A New Confidence Trick

As noted in 2006, ahead of the free vote to ban smoking in public spaces:

It is essential that campaigners create the impression of inevitable success. Campaigning of this kind is literally a confidence trick: the appearance of confidence both creates confidence and demoralises the opposition.

They “knew” they were going to win, and thus were confident in securing the votes for their “next logical step” in the war on smokers.

ASH was very keen to see smoking banned in cars but were content (at the time) to only settle for banning smoking in cars with kids under the age of 18. Even after the first year, nothing much happened.

There weren’t any notable prosecutions, indeed, neither the police or local authorities knew for certain who could start such a process.

As I noted on the anniversary of the ban:

Well the whole point of the law wasn’t to really get folk prosecuted now was it? It was more about adding yet more stigma onto an already ostracised proportion of society because some crackpots don’t like smoking.

Even then, the sour-faced crone wanted to immediately extend the ban to include all vehicles. I can, to an extent understand why smoking in company vehicles was banned. I disagreed with it, and I even flouted such a ban on numerous occasions. Before that ban was imposed, it was entirely at the discretion of the company management.

Now, however, with police officers in Cambridge taking a “non-confrontational approach” to the ban, the likes of Dame Silly Davies, and of course the harridan herself, have called for a total ban on smoking in cars.

She said: “Compliance with the legislation on smoking in cars with children is dependent on the level of public support far more than enforcement action.

“It’s not surprising there have been no fines in Cambridge as research has shown that compliance levels are high and that support for the law is widespread.

What kind of mentalist jizzweasel thinks it appropriate to dictate what we can, or can not do, in our private spaces? The fact is most smokers are so downtrodden that any spark of resistance to intrusive prodnosery simply doesn’t exist and the intrusion merely accepted.

“In fact the majority of adults would support the law going further and prohibiting smoking in all cars which would make it simpler to enforce as well as protecting all car occupants from the harmful toxins in tobacco smoke.”

This’ll be the result of one of your usual, self-selecting, surveys eh Debs? Despite the fact that there is a lot of evidence that utterly derails your bullshit argument about second-hand smoke.

Introducing the ban on smoking in cars with children was a pointless exercise, but it allowed ASH to keep their collective snout on the DoH money teat. No doubt that they’ll be lobbying Government again to extend the ban, once they’ve been automatically approved for the grant, natch.

A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire Constabulary said officers were not issuing fines.

He said: “We have been following guidance from the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) and Chartered Institute of Environmental Health to take an educational, advisory and non-confrontational approach when enforcing the legislation.”

My response to that is simple: “yes sir, no sir, three-bags-full sir”. While it is ‘illegal’ to smoke in a car with a youth, it is most certainly not illegal to smoke. Most smokers are considerate and generally don’t smoke around their kids. But then, it’s a sign of a thoroughly degraded and demoralised society when adults need the state to tell them how to behave around their own children.

Except that’s not the end of it.

Brake – the road safety charity that works with communities and organisations across the UK to try and prevent the tragedy of road deaths and injuries have spoken out about the use of vapes.

Of course, this is merely common-bloody-sense. If you vape in your car, either exhale out the window or away from your direct line of sight. The thing with smoking in a car is that there isn’t a large cloud that can obscure your vision so the authoritarian fuckwits at ASH couldn’t call for a total ban on those grounds, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they turn their attention to vaping in cars at some point. If only to be seen to be “doing the right thing” for safety.

This latest call from ASH is the next in the line of confidence tricks against a thoroughly demoralised and stigmatised group of people.

Maybe one-day vapers will realise what is happening, ‘cos one day, it’ll be vapers in their sights.

(image credit @aecferranco via Twenty20)

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