Choking on the bullshit

What a stupid country we live in.
Yesterday, the health secretary John Reid was lambasted for daring to suggest that people from a lower socio-economic earnings bracket (i.e schemies) had little more to look forward to in life than a fag. His point was that in trying to get people to cut out the fags, it was important not to patronise people or make them feel the state was trying to nanny them.
The reaction? Headlines in the papers like "Let The Poor Smoke Says Reid" and shrieks of discontent from idiots representing low income communities and anti-smoking pressure groups.
We often complain in this country with some foundation that our politicians are useless, out of touch with the people, that they speak a different language to the rest of us. But then why should a politician attempt to speak plainly when he or she is not allowed to express an honest opinion without being deliberately misconstrued by people with their own agendas trying to score points?
Smoking is becoming a bit of a political football at the minute. The losers who are banding together to try and force a public ban on smoking are sensing that there is some momentum and political will behind them, especially from those within the Labour party still in love with the old Labour ideal of telling us all what's best for us.
The outmoded concept of the nanny state, with the liberal middle classes acting as benevolent dictators, patting us plebs on the head and telling us what's good for us is alive and well. It's that attitude that is patronising, not John Reid suggesting that all some of us have to look forward to during another mind numbing day in this shithole country is having a fag. On that score he is sadly spot on.
It won't be long before smokers can't light up in public places which is pathetic. To me, smokers have been picked out as an easy target by people within the health industry who want to look back on their careers and say they have "done something". They could take on the food companies who are stuffing their products with sugar, salt and fat, they could take on the drinks industry, who do far more damage. They could take on the petrochemical and oil industry, but instead they have chosen to act like bullies, picking on the wee guy (individual smokers) instead of someone who might give them a kicking.
I love the idea of not being able to smoke in a restaurant while cars going past the window spew forth greenhouse gases that will eventually kill us all.

There is another issue in this as well of course. What the hell are we going to do with all the people who aren't going to die? How are we paying for the legions of old people that general health improvements are going to leave us with over the next few decades? The pensions black hole that people are beginning to talk about now will be the issue of the next thirty years and could end up with people like ourselves having to work into our seventies and beyond. Fuck that. I'm having a fag.