Nanny's Quandary

Dear old Nanny has something of a quandary on her hands.

Can you have a quandary on your hands?

Anyhoo, it seems that her lifelong campaign against smoking may have hit something of a snag.

You see, the common wisdom held by Nanny and her acolytes was that if you raise taxes on fags (for my American readers, this is slang for cigarettes) then people will smoke less of them.

Now, this is perfectly true; a higher price does indeed reduce demand.

However, as with most things in life, simple solutions do not often work as they should.

It seems that people, whilst buying less cigarettes, are in fact smoking them more deeply. In fact, it seems that they are probably doing themselves more damage now than they were before. That is the case according to Francesca Cornaglia, economics lecturer at University College London.

Oops!

Additionally, it seems that Nanny's banning of smoking in places where food is served will have no impact at all in "working class" areas.

Why?

Working class areas, if Nanny's statistics are to be believed, don't serve meals in pubs.

The working classes are in fact Nanny's target group, she just doesn't like them.

It looks like Nanny will have to go back to the drawing board!