The Smoking Ban | Yes, Prime Minister | Comedy Greats

Peter thank you very much indeed thank you for your cigarette paper your paper is this serious prime minister what do you mean by that well it's always been the practice in the past to discourage anti-smoking speeches by ministers and not to print or distribute their speeches if they make them well I want Peter's speeches printed and distributed I want everybody to know yes prime minister uh do you think you will win this one the tobacco Lobby is incredibly powerful well something you win some you lose Bernard this one I shall definitely lose and why if you were the treasury which would you rather do without one and a half billion pounds in tax cuts or four billion pounds in thus tobacco tax revenue it's well it's smaller exactly that's what I want and that's what I shall get oh it's a Humphrey can he have a word yes of course yes come in please prime minister ing did you have an interesting chat with Dr Thorne yes he proposed the elimination of smoking foreign by a campaign of mass hypnosis perhaps cyber tax is Sky High and simultaneously banning all advertising including a point of sale that you think his position is admirably model moral perhaps but extremely silly no man in his right mind could possibly contemplate such a proposal I'm contemplating it of course prime minister please don't misunderstand me it is quite right of course that you should contemplate all proposals that come from your government but no sane man would ever support it I'm supporting it the other little problem is that the tax on Tobacco is a major source of revenue for the government it's also a major source of death from killer disease yes indeed but no definite causative link has ever been proved has it the statistics you could prove anything with Statistics even the truth is here smoking related diseases cost the NHS 165 million pounds a year yes but we've been into that it has been shown that if there is extra 100 000 people had lived to a ripe old age they would have cost us even more in pensions and Social Security so financially speaking it's unquestionably better that they continue to diet about the present rate killed 30 000 people in 1833 we've got the public health Act when smog killed two and a half thousand people in 1952 we've got the Clean Air Act a commercial drug kills half a dozen people and we get it withdrawn from sale cigarettes kill a hundred thousand people a year and what do we get four billion pounds a year about 25 000 jobs in the tobacco industry a flourishing cigarette export business helping our balance of trade 250 000 jobs related to Tobacco news agents packaging transport these figures are just guesses know that governments to their facts foreign on your side I'm merely giving you some of the arguments that you will encounter thank you hungry I'm so glad to know that we shall have support such as yours but prime minister it will be pointed out that the tobacco company is a great sponsors of sport now where would the BBC Sports programs be if cigarette companies couldn't advert couldn't sponsor the events that they did Humphrey we're talking about a hundred thousand deaths a year yes but cigarette taxes pay for a third of the cost of the National Health Service we're saving many more lives than we otherwise could because of those smokers who voluntarily laid down their lives for their friends foreign

Channel: BBC Comedy Greats

Views: 2,598,535

Keywords: bbc, bbc comedy greats, bbc comedy, comedy greats, british comedy, stand up, Sitcom, Comedian, Comic, Sketch show, yes prime minister, yes minister, jim hacker, sir humphrey, paul eddington, derek fowlds, nigel hawthorne, smoking, smoking ban, The Smoking Ban, The Smoking Ban | Yes Prime Minister | Comedy Greats

Id: p1DviQ9mva0

Length: 4min 19sec (259 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2021