David Nuttall put a good ten minute rule bill on the pub smoking ban.  As a non smoker I find that this nannying piece of legislation was just what New Labour excelled at, and with the loss of pubs such as my local the EUR, the Live and Let Live and (for all practical purposes) the Bell we really are seeing an unprecedented assault on some of the centres of the community.  Luckily the members clubs in Bridge have had a better time of it, but that’s more down to the decent management rather than the  government getting out of the way.

And this is before the economic argument, after all we need to grow ourselves out of this recession and we can’t do that through more regulation.

It’s good to see Ben Gummer rebelling on something that would actually have done some good.

Related articles

• Smoking ban exemptions bid defeated (independent.co.uk)
• Smoking ban is the main cause of pub closures (tfa.net)
• Alcohol licences at record levels but traditional pub under threat (telegraph.co.uk)