hypocritical bastards

My name is Trixy and I enjoy smoking. I like having a wee ciggy when I'm having a drink, or after a meal, or when I'm thinking about what to write, or when I'm bored waiting at a bus stop, or...you get the idea.

And now, thanks to this government, I can't enjoy it like I used to. Because Auntie Patsy decided she knew best, and we were going to ban smoking everywhere. Even if the landlord of a pub wanted it to be a smoking pub, or it was a private members club. No, you can't have a cigarette. oh, by all means go and drink yourself into a stupor and end up in casualty (I was in casualty on Saturday night and saw quite a lot of evidence of this) or mug an old lady and get a slap on the wrist. But smoking! Gasp!

Those MPs who voted this through really piss me off. And I'm not even sure any other party in Westminster would overturn the ban, either. Which is another reason why I'm glad I'm with UKIP. You see, it's not a question of whether smoking is bad, it's about civil liberties. First it was hunting, now smoking. What next? No having any bloody fun? We'll have to start off with some kind of 'day' first: no having any bloody fun day, then 'no having any fun' sections of pubs and restaurants, then a ban. Miserable bastards that they are. So imagine my disgust when, having been in 2 pubs and the Houses of Parliament today, I read this on the BBC:

MPs have been accused of flouting the smoking ban - and even sneaking cigarettes in the Commons toilets.

If I see anyone who voted for the smoking ban having a ciggy in the loo I am going to tar and feather them. And then steal their cigarettes.

she (Harriet Harperson) had been pleased to see "smoke enforcement officers in high visibility jackets" on her way into the Commons, which showed the ban was in operation elsewhere.

are they going to ban draught drink?

Fair enough question from Father Trixy as we sit watching the news that we are soon going to have nanny state labels on alcohol.

Alcoholic drinks will carry new health warning labels by the end of 2008 under a voluntary agreement between ministers and the drinks industry.
The labels will detail alcoholic units and recommended safe drinking levels.

I find alcohol rather useful, actually, particularly if I am stuck talking to someone who is very dull. So, for me, a safe drinking level depends rather on where I am and who I am with.

What gets me about this move, however, is that this is how the smoking fascism started. First we had little warnings, then bigger warnings,(I always go for the ones about smoking cutting ones sperm count because they won't do anything to me) then we weren't allowed to smoke in certain places, then the warnings had pictures on them (some of them are rather amusing) and soon only criminals will be allowed to smoke.

How long before our drinks get covered in stupid labels, and then we are only allowed a certain number of drinks, and then we are only allowed to drink at certain times, and then drinking is banned altogether?

And my father does have a point: how are they doing to put the warnings on pints of beer? Or is that a rather handy way of getting rid of that irksome unit of measurement?

Smoking ban could be delayed...

The libertarian group Freedom2Choose is preparing to launch an application for a judicial review into the smoking ban due to ruin the fun of millions on July 1st.

Well done them.

Lord Harris of Small Government

Trixy was lucky enough to be invited to the memorial service of Lord Harris of Highcross in Westminster yesterday.

I sat there listening to people I was completely in awe of talk about this man, and how I wish I could have known him.

All the great lines I was told about when I was studying economics were by him:

'What nobody really owns, nobody really cares'

'If all economists were laid in a line, they would never reach a conclusion'

'the cock may crow, but it's the hen who lays the eggs'

and his comparison of the National Plan (which I can't believe anyone would actually think would work being 'like trying to make water flow up a hill'.

Described as 'A Liberal, but a sound Liberal' he was Head of the Institute for Economic Affairs from 1957 until 1987 and in 1990 was made founder president which he remained until his death. His leadership was at a time when his brand of free market liberalism was deeply unpopular, with the post war consensus happy to jump aboard demand side Keynesian economics, which of course proved such a disaster to the British economy.

He was also involved in the Bruges group and a committed Eurosceptic, with statements to the Lords like:

In an earlier debate, I ventured to offer some broad orders of magnitude of the opportunity costs that might be saved by British withdrawal. The figures were admittedly derivative, but a retired economist can hardly be expected to undergo the fatigue of original research in such a matter. Anyway, I suspect that hordes of experts in the Treasury could produce much of the data for which we are looking from their word processors in their lunch hour.

My first approximation differs a little from that of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. I start from a gross payment to the EU and its institutions shown in the Pink Book at almost £12 billion, from which might be deducted up to £7 billion, including the Thatcher rebate, which of course the French and Germans would like to snatch back. Then there are estimates of the total cost of the CAP, which range from £5 billion to £9 billion. Is it about right to put at £5 billion the higher priced imports that follow from the EU's dubious anti-dumping duties? Such outside "guestimates" would suggest that annual costs might range from £15 million to £25 million—a little short of the estimate made by the noble Lord, Lord Pearson. They are huge figures to set against the arguable political and psychological advantages of membership.

Rather than retreat into her usual charming evasions, would the noble Baroness, the Minister, at least acknowledge the desirability of a more accurate assessment than I have been able to offer? The stakes are high. The Minister might even avoid further re-runs of our unending debates.

But most of all, he was honorary president of the smoking group FOREST. One of my favourite speeches of his was this one, about a debate Liverpool City Council wanting to ban smoking in all public places:

My Lords, in what has turned out to be rather a grim end-of-term scrap, I cheerfully declare my interest as a contented pipe smoker of many years' standing and a former chairman—now honorary president—of the smokers' defence group FOREST.

Listening to these debates, it is tempting to resort to unparliamentary language about this gratuitous and time-wasting debate after Her Majesty's Government have announced a smoking ban. The obsessive, highly organised witch hunt against smokers—deaf to reasoned argument—reminds me of my early days as a campaigning economist. Then it was equally difficult to win a hearing for plain common sense on economic freedom.

Other free spirits this evening have rebuffed the spiteful attack on the everyday civil rights of millions of smokers and tens of thousands of pubs, hotels and restaurants. My single purpose is to assert the commonsense implausibility that so-called passive smoking can actually kill non-smokers. After much diligent study, I have concluded that all this agitation is mere puffed-up propaganda to punish smokers for exercising a traditional freedom—at their own risk. My smoke may irritate the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, but it cannot kill him or anybody else.

I wish there were more politicians, and indeed people, like him today. People who thought windmills were for tilting at and 'not to be stuck on the rooves of upper-middle-class houses in Notting Hill in the name of an inexact science'.

Well, quite.

Shortest smoking ban ever

I see that the Sun has picked up on the shortest ever smoking ban. The bureau of busybodies in the European Parliament have decided that the total smoking ban in the Parliament should be dropped in favour of smoking areas where us smokers can kill ourselves in peace. Lovely.

Apparently it's because no one was paying attention to it. Well done those chaps! I'm doing my bit here in London as a gesture of comradeship.