Burnham's Britain stops following the science and starts following the vibez

Blink and you might have missed it, but Britain is now onto its seventh Prime Minister in ten years. Quite an achievement for a country that managed only seven in the forty years between 1970 and 2010.

Once a relative bastion of political stability, Britain now resembles Australia, which rattled through seven prime ministers in the twelve years between 2010 and 2022. Perhaps there is a correlation. A spurious one, certainly, but a correlation nonetheless. As Britain's vaping policies have become increasingly idiotic, the number of prime ministers it burns through has risen accordingly. Australia, the spiritual home of stupid policies on safer nicotine products, was simply ahead of the game when it came to allowing politicians day release to become prime minister.

Britain is once again in the grip of an anti-vaping spasm.

I wrote earlier this year that vaping appeared to have become Labour's favourite distraction technique. Whenever the Government finds itself in political difficulty, another anti-vaping announcement is thrown about in the hopes that people focus on that instead.

Trouble over appointing Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States despite his well-known friendship with Jeffrey Epstein? Quick, announce another crackdown on vaping.

It is difficult to escape the impression that, somewhere in Whitehall, there is a large red button marked: PRESS IN CASE OF POLITICAL EMBARRASSMENT: ANNOUNCE A CRACKDOWN ON VAPING.

The first week of David Brent's Andy Burnham's premiership was awash with freebies for the people. Like a Roman emperor throwing bread to the crowds while Rome's bureaucratic infrastructure collapses behind him, Burnham capped bus fares, shaved a few pence a week from energy bills and reduced business rates, a strange British property tax for foreign readers fortunate enough not to need to try and understand it.

He was quickly challenged by Labour MP Darren Jones, a loyal-to-the-end minister in the previous Prime Minister's government. Young Daz, who has never entirely shaken the appearance of a particularly ambitious sixth-former, pointed out that none of this appeared to be properly costed.

Faced with the accusation that he had promised to spend money he did not have, Burnham came out fighting. His solution was to go after vape shops.

The exact words in the Government's press release were:

"Today's changes will be fully funded, including through reviewing reliefs for businesses that do not make a positive contribution to local communities, such as vape shops."

And there it is again, the Labour Party's favourite whipping boy.

The Government has not yet explained precisely how this review will work, but the likely absurdity is obvious. Specialist vape shops may be punished while American candy shops selling fluorescent sweets, dubious electronics and vapes to anyone tall enough to see over the counter escape because vaping is not technically their main business.

The shops most closely associated with responsible vaping could be hit hardest, while those causing many of the problems continue as before.

This is what happens when public policy stops following evidence and starts following the vibez.

Vape shops do not fit the Government's preferred image of a wholesome local community centred around a craft pub, an artisan bakery and a man selling sourdough for £7.50. They are independent retailers selling products that ministers have decided are unfashionable, which is apparently enough to place them outside the approved community vibez.

But being unfashionable in Whitehall is not the same as making no positive contribution.

There are roughly five million adult vapers in Britain, millions of whom are former smokers. Specialist shops have helped many of them find products that work and avoid returning to cigarettes.

It is impossible to calculate precisely how many lives those shops have helped to extend or save. Given that smoking kills around half of long-term smokers, however, their contribution is plainly not trivial.

Imagine the Monty Python sketch:

"What have the vape shops ever done for us?"

"Well, they helped millions of people move away from smoking."

"Yes, but apart from helping millions of people move away from smoking, what have the vape shops ever done for us?"

"They provide advice, check ages and support smokers who have failed to quit using other methods."

"All right, but apart from reducing smoking, providing advice, checking ages and helping people quit, what have the vape shops ever done for us?"

The answer, according to Burnham's Britain, is apparently nothing. Now, I love pubs. Britain loves pubs. They are among our finest institutions. But it takes a peculiar form of public-health logic to subsidise the sale of alcohol while punishing shops that help people stop smoking.

Labour has been in government for two years. I cannot identify a single policy it has introduced that has contributed more to public health than Britain's vape shops already have.

Should anyone manage to find one, I will personally carry them to the summit of Mount Everest.

So what can you do about it? Respond to the Government's latest consultation, which proposes banning the open display of vape products in shops and forcing vape packaging to be plain white.

Vape shops and vapers have spent long enough being treated as the problem. It is time to fight back against this pro-smoking Government.