Will the smoking ban be subject to a ‘nanny state’ backlash?

Published

1 year ago

January 28, 2024

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As smoking has been increasingly curtailed in public, it’s easy to forget that it’s still one of the leading causes of death and illness in the UK.

It kills around half of those who smoke, making it the biggest one that’s entirely preventable. The habit kills 76,000 people a year, according to the NHS.

Rishi Sunak has backed some radical steps, including a lifetime ban on ban on smoking cigarettes for those currently aged under 15 – to be achieved by raising the legal smoking age by a year, every year.

Under the plans, those born after Jan 2009 would never be allowed to buy them.

And now we can add a proposed ban on disposable vapes, which with their colourful branding and low-price tag, are blamed for driving a nine-fold surge in teenage smoking in just two years.

From a public health perspective, it’s being hailed as a game-changer, and the vaping ban will reassure the message boards full of worried parents of teenagers.

But there’s still something about the ban on cigarettes altogether, that sits uneasily, particularly with politicians on the right.

Boris Johnson recently slammed the idea of the gradual smoking ban as “barmy” and unworkable, claiming it would “criminalise yet another variety of ordinary behaviour”.

Free marketeer Liz Truss – who warned her party against “banning things” – tonight says protecting children is one thing, but “adults must be able to make their own choices about their own lives.”

“A Conservative government should not be seeking to extend the nanny state”, she said.

Two disgruntled enemies of the prime minister, perhaps. But this week reports emerged that other libertarian Tory MPs are urging him to replace the ban with a rise in the smoking age to 21.

They are concerned it is a “sideshow”, and the policy of age discrimination – which as this generation get holder, would require adults to show ID to buy tobacco – would cause confusion.

When these proposals come before parliament, they will likely get Labour support – but Sunak will want to limit any rebellion on his own side.

All anti-smoking measures – from the ban on smoking indoors in the UK in 2007, to plain packaging and a ban on smoking in cars with children – had their detractors, who said they were illiberal and unworkable. But in the end, they were approved comfortably by MPs.

Vapes won’t be the controversial bit. Banning disposable vapes, on both health and environmental grounds is spreading.

According to the World Health Organisation 34 countries have banned them – including Brazil, India and Norway – although various degrees of success, and 87 have introduced restrictions.

The gradual smoking ban is trickier in terms of enforcement. The proposals were inspired by pioneering new laws passed in New Zealand, which its new government has now decided to scrap.

The prime minister responded that he’d thought long and hard about the ban and will go it alone.

As Tory MPs took in the news, first announced at the Conservative party conference last October, it came as a surprise to those who noted that he delayed a ban on buy-one-get-one free junk foods just months earlier – claiming it interfered with people’s “right to choose” on a tight budget.

The difference with smoking, he said, was that – unlike other vices – there is no safe level for it.

Health experts warn that smoking is associated with poverty, and a ban would need to be backed by other measures including support to stop smoking, for which local government budgets are limited.

Whether these smoking measures are judged to be workable could be the test for whether ministers have, most likely after the election, a fresh look at restrictions in other difficult areas.

UK

Yellow warning for thunderstorms issued for large parts of England and Wales

Published

7 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Yellow warning for thunderstorms issued for large parts of England and Wales

A yellow warning for thunderstorms has been issued for large parts of England and Wales on Saturday.

The Met Office warning covers most of southern England, parts of the Midlands and most of south Wales between 9am until 6pm on Saturday.

People in the affected areas are being warned heavy showers and thunderstorms may lead to some disruption to transport services.

Find out the forecast for your area

Delays to train services are possible and some short-term losses of power are also likely.

The UK’s weather agency said 10 to 15mm of rain could fall in less than an hour, while some places could see 30 to 40mm of rain over several hours from successive showers and thunderstorms.

It has also warned of frequent lightning, hail and strong gusty winds.

Met Office Chief Meteorologist Dan Suri said most places in the warning areas will be hit by showers, although not all will see storms.

“In this case, it’s difficult to predict where exactly thunderstorms will hit because they are small and fast changing,” he said.

The wet weather comes days after the Met Office said the UK had its warmest spring on record – and its driest for 50 years.

Provisional figures showed spring temperatures surpassed the long-term average by 1.4C – with a mean temperature of 9.5C (49.1F). That beat the previous warmest spring recorded in 2024.

Temperature records were broken in all four nations in the UK – with 1.64C above the long-term average in Northern Ireland, 1.56C above average in Scotland, 1.39C in Wales and 1.35C in England.

In records dating back to 1884, the Met Office said eight of the 10 warmest springs had occurred since 2000 – and the three warmest had been since 2017, in a sign of the changing climate.

Conditions were also incredibly dry this spring, with an average of 128.2mm of rain falling in the UK across March, April and May – the lowest spring total since 1974, which saw 123.2mm.

UK

Body found in wooded area in search for missing teenager Cole Cooper

Published

9 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Body found in wooded area in search for missing teenager Cole Cooper

A body has been found in the search for a teenager who went missing in early May.

Cole Cooper, 19, was last seen by a school friend on Wednesday 7 May, in the village of Longcroft near Falkirk, in central Scotland.

Mr Cooper was reported missing by his family on Friday 9 May.

Police Scotland said the body was discovered in a wooded area near Kilsyth Road in Banknock on Friday afternoon.

“Formal identification has yet to take place however the family of missing man Cole Cooper, 19, has been informed,” the force said in a statement. “Enquiries remain ongoing to establish the full circumstances.”

Speaking to Sky News Breakfast earlier this week, his brother Connor said their family felt “lost” and described his sibling’s disappearance as “hell… for all of us”.

He described him going missing as “very much out of character” and that “even if his brother wanted some space or alone time” he would have notified family or friends beforehand – and would never “put his younger siblings through this”.

His mother Wendy Stewart described the situation as “total heartache” and was afraid he may have been “picked up by a car” and come to harm.

“Is it actually happening?” she said. “I have been wanting to wake up and it’s just been a big nightmare.”

After police got involved in the search, they visited more than 220 properties and trawled through around 1,000 hours of CCTV footage in a bid to find Mr Cooper.

Specialist resources from across the country were mobilised, including a helicopter and drones from the air support unit, as well as officers from the dive and marine unit.

The force previously indicated there was no suggestion of any criminality.

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UK

Bargain Hunt expert Oghenochuko Ojiri jailed after failing to report sale of artworks to ‘Hezbollah financier’

Published

10 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Bargain Hunt expert Oghenochuko Ojiri jailed after failing to report sale of artworks to 'Hezbollah financier'

An expert on TV show Bargain Hunt has been jailed for two and a half years after failing to report the sale of artworks to a man suspected of financing Hezbollah.

Oghenochuko Ojiri, who has also appeared on another BBC programme Antiques Road Trip, sold around £140,000 worth of art to Nazem Ahmad over a 14-month period between October 2020 and December 2021, the Old Bailey heard.

Art dealer Ojiri, 53, who is known as Ochuko, admitted eight counts in May of failing to make a disclosure during the course of business within the regulated sector, contrary to section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Lebanese businessman and diamond dealer Ahmad was described in court as a “prominent financier” for Hezbollah, a proscribed terrorist group in the UK.

Prosecutor Lyndon Harris said Ahmad has an extensive art collection worth tens of millions of pounds, including works by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, many of which are displayed in his penthouse in Beirut.

Ojiri, who owned the Ramp Gallery, which was later renamed the Ojiri Gallery, sent a message to a contact saying, “I can’t risk selling directly to him,” after Ahmad was sanctioned in the US, the court heard.

But Mr Harris said “that’s exactly what he did” when he sold artworks, which were sent to Dubai, the UAE and Beirut.

Ojiri’s barrister Kevin Irwin said he was arrested on 18 April 2023 in Wrexham while filming a BBC show and his “humiliation is complete” as he appeared for sentencing.

Ahmad was sanctioned on the same day in the UK and officers later seized artworks held in two warehouses in the country, including a Picasso and a Warhol, valued at almost £1m.

‘Shameful fall from grace’

Sentencing Ojiri to two years and six months in prison, with an additional year on extended licence, the judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, told him: “You knew about Ahmad’s suspected involvement in financing terrorism and the way the art market can be exploited by someone like him”.

She said Ojiri, from Brent, north London, viewed his offences as a “shameful fall from grace of a public personality and role model for those from an ethnic minority, in the arts and antique sector”.

“Your hard work, talent and charisma have brought you a great deal of success,” the judge said.

“You knew you shouldn’t be dealing with this man. I don’t accept you were naive, rather it benefitted you to close your eyes to what you believed he was.

“You knew it was your duty to alert the authorities but you elected to balance the financial profit and commercial success of your business against Ahmad’s dark side.”

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter terrorism command, said the prosecution was the “first of its kind” and should serve as a warning to art dealers.

“Oghenochuko Ojiri wilfully obscured the fact he knew he was selling artwork to Nazem Ahmad, someone who has been sanctioned by the UK and US treasury and described as a funder of the proscribed terrorist group Hezbollah,” he said.