Sitting in the pub the other day with my colleague Rob Doyle, helping him with some important research for his excellent Southport Drinker blog and drink -up column in The Champion, it struck me how often well-meaning state intervention can have unforeseen consequences.

I am talking of course about the smoking ban.

Now, I have never smoked and find cigarette fumes pretty unpleasant in very confined spaces – like the car. But I do like good conversation with interesting people from all walks off life, and as a general rule, I find people who smoke and drink tend to be more entertaining company.

I don’t think I have ever been out with a woman who didn’t smoke and drink; but that may say more about me and my vices than people in general).

So smoky pubs and restaurants have never really bothered me. Even the dangers of so-called passive smoking haven’t frightened me away from the ‘craic’.

The presumption is that second-hand smoke must be harmful, but in the context of normal everyday pollution form cars, bonfires, barbecues etc, is it really a killer?

We have all seen how the papers one week tell you that alcohol or certain foods are bad for you, and then the next week declare new research has indicated the opposite (“moderation in all things” my dear old auntie used to say, as she lit up another fag).

I often think of that line in Woody Allen’s hilarious film Sleeper, in which he awakes from suspended animation to find himself in a health-obsessed future where everything is regulated and sanitised, and he is offered a cigarette with the advice: “Have one of these, they’re good for you”.

To get to the point, it is hard to say whether the smoking ban in public places is encouraging people to give up the habit. What certainly is true is that more people are staying at home to drink and smoke, to the detriment of licensed businesses and those of us who enjoy the old-fashioned delights of a few ales and a good chat in cosy surroundings.

I fear that more traditional British inns will have to reinvent themselves as cafés and restaurants, or as those youth clubs with conversation-killing television screens and loud music which pass for trendy pubs these days.

And as for those hostelries that try to carry on catering for their loyal nicotine addicts with outside smoking shelters, we’ll probably find that all that going in and out from warmth to cold and back will see their customers off to an early grave faster than their tobacco habit.

Perhaps the death of the great British pub is the plan all along, to keep the health service free to treat all the people with stress now they can’t smoke or drink or have a chat any more.