Smokers are the new lepers. One already sees them huddled in doorways. Soon the health bill now before the UK parliament will ban smoking in all workplaces in England, including pubs, restaurants and private clubs. But the government revealed on Monday that the ban might eventually apply to doorways and entrances of offices and public buildings, as well as to bus shelters and sports stadiums. Smokers are to be driven out into the wilderness, as befits their pariah status.

As a life-long non-smoker, I wonder what is driving these assaults. Is it an attempt to improve public health, as campaigners suggest? Or do smokers serve a need every society seems to have – for a group of pariahs that all right-thinking people can condemn? I strongly suspect the latter.