Keir Starmer has confirmed the Government could ban smoking in pub gardens and other outdoor areas, arguing it would reduce the “burden” on the NHS. The Telegraph has more.
The Prime Minister told journalists in Paris on Thursday that ministers were looking at tightening smoking restrictions. Critics labelled the potential move as “authoritarian” and a “nanny state” policy.
Sir Keir said: “My starting point on this is to remind everybody that over 80,000 people lose their lives every year because of smoking. That is a preventable death, it’s a huge burden on the NHS and, of course, it is a burden on the taxpayer.
“So, yes, we are going to take decisions in this space, more details will be revealed, but this is a preventable series of deaths and we’ve got to take action to reduce the burden on the NHS and the taxpayer.”
The Government is considering a ban on smoking in pub gardens as well as other outdoor areas like outside football stadiums, outdoor restaurants and open-air spaces at nightclubs.
The proposals, first reported by the Sun, will be subject to a public consultation but they have sparked a furious backlash from politicians and the hospitality industry.
Nigel Farage, the Reform U.K. leader, said the Government was guilty of a “massive overreach”.
He told Talk TV: “It is not nanny-statism. It is authoritarianism. It is ‘I know what is best for you and you will damn well do it and what I am going to do is I am going to take your legal activity and make it illegal’.
“That is really what they are saying here. A smoke-free Britain by 2030. Really? Will it be drugs-free by 2030? Will it be obesity-free? Will it be alcoholism-free?
“This is a massive overreach by Government. I loathe these people and their very instincts.”
Tory leadership contenders also condemned the proposals. …
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We do not comment on leaks. Smoking claims 80,000 lives a year, puts huge pressure on our NHS, and costs taxpayers billions.
“We are determined to protect children and non-smokers from the harms of second-hand smoking. We’re considering a range of measures to finally make Britain smoke-free.”
Worth reading in full.
If smoking kills 80,000 people early each year, surely it is likely to be a net gain to the public purse? Not that this is the right way to make public policy (what happened to personal freedom?) But if you’re going to make law based on what “relieves the burden” on the NHS and public spending, you should at least make sure you’ve got the calculations correct. More likely, of course, any excuse to clamp down on the common people’s pleasures will do.
Stop Press: Starmer is facing a backlash from Labour MPs and ministers over his “mad” smoking ban plan, with one source claiming some ministers believe Sue Gray is behind it.
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Why not ban virtually everything in the supermarket that makes us all obese to “Save the NHS? How about we are all given an exercise bike and Exercise Bike Officers enforce their use to “Save the NHS”? How about we all only phone the surgery once a year to “save the NHS”? Infact why don’t we all just drop dead and that will save us from having an NHS in the first place, and the Government can report back to Klaus Schwab —“JOB DONE”
Don’t give them ideas, it’ll be grass and lettuce leaves morning noon and night if the authoritarian bastards get their way.
lettuce in involves farming, they don’t like that, growing food destroys the planet.
Do Lettuces fart?
I recall we saved the NHS during the scamdemic years, of which the Labour Party were a big supporter, that worked out fabulously for the NHS workers, quiet hospitals, fame through tiktok, and even more rewards with bumper pay rises whilst millions die suffering whilst they snails pace address the ever growing waiting list.
It worked out so well, let’s all bang a pan
Lettuce? No damn way am I eating Socialists brains!
Good luck with that, it will be very thin gruel.
Starmer is only building on his predecessor nut job – Sunak. Wasn’t banning anyone under the age of 14 from EVER buying cigarettes. Labour Starmer is out of exactly the same mould as Tory Sunak and takes his orders from the same people.
This has been refuted over and over again: The insane indirect taxes paid by smokers earn the state far more money than treating supposedly smoking-induced illnesses costs, not the least because smokers – statistically – die earlier and hence, get less pension and need less treament for old-age induced ailments.
That’s Starmer again lying in public to appeal to another set of his paymasters, nothing more.
No concern for the sufferers of smoking or hoping to cut death. Only some arithmetic to save money governments hate forking out, despite us paying so much tax it has turned into extortion which would make the mafia blush.
The government isn’t forking out money for that, it’s making money from it big time. But that’s not the motivation here. The motiviation is to appeal to poweful lobbying groups of people who also ‘suffered’ from other people’s asymptomatic COVID, ie, people with a pathological fear of death who are convinced this justifies banning everything other people do which could endanger their own health in the slightest, according to what they believe about it.
The main cause of cancers is genetics and next, age. This is why people with a long history of smoking live long and die of other causes, others who have never smoked get lung cancer.
Cancers mostly occur in older people – like diabetes and heart conditions. The Evolution gods didn’t intend us to survive much after 40 years, and our cells have a kill-switch which activates after age 21.
“NHS, and costs taxpayers billions”…..The tax on fags rakes in a fair amount no?
Amusing implication that banning smoking and our tax bills will plummet.
If we banned politicians and civil servants, we would all be rich.
It was refreshing to hear a sensible person allowed to speak about this on Five Live this morning.(I only put the radio on for background noise) He pointed out that once smoking is banned these zealots will find something else, because they will not stop until we’re all confined into out little ghettoes with our carbon tokens.
I notice you say “I only put the radio on for background noise” before anyone can have a go at you for listening to the BBC. —-But ofcourse you need to listen to the enemy to see what they are up to.
True and also I don’t always want to listen to music, just talking, even if it is the BBC.
Yes but you can get GB News on the radio now, and that way you won’t have to listen to the BBC Climate porn
Booze probably next. They have already started on banning food.
…cold, dead hands.
Tax on booze will go up massively at this budget. Got to kill the pubs. They’ve been taken over by the Far Right doncha know.
This is ancient ( 2003 ) so I’m sure someone can provide a way more recent study, but it just crossed my path and I haven’t time to do a literature search. What was interesting though is that thousands of people were followed for 39 years, with a focus on a non-smoking spouse married to a smoker. Here’s the conclusion;
”The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12750205/
James Dellingpole was talking about a spurious link between passive smoking and early death. My father smoked a pipe and as a fitness freak, I didn’t appreciate it much, especially in the car. Any opportunity to “lose” his pipe I would exploit. I found when he had to make do with fags, it was less of an ordeal in the car.
Your mentioning radio for “background noise” is very interesting, and from my limited experience, I would hazard a guess that you live in a peaceful rural area.
If so, I would really appreciate your views on why country-folk always seem to do that: they constantly have the radio on as “background noise”, despite choosing to live in a quiet, peaceful rural area that city-dwellers can only dream of. I honestly don’t understand why they don’t treasure the peace and quiet, listening to the birdies, crickets in the long grass, frogs singing down at the pond, and dragonflies patrolling up and down the stream.
I’m on the edge of a town, semi-rural if you like. I have a busy road on the front and fields to the back.
I was just wondering if maybe we humans miss the bustle of human activity if we live in an isolated place, and having the radio on as background noise gives country folk a comforting sense of being connected to other humans.
What a loathsome tool he is.
Nah, it won’t reduce the burden on the NHS.
All these policies are about exerting control.
By the way, the funniest thing I saw on the BBC was two news items in the same half an hour bulletin a few months ago: one about the government banning smoking and the other about creating safe places in Scotland where drug addicts can “safely” inject themselves with heroin.
There’s also a large common subset between the people who want to prohibit smoking tobacco and the people who want to legaliza smoking Marijuana. “It’s something we certainly don’t want to do!” vs “It’s something we really dop want to do!” always makes a big difference.
Absolutely.
Just like there was a large overlap between the “my body my choice” protestors and the “Covid jab mandate” advocates.
It doesn’t occur to these nitwits that young people no longer spending money on fags, instead spend it on booze and/or drugs.
Or Vapes, that are still not completely known regarding health related problems.
I thought it was confirmed that vaping is bad for you? Maybe not as bad a smoking? Time will tell.
Sorry it’s a BBC link.
To whom it may concern: Don’t bother reading. That’s about a 12 year old with asthma who ended up in A&E who supposedly bought “vaping products” over the counter despite that’s illegal in the UK (extremely fat, ie, no chance in hell, that this is true) and is about all kinds of health problems “and also nicotine addiciton which is a matter of life and death because you’re never going to stop”.
There’s literally no connection between this “nicotine addiction” and any of the health issues mentioned in the article save some professor oracling that “We don’t yet know that these health issues are!”, ie, nobody knows if there are any and this addiction story is an obviously lie as a great many people have already stopped smoking, usually spontaneously, without suffering any ill effects.
Coming to think of it, read the article if you want a best of breed example how an entirely content-free propaganda hack job looks like. Brought to you by the same people also behind Starmers abovementioned initiative who surely wouldn’t ever tell lies about something other than vaping.
Privatisation of the medical care market would reduce the burden on the NHS – in fact reduce the NHS to zero.
Even many non-smokers are opposed to this because we can see, plain as day, that this has sod all to do with helping out the NHS. I know from first hand experience just how much of a burden diabetes, morbid obesity, alcohol abuse and drugs put on the NHS. Too many people have had to have bits of their bodies amputated, died, lost kidney function, you name it, just knackered their health and did irreparable damage to themselves and 99.99% of the time it was all in their own control because they chose to put these things in their bodies, despite knowing full well it was harmful and they ignored the warning signs. So where on earth does this blatant overreach stop?
‘Stalin’ is nothing but an authoritarian cockwomble. His aim, to just keep making the citizens more and more miserable. When he gets to the 6 month mark of being PM let’s count the things he’s done which have been for the betterment of the British public, namely the white working class segment of the British public.
One thing I really despise about Stalin is how he wheels out the children and uses them like pawns in an attempt to emotional blackmail people, but it’s all absolute BS and just a mere tactic. If he really felt for the children and prioritized their welfare then why would he be about to embark on this;
”NHS England has confirmed plans to open six new gender clinics and to begin puberty blocker trials on children. The alarming clinical trial will be launched in January 2025 and will see thousands of children mutilated and experimented on for the sake of pushing a trans agenda.
These drugs are designed to pause and alter the physical changes of puberty, permanently affecting the child’s development and causing irreversible harm. This is completely unjustifiable and unethical. The programme should cancelled straight away!
This is the new wave of supposed ‘gender’ care and is supposed to find out the “potential benefits and harms of puberty suppressing hormones for children and young people”.
However, it is already well-known and proven that these drugs permanently damage a child’s health.
The Cass Review, published in April 2024, demonstrated that these drugs should not be distributed to children for gender care. It also revealed the devastating effects of even less invasive ‘transgender care’ such as social transitioning. The review found that these interventions in a young person’s life cause long-term damage to their mental and physical health.
Yet, now the Labour government is working on bringing puberty blockers back into the mainstream. Instead of expanding gender clinics, the NHS should focus on addressing the root causes of gender dysphoria, such as mental health issues, autism, and family-related problems. This programme is nothing but another way to use vulnerable children as political pawns.
How has this happened?
With enough pressure from trans rights activists, the government has decided to bring these harmful policies back.”
https://citizengo.org/en-gb/fm/13849-Stop-NHS-Gender-Clinics-and-Puberty-Blocker-Trials-on-Children?utm_medium=shared&utm_campaign=EN_GB-2024-08-13-Local-NA-CJO-13849-.01_AA_Launch&utm_source=wa&_ref=126426990
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nhs-england-children-nhs-england-wales-b2592533.html
Smoking bans, 20mph, where was that in the manifesto or even mentioned when campaigning. They are really taking the piss out of the public.
If they want people healthier (that’s debateable) how about not mandating experimental substances that can injure and kill.
Giving up smoking is good for you.
So do it regularly.
The way SStarmer is going I’ll be taking it up again!
I do!!! Every night when I go to sleep!!!!
Reminded me of the script for one of the “Yes, Minister” episodes years ago. The gist of the explanation by the permanent sec, educating the minister, was that allowing smoking saved the NHS money by reducing life expectancy, and raised cash up front by duty and tax. Allegedly win-win from his perspective!
All true. Many a true word etc
stop smoking, stop drinking next, you watch the duty rises on alcohol. then they will go after food, specifically fresh meat, they don’t like farmers or farm animals, no doubt fats so dairy products too, and products involving fats.
Cakes biscuits and sweets will be targeted further.
Petrol and diesel will be hit as they want you out of your car.
Everything that is freedom, enjoyment, and fun they will stop. Instead they will make you happy with their Pharma friends range of drugs, they will get you thin with Pharma friends injectables
they will feed you Billy boys eco friendly , billionaires bunce fake meat, and insect based foods, all highly nutritious and full of pharma chemically goodness.
Do you imagine Starmer, Milliband , Cooper etc ever go into a pub out of choice? Do you imagine they have any idea of fun? do you think they even have any friends except what the sycophants who cling to them pass as friends.
Tidy Graveyard caretakers that’s who they are and what they want this country to be.
OK, a secondary issue, perhaps, but how many pubs/restaurants are closing each week?
I think I read 80 but that could be per month
I’m sure the communists in charge would love to destroy pubs completely. They gave it a good go during “covid”. People getting together in real life, their tongues lubricated with beer, is dangerous.
They will attack smokers first, next will be alcohol. Now is the time to nip this fascism in the bud!
If you make “reducing the burden on the NHS” or “improving public health” a basis on which to prohibit things, the sky is the limit. Almost anything can be deemed unhealthy if you wheel out the right experts having given them the right incentives.
Thanks once more to all those who voted for the Communists!
You are spot on. That’s why they’ve tried to shut down pubs with punitive taxes, while letting supermarkets sell cut-price tins of lager. They want people drinking at home alone, not talking about politics or mass immigration in pubs.
Disclosure of personal interest: I’ve been smoking since I was sixteen and don’t presently plan to stop this. I do start to feel a little persecuted, though.
As an ex smoker myself you should have the right to smoke if you want to!
I hope you realise that smoking gives your face the deep creases and wrinkles that elderly smokers have. You aren’t yet old enough for that to show up, but it will.
Just heard Nanu on GBN saying that smoking has no benefit to anyone. Maybe it gives pleasure to people like yourself. There is also people with anxiety who benefit from a fag or two.
‘Could’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here… what it certainly will do is impact the tax revenue that comes from tobacco that is used, among other things, to fund the NHS and which, according to all analysis, dwarves the costs of smoking to the NHS.
How about banning the quarter of a million-odd abortions which take place every year? Far more deaths than from smoking.
At what point do we have a civil war?
That’s what Kneel is pushing for.
Not sure the Gandhi way is an option at this stage.
I think it’s a good idea. Pubs were completely transformed by smoking bans inside, from choking indoor pollution to pleasant, clean, cheerful places where you can actually taste your food and drink, without going home with clothes & hair reeking of someone’s exhaled cigarette smoke.
I also think they should ban dogs in pubs, and make them muzzled in all public spaces, especially on public transport and on rural footpaths that cross livestock pasture, to prevent this:
Veterinary nurse whose dogs killed 15 sheep and wounded 13 more is fined after traumatic attack that left farmer suffering ‘horrible flashbacks’ | Daily Mail Online
‘Very stressful and upsetting’: Welsh farmers call for law change for livestock attacks | ITV News Wales
Of course the Globalists encourage dog attacks on sheep to bankrupt farmers in their “Abolish Animal Agriculture” plan. As Bill Gates says, “Let Them Eat Bugs”.
But what I can’t figure out is WHY this Labour government want to ban smoking at all, since the more people that are sick and dying from smoking all helps the Globalist Depopulation Agenda, and as others have noted, they collect massive taxes from smokers, and are quids in by not having to pay out pension money to the ones who “shuffle off this mortal coil”.
So why would they want to ban it?
I think it’s a good idea. Pubs were completely transformed by smoking bans inside, from choking indoor pollution to pleasant, clean, cheerful places where you can actually taste your food and drink, without going home with clothes & hair reeking of someone’s exhaled cigarette smoke.
There are few things which stink so badly as a whole room full of largely unwashed people wearing dirty clothes who tend to throw their drinks over everything and throw up on the floor whenever they feel like it. I’ve meanwhile grown used to that although I’m always happy when I’m back in Germany and in a place where indoor smoking is still allowed (depends on the pub owner there) instead of the ubiquitious UK filth of stale sweat, dried shit, unwashed feet, stale piss, dried blood and dried sperm.
My two favorite theories for this are
I must admit I’ve never seen such a pub as you describe, anywhere I’ve ever been in England, Scotland or Wales.
Such an outpouring of sheer disgust and hatred of British people makes one wonder why you choose to live in such a “filthy” place, instead of your “clean” Germany. But surely Germany is pristine no longer, now overrun by the unwashed millions from the Third World, all welcomed by the Ex-Stasi Youth Member Merkel-nee-Kasner?
But to get back to my question: Why do you think the government want to ban smoking even outdoors? I don’t understand it.
I was writing about “smoke free” British pubs and the pleasant smell inside of them. Unwashed German people smell no nicer than unwashed British people and my personal point top horror in this respect is actually walking to Ludwigburg (town in southern Germany) station among commuters in the morning (they can’t have running water in that town), closely followed by walking through the area of Frankfurt central station (notorious addict hotspot). But that’s really besides the point which was that tobacco smoke tends to cover the ‘natural’ smell of peope and which of both someone prefers is very much in the eye of the beholder.
My best guess for an answer of the question would be to protect Susan Michie/ Trisha Greenalgh types from seeing others smoke as they won’t feel ‘safe’ if they can. The supposed issue was already brought up during COVID but didn’t gain traction then. A Labour government is obviously more favorably disposed towards it.
Well, I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see.
Yes I think it is mostly about control like the slow boiling frog. get people used to being micro managed. Remember how they, with their pseudoscience, shamed and coerced those that refused the jab and said they shouldn’t be treated in Hospital. They would be kicking at an open door.
I’ve been thinking about this overnight, and wonder if they have a similar motive as in “The Hunger Games” and “Soylent Green”. Vegetarian non-smoking animal meat would taste better than that of carnivores, and maybe they encourage running marathons to make people more fit when they are being hunted down in the “re-wilded” countryside, off-limits to city dwellers, in order to provide more sport for the elite hunters.
What do you think?
There’s that word ‘could‘ doing the heavy lifting again.
If Starmer actually believes that this move would reduce the burden on the NHS to any significant extent he is even more of a fool than I already thought he was.
He certainly doesn’t. But that’s the cover story for this move.
Hardest working thing in this new regime…
That confirms my suspicion: £2 a packet on fags in the deliberately delayed Budget. Next week it will be an assault on motorists with £100 on car tax and £1 a litre on petrol.
Anyone else noticed that The Grand Dictator, in his fancy new £20,000 clothes, is dreadfully overweight? Will he be following his own advice when he bangs a couple of quid on takeaways?
I wonder if The Great Dictator issued a smoking ban in the number 10 Rose Garden when he lent your property to the guy who paid for his glasses?
The guy is seriously f**ked up. Almost nobody smokes these days. WTF is he on about.
Let’s face it, he could say he’s banned it for any reason at all…it doesn’t matter. He could say its going to Save the Planet or reduced ‘carbon emmisions’ or save Ms of lives. He can say that someone who put a 5-min FB post up has caused riots. They can make stats reveal anything they want and if they can’t find any to support their lies they lie about those too.
Our politicians can say any old bullsh*t they want and get increasingly draconian laws through and worse, everyone will comply and (in this instance) watch their favourite pub die its last breath.
Starmer should check his facts. Currently it’s 74000 according to the NHS and declining rapidly. There is no need for any further regulation.
Exactly. He can do all his banning, deaths will drop rapidly as they were always going to do, then he can take the credit and use it to ban even more stuff. Just like implementing lockdowns right as the curve naturally began to fall!
With policies like this coming in I’d seriously think about starting smoking again. These are wicked wicked people.
I’m looking forward to the compulsory morning daily exercises in from of your telly or computer. All to save the NHS, nothing to do with ‘power over people’ for their own good etc.
As a smoking and drinking ex-pat when I come on holiday to this country I spend a significant amount of money seeing my friends in various pubs. If this ludicrous ban comes in then my stay in England will be seriously curtailed.
It was the Bliar government that destroyed the pubs of the UK. The non-smokers that I knew who said how nice was to go to a pub and not come home smelling of cigaette smoke did NOT increase their visits to the pub.
Why can you smoke in some pubs and airports in Germany and Denmark? But not here in the UK? Also other airports in Europe and all in the middle east? Answer – ‘cos they are civilised.
I hate what this country has become with all of it’s nanny rules and diktats.
Stop the trans-gender crap being provided by the NHS and bingo!!! billions saved.
80,000? How does that compare with all the vaccine deaths and treating those who now have cancer and a whole host of never before heard of diseases thanks to the jab?
Having been a life long non-smoker and anti-smoking – to the extent that I don’t care if people smoke, just not next to me – Dark Lord Starmführer has succeeded in making the unimaginable happened, I am now on the side of smokers.
Alcohol-free pubs next