it could be avoided. Drop this stupid idea that passive-smoking doesnt exist, when IT DOES!!

If you wnat to get through your GCSEs, I would strongly adivse that you read the questions put to you. It is patently obvious that you did not read or underatdn what I wrote and have no wish to either.

Wow, your right. How am I going to pass those GCSEs that I passed 10 years ago! My God... how!!!

As a free man in a democratic country, I hereby demand my inalienable right to an enclosed room where I can consume my lawfully obtained property and enjoy the hospitality of a public house without affecting the inalienable rights of fellow citizens others should the owner wish to invest there of.

its not stopping them smoking though is it its just making them stand outside bus stops etc i think its all just a big con to get votes what about all the young kids drinking every wkend i know am sick of it what are the new labour doing about that nothing thats what

You can only hope that because you cant smoke in pubs or clubs, teenagers wont pick up the habbit. They will realise its not worth it.

Some teenager may well begin to perceive smoking as more daring and risque due to the extreme nature of the new law that Mrs Blair is at this very moment challenging in the court. I know I would have when I was 16 and so would many of the other kids. I hope thhat this is not the case and that I am wrong. But it might have the opposite effect as is so often the case in life.

I agree alot of teenagers will start donig it thinking its "breaking the rules" more! But then onces they realise "oh, I cant go to the pub with my mates because I cant smoke", their more likely to give it a second thought and quit before they get too addicted.

Like at school, I suppose. No one starts smoking there. Against the rules, innit?

And then they get to 16 and 18 and realise they cant smoke while drinking with their mates. Do you not think that will make them think about quitting?

The youngsters I see don't seem to go to pubs much. They play loud music at home and drink and smoke their mum's fags. Or, if they can't do that, they go down the to the local kiddies' play area and do it there and leave bottles and beer cans everywhere.

Well thats an issue for their parents to stop them smoking. Thats also an issue for the police to move them on from parks while they drink.

People forcibly detained under the Mental Health Act have been forced to quit smoking against their will because of this legislation. (Hospitals are public places) I have been detained I have worked on mental health wards. Trying to enforce this rule upon incarcerated people who do not think they should be in hospital in the first place is having an appalling effect upon staff and patients within mental health facilities. I have not yet spoken to a single person on the ground (actually working in a unit) who thinks this policy is good for anyones health. Their were smoking rooms, staff did not go in the rooms and neither did non smoking patients NOBODY was put at risk. Now because of increased tentions lots of people are at risk, patients, staff and maybe even the public. We tried to warn the department of health to make a special exception for mental health units. No exceptions they said. People needing treatment are likely to escape just for a smoke they could end up dead. I have to report this rule has not been rigidly enforced thank god for the rebels on the ground. Are the enforcement officers going to visit units to issue patients on the spot fines,I wish they would.

Psychiatric hospitals have been excempt in this legislation, along with oil rigs, halls of residence, adult hospices, long-stay adult residential care homes, psychiatric hospitals, prisons and other places of detention. It seems your local hospital's policy is the issue here not the legislation, which I welcome.

The exemption only applies to long stay wards not to acute wards where most compulsary patients reside. To be fair the ban actually commenced January following NHS guidelines rather than legislation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4285263.stm But as I say these guidelines were implemented at trust level but not enforced on the ground. This lead to the rather counterprodtive situation where desiginated smoking rooms were closed Only 1 in 10 staff actually working in acute units favour this ban http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/media/only_one_in_ten.html

i feel for the smokers who have to struggle with the new ban. On the other hand, it is in the interest of public health, most especially the smokers themselves. The NHS spends millions on smoking related diseases. Maybe if we can get a high percentage of smokers to quit as a result of the ban, then we can save some money for other use. i am going to contribute towards this by helping smokers on a smoking cessation therapy. This is already available on the NHS. Smokers only need to access suitable support methods which are many.

Its about time and I just hope the pubs and clubs inforce this law and actually control their customers and clients. We now have a huge red line around our shopping center which you cant smoke beyond and I think its great! Smokers still have the choice to smoke outside or at home, so they cant complain that their rights are bing infringed upon. They can on longer try to say that "second hand smoke doesnt harm people" because it does and now they have to respect it!

You sit in your room and I'll sit in mine. I don't care what you do in your room, but this evening I'm having a pint and a ciggie in the local and as sson as a smoking room is provided I shall go there and tell others to put out their cigrettes if they com einto your room. Can't get much fairer than that!

Quite honestly, I think the main people are who against this smoking ban are the middle-ages and old people who are set in their ways and incapable of seeing the long-term benefits. If you look at the long-run, this ban is bound to help reduce the number of future people who smoke. Is this ban not worth it if it discourages young kids from smoking?

So you think that elderly people are stupid, do you? Maybe they lived nearer to a time when Europe was close to being run by little nazis that want to control other people's lives through the State. Learn some respect for those that fought for your freedom and worked all their lives to give you an education, a health service and the right to make your own decisions, something that you seem so intent to take away from those who differ or think differently from you like the rest of your politically correct friends that want to wipe away our traditions of democracy, free speech and compromise with one another.

"Oh Grandad, you fought in the war. Go ahead and puff away on your grand old pipe and I'll sit here and inhail all those lovely fumes, because you fought for our country".....I have the up most respect for the elderly, but it doesnt matter whether your young or old. Your cigarette, pipe or cigar will effect the people around you.

LOL I like the way that the term 'free speech' is automatically censored here by new labour's filter system. Says volumes!!!!!!

Seperate rooms in pubs dont exist and they wont. You just have to get used to that fact you CANT smoke in a confined space anymore, and you cant say "I will if I want", because you will be effecting non-smokers by passive smoking, making their clothes smell, ashma and countless other ways. Its hypercritical to talk about smokers having their rights attacked, when smokers think its acceptable to expose non-smokers to second hand smoke. We dont choose to inhail that smoke and we're expected to either move or leave if we dont like it. How is that acceptable? But now its banned, and YOU have to accept it! Is it really so hard to not smoke for a few hours on a night out or an evening? are that badly addicted?

When I die, I thin that I shall rquest Hell as my preferred option. Eternal torment seems easy compared to being with sanctimonious do gooder preachers who want to control whatever we do. I shall carry on irregardless and smile for the camera when the anti tobacco gestapo take my picture and just smile benignly at them. Never had a photo op before!

So you dont care whether your smoke effects anyone else around you? whether it be passive smoking, clothes smelling, burning their eyes and throats, making it hard to breath? You just dont care?

I dount that you care about a lot of things that annoy or even hurt others and I am probbaly a lot more considerate in life than you are since I don't go around telling others what to do because I've got a silly little bee in my bonnet about something. I just want a small smoking room. Funny, a lot of non smokers agree with me as well. In fact, ALL of those whom I have met and know, including people who hate the smell. I have a lot in common with them; reasonable people that just want both sides to be happy and have rights. It is called democracy . . . maybe you came across this word during your GCSEs at some point.

If smoking didnt effect me, then fine! I would agree with your non-smoking friends to let you have a small room to smoke in, or a corner to smoke in. But I find smoking hurts my eyes and my throat. Even if it travels from one corner of a pub to another! Am I not allowed to have a view that smoking is bad, because of that?

I am not a smoker, but feel this smokefree Britain is a little unfair. I think the government should review its policy, and allow Pubs and Clubs to apply for licenses if they want to allow smoking. I don't see how a tiny litte cigarette will make much difference, when Factories are pumping out fumes, cars and trucks are pumping out fumes, cows are releasing methane daily. It's rediculous, how can a Pub with its wooden beams and warm beer and barstools not have smoke in the air, its like having a Big Mac with no Burger.

Don't worry at this rate won't be long before your not allowed a big mac 'big nanny' is watching you

Unfortunately if pubs and clubs had the choice to go smoke-free, they wouldnt!! They would be too concerned about loosing customers to inforce it. The only alternative is what we have in place now. To illegalise it and inforce the ban. Im a none-smoker obviously and I appreciate how unfair it must feel for smokers. But smokers have a CHOICE not to smoke, they have a CHOICE to not smoke for a few hours on a night out. Non-Smokers DONT have a choice in whether we sit there and inhail second hand-smoke. We're expected to sit and put up with it or move somewhere else. And how many people would honestly stop smoking if you said "excuse me mate, would you mind putting that out?"! Not many! Smokers are still more then welcome to smoke at home or in open areas! But why should non-smokers have to endure second-hand smoke because we DONT have a choice!

I am a considerate smoker and have always avoided bothering others who do not wnat to breath in my smoke. However, I do expect the same courtesy and consideration back and expect to see non smoking areas. I am currently looking at the law and putting together my own case in the vent of being harrassed or unduly victimised when smoking in partially covered areas or on the pavement. Once I have proved my point, I shall give up smoking as I have intended for the last 12 or so months. It is about more than smoking, Brendan. It is about our right to choose and not be unduly harrassed by the State.

Forgive me if i've missunderstood, but you sound pro-smoking and like your against the ban. If so, then when you talk about the right to choose, have you considered the rights of non-smokers who have no choice but to endure second hand smoke in confined areas? Its great that some people (like yourself) are conciderate enough not to smoke around others, but not all are. Alot of people would just laugh at you if you asked them not to smoke! But smokers have a CHOICE not to smoke for a few hours on a night out and it wont hurt them, and they have a choice whether they want to inhail toxic fumes. Non-smokers DONT! We either have to endure it, or leave the pub or the club! It wont hurt you not to smoke for a few hours, but it will hurt us to inhail smoke for that amount of time.

I did not spot your opening gambit in this post which is a crucial point about my position. I am not pro smoking and I am not against people giving it up. I shall be giving up smoking once I have won a few fights against the act (I have won one already). I am arguing against the act becasue it encroaches on the right to a separate place for smokers which is comforatble and enclosed and does not disturb others with the fumes. This is what Mr Blair intended and also what all the non smokers I have met agree with, including my wife who hates the smell around her. All that I am demanding is the democratic right to be availed of a broom cupboard and a fan should a proprietor or boss choose to do so upon HIS/HER premises where I do not disturb others.

I have always been for having separate places for smokers and non smokers as they do now in Singapour. I am an adult, I have a right to choose and a right to smoke in an enclosed place for smokers should a proprietor decide to invest in such a place. How dare people consider that they have a right to decide what i choose or choose not to do when it affects only myself. I am against keeping cats because they go out at night and poo on my lawn where my small childrne play. Maybe we could ban cats as well or make it illegal to let the out at night. How about that?

Let me understand you! You think you have a right to sit in an enclosed place (such as a pub) and to smoke, openly without any regard for the non-smokers? How is that giving non-smokers a CHOICE? The word hypercrit comes to mine. Non-smokers have no choice but to sit there and inhail your second hand smoke! We'er expected to either endure it or leave. Unlike yourself, who could simply not smoke for a few hours. You have a CHOICE not to smoke for a few hours on a night out. Non-smokers DONT because we have to just sit there and put up with it. What about Asma sufferers? what about the bar staff who work in these pubs? what about non-smokers waking up in the morning to have their clothes reek of smoke? If pubs had air-tight, seeled rooms where people could smoke without any fumes escaping then I wouldnt complain. But the fact is we DONT!!! Are you expected Land-lords to pay hundreds of pounds to seperate their pubs into two, and make both sides air-tight and to have big vacumme sealed doors to enter and leave? Like a scene out of a science fiction film? Be realistic. This it the only alternative and its not asking much for smokers to simply NOT smoke for a few hours while their out.

You have obviously read nothing of what I have said and wish to merely remain with your own pre-conceived ideas of others. This is sad as it prevents you from learning about other people's opinions, feelings and motivations. Please read through my posts again and then respond if you wish.

The point (which I obviously lost) is that smoking doesnt just effect you. Its effects everyone around you, who inhails the smoke. The only way to have 100% seperated areas in pubs is if they were air-tight and seeled, otherwise smoke would still travel. I doubt that is something pubs want to invest in. But it isnt just about passive smoking which is the issue. Smoking causes your clothes to smell, and it effects ashma sufferers. It can effect the bar staff (who might not have a choice but to work there) and they are around it for hours. And smoking isnt a necessity like cars, which also polute and cause damage to our bodies. Smoking we can live without! If smoking DIDNT effect then I wouldnt complain, but it does. Whether that be in small amounts of large amounts, its still contains toxins I dont want to inhail. Which I dont choose to inhail, but can be avoided with a bit of consideration from the smoker.

A great number of those bar staff u seem so worried about will soon find them selves out of a job. If you were to wake up an smell the coffee (far nicer than cigaret smoke i'm sure) the pub's are now empty. But you'll be reassured to know more speed camera's will be going up to cover loss in revenue

If smoking did not exist, you would just find something else to complain about. You just like to control and feel that you are morally superior to others and have some kind of pre-orfained right to tell others what they should and should not do. Trouble is, society is full of people like this and soon we won't be able to do anything whether it's how parents bring up their kids at home, how teachers handle bad behaviour at school, what we eat, what we say, what we drink even the correct resonance of how we fart soon.

Well I am supriour to someone who would sit in a pub and knowingly expose non-smokers to their cigarette smoke, knowing its harming them and ruining their night. If your that inconciderate then yes, I am better then you.

You wouldn't happen to be a fairly short person from Austria who holds a fascination with the underlying metaphors behind Wagner's music, per chance. He was an anti-smoking fanatic as well.

I just dont like smoking, because it effects my eyes and my throat. Especially if im wearing contact lenses, then my eyes end up in absolutel agony. I cant go on nights out with them (which id rather, because i dont feel confident in glasses) because of that. Its not that im being cruel to smokers... I have my reasons.

de comment nous petons

People forcibly detained under the Mental Health Act have been forced to quit smoking against their will because of this legislation. (Hospitals are public places) I have been detained I have worked on mental health wards. Trying to enforce this rule upon incarcerated people who do not think they should be in hospital in the first place is having an appalling effect upon staff and patients within mental health facilities. I have not yet spoken to a single person on the ground (actually working in a unit) who thinks this policy is good for anyones health. Their were smoking rooms, staff did not go in the rooms and neither did non smoking patients NOBODY was put at risk. Now because of increased tentions lots of people are at risk, patients, staff and maybe even the public. We tried to warn the department of health to make a special exception for mental health units. No exceptions they said. People needing treatment are likely to escape just for a smoke they could end up dead. I have to report this rule has not been rigidly enforced thank god for the rebels on the ground. Are the enforcement officers going to visit units to issue patients on the spot fines,I wish they would.

Sorry simon i've left a a reply for u up above. But i will say this above all other thing's this is not about healt. Their is no proof of that (as i said above i've done my home work). This is about a bunch of busy body's who have nothing better to do than interfere in and control other people's live's. This is about a section of the community who hate smoker's with the same passion that Hitler hated jew's or henry viii hated catholic's (maybe not that much but you get the idea). They have bare face lied to us and distorted the truth to back up their own opinion. ASH and the rest of the anti smoking lobby have spent a great deal of money on report after report on the subject of the affect's of passive smoking on health and as yet none of those report's gave them the answer's they were looking for so they just neglected to publish them or lied about them.

It isnt just about passive smoking though. I've been sat in pubs and clubs and the smoke has actually burned my eyes and my throat. It really can hurt. I wear contact lenses on night outs, and if I go into a smokey bar or pub or house, they last about 2 minutes before my eyes are in absolute AGONY!!! And it is caused by the smoke!

Absolutely. People or certain kinds of people will always find some group or another to hound down and try to humiliate. They are inadequates who need to feel a buzz of power by trying to take away the dignity of others. Albeit hugely less evil, there are some pyschological parrallels to be made between the national socialist party in its very early policies against the Jewish people; an insidious vindictive that has a very distaeful spite to it. If they had insisted on separate rooms only in pubs etc, I would believe their sincerity and say that their motivation was genuine concern for others and accept it willingly as a good thing and even disapprove of others not obeying the ruling on this. But the total ban is very revealing of what it is really about. Nasty little inadequates that feel the need to push other people's faces into the mud.

The comment i left was in reply to the celeb that you say died of passive smoking

In response to Elizabeth's comment's can any one tell me what labour has done for this country every body's miserable, their's no feel good factor, the price of everything seems to be going up unlike peoples wages, we're stuck in a war trying to impose democracy by force on a country that's problems go so far back we have no chance of ever understanding them never mind sorting them out, if u walk over 5 mph your liable to get flashed by a camera and have 3 points stamped on your head not to mention a £60 pound fine, house price's are getting to the point your'll soon be priced out of the country never mind the area you grew up in, health and safety at work has got to the point u have to get a certificate from the council to make sure you can open and close a door by your self, we're being treated like children who have not got the intelligence to make decisions regarding either our selves or our families, and how has this country got the right to impose democracy on any country i don't know; I DID NOT VOTE GORDON BROWN! and I DID NOT VOTE FOR A.S.H.! or any other anti smoking lobby and to top it all now i can't even sit down after work and have pint an a smoke with my mate's and spend an hour forgetting the problems of life where is the democracy!!!

(in response to roland) what is your problem, labour have done many good things for this country. The NHS is far better than it was 10 to 20 years ago. Ok the Iraq war was a bit controversial but every war is and would it have been better of with a mass murdering war criminal. Northern Ireland is looking to settle down finally thanks to Tony Blair and the labour party, you can't ignore that! Speeding fines and cameras are there to reduce road accidents and deaths, and it has worked well to a certain extent. The health and safety has gone a bit over the top but everybody makes mistakes but would we better off with the tories in control. Remember Thatcher and the miner strikes, and what about the falklands, ok Iraq could be argued to be different but still we lost many troops and two warships in ther falklands so Iraq isn't that bad. The hosue pricing is getting to be a serious issue but the goverment is trying to solve it. The smoking ban is the best thing to happen in ages, smoking kills people that don't smoke through second hand smoke, it is a sensible and level headed descision. Its not like it came out of nowhere, we where given plenty of time so why are people up in arms now, did they think the goverment might back down? And in response to the feel good factor, i and everyone i know are generally happy.

Well you've hardly put my opinion to shame. Northen Ireland fair enough i doubt that could ever have happened with the torries although it should be pointed out it widely belived that a lot of that was to do with a lack of funding and support from america after 9/11. There have been many reports into weather speed cameras stop crashes and weather passive smoking affects other people's health neither come up with the results the government wanted so they either stop the reports, just don't publish them or bare face lie about them. Are u so nieve that u really believe that those camera's are there for any reason but to exsplote money out of the only weak target the government has left. AS for iraq although i do think sadam got what he deserved it was not done for the right reasons and it was not done with any for thought of the deep religious or pollitical problems of that area which date back hundreds of years. And the only weapons of mass distruction any one now seems bothered about is people's second hand smoke. The last point with regard to why every one is now up in arm's that the ban has come through was that before the ban the media put a complete white wash over opposition and secondly it's not till the ban acctualy came in that u realise just how badly your right's have been surpressed we have been persiquted (i kind of feel like nelson mandala) as people who have the legal right to smoke. i would also like to point out without the revenue this country would be crippled. Has no one ever heard of air conditioning. Please look at fredom2chose.co.uk it's a bit of an eye opener. Also sorry bout the spelling i've had a long day (working).

Ok fair enough that there is a bit of doubt over the real reason we invaded Iraq but the bit about the speed cameras is wrong. Have you been flashed by a speed camera? From what you have put i think you probably have and you are putting your frustration of getting caught and fined into your idea that there is a national conspiracy against drivers. Fair enough there are few local councils that misuse the cameras but in general they actually do there job. The smoking issue is controversial and you have the right to your own opinion but second hand smoke is a major killer you can't deny that. You obviously enjoy a quiet smoke in a pub or somewhere inside and i haven't got anything against that but it does harm you and overs around you so think before you next smoke, it could kill you. Try getting addicted to something else like fruit or a drink or something that does less harm. Freedom of speech is what makes this country so great but we mu use it responsibly and before we go accusing the governent we should get our facts straight. Sorry for any mis-spelling i've had a long week (working).

No never been flashed got no point's and as some one who often has to drive 300 miles a week don't think that's bad going. If speed camera's were placed around the entrances to schools and we're on during the hour's and terms kid's we're at those schools for example I would not have a problem with them but there not their every where any council think they can get away with putting one up and reaping the financial reward's. I can denie passive smoking is a major killer as those very reports the anti smoking lobby had compiled and spent plenty of time and money on failed to find in their own favour so they bare face lied about them or did not publish them further to this this the leading expert of experts sir Richard Doll said he would be happy to sit round smokers and not feel he was at any personal risk. Yes I do smoke and yes i want to quit but i want to do that off my own back not because some busy body do gooder with to much time on his/her hands tells me to do so and lie's and terrifies those who don't smoke to try an make me conform to how they believe i should live. One of the major points i've been trying to make is we are losing freedom of choice you may not see this but to put a law that affects around 14,000,000 million people which is a about a quater of the population with out going through the judicial process it should have gone through, lieing to the public in the face of having the facts at thier own knowledge which the public were denied access to, and going against it,s own bill of right's can hardly be described as democracy or freedom of choice. The sad thing is to me that from what i've red on the comments above a lot of people just do not seem to question what they are told. I've spoken to a lot of people smokers none smokers young and old and across the board most have said they do not agree with the ban as it's unfair. The problem for smokers is that 3 quaters of the population are'nt smokers which means they are indiffernt to the law which. The ban is nothing but persiqution of a minority to suite an even smaller minority who hate smokers with a passion.

sorry for the spelling errors. ther=the s...ding=speeding hosue=house sorry bout the spelling

Well said. I am seriously considering emigration as an option. When you suddenly find yourself nodding as you glance through yesterday's copy of the Daily Mail, there must be something going drastically wrong either with me or the country (or maybe both). And, talking about old newspapers, why can't we eat our fish and chips from them any more? The print got into the vinegar apparently and we ended up eating ink. It is surprising that the human race has survived really without all these Environmental Health Officers, governemnt diktats and EU rulings to save us from ourselves. Trouble is, we might all end up dying of boredom once they have banned everything that's fun.

I'm also thinking immigrating this country is disgrace it has lost it's own culture,it has lost it's morral's it has lost it's sence of fighting for the underdog. I grew up in a single parrant family which under margret thatcher was not to pleasant.I was raised as a blue collar labour supporter but i never want another labour governmant again their so wrapped up in their politically correct busy body interfiering little world they have lost sight of the country they surposed to reprecent. So mr brown you say i will serve my country is that all of it or just the part's that suite you!

i've replied to your reply

I agree with Roland, the country has lost its morals. On a slightly different subject but very relevant to the outrageous ways the Labour party act, I am an American who has lived in the UK for 12 years. I have studied to postgraduate level and am a trainee solicitor. 2 weeks ago the Secretary of State refused my residency application even though the Immigration and Tribunal judge very strongly recommended that I be allowed to stay. All because I was 6 weeks late renewing my student visa in 2003, when I was 17. I am outraged, to say the least. According to the Labour's policy on Immigration as stated on their website: "Our challenges are clear: to protect our borders from those who seek to abuse the system; to continue to provide a safe haven to those genuinely seeking shelter from persecution and to prevent abuse of the asylum system; to manage migration to meet the needs of our economy; to welcome hard-working and talented legal migrants and help them to become British citizens, with of all the rights and responsibilities that entails." Please, someone explain why I am not considered to be a hardworking and talented person. I mean, I have only achieved 2 degrees and a postgrad. Finally, I contacted my local MP, David Cameron, and he was more than happy to do as much as he could to help me in my plight. There is now a whole community that will never vote Labour again!!

Anne you are a typical example of labours clap trap. Labour say a lot of things then genrally do something else. They just do not seem bothered about the country or the wishes of the people. all they seem to want to do is implement there own polices and politically correct clap trap on the country wile claiming that their a modern party that realises that most of their own polices do not work (confusing in'it). On top of this their so aware of how unpopular a lot of the polices are they fine any one who dose not comply with their polices to make sure they can not make a stand against them. A few hundred years ago kings would fine catholic's and now we fine smokers.

Roland. I had to read your post twice since it sounds as though you are saying that poor Anne is an example of 'labour clap trap' in what she says! On the second reading, I realsied that you mena her treatment is an example of the clap trap. It is true, their zeal against what adults do as a choice (smoking) is unwarranted interference of the State in everyday life and has many of the features of a religious crusade in its holier than thou attitude. I am sure that if you were to put a rat into a bell jar and constantly fill its environment with tobacco smoke 24/7, you could come away with the conclusion that second hand smoke is bad for living organisms and I should imagine that similar results would come up for putting perfume or any other chemical vapour in there all the time 24/7. My father smoked at home as well as my uncle, grandfather and the very strangebthing is that none of my cousins or I ever developed respitory conditions, their spouses have lived into their 80s (mum and aunt) with no problems and the smokers themselves lived to ripe old ages and you know what, they were caring dads who cared passionately about their families.

Cheers simon for the point you made. I hope if anne or any one else reads this that i meant the comment 100% on anne's side. The truth as i see it is immigration is not about finding intelligent key workers to fill a short hold in skilled and proffesional market but to over run the country with cheap disposible labour. Bit disapointed really simon thought someone would have come up with at least a reasonable argument against what i'd said when i got home.