whipping and smoking

A good point from Jon Snow in his snowmail email last night, speculating on the fact that the vote to ban smoking was a free vote (in other words, MPs were allowed to vote - horror of horrors - according to their conscience or their constituents' wishes). Fixing Jon's bad spelling as I type, this is what he notes:

"It's a funny old thing because there's a free vote and in many ways it's a victory for common sense. Why on earth should political parties be whipped into a particular line on this matter? Indeed maybe there should be a whole lot more free votes?"

A fairly obvious point, but a good one.