Noble aims, for sure, not sure how we’d all see it if/when portions of the countryside essentially become no-gay zones because the vast majority of B&B owners invoke their religious “rights”. It’s all well and good pointing at the bigots and vilifying them, but only if they’re not able to sit warmly in their bubble and say “so what?”

I actually see the closest comparison as fox hunting, not the smoking ban.

The problem with this is that there are far more bigots than you might suspect, and whilst you think that people might boycott their establishments, in fact they would become safe havens for people to go and safely be cocooned in their bigotry and have it amplified by allowing them to segregate themselves. Also, by allowing them the freedom to do as you suggest serves in fact to legitimise their viewpoints and thus strengthen them. I think the thrust of this article displays a a little naivete about human nature and a a lack of appreciation about how discrimination actually works on a a personal basis. You don’t fight it by letting it win.

“Would this result in, as some have also mentioned, the return of the likes of “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs” signs? Possibly. Can we seriously though not handle that returning, and not actually further put it down to their ignorance and let them get on with it,…..”

No, we seriously can’t handle that returning.
Yes, I can put it down to their ignorance.
No, I can’t let them get on with it.

I for one am not prepared to wait for “the market” to put such bigots out of business, or (when that doesn’t happen because some bigots are BOUND to revel in it) be happy in the the thought that it would result in “only similarly clean-minded Christians or members of other religions patronising you”.

Your solution is moral cowardice. Using this approach we’d no doubt still tolerate slavery..?

Have the guts to stand up and be counted; don’t let the bigoted minority wrap themselves in the blanket of libertarianism, whingeing that the nasty left wing elite are infringing their ability to keep Godless homosexuals/coffee coloured people/ atheists (deleta as appropriate for your bigoted belief of choice) in their place.

There shouldn’t be any exemptions on the basis of religion. If a law can be set aside because of someone’s superstitious belief then the law can be set aside full stop. Why should secular homophobes be treated any different from religious ones?

The ‘No blacks, no Irish’ comparison is correct. People don’t choose their sexuality any more than they choose their ethnicity.

I’m with Iain Dale on this (a sentence I never thought I’d type). If you’re going to have laws like the smoking ban or against discrimination in services then they’re going to have to apply to everyone equally, otherwise it’ll be powerless. Think about the smoking ban comparison for a minute and it becomes ridiculous. We effectively had that situation before, where businesses could choose to ban smoking or not. If you allowed that you wouldn’t get a couple of smokers’ pubs, but all pubs would be smokers pubs to attract the most business. You completely undermine the legislation.

Similarly if we allowed small businesses to be prejudiced you wouldn’t just get a few homophobic B&Bs, but racist pubs, Christians only hairdressers, cafes where women must be veiled and the Royal Society barring religious members. Everyone has prejudices, but the point of having equality legislation is that as a community we don’t sanction them.

Septicisle:

And then would you also allow them to do so for Black people or the Jewish, etc?

Yes or no answer, please.

“Somewhat predictably, Chris Grayling’s secretly recorded comments on how he felt the owners of B&Bs should be allowed to behave have caused, in that newspaper cliché, a pre-election storm”.

Storm in a teacup would be a better analogy. A certain miniscule proportion of the population, apart from being vociferous, believe themselves to have a significantly higher social salience than they do. In other words, because they avoid the company of those who do not share their opinions, their erroneous belief that they are highly representative of the population is constantly reinforced by each other. In fact, if you go down to the Dog and Duck, you’ll find that half have not heard of Chris Grayling, a quarter don’t give a toss, 20% think it’s up to you who you admit into your home, and 5% are outraged. This blog represents that 5% who are hugely exercised by it.
But I would encourage the media to bang on and on and on about it in a high profile way. The constant sound of noble and self-righteous lefties banging on ad nauseum about their favourite obsession is a sure way to maintain a shift rightwards amongst ordinary folk. It’s worked a treat over the past few years. Unfortunately, their are signs that the BBC has demoted this topic. they’re starting to get human-savvy.
And don’t forget the regional variations: In Worcestershire we had “no gyppos, no Brummies” signs. And our signs were all neon. Irish and blacks were always welcome.

Oh yeah, Trolly Trofim.
Your views are so popular that your favourite party, that cheeky little groupuscule where no.2 wants to kill no.1, thinks it’s Christmas when they manage 4% of the national vote!… Pathetic and weak.

“safe havens for people to go and safely be cocooned in their bigotry and have it amplified by allowing them to segregate themselves”

Bigots segregating themselves is a bad thing?

What this debate comes down to is whether freedom of association is more important than government prevention of discrimination. As a libertarian I lean towards the former but I accept that society as a whole is probably keener on the latter.

@7 Trofim

You could equally argue that attitudes like Graylings will hurt the tories by turning people off, and giving the impression (or showing the reality?) that the Tories really haven’t changed, and are still the nasty party of yore.

The fact that sections of the lumpenproletariat (yeah..I’m being ironc, but bear with me) probably don’t care, are actually none too keen on gypos/Brummies/non-locals doesn’t necessarily mean that the publicisation of this issue= a gift to the Tories.

I like the “social salience” epithet by the way!… but I think you could equally as well argue that this group (assuming it exists of course…?) could actually act to bring about the opposite outcome from that posited in the rest of your post, i.e. convince more people to vote against the Tories, than are motivated to support them die to annoyance at the “lefties” telling them what to do.

Like Chris @ 5 I’d like to take the opportunity to write this sentence, an opportunity I might otherwise not have: I agree with Iain Dale!

Surely Grayling is right in point of principle: we should be allowed to choose who comes into our house whether we use it for business or not and whether our ‘reasons’ are sound or not. It is called freedom of association. I would want to refuse board to, say, two senior members of the BNP, and I think I should be free to do it. The only diffference is that incertain cases there is real concern that protecting individual liberties will lead to a larger abuse of liberty. It is a pragmatic argument only.

I found myself agreeing with Grayling at first – people should be free to use their property as they like and let the market decide, I zealously argued – but on second thought I realised one crucial thing:

Market forces weren’t responsible for any of the hard-won civil rights progress made in the last 50 years. Market forces are in fact deeply conservative, as those who target majority interests face the fewest risks and stand to reap the best rewards.

That gay-bashing is no longer a ‘majority interest’ makes no difference. We’ve been there, not so long ago, and we know how little it would take to slide right back.

#I would want to refuse board to, say, two senior members of the BNP, and I think I should be free to do it.#

..even if they were gay?

@12 John Meredith

There’s been a long discussion on this issue on another thread already.

I doubt many people have any issue with people having control of who they let into their house. The issue in the B&B case does not hinge on the individual liberty of the B&B owner. The issue is whether, as providers of a service for paying guests, they are entitled to turn away homosexuals using their religious beliefs as the reason for the refusal.

I believe the answer has to be no, and that therefore Grayling is wrong in principle, and in pratice. If the owners of the B&B were allowed to exclude gay men, it would be difficult to argue that they weren’t allowed to exclude other groups of their choosing.

If I owned a B&B, I certainly wouldn’t like hosting Nick Griffin from a personal point of view, but it wouldn’t give me the right to exclude him, whatever my personal feelings about him.

Particularly when people of faith use the “religious beliefs” defence, it is high time the secular majority made it clear that it isn’t a sufficient excuse for the toleration of discrimination or bigotry.

While it’s difficult to argue that the smoking ban hasn’t been a general success

Who for?

For pub owners? For clubs? For smokers? For the Labour Party?

The votes it will cost them next election are likely to be crucial in determining the result.

I suppose you could argue that it has been a success in the sense that it has been complied with and has demonstrated the power of the state to compel its citizens to change their behaviour.

However you are absolutely correct that what really infuriates libertarians about the smoking ban is that it concedes the principle that the state has can legitimately interfere in the right of individuals to freely use their own property.

Business owners have long ago had to accept that government has a role in dictating aspects of how their business may be run and if the law covering B&Bs stated that anyone operating such a business must accept all guests whenever they had an available room, I think the owners could have little objection.

In the absence of such a law, however, the B&B owners should not be compelled to accept someone into their property if they don’t wish to have them. And, as importantly, they should not be compelled to reject smokers.

@16 pagar

There were lots of predictions from the libertarian ultras that the smoking ban would result in pubs going out of business en masse: it didn’t happen. Lots of places saw taking rise. Like many others, I was in favour of the smoking ban, and think for non-smokers it’s been a great thing, particularly gien the health considerations. The alternative of allowing some pubs to retain smoking if they wanted might have worked, tho it’d be interesting to see what would have happened down the line when staff working in smoking pubs and clubs started taking legal action against employers for the cancer caused when they worked there, even if they’d specifically consented to working there.

I’m not convinced by your argument that in the absence of a specific law the B&B owners should be free to turn gay men away due to their religious beliefs, but (presumably?) not able to do so to other groups who were protected by e.g. racial discrimination laws. It’s still discrimination, and the fact that it’s their house ISN’T an excuse!

“Lots of places saw taking rise. ”

This was always going to happen, that is why the big chains supported the ban, itpromised to raise their revenues while helping to eliminate competition from small independents. I cannot see how any lioberal can support the blanket ban when there were so many possible alternatives.

No no no.

There is no good case for the state allowing homophobic bigots to continue as such, but a very powerful case against:

http://badconscience.com/2010/04/05/how-to-think-about-gay-equality-and-bedbreakfasts/

“There were lots of predictions from the libertarian ultras that the smoking ban would result in pubs going out of business en masse: it didn’t happen. ”

Which planet are you living on? Pubs have been going out of business at a ferocious rate. 35 a week is one figure I’ve seen.

And of course takings have risen at some places….less competition, see?

@20 Tim

Pubs have been going out of business for ages. I’m not denying that the smoking ban might have had some part to play in that, (altho you surely can’t deny it’s had a positive impact for some others…?) but there are lots of other factors at work like licensng laws, pricing of alcohol etc, etc….

A coule of pubs have gone bust where I live, but it’s not as if we’re exactly short of them!

This is an interesting way of putting it:

“Let’s call the bigoted old lady Mary. In my view, Mary has an absolute right to say who she does and doesn’t want in her own home, regardless of whether she runs it as a B&B. It’s. Her. Property. And for me, that’s the end of it.

But let’s say Mary gets investigated by the police and told she can’t carry on running her B&B unless she accepts gay couples. Let’s say she gets so upset about this that she decides to act. She prints some flyers with what she believes to be the word of God, saying that homosexuality is a sin and that practising gays must repent.

She then goes to her local gay club at 11pm on a Saturday night and offers to pay the entry fee so she can go inside and hand her flyers out to those who are off their faces inside, sinning.

Should the gay club owner be forced to let her in? No. The club is his property, and he should be able to let in who he likes. His customers should be able to, er, associate with each other on private property without fear of molestation from Mary.

But the logical conclusion of Labour’s argument is that Mary must be allowed in to do her worst. Her freedom of religion must surely trump the club owner’s property rights. She certainly has no less right to enter that club than a gay couple have to enter her B&B.”

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/neilmidgley/100004705/ban-bigoted-old-bb-owners-from-gay-clubs-too/

“Which planet are you living on? Pubs have been going out of business at a ferocious rate. 35 a week is one figure I’ve seen.”

Thats the figure usually provided as propoganda (nothing wrong with propoganda, but you’ve a reputation for pedantry to protect), if its the one commonly cited, it does not include pubs openning but does include those being shut down for refurbishment.

I don’t know the true net figure but it is lower, but still too high.

“(nothing wrong with propoganda, but you’ve a reputation for pedantry to protect”

In this particular instance I’ve also got some propaganda I helped to create to protect as well (UKIP’s “Save Our Pubs” thingummybob).

Tim Worstall,

Well, obviously that is a straw man. If Mary had said that she wouldn’t allow folk to stay at her otherwise perfect B&B because she had a ‘no trainers’ policy, then that would have been hunky dory. I believe that is what ‘bouncers’ are for, is it not? Quite a lot of places use them and their ‘entry’ policy, it seems to me, is completely obscure.

The nightclub should have allowed Mary in, but if she ended up annoying other customers, she should have been thrown out. Sorry, asked to leave. Though they could have refused her admission in the first place because they did not like the ‘cut of her jib’, whatever that means.

Any other moral dilemmas you want sorted?

I agree with John Meredith @12.

Gwyn,

Market forces weren’t responsible for any of the hard-won civil rights progress made in the last 50 years. Market forces are in fact deeply conservative, as those who target majority interests face the fewest risks and stand to reap the best rewards.

Were market forces given sufficient opportunity? In the two supposed counterpoints to the ‘libertarian’ argument in the previous thread, discrimination was not merely allowed but actively enforced by the state. That is to say, in Mussolini’s Italy you were specifically prohibited by law from employing a Jew as a bank teller, lawyer etc; in Montgomery, Alabama, there was a law enforcing racial segregation on buses.

I ask because I do not know.

@22 Tim

The difference of course is that, even in this somewhat convoluted Torygraph example, the club owners (even in the event of them refusing bigoted Mary entry), aren’t operating a policy to refuse entry to all B&B owners, or people called Mary, or white haired bigots.

Read sagar’s link @19 on why you are wrong.

The righteous, ultra-libertarian outrage spouted by the Telegraph reading classes needs to be seen for what it is: an atavistic desire to return to the old days, when them faggots and darkies knew their place. It wasn’t acceptable then, and it’s even less acceptable now – the horrifying thing is that so many people accept Grayling’s line, and that the Tory front bench don’t have the balls to sack him for saying it!

As I wrote in the other thread, society is not very good at handling situations when two “rights” are in conflict. “Rights” are not boolean (true or false) but binary (1 or 0). And when you add one with one, you get zero (the least significant bit).

So it is OK to impose a law banning discrimination by B&B owners, because it sets a social standard. But enforce it very leniently. Public opprobrium that the bigots experience is sufficient punishment.

Consider the UK right to free speech, which is qualified by non-rights to incite racial hatred. The law against racial hatred is unenforceable in practice because race haters code their message and because juries are reluctant to convict anyone of anything close to a thought crime. But the UK has such a law and it serves a useful purpose. It is enforced very leniently for practical as well as liberal reasons.

If Mary had said that she wouldn’t allow folk to stay at her otherwise perfect B&B because she had a ‘no trainers’ policy, then that would have been hunky dory.

I predict homophobic B&B owners will reject gays for wearing the wrong footwear…

In this particular instance I’ve also got some propaganda I helped to create to protect as well (UKIP’s “Save Our Pubs” thingummybob).

You’re still shilling for those idiots? Jeez. That’s a bigger drag on your reputation than anything else.

Also – you’ll have to prove those bankruptcies were a direct result of the smoking ban somehow.

ukliberty,

I’d assume that down in Dixie, almost all the money was in white hands. So the exclusion of all coloureds, not just negroes, had very little economic impact on the business. Had it been the other way around, had the money been in the hands of negroes and others, I expect the policy would have changed very quickly.

There was an analogy in South Africa where, in pursuit of Japanese money, the Japanese were honourary whites.

Pretty disgusting altogether this economic stuff, don’t you think?

“You’re still shilling for those idiots?”

I no longer work for them but am still a party member. So use whichever meaning of “shilling” you prefer.

Galen10 @ 15:

“If I owned a B&B, I certainly wouldn’t like hosting Nick Griffin from a personal point of view, but it wouldn’t give me the right to exclude him, whatever my personal feelings about him”.

So even though you detest someone and his presence in your house would be abhorrent to you, you are happy for the law to override your feelings in favour of his? Doesn’t that say something very significant about your attitude towards the law, namely a certain willingless to allow the law to negatively impinge on your ability to arrange your own life to your own satisfaction?

(Incidentally, only kidding about gyppos and Brummies above. I live in Brum. Sometimes the temptation of baiting lefties overcomes my better judgement. They bite so well, and in so doing, display their own psychpathology to a T. E.g claude @ 8).

And let’s not forget the Tories’ secret weapon: Mandelson. He was on the box straight away condemning Grayling and the Tories. When he endorses something, everyone knows it’s dodgy, and if he condemns something, you can’t help but feel that there must be something positive about it.

ukliberty @ 29,

I’m not disagreeing with you.

I think a clever bigot could find almost anything to ‘object’ to. Compare entry to clubs and up market clubs. Or dancehalls.

I went with a young female friend to a pub which refused us admission. She assumed it was because she was Asian, I assumed it was ageist. Who was right?

@ ukliberty

Gwyn is right, and you are wrong – it doesn’t take an in depth analysis of the economics of market forces to make the judgement.

What is going on here is a moral evil, as sagar says in his excellent “how-to-think-about-gay-equality-and-bedbreakfasts” piece linked @19 above.

Leaving such a question to market forces is nonsense. Do you honestly think that if the Deomocrats had taken this line in the USA in the 60′s we’d have Obama as a President now, or that if the UK hadn’t adopted sundry Race Relations legislation that we wouldn’t still have Powellites in the Tory party warning us about “Rivers of Blood”?

There is a place for the state to act in relation to such issues, and this is one of them. Libertarian clap trap about giving “market forces” a chance to deal with the problem is just so much wishful thinking: they wouldn’t achieve it, and even if they could, we shouldn’t sit on our hands waiting for it come about!

Galen 10,

You are quite right, of course.

One of the most touching things I heard during the Obama campaign was this:

“Rosa sat, so Martin could walk…
Martin walked, so Obama could run…”

And there is a fair degree of truth in that.

It ain’t all about money. Democracy should be better than that.

@ 26 ukliberty: Racial discrimination in the southern states of the USA had an economic factor. The wages of white manual workers were lower because they were rewarded, in a racist culture, by the gift of not being a nigger.

Industrialisation of the USA south in the 1960s had a massive social impact. Some companies employed via the southern racist methodology and others used the less overt northern standards. In spite of the incipient racism, the latter type of company helped to break institutional racism.

@33 Trofim

Yes, that’s what I said, and I meant it.

“a certain willingless to allow the law to negatively impinge on your ability to arrange your own life to your own satisfaction?” is inevitable. As has been said before, if this couple don’t like the thought of opening their house to all comers, then get out of the business.

It just won’t wash trying to use your chosen set of fairy stories to back up the bigotry and discrimination of your views, and then wail about your liberties being infringed by the wicked state if it decides (as it certainly ought to in this case in my view) to ban you from doing it.

Gay people and ethnic minorities don’t choose to be gay or ethnic; religious people or right wingers are biggoted by choice. There’s a much stronger case for the right to bar religious people or right-wingers from B&Bs.

Charlieman,

Can I assume you mean that the wages of white manual workers were higher than the corresponding wages paid to ex slaves? Just because I is white?

Wow!

in spite of the incipient racism, the latter type of company helped to break institutional racism.

And the law had nothing to do with it?

Galen10, what am I wrong about? I asked a question – as I made clear.

douglas @31, you make a good point about Dixie and who had the money. I didn’t think of that.

The smoking ban comparison is surely a false one.

You can’t compare a law which prevents a B&B owner from discriminating against certain types of clientele to a law which compels pubs to discriminate against a different type.

Chris is therefore wrong.

When pubs could choose whether to discriminate (against smokers) or not, the vast majority of them chose not to discriminate in order to maximise their returns. And, although non-smokers were in the majority they did not favour the small number of non-smoking pubs sufficiently strongly to make the non-smoking model a profitable one. This was partly because although only a minority smoke, the likelihood was that any given group attending a pub would contain at least one smoker.

So the evidence of a smoking ban would tend to suggest that, in fact, B&B owners who did discriminate would, in fact lose out. Just as non smoking pubs tended to.

And, in fact, B&B owners regularly discriminate on all sorts of grounds – many won’t accept sports teams or pets, most won’t take stag parties and, prior to the ban, some didn’t accept smokers. Quite rightly we would not dream of preventing any B&B owner from discriminating on these grounds – despite the fact that their money is as good as anyone else’s.

Surely, rather than telling B&B owners the grounds on which they may discriminate, it would be better to make a wider-spread rule – you can discriminate on any grounds you like but you have to declare them. Therefore, a policy of refusing to accept same sex couples must be declared and will put off not only same sex couples but also those of us who don’t want to do business with bigots (or to stay in the kind of place that attracts bigots).

I’m sufficiently confident in the views of the people of this country that any B&B owner who has to confess to anyone calling about a room that he accepts no poofs, pets or Poles, will soon find himself broke.

Maybe one or two places will thrive in the niche market for hate-themed holidays thus created but I reckon they’ll be fewer in number than you might think. If non-smoking pubs were rare, how much rarer do you think a bigots only B&B would be?

@40 Douglas Clark:
White manual workers were paid higher wages than black manual workers doing the same job. Wages for both were lower in the south than in the north, and neither differential can be put down to productivity.

“…in spite of the incipient racism, the latter type of company helped to break institutional racism.”

Note and understand the word *helped*.

@41 ukliberty

I should have made it clearer, apologies.

In your post @26, you agreed with John Meredith@12 that Grayling was right.

As for your question, irrespective of the 2 counterpoint examples in the other thread, I’m not sure you really need much knowledge of recent history to figure out that market forces alone would be a pretty poor engine for change.

GeorgeV,

It is quite a pleasure to meet at least one other person here that has actually stayed in a B&B.

And, in fact, B&B owners regularly discriminate on all sorts of grounds – many won’t accept sports teams or pets, most won’t take stag parties and, prior to the ban, some didn’t accept smokers.

Yup. And some, more ridiculously, won’t accept young humans.

I’m sufficiently confident in the views of the people of this country that any B&B owner who has to confess to anyone calling about a room that he accepts no poofs, pets or Poles, will soon find himself broke.

Let us hope it is so.

@Douglas Clark: You are right, I should have been clearer about the word “lower” which requires qualification as an adjective. I initially typed “reduced” which would have been worse.

@42 George V

“I’m sufficiently confident in the views of the people of this country that any B&B owner who has to confess to anyone calling about a room that he accepts no poofs, pets or Poles, will soon find himself broke.”

Fair enough… but I’m not, and even if I was that confident, it’s still wrong! Can we PLEASE dispel this rose tinted view that if we tolerated some judgement free moral vacuum allowing this sort of behaviour, then they’d all soon go out of business?

Really?

How long do you think it would take? Would a few months be OK..? A year? Ten years? And if, in 10 years time, there was a thriving sector catering to the (for want of a better term) Bigot market, what then? Not a society that I’d like to see – and I feel sorry for anyone who would!

There is a danger here of painting all B&B owners are bigots. They are not.

I have a chum, who I occasionally go on holiday with. He is male and so am I. I used to think that being asked whether we wanted a double bed was insulting. I got quite red faced about it.

But that is the other side of the coin. The landladys didn’t care, one way or another.

And just before the jokes start, we always got single beds…..

Re: ukliberty @ 26

That’s interesting. I don’t know either, in all honesty. It’s important to keep in mind that the legislations you cite were in line with the popular prejudices of the day. You could almost say that such policies were the result of pandering to a target market (i.e. alienated members of the ethnic majority).

It remains to be seen whether a libertarian society could lead to social freedom for all on a long enough timeline, and I consider the question somewhat academic – would you seriously advocate possible centuries of suffering in pursuit of the possibility? I personally don’t think I would, but there’s plenty of grey shades to dwell on.

Charlieman @ 43,

Cheers, it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t exactly know where you are coming from at 46 though?

Quite how ‘lower’ equates to ‘higher’ as a concept seems to take me back to Carol Vorderman. Which is a journey I’d rather not travel.

@47 Galen10: “Can we PLEASE dispel this rose tinted view that if we tolerated some judgement free moral vacuum allowing this sort of behaviour, then they’d all soon go out of business?”

And will the bigots disappear if we have laws banning them? Spain has laws that require that memorials to Franco (definition?) are dismantled. Germany bans Nazi symbolism and outlaws some political movements. But there are still fascists in Spain and Nazis in Germany. It is equally rose tinted to assume that laws on their own will change social attitudes.

Of course I have the right to be a nasty bigot in the privacy of my own home, I can preclude anyone I like on any grounds I decide – that’s my freedom as an individual.
When I turn my home into a B&B, it moves into the public sphere and there is no difference between banning gay people from a B&B and Trust House Forte banning protestants.

Galen10,

In your post @26, you agreed with John Meredith@12 that Grayling was right.

Indeed, I agree with John that in point of principle Grayling is right that people should be free to discriminate and that “there is real concern that protecting individual liberties will lead to a larger abuse of liberty”, so we err on the side of the latter (i.e. attempt to prevent discrimination against particular groups). I confess I’m struggling to see anything wrong with this position; indeed it seems ‘better’ than yours in that you aren’t prepared to allow people such freedom even when the protection against larger abuses is no longer required.

@51 charlieman

I don’t assume that laws on their own will bring about change either. I don’t think it’s rose tinted to beleive they would have an effect… or at least, I think it’s more likely they would have an impact than doing nothing, or waiting for market forces to bring about the same change.

@53 ukliberty

Fair enough.. I think it’s a totally wrong headed approach, but obviously there are many who disagree. Did you read sagar’s blog post refered to elsewhere?

I’m afraid I do not now, and never have, understood the outlook you have on this type of question. For me it’s a moral issue, and I don’t accept it does lead to a larger abuse of liberty.

… I don’t accept it does lead to a larger abuse of liberty

Ah… I think there is some confusion here. The ‘larger abuse’ is the discrimination against gays. I am saying that, for now, I support the infringement of the freedom of the B&B owner because I think it helps protect gays against the effects of discrimination.

@56 ukliberty

Oh, I see! Apologies.. I should have read more carefully. We are in violent agreement then.. on this if not on other things

OK could only be bothered reading about half of the posts

REGARDING THE SMOKING BAN:

It is NOT the smoking ban that has caused so many pub closers. it is the actions of the PubCo chains, leveraged to the hilt, charging unmanageable rents and rates to their landlords.

When I worked as an MPs researcher we did stuff on this ALL THE TIME. Ask CAMRA, for crying out loud. The smoking ban has had some impact, yes, but it is NOT the most important factor. The most important factor is business models operated by conglomerates that post-financial meltdown are completely unworkable – these companies have so much debt to service they are shorting their long-term business interests by jacking up rents and rates for landlords just to get the short-term cash needed to keep the (metaphorical) bailifs at bay.

Again: the smoking ban had some effect on reduction of pub trade, but the reason we are seeing major pub closures is because of unworkable post-2008 business models.

Sorry Libertarians, but it’s your capitalism that’s causing the death of the local pub, not the nasty state and its insistence that if people want to poison themselves with unpleasant cancer-causing fumes they should have to do it outside so that others aren’t forced to inhale too.

“The smoking ban has had some impact, yes, but it is NOT the most important factor.”

That is beside the point. It is a factor and that needs to be taken into account when considering the blatantly illiberal ban.

“Sorry Libertarians, but it’s your capitalism that’s causing the death of the local pub, not the nasty state and its insistence that if people want to poison themselves with unpleasant cancer-causing fumes they should have to do it outside so that others aren’t forced to inhale too.”

People going into pubs are (or were) no more ‘forced’ to inhale fumes than people going into nightclubs are ‘forced’ to hear loud music.

@59 John Meredith

It’s not beside the point at all. Just becuase there are other factors doesn’t mean you can dismiss it as beside the point, because you have a libertarian axe to grind that a ban couldn’t be justified under ANY circumstances becuase it infringes on an individuals right to smoke!

Other posters have accepted that a smoking ban may have has some adverse impact on pubs, and even contributed to closing some down. However, it has without doubt also helped some pubs by increasing their takings, so there is a trade off which is pretty hard to quantify.

Other factors, as detailed by sagar above are likely to have been of much greater import, and taken altogether with the health benefits would seem to most people to over-ride the perceived illiberlity of the ban.

The same principle applies in relation to the B&B issue. Any perceived illiberality in telling the B&B owners they can’t ban gays, is more than off set for most people by the discrimination and bigotry involved in the banning of a particular majority you don’t like for religious reasons. Such choices will always be necessary.. anyone who thinks the B&B owners are in the right lacks a moral compass at best, and is an apologist for bigotry at worst.

“anyone who thinks the B&B owners are in the right lacks a moral compass at best, and is an apologist for bigotry at worst.”

True, but then the B&B owners will never look at themselves in this way.
They believe it is the gays that lack a moral compass.

I would agree with Iain Dale that they shouldn’t be able to discrimate because they are opening a business to serve the public.

The answer is for people with these views not to open a B&B but to lock themselves in their houses and never come out.

“That is beside the point. It is a factor and that needs to be taken into account when considering the blatantly illiberal ban.”

Hah. But what’s perfectly liberal is to allow a minority of smokers to inflict their carcinogenic fumes on others who don’t want them. Funny how probably one of the greatest liberal thinkers in history was against you on this: J.S. Mill’s harm principle – that people may do whatever they want so long as they don’t inflict harm upon others – rather tells against you, what with cigarette smoke being, y’know, carcinogenic poison. And isn’t it rather illiberal for individual smokers to inflcit their smoke on others, forcing them outside or to stay at home should they not want to breath it in? Or (typical narrow-viewed libertarian) is it simply that we use the term “liberal” and “illiberal” only when applied to the state, because that suits our rhetorical and propagandist purposes?

“People going into pubs are (or were) no more ‘forced’ to inhale fumes than people going into nightclubs are ‘forced’ to hear loud music.”

Another absolute classic.

Sure, nobody took the non-smokers legs, but them in chains and then dragged the non-smokers into the smoke-filled pubs. On that score, nobody “forced” them to go in. Then again, this is a typically narrow, reductivist and self-serving conception of freedom. After all, when the choice is:

Go to smoke-filled pub because that’s where all your friends are
or
Stay at home alone

to say that nobody is “forcing” the person to go to the pub to spend their times is to totally misunderstand what’s important in the situation. Namely, not whether anybody is being “forced” to go into the pub, but whether the options they must choose between are considered reasonable ones. And frankly, I don’t think it is reasonable that non smokers should have to inhale ciagarrette smoke if they want to go to the pub with their friends. Far more reasonable is to say “hey, if you want to smoke, you have to do it outside where you’re not inflicting it on other people”.

Stop dressing this up in ridiculous overblown terms about “illiberalism” whilst farcicly claiming the other way that because nobody is “forced” therefore choices made under sub-optimal and constrained circumstances are therefore wholly equal and that further qualitative distinctions cannot be made. It’s tiresome and it’s self-serving…rather a lot like libertarianism generally, actually.

“True, but then the B&B owners will never look at themselves in this way.
They believe it is the gays that lack a moral compass.”

And they’re wrong. So that’s why we proudly legislate against them, rather than retreating to some unstable pussilanimous relativist neutrality.

“Namely, not whether anybody is being “forced” to go into the pub, but whether the options they must choose between are considered reasonable ones.”

How about this as a reasonable and entirely liberal option?

A pub could have a smoking section and a non smoking section.

In fact, 28 years ago I was working in a pub that had exactly that. Did booming business too.

@61 Dave

I agree that the B&B owners will never see themselves this way: it’s always the problem with “people of faith” because they will never be anything but convinced that their “truth” is universal. Their predecesors saw nothing wrong in keeping slaves either.

It doesn’t surprise me that the people doing this are using religion as an excuse, but it doesn’t make it any more acceptable. If the Tories (or the Libertarians for that matter) had any sense they would accept that they shouldn’t be able to discrimate because they are opening a business to serve the public. That would be the pragmatic thing to do..instead they just can’t bring themselves to do it: more power to their elbows I say – hopefully it will lose them enough votes to contribute to depriving them of a majority!

“And they’re wrong. So that’s why we proudly legislate against them, rather than retreating to some unstable pussilanimous relativist neutrality.”

No, I think they’re wrong, you think they’re there wrong. They dont. I think the whole crux of the argument is that there is no right answer. Everything can be many different things at the same time depending on whos perceiving it.

So in conclusion as you say thats why we proudly legislate against them, and they will legislate for them.

The real goal I think is teaching people why they are wrong so they can change. And I dont think calling them bigots really achieves anything. Because they could just call you a pervert.

And its back to square one.

“Hah. But what’s perfectly liberal is to allow a minority of smokers to inflict their carcinogenic fumes on others who don’t want them. Funny how probably one of the greatest liberal thinkers in history was against you on this: J.S. Mill’s harm principle – that people may do whatever they want so long as they don’t inflict harm upon others”

No, Mill is with me on this one since those who don’t want to be in the company of smokers can choose not to be. You seem to think that people absolutely must go to pubs or have no social life, but that isn’t the case at all. The analogy with music is a good one. My friends like to go to clubs where they play music at dangerously high volumes. I have to tolerate it or not be with them. Should I be entitled to fiorce the clubs to lower the volume? No, that would be illiberal because I am choosing to entertain the risk of harm.

But what if it was the case that being ‘excluded’ from pubs did inflict some harm so great that the state was forced to act? Leaving aside why we do not have state run pubs for places that otherwise lack them (which seems to follow from your ‘argument’) then why not have a compromise solution of smoke-licenced pubs and others? The licenced ones might even be in a small minority. Stop trying to disguise your anti-liberalsim as some sort of crusade for health. There is nothing liberal about defending the freedom to do things you enjoy while attacking the freedoms of others to do things that you personally dislike.

“A pub could have a smoking section and a non smoking section.”

Quite. And these days the technology allows us to make the non-smoking section truly smoke-free. But peple like Paul S would still have their eyes soiled by having to see people doing things that he disapproves of, which would spoli his evening in another way, I am sure.

@64 Tim

You really are a trier Tim, I’ll give you that… so many of your attitudes seem more fitted to 28 years ago to.. or even 82 years ago…!

No doubt you thought cinemas where you could only smoke on the right hand side were a great option too, because of course smoke wouldn’t move to the other side of the room. Or how about only smoking upstairs on buses.. that was a great one!

Lots of pubs tried smoking “sections” or rooms – they still stank the places out, they still represent a threat to the health of customers and staff.

Here’s a liberal option for you on smoking (which could also apply to religious bigots like the B&B owners) … keep them to yourselves!

Don’t impose your habits on others by smoking in enclosed areas where non-smokers are adversely affected, and don’t try to impose the moral imperatives of your made up religion on those who don’t hold with them. Sorted!

“No doubt you thought cinemas where you could only smoke on the right hand side were a great option too, because of course smoke wouldn’t move to the other side of the room.”

It’s an interesting comparison because, of course, cinemas went non-smoking without the law having to force them, because people preferred cinemas that were smoke free. There was one cinema in London that allowed smoking, one in the whole city, but the grim faced illiberalists came along and put a stop to that, of course.

66
The law makes it quite clear that you cannot discriminate against gay people when providing goods and services, the end.
It does’t matter what the christian couple think or anyone else for that matter.
Paedos believe that the law is wrong with regard to the age of consent, I doubt if there are many on LC who would be concerned about their perception of reality
or whether the law is illiberal.

I was trying to ignore the smoking argument, but it has taken off…

Smoking has been identified as an unhealthy practice for at least 50 years. How long does not matter. When burnt, tobacco releases things that taste/feel nice (eg nicotine), filthy stuff (eg tar), bad gases (eg carbon monoxide) and evil radical gases. The evil radical gases are the ones that are most strongly associated with cancer in humans; tar and carbon monoxide are associated with other disorders (lung and heart/vascular complaints).

If you are a smoker, it is not a pretty picture. The gases that you imbibe are pretty awful. But the smoking ban has been imposed to protect non-smokers, so the argument should focus on them.

Carbon monoxide: no secondary impact because carbon monoxide will convert to carbon dioxide when it gets the chance. Many orders faster than it took you to read the last sentence.

Tar: secondary exposure is akin to walking by a stationary queue of cars. Or the fumes from your new carpet tiles. Just get out and breathe a bit.

Evil radicals: this is the nub. Evil radicals want to combine with something else. If you smoke, the evil radicals connect with everything between your lips and your lungs. And your facial skin, I suppose. The cancer studies people really want to know how evil radicals work because radicals are not just about smoking.

But recall: Evil radicals want to combine with something else. When they are in the air, rather than in hot fumes, the radicals will be looking to hook up with other elements and compounds. As soon as they hook up, they release energy and cease to become radical.

If you blow your smoke in another’s face you are ill mannered and exposing that person to the same risk as you. If you smoke normally, the secondary risk to others is insignificant.

The ban on smoking in public places in the UK was implemented a couple of years ago, based on “sound scientific evidence”. From what we have read about climate change science recently — whether we are pro or anti — we have to question the partiality of scientists.

Charlieman’s review of the very dodgy scientific basis for the secondary smoking scare is useful but not necessary. Even if we admit that secondary smoke is deadly, that is not a good reason for the state to stop people from choosing to expose themselves to it, that is the point about the Mill passage that Paul Sagar doesn’t seem to understand. You can (rather dishonestly in my view) contrive an argument about employee safety, but that would only lead to better protection for employees, not a smoking ban.

@71

“It does’t matter what the christian couple think or anyone else for that matter.”

Funny that, because it used to be illegal to be gay. People thought this was wrong and the law was changed.

@73 John Meredith

The employee safety argument isn’t dishonest, it just doesn’t fit in with your mania that smoking bans are illiberal, and nothing else but the illiberality matters.

Such factors DO matter, whether it’s the staff or customers in a smoking establishment being harmed, or people’s liberties being infringed by religious fundamentalists refusing to provide services to homosexuals.

The smoking ban posts are rather off thread, because it suits the libertarian ultras to obfuscate the central point: in this case, as in many others in a modern society, a choice has to be made about which of the 2 sides here is most convincing… and hopefully in the eyes of most people it will not be the couple who own the B&B, or their apologist Chris Grayling.

“The employee safety argument isn’t dishonest, it just doesn’t fit in with your mania that smoking bans are illiberal, and nothing else but the illiberality matters.”

It is dishonest. If employee health was the concern pubs would simply be required to take due precautions, as they do in every other workplace. Are staff permitted to work in places with dangerously high levels of noise? Yes, that is why symphonic musicians have such terrible hearing problems. Should symphonic music be banned? No, even if it isn’t yours and Paul’s cup of tea.

“The smoking ban posts are rather off thread, because it suits the libertarian ultras”

By the by, it is funny that it has come to be seen as an extreme position that there might be private clubs that permit smoking cigarettes or pubs that should be licenxcced to permit it. And on a ;’liberal’ website.

I have also noticed that those who most pasionately defend the smoking ban in the UK, typically are equally passionate in opposing a ban on ganja cafes in Amsterdam. Where do you stand on that, I wonder?

@73 John Meredith

“Charlieman’s review of the very dodgy scientific basis for the secondary smoking scare is useful but not necessary”

It isn’t useful, because it isn’t true; neither is it on-topic. Denying the ample evidence for the effects of secondary smoking is aking to the trolls who insist that global warming is all a beseless conspiracy, or that the world is flat, or Elvis is really alive and living in Simon Cowell’s basement….

Stop trying to divert attention from the fact that your libertarian fixation with the illiberality of telling the B&B bigots they can’t discriminate, is somehow worse than the fact of their bigotry and discrimination.

“ganja cafes in Amsterdam”

You mean the ones where you can smoke ganja but not tobacco?

(Or at least so there was a story about, that the Dutch tobacco ban would lead to that situation).

@79 tobacco is banned in coffee shops, but this seems to be ignored in most of them.

I dont see the connection between smoking and gays. Smoking physically affects someones health and that of those around them, being gay doesn’t.

What a lot of blether about pubs.

When I was at university, there was one pub in town, the Free Press which was entirely smoke free. It was charming, odour free, had considerable character and quite decent beer. What it did not have was a lot of customers.

Why? Because those of us who smoked, (a minority) very much enjoyed having a fag indoors while drinking while the majority who did not smoke weren’t all that bothered. I can’t recall anyone ever suggesting that since smokers were in the minority we should all go to the FP. Nor, during my occasional attempts to quit do I recall anyone saying we should go there because it was less smelly and therefore nicer. I did go once or twice but only because I was nearby, thirsty and either not smoking or out of fags.

The smoking, non-smoking question wasn’t very important to very many people. The minority to whom it was important drank just enough to keep one pub out of the hundred or so in town in business.

You might say the same of the Black Friar in London – which did not permit smoking in order to protect its listed interior. Despite its beautiful carvings, view of the river, proximity to tourist sites and the fact that it served Yorkshire puddings and gravy as a bar snack, you had a better chance of a seat in there than almost any other pub in the City. Now that the smoking ban has come in everywhere and it has lost its relative disadvantage, business seems to have picked up.

If a large proportion of non-smokers felt strongly about the dangers of passive smoking they would have voted with their feet and packed out the tiny number of entirely non-smoking establishments – even if only on the occasions when they were not drinking with smokers. They did not.

Returning, just briefly to the main subject in response to Galen10. I am sorry that you think that such a large proportion of the people of this country are vile bigots but you won’t change them by telling them they have to welcome people they don’t like with open arms. Nor are gay couples likely to get much of a welcome in a B&B whose owner despises them.

The bonus of my solution is that it retains proportionality. If you ring up a B&B and discover that they harbour an irrational hatred of you, it is unpleasant but not difficult to book at a different B&B. If, however, you arrive at a B&B in the middle of the night and you discover that they won’t put you up because of a prejudice they were legally obliged to disclose at the time of the booking, it is very inconvenient but you can force them to put you up or sue them for the inconvenience of going elsewhere. Your choice, how bloody-minded are you feeling?

Sure, there might be a few places with vile policies still in business a few years later but, given the experience of non-smoking pubs – I’m prepared to bet that they’d be unbelievably few in number.

@78 Galen10: “It isn’t useful, because it isn’t true; neither is it on-topic. Denying the ample evidence for the effects of secondary smoking is aking to the trolls who insist that global warming is all a beseless conspiracy, or that the world is flat, or Elvis is really alive and living in Simon Cowell’s basement….”

Wow.

1. I kept my gob shut on the smoking subject until it was a topic conversation.

2. There is no unified theory of cancer causation.

3. Accusations of flat earth belief or Elvis worship always embarrass the propounder.

74
Quite, and it’s now legal, why should a christian couple, as Grayling suggests, be able to discriminate when to do so is illegal? Times change, laws change, I can’t see what invoking the smoking ban has got to do with this topic.
One of the many things that liberalism did for society was to introduce the notion of ‘the public’ and ‘the private’, the christian couple can, within their private home, ban gays and allow smoking, as a B&B they cannot do this.

It is interesting to see the pretend libertarians use the smoking ban as an example of the nanny state going to far. Because most of them will always put in the caveat of doing what they like as long as it does not harm anyone else.

Hello? They obviously have never thought about the damage it is doing to the person sitting next to them. Again this all about a bunch of assholes wanting the right to be assholes come what may and sod other people.

As for the end of the pub well, there are many factors for that. The end of heavy industries over the last 30 years, the rise of supermarkets, and the sale of cheap drink etc etc.

“Quite, and it’s now legal, why should a christian couple, as Grayling suggests, be able to discriminate when to do so is illegal?”

Because being Christian has become the get out of jail card for every low life and toss pot out there. “It is not me you understand, but my religion that says you are wrong”

And the lilly livered politicians go along with this.

@84 Sally: “They obviously have never thought about the damage it is doing to the person sitting next to them.”

I have thought about it and published my thoughts above. I welcome a critique from a biochemist or pharmacologist or general quack.

Supporting the freedom to be a horrible bigot

I can assure you that I support your freedom to do anything that I happen to approve of.

85
The point I’m making Sally, is that the christian couple can discriminate, no-one is disallowed from smoking. the liberals here don’t seem to understand that there is a freedom of choice. If you want to smoke you can in your own private sphere, why is it considered illiberal if your smoking affects only you.
Similarly, the christian couple can preclude anyone from their own home, they do have that freedom of choice, they could either dismiss the idea of a B&B or set-up home seperately from the B&B, as I see it, it,s a win, win for everyone, why all the whinging?

Interesting to note that the The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 was brought in by statutory instrument and is the usual mess that occurs when legislation is introduced without proper thought and scrutiny.

As far as I can see, if I turned up at the B&B as a necrophiliac along with my dead wife, the landlady would be breaking the law by refusing me a room.

Tempting as it is to test this theory……….

John Meredith: you do realise, I hope, that your claim that I am mistaken about Mill’s harm principle rests upon your very narrow view of freedom, such that if people are not physically constrained they are free and all choices are equally good (amusingly this puts you in the same camp as that advocate of limited state minimalism, er, Thomas Hobbes).

You see, if it is the case that in practice going to the pub means having to inhale carcinogenic fumes, and ipso facto such fumes are harmful, then it is reasonable for the state to restrict the activities of people who spread those fumes, given that they harm other people. The state isn’t telling people that they can’t smoke – just that they must smoke outside.

When you look at it this way, the smoking ban looks like a perfectly liberal response to a problem of some people wanting to undertake activities that may harm others if left as they are but need not necessarily do so. Of course, the alternative is to go swivel-eyed and shout (regardless of my original post) that non-smokers are free to not go to the pub at all, and bizarrely infer that a reasonable cost of pub-going is undesired inhalation of poisonous gasses.

Tim: that’s a good point. The blanket ban on smoking appears to have more to do with attempts to discourage and reduce long-term smoking trends. Harder to justify on classical liberal grouds as it looks to be a manifest example of paternalism – but as we know from discussions at my place, it can’t possibly work because as you so insist, only underlying economic factors and existing public opinion ever changes anything; legislation has no impact except to make the Market less efficient ; )

“Interesting to note that the The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 was brought in by statutory instrument and is the usual mess that occurs when legislation is introduced without proper thought and scrutiny.”

you seem to be implying that legislation passed on the floor of the house is not a mess and is subjected to proper thought and security.

I’m afraid I can only ‘LOL’ at this sweetly naive thought.

You see, if it is the case that in practice going to the pub means having to inhale carcinogenic fumes, and ipso facto such fumes are harmful, then it is reasonable for the state to restrict the activities of people who spread those fumes, given that they harm other people. The state isn’t telling people that they can’t smoke – just that they must smoke outside.

When you look at it this way, the smoking ban looks like a perfectly liberal response to a problem of some people wanting to undertake activities that may harm others if left as they are but need not necessarily do so.

No, it’s illiberal to interfere with the freedom of consenting individuals to do as they wish to each other.

Claude:

“And then would you also allow them to do so for Black people or the Jewish, etc?

Yes or no answer, please.”

Yes, as argued in the post itself; you can’t change your sexual preference (well, up to a point) just as you can’t change who you were born as. While I’m sure that as douglas clark argues, most B&B owners are businesses first and disapproving discrimination centres second, the idea that some don’t already discriminate when someone with a certain accent or name rings up and enquires about staying is ludicrous, just as some employers discriminate in a similar way. At least with this policy the bigotry is out in the open, rather than keeping it hidden as it currently is. Fact is that while some B&Bs probably could survive while discriminating, large companies couldn’t, hence why we should be able to know just who those who rely on such irrational prejudices are.

without the right to ban whoever the govt. decide to call “bigots”, think how many public sector jobs & pensions would have to go?
all those very well paid, low stress, large holiday public sector equal opportunity advisors and lobbyists and councillers and minority leaders, diversity consultants and quangoes would have to get proper jobs if anyone would employ them.

…. even worse…. if you stopped the equal opps. legislation then the public sector might have to employ hetero white males….

J Dromy @ 94,

Don’t worry too much about that. Many government jobs, both local and national are being converted into private sector enterprises. It makes such a difference, so it does!

It’s a sort of magic trick.

“all those very well paid, low stress, large holiday public sector equal opportunity advisors and lobbyists and councillers and minority leaders, diversity consultants and quangoes would have to get proper jobs if anyone would employ them.”

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Yea, unlike those private lazy farmers sucking on the tit of govt with their hand outs every time they screw up their business. Or the lazy good for nothing bankers. And I mean soldiers have nice, easy no stress jobs out in Afghanistan .

You are an idiot

@92 ukliberty

“No, it’s illiberal to interfere with the freedom of consenting individuals to do as they wish to each other.”

Your mono-mania is simply staggering. In the case of the smoking ban, the point was that there was no consent from non-smokers. The point that some people, including some non-smokers, didn’t care if others smoked, doesn’t mean that a proposed smoking ban is illiberal, and therefore not permissable under any circumstances.

“Your mono-mania is simply staggering. In the case of the smoking ban, the point was that there was no consent from non-smokers. ”

Non smoker gave their consent implicitly when they chose to spend evenings in smokey places. Surely this is obvious? It is illiberal for the government to interfere with the legal non-commercial passtimes of consenting adults. This is why, for example, we do not permit the police to check whether or not we ae using condoms.

“You see, if it is the case that in practice going to the pub means having to inhale carcinogenic fumes, and ipso facto such fumes are harmful, then it is reasonable for the state to restrict the activities of people who spread those fumes, given that they harm other people.”

Not if going into the pub is non-essential and the choice whether or not to go into the pub is entirely uncoerced. You must see (although you are clearly determined to ignore) the analogy with loud music? If I choose to go into a venue that plays loud music I risk my health. The risks are much more clearly understood than the risks from passive smoking as well. Am I therefore entitled to forbid the playing of loud music?

And you are also determined to ignore the availability of many compromise solutions, such as pubs with non-smoking areas, or licenced smoking pubs. How can they interefere with your peculiar idea of liberty (which looks a lot like paternalistic authoritariansim to me)?

@99 John Meredith

The analogy with loud music is simplistic. Loud music isn’t potentially going to kill you, and few people would be visiting clubs as frequently as they might want to visit pubs, restaurants or other public places where people used to be allowed to smoke.

Pubs with non-smoking areas were tried, and didn’t really work. I wouldn’t in fact have a particular problem with licensed smoking pubs.

I’m not convinced by your “implicit consent” argument @98 either: saying it’s obvious don’t make it so John!

I’d agree that it is “illiberal for the government to interfere with the legal non-commercial passtimes of consenting adults”, but it’s not an absolute, and to hold otherwise is sophistry. The illiberality of banning smoking in public places is outweighed by the benefits to society as a whole, and the benefit of those who don’t smoke.

Galen10,

In the case of the smoking ban, the point was that there was no consent from non-smokers.

They consented by going to pubs where smoking was allowed. (Paul may be right that it’s arguable whether there is completely free consent.)

The point that some people, including some non-smokers, didn’t care if others smoked, doesn’t mean that a proposed smoking ban is illiberal…

A ban on the activities of consenting individuals is illiberal by definition.

…and therefore not permissable under any circumstances.

I didn’t mention “any circumstances”. Try not to put words in my mouth.

Paul argues (in essence) that non-smokers were suffering some harm and therefore it is better to ban smoking in pubs than to not ban smoking in pubs. Banning smoking is an illiberal act but Paul argues that the benefits outweigh that. That is as far as he needs to go, in this context; claiming that it is ‘perfectly liberal’ to ban something is nonsense.

Your mono-mania is simply staggering.

Perhaps you should concern yourself less with my supposed mono-mania and more with your reading comprehension.

“Loud music isn’t potentially going to kill you, and few people would be visiting clubs as frequently as they might want to visit pubs, restaurants or other public places where people used to be allowed to smoke.”

Loud music has serious deleterious health effects which are clearly demonstrable (unlike the negative health efffects of passive smoking). If we have the right to ban smoking to prevent people from opting to suffer the possible harm it follows that we have the right to ban loud music. I might very well want to spend enough time in clubs and at concerts to damage my health. Thousands do. I might also want to work in those venues.

But if you don’t like that analogy, try the one wth drinking. As a teetotaller, why should I have to risk the violence and verbal abuse that is clearly associated with drinking alcohol in pubs when I go out with my friends? Of course, I can choose to go to venues that don’t serve alcool,but that means I a excluded from my friend’s company. Why should I not be entitled to alcohol-free pubs (Paul Sagar is no doubt rubbing his hands at the prospect of another juicy ban, for your own good, of course)?

“Loud music has serious deleterious health effects which are clearly demonstrable ”

Quite. It can lead to collapsed lungs for example (no, seriously, some A&E’s are reporting cases caused by excessive boom boxes in cars).

“As a teetotaller, why should I have to risk the violence and verbal abuse that is clearly associated with drinking alcohol in pubs when I go out with my friends”

You shouldn’t, which is why these things are illegal.

@ ukliberty 101

“They consented by going to pubs where smoking was allowed. (Paul may be right that it’s arguable whether there is completely free consent.)”

So you agree that there is an argument to be had about whether there is completely free consent in this case? The argument that people are free not to go into smoking environments is always used by libertarians, as is the one that a “ban on the activities of consenting indivduals is illiberal by definition” and therefore should not happen irrespective of any other factors.

If you feel I put words in your mouth I apologise – but isn’t a reasonable inference from what went above? Perhaps if you explained your position further? I’d be genuinely interested – your one line response @92 doesn’t exactly help in figuring out whether you think that there are circumstances where a ban would be permissable; whether you think it’s never permissable, or it would be under certain circumstances.

As for Paul’s view that it is “perfectly liberal” to ban something being nonsense: I would disagree. Weighing up the pros and cons and deciding that a smoking ban was preferable, and then instituting measures to bring it in, can perfectly legitimately be seen as a “liberal” response. Your definition of liberality is so stringent as to render it ridiculous.

Nothing wrong with my reading comprehension ukliberty, you just don’t explain yourself very well, and have a tendency to lob in “one liner” responses from the rareified heights of ultra-libertarian purity.

Galen10

“Pubs with non-smoking areas were tried, and didn’t really work. I wouldn’t in fact have a particular problem with licensed smoking pubs.”

I refer you to my comments @81 above.

Licensed smoking pubs have been tried and were successful they constituted the overwhelming majority of all pubs until recently – non-smokers and smokers alike enjoyed them. Pubs that voluntarily banned smoking were also tried. They were not notably successful – which probably explains why I can only think of two of them in my entire experience of pub-going up to the ban.

Non-smoking restaurants on the other hand were an entirely different matter and there were quite a few of them.

This suggests that most (though not of course all) non-smokers did not consider passive smoking to be all that dangerous nor, in the case of pubs, all that vile. They may, of course, have erred in this belief but I think we can be sure that, had non-smoking pubs been notably popular with non-smokers, we would have seen more of them prior to the ban.

Since non-smokers were not availing themselves of the opportunities offered by the market enough to encourage that market, we must assume that the ban was not motivated by an urgent desire by non-smokers to escape the misery and peril of passive smoking.

“You shouldn’t, which is why these things are illegal”

Unfortunately, that is about as much use as making lung cancer illegal. The only way to prevent thrid party risk of harm from alcohol in pubs, would be to ban alcohol in pubs.

@106 George V

Your comments @81 refer to a few pubs you knew personally, which is fair enough. However we’re talking about country wide, and society as a whole.

Yes of course licensed smoking pubs constituted the vast majority until the ban by default, but in my experience (which like yours I accept is hardly representative) most non-smokers simply tolerated it, and would very much have preferred a non-smoking environment, just as they wanted non-smoking restaurants.

I think you’re definitely wrong that most non-smokers weren’t that bothered, or that they thought passive smoking wasn’t that dangerous. Fair enough, they weren’t out marching in the streets about it, but ask any non-smoker if they prefer non-smoking pubs and the vast majority will say yes, altho I accept that a minority probably weren’t much bothered. In fact, plenty of smokers I know prefer non-smoking pubs.

I don’t think the argument that because non-smokers weren’t rioting in the streets that it wasn’t important or seen as urgent. There are (as has been pointed out here and in other threads about other issues such as civil rights and anti-discrimination) times where government has to take a lead, because you can’t just leave it to the markets, or wait until everyone gives up smoking etc.

Most people are happy to acquiesce in the limited curtailment of liberties necessary for a smoking ban, and not persuaded by the libertarian view (whether vis-a-vis smoking or discrimination against homosexuals in B&B’s) that nothing can be done because it’s too illiberal to curtail an individuals liberty.

@107: “The only way to prevent third party risk of harm from alcohol in pubs, would be to ban alcohol in pubs.”

There are, of course, extensive additional third party risks created by alcohol consumption ranging from higher teen pregnancies, sex and violent crimes and road fatalities resulting from druken driving. However, drinkers incur significant personal healthcare risks and thereby imposed additional costs on the NHS which taxpayers in general are obliged to bear:

“The number of alcohol-related deaths in the United Kingdom has consistently increased since the early 1990s, rising from the lowest figure of 4,023 (6.7 per 100,000) in 1992 to the highest of 9,031 (13.6 per 100,000) in 2008. Although figures in recent years suggested that the trend was levelling out, alcohol-related deaths in males increased further in 2008. Female rates have remained stable.”
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=1091

@107 John Meredith

The risks associated with “violence and verbal abuse” would presumably be mitigated by the police force, or publicans ejecting people being violent and/or abusive?

I don’t think the analogy is a particulalry useful one.

“The risks associated with “violence and verbal abuse” would presumably be mitigated by the police force, or publicans ejecting people being violent and/or abusive? ”

Just as passive smomking is mitigated, but not prevented byextraction fans. I think the analogy holds. If it is not illiberal to ban smoking in pubs and private smoking clubs, I can’t see how it is illiberal to ban alcohol which is at least as significantly harmful.

As Bob mentions, drink driving is another serious risk imposed on non-drinkers by the availability of acohol outside of the home. It were illegal to drink outside of the home, drink driving would be nearly eliminated.

@ 5 “If you allowed that you wouldn’t get a couple of smokers’ pubs, but all pubs would be smokers pubs to attract the most business. You completely undermine the legislation.

But that’s the free market operating in a democracy !!! “Smokers pubs” were something the majority of pub goers were either actively in favour of (as they were themselves smokers) or at least they were not sufficiently bothered by to let it affect their choice of pub. I remember the weekend the ban came into force. The hordes of non-smokers who had alledgedly stayed out of pubs “because of the smoke” for decades all piled into them. For one weekend. Then they realised that it wasn’t smoke they disliked, but pubs. Since then pubs have been closing on an almost daily basis leaving only lame cafe/bars which are full of dull middle aged, middle class diners, or town centre vertical drinking establishments full of binge drinking 20 somethings.
So a very small small minority of people who mostly didn’t use pubs anyway were allowed top deny everyone the choice, because smokers now have no choice and even non-smokers have fewer choices of pub. You call offering choice this “undermining the legislation” without seeming to realise that the legislation was self serving and pointless, smoking rates have not gone down (presumably the purpose of the legislation) and the supposed harm from “passive smoking” is so imperceptible anyway that it’s made no measurable difference to anyones health. The only people who win are those smug twats who say “at least I don’t smell of smoke after a night out” well bully for you, what about the rest of us ?

Galen10, I don’t claim to be a libertarian.

WRT the issue of consent, on the face of it we seem free to choose whether or not to go to a pub. However, I think Paul’s concern about the extent or nature of that freedom ought to be considered; if the only pubs I can go to are smoking pubs, or if my friends all want to visit a smoking pub, my freedom to choose seems a bit less absolute. I’m not a robot, I want to be with my friends rather than be alone.

What I object to about a total ban on smoking in pubs is that it’s total, that there are no options available: rooms purely for smoking (no staff); protective equipment for staff; licensed smoking areas/pubs… I’m sure it’s not beyond our wit to think of alternatives.

Also, people talk about the harms associated with smoking… unlike you, I think John’s comment about the harms associated with alcohol is apposite, the social costs are estimated to be some £20bn a year IIRC, but I doubt the government will ban alcohol in the foreseeable.

That is why I think the ban is more paternalist than liberal (in the sense of weighing infringements and harms) and a sop to anti-smokers – those who have gone beyond education (good) toward illiberalism (bad). If there were as many smokers as there are drinkers I doubt the government would have banned smoking in pubs.

If you feel I put words in your mouth I apologise – but isn’t a reasonable inference from what went above?

It seems to me only a reasonable inference if you associate ‘illberalism’ with ‘always bad’ – I don’t, I think life is more complicated.

As for Paul’s view that it is “perfectly liberal” to ban something being nonsense: I would disagree. Weighing up the pros and cons and deciding that a smoking ban was preferable, and then instituting measures to bring it in, can perfectly legitimately be seen as a “liberal” response. Your definition of liberality is so stringent as to render it ridiculous.

I objected to the word “perfectly”, not the word “liberal”. You agree it’s illiberal to ban smoking @100, so I can’t see any value in arguing about this.

@ 109 However, drinkers incur significant personal healthcare risks and thereby imposed additional costs on the NHS which taxpayers in general are obliged to bear:

No they aren’t. Drinkers themselves pay additional tax (on the purchase of alchol) which non-drinkers do not pay, they are covering the externalities, as are smokers (in their case many times over).

98
The police might not check whether we are using condoms but they would get interested if we were using them in public.
Why don’t all of the libertarians get together and rent a garage or some such outbuilding, sound-proof it, build a bar and install a juke-box, you could then purchase alcohol, sharing the costs, and democratically decide when to meet.
Smoking wouldn’t be banned and you could preclude anyone you like, – christians, blacks, Irish etc all to the beat of incredibly loud music.
Simples

“but they would get interested if we were using them in public.”

Pubs are not public places (I know the name confuses some of the more simple-minded) they are private property where consenting adults meet to do legal things.

@116

Why don’t all of the libertarians get together and rent a garage or some such outbuilding, sound-proof it, build a bar and install a juke-box, you could then purchase alcohol, sharing the costs, and democratically decide when to meet.
Smoking wouldn’t be banned

Yes it would. That’s the point.

117
No. pubs are part of the public sphere, that’s why they need a licence to sell alcohol. If you were to take-up the proposition of post 116, you would be operating in the private sphere, consequently you would not require a drinks licence or an entertainment licence you would not be required to submit yearly accounts or meet the quite robust health and safety requirements. A libertarian paradise really.

@ 116 You would have established a private club, but under our draconian legislation you still wouldn’t be allowed to smoke in it (unless you knocked at least half of the garage walls, and the roof down).

@ 119 There’s no connection between an alcohol license and a public place private clubs and residents only hotel bars have licenses but aren’t public places by defonotion, and the accounts argument is bogus, individual pubs aren’t listed so don’t have to file any. Try “they need a licencse from the environmental health office/fire service” that’s usually the next specious argument………

This idea that anywhere outside your own home is a “public place” is absolute nonsense. Would you call a prison a public place (you can smoke there bizzarely) or the House of Commons (ditto) ?

steveb, if I understand correctly private members clubs are not exempt from the ban.

“No. pubs are part of the public sphere,”

They are not. They are private property.

“that’s why they need a licence to sell alcohol.”

You need a licence to sell alcohol period. If you sell it from your bedroom it will still need a licence, but your bedroom remains your bedroom and not ‘the public sphere’.

“If you were to take-up the proposition of post 116, you would be operating in the private sphere, consequently you would not require a drinks licence or an entertainment licence you would not be required to submit yearly accounts or meet the quite robust health and safety requirements. A libertarian paradise really.”

See above. In that context you would need a licence, and you would still not be allowed to smoke. It would constitute a private members club. See why this is a tiny bit illiberal?

You libertarians really do make it hard for yourselves, there would be no private club it would be a few friends and acquaintances getting together, since when was a private party subject to state intervention, providing you do not venture outside of the criminal law?
I have converted my garage into a snooker room simply because I live out in the sticks and there is no public transport. I invite my friends round (some smoke) and we club together to buy the drinks, music is optional
Not that I’ve worked it out to the nearest penny, but over the year it’s worked out a lot cheaper than taking a taxi and paying pub pirces – and I get to choose who comes – this market thing is wonderful
123
Splitting hairs a bit, so you won’t need a licence to consume alcohol.
I wonder what other obstacles you will put in the way, enjoy yourselves and leave out the angst.

@ 124 “I have converted my garage into a snooker room simply because I live out in the sticks and there is no public transport. I invite my friends round (some smoke) and we club together to buy the drinks, music is optional”

Have you done a risk assesment ?

125
Touche

@114 ukliberty

“What I object to about a total ban on smoking in pubs is that it’s total, that there are no options available: rooms purely for smoking (no staff); protective equipment for staff; licensed smoking areas/pubs… I’m sure it’s not beyond our wit to think of alternatives.”

I’m sure there are alternatives too, I just don’t think they are that feasible. Protective equipments for staff… gas masks perhaps? .. or spending money on extraction equipment for the fumes?

Like I said above, I don’t have particular problems with all smoking places, but most smokers I know have never seemed too bothered, (in fact some I know prefer it) and I suppose it would make it kind of difficult for mixed groups of smokers and non-smokers.

WRT to the alcohol question, I’m not unaware of the arguments pro and con, I was just trying to avoid bringing a “new” topic to the table really, when a lot of the arguments on that issue would be the same as those rehearsed above.

@116 steveb: “Why don’t all of the libertarians get together and rent a garage or some such outbuilding, sound-proof it, build a bar and install a juke-box, you could then purchase alcohol, sharing the costs, and democratically decide when to meet.”

See Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

Galen10,

I’m sure there are alternatives too, I just don’t think they are that feasible. Protective equipments for staff… gas masks perhaps? .. or spending money on extraction equipment for the fumes?

Why not gas masks? Why not extraction equipment? HSE regs require protective equipment in lots of different circumstances. We could say that there may be specially designated smoking rooms, we could prohibit staff from entering smoking rooms without gas masks, we could say that smoking rooms must have proper extraction equipment, and the authorities could enforce compliance.

WRT to the alcohol question, I’m not unaware of the arguments pro and con, I was just trying to avoid bringing a “new” topic to the table really, when a lot of the arguments on that issue would be the same as those rehearsed above.

The ‘social costs’ have been estimated to be some £20bn and binge drinkers commit a disproportionate amount of crime – there’s as much if not more of a case for banning people from drinking alcohol together as there is for smoking together. That’s why it’s apposite; if we’re banning one thing on the grounds of harm, why not another thing that causes harm? Because there is a sufficient and vocal number of illiberal anti-smokers.

steveb, you’re missing the point in being deliberately obtuse. What business is it of the state to interfere with people who want to go to a place specifically for the purpose of smoking (let alone anything else)? A private members club is not a public place.

128
Sorry Charlieman you’ll just have to spell it out to me, the state will not intervene in a private party unless you overstep the criminal law.
I mentioned in another thread that I believed that humans were flexible and creative, but all that’s happening here is that your are seeing obstacles where there are none.
What is it you want – to smoke and drink with other people – it’s not a problem, to choose the company you wish to keep – not a problem. Have I missed anthing?

130
I miss no point, you have not mentioned one thing that the state forbids, see my post 124, I have no problems doing what you are complaining you cannot do, however, I do it within the private sphere. As far as I can see it’s a win,win position in that those who want to go into a smoke-free pub can do so, those who wish to smoke or don’t mind being with smokers can organize private parties (probably much more fun and cheaper too) If you want authenticity it’s easy to set-up a bar within your own home/outbuilding, as long as you don’t sell the alcohol there’s no problem.
Returning to the OP, the christian couple could set-up a B&B and live seperately, this way they can preclude anyone from entering their home. But if we allow them to discriminate against gay couples then why would it be wrong to disallow Trust House Forte from discriminating against protestants?

@131 steveb: The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 contains three clauses that were designed to prevent informal raves. Politicians and law enforcers decided that people could only safely entertain themselves in licensed premises (pubs or night clubs) and created laws specifically to ban informal events.

I suspect that the local police have better things to do than to stop a few smokers meeting up to enjoy beer and dance music. But they could ban them if they wished, confiscate property and arrest people attempting to attend.

Another way of looking at it is that you are free to host a party once in a while; but not every saturday night.

I have no problems doing what you are complaining you cannot do, however, I do it within the private sphere.

A private member’s club is in the private sphere. A pub is in the private sphere.

Sorry if the point has already been made but I thought the principal reason for the smoking ban in pubs was to protect the STAFF from the harmful effects of smoke. Eg non smoking Roy Castle who died of lung cancer after working as entertainer in smoky northern clubs for years. Don’t people have the right to be safe in the workplace?

@135

Not this old chestnut – Roy Castle died from a form of lung cancer which is unrelated to smoking – one which non-smokers die of

Secondly – The scientific evidence for “passive smoking” is this;

A non-smoker in the general population has a 10 in 100,000 chance of developing lung cancer

A non-smoker living 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with a smoker, increases their chance of developing lung cancer to 12 in 100,000

It doesn’t take the brains of a rocket scientist to work out that the increased risk for a non-smoker of going to the pub (even a very smokey one, every night of the week) is miniscule, in the order of magnituide of a statement like:
“The chances of getting run over by a bus are increased if you get out of bed”

This statistical irrelevance is the basis of the whole passive smoking hysteria

134
Okay then, go into your local and light-up, dance naked on the table, continue drinking when they call ‘time’ and when the landlord calls the police to have you arrested, tell them you are in the private sphere, good luck.

The righties do love the idea of blowing their smoke over every one don’t they?

They should stick to blowing it up their arses. That is what they are good at.

steveb, what’s being naked got to do with it?

Perhaps I gave you too much credit when I said you were being deliberately obtuse.

139
Well do it with your clothes on then. Good luck

I have a new one

A gay, black, scottish, vegetarian, non-smoking B&B owner turns away 2 white heterosexual, disabled chain smokers who demanded a full english breakfast in the morning, on the grounds that an “English breakfast” is racist.

@134 ukliberty

“A private member’s club is in the private sphere. A pub is in the private sphere.”

Yes a private member’s club is in the private sphere. A pub, unless we were considering allowing smoking in certain “smokers only” is NOT in the private sphere. This is the problem posited in the OP, that the B&B under discussion may be their private home, but if they are using it to provide a service to the public, and being paid for it, they should not be allowed to discriminate against homosexuals, which is what they are doing.

AS another poster mentioned, they should either have stopped offering the service, or bought seperate premises to provide B&B from so they wouldn’t have to worry about it being their home.

@129 ukliberty

It is to laugh….!!

“Why not gas masks? Why not extraction equipment? HSE regs require protective equipment in lots of different circumstances. We could say that there may be specially designated smoking rooms, we could prohibit staff from entering smoking rooms without gas masks, we could say that smoking rooms must have proper extraction equipment, and the authorities could enforce compliance.”

How desperately libertarian do you have to be to believe that the solution you posit above is realistic?! I can just see it now… non-smoking bar staff coming into the smoking room to clear the glasses up in a gas mask? Priceless.

“A pub, unless we were considering allowing smoking in certain “smokers only” is NOT in the private sphere. ”

My last forasy into this, but really you should know that a pub is private property, it is not sense ‘part of the public sphere’. That is whty the publican can refuse to serve you without giving any reason. That is why he or she can refuse even to admit you if you are wearing shoes he doesn’t like, even if he happened to love them the day before.

How desperately libertarian do you have to be to believe that the solution you posit above is realistic?!

Not only is it realistic it is in fortce in different contexts. Bar staff in venues that play music above a certain volume are entitled to wear ear protection. How many do, do you suppose? Likewise, the law could require all places that allow smoking to offer staff the option of wearing face masks. Why not?

Galen 10 @ 108

“I think you’re definitely wrong that most non-smokers weren’t that bothered, or that they thought passive smoking wasn’t that dangerous. Fair enough, they weren’t out marching in the streets about it, but ask any non-smoker if they prefer non-smoking pubs and the vast majority will say yes”

I’m not saying they weren’t at all bothered, I am saying that they weren’t very bothered. You suggest that, if asked to express a preference, most smokers would have chosen a smoke free pub all other things being equal – I agree. And I also agree that they weren’t so bothered that they were marching in the streets. So how bothered were they?

Were they sufficiently bothered to choose a different pub for example?

Since there are lots of non smokers and there weren’t many non-smoking pubs any significant preference on the part of non-smokers for a smoke free environment should have made the small number of non-smoking pubs very busy – which would have lead to the breweries designating more of their pubs non-smoking – lowering the bar further for other non-smokers who would then have a wider range of pubs to choose from. That, over the 15 years between me starting to go to pubs and the ban, I can recall only two places which were entirely smoke free and that those pubs were less that averagely busy tells you something.

It tells you that the overwhelming majority of non-smokers objected to the smokiness of most pubs less than they objected to the bother of going to a non-smoking pub (both the pubs mentioned were otherwise perfectly decent pubs)

Of course a few non-smokers objected strenuously – but not enough to make non-smoking pubs a profitable enterprise on any significant scale.

The ban was not, therefore, the instrument of the popular will – had it been, it would not have been necessary as the grasping and avaricious pubcos cashed in on the demand.

So, before the ban, non-smokers had the option to go to smoke free pubs but chose not to exercise it. Now, after the ban, smokers are prevented from exercising their choice to smoke – were that choice to become available in some pubs, I don’t think there is any question at all that such pubs would be wildly popular – suggesting that smokers would choose to exercise the freedom.

So the ban deprives smokers of a freedom they value precisely because non-smokers chose not to exercise the choice to protect themselves that was open to them. So, the government’s only defense against charges of paternalism is that it knew more than the non-smokers did about the risks of passive smoking. If so, a more proportionate response would have been to disseminate that knowledge.

I should stress that I have now quit. I don’t have a dog in this fight. But the idea that non-smoking pub-goers formed some sort of oppressed majority doesn’t stand the slightest scrutiny.

my view is that the B&B owner should have the right to refuse “service supply” for ANY reason they choose. I do however agree with a previous comment however that they should be prepared to give a reason WHATEVER IT MAY BE. The fact that they will lose business is down to them and if they choose to accept that loss of business then so be it. The people who get turned away will then need to look elsewhere for accomodation.

Being liberal myself, I am shocked at how many other liberal minded people have shouted down this post!

Perhaps you’re all right… we should all be policed in we think, act and go about our business.

Keep in mind, these people were not inciting hatred, they were simply choosing who to do business with. It appears that is a freedom we no longer have.

What next?

Bring on the thought police!!!

Steve,

they ain’t liberal. The word has been hijacked by a bunch of collectivist control-freaks, hence the term ‘libertarian’ which means what liberal used to mean.