There weren’t many political triumphs in 2017 but one achievement stands out: the introduction of plain packaging on tobacco products. The decision, forced through the Commons and the courts to the fury of the tobacco giants, meant that bright, branded fag packets were replaced with dull brown boxes on which the most prominent thing was the gory health warning. All the evidence suggests that the policy was a public health triumph which is saving lives. In other words it’s not the kind of thing a future government is likely to reverse. What if a bunch of unelected international bureaucrats ruled that removing the branding broke an obscure set of regulations and ordered Britain to bring it back?

Source: The Times December 06, 2019 00:00 UTC