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First they came for our minimum smoking age, and I did not speak out because I am not a child. Then they came for our Elf Bars, and I did not speak out because I am not a child.
Then Keir Starmer came for one of the most precious institutions of this country. Something so central to our sense of camaraderie, our national identity and — dare I say — our birth rate. But now, thank god, it looks like he’s reversing it.
Let’s run back the tapes. It was revealed in August that ministers were considering an ultra-strict crackdown on outdoor smoking areas, including the areas around hospitals, football stadiums and nightclubs, as well as small parks and pub gardens.
The proposed Tobacco and Vapes bill is part of an attempt by the Labour government to resurrect Rishi Sunak’s ban to help deter future generations from smoking, though Starmer’s leaked plans aim to take things much further.
That is, until everybody decided they hated it, and that it could pose some very real threats to the hospitality sector, so now it appears to be being blocked. According to The Guardian, No 10 consider it to be an “unserious policy” no longer worth proceeding with.
Thank f***ing god. Because that ban was, quite frankly, an assault on romance. The UK’s dating landscape is already on its last legs — you need only spend five minutes with any regular user of dating apps to realise that, whether you actually ask them or not — but that policy threatened to take it out back and shoot it in the head.
Because what do we have left without the humble smoking area? It is, I believe, one of the last ways of meeting someone au naturel that is unforced and un-cringe, with an undeniable success rate.
It is near impossible to approach someone at a bar or a pub nowadays and attempt to chat them up. It’s just not done. You’d be laughed out of the place, or given an Ask Angela-adjacent warning, probably within good reason.
But the smoking area is the one place where the social norms are ever-so subtly relaxed. We’re all slightly nicer people there: everyone’s a bit pissed, head swimming, jaws looser, and no one likes to smoke alone.
Plus, you often have to ask favours of people in smoking areas (spare Rizlas, filters, etc) so it forms a sort mutual respect. You’re a safe person, talking to another safe person. You’re not a weirdo, you just need to borrow something, and if there’s a vibe maybe you’ll keep talking.
This might be overstating it slightly: but if someone needed a shag this very evening, all they need do is wait in a smoking area long enough for a person to ask them for their lighter. Yes, it obviously helps if you’re hot, but that’s a special sort of place, you’ve got to admit it.
Plus, not to get all LinkedIn about it, but think of all the lost networking. The jobs, the phone numbers shared, the “Oh, you know ****? I worked with her for years”. Revealing oneself as a smoker sheds a level of professionalism and invites someone in. They make a big joke of it with a season five episode of Friends, “The One Where Rachel Smokes”, but it’s a tried and true method of bonding, even to this day.
Speaking of — think of all the fictional flirtation we would lose to this cockblocking, separatist outdoor smoking ban. Would Fleabag have ever met her Hot Priest while smoking outside that restaurant, or would she be relegated instead to sneaking a sad solo Juul in the toilet cubicle?
Or when Sandy revealed her major makeover in Grease, would she have had to say “Tell me about it, stud” without the help of stubbing out her cigarette? Not nearly as hot! Actually, actively lame!
If Keir Starmer did enact this policy, he would forever be known as the boring parent that wouldn’t let his adult kids have their boyfriend or girlfriend sleep over in the same room. Frigid, cold, not a man of the people. Plus, I don’t want to hyperbolise, but it could possibly lead to a Children of Men-type situation.
Keir, I know you want to block this ban. You definitely smoked at least one cigarette while in attendance at Leeds University. Don’t lie. Keep the smoking areas, keep the people onside, and keep Britain shagging. Block that bloody ban. Save flirting and you save the world.
