SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES BAN

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Health Secretary John Reid said smoking is one of the few pleasures left for the poor and that it was patronising to try to encourage people such as single mums on council estates to give up. He said, "I don't think the worst problem on our sink estates is smoking, but it is an obsession of the learned middle class."

Deborah Arnott, director of ASH, said, "Dr Reid is far more likely to be seen in a posh restaurant than a working men's club. How did he find out what working people think, ask his chauffeur?" There can't be many MPs who live on council estates so the removal of the tobacco subsidy that MPs enjoy in the House of Commons would also be a step in the right direction in getting ministers to quit their habit.

At times like this, when fears of a draconian smoking ban hang over Britain, it's a relief to those of us who hold our civil liberties dear to hear the Health Secretary dismiss the idea as "an obsession of the learned middle class.'' John Reid is right. There's a certain type of lentil-eating, muesli-munching middle-class, bossy do-gooder who has always believed it a God-given right to impose their beliefs on others. They're the ones who cough ostentatiously when anyone lights up anywhere.

The cigarette stands accused of many things. Some more ridiculous than others. Only recently I read it can make you blind. Miraculously, despite my 40-something-a-day habit, I managed to read that. It also, apparently, makes men impotent and women sterile, which does make you wonder how Britain has the highest pregnancy rate in Europe. But I digress. Are we to believe middle-class folk with their comfy homes and cultured backgrounds don't smoke, while working class oiks with council house homes and inferior intellect do?

This is Mr Reid's implication. It is, I fear, a spectacular own goal. If a minister can tell us that, after seven years of Blair vision, all a single, working-class girl has to look forward to in life is a pack of B&H then something has gone very wrong with the New Labour project. In the old days unmarried pregnant girls were abandoned by society. Now they're shunted into communities where, deprived of hopes and dreams, they're left with a baby, a meagre existence and the unwelcome interference of well-meaning outreach workers with their hare-brained initiatives and theories.

What these girls need is education, confidence, child-care and a sense of belonging. Mr Reid is at least realistic. Taking away the right of a poor single mother to smoke will only add more suffering to her life. And at least he raised two indisputable truths. The class divide is as wide as it has ever been. And there are much worse problems in our sink estates than smoking. We all know that what's making people's lives unhealthy, unhappy and short is poverty. Now, Mr Reid. What are you going to do about that? (Source: Daily Mirror)

Derby could become the first city in the UK to ban smoking in public places. The city council is considering enforcing a smoking ban in bars, restaurants and other public places once the Government has revealed its national policy on the issue. The Government could decide to impose a nationwide ban or pass laws to allow local authorities to impose a ban at their own discretion. Derby City Council is already ahead of other local authorities in considering the enforcement of such a ban, having launched its own public health strategy.

Council leader Maurice Burgess has said that he would like to see Derby lead the way in introducing a smoking ban. He said, "I'd like Derby to be the first. I'd like to see as wide a smoking ban as possible, without completely ruining the freedom of smokers to ruin their lungs if they want to." He said that pubs could, perhaps, be allowed to designate smoking rooms, completely separate from the main bar areas, in order to avoid "unsightly crowds of smokers huddling together on street corners".

A smoke enforcement chief on £44,000-a-year failed to convict or warn anyone in an entire year. Council bosses backed him up with a smoking co-ordinator officer on £38,000-a-year and two part-time assistants to crack down on people illegally smoking in public or the workplace. But even though an estimated 62,000 of the 270,000 adults in Croydon, South London, smoke, the council hit squad failed to nail anyone. A Croydon Council spokesman said compliance had been "satisfactory" and no warnings or prosecutions had been required. It is believed the officers are no longer employed in an anti-smoking role. (Source: Daily Mirror, Mar/10)