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Stubbing Out Our Civil Liberties

The announcement of a national smoking ban in public places by summer 2007 was the latest in a long list of government initiatives to hit the headlines.
The news created shock waves throughout the media and provided the platform for a number of drawn-out debates. It also sounded another death knell to our civil liberties.

By the summer season this year, smoking will be illegal in public domains such as pubs, clubs and bars. Smokers will be forced to become recluses, bound and restricted by their basic human right to choose to smoke. Such prohibition could be construed as an end to our fundamental human rights or freedom of expression.

Anti-smoking campaign groups will be ecstatic with such an announcement and perhaps the government should be applauded for taking a tough stance on a contentious health and ethical issue. Passive smoking is thought to be an increasing cause of cancer in individuals and next years ban displays positive preventative action by a health conscious, pro-active Labour government. The effects of the ban will be embraced by many generations in the future, like some sort of long-term savings investment.

It also signals the erosion of our tradition and cultural history as a country though. For hundreds of years tobacco and alcohol have been a major part of our culture and have been prevalent at some of our history's most defining moments. Winston Churchill, no less, was credited as a saviour of the UK during World War II and was also a heavy smoker and drinker. These habits endeared him to the public perhaps just as equally as his war heroics.
Yet a health obsessed, clean-living modern man government would sooner eradicate a product of such cultural heritage.

The term nanny state' has been referred to a great number of times already during Labour's nine-year stay in power. But by the time the ban comes into effect, Tony Blair will have served a decade as PM and the situation may be far more alarming - as a nation we may just have sleepwalked into a dictatorship.

The much lobbied for proposal to introduce ID cards reinforces this suggestion, as does the acrimonious fox-hunting ban of 2004. While the ID card scheme may well be extremely beneficial and a powerful crime prevention tool, it has met a number of unforeseen obstacles and serious opposition from all sides. And rightly so. Like a smoking veto, ID cards represent another huge infringement on human rights and civil liberties. It seems we are no longer able to

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