Neil Harding: Failing to defend the Smoking Ban

Neil Harding's been defending the smoking ban again. And in fairness, he is doing so in a bold way - bold in the sense that he's talking abject nonsense in order to make the case for the ban. Of course, since he is talking nonsense, his case for the smoking ban doesn't really work. In any way at all. Let's breakdown his... well, I suppose it's meant to be an argument:

A response to Mr Eugenides.

He doesn't bother to link to Mr E, but I'll assume (based on the comment he left) that he's talking about this post.

Aren't the 1,200 lives saved a year worth something? Does this have to come down to just economics?

Again, there's no link to any source for the 1,200 lives saved so I can't tell how reliable that figure is. The article Eugenides links to talks of hospital admissions rather than lives saved, and there is a difference. Of course, if Harding is talking about the figure relating to hospital admissions for heart attacks, it is next to impossible to prove that the smoking ban directly impacted on those figures - the reduction could have come about in any number of different ways. It could have been down to better prevention of heart attacks, people improving their lifestyles in different ways than not smoking pubs, even just a different way of measuring what constitutes a hospital admission for a heart attack. Even if different factors are taken into account (as they were in this survey), it remains next to impossible to create a direct, indisputable link between the smoking ban and fewer heart attacks. At best, the smoking ban may have been a factor - one of many factors.

And while Mr E may have been making an economic point about the smoking ban, the case against that ban is not just an economic one. It is also based on concepts of freedom and responsibility - the freedom of adults to choose to smoke in a pub (if the pub allows it) and to take the responsibility for that smoking. And it is also about the right of a business to choose what activities it wishes to take place on its premises. Above all, it is an argument about whether the population of this country is adult and can make its own decisions about things, or whether it is largely infantile and needs the guidance of a paternalistic nanny state.

Both me and the wife would take to the streets if this ban is repealed or altered in any way.

Oh, I'd love to see Harding and his wife marching against this. It would be utterly comical. If only because I suspect they would be the only people marching.

It is THE best thing Labour did in office...

The competition for that accolade is not fierce but I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in naming the smoking ban as one of the worst things Labour did while in office.

...and probably the single most important thing done for health since the 1970s.

Presumably Harding means "the single most important thing done for health by a government" here. But even so, I'd suggest that the money spent on research into HIV, cancer, heart disease, debilitating illnesses such as MS and Parkinson's disease - as well as the attempts to raise awareness of and therefore understanding about mental illnesses - are probably more important than instructing adults on when and where they can spark up.

If you are worried about pubs, support the minimum price per unit that will hit off-licence sales. Supermarkets have closed more pubs by far.

Once again, stats please. Making a bold, dramatic assertion is not enough to make that assertion fact. Besides, it is the logic of this that is really breathtaking. One illiberal piece of legislation (the smoking ban) has had a bad impact on pubs, so we should introduce a second piece of illiberal legislation to counteract the impact of the first piece of illiberal legislation. Ever heard the expression 'two wrongs don't make a right', Neil?

Think of the millions with lung diseases and asthma that can now have a drink without having to cough their lungs up.

I have asthma; even before the smoking ban, I could always find somewhere decent to have a drink without coughing up my lungs.

Think of the millions who were forced to stink of smoke and risk their health against their will just because they wanted a drink in their local or wanted to see a band or dj.

Yeah, but think about the millions who now have to endure the rank odour of stale sweat in pubs up and down the country that - that very same rank odour that was once drowned out by the smell of smoke.

The majority agree with me and the Tories know it, no matter how much the tobacco companies fund them, mess with this law at your electoral peril.

Where's the evidence that the majority agree with Harding? He certainly doesn't present any. But even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the majority of people do back the smoking ban, does that automatically make it right? If a majority of people want the restitution of the death penalty or an end to immigration in this country, then would that make those policies right? Of course not.

You have been duped into believing the millions of PR being spent by tobacco companies who use the same techniques as big oil and big pharma. Open your eyes and see the smoke.

And Neil needs to open his mind and get over his massive ego so he can realise that just because he disapproves of smoking in pubs doesn't make it a wrong that requires draconian government action.