Smoke & Mirrors

So the Tobacco and Vapes Bill passed its second reading by pretty much a landslide: the 67 votes agin I would guess coming from the cohort of inveterate cigar smokers on the Tory back benches. Yet another bread and circuses gesture on the government's behalf, aimed at deflecting attention from the real issues at hand: climate, the economy, inequality, poverty, a decimated health and social care system, local authorities in a financial death-spiral, polluted rivers, out-of-control cost of living, completely stuffed public services generally, und so weiter, ad nauseam. There are so many more important issues to deal with, caused primarily by Conservative non-policies and fourteen years of ineptitude and laissez faire shirking of responsibility [for just about anything and everything]: that pissing about with a tobacco ban - that will take a generation to take effect anyway [down the road it goes...] - is just plainly and obviously diversionary, much like their ridiculous witch hunt of Angela Rayner or the small boats debacle.

Two things seem to have escaped their notice: one, the number of people smoking has drastically reduced over the last thirty years, due to a combination of better awareness of its health ramifications, and the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces; and two, the sheer expense of taking up the habit in the first place: the Tories' beloved market forces already doing a decent enough job of putting people off, anyway. The focus should be entirely on regulating and reducing the vaping market to a bare minimum: at the moment, big tobacco is being allowed to regain its lost smoking revenue in the West via the back door. I wonder how many portfolios amongst the wealthy are still investing in big tobacco for just that reason? Anyhow, if you make something illegal, it just gets more attractive anyway, driving it into the Black Market, so the problem remains and the government loses out on revenue in the end through lost taxation. Who on earth said the Conservatives were the party of business? They couldn't run a bloody lemonade stall... By the way, I smoked for forty years after getting hooked on nicotine at the age of eleven, in which time I consumed over a quarter of a million cigarettes, which at todays prices amounts to over £200,000 in outlay. Bugger...