Sunday, March 22, 2009

At the Royal Court of Justice

On Friday outside the Royal Court of Justice was veteran anti-smoking campaigner and vegetarian Stuart Holmes (see picture). Stuart was protesting about an appeal that was taking place that day by publican Hamish Howitt over his conviction for allowing smoking to take place in his pub.

Howitt lost the appeal which was for a judicial review of his conviction.

As a former very enthusiastic smoker I can understand why smokers feel upset about the ban but the case for it on public health and the safety of staff is (in my view) unanswerable.

I had met up with Labour bloggers Alex Hilton and Dave Osler to take part in the latest farcical episode of our seemingly never ending saga. People will be glad to know that Alex who has been very seriously ill recently with Meningitis is “out and about” although not surprisingly he is still weak.

Dave had to dash off but Alex and I had a curry for lunch over which we sorted out all the internal problems with the Labour Party and how to bring the trade union movement up to speed with web 2.0.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

John
As you are so up to speed with the Royal Docks you of course will know that London City Airport hired Hill & Knowlton to push through expansion.

The same Hill & Knowlton who told us cigarettes dont cause cancer.

Funny That.

Anonymous said...

Just goes to show you cant be too careful.

John Gray said...

Hi Anon
I think you are being just a little bit paranoid and obsessive (I think you know it). I can remember buying sweets which looked like cigarettes when I was little (not that long ago of course) and in the past some doctors use to prescribe certain brands of cigarettes as being good for your throat!

Hi Yaroorsur
Very true.