The UK government is cosidering introducing new legislation, requiring smokers having to apply for a permit before they can purchase cigarettes in the UK. Smokers would have to apply for a permit at a cost of £10.00 a year adding yet another stealth tax to the list of many that the beleagured British public are already paying.
The application process would be made deliberately difficult in an effort to persuade more people to quit the habit.
Smokers in the UK are well informed when it comes to the health consequences of their habit and since the ban on smoking in public places was introduced, they are not guilty of polluting the lungs of other people.
The persecuted minority of smokers in the UK already pay a prohibtive cost for their habit most of which swells the government coffers.
Introducing this legislation would be another nail in the coffin for civil liberty and would also lead to a massive increase in the already flourishing tobacco smuggling activity that abounds in this country.
Day by day the creeping malaise of the Nanny state impinges further into the lives of the British public and makes our democracy look more like a Stalinist regime.
Who would have thought that George Orwells 1984 would turn out to be a True story!
