Smoking

Whenever you cross from Washington, DC into the state of Virginia, you’re met with a sign saying ‘Buckle up Virginia, it’s a law we can live with’. The sign is meant to persuade people in a state where libertarianism runs deep to put their seatbelts on. But, even in the four years I lived in Washington, the sign became to feel rather out of date. Buckling up had become the norm. I wonder whether the same will happen with the proposed ban on smoking in cars when children are present. At the moment, the idea seems unenforceable, nanny statism taken to the max. But it is worth remembering how quickly

As a child, I was not a good traveller. The mere scent of a car interior – possibly the plastic seats, maybe the closed atmosphere, probably the whiff of petrol – would be enough to bring on the tell-tale flow of odd saliva that heralded a really impressive bout of vomiting. If the smell of fag smoke had been added to the mix it would have happened even sooner. So when I say that the that Labour peers’ attempt today (supporters of the amendment include Tony Blair’s old friend, Charlie Faulkner) to introduce a ban on smoking in cars with children is bossy, oppressive and expressive of the demeanour of Yvette Cooper

In Dorchester during the Christmas holiday I bought a two-slice electric toaster at Currys. It was a nice little toaster that worked very well when I got it home. And it cost only £4.50, which turned out to be little more than half the price of a packet of Marlboro cigarettes. It’s some years since I gave up smoking; but at my peak I smoked three packets of Marlboros a day, which now would cost the same as more than five two-slice electric toasters. Or, put another way, with the money I have saved from giving up smoking I could buy nearly 2,000 electric toasters a year. I could by

This was supposed to be the year of strife, strikes, misery and more. Instead, to the surprise of Britain’s politicians, things have instead gone badly right. I look at them in my Telegraph column today, and here are the top points:- 1. Crime plunges With the austerity and the unemployment, internal government reports predicted that Brits would respond by unleashing a crimewave. Instead, recorded crime has fallen to the lowest level in 25 years: [datawrapper chart=”http://www.seapprojects.co.uk/charts/3571387552215.html”] 2. We’re doing more with less People think public services are getting better, in spite of substantial cuts in local authority spending. The doomsayers were wrong – thanks to resourceful British public servants, more

It has been a bad week for smokers. In yet another skirmish in the war against the vice, it was announced late last night that the British government is pressing ahead with Soviet-style plain packaging of cigarettes, despite Cameron’s decision to shelve the policy in July. Australia is the only country currently with plain packaging, after enacting it in December 2012. The results have been less than impressive. Indeed, as I wrote about earlier this month for the Telegraph , the accountancy firm KPMG released a report on 4 November, which highlighted how the Australian government has lost $1 billion Australian dollars in the 12 months ended in June, as a

The government has done a puzzling U-turn over its plan to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes. It had seemed determined to put the plan into effect, but suddenly announced last week that it had had second thoughts. It was no longer sure that this would in fact discourage the young from taking up smoking, so it planned to wait and look at the effects of a similar measure in Australia before taking any decision. This has provoked fury among the Liberal Democrats in the coalition, who accuse the Tory leadership of sacrificing the health of young people to the interests of the tobacco companies. And I must say it does

The Government’s bid to make Britain that little bit more like Australia, in a bad way, by requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain white packaging may well be announced on that annual irritant, No Smoking Day, next Wednesday. And for good measure, it may throw in a ban on smoking in cars carrying children under 16. The only upshot of that last one will be to make it that bit more difficult to get a lift for a child. I am not  a serious smoker. I can manage perhaps two or three cigarettes a year, Clinton style, but that’s enough to forfeit a premium rate of life insurance (actually

On the eve of the smoking ban five years ago, hundreds of liberty lovers came together to rebel and enjoy one last night of freedom. A reunion was held on the eve of the anniversary this week of the ban by smokers lobby group Forest. In the Scottish jazz heaven of Boisdale Canary Wharf, the biggest table thumping cheer of the night came from a reference to ‘David Cameron’s neo-facist nanny state.’ But this was far from a right wing knees up. While the claret and Chivas Regal kept the crowd lubricated, all strands of political thought came together with righty James Delingpole and lefty Claire Fox treating the crowds

It’s tempting to respond to the BMA’s extraordinary proposal to ban smoking in cars with a Thin End of the Wedge argument. Ban smoking even on the part of an unaccompanied adult, sitting in a car by the side of the road? How long before they’re banning it in the home, eh? But hold it right there. The proposal isn’t just scary for where it might lead. It’s scary all by itself. The notion that a grown up can be barred from self-harm by smoking a fag by himself, in his own car, his own space, on the basis that it might kill him sooner rather than later, should be