Health secretary John Reid has angered anti-smoking groups by saying that smoking is one of the few pleasures left for those living on council sink estates.
Dr Reid said that the middle classes were "obsessed" with the issue, which he added was not one of the worst problems facing poorer people.
The reformed smoker was speaking in a debate with health and patients' groups on improvements for people with long-term conditions, the Guardian reported.
He said: "I just do not think the worst problem on our sink estates by any means is smoking, but that is an obsession of the learned middle class.
"What enjoyment does a 21-year-old single mother of three living in a council sink estate get? The only enjoyment sometimes they have is to have a cigarette."
His remarks at the Labour Big Conversation Event in south London come amid last week's statement by Prime Minister Tony Blair that the government was considering measures to ban smoking in public spaces.
Condemned
The director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), Deborah Arnott, condemned Dr Reid's statement.
She said: "Smoking is the single greatest cause of the large difference in life expectancy between the rich and the poor. If John Reid's contribution to the white paper on smoking is let the poor smoke, then his policy on obesity must be let them eat cake.
"Any Government that cares about improving public health must act to protect workers from second-hand smoke. Second-hand smoke kills more poor people than any other group in society.
Conservative Shadow Health Minister Andrew Lansley accused Mr Reid of sending out "mixed smoke signals".
"It is impossible to see how the Government can promote a consistent public health strategy when with one hand it is funding the British Heart Foundation's ad campaign against smoking and with the other John Reid makes remarks like these," he said.
"It is yet another illustration of the confusion and mixed messages which have characterised the government's public health policies, not just for smoking but also for obesity."
A spokesman for Dr Reid said that the debate focused "99 per cent of the time" on long-term health care and was not about smoking in public spaces. He added that no decision had been made yet on whether to ban smoking in public.
Responding to a call for a public ban on smoking during the debate, Dr Reid added: "Be very careful, that you do not patronise people because sometimes, as my mother used to say, people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking. I worry slightly about the unanimity of the middle class professional activists on this."
Ministers are currently pondering whether to ban smoking in public, allowing councils to impose suspensions, or to leave the law unchanged.
What do you think? Have your say below.
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Just what is this evidence regarding passive smoking? Like most things that go on in this country, we are fed some PR bull that we swallow whole with out even questioning where this information comes from.
I agree that too many people have strong opinions about passive smoking. Why should the middle class dictate what the rest of the country does?
It is unbelievable that we have a
health minister who can make such chunderheaded comments.
Tony Blair did not suggest banning smokers from smoking. The mother in her
council estate can still keep smoking happily in her "sink estate" flat. If we bring in a
smoking ban in enclosed workplaces, what she
won't be able to do is force restaurant and bar employees, or other diners, to breathe her smoke and develop her lung cancer.
It seems apparent that John Reid is certainly not a member of the 'learned middle class' he dismisses so readily in his outrageously ill thought out statement. If he were learned, it would be perfectly clear to him that by dismissing health implications, and stating that smoking is a 'pleasure,' he is in fact effectively endorsing smoking, and dismissing all the research that irrefutably proves that cigarette smoke kills.
Of particular concern is his statement: "What enjoyment does a 21-year-old single mother of three living in a council sink estate get? The only enjoyment sometimes they have is to have a cigarette." This manages not only to patronise single working class mothers, with the implication that they are incapable of finding anything more worthwhile in life than smoking, but also to effectively encourage women to smoke around their children.
To further brand the anti smoking movement: " an obsession of the learned middle class," smacks of blatant reverse snobbery, and also mistakenly implies that you need to be well educated and intelligent to be aware of the dangers of smoking. In actual fact, you'd have to be brain dead in this day and age not to know what effect cigarettes have upon health. It's not a matter of education, class or intellect, but whether or not you CARE. These days only selfish people smoke, rather than poorly educated ones, and in fact it seems that stupidity is most in evidence not in the sink council estates, but in the House of Commons.
I find it quite unbelievable that this man is even in office, let alone hold a position which supposedly represents the health interests of the nation!
The health secretary shouldn't presume that all people who live on council estates are so depressed and poor that the only thing they look forward to is smoking. I for one despise smoking and what do you know I'm from a council estate! I grow more and more tired of people who live a million miles away from the real world making presumptions about council estates and the people who live there. He shouldn't be so ignorant. He needs to wake up and get on with his job.
Even if there were no health implications from passive smoking John, people who don't smoke have a right to enjoy a smoke-free environment and not be subjected to smoke-filled pubs and restaurants etc.
Is'nt it just typical of John Reid to make such a crass comment! But what with elections tomorrow, I guess T Blair thought it might be a good idea to have his health secretary put out a smoker-friendly message. And this was the best they could come up with in the short space of time left to them!
And this bloke is a Health Minister, the man in charge of the NHS. How can he make such a stupid offensive statement. I certainly am not middle class and I'm all for a smoking ban. I have very bad asthma and I don't see why I cannot go out because of fear of an asthma attack caused by other peoples smoke. Sack him Tone, use you're balls for once man!
There's no doubt that John Reid could have chosen his words better. His comments appear intensely patronising and all he has succeeded in achieving is sparking off another tedious media "furore" which obscures the real issues.
That said, the point he is trying to make is essentially a sound one. We live in an increasingly complex and stressful world, and going to a pub, bar or club to enjoy a drink and a cigarrette is a great way of winding down for many people from all social strata. Good for mental health, I would have thought.
As far as improving levels of health on "sink estates" goes, I feel the answer lies in areas such as healthy diet, more green spaces, sport/exercise and working towards a climate of greater opportunity for those who find it difficult to break into the job market. A smoking ban is too facile a solution. It would not, in my view, lead to a reduction in smoking and would only cause more tension and stress.
As a final point I know many bar staff, many of whom smoke and none of whom would welcome a smoking ban in pubs. If anyone is really being patronised then surely it is bar staff who are being used as a political pawn by the voracious anti-smoking lobby. No-one forces people to work in a bar and no-one should command the moral high ground proclaiming what's good and what's not good for them.