Why the smoking ban exposes the ‘right side of history’ delusion

As a conservative non-smoker who in his youth was a libertarian twenty-a-day man, I can see both sides of the argument over the government’s recent anti-smoking legislation. Sure, cigarettes can be delicious, and it’s entirely up to the adult individual, not the state, whether he or she decides to light up.

But as I finally came to accept eleven years ago, smoking is also a profoundly stupid habit, and if government interference can prevent people ever taking it up, then so be it. I was fervently against the 2007 smoking ban in pubs, but came to acknowledge that it greatly helped in the process of de-normalising smoking. And de-normalised smoking has thoroughly become.

We allow the state to tell us what do in so many spheres of life. We see this manifest everywhere. They’re called laws. Yet, like many other members of the public, along with plenty of Conservative MPs, I felt deeply uneasy at this extreme legislation.