Anyone surprised by leaked documents showing smoking may soon be banned in beer gardens, small parks, outdoor restaurants, open-air spaces at nightclubs and outside football stadiums hasn’t been paying attention.

For a start, the UK has been on the slippery slope towards tobacco prohibition for nearly two decades: Tony Blair banned smoking outdoors, Theresa May set a target of going ‘smoke-free’ by 2030. Rishi Sunak – a man whose opposition to some of the tougher lockdown measures gave a glimmer of hope that liberalism hadn’t been entirely extinguished in the Tory party – attempted to make a generational ban on tobacco sales his legacy.

All of this is a death by a thousand cuts, our freedom slightly curtailed with every stroke. It’s also yet another blow to a pub industry which, as well as being part of this country’s social fabric, supports 885,000 jobs across the UK and contributes £23 billion to GDP. A 2020 government press release suggested banning smoking outdoors would lead many hospitality venues to close and lead to job cuts.

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill was put on ice when Rishi Sunak pulled off the political masterstroke of holding an election when his MPs were least expecting........

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