Your Vote Just Became Even More Irrelevant

Here's a small announcement which will certainly not have piqued the interest of any newspaper you might read. It probably wouldn't even have passed your MP's desk.

ASH will be very aware of it, though, and would probably have sent Dickrell down to Waitrose with petty cash money for some celebratory cream cakes on hearing the news.

The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) granted special consultative status to FCA at its recent session.

This status will give FCA access to nearly all intergovernmental processes at the UN dealing with issues of interest to ECOSOC, including economic and social development, gender issues and sustainable development.

FCA will also be eligible for annual and short-term passes to the UN in New York, Geneva and Vienna.

To translate, this means that the FCA - an unelected supranational quango formed to press for draconian treatment of tobacco - has now been given carte blanche at ECOSOC which is, err, also an unelected supranational quango.

I suppose you could write to your, cough, democratic representative about it. But then, he's not likely to be anywhere near New York next month, is he?

This might permit increased FCA representation at the UN Summit on NCDs in New York, 19-20 September, although we still expect space there to be extremely limited.

Yep, they've already worked out what they're going to do with the massively increased influence which the electorate voted overwhelmingly for they lobbied a few unelected talking heads for.

Specifically, "rapid and effective implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control". You know, crippling taxes; plain packaging; smoking bans everywhere; hideous unrealistic pictures; and stopping you buying cheaper abroad.

Of course, if you don't smoke this won't bother you at all, will it?

Oh, hold on!

NCD Summit Action Alert

We now have three weeks and three days to tell member states loud and clear that we expect them to respect the right to health of the people they represent. They need to hear that we are angry at these delays and expect them to get serious and reach consensus on time-bound commitments to action.

[...]

National tobacco tax strategies developed by 2013: There are a number of references to using fiscal policies to prevent NCDs, not just for tobacco but also for alcohol and unhealthy food and drink products.

Smelling the coffee yet?