This one's going to be somewhat contraversial I reckon...before I go any further I want to state that I have no problems with smokers as people, but I detest the habit itself.
A group of medical colleges led by the Royal College of Physicians have called on the government to introduce a ban on smoking in public. They feel that the risks to health associated with passive smoking have been proven to the point where the issue cannot be ignored.
At least one smoker I know - and he's a mate of mine so I'm NOT having a go at him - is prone when the subject of smoking bans comes up, to banging on about such being an "infringement of his human rights". Well, I reckon that I have a human right not to be poisoned by the by-products of this filthy practice which overrides that.
I suspect that our government will not act on the colleges' call, chiefly for fear of alienating people at a time when their popularity is not as high as they want. This, I feel, would be a mistake. Only slightly more than one in four of the UK population smoke, so there is every chance that the other three quarters of us would approve...
We'll have to see if anything happens.