Smoking ban at last!!!

Late to report it, I know….

At last the government has seen common sense and is to ban smoking in public places. It was great to know that MPs that don’t reside in England ensured that we English aren’t the poor cousins of the rest of the UK.

I do have a few concerns mind, firstly when are we going to stop MPs who are not from England have a say in matters that are specific to the English, the likes of John Reid, Gordon Brown, etc dictating that we couldn’t have a smoking ban in England, but their own constituents were to have a smoking ban in public. This is a serious anomaly with the UK government which has come about because of the screw up with devolution; the sooner it is fixed the better.

I do wonder why we have to wait until summer 2007 for the smoking ban to come into effect, why so long, how hard is it to ensure it starts this summer, I mean it isn’t like new equipment has to be bought, new training to undertake, and it is just enforcing a law which doesn’t take a lot to do. A golden missed opportunity here.

Lastly, I am very concerned as to how they will enforce this rule, I say this because for almost the last 20 years on the tube, there has been a no smoking policy, but I daily see it broken, I see people who think it is perfectly fine to smoke and get away with it, because no one can do anything about, these people even stand next to a no smoking sign as well, as almost an extra defiance to the rules. A lot of these people probably don’t recall Kings Cross fire, and what was deemed to have started it. What I think causes confusion for a lot of people is that smoking on the old British rail stations isn’t banned, or if it is, it is broken even more than on the tube.

I just hope this means that next summer I can go to a bar and not come home smelling of smoke, mean I can be out for longer without suffering the stinging in my eyes of the smoke and the feeling of needing to retch at the sheer haze of smoke that occupies some bars and pubs, and allow me to eat my food without having someone light up whilst I am eating like last weekend when I took Z out for her birthday celebration.