Australia shows the way

Reports on today's news (13 May 2013) have stated that during tomorrow's budget the Australian government are to cut billions of dollars from their foreign aid budget and the unemployed are to receive extra money to help them survive on the dole and help them get back into the workforce.

Australia plans to cut foreign aid by around 3 billion dollars by deferring a promise to increase spending for the second year in a row and are spending an extra 300 million dollars helping the unemployed.

Mark Purcell from the council for International Development stated "Hundreds of millions of dollars spent in Australia is not going to help the poor of the world".

Well Mr Purcell, the taxes raised from Australians should be spent on Australians first. It is not the Australian governments job to financially assist the whole world.

Here in the UK David Cameron is refusing to cut the foreign aid budget preferring to target those on benefits and public sector workers to make the necessary savings instead. He has pledged to give 11 billion pounds per year in foreign aid.

While in the UK people are struggling to buy food.

13 million people live below the poverty line in the UK. The Trussell Trust, which now operates more than 300 food banks in the UK, has seen demand for its service increase year on year since the 2008/09 financial crisis. In 2011/12, 128,697 emergency food parcels were handed out – up from just 26,000 in 2008/9. In 2012-13 foodbanks fed 346,992 people nationwide. Of those helped, 126,889 were children. Half a million people a year will be in receipt of a food parcel by 2016, by which time there are expected to be 500 food banks.

Charity begins at home Mr Cameron. Cut foreign aid not benefits given to British people who are unemployed or on low wages because your government has made a mess of the economy.

The Smoking Ban

On 1 July 2007 one of the very few decent pieces of legislation introduced by the Labour government, the ban on smoking in public places and workplaces, came into effect.

Previous legislation was to have a non smoking area but this didn't work very well as the smoke simply difted over.

What a pleasure it has been to sit in the canteen at work and eat my lunch without being surrounded by clouds of smoke.

What a joy it is to go to a pub for a drink and a meal and not have to breathe in the fumes from other people's cigarettes nor to have to go home with my clothes stinking of them.

My mum has smoked ever since I can remember, and still does, and I always hated the smell of fags (that's British slang for cigarettes for any Americans reading this). I still remember my first driving lesson. I got into the car and the first thing the instructor said to me was "Do you smoke?". He could smell cigarettes on my clothes.

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 different chemicals. At least 50 are known carcinogens (cause cancer in humans) and many are poisonous. Smoking causes heart disease, cancers of the lung, larynx, oral cavity and esophagus, chronic bronchitis, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Smoking is also a contributory factor for the development of cancers of the bladder, pancreas, and kidney. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma.

So it's a surprise to me that the ban still seems to be so controversial. Why would anybody object to a law that stops people being forced to breathe in these chemicals?

I've read about landlords of pubs being fined and imprisoned for ignoring the law, the most recent I read on the Derby Patriot. True, lots of pubs are closing down but is it really the smoking ban that is to blame?

I think that is much too simplistic. People's lifestyles have changed. The days of the men leaving work and heading straight for the pub while the wife sits at home are long gone. If you want a drink you can buy it much cheaper from supermarkets and the fact is that there were simply too many pubs in this country, a legacy of days gone by when the pub was the only place for socialising.

One idea I've heard put forward is to have smoking and non smoking pubs. Sounds okay until it's examined in more detail.

When a group of people go out the liklihood is that at least one of them will be a smoker. Naturally the smoker will want to go to the smoking pub and his or her friends will go along to keep them happy. Thus starving the non smoking pub of customers.

It also doesn't take into account that pubs are also workplaces. Why should the bar staff in the smoking pub have to breathe in all their customers smoke?

They could choose not to work in the smoking pub but that would restrict their employment opportunities.

I really don't see why stepping into the fresh air for 10 minutes while they smoke is such a problem.

Nationalists believe in a healthy body and a healthy nation and should support the smoking ban.

I look forward to the day when nobody wants to put cancer causing toxins into their bodies through smoking and totally support ASH.