Letters to the Editor | 25 August 2007

Sir: Jeremy Clarke’s interpretation of J.S. Mill (‘Can working men’s clubs survive the smoking ban?’, 18 August) is, I fear, pretty ropey. His first point, that a non-smoker forced to breath in tobacco fumes is in effect under attack and legislation may be needed to defend him, is easily disposed of.

Run of the Mill

Sir: Jeremy Clarke’s interpretation of J.S. Mill (‘Can working men’s clubs survive the smoking ban?’, 18 August) is, I fear, pretty ropey. His first point, that a non-smoker forced to breath in tobacco fumes is in effect under attack and legislation may be needed to defend him, is easily disposed of.
Many proposed to the government that if any host could simply convert his premises to a private club, no offence could be given or taken provided large notices warned that smoking on site would take place. Mill would have perforce agreed at once that no assault on non-smokers could be possible since all entry would be voluntary.
The government knew this but New Labour, despite its propaganda, is in fact socialism rebadged as political correctness and thus not interested in freedom but only uniform obedience to the majority’s whim — Mill’s bête noire.
The second point is as easily rebuffed. Mill declared that ‘freedom cannot require [that person] to be free to be un-free’; and Clarke adds that addiction is a form of servitude. But note that word ‘required’. Free choice, even of an addictive habit, could not have offended Mill’s dicta.
As for Britain’s present situation, which is a greater threat to liberty: the smokers in their private clubs (banned by the government) or the roaming packs of young drunks (doubled by the government)? Perhaps Mr Clarke should consult the relatives of those regularly beaten to death by feral inebriates.

Frederick Forsyth
Hertford, Herts

Foot in mouth

Sir: The foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey may or may not have been Shambo’s revenge, but it certainly had nothing whatever to do with ‘farmers purchasing illegal meat supplies from the Continent for cattle feed’ as Rod Liddle bizarrely suggested (Liddle Britain, 11 August).