Sir: Tessa Mayes’s article was an excellent commentary on the
insidious erosion of freedom and privacy in Britain. However, she omitted to mention the army of spies presently gathering to be unleashed on the public on 1 July — the smoke detectives.
A recent article in the Weekly Telegraph informed us of the following (obtained from the Department of Health/Smokefree England factsheet): you can smoke in your own home provided you do not earn a living there; you cannot smoke if a work colleague comes to work at home with you; you can smoke if your cleaner or the builders are in your home, but not private caterers as it then becomes their ‘workplace’ (no, I don’t follow the logic either); you can smoke in your car provided you are not using it to carry out voluntary work; you can smoke in a smoking shelter attached to your office provided it has no walls or doors.
The smoke detectives have been empowered to secretly photograph and film private citizens seen smoking where they shouldn’t and to impose on-the-spot fines. It is but a very short step away from allowing them to intrude unannounced into people’s homes and to stop drivers seen smoking to demand the purpose of their journey. The British public should be afraid very afraid.
Peta Seel Nassiet, France
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