WHEN I was busy opening a pub, one of the (many) things I had to decide was this: Should smoking be allowed on the outside terrace?
I knew, of course, that many people enjoy going to the pub for a pint and a cigarette. But I also knew that many people can’t abide the smell.
So in the end, I put signs up saying: “You like smoking. Others might not. If you smoke, please be considerate.”
In my mind, that’s how a society should work. Assume that the vast majority of people are intelligent and compassionate and let them get on with it.
I suspect Ricky Gervais agrees. He explains that he loves animals too much to eat them and is, as a result, a vegan. But he doesn’t insist I’m a vegan too.
Sadly, however, Sir Starmer does not think like this. He doesn’t like smoking so he’s going to ban it. And then, to make this Stalinist decree sound reasonable, he says the illnesses smoking cause cost the NHS a huge amount of money every year.
Really? Because the last time I looked, the tax on cigarettes raised £10billion for the exchequer every year. Without that coming in, the £22billion “black hole” Starmer keeps droning on about will become £32billion.
Then he’s got the cost of upping the train drivers’ pay, the cost of all those green energy projects he’s funding in Africa and the cost of finding state school places for kids whose parents can no longer afford to go private, because he’s put VAT on the fees.
He says he can pay for all this by taxing the rich, but he’s deluded.
Because if he does that, most of the rich will bugger off. So instead of getting 45 per cent of their earnings, he’ll get nothing.
It’s like he’s a doctor and he’s identified that Britain has some kind of illness. But then he’s prescribing completely the wrong medicine.
“You have syphilis. It’s going to be a painful time. But you can cure it with this herbal Senokot.”
The main problem is that, underneath his Playmobil hair and behind the footie-playing son of a toolmaker façade, Starmer is a full-on communist. He’s a modern-day version of Harold Wilson. He really is Woke Wilson and I literally can’t think of anything more dangerous.
He believes that private enterprise in all its forms is bad and that the state should run everything.
There’s even talk that he will impose inheritance tax on farm land. So instead of farms passing from father to son, they’ll be consumed by the Government. That’s always the goal of people who think property is theft.
I’m getting all this off my chest now because Starmer will one day label criticism as a hate crime
State ownership of the countryside. But look at what the state runs today. The NHS. The motorway network. Border controls. Nothing they do works. And it never has. I can’t be the only one who remembers what a British Rail sandwich tasted like. Coal mostly.
If the state ran WH Smith, the newspapers would never arrive in a morning. If they ran Greggs, the bread would be mouldy. And if they took control of JCB, every builder in the land would go home at night drenched in hydraulic fluid.
So the idea that they could clean up the rivers if they were in charge, or supply cheap reliable power, is laughable.
I’m getting all this off my chest now because Starmer will one day label criticism as a hate crime.
And if I carry on pointing out that he’s a deranged Trot, I’ll have to spend some time in a cell with a lady called Ethel who said on Twitter that something should be done about immigration.
In the meantime, I shall change the notices outside my pub to say Starmer is going to ban smoking on the site and that if you want a Lancashire hotpot, you’d better hurry up with your order because it won’t be long before he bans meat as well.
SOMEONE recently told me that a TV series on Netflix called Brassic was very good.
That’s an understatement. It’s Trainspotting. Pulp Fiction. And Fawlty Towers all rolled into one. But it’s better written than all of them and the music budget must have been in the millions.
What fascinates me about this show, though, is that four series came out before I’d even heard of it. And it’s not the first time this has happened. There had been six series of Vikings before I cottoned on. And two of Sense 8.
And it makes me wonder, how much brilliant stuff is emerging every week under the radar?
Something needs to change. At the moment, the newspapers tell us what’s on BBC1, but we already know that.
Labour Party political broadcast at 6pm. Followed by The Repair Shop, The Repair Shop 2, Repair Shop Live, Celebrity Repair Shop and Repair Shop: The movie.
What we really need is a proper weekly guide about everything Sky and the streamers are launching. And what’s worth watching. And what’s not.
OH dear. The owners of the Drax power station in Yorkshire have been fined £25million for . . . I’m not sure exactly.
It has something to do with the wood they burn to make the steam.
It comes from Canada but it may have been from the wrong sort of tree, which may or may not have been cut down with the wrong sort of saw.
Whatever, the eco-beards are very cross and say something should be done.
So how’s this for an idea. Drax sits right on top of a massive field of coal, so why not use that instead?
No more shipping from Canada. No more deforestation. Everyone wins.
MICHAEL O’LEARY, who is the charismatic boss of Ryanair, said this week that passengers should only be allowed two drinks at the airport.
I have a better idea.
Make the check-in times shorter, because then there wouldn’t be time for more than two drinks. You don’t need to arrive at a train station, or the bus stop, two hours in advance.
So why should it be any different for a plane?
TIM DAVIE, the Director-General of the BBC said that in the wake of the Jermaine Jenas debacle he wants the “strongest possible workplace culture”.
He should do research on my farm.
We laugh. We tease. We work long hours. There is banter, and some of it is risqué.
And if you’re feeling unhappy or tired or a bit ill, you come to work regardless and get on with it anyway.
Not sure that’s what he has in mind though.
BEAR with me on this. Twenty years ago, a weird American kid invented a new religion called Pastafarianism, which worshipped something called the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
He was dismissed as an idiot, naturally.
But you’ll never guess what.
Scientists exploring an underwater mountain range in the Pacific Ocean this week found a hitherto undiscovered new species. Which looks exactly like the spaghetti monster our American friend had drawn.
So there we are.
Christians have never been able to point at something and say: “That’s God”.
Whereas the American kid can now do just that.
