How sad to see that your paper has stooped to using Government spin towards a group of your readers you obviously despise and detest.

I am referring to your front page, 91 per cent of you say: Ban it now. New call to stub out smoking (Oxford Mail, January 14).

When you read the article, you find that 1,150 people were involved in the city council survey and as Oxford has a population of about 120,000, this equates to 0.93 per cent of the total.

We then find that of those surveyed, only 52 per cent were in favour of a total ban. That becomes 0.465 per cent.

To have achieved "91 per cent say ban it now", 109,200 should have responded. This is spin at its lowest, practised by virulent anti-smokers.

I am a smoker and I object to this spin when I am doing nothing illegal and am indeed helping prop up the economy by more than £9bn a year (smoking-related diseases cost £1.8-£2bn).

I hear so much of non-smokers' rights. What about my human rights, freedom of choice etc?

If you are going to be anti-smoking, please do it honestly and do not distort, twist or spin figures to mean something totally different from the truth.

Derek Smith

London Road

Headington

Oxford