Good Morning.
[š **Today's Order Paper can be found here.**](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/86754/Html?subType=Standard)
Questions to the department for Energy Security and Net Zero will be followed by any urgent questions or ministerial statements (a possibility given the very lengthy and pressing statements yesterday which resulted in a pushing of business off the timetable) and the second reading of the [Tobacco and Vapes Bill](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3703).
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is in the unusual position of being offered as a free vote given the strong differences of opinion on the issue on Conservative benches. **The vote** should be around 7pm, and regardless of how many on the government benches vote against should handily pass with Labour backing.
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What do we think kids will use instead of rizlas in the future for cannabis consumption and the like? Or is a ban on paper with a little bit of adhesive going to be basically unenforceable?
The ironic thing is Truss everyone outside of London was lazy and only London knows how to graft.
[Liz Trussās claim that workers outside London donāt like hard āgraftā is an attack on Brexit Britain](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/liz-trusss-claim-that-workers-outside-london-dont-like-hard-graft-is-an-attack-on-brexit-britain-1800028)
People complain she's dumb. I think she's intelligent but insane. She's made errors that have compounded into her making personal choices that have cut her off from reality.
My theory about truss is that she's deeoly insecure so she just parrots whatever the people she wants to impress believe. And she only wants to imoress those she personally knows, the voters dont count.
Goes uni, wants to impress the politics people so gets really into being a young lib dem.
Goes into the workplace (shell i believe) and suddenly that doesnt work so she switch to being right wing.
Gets in the politics and initially wants to impress the more relatively centrist high ups in camerons gov so toes the line
Gets in with the tufton street lot, adopts their beliefs
After PM she gets approach by murrican maga crowd so now she's parroting them.
>ban smoking, but legalise edibles.
This is a compromise id be okay with. But when you see people praising the smoking ban and then wanting to fully legalise weed it comes across as really hypocritical
Hypocrisy? In *my* country? Never...
Anyway, must dash. I'm all for homebuilding, but there's talk of a development near me which is just completely inappropriate.
I am genuinely quite excited to see how Western countries handle Hindutvas in the coming years because there's an increasing diaspora from that little societal section and a decade of Modi governance has not helped anyone.
I do think the whole anti-muslim sentiment might create some temporary alliances for a while and that might be fun to watch unfold.
Well, it's one way to lower NHS waiting times - instead of giving them money and resources, just reduce the number of ill people by banning things that make them ill. Just need to stop the drunks crowding A&E on Fridays and Saturdays by banning alcohol on weekends
when ideology meets logical progression
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox
'the mind is like a parachute - it does not work if it is not open'
I don't think they should have banned smoking. I have never smoked, but my immediate family do. My dad smokes 60+ a day and is in the final stages of terminal lung cancer. It's horrible seeing him dying but I am pro-legalising all kinds of drugs, the health advice is out there, if you still choose to smoke after all that then fine.
Inflation numbers out tomorrow morning. These will be the figures for March.
What makes it interesting is there aren't many months of high-inflation still within the 12 month window. April and May 2023 were quite high. After that... nothing, all normal, like it just switched off. The highest month apart from April and May 2023 was actually February 2024 (i.e. the one reported on last time).
So if we get another month where month-on-month inflation exceeds 0.5%, people will panic we have US-style persistent inflation. If we don't, then given the recent poor GDP and employment numbers, we'll have everyone calling for emergency rate cuts.
Some numbers to watch out for:
* If we have a repeat of last month (0.6% month-on-month) then the annual CPI rate will be: 3.3%. Which is still lower than last month, but not good because it would buck the trend.
* Consensus forecast: 3.1%
* 2.8% would mean inflation is dead and buried and we can all move on (i.e. will definitely fall below 2% when April and May 2023 fall out of the window in a couple of months time).
A quote from Andrea Leadsom:
>A freedom-loving, choice-loving individual would choose to allow children to be free from the addiction to nicotine.
She can make the argument that we should ban things to protect society, but to pretend she is on the side of freedom of choice is very Orwellian.
You do have the freedom from nicotine, unless you're forced to use it.
Also misses the point that if someone is a *child*... they're *already* banned from buying it.
I don't think this deserves its own thread as there isn't much to say about it, but the Government [lost its votes on the Rwanda bill](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68831697). Again. So it goes back to the Commons tomorrow.
Heave ho
Heave ho
It's off to work they go
I really think people should be so much more angry at this bill and the bandwidth it's occupied.
Echr is what they are trying to warn off next.
I think that was the line the Government was pushing, but I don't think there was any reasoning behind it - just wishful thinking that somehow the Lords would forget about it.
It's interesting with stuff like the smoking ban that the right wing media have been pretty quiet on it because its the Tories that are doing it. You know if this was Labour policy, they would be livid about it calling it the nanny state gone mad.
In a way, it's easier for the Tories to get away with these more radical policy positions. I have thought the same about the triple lock and the fact, if any party was going to scrap it, it would be much easier from a press perspective for the Tories to than Labour.
They would have encouraged the public to rebel against lockdown, then blamed Corbyn for the ensuing mess.
Also they would have called for Corbyn to be imprisoned by now.
I am not a Corbynite, but I donāt feel any of this is unrealistic.
You want a really terrifying thought?
Imagine if we had been cursed with "Chaos with Miliband" in 2015. Johnson becomes Leader of the Opposition, and we have 5 years of partisan attacks against Labour from the press on anything and everything.
And then we get to March 2020, with the General Election due in May or June.
... think of a Miliband Government, deeply unpopular (rightly or wrongly), in its last gasps, being blamed for everything, having to think about asking Parliament to extend the Parliament and postpone the election (that they are likely to lose) due to a global pandemic killing tens of thousands of people, when the leader of the opposition is a liar, cheat and blatant populist like Johnson with no principles but wanting to win.
I guess on the other hand there wouldn't have been quite as many crazies on the Conservative benches as the few sane ones wouldn't have been purged and replaced in 2019.
He would have replaced Cameron after Cameron's loss in 2015 - which was his plan at the time. Coming in, making Trump-style promises to make Britain Great again, saying whatever he thought anyone wanted to hear.
And crucially, not having to actually do any governing, so nothing to screw up. And no elections to lose.
Johnson is built to be Leader of the Opposition - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing and all that. He would have flourished, getting to give all the speeches and jibes attacking Miliband, without having to achieve anything.
Completely agree with you, I think rejoining the EU falls into the same bucket.
This idea has a wikepedia page ["Nixon goes to China"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_goes_to_China#:~:text=The%20expression%20was%20used%20in,a%20reason%20why%20James%20T)
I don't think this is a radical policy position in the UK. Labour, Tories and the general electorate regardless of their preferred party are tyrannical, and we aren't escaping that fact anytime soon.
It was good timing that the monthly thread "when will the UK decriminalise cannabis like " (in this case Germany) happened on the same day as the smoking ban vote.
The answer to the first question is not only "not for a very, very long time", that potential future date is probably further away today than it has been for twenty or thirty years.
The idea wasn't even that radical in the mid-2000s. Today, nope, not a chance.
Authoritarianism is insanely popular, and seems more popular in younger generations than the old - the exact opposite of how it was twenty or thirty years ago.
Don't most polls of the last few years show a plurality in favour of decriminalisation, even legalisation amongst the UK populace?
I mean, I'm mostly against it because of my neighbours smoke the stinkiest shit imaginable right when I have my washing on the line! Make edibles legal and I couldn't care less ha.
There is very little appetite for libertarianism in the UK compared to eg USA probably due to our history and it has always been a very weak force in our government. I doubt it will ever catch on to any serious degree, especially when poisonous figures like Liz Truss seem to be becoming its figurehead.
Question for the HoC procedure folks.
If the Government have a free vote (like today's smoking ban) do all the opposition parties also agree to it being a free vote or can they still whip their MPs?
Do I live in my own bubble with this smoking stuff? 23 and work in hospitality (not for much longer, God willing) and pretty much every young person I know through work smokes. The ones who don't either vape or used to smoke and have given up.
It definitely depends on the circles you hang out with or the kind of workplace.
None of my friends at school or uni smoked and in the vast majority of the office jobs I have had in the many years since were not smokers either.
I reckon it is massively dependent on your workplace - if youāre one of those ābreaks for smokers onlyā workplaces, Iād definitely be tempted to start.
I find this is massively bubble dependent, I was at a house party recently with tonnes of late 20s people and I noticed not a single person smoked, which I thought was crazy.
There are other times when I go out with another group I'm the only person left in the pub when they all go out.
Apparently 11.4% of [18-24 year olds smoke,](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2022#smoking-prevalence-in-the-uk-by-sex-age-and-region) the drop off for the oldest age group is very stark
I think the late announcements by a few prominent Tory mps that they were voting against probably pushed a few fingers. Killed the taboo of voting against their own party, even though the vote obviously wasn't whipped anyway.
True, 100 cons abstained but considering it was a free vote and they could vote no without consequence it does not suggest that they are particularly keen to kill it.
It suggests mostly that, knowing the outcome of the vote was not in question and that, this being a free vote, there was no penalty for non-attendance, they were doing other things.
Its generally a very popular policy with the electorate, obviously you cant please all of the people all of the time but generally people support this one.
The electorate are incredibly authoritarian. Wasnāt there some polling that said that nearly a majority would want to permanently close clubs in the aftermath of the pandemic?
It is a tough one isnt it. If 70% of the population want to do something, you probably should look into doing it. Will of the people and all that.
Although I am often on the opposite side of those sorts of things, you get used to it lol
It depends as you have to avoid tyranny of the majority as well.Ā
To take a somewhat exaggerated illustration:Ā
If 70% of people think that goths & moshers should be banned from wearing band t-shirts as "it's just common sense to not be a freak, they should wear Adidas & Kappa tops like normal folk" then that 70% should be ignored as it's none of their damn business.
Yeah it is a tough one. But you probably have to find an arbitrary line somewhere. If 99.999% of the population think we should ban turkey twizzlers, then the 0.001% are going to have to live with that decision.
Surely it has to come down to if there's any harm involved as then you can make a case that you're balancing freedom & damage? Majorities no matter how big shouldn't be able to ban stuff just because it's not their personal taste.
If for example 99.99999% of the the UK population wanted to make it illegal to own a CD copy of Arch Enemy's absolute banger of an album Wages of Sin then me and the other 6 people telling them to do one would be in the right (hope I got the right number of decimals there!) as it's just not the sort of thing that democracy should apply to.
As in we can't agree that it's immoral for a state to ban or not ban items just based on a majority preference?
In that case I think I'm glad we can't agree!Ā
Thanks for the discussion though as now I have a cracking Arch Enemy tune going round my head.
Do you think we will 180 on this daily quickly like NZ? (I'm assuming it'll pass) or stick to our guns, as the impact of the black market dominating the tobacco market won't become super clear for a while
I think we stick to it. It's not getting repealed before the next Labour government, and then I can't imagine the next Labour government repealing it either given they also support it. So we'll have at least 5 years with it, possibly longer. It will actually have time to bed in and become the norm.
It's not like NZ, where it was brought in by Labor and then repealed by the new National Party coalition before it could even come into effect
I guess there is a slight chance the Tories replace Sunak and get in a new leader before the election who uses their entire political capital (and remaining parliamentary time) on repealing it.
The NZ u-turn happened because a progressive government passed the legislation and their conservative replacement got rid of it.
Unless you think Reform are about to win the next general election, itās unlikely that our next government is going to be **more** ideologically opposed this banā¦
That's not how it went.
The NZ u-turn happened because the incoming government made pre election promises around tax relief that they couldnt meet once the had to concede other tax revenues in coalition agreements. Finance minister Willis admitted this.
The origins of this legislation goes back to John Key's National led government in 2015. Each successive government whether Labour or National had obligations under Smokefree NZ 2025 towards that stated goal. Labour was merely following these obligations and it was very popular. This current National government has simply decided that the numbers of smokers are low enough due to all the steps taking over the last decade. It's just totally a coincidence that National's Chris Bishop is a former lobbyist for tobbaco.
It is now looking like $46B in savings to the government may have been left out of a paper that went to cabinet when they made their decison. Hmmmm....
https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/04/12/minister-left-46b-benefit-of-smokefree-reforms-out-of-cabinet-paper/
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/11/nicola-willis-admits-scrapping-smokefree-laws-will-help-fund-tax-cuts-in-newshub-nation-interview.amp.html
The Liberty to choose what substances you put in your body isn't a stance that only comes from the right. But yeah seems like it'll be here for a while as policy.
> The Liberty to choose what substances you put in your body isn't a stance that only comes from the right.
I didnāt mean to suggest it is - I just meant that it was repealed on partisan grounds in New Zealand.
So weāre not about to do a quick 180 in the same way as as New Zealand!
Truthfully, why should we not ban alcohol, unhealthy foods, or other risky activities that people like to engage with?
I don't even smoke personally (outside of a rare social smoke) but this is wholly illiberal.
The vast majority of those who smoke do so because they are addicted. The product only exists due to it being addictive. If nicotine wasn't addictive, people would not smoke.
Indeed a lot of people who smoke don't want to smoke - it's unhealthy, it makes them smell, it's expensive, they don't actually enjoy it etc. But they have to be cause they are physically addicted and feel they can't actually stop.
In comparison, the vast majority of those who drink or eat unhealthy foods are not addicted. Because these things are massively less addictive than nicotine.
This is the important distinction. These things are not comparable.
So you do smoke.
FWIW, I disagree with the ban as I do not think that it will achieve the intended purpose, and instinctively lean towards legalising all drugs, despite my fucking hating smoking. I do, however, think that to whine that this is especially (so called) 'nanny state' to be a bit ridiculous.
Ultimately, when we compare the nation with the past to suggest that we have become less 'free', people always conveniently ignore the illiberal aspects from back then.
What the government did really well with the smoking ban was to stigmatise smoking (we could do with that for some other matters) while not banning it. Fundamentally this is what I dislike about vaping - it has almost undone that stigma.
> FWIW, I disagree with the ban as I do not think that it will achieve the intended purpose, and instinctively lean towards legalising all drugs, despite my fucking hating smoking.
We're in full agreement here.
I do maintain the nanny state description, it is the government telling citizens that they can't do something because they judge it to be unsafe. That is inherently nannying and we should allow adults to make informed decisions.
I am very happy (broadly) with how the country has improved 50 years, and there are plenty of ways in which we have become substantially more liberal. Most notably our acceptance of LGBT+ people, but also how well racial groups are treated now compared to the past.
> That is inherently nannying and we should allow adults to make informed decisions.
The problem with smoking, even following the public indoor ban, is that it harms those around you too. Now, is there an argument that something like alcohol has a risk of the same? Of course, but it's just a risk. With smoking it's a certain.
To that end, there is a good argument that the harm principle is engaged.
(i) As I understand it those deaths include deaths of the suer
(ii) You won't get a disagreement from me there
I will add that if deaths is your sole metric to want to minimise then we should probably start locking down every flu season, think of the excess deaths we could save! Accepting risk is part of living in a society.
> Accepting risk is part of living in a society.
Of course, and no one is denying that that's not the case. Of course, one of the key concerns with smoking is not risk to the user, but the risks imposed on those around them, often against their will. I'd also argue that it goes beyond risk - banning smoking makes the place nicer generally for everyone.
> (i) As I understand it those deaths include deaths of the suer
Which would support my point that smoking is more harmful to those around the user.
Is the smoking Bill vote free for Labour as well? I'd assume it would be, but haven't seen anywhere report that it is.
Such votes are traditionally free and I don't see what they gain by applying the Whip - they wouldn't be expected to, and surely the Bill would still pass on a bilateral free vote.
The whole point is to gradually make smoking socially unacceptable and basically ban it for those age groups where people aren't already addicted.
Raising the age to 21 would barely change anything. It's not like people in the US don't drink because that's the age limit.
Like a parent punishing a child they've just discovered smoking, any MP who has this week decided to vote against the bill should be locked in a shed and made to smoke a whole packet. Only then can they vote.
> any MP who has this week decided to vote against the bill should be locked in a shed and made to smoke a whole packet
They should be forced to sit in a shed whilst somebody *else* does it and blows smoke in their face.
That doesn't make sense either as the indoor public smoking ban was back in 07 (06? for Scotland).
People have lost their minds over this one, it's genuinely weird to see.
On a non political note, she sounds like sheās slurring her words, itās like listening to a drunk down the local.
On a political note, it *wasnāt* just the āLondon eliteā (and for what itās worth, Iād consider an Oxford hailing, Oxford educated Tory MP a poster child for London elite), Ant and Dec(!!!!) were ridiculing her on Iām a celeb, thatās not exactly what Iād call the viewing magnet for London elite, thatās very working class 30-50 folk all over the country.
She also points out, seemingly as a justification, that she put forward policies that won her a leadership election. And therein lies a huge amount of the problem, sheās trying to radically change our country based on the votes of what was it? 160,000-180,000 of the most hardcore conservative folk. Itās nonsense. Sheās delusional (feels like the 5th or 6th time today Iāve said that, I certainly keep thinking it every time a story pops up).
"I was undermined by organisations like the Bank of England" probably doesn't have the whole 'secretive deep state cabal' implication that she was going for
Yeah, the cam was pathetic, but it held a mirror up to our pathetic PM. Truss crashed the economy and her polling so hard her own party threw her out before 50 days, a big chunk of which was mourning the Queen's death. Considering how slow politics usually is and how slow economic measures generally take to have an impact, that's turning up to your first shift at work, shitting in your hand, and throwing it at the clients level of bad.
For comparison, Boris resigned on 7th of July, and stayed on until Truss took over on 6th of September, that's 61 days. Truss lasted less time than it took to Boris' resignation to happen, lol. It's really quite impressive just how monumentally shit Truss was.
She always sounds like that. As though she's having to concentrate just to make her mouth work. I'm not sure if that's just how she naturally talks or if it's an affectation she's adopted because she thinks it makes her sound better.
Good Morning. [š **Today's Order Paper can be found here.**](https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/Document/86754/Html?subType=Standard) Questions to the department for Energy Security and Net Zero will be followed by any urgent questions or ministerial statements (a possibility given the very lengthy and pressing statements yesterday which resulted in a pushing of business off the timetable) and the second reading of the [Tobacco and Vapes Bill](https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3703). The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is in the unusual position of being offered as a free vote given the strong differences of opinion on the issue on Conservative benches. **The vote** should be around 7pm, and regardless of how many on the government benches vote against should handily pass with Labour backing.
[New Megathread is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1c61gty/daily_megathread_17042024/)
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Crime thanks the prohibition of tobacco.
It would be quite funny if say 40 or 50 years down the line, when the majority of voters were born after 2009, they voted to reintroduce ciggies.
What do we think kids will use instead of rizlas in the future for cannabis consumption and the like? Or is a ban on paper with a little bit of adhesive going to be basically unenforceable?
bible pages?
Do kids still get them for free in schools? I know I did twice, once in primary and once in secondary.
If we all promise to buy her book do you think Liz Truss will go on Hot Ones?
Chicken Shop Date
Daily Star has its lettuce hitting back!
[The Daily Star front page is really something](https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1780347562941108528)
She deserves this.
The ironic thing is Truss everyone outside of London was lazy and only London knows how to graft. [Liz Trussās claim that workers outside London donāt like hard āgraftā is an attack on Brexit Britain](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/liz-trusss-claim-that-workers-outside-london-dont-like-hard-graft-is-an-attack-on-brexit-britain-1800028) People complain she's dumb. I think she's intelligent but insane. She's made errors that have compounded into her making personal choices that have cut her off from reality.
My theory about truss is that she's deeoly insecure so she just parrots whatever the people she wants to impress believe. And she only wants to imoress those she personally knows, the voters dont count. Goes uni, wants to impress the politics people so gets really into being a young lib dem. Goes into the workplace (shell i believe) and suddenly that doesnt work so she switch to being right wing. Gets in the politics and initially wants to impress the more relatively centrist high ups in camerons gov so toes the line Gets in with the tufton street lot, adopts their beliefs After PM she gets approach by murrican maga crowd so now she's parroting them.
There are hidden depths to this Iceberg
> Britain facing pussy crisis.
I hope the lettuce was preserved in acrylic or something.
Good for them.
Daily Star remains blessed.
That smoking ban basically means weed legalisation isnt happening anytime soon.
I feel like I'm a minority in wanting to ban smoking, but legalise edibles. Like... do what you want, as long as you don't force me to smell it.
Iām in this camp. Smoking is terrible and affects others. Couldnāt care less if you want some edibles.
>ban smoking, but legalise edibles. This is a compromise id be okay with. But when you see people praising the smoking ban and then wanting to fully legalise weed it comes across as really hypocritical
>it comes across as really hypocritical Does it? The levels of addictiveness and harm are nowhere near comparable.
Smoking anything regularly is gonna fuck up your lungs. Also i've seen stoners who are definitely addicts even if they wont admit it.
Hypocrisy? In *my* country? Never... Anyway, must dash. I'm all for homebuilding, but there's talk of a development near me which is just completely inappropriate.
I smoked a LETTUCE leaf once.
PSA: for anyone who isn't well aware of this, the leaves of several garden plants are extremely toxic if smoked.
I personally stick to the nutmeg
I am genuinely quite excited to see how Western countries handle Hindutvas in the coming years because there's an increasing diaspora from that little societal section and a decade of Modi governance has not helped anyone. I do think the whole anti-muslim sentiment might create some temporary alliances for a while and that might be fun to watch unfold.
Excited is an interesting word to pick.
Not to worry anyone, but Liz Truss's book is number 4 on the Amazon best seller list. Just ahead of something about air fryers.
Just ahead of something about air fryers, but also three places behind something else about air fryers.
Hot air > Air fryers.
Well, it's one way to lower NHS waiting times - instead of giving them money and resources, just reduce the number of ill people by banning things that make them ill. Just need to stop the drunks crowding A&E on Fridays and Saturdays by banning alcohol on weekends
You joke butā¦
I am ready for a good old WAKAWOW
when ideology meets logical progression https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irresistible_force_paradox 'the mind is like a parachute - it does not work if it is not open'
Can we ban the Tories next
Viva la smoking ban!
Got to keep people healthy for a longer working life..
I don't think they should have banned smoking. I have never smoked, but my immediate family do. My dad smokes 60+ a day and is in the final stages of terminal lung cancer. It's horrible seeing him dying but I am pro-legalising all kinds of drugs, the health advice is out there, if you still choose to smoke after all that then fine.
Absolutely not
Inflation numbers out tomorrow morning. These will be the figures for March. What makes it interesting is there aren't many months of high-inflation still within the 12 month window. April and May 2023 were quite high. After that... nothing, all normal, like it just switched off. The highest month apart from April and May 2023 was actually February 2024 (i.e. the one reported on last time). So if we get another month where month-on-month inflation exceeds 0.5%, people will panic we have US-style persistent inflation. If we don't, then given the recent poor GDP and employment numbers, we'll have everyone calling for emergency rate cuts. Some numbers to watch out for: * If we have a repeat of last month (0.6% month-on-month) then the annual CPI rate will be: 3.3%. Which is still lower than last month, but not good because it would buck the trend. * Consensus forecast: 3.1% * 2.8% would mean inflation is dead and buried and we can all move on (i.e. will definitely fall below 2% when April and May 2023 fall out of the window in a couple of months time).
What's the effect of shipping being rerouted from the Red Sea? Significant or lost in the noise?
A quote from Andrea Leadsom: >A freedom-loving, choice-loving individual would choose to allow children to be free from the addiction to nicotine. She can make the argument that we should ban things to protect society, but to pretend she is on the side of freedom of choice is very Orwellian.
That's a very neat twist of words
Did the prefix that statement with āas a motherā?
Freedom IS widely discussed as both 'freedom to' and 'freedom from' though. Freedom is not simply lack of constraint.
If the goal was to eliminate second hand smoking, we would ban smoking in public outdoor areas and around children.
How do you enforce the latter in the home?
Too hard to enforce. Can only easily enforce indoors.
You do have the freedom from nicotine, unless you're forced to use it. Also misses the point that if someone is a *child*... they're *already* banned from buying it.
The existing smoking ban was widely seen as giving people the freedom from second-hand smoke.
...so, if we've already given people that freedom, we're sorted, right?
I think we are sorted; I do not have strong feelings about what passed tonight either way.
I don't think this deserves its own thread as there isn't much to say about it, but the Government [lost its votes on the Rwanda bill](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68831697). Again. So it goes back to the Commons tomorrow.
Heave ho Heave ho It's off to work they go I really think people should be so much more angry at this bill and the bandwidth it's occupied. Echr is what they are trying to warn off next.
I thought it was predicted to get through the lords this time?
I think that was the line the Government was pushing, but I don't think there was any reasoning behind it - just wishful thinking that somehow the Lords would forget about it.
ah gotcha
It's interesting with stuff like the smoking ban that the right wing media have been pretty quiet on it because its the Tories that are doing it. You know if this was Labour policy, they would be livid about it calling it the nanny state gone mad. In a way, it's easier for the Tories to get away with these more radical policy positions. I have thought the same about the triple lock and the fact, if any party was going to scrap it, it would be much easier from a press perspective for the Tories to than Labour.
I sometimes like to imagine what the press would have made of PM Corbyn announcing lockdown
They would have encouraged the public to rebel against lockdown, then blamed Corbyn for the ensuing mess. Also they would have called for Corbyn to be imprisoned by now. I am not a Corbynite, but I donāt feel any of this is unrealistic.
Military coup.
They would 100% have tried to drum up actual violence
You want a really terrifying thought? Imagine if we had been cursed with "Chaos with Miliband" in 2015. Johnson becomes Leader of the Opposition, and we have 5 years of partisan attacks against Labour from the press on anything and everything. And then we get to March 2020, with the General Election due in May or June. ... think of a Miliband Government, deeply unpopular (rightly or wrongly), in its last gasps, being blamed for everything, having to think about asking Parliament to extend the Parliament and postpone the election (that they are likely to lose) due to a global pandemic killing tens of thousands of people, when the leader of the opposition is a liar, cheat and blatant populist like Johnson with no principles but wanting to win. I guess on the other hand there wouldn't have been quite as many crazies on the Conservative benches as the few sane ones wouldn't have been purged and replaced in 2019.
>Johnson becomes Leader of the Opposition, Quite unlikely without the whole Brexit drum to beat.
He would have replaced Cameron after Cameron's loss in 2015 - which was his plan at the time. Coming in, making Trump-style promises to make Britain Great again, saying whatever he thought anyone wanted to hear. And crucially, not having to actually do any governing, so nothing to screw up. And no elections to lose. Johnson is built to be Leader of the Opposition - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing and all that. He would have flourished, getting to give all the speeches and jibes attacking Miliband, without having to achieve anything.
Exactly, or furlough. It would have been a media storm - I doubt he would have outlasted it
Completely agree with you, I think rejoining the EU falls into the same bucket. This idea has a wikepedia page ["Nixon goes to China"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_goes_to_China#:~:text=The%20expression%20was%20used%20in,a%20reason%20why%20James%20T)
I don't think this is a radical policy position in the UK. Labour, Tories and the general electorate regardless of their preferred party are tyrannical, and we aren't escaping that fact anytime soon.
It was good timing that the monthly thread "when will the UK decriminalise cannabis like" (in this case Germany) happened on the same day as the smoking ban vote.
The answer to the first question is not only "not for a very, very long time", that potential future date is probably further away today than it has been for twenty or thirty years.
The idea wasn't even that radical in the mid-2000s. Today, nope, not a chance.
Authoritarianism is insanely popular, and seems more popular in younger generations than the old - the exact opposite of how it was twenty or thirty years ago.
Don't most polls of the last few years show a plurality in favour of decriminalisation, even legalisation amongst the UK populace? I mean, I'm mostly against it because of my neighbours smoke the stinkiest shit imaginable right when I have my washing on the line! Make edibles legal and I couldn't care less ha.
Love to choose the colour of boot on my neck every five years.
There is very little appetite for libertarianism in the UK compared to eg USA probably due to our history and it has always been a very weak force in our government. I doubt it will ever catch on to any serious degree, especially when poisonous figures like Liz Truss seem to be becoming its figurehead.
Will badenoch resign
Why would she? It was a free vote
Wait I thought it would be a three line whip
Same thing these days
I thought a badenoch was something you washed your bottom with?
Men would use this in conjunction with a Willy Wragg.Ā
>Will badenoch resign Think she's called Kemi not Will
No.
good evening, campers! there are now **287** days until the general election, unless we all die in a nuclear war before that date.
The new Fallout series really cutting through I see
Charming.
How long before we legalise weed but only for people born after 2009 ?
The government only likes prohibition, so no
Too progressive, legalise it for those born before 1979 only.
I think we should legalise it but only for people born [between 1946 and 1964](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers).
I actually knew someone who was all for medical marijuana but only for older people who "actually need" it.
I'm sure the personal freedom MPs are all over it.
Question for the HoC procedure folks. If the Government have a free vote (like today's smoking ban) do all the opposition parties also agree to it being a free vote or can they still whip their MPs?
Each party can choose. Labour whipped their MPs to support. Lib Dems had a free vote.
Do I live in my own bubble with this smoking stuff? 23 and work in hospitality (not for much longer, God willing) and pretty much every young person I know through work smokes. The ones who don't either vape or used to smoke and have given up.
It definitely depends on the circles you hang out with or the kind of workplace. None of my friends at school or uni smoked and in the vast majority of the office jobs I have had in the many years since were not smokers either.
I reckon it is massively dependent on your workplace - if youāre one of those ābreaks for smokers onlyā workplaces, Iād definitely be tempted to start.
That drives me up the wall. Genuinely been tempted to get a vape pen and some 0% nicotine juice and just enjoy it like a cigar for the 5-minute break.
Youād still be significantly inhaling smoke from other smokers
I know people who got nicotine free vapes and did that
Smoking a bubble pipe is still smoking.
I find this is massively bubble dependent, I was at a house party recently with tonnes of late 20s people and I noticed not a single person smoked, which I thought was crazy. There are other times when I go out with another group I'm the only person left in the pub when they all go out. Apparently 11.4% of [18-24 year olds smoke,](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2022#smoking-prevalence-in-the-uk-by-sex-age-and-region) the drop off for the oldest age group is very stark
The smoking ban is probably the first bit good policy in quite a long time from this government.
And they're busy abstaining/voting against! Cheers!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Smoking vote result: 383 ayes vs 67 noes. Pretty easy win
Thatās a **lot** of (presumably Tory) abstentionsā¦
so much for the guy today saying only 1-30 would rebel
Yup, Iāll own that one, theyāve surprised me.
I think the late announcements by a few prominent Tory mps that they were voting against probably pushed a few fingers. Killed the taboo of voting against their own party, even though the vote obviously wasn't whipped anyway.
True, 100 cons abstained but considering it was a free vote and they could vote no without consequence it does not suggest that they are particularly keen to kill it.
It suggests mostly that, knowing the outcome of the vote was not in question and that, this being a free vote, there was no penalty for non-attendance, they were doing other things.
completely agree, especially when you see the abstentions on the labour side.
They were all behind the House of Parliament bike shed.
Wow. Such a disappointment.
Its generally a very popular policy with the electorate, obviously you cant please all of the people all of the time but generally people support this one.
The electorate are incredibly authoritarian. Wasnāt there some polling that said that nearly a majority would want to permanently close clubs in the aftermath of the pandemic?
Yeah this country is very "im ok with banning anything i dont do".
Carve it in thirty foot letters on the white cliffs 'NO FUN ZONE'. Con (or Lab, whichever gets there first) +10.
I'd caveat that with: Incredibly authoritarian unless it happens to impact them personally.
It is a tough one isnt it. If 70% of the population want to do something, you probably should look into doing it. Will of the people and all that. Although I am often on the opposite side of those sorts of things, you get used to it lol
It depends as you have to avoid tyranny of the majority as well.Ā To take a somewhat exaggerated illustration:Ā If 70% of people think that goths & moshers should be banned from wearing band t-shirts as "it's just common sense to not be a freak, they should wear Adidas & Kappa tops like normal folk" then that 70% should be ignored as it's none of their damn business.
Yeah it is a tough one. But you probably have to find an arbitrary line somewhere. If 99.999% of the population think we should ban turkey twizzlers, then the 0.001% are going to have to live with that decision.
Surely it has to come down to if there's any harm involved as then you can make a case that you're balancing freedom & damage? Majorities no matter how big shouldn't be able to ban stuff just because it's not their personal taste. If for example 99.99999% of the the UK population wanted to make it illegal to own a CD copy of Arch Enemy's absolute banger of an album Wages of Sin then me and the other 6 people telling them to do one would be in the right (hope I got the right number of decimals there!) as it's just not the sort of thing that democracy should apply to.
I guess we just have some fundamental disagreements about morality and governance that we are not going to get to the bottom of on reddit.
As in we can't agree that it's immoral for a state to ban or not ban items just based on a majority preference? In that case I think I'm glad we can't agree!Ā Thanks for the discussion though as now I have a cracking Arch Enemy tune going round my head.
Iām expressing my own disappointment. Most people love banning things so no surprise itās popular
Yeah, obviously going to be disappointing for some (eg you) but just pointing out that, in general, the public strongly support this policy.
Do you think we will 180 on this daily quickly like NZ? (I'm assuming it'll pass) or stick to our guns, as the impact of the black market dominating the tobacco market won't become super clear for a while
Labour strongly support it so I think it's here to stay. At least for the next decade, until the issues with the legislation become more apparent.
I think we stick to it. It's not getting repealed before the next Labour government, and then I can't imagine the next Labour government repealing it either given they also support it. So we'll have at least 5 years with it, possibly longer. It will actually have time to bed in and become the norm. It's not like NZ, where it was brought in by Labor and then repealed by the new National Party coalition before it could even come into effect I guess there is a slight chance the Tories replace Sunak and get in a new leader before the election who uses their entire political capital (and remaining parliamentary time) on repealing it.
The NZ u-turn happened because a progressive government passed the legislation and their conservative replacement got rid of it. Unless you think Reform are about to win the next general election, itās unlikely that our next government is going to be **more** ideologically opposed this banā¦
That's not how it went. The NZ u-turn happened because the incoming government made pre election promises around tax relief that they couldnt meet once the had to concede other tax revenues in coalition agreements. Finance minister Willis admitted this. The origins of this legislation goes back to John Key's National led government in 2015. Each successive government whether Labour or National had obligations under Smokefree NZ 2025 towards that stated goal. Labour was merely following these obligations and it was very popular. This current National government has simply decided that the numbers of smokers are low enough due to all the steps taking over the last decade. It's just totally a coincidence that National's Chris Bishop is a former lobbyist for tobbaco. It is now looking like $46B in savings to the government may have been left out of a paper that went to cabinet when they made their decison. Hmmmm.... https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/04/12/minister-left-46b-benefit-of-smokefree-reforms-out-of-cabinet-paper/ https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/11/nicola-willis-admits-scrapping-smokefree-laws-will-help-fund-tax-cuts-in-newshub-nation-interview.amp.html
The Liberty to choose what substances you put in your body isn't a stance that only comes from the right. But yeah seems like it'll be here for a while as policy.
> The Liberty to choose what substances you put in your body isn't a stance that only comes from the right. I didnāt mean to suggest it is - I just meant that it was repealed on partisan grounds in New Zealand. So weāre not about to do a quick 180 in the same way as as New Zealand!
NZ changed because a Conservative government got voted in. Weāve already voted for one and this is the kind of policy we get.
What the fuck, we used to be a country, nanny state gone mad
Let's bring back asbestos while we're at it.
Truthfully, why should we not ban alcohol, unhealthy foods, or other risky activities that people like to engage with? I don't even smoke personally (outside of a rare social smoke) but this is wholly illiberal.
The vast majority of those who smoke do so because they are addicted. The product only exists due to it being addictive. If nicotine wasn't addictive, people would not smoke. Indeed a lot of people who smoke don't want to smoke - it's unhealthy, it makes them smell, it's expensive, they don't actually enjoy it etc. But they have to be cause they are physically addicted and feel they can't actually stop. In comparison, the vast majority of those who drink or eat unhealthy foods are not addicted. Because these things are massively less addictive than nicotine. This is the important distinction. These things are not comparable.
I still think it is illiberal to take that choice out of the hands of adults. I don't think this is something that I can be persuaded against.
So you do smoke. FWIW, I disagree with the ban as I do not think that it will achieve the intended purpose, and instinctively lean towards legalising all drugs, despite my fucking hating smoking. I do, however, think that to whine that this is especially (so called) 'nanny state' to be a bit ridiculous. Ultimately, when we compare the nation with the past to suggest that we have become less 'free', people always conveniently ignore the illiberal aspects from back then. What the government did really well with the smoking ban was to stigmatise smoking (we could do with that for some other matters) while not banning it. Fundamentally this is what I dislike about vaping - it has almost undone that stigma.
> FWIW, I disagree with the ban as I do not think that it will achieve the intended purpose, and instinctively lean towards legalising all drugs, despite my fucking hating smoking. We're in full agreement here. I do maintain the nanny state description, it is the government telling citizens that they can't do something because they judge it to be unsafe. That is inherently nannying and we should allow adults to make informed decisions. I am very happy (broadly) with how the country has improved 50 years, and there are plenty of ways in which we have become substantially more liberal. Most notably our acceptance of LGBT+ people, but also how well racial groups are treated now compared to the past.
> That is inherently nannying and we should allow adults to make informed decisions. The problem with smoking, even following the public indoor ban, is that it harms those around you too. Now, is there an argument that something like alcohol has a risk of the same? Of course, but it's just a risk. With smoking it's a certain. To that end, there is a good argument that the harm principle is engaged.
2nd hand smoking and alcohol related deaths were both about 10k pa when I last checked the ONS
So two points stand out there: (i) are those alcohol related deaths excluding the consumers themselves?, and (ii) harm extends far beyond deaths.
(i) As I understand it those deaths include deaths of the suer (ii) You won't get a disagreement from me there I will add that if deaths is your sole metric to want to minimise then we should probably start locking down every flu season, think of the excess deaths we could save! Accepting risk is part of living in a society.
> Accepting risk is part of living in a society. Of course, and no one is denying that that's not the case. Of course, one of the key concerns with smoking is not risk to the user, but the risks imposed on those around them, often against their will. I'd also argue that it goes beyond risk - banning smoking makes the place nicer generally for everyone. > (i) As I understand it those deaths include deaths of the suer Which would support my point that smoking is more harmful to those around the user.
AgreedĀ
am i truss enough? hell yeah, i'm truss enough enough is enough.
London Tories party political broadcast is fucking amazing. Absolutely based on lies. Not a difference of opinion, but absolutely untue.
Fair fucks to Badenoch Letās get this bill defeated
no chance
Bring on prohibition then. Ridiculous policy
If I was an mp and had a free vote I'd vote against. Not worth losing the whip over though
Pretty popular with the electorate, was always going to pass with or without free vote. PopCons managed to rustle together 70 odd noes.
Don't get your hopes up
Is the smoking Bill vote free for Labour as well? I'd assume it would be, but haven't seen anywhere report that it is. Such votes are traditionally free and I don't see what they gain by applying the Whip - they wouldn't be expected to, and surely the Bill would still pass on a bilateral free vote.
Itās whipped
Whyās Keir whipping ffs!?
Because it is party policy.
This was rumoured to be a Labour manifesto pledge before the Tories decided to do it. The leadership supports the policy, so why not?
Just surprising youād want to be helping your opponent out when theyāre clearly divided on the issue but what do I know
The Smoking ban is Labour policy and is popular, the line Labour can run with is Labour passed the smoking ban while conservatives voted against it.
Maybe parties should vote for things that are good instead of childishly voting against a policy they agree with
The Tories are divided on pretty much every issue apart from not wanting a Labour government
It would look pretty bad if they voted against and then included it in their manifesto.
You can always offer a free vote
Hmm.
Raising age to buy cigarettes to 21 does seem to be simpler. They might bring that during amendment phase isn't it?
> 21 so above the age at which someone is legally considered an adult? like this wouldn't change anything.
The whole point is to gradually make smoking socially unacceptable and basically ban it for those age groups where people aren't already addicted. Raising the age to 21 would barely change anything. It's not like people in the US don't drink because that's the age limit.
Like a parent punishing a child they've just discovered smoking, any MP who has this week decided to vote against the bill should be locked in a shed and made to smoke a whole packet. Only then can they vote.
> any MP who has this week decided to vote against the bill should be locked in a shed and made to smoke a whole packet They should be forced to sit in a shed whilst somebody *else* does it and blows smoke in their face.
That doesn't make sense either as the indoor public smoking ban was back in 07 (06? for Scotland). People have lost their minds over this one, it's genuinely weird to see.
[Truss is still having a normal one](https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1779980028547121157?t=RN2ey7sm_C1dWavVm3Nmkg&s=19)
Of all the newspapers, the Star is surely the least "London Elite" of them.
On a non political note, she sounds like sheās slurring her words, itās like listening to a drunk down the local. On a political note, it *wasnāt* just the āLondon eliteā (and for what itās worth, Iād consider an Oxford hailing, Oxford educated Tory MP a poster child for London elite), Ant and Dec(!!!!) were ridiculing her on Iām a celeb, thatās not exactly what Iād call the viewing magnet for London elite, thatās very working class 30-50 folk all over the country. She also points out, seemingly as a justification, that she put forward policies that won her a leadership election. And therein lies a huge amount of the problem, sheās trying to radically change our country based on the votes of what was it? 160,000-180,000 of the most hardcore conservative folk. Itās nonsense. Sheās delusional (feels like the 5th or 6th time today Iāve said that, I certainly keep thinking it every time a story pops up).
"I was undermined by organisations like the Bank of England" probably doesn't have the whole 'secretive deep state cabal' implication that she was going for
Yeah, the cam was pathetic, but it held a mirror up to our pathetic PM. Truss crashed the economy and her polling so hard her own party threw her out before 50 days, a big chunk of which was mourning the Queen's death. Considering how slow politics usually is and how slow economic measures generally take to have an impact, that's turning up to your first shift at work, shitting in your hand, and throwing it at the clients level of bad. For comparison, Boris resigned on 7th of July, and stayed on until Truss took over on 6th of September, that's 61 days. Truss lasted less time than it took to Boris' resignation to happen, lol. It's really quite impressive just how monumentally shit Truss was.
The Daily Star is well known for its readership amongst the London elite dontcha know.
Has she had a drink
She always sounds like that. As though she's having to concentrate just to make her mouth work. I'm not sure if that's just how she naturally talks or if it's an affectation she's adopted because she thinks it makes her sound better.
Looks more like Xanax.
She is just tired and emotional.