As longtime readers of this blog will know, I was opposed to the blanket ban on smoking in pubs. My reason for opposing it was that people in the maturity of their faculties should be free to make their own choices in a matter like this, provided they can do so in a way that doesn't harm others; and I'm not persuaded by the argument that no arrangement is practicable that would reserve for smokers some pubs, or some rooms in some pubs, in such a way that no one else need be exposed to their smoke unless by their own decision.
This move, on the other hand, seems to me to have an obvious justification:
Smokers in a north-east London borough will not be able to foster children from January 2012 - unless there are "exceptional circumstances".
The ban was passed on Tuesday evening by Redbridge councillors who voted unanimously in favour of the policy.
It protects children from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke, and the 'paternalist' consideration that society needs to look out for the interests of those so protected applies here as it does not - or not without further argument, anyway - in the case of adult smokers.
There is at the same time something very clearly worrying about the state of affairs created by such a policy. For it effectively means that ordinary parents may harm their children by smoking in the home; only foster parents may not.