Will the bleeding hearts who took Government statistics about second-hand cigarette smoke as a reason to stop people smoking in their local pubs now apologise?

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt smugly spouted that the ban would save thousands of lives.

According to a report from the House of Lords economic affairs committee, the smoking ban was a political decision by Labour's nanny state.

The Lords' committee seized on evidence by none other than Public Health Minister Caroline Flint, in which she admitted that 95 per cent of smoking-related deaths are related to lighting up in the home rather than the workplace.

Prof Sir Richard Peto, of Oxford University, told the committee that the health risks of passive smoking were unlikely to be large.

The report concludes that given the evidence about the impact of passive smoking, the decision to ban smoking in public places may represent a disproportionate response to a relatively minor health concern.

So there you have it another dodgy dossier from this useless Labour Government, using dodgy statistics as it did in the Iraq war to con the rest of the population.

Will the decision to stop smoking in pubs now be reversed? Not a chance.

May I suggest that, in future, the Government has its reports penned by the Brothers Grimm? After all, it is already noted for writing fairy tales.

Tony Anchors, Didcot