This week has seen the disgraceful case of a woman, Linda Buchanan, being pushed onto a railway line by two young men, apparently after she had reminded them that smoking isn’t allowed on stations. Interviews the following day give a slightly different version of events, suggesting that Mrs Buchanan had spoken to them about smoking [...]
Today it was proposed that smokers should have to buy an annual permit if they want to be able to buy cigarettes. The proposal, by government advisory board Health England, is that smokers would have to choose to “opt in” to buying tobacco by paying £10 a year for a permit. The permit would have [...]
It is now three months since smoking was banned in enclosed public places in England, bringing it into line with the rest of the UK. I have to say that, while Tony Blair’s government have been unpopular on some issues, and have been criticised for producing too much legislation, the Health Act 2006 is one [...]
Occasionally, I’ll see something in an article on the BBC News website that seems wrong, so I drop them a note via their contact form to point it out. They are actually quite good at correcting factual errors, although they seem not to write back to thank the the people who pointed them out. The [...]
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