Britain's health minister Dr John Reid has kicked up a storm by saying that smoking is one of the few pleasures left in life for the poor.
The remark came as the former Northern Ireland minister was addressing a debate in south London about conditions on some of the country's most deprived "sink" public housing estates.
It coincided with growing signs that health-conscious Britain may join the trend set by Ireland and some US cities by banning smoking in public places.
Dr Reid said he did not think the worst problem on the run-down estates was smoking, but that it had become an obsession of the learned middle class. "What enjoyment does a 21-year-old single mother-of-three living in a council sink estate get? The only enjoyment sometimes they have is to have a cigarette," he said.
He also took a swipe at the incessant professional lobbying against smoking. "Be very careful, that you do not patronise people because sometimes - as my mother used to say - people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking."
A spokesman for Dr Reid said he made the comments in response to a question about whether sales of packets of just 10 cigarettes should be banned, because they are favoured by people with lower incomes.
However, a spokesman for the anti-smoking group Ash said that to talk about smoking as a pleasure middle class people wanted to deny others was foolish. "Smoking in the UK kills about 115,000 people a year. A disproportionate number of those are in social classes D and E, where smoking rates are almost twice what they are in A and B," he said.
He added that Ireland's Minister for Health, Mr Martin, could look back on an achievement which will save thousands of lives. "It would be nice to think that our health secretary had a similar ambition, but unfortunately what he said suggests that maybe he doesn't," the spokesman said.
However, smokers' lobby groups praised Dr Reid for his "bravery" in the current anti-smoking climate. "I think it is very refreshing that a politician is prepared to say the unsayable," said Mr Simon Clark, director of Forest (Freedom of the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco).
Britain's Labour government is considering a ban on smoking in public places but may leave legislation to local authorities. The Department of Health said today its public health consultation was continuing and that no decision had been made on a smoking ban.