The day the coalition stood still

Back in May, it was widely reported that the new coalition government intended to hold a consultation on repealing draconian and unnecessary parts of the law which the previous administration had enacted (many people think there were a lot of these).

Part of the Deputy PM's speech was this:

"As we tear through the statute book, we'll do something no government ever has: we will ask you which laws you think should go,"

"Taking people's freedom away didn't make our streets safe. Obsessive lawmaking simply makes criminals out of ordinary people. So, we'll get rid of the unnecessary laws, and once they're gone, they won't come back. 

All very laudable I'm sure.

They even set up a website to let us tell them.

In typical politician fashion though, this is just a box-ticking exercise so that they can claim to have listened, but instead just do what they want.

So Nick Clegg turns up with the one-liner that 'of course' the smoking ban will not be amended.

What people have been consistently requesting on the site with regards to the smoking ban is that the blanket ban on smoking in enclosed spaces is amended so that private businesses can be allowed to choose whether or not to allow smoking on their premises.

No one is petitioning for a complete repeal, just for a sensible approach to the issue. I haven't even seen anyone asking that the smoking ban be amended for railway stations, cinemas or workplaces. Really it's just pubs. One type of business, one type of amendment. Not to allow smokers to smoke wherever they want, just where the business owner would allow.

The search for smoking on the site yields 345 results as of just now. More than for climate change for example (there's a peachy climate one if your interested where someone is demanding 'deniers' be sent abroad on forced labour schemes).

This is the point the coalition stopped listening, took them all of two months. I've seen plenty of cynicism and criticism of the coalition so far, but the truth is many people were just relieved to be shot of Brown and so were taking a breather and perhaps even hoping to aim criticism at targets where they were failing. So I guess now the coalition might have to get used to losing popularity. And not having an overall majority that's a big risk for them. The simple act of agreeing to look at the smoking ban in the lifetime of this parliament (meaning a couple more years of the status quo) could have given them  a lot of Brownie points from the 20 percent of the adult population who do smoke, maybe not all, but enough to matter.

Idiots.