Rishi Sunak’s Proposed Cigarette Ban

Was it only a few days ago when Britain’s Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak signaled that he really might be on the right after all, by (marginally) scaling back Britain’s disastrous net-zero commitments. Well, forget that. He has now announced that he would like to see the introduction of a creeping smoking ban, modeled on the one introduced by failed New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, a classic authoritarian of the center-left. That the Tories are now copying a policy introduced by Ardern is a measure of how far a party that once believed (or pretended to believe) in individual responsibility and adults making these sorts of decision for themselves has declined.

Reuters:

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Andrew Stuttaford

Andrew Stuttaford is the editor of National Review's Capital Matters.

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Was it only a few days ago when Britain’s Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak signaled that he really might be on the right after all, by (marginally) scaling back Britain’s disastrous net-zero commitments. Well, forget that. He has now announced that he would like to see the introduction of a creeping smoking ban, modeled on the one introduced by failed New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, a classic authoritarian of the center-left. That the Tories are now copying a policy introduced by Ardern is a measure of how far a party that once believed (or pretended to believe) in individual responsibility and adults making these sorts of decision for themselves has declined.

Reuters: