Just when you thought it couldn't get worse...

Pah! As if. I think we're all used to the fact that no matter how bad things are those bastards in power and their sycophantic hangers on want to push it further.

Latest on the list of those people who clutch their throat and shriek at even the thought of a libertarian idea is David Sexton writing in The Standard today on the subject of smoking.

These days rabbits are larger and more feral, no longer living sociably in cosy warrens.

A similar change seems to have overtaken smokers since the smoking ban of 2007. The remaining smokers are now much more aggressive.

Having been prevented from indulging in their workplaces, they now inhale their poison with a kind of vengeful fury as soon as they can

That's right. When we are forced to stand outside in the cold to indulge in an activity which isn't illegal and provides the exchequer with oddles of cash for them to spend on buying voters we're just doing it to be vengeful beasts. It's nothing to do with the fact that we just want a smoke and there's no where else to go.

So one perverse result of the ban is that there is much more smoking visible on the streets than there used to be. It is not a pretty sight.

Smokers seem to be physically sucking on their ciggies with a new sort of vehemence. It's hardcore now.

Outside every office, shop and pub, non-smokers have to run a gauntlet of such smokers. We don't enjoy it.

Gosh, you have to walk past people standing on the streets smoking. In the open air? With that huge space all around you? The law of unintended consequences is a right bitch. Next thing you know the government will be legislating about things which don't concern them and that thing might be something you'll enjoy.

It now seems simply bizarre that people used to be allowed to smoke in planes, on the Tube, in hospitals, offices and restaurants.

In time, it will seem equally improbable that they could once do so with impunity in the faces of people sharing public space outside.

The arguments may no longer be about the dangers of secondary smoking but they are no less compelling. It's not just that they smell so terrible and throw their butts everywhere.

It doesn't seem bizarre. The only thing that is bizarre is that people just sit back and let the government take away their liberties. It's a sad state of affairs when an argument for banning something is that it smells. Does that mean that I can ban Old Spice, brussel sprouts and cabbage? Just because I don't like it?

When you see a smoker, sucking in hard as soon as he or she gets to the threshold, what you are seeing is not just addiction but self-harming of the most terrible kind. Half of all regular smokers are killed by their habit.

No other vice, not even drinking to excess, is so directly and inherently suicidal. We would not find it acceptable to see people routinely setting fire to themselves in public.

Yet that is precisely what smoking in public is equivalent to. Children should not grow up thinking that's normal.

Er, hello? Was that a misprint? Someone didn't just compare having a cigarette to setting yourself on fire? Because it's fucking ridiculous that someone would even contemplate saying that let alone it sneaking past sub editors and finding itself on a page of a newspaper, even if it is now a free sheet. Next thing we won't be allowed to have a glass of wine without reminding ourselves that it's the equivalent of running a sharp blade along bare skin or a hamburger without being concerned that a child may be traumatised at the self harm being displayed so grotesquely. What are people thinking of!

Properly understood, smoking is a moral affront every time. So long as we smile on it, we are approving a holocaust.

So not only are we rotting the brains of the future generation but we're also exterminating people on a mass scale without their say so?

Are we still talking about smoking here or has David Sexton just got his todger out and decided to write his article by slapping it about on the keyboard?

If this illiberal affront to civilised society was intentional I might suggest that he try the latter option to ensure that his next offering to the people of London is not the literary equivalent of my cat's litter tray after someone forgot to let him out in the morning?