Constantly Furious

The media is all lit up with excitement, as our fading, dying, failing government leaks its latest plans to constrain and control us.
Yes, we're back to the denormalisation and demonisation of the eeevil smokers yet again. According to the Telegraph, Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, will today launch ..

".. the government's "tobacco control strategy" ... which aims to halve the number of smokers in Britain by 2020.

In a major speech Mr Burnham will also pave the way for new "interventionist" policies aimed at stopping people smoking in their own homes or cars if they live with children."

Oh for fuck's sake.  Who voted for these idiots? Who gave them control of our lives?

Opinion is - astonishingly - divided on the wisdom of this, but there are, thank god, dissenting voices.

Simon Clark runs the Taking Liberties blog, which is associated with Forest, the Smoker's lobby. So, the smokers have a voice too, then? Good. Regardless of which side you come down on, it's good to know that the debate is .... what? .... oh, wait ....

Actually, it would appear that the smokers' voice is, to put it pollitely, somewhat supressed.

When CF tries to visit the Forest website, http://www.forestonline.org , on his laptop, he is given the following message:

Content Control
Restricted Access
You are not able to access this service because Content Control is in place."

What? So we're not even allowed to hear what Forest has to say then? Who told Vodafone - and doubtless other service providers - to block this website? And why in the name of fuck did they agree?

Listen, Vodafone, smoking, writing about smoking and debating smoking are all completely fucking legal, you bastards. As is CF pointing out what a bunch of nannying, censoring, illiberal cocks both Her Majesty's government and Vodafone are.

And what about Simon Clark? He's one of the 'pro-rights brigade' that so annoy the establishment, but in spite of this, he was invited onto the Voice of the Establishment, the taxpayer-funded BBC, this morning.

Did he put his case well? Did he get to put his case at all? Did he fuck.

The poor sod barely got a word in edgeways, against a pointlessly aggressive, continually interrupting John Humphrys.

We never really got to hear what Clark thought , with Humphry's  hurling such completely non-partisan and even-handed questions such '..so, smokings a pretty disgusting habit, isn't it'? at him.

A substantial proportion of the interview was wasted with endless variations on the question 'Would you tell your children not to smoke? Well, would you prefer them not to? Well why would you prefer them not to before they were 18? Well would you tell them not to?'

Lovely interview technique, John. Keep that up, and we won't have to hear anything the pro-liberty bloke says, will we?

So, Vodafone won't let smokers put their case on the Internet, and the BBC won't let them put their case on the radio. And we all know, who's behind all this censorship, don't we? Yes, it's dear old Nanny.

Smokers' voice? Nanny doesn't want you to hear.