Another budget and once again the tax on tobacco has been raised. The Chancellor put an extra 25p on a packet of cigarettes and in the same breath said the revenue would go straight to the NHS, thus making the link between smoking and illness abundantly clear.

 Now if the government really cared about our health and not money and if smokers are such a huge burden on the health service, then the only sensible honest action would be to ban smoking completely.

‘From midnight tonight smoking is prohibited in the UK’. Simple, radical, effective!  No more guilt trips, which make out smokers, are single-handedly draining the NHS of all its resources.

 What about the other self-destructive groups filling our hospital beds? Drug addicts, lager louts, and Sunday morning footballers and while we’re at it isn’t obesity linked with heart disease?

 In reality, public services are a bottomless pit when it comes to money. They swallow as much cash as you can throw at them, without delivering any measurable advantage in return.

 This country is built on everything the government considers bad for us (tobacco, alcohol and large petrol guzzling cars) and without them the economy would disintegrate. The ideal citizen owns a big house, earns a lot of money, drives a 3-litre vehicle, smokes like a chimney and drinks like a fish! Without such people we would never find the money to improve health care in this country.

 Besom