“I’m getting used to the Government nicking Labour’s policies,” Wes Streeting declared in triumph as he spoke in favour of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
How the Shadow Health Secretary’s colleagues laughed as he listed the policies which according to him, ministers have stolen from Labour.
Streeting recalled that in an interview with The Times in January last year he had said “it was time for a New Zealand-style smoking ban”, of the kind since adopted by the Government.
He proclaimed “our dominance in the battle of ideas”, crowed that “where Labour leads the Conservatives follow”, and noted that there are “members on the benches opposite…who still resist the new interventionist consensus”.
Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, who had just introduced the Bill, had the good grace to laugh at Streeting’s sallies, and so did Sir Simon Clarke, one of the band of Conservative rebels gathered in the far corner of the Chamber.
Liz Truss, sitting next to Clarke, was not amused. Streeting reminded the House that she has described the Bill as “profoundly unconservative…I agree with the former Prime Minister,” and mocked “the Trussites in the corner” for promoting a “libertarian dystopia”.
Clarke rose to that, said he proudly calls himself a libertarian, and asked “why on earth we want to create a huge black market” in tobacco by banning it.
Truss spoke next, and took aim at “the instinct of this Establishment which is reflected by the cross-party consensus” in the Chamber, which believes “the Government are better at making decisions than people themselves”, an outlook which “effectively infantilises people”.
According Truss, not one of her constituents in Norfolk has ever expressed concern to her about adult smoking, it is the Health Police who have promoted the plan, and “I am disappointed that a Conservative Government is bringing forward this Bill”.
If people wanted, she said, to vote for “finger-wagging, nannying control freaks”, there were plenty of those on the benches opposite.
Atkins, as she introduced the Bill, said “there is no safe level of smoking and no safe tobacco product”. She was good-humoured, and took plenty of interventions, but the Trussites in their corner were not amused.
Streeting from time to time burst out laughing. He sees the way clear before him. “We are the masters now,” his demeanour said; perhaps even “I am the master now”.
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Author: Andrew Gimson
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