Farking hell!Nanny is still going on about farking fags!
She really ought to get some therapy over this unhealthy obsession with smoking and fag related issues.
Anyhoo, this time Nanny has decided that taxation, banning adverts, banning smoking in public places etc is still not enough to demonise the evil weed. Nanny now wants fags to be sold "under the counter", shops will be banned from displaying tobacco products. Vending machines in pubs and restaurants will also be banned.
Why?
Nanny seems to think that this will reduce the number of children who start smoking.
I didn't know kids regularly wandered into pubs, unchallenged, and bought fags.
Nanny's best chum Dawn Primarolo (once known as "Red Dawn" for extremist left views), the Minister for Public Health, says that this new measure if implemented will save lives:
"It's vital we get across the message to children that smoking is bad. If that means stripping out vending machines or removing cigarettes from behind the counter, I'm willing to do that."
How very "noble" of her!
The consultation process will begin in late May, once complete Nanny will then ignore the results and push ahead anyway.
OK, so here's why this idea is bollocks:
- This will drive fag selling to the underworld, thus boosting the revenues of criminals and low life scum (just as drugs, gambling and booze bans have all done in the past).
- Children are instinctively drawn to anything deemed to be naughty or illegal, this makes fags even more tempting to them.
- Small/corner shops do not have the space to have an "under the counter" operation. This will effectively destroy the corner shops, and leave the supermarkets in control of what we buy.
- Aside from fags, shops sell a whole myriad of products that Nanny hates (sweets, chocolates, booze, porn, pies, pasties, patties etc); will these be banned too? Another nail in the coffin of the corner shops, which only survive because they sell these products.
- We live in a free market economy, shops have the right to display whatever products they wish in any manner that they wish. Consumers have the right to buy whatever they wish.
- Fag packets have to be least inspiring piece of marketing design on the planet, there is nothing intrinsically attractive about them; ie they are not at all tempting.
- Nanny makes a nice little earner from the tax on fags, what is she going to do without that revenue stream?
- Once Nanny has banned fags, she will ban; booze, meat, fat, milk, eggs, cheese, sweets, chocolate etc. The fanatics who push for these bans "get off" from the power kick it gives them, they like to control the lives of others.
- The argument put forward by Nanny and the butchers' profession that lives and money will be saved, misses a rather essential point. Fags generate tax revenue, which in part goes to pay for the health care of those who become ill from fag related issues. Remove the fags, and you remove the revenue stream and allegedly "grant" people a longer life.
However, those that live to a "ripe old age" are invariably condemned to years of senility, dementia, frailty, pain and misery in one of Nanny's horrific geriatric wards; ie they are condemned to a living death. These wards cost money to maintain, but the costs are not offset by taxes on fags; therefore the costs to society of an ageing population in terms of money and suffering terms are higher. - Nanny and the butchers' profession ignores the fact that it's not the length of life that counts, but the quality.
We as a society are ignoring the fundamental problem that extending people's life spans, without taking into account the quality of those extended lifespans, is storing up trouble for the future and wrong.
The butchers' profession and Nanny do not have the moral right to force us to live longer than we were physically/mentally designed to do.
Background on Red Dawn:
Dawn Primarolo spent ten years at the Treasury as a minister under Gordon Brown, a sentence longer than many serious criminals have to serve. In that job, it is fair to say that she was not universally commended for her competence, more often than not being wheeled out to take a Commons beating for some Treasury blunder or other.
Despite campaigning against the first Gulf War in 1991, she voted in favour of invading Iraq in 2003, and against any investigation into the invasion after it had taken place. She has voted in favour of ID cards and increased university tuition fees.
As Paymaster General, Dawn Primarolo was responsible for the administration of the Tax Credits system, intended to provide working families with financial support. This system is of course a complete shambles (see www.hmrcisshite.com).
In 2003, a Treasury select committee member accused her of "losing control of her department" after it became known that Inland Revenue buildings under Primarolo's control had been sold to tax-haven companies. This came shortly after she had "insisted ... the Child tax credit scheme was a "success"", despite Inland Revenue staff walking out in protest against the pressure they were being placed under.
In 2005, PM Tony Blair was forced to apologise after a report by the Parliamentary Ombudsman that Primarolo had failed to give Parliament accurate information. Primarolo admitted at the same time that she had been fully aware "about the extent of the problems".
She was responsible for introducing the controversial IR35 tax rules.
In July 2007 she was appointed minister of state at the Department of Health.
How many hospitals has she ever visited, during her tenure in orifice?
ZERO!
She doesn't like fat people either.
Here is her email address primarolod@parliament.uk, why not drop her a line?
We have this ruling here in Thailand, and it just doesn't work at all, every one still smokes, all shops selling tobacco just have a sign in the window saying that they do.
ReplyDeleteHow ever what it has done is made changing your brand harder, as I cannot see what is on offer I always buy the same brand, basically the most popular here as it is certain any shop will have them in stock. So I have no idea if there are cheaper or lighter smokes on offer.
It takes away choice alone, and maybe thats in the intrests of some of the major tabacco companies.
Interesting observations, Anonymous 2:38 AM
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that many kids are tempted to start smoking when presented with the possibility during anti-smoking education.
In any case Nanny, perhaps only tacitly, likely agrees with the Optimum Population Trust and its call for drastic population reduction. Nanny would not really like less people to push around BUT if she is to achieve her Carbon 'pollution' reduction objectives without having to submit to severe punishment for failure, population reduction would seem to be the only way forward.
A two pronged strategy should work for her.
The first prong would be to make the country such an unpleasant place to live that people leave.
Whilst Nanny UK is clearly working on that and has been for some time she has a lot of competition from other countries that, in effect, leaves people with no suitable alternative location to move to. In the current climate the success of this strategy is far from guaranteed.
The second prong is simply to reduce population regeneration. In other words encourage the people to avoid having children. Now it occurs to me that this would be much more effective if those children that are produced were not so protected, thus allowing Nanny to pare the numbers somewhat during the early stages and so avoid the rush of new births that puberty seems to bring with it.
I'm not quite sure why so much Green foolery is touted based on the 'think of your [possibly never to be born] grandchildren and what you are leaving them'.
Nanny clearly cannot really wish to see these children at all and therefore to tout them as a reason for turning our backs on recent human achievements seems to be more than a little duplicitous.
Quite honestly I agree with Ken about the lack of desirability to extend life if all it means is that I get a few extra years of living death in an institution. No thanks. Better then I had not given up smoking and so, perhaps, created that living hell for myself.
One could, if one had a mind to, argue that 'saving the planet' is far more important than whether an individual lives to be 81 or 83 (or whatever age you wish to consider). In which case reducing one's lifetime carbon footprint is more important (and selfless) than living longer.
Thus I would contend that smoking should be encouraged for all from a very tender age with the objective that smoking related illness should be a major contributor to population reduction in later life in cases where initial cease and desist methods to prevent child production at source have failed.
Admittedly this approach would be somewhat slower to produce results compared to, say, war and genocide, but it does have the advantage of generating tax revenue rather than consuming it, an effect which we can see being enhanced by removing the right to health treatment (hence releasing the advanced payment treatment fund for other purposes) from those who have been paying the taxes.
So, there you go. A brilliant scheme, subtly applied and invisible to the population being subjected to it now that most of the younger ones have had their expectations 'realigned'.
Any weak points I need to work on?
Grant
I chose to escape Nanny's prison camp back in '97 (even then, immediately after our Tony was elected, the writing was on the wall), so I may have been overtaken by events. However, it is my understanding that cannabis, coke and similar are sold 'under the counter' rather than from open displays. I understand that the sale of knives and guns is similarly restricted.
ReplyDeleteDisregarding all the other 'human rights' implications of this latest piece of Nanny-ish Bullshit, has it not ocurred to this cretinous bunch of tossers that since similar tactics seem to have encouraged the use of all of the above, there is absolutely no sensible reason to believe that they will - miraculously - start to work when applied to fags.
When are we going to say, 'ENOUGH'?
I wonder why Nanny cannot or will not see the folly of her proposals when all of us on here thus far are in agreement.
ReplyDeleteI don't smoke, never have and never will....My choice, however in my life time, I have found the best way to get kids to do something is to tell them not to!!
I feel many pubs have lost their character since the smoking ban came into force, mainly by the loss of customers, yes, it is more pleasant for me not to breath in smoke and not to stink of the stuff but, it is lonely as there are no other customers there. There are a few chavs complete with their little kids running around but, I go to the pub for adult company not to watch badly behaved kids running around knocking over drinks whilst their chavy parents grin dumbly.
I do agree with the sentiment expressed by many on here that this ban may well be the thin end of the wedge. I suspect we all crave to be treated like adults and to be allowed to make our own judgements about our health and other matters....In my view, it started with the crash helmet laws then the seatbelt laws.
I agree, I can see no reason, given the state of this country and it's grabbing tax system, to want to live longer. Nanny sees us as dumbed down worker drones with our only function in life to pay tax to support her crazy ideas.
I can honestly say that, if Nanny offered me euthanasia tomorrow, I would seriously consider taking her up on her offer.
In my lifetime I can never recall another time like now when I could see no point to life in this Nannying Utopia. Sad really...but true. Makes you proud to be British doesn't it?
Tonk. Chin up!
ReplyDeleteYou’re probably just suffering from the fact that it’s been a particularly heavy day for Party initiatives, studies and goodthinkful reports. I’ve been eagerly awaiting today’s Miniplenty announcement on the latest plans for embracing public transport.
However, whether it’s smokers, motorists or air travellers I do wonder if in a few years’ time we might see a modern-day Ellis Island operating near Perth in Australia, housing British immigrants fleeing persecution in their homeland and claiming political-incorrectness asylum.
I was overjoyed when I heard the announcement on the telescreen!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to sell my V8 so that I can start using the bus instead which was the reason given for the 15 mph limit!
It is always amusing to hear the young declare that they do not want to live in old age with disease.
ReplyDeleteYet very few kill themselves when faced with this. It is quite easy to drive into something solid if life is unbearable. How many do?
And who are you to say that old age is unpleasant . Or is 'youf' so bleeding marvellous.
Still you want to peddle a mass poison which kills and kills - often very slowly and unpleasantly.
Cramerj:
ReplyDeleteIt is also quite amusing when people make assumptions. I doubt many, if any that contribute on here are young, I also suspect that many do not drive into something solid because of the stigma attached, when I was young, suicide was a crime. Many also have religious views that would prevent them from taking their own life.
I suspect many don't want to kill themselves but, wish to be treated like adults and make their own decisions about what LEGAL substances they put into their bodies. The whole point of this site is to kick against the Nanny State.
I am not a smoker and never have been and to be honest, I can't see why anyone would want to smoke, but those that choose to do so should be allowed to make their own decisions about it.
cramerj,
ReplyDeleteI echo Tonk's observations.
Driving into something solid is not a guaranteed exit, indeed it could lead to the worst of all worlds.
It is also somewhat anti-social and potentially very unpleasant for family and friends and most people still care about the impression they leave behind (it's one of the things that drives politicians so strongly for example) or, in the worst case, do not leave behind but present as additional distress.
And then people become to infirm too quickly to recognise their reduced abilities and, in consequence, their opportunities for their preferred exit strategy are greatly diminished.
I would agree that smoking is never likely to be presented as the Polar Bear of those seeking to retain personal freedom and it is certainly a subject that can and does polarise opinions.
But be that as it may even if you eradicate smoking there will be another 'evil' along soon to replace it. Unless of course the CO2 haters and their policies make everything else irrelevant.
When you come to think of it, life is something the eventually kills "often very slowly and unpleasantly" to quote your words.
What might be worse? Going through 2 years of lung cancer at age 70 or 10 years of dementia at age 80?
Either way there are few extra years of 'quality' life. I rather suspect that the quality in the future may be less than it currently is with a rather small band of lucky retirees able to live acceptably on their pension arrangements.
I suspect tax, or rather the unwillingness of people to surrender their savings to the tax man, keeps many going for years longer than they might wish.
I wonder if being incarcerated in a dirty hospital might count as assisted dying these days?
Grant
cramerj,
ReplyDelete'youf' IS bleeding marvellous, if only because it leads on to maturity: 'Maturity' as you seem to have forgotten, is the state in which one becomes responsible for one's own decisions.
Emotive nonsense like your phrase, '...peddling mass poison...' utterly fails to address the issue here being discussed which - as so often - is the degree to which the State is justified in interfering with the lawful activities of its citizens.
Most of us here would agree that there is seldom (if ever) a valid case for curtailing the mature person's right to act stupidly, so long as that stupidity has no material effect on other people.(Please don't cite the already discredited bullshit about 'secondary smoking' in support of your statement)
In a society in which the populace is given credit for maturity, the basic assumption will always be that the people know what they are doing and should be expected to get on with doing it. In Nanny's State, the opposite assumption leads, with increasing frequency, to petty legislation detailing what should and should not be allowed -because 'Nanny Knows Best' - for a population which cannot be 'trusted' to make its own decisions. It is against this kind of arrogance; particularly when it is dictated by know-nothing cretins like those now in power in the UK, that much of the traffic on this site is directed.
For the time being, we are permitted to raise our dissenting voices (just as you have done): the fear is that, with the support of people like yourself, Nanny will eventually decide that there can be only one valid (and morally defensible) viewpoint: Hers.
But, as I am sure you would be only too eager to agree; 'If you have nothing to hide; you have nothing to fear'.