The Nanny State strikes again

Smoking kills. Didn't know that one. Many thanks to Starmer for reminding us that smoking claims the lives of 80,000 Britons a year.

All attacks on our liberties are presented in this manner, some problem or threat that justifies further State involvement in our lives. A couple of weeks ago it was the far right and the removal of free speech online, this week it is lung cancer and the banning of that cheeky Marlboro outside spoons on a Friday night.

Leaving aside the ethics for now, the economic impact of the proposed ban will be disastrous. Thirty pubs a week close in the UK. We have lost 15,000 pubs since the turn of the millennium, despite adding 10 million to the population. While some of this is down to changing demographics which have led to lower per capita alcohol consumption, the main driver has been taxation and regulation. Now Labour want to hit the pubs again.

Many already drink at home as a result of the exorbitant prices resulting from astronomical beer taxes (the author is still smarting from forking out £4.90 for a pint of bitter in a rural Hampshire pub- still a steal compared to much of the rest of the South East). The increase from working from home has lowered footfall on the high street and near railway stations. Still more will choose to drink from home if this ban is enforced- as any current or ex-smoker will tell you, it is when having a tipple that the temptation hits hardest! The sad truth is Labour probably couldn't care less about our pubs- one suspects a statistical study would reveal a majority of their membership would rather fork out £6 for a soy latte in the Islington branch of Starbucks than £4.90 for a pint in a country pub. Pubs are probably a haven for far right discourse as well.

Another threat the authoritarians deploy to justify this ban is the supposed threat to the NHS. This is simply a nonsense, let's do some back of a fag packet sums:

Let's take a pack a day smoker. (20- remember they banned those delightful little 10 packs you could buy with the loose change in your pocket as a student.)

Assuming they smoke a budget brand (now retailing at about £15 a pack) and manage 25 years before contracting lung cancer (many will go considerably longer) they will cough up an additional £109,500 in tax to fund the NHS. £109,500.

The working for any maths teachers reading:

£15x0.8=12 (80% of the price of a packet is tax)

12x365= 4380

4380x25= £109,500

£109,500. A conservative estimate for the unlucky smoker who gets lung disease in their 40s or 50s rather than in their 80s.

Comrade smoker's service to our beloved NHS doesn't end there- the reduced life expectancy that comes with regularly passing tobacco fumes through your respiratory system reduces your chances of reaching the age at which other diseases become prevalent, such as dementia and other cancers which demand expensive care and are therefore a further burden on The State.

Our smoker has then likely contributed well over £150,000 in additional tax and savings over their lifetime, on top of the unthinkable sum levied by other taxation. If the cost of treating a lung cancer patient approaches this figure I would love to see the evidence.

Spoiler alert- there isn't any. Even ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) admit that smokers only cost the NHS £2.5bn a year- this is more than covered in tax even if we assume the average smoker chugs on fewer than 4 a day. (Working available on a fag packet in a pub garden near you for a limited time only.)

In any case, there is an argument that smokers should not be entitled to taxpayer funded treatment for smoking related diseases. Individual responsibility for individual choices. This of course would only be an equitable arrangement if the tax on cigarettes was scrapped.

Regardless, Starmer's proposed ban is an abberation not just economically but morally. If an individual wishes to smoke outdoors, where the risk to others is minimal, that should be their choice. Not the choice of authoritarian do-gooders, preoccupied with stamping out the pleasures of others in the name of supporting public health, a totally misguided objective in this case.

Pubs and restaurants already have the right to ban smoking outdoors on their private premises. If the sight/smell of someone smoking nearby angers someone to such an extent, they are welcome to avoid certain establishments. If such people are the majority, then the market will see to it that a majority of places ban smoking outside. And that is absolutely fine.

What is not OK, is to remove freedom of choice from the individual. Should such a ban come into force I might be tempted to rekindle my old habit now and then - they can't lock us all up, the places are already taken by the online commentators!