British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced disposable vapes will be banned in the UK. Unsurprisingly, everyone is having kittens about this news – particularly Conservatives.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss is leading the rebellion, claiming the war on smoking and vaping is “profoundly unconservative”. What beautiful poetry – the UK’s only wet lettuce Prime Minister siding with the wet lettuces dragging on strawberry shortcake flavour smoke all day long.
Truss has a history of shooting herself in the foot. In Number 10, she crashed the economy with her disastrous mini-budget – leading to her resignation just six weeks after becoming PM. Now, with her anti-Rishi ranting, she’s on another political suicide mission. Her target? The entire Conservative Party.
This is because, while the Tories are tearing themselves up over smoking, Labour are laughing. Not only are the Conservatives exposing yet more factions in their legions, but Keir Starmer is able to claim that Labour are the “grown-ups in the room” actually doing some work rather than initiating self-destruction.
Equally, Starmer can capitalise on the fact that Sunak wants a free vote on the vaping ban – meaning MPs will not be whipped by their parties – to claim the Prime Minister needs Labour’s support because he doesn’t have the support of his own party.
For once, this is very good politics from the most boring lefty on the planet. And it is catastrophically poor politics from Liz Truss – then again, we shouldn’t expect anything less from the shortest-serving PM in British history.
What I don’t understand is why Truss feels the need to go after Sunak at all. Naturally, she will be bitterly jealous that she surrendered the top job so quickly. But banning vapes and helping people quit smoking is a good moral mission – exactly what politicians should be doing, rather than just childishly arguing all the time and achieving nothing.
Vaping is dangerous. 1 in 5 British children aged 11-17 have tried vaping. That means kids are sucking on vapes when they’re hardly out of nappies. This is a problem because vapes are full of chemicals and heavy metals – and almost nobody knows what they are. Perhaps this is why vapes are collapsing people’s lungs, sinking their faces and giving them asthma.
Vapes are like the devil in disguise. They’re deadly – and yet, they’re marketed like fun-filled sweets. You can get every flavour under Willy Wonka’s sun: blueberry, strawberry, banana smoothie, peanut butter – the list goes on. And they’re all neatly presented like a pretty rainbow on a shelf. Of course, at the end of the rainbow is the greedy leprechaun who’s vaping business is making millions out of damaging our children’s health.
Nobody has cared about any of this – until now. Rishi Sunak is actually trying to do something positive, and all people can do is moan.
This ban benefits everyone.
First, the kids who are rapidly getting addicted to these smoke-filled party poppers might actually stand a chance of living past 32. That’s good for our graveyards, which will no longer run out of space – and it’s good for our NHS, too. Smoking causes 1 in 4 of all cancer deaths – and I dread to think how many deaths vaping might cause in the long run. Perhaps you wouldn’t have to wait 12 hours to see a doctor if they weren’t wasting their time treating people addicted to a grown-up’s dummy.
Second, the rest of us will no longer be swamped by an endless cloud of bubblegum-flavoured smoke every time we leave our houses. A one-inch wonder of a vape produces as much smoke as a steam locomotive from the Industrial Revolution. Walking through this cloud of chemicals is a horrific daily punishment for sensible non-smokers.
And last but not least, green-fingered environmentalists should all be hugging trees in happiness at this ban. 5 million disposable vapes are thrown away every week – that’s 260 million a year, which is equivalent to the lithium batteries of 5,000 electric vehicles.
For years now, climate change has been the central focus of virtually every policymaker on the planet. We’ve talked endlessly about electric cars, solar panels, heat pumps and wind turbines. And yet, vapes have been sitting here all this time – a sleeping giant, causing a major recycling headache and creating so much unnecessary waste.
Sunak is finally taking on this enormous problem. Banning vapes will help our fight to improve health, save the planet and enjoy happier lives free from smoke containing more dangerous chemicals than a Russian laboratory.
Opponents like Truss are flying the nanny state, unconservative flags in Sunak’s face – but this is merely an attempt to recuperate personal credibility. Truss’s reputation was destroyed by her own tunnel vision. What better way to launch herself back into the mainstream than by defending Britain’s millions of smokers and vapers.
But this personal crusade will come at the detriment of the Conservative Party. With Rwanda and anti-smoking plans, it looks more split than ever, thanks to MPs running personal PR missions.
The irony is that the two policies that have caused the most controversy are the policies that challenge two of the biggest problems in British society: uncontrolled immigration and poor health.
So this is a wake-up call for rebelling Conservatives to smell the coffee and come to their senses. Banning vapes might be profoundly unconservative to some – but it’s profoundly sensible for everyone.
Image: Peter van Niuewehuizen
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