Pete Robinson: Scottish pubs thriving since smoking ban - claims ASH

And I wasn't disappointed. ASH are running a report claiming Scotland officially now has more pubs than before the smoking ban. Scottish Government figures show the number of pubs had risen by nine in 2007, the first full year after the 2006 smoking ban.

On the surface this appears to be most promising news. If our Scottish licenced brethren have turned the corner than maybe us sassernacs will follow suit in a few months time. ASH always promised the ban wouldn't affect the pub trade long term. In fact we'd all prosper. Perhaps they were right all along?

But peel away the veneer and you quickly find it's no more than the usual statistical sleight of hand.

You see the claimed figure of 5186 pubs refers only to the number of licences in force at the end of 2007. Because these licences are only renewed every three years those stats include many 'ghost' publicans who have gone bust owing to the ban while their licence technically remains in force.

The Scottish Beer and Pub Association cites Industry research showing at least 450 pubs have closed since the smoking ban, almost 10 per cent of Scotland's entire pub stock.

Once again it's the traditional locals, especially in rural areas, that are closing at an alarming rate.

Paul Waterstone of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association says, "There are whole villages where there are no pubs. These were the heart of their community. Now we have whole areas of the country with no banks, no post offices and no pubs."

ASH deliberately cherry picks misleading articles like this for their Daily News. You won't find any mention of the drop in tourism since the ban, for example. Nor will you read any reference to the Publican's Market Report findings that one in five pubs say trade is "substantially down" since the smoking ban with a quarter of pubs reporting a big drop in profitability.

But then what can we expect from a prohibitionist organisation who's sole raison d'etre is to stop a large proportion of the population from enjoying a time honoured, perfectly legal product?

Cigarette smokers like pubs. Pubs have always liked smokers.

Solution? Let's put the pubs out of business.

The bitter irony of it all is they are using YOUR taxpayers' money to achieve their aims.

Although ASH purports to be a 'charity' it's principle source of funding comes from the Tobacco Advisory Group (TAG) - a tiny, somewhat obscure organisation who's principal role is to dole out cash to proactive anti-smoking parties.

But who funds TAG? You may (or perhaps not) be surprised to learn that TAG is a subsidiary of Cancer Research UK.

Around the time New Labour came to power CRUK started to be regularly injected with State cash in return for favours rendered. For example, in 2003 the Dept of Health handed CRUK

£2.5 million to 'develop' their anti-smoking campaigns. In August 2005 they published a consultation document entitled: "Going Smokefree: The Case for ALL pubs and clubs", that led directly to the blanket smoking ban.

So we have a major charity getting taxpayer's funds, which sets up a go-between institution to bankroll a lobbying pressure group

(ASH) which in turn supplies dubious statistics and dodgy surveys directly to the Dept of Health. I'm sure there must be laws that would criminalise such practices in The City.

Should charities be meddling in politics, significantly in politically correct social engineering? Not when their relationship with government becomes so intertwined they are virtually allowed to dictate policies that override previous electoral promises already voted on by the public.

It's undemocratic and it smacks of corruption. In short it stinks.