It is but three weeks since I rang a chum in the Scottish Office. How was it going? ''We are,'' he replied, maybe jokingly, ''burning the evidence.'' Whatever Michael Forsyth was, and he was always in our faces, he was a realist.

The St Andrew's House establishment, among whom Sir Humphrey Appleby would have felt entirely at home, was both afraid and proud of him. When he whispered in that Peter Lorre voice of his: ''Why not?'' they were discomfited; when he banged the table and demanded special deals for Scotland they sat in wonder.

I do not know how the civil service is coping with its new Scottish masters. Indeed the Invisible Man has been spotted more often in recent days than D Dewar and the Blairettes of Calton Hill. Mr Forsyth seemed to have a policy announcement for every day of the week. Mr Dewar, rarely stuck for a word or thousand, appears to have taken Trappist orders.

Indeed, after all the hullabaloo of a long election it is almost as though politics has been banned throughout the land. News programmes do not grill the new Ministers, who are probably not allowed to give interviews anyway unless they have written permission in triplicate. Where once Hezza and Ginnie sat in the radio car, waiting to be filleted, now they have Pru Leith on whether boys should be taught cooking.

So are there no Labour policies to challenge? Of course there are. Tony, as he insists we call him, is being devious about Question Time; he is, I have long suspected, happier asking the questions than answering them; Mrs T might have said he was ''frit''.

Sure, the twice-weekly knockabout provided little actual information for the nation, but it was red-raw politics, the claws were out and only the brave survived. ''I attended a meeting of the Cabinet this morning and will be having further meetings with colleagues later today,'' the PM would mumble.

''So why are there still people being operated on in hospital corridors?'' came the riposte, and we were off. There has to be passion as well as polite argument in our political life.

I hope the remaining Tories, and indeed all the other opposition parties which are about to be treated far worse than by the previous Government, mark my words, will unite in kicking up a fuss about Tony's planned switch to half-an-hour once a week. Question Time is an institution, a chance for back benchers to put the boot in, have a good old-fashioned barney. If Tony is too twee to take it he can put up Mr Prescott - sorry, John.

That change in procedure, by the way, was not in the Labour manifesto, nor was it mentioned at any time during the campaign. Funny, that. But they did tell us that they were intending to ban tobacco advertising. This will no doubt bring applause from those who would play nannie to our every activity. I do not believe it will stop anyone from smoking.

There is not a shred of evidence to suggest - and I challenge Sam, the Scottish Health Minister, to prove otherwise - that advertising encourages people to start on the fags. What it does do is to tempt them to switch brands; that is why the tobacco industry spends #50m a year on advertising and probably about the same on promotions and sponsorships. Bans apply in Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Italy. Tobacco consumption in these countries has remained at exactly the same level.

I gave up smoking eight years ago. As an asthmatic I can be made most uncomfortable if someone lights up within 6ft of me. Yet I champion the right of folk to go to hell in their own handcart. What will happen to the money the companies cannot spend on advertising? I suspect it will be used to cut the prices of the most popular brands. That is going to have the opposite effect to what is intended.

And the sports events, currently sponsored by the likes of Benson and Hedges or Embassy, what will they do? What is certain is that the health of the nation will be unaffected.

Yes, smoking kills. So does alcoholic drink taken in large measure, rotten diet, stress and over-activity in middle age; are we going to ban the advertising of pies and burgers? In a free society we should tread carefully before we ban the advertising of what is a perfectly legal product. I fought those within my own party who demanded that we should all carry identity cards; the nannies of New Labour are equally dangerous.

Only 30% of the British population smoke these days, a drop of 20% in the past 25 years. In the middle classes the figure is much lower, and falling. But if it is really the young we are seeking to dissuade from smoking then for goodness sake let us use the lessons learned the hard way by many parents. If you want to make something popular among kids, just try banning it.