The first non-smoking pub in Kent --
The Wheatsheaf
Photo: miche11e.

British lawmakers voted by a huge margin on Tuesday to ban smoking in every pub, club and indoor public space in England, adding it to the growing list of countries taking a tough stand against smoking.

The bill, passed by 384 votes to 184, followed months of heated debate that divided the Labour government and incensed health groups.

Ireland banned smoking in restaurants, pubs and workplaces in 2004, and six countries imposed bans on smoking of varying severity in 2005.

It certainly is easy to predict that in another few years parents with young children at home will not be permitted to smoke. Hopefully this will happen soon.

Let me say at the outset that Government has no right to interfere into the private lives and desires of its citizens. If two people want to urinate on each other that's their business, not government's. On the other hand, if you are working someplace and your workmates constantly come over and drench you in their urine, it is most fitting and proper that the Government come in to say, "Urinating on your fellow workers is prohibited."

Now one will always hear the fatuous argument that if you don't like being urinated on you should work someplace else. That if you don't like yellow drops of pee splattering into your soup, well go to a restaurant that has a no-urinating policy. But why should we suffer?