The Queen's Jubilee

[Lateralthinking1]

Lat,

Are you sure people on section can't smoke? Does it matter what level of section they're on?

Beef, I'm pretty sure as I checked this one out about a year or two ago - I was strongly of the view that landlords should decide whether they would have a smoking room in a pub so that they and customers would have maximum choice, I thought if they got the balance right, it would end up perhaps 50%-50% pubs with a smoking room v pubs which were smoke free - so at that time I was looking very closely at the anomalies in the legislation - but I will see if I can find some up-to-date material, Lat.

[Lateralthinking1]

.......There was this in 2006 which shows the level of debate ahead of the legislation -

http://psychminded.co.uk/news/news2006/july06/Staff%20do%20not%20want%20smoking%20banned.htm

....and this in 2011, the ban applying outdoors as well as indoors -

http://blogs.findlaw.co.uk/solicitor/2011/05/discrimination-sectioned-patients-to-challenge-hospital-smoking-ban.html

This is on the link between schizophrenia and smoking -

http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/6/5/327.full

Personally, I think this country is guilty on this issue of torturing the mentally ill.

[Beef Oven]

Beef, I'm pretty sure as I checked this one out about a year or two ago - I was strongly of the view that landlords should decide whether they would have a smoking room in a pub so that they and customers would have maximum choice, I thought if they got the balance right, it would end up perhaps 50%-50% pubs with a smoking room v pubs which were smoke free - so at that time I was looking very closely at the anomalies in the legislation - but I will see if I can find some up-to-date material, Lat.

The reason I ask, is because a few years ago I visited someone who had been sectioned and on my way to the hospital I asked if there was anything he wanted. 'Sweet & sour king prawns, egg fried rice and a carton of Benson & Hedges' was the reply!

It was about 6 years ago, so maybe things have changed.

BTW, careful about your 'smoking rooms in pubs' statements - they could almost be verbatim Nigel Farage!!!

[Lateralthinking1]

BTW, careful about your 'smoking rooms in pubs' statements - they could almost be verbatim Nigel Farage!!!

Yes I know. Bit tricky that but at least it isn't the Conservatives. I am fairly liberal on social policy - it comes with a bit of finger wagging but not a lot - and I am not at all liberal on economic policy. So I am probably safe there overall.

[Richard Tarleton]

I was strongly of the view that landlords should decide whether they would have a smoking room in a pub so that they and customers would have maximum choice, I thought if they got the balance right, it would end up perhaps 50%-50% pubs with a smoking room v pubs which were smoke free

Just a footnote to this discussion....landlords and customers might have had a choice this way, lat, but bar staff and cleaning staff would not - unless they happened to be smokers, and were happy to serve and clean in smoking rooms. Bar staff were the forgotten victims in the smoking debate. By definition, levels of second hand smoke would have been much higher in rooms which were full of smokers, just as smoke levels were always much greater at or near the bar in a normal pub.

[Serial_Apologist]

That world is one in which individuals are miraculously unaffected by the wider environment where such things are promoted as well as condemned. The requirement on individuals to be responsible for change is an abrogation of political responsibility for culture.

Brilliantly put, and in just two sentances, Lat.

[JohnSkelton]

Lat,

Are you sure people on section can't smoke? Does it matter what level of section they're on?

In the 1990s I worked a couple of days a week in a residential psychiatric unit (I'm not a clinician and wasn't a patient ) and one of the most popular residents could generally be found wearing a blue plastic policeman's helmet sat under a large 'So and so NHS Trust is a No Smoking ....' sign enthusiastically chain smoking.

[Lateralthinking1]

Just a footnote to this discussion....landlords and customers might have had a choice this way, lat, but bar staff and cleaning staff would not - unless they happened to be smokers, and were happy to serve and clean in smoking rooms. Bar staff were the forgotten victims in the smoking debate. By definition, levels of second hand smoke would have been much higher in rooms which were full of smokers, just as smoke levels were always much greater at or near the bar in a normal pub.

Thank you Richard for that information but here is another fact that might surprise and even shock many. Some hotels still have smoking rooms and are fully compliant with the legislation. It is just that most have chosen not to have them and rely on the general public assuming it is outlawed. There is no common sense to the legislation as its stands.

John Skelton - Liked it. I used to speak regularly to a guy who believed he was the Speaker of the Lords and would always ask me if I'd seen the Woolsack as he'd lost it. A really nice guy who should have been a County Councillor.

Serial-Apologist - Thank you.

We have moved a long way from the Jubilee and that is largely my fault. My apologies.

[handsomefortune]

no apologies necessary - we're arguably still on topic... since madness, eccentricity and royal pedigree are bed fellows.

(the rest of the thread will have to take place behind nurse's screen though)

[ahinton]

We have moved a long way from the Jubilee and that is largely my fault. My apologies.

Indeed. Beyond Oxford by now, I should say. Not to worry; I'm sure someone soon will wrench us unceremoniously back to Tower Bridge, the fallibilities of the BBC, Camilla on the flotilla, Liz & Phil standing on a barge for hours getting increasingly cold and wet, Elton Lloyd Barlow and the rest, doubtless including why we do or don't need a monarchy in Britain...

[amateur51]

In a democracy (unlike a state 'socialist paradise') it's surely the people's majority view that counts.

The fact that 'most people like it' should be enough to settle the matter whatever the particular view of individuals, as I'm sure Mr Skelton would concur.

Even republicans are not exactly clamouring for a referendum on the issue, as they know full well they would be slaughtered at the polls (hopefully figuratively-speaking!).

End of story ... no further debate required ... or at least it should be for any true democrat, whether royalist or republican.

Great stuff scotty, ever the true democrat.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/06/12/survey-71-percent-of-britons-back-equal-marriage-rights-for-gay-couples/

So the fact that in a Stonewall/YouGov poll 71% of Britons were keen on equal marriage for people regardless of gender (link above) means that you'll be giving that your backing, I'm sure. Perhaps you could write to the appropriate people in your religion's hierarchy & tip them the wink on this 'democracy by majority' business

[handsomefortune]

liam fox looks really worried (in your link) amatuer51 ....has he not decided as yet?

[scottycelt]

Scotty, you should be careful if you rely on what 'most people' want: in the Daily Express - a headline saying that most people (80%) want a referendum on remaining in the EU.

and in believing that the largest party (even if it doesn't have an overall majority) should be the one that decides policy: 46% want out of the EU (& 27% 'don't know' - so a coalition of those two produces a clear majority in favour of leaving)



so, you'll give up arguing that we should remain in the EU ?

Nah, dinna fash yersel', Floss, I certainly won't give up arguing ... simply love it far too much ... but if the British want to come out of the EU that will be their decision. I could fall into Mr GG's trap by calling them 'stupid' in such circumstances, but I'll resist the temptation, and simply say I consider that would be a monumental folly which would adversely affect what's left of this country's economic and political power for generations, possibly permanently. However, if that's what the majority wish, so be it.

My beef (sorry Oven!) is not that republicans hold the perfectly reasonable view which they do, that Monarchy is 'outdated' being hereditary and not democratic, but it is that so many of them say it ( the Monarchy) should be abolished, despite the overwhelming support if enjoys among the people of the country.

That's why I say it's really, at least for the foreseeable future, End of Story! In the last analysis, nothing is more democratic than the express wish of a huge majority of the population ..?

Of course, as the wise old saying goes, I would never say 'never' and the public mood could be quite different among future generations...

[amateur51]

liam fox looks really worried (in your link) amatuer51 ....has he not decided as yet?

Reading the mind of Dr Fox is not one of my preoccupations, handsomefortune and after his judgement kerfuffle over his Best Man and Advisor, Mr Werrity, I suspect that Dr Fox would be well-advised to stay schtum.

[handsomefortune]

stay schtum ... not now that picture has been published amateur51! any fool can tell he's either just weed his pants, or just realised he's left his washing on the clothes line in torrential rain.