Learning difficulties

Comment is Free has a stark staring bonkers article by someone called Chris Hallam who is calling for smoking to be outlawed.

Ultimately, the ban [on smoking in public places] enacted on July 1 should not be the end of the legislative process but the beginning. The months and years to come should witness a wealth of legislation enacted by the government leading towards one ultimate goal: the abolition of smoking, whether public or private, throughout the land, forever.

You would have thought that after the chaos of the war on drugs and prohibition in the 1930s people would have learned that banning things has unintended and very unpleasant consequences. Mr Hallam obviously feels that tobacco smuggling gangs having gunfights on every street corner is a reasonable price to pay so he doesn't have to sully his nostrils with a whiff of tobacco smoke. Some people just never learn.

Where do they manage to get half-wits like this from? He calls himself a "freelance writer and researcher", although a Google on his name fails to turn up a single example of anything he has written before. He does seem to advise the Joseph Rowntree Trust, however. Which probably explains a lot.

My reading of it is that the bright writers were all on holiday so the Graun thought they'd get in some poor benighted soul with learning difficulties and a list to the left and give them their fifteen minutes of fame.

Well, your time is up Mr Hallam.

Goodbye.   

Comments

[mitch]

Well said!

[Patrick Crozier]

What I found interesting was the comments. Almost none of them were supportive and most violently opposed. These are Guardian readers for heaven's sake. If even they are beginning to tire of the nanny state there is hope.

[Bishop Hill]

Patrick

Yes, I took the same encouragement from the comments thread. And by golly I need all the encouragement I can get at the moment!