This startling development came to light when a Home Office memo was discovered in a bin bag in the Treasury car park by an illegal asylum seeker looking for discarded passports. A development that was confirmed today when Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, told a packed Member's bar in the House that: "We now have conclusive intelligence that smoking leads to paedophilia, heroin addiction and suicide bombing. Which is why we will be seeking to extend the ban to cover private homes at the earliest opportunity."

"Make no mistake," commented an anonymous bloke buying extra-strength nicotine patches in an all-night chemists, "smoking is the greatest threat ever to menace the security and stability of this country. It makes global terrorism look like happy slapping by high-spirited teenagers."

"This filthy vice is costing the country billions of pounds every minute and depriving millions of clinically obese, non-smokers of much-needed hospital beds!" wheezed a clinically-obese non-smoker who vomited onto our reporter's shoes outside the Cockwell Inn. The 19-year-old single mother of four went on to describe to us in chilling detail how cigarettes had turned her from a carefree teenager into a drug-addicted sex offender who has been served with no less than 27 separate ASBO's—several for cohabiting with suspected terrorists.

"That's no surprise to me," thundered a fervent spokescrusader from BASH—the impartial British Anti-Smoking Holocaust who are funded entirely by charitable donations from Nicorella—the world's largest manufacturer of nicotine patches and chewing gum. "Statistics have shown time and time again that 7 out of 10 sex offenders are smokers and over 90% of all convicted terrorists have smoked at some time in their lives. Coincidence? I think not! The sooner this ban is extended into the home the sooner we can enjoy the benefits of a totally smoke-free society."

But not everyone shares the government's courageous crusade to treat smokers as sub-human criminals with no more right to tread the soil of our green and pleasant land than a filthy kiddie-fiddler with 20 pounds of semtex strapped to their abdomen. Despite irrefutable evidence that smoking is responsible for over 99% of society's ills, the proposed extension of the ban has wrung howls of protest from the cancerous throats of the country's nicotine junkies, who predict it can only be a matter of time before smokers are arrested without trial and banged up in Belmarsh Detention Centre. Benson Hedges, another shameless apologist for the tobacco industry, told us: "I have not seen such an attack on our civil liberties since my missus copped an ASBO for sunbathing in the back garden in the nude. It's a bloody disgrace!"

Another hardened nicotine junkie, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals from the gangs of anti-smoking vigilantes roaming the streets of London, timidly asked: "Why aren't the government tackling the smoke pollution from smelly, diesel-powered taxis and buses, coal-fired power stations...um...exploding oil storage tanks and the noxious fumes that blow my way whenever my non-smoking next door neighbour burns his fucking rubbish?"

Unsurprisingly, the most implausible condemnation of the government's responsible and humanitarian action has come from whining libertarians, one of whom went so far as to suggest that the smoking ban was the thin end of a very wide wedge designed to stub out the few remaining civil liberties still enjoyed by the citizens of this country. "If there were a genuine desire to ban smoking among the population why haven't pubs and restaurants imposed their own bans before now?" the pompous, pipe-smoking bigot yapped. "I mean, no one forces staff to work in smoky bars and clubs, do they? When was the last time you saw thousands of angry waitresses converging on Downing Street demanding smoke-free working conditions? Or restaurant owners petitioning their MP's to ban smoking? This is a bloody conspiracy to undermine our right to do whatever we wish with our own bodies!"
When we politely reminded him that those 'rights' are directly responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people who have to breathe in his filthy second-hand smoke, he retorted angrily: "Well—they only have to ask; they could enjoy it at first hand. Look, get a bloody grip, woman! What about the 'millions' more dying from the filth pumped out by the cars and lorries that clog our cities? I don't see those being banned!"

Fortunately for the health of the nation, such misguided views are confined to a minority of fanatical mullahs—if not suicide-bombing mujahidin—waging a nicotine-fuelled jihad of empty rhetoric against the 98% of the population who do not smoke and have no intention of doing so.
A jihad whose supporters hold up Winston Churchill as an example we should all strive to emulate! Utterpants cannot think of a more repugnant or criminally irresponsible mentor than this grossly overweight warmonger. A man who not only chain-smoked obscenely large cigars, but consumed huge amounts of alcohol and never exercised. Is this any kind of example to be setting our kids? No, it isn't, so let's erase the fat, drunken smoker from the history books and bring the health-conscious Adolf Hitler out of the closet. We can think of no better example of socially responsible behaviour than the slim, non-smoking, teetotal Austrian vegetarian with his legendary love of animals. His personal habits should be an example to us all, and his life a reminder of what a truly healthy lifestyle can achieve. Adolf Hitler didn't smoke! A lesson apparently lost on the nicotine-crazed terrorists who will stop at nothing to inflict their disgusting habit on the rest of decent society.

Utterpants looks forward to the day when lighting up in one's own home will incur a £2,500 fine and a long stretch at Her Majesty's pleasure. A wish we feel sure will be enthusiastically supported by all our readers.

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