Open to question

I'm going to Broadcasting House in a few minutes to talk about freedom and smoking for the Open University.

It's for a second year OU course entitled 'Understanding Politics' and it was pitched to me as follows:

We're looking at freedom, using smoking and the smoking ban as an illustrative example when facing opposing positions such as 'free to smoke' and 'free to breathe clean air'.

Personally I've never considered the two mutually exclusive. People should be 'free to smoke' (in some public places) just as others should be 'free to breathe clean air'.

As it happens I'm currently sitting outside a cafe 50 yards from Oxford Circus.

There's a long queue of traffic to my left (diesel fume alert!) and to my right a couple of people smoking. (I had to check they were smoking because I wasn't aware of any smoke drifting in my direction.)

I would be hugely surprised if I was breathing 'clean' air but the pollution levels, such as they are, seem perfectly acceptable. In fact, the reason I'm sitting outside is precisely because it's not hot and stuffy and I therefore prefer to sit here than in a windowless, smoke free basement.

If I'm inhaling particles of smoke and carbon and slowly killing myself, who cares? I'd sooner be out here watching the world go by with people who look equally unconcerned about their 'right' to breathe clean air. (If they were they'd be wearing those hideous masks some cyclists seem to favour.)

Anyway, back to the OU. A studio has been booked for 60 minutes and the list of questions includes:

Are you a smoker? Were you/are you in favour of the ban on smoking in public places? If so why and if not why not? What impact has the ban had on you and why? Why should governments decide on how we should behave? Have we become a nanny state? Why not regulate in the home as well as in public? Where will the line be drawn - ie should the government only act to stop us causing harm to others or should it try to stop us harming ourselves?