Smoking ban shot down?

Predictably, the government can't decide if it wants to ban smoking in the UK or not. On Tuesday, it announced amidst a blaze of self-congratulatory publicity that it was going ahead with the ban. Under the scheme proposed by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, smoking would be banned completely in businesses that sell food. Sealed 'smoking rooms' would be allowed in some pubs, while private members clubs would be exempt from any such regulations.

Yet these proposals have been derailed already. An argument in the Cabinet, cheifly between Hewitt and her predecessor (and current Defence Secretary) John Reid, means that whatever is eventually put into the Bill is likely to be a diulted version of what was discussed yesterday. Inevitably, the Tories have labelled the government's position a 'shambles' (whatever that word means), while Labour have breezily replied that the whole thing is a minor matter and is hardly an important part of Tony Blair's election manifesto for reform.

But the debate does touch on how the government likes to view itself. It is supremely wary of the 'nanny state' tag that many will be all too ready to apply, should this ban go ahead. Chiefly among them are the tabloids, who hypocritically use this as a threat over the government to quasi-veto any proposal they disagree with, whilst championing the dangers of (as they put it) the "24-hour drinking culture" that, according to them, Labour is threatening to unleash. Despite their hypocrisy, the tabloids do have a point. Labour's insistence on the need for a smoking ban on health grounds nestles uneasily beside the desire for relaxed pub licensing laws. It's another example of a government that bases it's ad-hoc policies on a quixotic attempt to assuage public opinion. The curious thing is that, in this case as in so many others, they have ended up taking both sides simultaneously, pleasing nobody and angering many.