By this time next year, another new law should be implemented, not only in Brighton and Hove but nationwide, whereby smoking will be outlawed in all public places.

Included in this legislation, there is to be a three-metre "exclusion zone" surrounding such premises.

Using vernacular more like that of the Falkland Islands conflict, this legislation is just one of nearly 700 new laws to be introduced by this present Government.

In contrast, past governments spanning the same period as New Labour has been in power averaged just 65 judicial reforms or new laws.

This heavy-handed style of government, introducing new legislation when old laws are quite adaptable to rule efficiently, makes me wonder why such a huge amount of time is allocated to futile matters when, it appears, there are far more important items that should be debated.

While the majority of voters agree with the principle of banning smoking, it will be interesting to see if there is a decrease in the numbers of deaths attributed to smoking.

With figures just published concerning the spiralling death count of MRSA and Aids sufferers, obesity, murders and terrorist targets (to mention just five unnatural ways to die), the ever-decreasing quality of the air we breathe and the possibility of radiation poisoning from mobile phone masts make me wonder if smoking has become a scapegoat to ease middle England voters' views concerning an unfashionable habit.

Returning to this Government's obsession with law making, I ask why laws already in place cannot be enforced more readily than inventing new ones.

Why are girls aged between 12 and 15 who have given birth, along with the fathers of the same age, not arrested for under-age sex? The proof for a conviction is quite obvious.

Who thought it a bright idea to raise the age to 18 for those who wish to buy a packet of cigarettes, when the age for consensual intercourse within same-sex couples, or to die fighting as a soldier, is 16?

Where does the law come from that entitles an old man to be roughed-up and thrown out of a party political conference for voicing the word "nonsense" in response to what he was hearing from the Foreign Secretary? Germany 1937? No, Brighton, England 2005.

Why do our laws not allow a young woman to stand outside Downing Street doing nothing more than reading aloud the names of British soldiers who have died in the conflict in Iraq but allow a group to openly march and threaten death to any infidel who dares disagree with their religious beliefs?

More than 600 hours of political debate occurred in the House of Commons concerning the banning of fox hunting while paedophiles viewed unpoliced Internet web sites.

The list of these laws is seemingly endless, with many contrary to the way the majority of level-headed people think.

I was brought up and educated to accept democracy and freedom of speech but I'm afraid even this letter might be infringing a law which has crept in while I was writing it.

-David Spear Hove