Our quizzical scribe wonders whether he has been badly misled by the Prime Minister - and concludes he has

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, Sir Keir Starmer promised to 'practice a politics (sic) that treads a little lighter on all of our lives.'

By tread lightly he seems in fact to have meant kicking voters in the head. The visionary George Orwell once predicted that the future would resemble a boot stamping repeatedly on an upturned face. Step forward Sir K and his size twelves.

The latest manifestation of the ol’ light tread is the proposed ban on advertising ‘junk food’ before 9pm on regular telly, and completely online. If Swift’s readers have a moment, they should look up the proposed list of foodstuffs captured by the idiotic proposal. It is a recipe (geddit?) for brureaucratic meddling, reminding Swift of the famous HMRC case turning on whether Jaffa Cakes were in fact cakes (VAT-free) or biscuits (subject to VAT) which lasted for years and cost a fortune. It was the Jarndyce v Jarndyce of food taxation. Expect more of this sort of thing.

Dear readers, Swift must confess that he does find it difficult to get too aerated about this. Like the sugar tax, or Minimum Unit Pricing on alcohol (implemented in Jockland without any discernible effect) it will have no impact on health whatsoever. It’s tedious, it’s tiresome, it’s Keir.

Where the teeth begin to grind, however, is the madness of banning smoking in various locations, most egregiously in pub gardens. As the squawks of alarm from the pub owners indicated, this was not the most business-friendly move for a sector still emerging like a zombie from the grave of Covid restrictions.

Swift is bemused. OK, confusing sourpuss Starmer with the cool guy you want to hang with at a party was never likely. But he seemed so sensible. He seemed so grown-up. Indeed his outriders were at pains to tell us that this was a government with the grown-ups all now in charge. We were not to worry that he’d been part of the Corbyn shadow cabinet and had stood for leader on a very leftist platform. That was then, this is now.

But now is looking an awful lot like, well, then. Could it be that maybe, just maybe, the old Keir is the real Keir? The socialist mask has been removed to show the - ahem - socialist face underneath. Dear readers, it seems that you and Swift both have been bamboozled by a clever charlatan.

What is most vexing is that this new meddling in people’s lives seems so utterly un-grown-up. It doesn’t solve a health problem affecting non-smokers, which was at least one defence for the previous indoor smoking ban. Claims that smoking costs us all billions have been comprehensively demolished. Smokers pay those billions in tax. They helpfully die early, thereby decreasing the surplus population - hat-tip to Chas. Dickens for that line - who might otherwise clog up hospitals with diseases common to the very elderly. The net effect of decreasing smoking rates is fiscally bad news.

Defending smoking as a population control measure is, Swift admits, not all that compelling. Public opinion may find it on the harsh side. What is more depressing is that the public do not appear to care very much for the much simpler proposition that the government should just get its long and bony nose out of people’s lives and let them enjoy a pint and a fag in the sunshine.

Pavlov’s canines were very champions of free thinking compared to the urge Britons have to ban things. The ‘I don’t do this so you shouldn’t’ tendency, also known as the Polly Toynbee party, would have a bigger majority than even Sir KS managed. Bans for betting, drinking, eating, smoking, nightclubbing and quite possibly f*cking - for all Swift knows - would be greeted with a hearty huzzah. Oliver Cromwell come right in, we’re gonna party like it’s 1645.

In short, the sole justification for the new approach is that people cannot be allowed to make informed choices about their lifestyles. So Snooping Starmer will make the choice for them. It is going to be dressed up as the preventative state, apparently.

Swift has a sense of deep gloom about all this. The new lot are like the old lot (remember that the Tories opened the door to all this with their own proposed measures on advertising and their fatuous anti-smoking Bill, now back on the books).

Except that the new lot are worse, and they are probably more efficient in getting stuff through. These are the first blasts of the trumpet against freedom of choice, but they sure as hell won't be the last.

Winter is coming and it won’t just be pensioners feeling the chill.