More A Way Of Life… Look, this is just between you and me

No More Smoking

As I'm in California at the moment, I'm just down the road from the first bar I ever visited which had a small group of smokers standing outside because they weren't allowed to smoke indoors. That was back in 2003, and apart from the slightly incongruous sight that they presented before entry, I still remember walking into the bar itself and being stunned by the fact that I could see everything clearly from one end of the space to the other, that the whole place looked somehow cleaner than I was expecting, and that the next day my clothes didn't stink of smoke. I tend to the view that all of these are Good Things.

I was out at a birthday party in a bar on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning my clothes even *felt* dirty.

So it's with some pleasure that I see Parliament has voted overwhelmingly for the ban in bars and clubs in the UK. There are few enough times that I feel satisfaction or even, heaven forfend, pride in the decisions of our elected representatives in Westminster, but on this occasion I'm willing to make an exception.

And I love that the free vote means that the Health Secretary voted out-of-line with the official Government (manifesto-stated) policy, and not only won't be in trouble for it, was voting alongside the Prime Minister in doing so.