Large numbers of smokers say they would like cigarettes banned in public places - not because they are hypocrites, but because they know smoking is stupid, and would welcome any assistance to help them stop. There was no discrepancy between principle and practice.Ī far better parallel is drawn with tobacco smoking laws. But an argument that was sound for cannabis doesn't stand up here, because I can't remember many cannabis users telling Mori they thought they should be arrested for smoking it. As everyone smoked it anyway, went the reasoning, the law was an ass, so it might as well be done away with. Populists who defend the right to smack like to draw an analogy with the recent downgrading of cannabis.
So what are legislators to make of that? It depends upon what they think the law is there for. In another piece of research three years ago, only 16% said they found smacking an effective way of teaching their children the difference between right and wrong. Three-quarters of mothers may admit they hit their babies, but in a recent Mori poll, 74% of parents said they were in favour of changing the law to give children the same protection from being hit in the home that adults currently enjoy. Until now it has always worked well at worrying people enough to put off reforming the law.īut here is a curious anomaly about the popularity of smacking. But it is a nicely populist image, and so is relied upon to conjure in a flash an image of over-zealous police patrolling the aisles. The ubiquitous supermarket checkout stalks the debate about smacking with wearisome dependability. Ministers look at the same figures, and ask where is the wisdom - let alone the politics - in criminalising something to which the majority of voters readily own up? "We will not do anything," a source close to the education secretary said firmly last week, "that would create an offence of smacking your child, which would cover a little tap in Sainsburys." But these are precisely the reasons why the government is opposed to the amendment, and will not allow a free vote.
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