He insists the matter should be left to the market to "accommodate our varying tastes".

Mr Monteith, a non-smoker, used to be a spokesman for Forest, the smokers' lobby group.

Pubs and restaurants are not public at all.

They are privately owned and it is the owners that are financially responsible for any downturn in business, not the local council or the Scottish Executive.

They are not libraries or hospital wards where bans make perfect sense.

Public houses, clubs and restaurants could introduce their own smoking bans tomorrow but many choose not to because their customers would stay at home.

That is why any ban on smoking in pubs would be illiberal and would remove the right of millions of law-abiding people to enjoy a relaxing drink and smoke in their local pubs.

More choice

The people best placed to know how to run their businesses and to assess how to accommodate and meet their customers' needs are the local landlords and restaurateurs.

These people already bear a heavy responsibility in dispensing alcohol and that is why they are able to turn anyone away that they don't want to serve.

Politicians and campaigners advocating a complete ban on smoking in pubs - what they mistakenly call public places - are displaying a breathtaking intolerance by taking such an extreme position.

Even smokers meeting in, say, a smokers' club, staffed by fellow-smokers, would be banned under such a draconian measure from the perfectly normal pastime of enjoying a smoke.

What's next - banning people from smoking at home or in the open air?

More choice between smoking and non-smoking facilities is what the public consistently calls for and that's what owners are trying to deliver.

We should totally reject the idea of a ban on smoking in pubs, clubs and restaurants and leave it to the market to accommodate our varying tastes.