It was in Scotland that opposition to the Community Charge first exploded.  I should not suggest for one moment that the anti-smoking ban in Scotland will lead to so much violent protest, but quiet, large scale disobedience is assured.  No matter how softly softly the authorities seek to enforce the ban, it will just cause more hard feeling and generate the political opposition to the measure that was so singularly missing when it was first proposed.

As someone who does not smoke, it suits me not to inhale others’ cigarette smoke or have the dubious honour of my clothes smelling as if I had polished off a pack of twenty, personally.  Nevertheless, I feel that smokers are being victimised.  Many non-smokers I have spoken to feel the same way.  Beyond our politicians and persons involved in the provision of medical or health care, amongst non-smokers the support for a ban is soft  or non-existent.  Smokers are currently resentful but compliant.  This resignation to their fate will not last long once the inconvenience of their being unable to smoke in their favoured pub or club has sunk it.  The sheer unfairness of it all will rankle.

Many hundreds of thousands of Labour supporters will be directly touched by this ban in a way that Iraq and Sleaze did not.  Iraq did no more than reduce Labour’s Commons majority  from epic landslide proportions to a “pathetic” thumping one of sixty plus. Sleaze, taken on its own, is not likely to lose many seats for Labour, particularly if Honest Gordon takes over at No.10. The smoking ban will irritate many natural supporters and the Government should bear in mind that it is not only bad weather on Polling Day that can keep away Labour supporters.[1]