Jeremy Clarkson has pulled no punches with his verdict on prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to ban smoking in outdoor spaces.
The Labour leader confirmed the government was eyeing up plans to implement the ban on cigarette smoking in an attempt to ease NHS spending on illnesses caused by the habit.
Clarkson, who’s already banned the PM from his newly opened Cotswolds pub, hasn’t taken kindly to the plans.
Days after opening the doors to his pub, The Farmer’s Dog, Clarkson has unleashed a furious rant at the Labour leader in one of his latest newspaper columns.
Clarkson began by explaining that he had decided to let punters smoke on the outside terrace of his Oxfordshire pub but has splashed warnings for guests to be “considerate” of non-smokers if they choose to do so.
“In my mind, that’s how a society should work. Assume that the vast majority of people are intelligent and compassionate and let them get on with it,” he mused.
Turning his attention to the prime minister, Clarkson fumed: “Sadly, however, Sir Starmer does not think like this. He doesn’t like smoking so he’s going to ban it.
“And then, to make this Stalinist decree sound reasonable, he says the illnesses smoking cause cost the NHS a huge amount of money every year.”
Clarkson then exposed the hypocrisy of Starmer’s messaging given the £10 billion in taxes cigarette sales raise each year while the PM continues to moan about filling a “black hole” in government spending.
After reeling a series of projects Starmer wants to continue funding while implementing the ban, Clarkson ridiculed: “He says he can pay for all this by taxing the rich, but he’s deluded.”
Summarising his fears of a Starmer-led government and its implications on the general public, Clarkson added in his The Sun column: “The main problem is that, underneath his Playmobil hair and behind the footie-playing son of a toolmaker façade, Starmer is a full-on communist.
“He’s a modern-day version of Harold Wilson. He really is Woke Wilson and I literally can’t think of anything more dangerous.”
Clarkson is far from the only public figure to criticise Starmer’s plans, with GB News’ own Nigel Farage also taking aim at the Labour leader.
Farage told GB News: “I love pubs because every one is a parliament. We discuss local issues, national issues, international issues, they’re really important places.
“Back in 2006, when smoking was banned indoors, pubs and clubs took a 20 per cent financial hit. If you ban people smoking in gardens and ban people smoking outside the front of pubs, that is the end of the British pub. No more boozers.
“There’ll be restaurants that masquerade as pubs, but there would be no more pubs.”
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Farage went on to brand the measures as an “overreach”, stating: “I think it’s massive government overreach.
“I think it’s an intrusion that is just a step way too far because if you’re outside, there’s no reason why your smoke should affect anybody else at all.
“We will not be smoke-free by 2030, we will not be drug-free by 2030, we won’t be alcoholism free, and we won’t be obesity free.
“No one’s encouraging anyone to smoke. But if Government steps too far, it’ll have the wrong effect.”
