All the recent discussion of the pub garden smoking ban the government says it’s considering reminded me, I was surprised to discover, of Margaret Thatcher. A divisive figure, of course, but slagging her off feels a bit last-millennium. These days most people tend to take more of a “you’ve got to hand it to her” line. “I may not agree with what she did, but she obviously did agree with what she did and also actually did what she did, so fair play.” “She followed her beliefs, which is admirable” – although so did Hitler and, in his case, it is not admirable. It’s a flawed principle, then, the whole “fight for what you believe and that should be respected” approach. It’s only a rule of thumb – you still need to check your working.
Moving on from offensively putting Thatcher and Hitler in the same paragraph – and now the same sentence in a whole other paragraph – let me get back to explaining why the proposed pub garden smoking ban brought the Iron Lady to mind. It’s because I was reminded that, conviction politician though she undoubtedly was, she wasn’t above the occasional splat of political bullshit of the sort we tend to view as more of a 21st-century phenomenon. I’m thinking about the day she became prime minister when, outside 10 Downing Street, she quoted St Francis of Assisi. “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony,” she said.
It’s a nice phrase but it’s also pretty close to the diametric opposite of her approach. I think what........