Barron defeats Nuttall without cowing Binley

I'm away from home this week, hence the sketchy blogging. However since I'm in holiday mode I can rely on another blogger to pad this post out a bit. Also I am in England so once again resorting to a story about the smoking ban south of the border.

This one. 

The blog post, Dick Puddlecote's, is here.

David Nuttall MP's Bill was brought in under the ten-minute rule, which allows ten minutes on each side of the debate. The debate is normally a backbench affair but on this occasion the opposing speech was given by Kevin Barron, formerly of the All-Party Committee on Smoking and Health, whose secretariat is managed by none other than Action on Smoking and Health. Kevin Barron's speech is here (preceded by David Nuttall's speech), and includes some spectacular nonsense: heart attack drops (inaccurately quoted as 5 per cent in England, which found a drop in heart attacks of 2.4 per cent, a lower drop that still failed to show up in routine statistics), and the idea that 80 per cent of smokers approve of the smoking ban.

In a further post, Dick quotes Barron saying: 'we are the state's representatives in their constituencies', suggesting that he has completely inverted the whole power relationship that underpins democracies. 'We should not be frightened of taking decisions on behalf of our constituents because that is to the general good.'

Happily Brian Binley, another MP seeking change in the smoking ban, is determined to keep up the pressure, alongside many others.


It seems that some people in government think that all they have to do is to identify a health issue, and they can vote in anything they like – for the common good, of course.