Simon Cooke, The View from Cullingworth, posts on the fact that an Early Day Motion (EDM) has been raised in which it calls for the Chancellor to suspend the beer duty escalator to help reduce pub closures.
It is generally acknowledged that what hastened pub closures more than any other factor was the blanket smoking ban affecting all enclosed public places. It should also be remembered that when originally proposed the ban on smoking in enclosed public places in England had exemptions for clubs and pubs not serving food. (BBC)
Simon Cooke has discovered that of the 97 signatories to this EDM (at the time of his post) 47 of those signatories were MPs who had voted to ban smoking in pubs - and he lists those 47.
We are constantly informed that smoking is bad for our health - and that may be so; however, I would suggest that there is a greater risk to the population's health when one considers our system of democracy which allows our political elite to dictate to us as they do, wherein they demand our obedience in everything that we do, say or speak. This greater risk is one that our political elite both national and local together with their sycophants at every level and in every organisation, would do well to remember.
As Boris Pasternak has Yurii say in Doctor Zhivago, "Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike... Our nervous system isn't just fiction, it's part of our physical body, and it can't be forever violated with impunity."
Change of URL
13 years ago
7 comments:
Is smoking cannabis (as opposed to tobacco) legal in pubs? I ask because the police seem to think it's legal everywhere else.
The real reason for pub closures was Margaret Thatcher and Lord Young tampering with the Tied House Estate to meet EU objectives. The great houses of Bass, Whitbread etc had to choose between real estate or brewing, and the tied loans to publicans were severed.
Coupled with credit boom real estate prices pubs had to clear £5000 - £10,000/week just to cope with Business Rates and Property Yield - just as oversupply in some areas made it unprofitable.
There are simply too many pubs - and in most countries in Europe only 2 big brewers which is what happens when the tie is broken
Also British duty on Brewers is levied on Wort without any allowance for wastage - it is ridiculously high compared to Germany
Yes WfW, stress is by far the biggest killer, and our political elites are the main guarantors of an ever increasing level of stress.
Perhaps we should ban politicians altogether.
Yes WfW, stress is by far the biggest killer
And studies show it is Stress not Fat that correlates with high Cholesterol.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4459440.stm
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/choles.htm
It kills off the Conscientious and those who try to DO in a world of Indolent Deceit
and that vegetable fats and oils actually increase furred arteries in men
Thanks TomTom…
I'll point that out to my 90 year old 10 cigars a day Dad.
Ian Hills… I don't think so, but our legislators should have no comment. There should be no question of whether it is illegal or legal… That would be like questioning the legality of parsnips.
IH Laughs.......
TT: That may well be true, but they survived then. The bulk of pub-goers were smokers and they don't go now not in the numbers they did, hence trade lost hence pubs close.
r_w: And we could with direct democracy - well not so much ban them but make their influence nil.
Germany has not fully implemented the EU anti-smoking regulation - some states simply delayed. mind you Germany also has egg rationing as Czechs are buying eggs because their government like Poland failed to implement the EU regulations on cages their governments voted for
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