Saturday, 8 May 2010

Out in the cold

Earlier this year I reported on the astonishing claim from Home Office Minister Gillian Merron, flying in the face of all the evidence, that the smoking ban had not resulted in any pub closures. So it was very gratifying to see her lose her Lincoln seat in Thursday’s General Election, with a swing of 5.9% to the Conservatives. Her share of the vote fell by no less than 8.5 percentage points. Having delighted in forcing millions of pubgoers out into the cold, she is now enjoying a taste of her own medicine.

On a related note, Frank Davis reckons that Cameron could have gained enough seats for an overall majority had he promised to amend the smoking ban.

2 comments:

  1. Bit late for Aprils Fool, isn’t it? “Flying in the face of all the evidence.” eh? Remind us again what evidence? Oh, that’s right, there isn’t any. Lots of anecdotal evidence, I hear you say. Is this like the “Roswell” evidence? Come on; come into the light like the pro-smoking recantor Paul Taylor. You’ll feel better for it. I know you can do it.

    ReplyDelete

Comments, especially on older posts, may require prior approval by the blog owner. See here for details of my comment policy.

Please register an account to comment. Unregistered comments will generally be rejected unless I recognise the author. If you want to comment using an unregistered ID, you will need to tell me something about yourself.