That’s what I hate: they let the Muslims do whatever they want but any reference to our indigenous culture and religion is banned.

Why are we so obsessed with pandering to Muslims? The way I see it you can either have it so all religious activity is allowed, or all religious activity is banned.

Having a policy that bans one religion yet allows another to flourish is wrong, and should be banned lol.

I’m all for the smoking ban. My father was a non smoker but sang in a very smokey atmosphere -and died of lung cancer with no treatment or even pain relief because an arsehole of a consultant refused to check because he didn’t smoke himself. I can still taste the smoke when I remember doing CPR on him not knowing why he was dead. I’m not against people smoking if they choose to do so – just pro making them do it somewhere where it cannot impact on another person’s health. It’s not illegal to drink alcohol for adults – but you can’t drink in many streets. It’s not illegal for adults to have sex – but again you are restricted so you can’t do this in full public view and not have to face any legal consequences. I don’t hear the pro-smokers campaigning for all restrictions being lifted. I hold my breath before I get to the smokers around every entrance and don’t breathe again until I’m well inside.

Good if the pubs close if all they can offer is alcohol and smoking then they aren’t places we should be proud of. They have turned their premises into places that people that object to smoking don’t want to go. Few have anything to offer other than serving drinks, the odd probably dirty carpeted bar stool and mostly standing around smoking and drinking. There may be the odd juke box or pin ball-type machine but that’s your lot – and you wonder why people don’t want to go? A business has to make itself attractive to customers to survive. Bad food, bad furnishings, a foggy atmosphere and nothing to offer but drink that can be bought for a fraction of the price at the local supermarket (and you have to get yourself home from sober if you’re driving) isn’t going to last. Unless they make themselves into an entertainment attraction or community hub they are going to go to the wall and good riddance.

TrooBloo – Mrs F is an ex-teacher and no religious references to Christ were allowed in the hymns to be sung in her C&E school because of the vast muslim majority there. You can have “god” but certainly not Jesus, the nativity, holy ghost, in fact New Testament at all. She hears from another teacher that now they have taken to chanting Islamic verses complete with the rocking motion that is compulsory at the mosque.

I think dental care, opticians, tuition fees, etc should be free for all, not just those that can’t be arsed to get a fucking job.

McDonald’s might be a nicer and healthier place to eat if they used finer ingredients, but I don’t see that on the cards.

I would have been much more content with a 50/50 sort of solution, rather than the bansturbators getting everything their way. It wouldn’t have been ideal, but I suppose compromise is what people try to do in those circumstances…

With regards to how Hamish has behaved… Well, look at it from a different perspective. This is his livelihood- his life, his business, his financial interests. All being taken away from him.

You consider higher education to be something close to your heart; something that should be made freely available to you but has since been taken away. That education has a financial and a personal value to it – thousands of pounds and the chance to better yourself.

How would you feel towards someone who entered your home, raided your cash box and took thousands of pounds that you’d worked for, saved and hoped to do something with one day. Would your feelings perhaps be a bit stronger than just wanting to ‘bar’ them from coming on to your premises ever again? ‘Cos quite frankly, I’d want all my money back and then I’d want the book thrown at them.

I wouldn’t call Hamish’s actions childish – he’s well within his rights to tell anybody who seeks to deprive him of his livelihood to “fuck off” (in so many words or not). By comparison, what Humble and Marsden did by helping to ensure the ruin of thousands of businesses and the loss of thousands more jobs is absolutely malicious and calculating.

Ultimately, TB, you have a choice – nobody has ever forced you to go on to somebody else’s private property and endure the company of people whose ultimately sin is to enjoy a smoke and a drink amongst friends. When you have entered a pub in the past, you can’t honestly say that you weren’t aware of what a pub was like and that smoke was forced upon you by surprise. You weighed up the pros and cons… and decided that the benefits of being in the pub were greater than the cons of not being in the pub. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been in the pub!

In my experience, the smoking ban has made going out a much more anti-social affair. Friends of mine smoke, so unless I want to stand on my own for ten minutes every 45 minutes or so, I go with them and stand in a crowded smoking pen where the air is thick with smoke. It’s cold, it can be wet and large numbers of people are coerced in to a space so small that a similar size and capacity would be considered illegal for accommodating cattle – of course, Mullah Coglan can only really turn a blind eye to that sort of thing, because the smoking ban makes it so impractical for licensees to treat smoking customers (and their non-smoking friends) like human beings.

I’m a non-smoker, as most of you know, and have never really liked it – but I’m a big boy and I accept that life is full of hazards. If somebody has gone to the trouble of earning a living, saving their money, investing it in a bar and then inviting me in, then I’m going to respect that – and if I don’t like it, then I’ll either keep my opinions to myself or I’ll go out, earn a living, save some money, invest in my own bar and run it my way.