The Sun, The Daily Mail, Financial Times and The Metro - all of which accept comments, by the way - are collectively convinced that the coalition is ditching plain packaging.
So what do prominent tobacco control industry execs have to say on the matter?
A BIG domino falls in #plainpackaging -- UK do introduce. Congrats to all my UK colleaguesguardian.co.uk/society/2013/m…
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) March 5, 2013
Oh sorry, silly me. That tweet was from March. What am I like, eh? This is the one I meant to post.
UK squibs on #plainpacks. A nation that once led public health, now mired in mediocrity. BigTobacco rejoices! thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/n…
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) May 2, 2013
Of course, no-one really knows yet what will happen until after the Queen's speech on Wednesday and the consultation is finally concluded. Hence why the superannuated Aussie Methuselah was stupidly jumping the gun with his congrats just a couple of months ago.
Likewise, we would be just as pathetically naïve if we were to take today's reports at face value. As far as I'm concerned, it's not over till it's over and now is exactly the time you should think about emphasising to your MP that plain packs are definitely NOT wanted. Because you know very well that in the next few days they will be fighting off fake charities, state-funded pressure groups and shroud-waving deludos like a shopkeeper in a zombie film.
Here is how the tobacco control industry officially greeted today's news.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the campaign group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said reports reducing deaths and improving health were no longer a ‘key purpose’ was ‘shocking’.
"Shocking", apparently, that government appears to have listened to half a million people. "Shocking" that government may have resisted disgraceful rigging of democratic process. And "shocking" that government might not have been taken in by appalling junk science and a dire lack of any evidence whatsoever.
By "shocking", they mean that they're shocked at the thought of the state not falling into line with their increasingly ridiculous and flimsily-based demands. They're shocked that someone may have read their studies rather than heroic press releases bastardising their own evidence, which shows that kids barely notice cigarette packets. They're shocked that the coalition might actually be sticking to their dislike of government lobbying government. And they're shocked that their corruption and appalling hypocritical lies might have been detected.
In summary, shocked that the legislature didn't do what they normally do and bow down meekly to rent-seeking manufactured hysteria and hyperbole.
They're also pretty shocked at the possibility that the far left public health industry's darling bible, The Guardian, may have got it disastrously wrong, while their despised devil Rupert Murdoch's Sun - which they deride as a comical rag - might have published an exclusive that actually turns out to be true.
Whether true or not, today's articles tell us even more about how tobacco control operates, and further emphasises that it's never been about health.
In the meantime, please do send your MP another communication by clicking here.
Oh yeah, and maybe allow yourself a celebratory cigar as it's been quite a good news day on the whole.
13 comments:
Another person who needs to be told that the plain packs campaign has lost. A public health official who thinks his job is telling us how to live.
http://twitter.com/mashton73
It’s always good to hear from the simpleton, Simon Crapman.
After a night surely filled with tantrum-throwing and blood-pressure meds,
Crappo does the standard antismoking rhetoric – it’s a “win” for Big Tobacco [Oh, how terribly predictable]. And Crappo ought to know: He’s the one who suggested way back in 1983 that antismoking be framed – for “dramatic” effect - as a battle between mythological good (antismoking bigots) and evil (the tobacco industry) - “If you don’t agree with us really good folk, then you must be agreeing with the evil tobacco empire”.
Some may find some light entertainment in Stantonitis Glands’
– the glorified mechanical engineer and all-round fraudster/slob – self-promoting thread on his recent New Zealand trip. Five-star accommodation and [mostly unquestioning] media attention - what
more could an incompetent, neurotic, bigoted, Narcissistic slob ask for? And that’s the goal of the activist-masquerading-as-a-scientist – keep a high media profile ensuring a proliferation of the hate slogans:
http://tobacco.ucsf.edu/media-coverage-stan-glantz-visit-new-zealand-discusses-smokefree-movies-strong-anti-tobacco-media-an
Speaking of the slob’s jet-setting, “Play Bigot” lifestyle, it’s a good time to reflect on Glands’ visit to London in 2001 to spread his toxic blather:
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jul/27/news/mn-27179
Maybe Glands should pick up part of the tab for all the failed pubs.
Just another clone, they're all the same. Their job really is to tell us all how to live by rules they have decided for themselves.
Do you have a link or reference for Chapman's framing statement? It would be very useful to have.
many thanks
Steve, see the Godber Blueprint (http://www.rampant-antismoking.com ) which highlights that antismoking has been a social-engineering, neo-prohibition crusade from the very outset – 1970s – by a self-installed
clique of nitwits operating under the auspices of the WHO and sponsored by the American Cancer Society. And the social engineering is typically pursued through propaganda.
The mythological good vs evil drama was suggested by Crapman
at the 1983 World Conference on Smoking & Health. It was in the
presentation of his paper, a manual on how to do propaganda, “The Lung Goodbye”:
“Such a list could be added to considerably, but most entries would be characterized by being somehow cast in a mythological good versus evil battle in an arena observed by mass numbers of people. The good (health/clean air/children) versus evil (cancer/uncaring, callous industry) dimension is the ineluctable bottom line in the whole issue and a rich reservoir for spawning a great deal of useful social drama, metaphor, and symbolic politics that is the stuff of ‘news value’ and which is almost always to the detriment of the industry.” p.11
“It is vital to reflect on the vastness of information, social issues and news to
which people are exposed and over which they are often urged to take up a
position. The smoking debate is just one issue pressing for attention - amongst thousands, and like almost any other issue, tends to attract media attention when its issues can be subsumed under some more fundamental mythological context.
Following, are some examples, by no means exhaustive, of angles and themes on smoking that seem to have news value:
* the mouse that roared, or David and Goliath - when little public interest groups or individuals go into battle with the tobacco industry. (When MOP UP in Sydney challenged the largest cigarette advertising campaign in Australia – and won – one newspaper captured the spirit of the challenge with the headline "MOP UP'S SLINGSHOT CUTS DOWN THE ADVERTISING OGRE")” p.13
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gjq72f00
Direct link to PDF
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gjq72f00/pdf;jsessionid=32A42DE3836FEBD65B9FE6696FCE11BA.tobacco03
You’ll also notice that on p.15 of the same “manual” is what some refer to as the Chapman Trick – for background, see comments by magnetic01 at:
http://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/doctors-in-name-only/#comments
http://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/5894/
http://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/tobacco-shoots-up/
"It seems to be common these days for rumours to be leaked with the intention, I suppose, of taking the sting out of the backlash. The backlash in this case comes from the Tobacco Control Industry,"
Dick, having followed Antismoking deviancies and subterfuges for many many years at this point (basically since around 1976 when a housemate introduced me to a bunch of ASH pamphlets) I most certainly wouldn't rest easy on the laurels of victory here.
The OPPOSITE of what you say above could actually be the truth. The gvt. might WANT to go forward with their friends in ASH but have been too disconcerted by the resistance and too afraid of the criticism they'll get. Sooooo.... how can they go ahead anyway?
Simple: Announce that it's being pulled while giving the Antis a heads up in advance to prepare a media storm. After a few days of said storm the government can then "surrender to the will of the people," while totally ignoring the fact that the "will" had already been clearly known to be in the opposite direction before the orchestrated storm.
Keep an eye on things and don't let them get away with that game if they're pulling it!
- MJM
I'm not taking anything for granted but you make a good point. We know how very corrupt politicians and tobacco controllers are, I wouldn't trust any of them to tell me the day of the week accurately. ;)
Simple answer,Camerons knows the UK is busted financially. Tobacco makes money,Tobacco control costs money!
Psst Mike its the comming political winds of change thats making it happen..................movements only last xxxx amount of time then its over in a flash!
DP with all the hatred against the EU,TC is their baby and its being attacked from the highest levels now.............Theres much more going on than we eve relaize behind he curain of political collpases.
They don't care about us, all they want is the money from our pockets so they can run the government and force us to follow such silly rules.
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