No Evidence 'Public Health' Aids Public Health

Following swiftly on from the tobacco controllers who believe lying about the benefits of reduced risk products is a fine and ethical idea, comes this remarkable article in the Guardian.

Brace yourselves, because this one is through the looking glass with Alice and the fucking Mad Hatter!

No evidence sugar-free soft drinks aid weight loss – study 

Soft drinks made with artificial sweeteners, such as diet colas, do not help people lose weight and may be as big a part of the obesity problem as the full-sugar versions, academics have said.

That's right, drinks which contain no sugar and no calories are just as bad as ones which do, apparently. So, I presume we can now forget all that ridiculous panicking about sugar, can't we? I mean, they've been telling us the stuff is death personified for the past year or two, but if a drink with no sugar in it at all is on a par then surely there's absolutely bugger all to worry about, no?

You could pitch the conclusion in a slightly different way and say "full sugar drinks are about as harmless as those with no sugar and no calories". Great, why didn't they just say so before. Hey Public Health England, you can shut the fuck up about fizzy drinks now and instead go and do something useful with the monumental amount of our cash you waste.

Of course that's not going to happen, is it? There's still a lot to be milked out of this particular fake health lobbying cash cow.

A paper by researchers at Imperial College London and two universities in Brazil contends that artificially sweetened beverages, often called diet drinks, are just as big a problem as those containing sugar. There is no evidence they help people lose weight, they say, possibly because people assume they can eat more because their drinks are low in sugar.

Oh right, so you mean that it is nothing to do with the drink, it's that people eat more and, erm, eating a lot makes you fat ... as we have kind of known since Neanderthal man overindulged on Sabre-toothed Tiger steaks.

Of course, if there is no difference between sugary and non-sugary drinks in respect to obesity, we can all ignore these chumps about sugar and they can toddle off and talk about over-eating, huh?

Many manufacturers are looking to boost sales of drinks containing artificial sweeteners in order to escape the levy. Such products already account for 25% of the global soft drinks market. 

Prof Christopher Millett, senior investigator at Imperial’s School of Public Health, said: “A common perception, which may be influenced by industry marketing, is that because ‘diet’ drinks have no sugar they must be healthier and aid weight loss when used as a substitute for full-sugar versions. However, we found no solid evidence to support this.”

In which case, there is absolutely no point in the government trying to get manufacturers to reduce the sugar content in their drinks because - as we have been saying on these pages for quite a while - it will have no effect on the nation's weight whatsoever. The best argument yet for scrapping the utterly laughable and pointless sugar tax, eh? Thanks for your help guys, much appreciated.

The paper, published in the journal PLoS Medicine, is a commentary on the research done so far into artificially sweetened beverages promoted as healthier alternatives and the impact on weight.

Erm, "commentary", did you say? So this is opinion and not a "study" or, in fact, any kind of science at all? Well no, because they skip pretty early into the ad homs.

Maria Carolina Borges, the first author of the study, from the Federal University of Pelotas, in Brazil, said: “The lack of solid evidence on the health effects of ASBs [artificially sweetened beverages] and the potential influence of bias from industry-funded studies should be taken seriously when discussing whether ASBs are adequate alternatives to SSBs [sugar-sweetened beverages].”

"Potential bias"? They don't actually bother to try to do science themselves - God forbid! - to disprove the conclusions of these studies, but merely drag their knuckles along the ground, point an accusatory finger and grunt "Ugg! Industry-funded!", which is an instant fail in my opinion.

It gets worse ...

Prof Carlos Monteiro, a co-author, from the University of São Paulo, said: “Taxes and regulation on SSBs and not ASBs will ultimately promote the consumption of diet drinks rather than plain water, the desirable source of hydration for everyone.”

Desirable to whom, sunshine? Who made you the arbiter of what I, and everyone else on the planet, wishes to fucking drink? Why don't you just Samba off into the River Amazon you odious dictatorial motherfucker you.

As one commenter under the line pointed out, this is 'public health' not just aping satire, no it's even more hilarious than that.

"Possibly because people assume they can eat more because their drinks are low in sugar" is potentially one of the stupidest things I have ever heard and reminds me of Little Britain's half the calories diet, where you cut your food in half and it's half the calories. And because it's half the calories, you can have twice as much. 

We're not talking side-achingly funny farce here, this is an actual policy position from people who claim to work in the 'scientific' 'public health' arena. It truly beggars belief!

Of course, we jewel robbers know exactly what is going on here because we've seen it all before. 'Public health' science is never interested in truth, instead it merely endeavours to support whatever policy position the lying bastards are pursuing at any particular time. In the case of sugar taxes, those opposed have pointed out - quite rightly - that the 'problem' is solving itself as the public move onto lower sugar products or ones with no sugar at all, and industry reacts by providing products to satisfy the demand. As a result, low and no sugar alternatives have to be demonised no matter how ridiculous it makes 'public health' fucktards look.

This is not a serious study, piece of research, or even a wise opinion based on sound science. It is merely an attempt to counter a very compelling reason why we should not be subjected to daft taxation policies that the 'public health' bandwagon requires to survive just as much as a great white shark needs to keep moving to breathe.

These people are so incredibly cretinous that I don't think they even considered that the message they could be sending is the opposite of what they hoped for; their one-eyed insanity is so deeply-entrenched that they delivered a message saying full sugar drinks are as 'safe' as Coke Zero almost on auto-pilot.

The real target - as is always the case - is industry and free choice. These snobby fucks don't like that people are enjoying drinks that they personally don't - "plain water, the desirable source of hydration" is a pretty blatant clue - made by companies that they ideologically despise.

It's all drawn from the same dishonest and corrupt playbook that tobacco control created when they declared snus, chewing tobacco and now e-cigs to be as dangerous as chain-smoking, and is designed only to demonise industry and deny our free choice of these products as a concept.

However, there's always an upside. We need a tipping point to make politicians ignore the massed ranks of lying 'public health' parasites, and the more they rip into hugely popular products like Coke and tell us that eating cakes in an office is a 'public health' disaster, the quicker the public will wake up and realise they're a bunch of pompous, fraudulent, right-on, money-grubbing, industry-envious arseholes who will happily destroy civil society if it earns them a buck.

Oh yes, and stratospherically-incompetent with it. 

Holidays Are Coming

It's been quiet on these pages since COP7, mainly through my having to catch up at Puddlecote Inc after a week away in India, only then to jet off again to a small picturesque town near Hannover for a somewhat hedonistic weekend with a couple of friends. I'm not going to write a lot about the trip; I could justify it by declaring that what happens in Germany stays in Germany but it's more accurate to say that I've forgotten large chunks of it.

I do, however, recall a very pleasant early lunchtime on the Saturday in a small pub containing the welcome sight of ashtrays on the bar. Yes there is a smoking ban but - like a lot of places in Europe - this particular historic pub is one of many in the country to quite rightly ignore it. We didn't have any tobacco on us at the time but the barman was in possession of a large packet of red Pall Mall, so we asked if we could buy a cigarette off of him. He brusquely refused, replying that, no, he won't sell one to us ... he will give it to us to complement our incredibly frothy German liquid lunch.

Whiling away a few hours in good company whilst discussing the hideous personalities in 'public health' was fun, but back in the UK those self same miseries were just beginning their annual Christmas dronefest.

For example, this charmless nerk has been banging on about the Coca-Cola Christmas truck tour for three days straight now.

If you find this promoted tweet as unacceptable as me, please sign @food_active letter to object to this tour in NW https://t.co/3sxXXjVFzl https://t.co/qxdUFAxKxU

— Robin Ireland (@robinHEG) November 20, 2016

Now, this festive roadshow has become something of a staple this time of year and is enjoyed massively by adults and children up and down the country, yet joyless extremists like Ireland would happily see the tour banned and revel in childrens' tears. Yes, they really are that incredibly miserable, the child catcher and Grinch rolled up into one revolting fun-be-damned package.

Meanwhile, capslock-clunking business-hating fanatic Simon Capewell has also been spitting his usual bile at this seasonal treat in The Times.

Councils are being accused of “utter hypocrisy” for promoting a Coca-Cola Christmas lorry tour of the country while calling for curbs on junk food advertising. 

The tour, based on the drinks company’s Christmas advertisement, is visiting 44 sites around Britain and handing out free cans of Coca-Cola, Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. 

Stops include Harlow, Essex, where the council says on its website that seeing the lorry is an “incredible” experience and urges families to “soak up the festive spirit with seasonal music [and] a free Coca-Cola”. 

Southend-on-Sea, also in Essex, says on its website: “For many, Christmas doesn’t start until the Coca-Cola Christmas truck appears on our television screens and in our towns.”

Yep, a welcome bit of happiness as the nights draw in, what's not to like? Well, for obsessive lunatics like Capewell, quite a lot.

Simon Capewell, vice-president of the Faculty of Public Health charity, said: “It is utter hypocrisy that councils [are] complicit in the marketing of sugary drinks to children while complaining about the burden of obesity.”

Good point. The solution, of course, is for councils to stop complaining about obesity since it's none of their business. Job done, and Capewell could then fuck off; keep fucking off; and when finished all the fucking off he can muster, could put some extra seasonal effort in and fuck off some more.

Coca-Cola said the tour “provides a moment of fun for friends and families in the build-up to Christmas”.

They're correct. It is always worth remembering that Ireland and Capewell are in a vanishingly tiny minority, hurling overwrought hyperbole at Coca-Cola like baboons fling their shit. This pathetic annual screech from their ilk also betrays their insistence that they don't pursue prohibition of sugary drinks, merely moderation. Because if you can't relax and enjoy a Coke and a smile once a year at Christmas when the Coca-Cola truck rolls into town, when the hell can you? There is quite simply no role for 'public health' here, instead it's a perfect example of why they should be cut off without a penny and sent cap-in-hand to JobCentre Plus ... preferably to be forced into litter-picking for McDonald's.

Or, as Simon Cooke put it yesterday on the subject of the Food Active campaign - which attacks the Coca-Cola tour - being funded out of local authority budgets.

What is truly offensive here is that your and my taxes are being used to mount an ill-informed and misleading attack on a private business. Hardly a day passes without one or other story about local councils being forced by budget cuts into closing and reducing services. All of the money for 'Food Active' comes from local council budgets in the North West and they are using it for the express purpose of lobbying for national government to change the law (as well as wanting to ban Coca-Cola's "Happy Holidays" promotion). 

So next time Manchester or Liverpool council leaders wring their hands about shutting down a library or cutting funding for a community centre ask them how they can justify spending money on astroturf political campaigns like 'Food Active'.

Quite. The very last thing councils should be spending their money on is lunatics like Capewell and Ireland to spout their niche hatred of a benign but tasty product and a wildly-successful family day out. If they want to recreate a scene from Scrooge's gloom emporium, they should be doing it with their own cash, not ours.

Fortunately, they're howling at the moon because no-one is taking their shit seriously.

Southend-on-Sea said it did not think promotion of the tour would overshadow its public health work while Harlow said it was up to parents to decide whether to accept a free drink for their children.

Never a truer word said.

You can see the tour schedule of the Coca-Cola truck here ... and since it upsets such bleak, dreary, anti-social cretins, here's a bit of Christmas glitter which will pass them by in their sad, cheerless, miserable lives. Enjoy, and don't waste too much pity on them.

Mascot Watch #33: The Tripping Over Edition

If you ever needed proof that politics has been turned upside down in the past couple of decades, this clip from the Victoria Derbyshire Show provides it.

Watch as Labour's Tristram Hunt - product of an elite private school and Cambridge - debates Donald Trump with our esteemed mascot, Conservative Philip Davies, who went to a state school and worked at Asda.

With the Emily Thornberry fiasco still in recent memory, our Phil makes this excellent observation.

There’s an awful lot of people in this country - and clearly in America - who feel under-represented. They’re called white working class people and actually the Labour party that was once set up to represent working class people are now a million miles away from that, they wouldn’t recognise a working class person if they tripped over one.

He's not wrong. sadly the modern Labour party sees working class people as just a mob who are there to look down on and boss about. It's notable that in the areas that we discuss on these pages, it is invariably Labour politicians who are most likely to ignore the voices of the public and just carry on with their overbearing bans and restrictions anyway, while obsessing on subjects which are entirely irrelevant to the working man and woman in the UK.

And Davies is right that it is not exclusive to Britain, a Democrat on Radio 5 the other day was bemoaning the fact that his party lost in working class areas of his state because "people here want jobs, a good wage so that they can afford a holiday and, eventually, to be able to retire with dignity; Democrats were more worried about which bathroom people should use.".

We are living in curious times. Do watch brusque northerner Phil in action against silver spoon-accented Hunt, and enjoy.

H/T AB via Twitter

A "War" On 80% Of The Public

Here's more of that non-existent slippery slope we keep hearing about.

An international expert on tobacco control is calling for Scotland to lead the way in a global ‘war’ to tackle alcohol problems, similar to the efforts which have been made to reduce smoking across the western world.

A "war", no less! So who is this caped crusader against a consumer product enjoyed harmlessly by the vast majority of the population?

Professor Gerard Hastings, who founded the Centre for Tobacco Control Research at Stirling University, and has advised governments and the World Health Organisation (WHO), said tobacco and alcohol were examples of an “industrial epidemic”, where health issues are being driven by commercial interests. 

He wants Scotland to take a leading role in urging the WHO to introduce a framework which will outline how countries can take action to address alcohol problems by introducing measures around advertising, packaging and the way it is sold.

Oh I see, it's far left wing anti-business nutcase Hastings, a guy (along with others) who came to the attention of Peter Oborne of the Telegraph last August.

Linda Bauld and Gerard Hastings are academics from Stirling University, where they contribute to something which calls itself the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies. Generally speaking this taxpayer funded group is in favour of heavy regulation and blanket bans.

But Prof Hastings also has a wider political and social agenda. Here is his latest anti-business rant:

At the time, Frank Davis offered an accurate description of this lunatic.

But I watched the YouTube video of Professor Gerard Hastings embedded in the text. It was one long emotional rant (he seemed like he was about to burst into tears) against not just smoking and drinking and fatty food, but against marketing, big business, inequality, profit, everything. Here was someone who had looked at the world around him and did not like it one bit, and desperately wanted to make it into a better world. He wanted to completely reconstruct it. For him, public health was not just about smoking and drinking and fatty food: it was about absolutely everything, and he wanted Public Health to be running absolutely everything. 

A century ago he would have been a bomb-throwing anarchist, like Gavrilo Princip. But now people like him are professors of public health, paid handsomely to interfere in everyone’s lives.

Indeed they are. And, as Frank says, not just on behaviours which are harmful, but on ones which are more often than not beneficial to society in general and arguably healthy. Predictably, he hates e-cigs too.

So how is this public-despising degenerate extremist planning on conducting this "war" then? Well, in the same way as with tobacco of course.

Hastings said: “With tobacco, public health has eventually got its head round it and said if you are really going to tackle tobacco, you have to do something about the business side of this. 

“Initially that focused in on advertising, as that is a very visible part of what they are doing. 

"But it is actually having to look at the whole marketing environment - which is not just the advertising but the product development, the pricing strategies, the distribution, the point of sale, the packaging and also indeed all the stuff that big business does to curry favour with government as well as customers. 

“To deal with that, the route that was taken was to produce the (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.” 

Hastings said a similar treaty should now been put place for alcohol

Oh dear, that very much contradicts what Debs said a while ago, doesn't it? (emphases mine)

[T]he “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false. The same argument was used against the ban on tobacco advertising, but 9 years after the tobacco ban in the UK, alcohol advertising is still permitted with no sign of it being prohibited. Tobacco is a uniquely dangerous consumer product which is why there is a WHO health treaty (the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) to regulate tobacco use.

Which is precisely what Hastings' (and presumably Bauld's too) new "war" on alcohol intends to set up. I suppose it's too much for us to hope ASH will issue an apology for declaring this domino theory a myth when it has now been proven to be 100% true? Nah, thought not.

As an aside, I was also mighty amused with this from fellow finger-wagging lefty twat Richard Simpson, a Labour MSP.

Simpson said he would support Hastings in terms of having an international campaign to limit the advertising of alcohol in a similar way to tobacco. 

“The harms are not quite the same, but there needs to be further restrictions on advertising,” he said. 

“It is about trying to de-normalise alcohol as well – it may be used by over 80% of the population, but having almost ubiquitous advertising and spending vast amounts on advertising is not acceptable.”

Admitting to being part of a tiny minority of 20% but declaring that it's "unacceptable" to abide by the choices of the 80% is astonishing from a politician. But then, hatred and bigotry does so cloud the faculties, doesn't it?

An Outbreak Of Common Sense In New South Wales

If you were up early enough this morning, you might have caught a proper liberal preparing to address a baying mob of authoritarian, tiny-minded snobs who seem intent on taking control of everyone's freedom of choice.

The Nanny State is out in force today. #ecigarette @nsw_upperhouse

— Peter Phelps MLC (@PeterPhelpsMLC) May 27, 2015

Peter Phelps is a government whip in the New South Wales parliament and a very sound beacon of sanity bobbing around in an ocean of proud fascists.

He was tweeting in advance of a debate about restrictions on e-cigs for under 18s which, of course, is never going to be enough for the knuckle-dragging ignoramuses who want to see them banned entirely. Globally we have seen unbelievably stupid politicians installing bans on devices which are actively encouraging hardcore smokers to quit - 1.1 million at last count in the UK - simply because they are too stupid to understand the huge potential societal and public health benefits they are trying to destroy.

An array of nodding dog prohibitionists set their stall out in claiming all kinds of fantasy dangers about e-cigs - along with the usual cherry-picking of 'evidence' and adherence to the word of reactionary tobacco control industry dinosaurs who just can't bear to see their life's work relegated to irrelevance by something they didn't imagine themselves - but Phelps bided his time.

@alicia_wood The ecig laws are fine. Only the Nanny Staters want more regulation - a point I'll be making in my post QT speech on ecigs

— Peter Phelps MLC (@PeterPhelpsMLC) May 27, 2015

Those opposing him, as is always the case with kneejerk nanny state advocates, had little else in their armoury but insults, smears, innuendo, wild assumptions, and downright lies.

I love it when the Left is outraged by what I say, but can offer no evidence to counter my arguments #stillwinning

— Peter Phelps MLC (@PeterPhelpsMLC) May 27, 2015

You can read the whole e-cigs debate in two parts at this link but it will take a bit of scrolling. I was minded to pull out a few fab quotes from his speech and reproduce them here but it's far more entertatining if you read everything he said in its entirety, so here it is below.

Watch out for his emphasising the inconvenient truth that healthy people cost an economy more than the 'unhealthy' do (before sin taxes), his lampooning of a Queensland e-cig denialist, and the cunning way he led the parliament - to their shame, and subsequent palpable fury - to admit that they admire lifestyle advice given by the nazis.

Peter Phelps On E-Cigs And The Nanny State

Bravo, Dr Phelps, well played Sir!

Gabriel Scally's Big Fat Fail

In the run up to the election, the far left public health community is working hard to get their favoured Labour puppets elected.

One of these is proud socialist Gabriel Scally, a very rich guy who revels in being described as an NHS 'whistleblower' but who protests loudly when others use valid channels to expose lies surrounding tobacco control. He is also a monumental hypocrite on Twitter too.

However, over the weekend his one-eyed election zealotry showed him to be an even bigger twit than we previously realised. On Saturday he threw out this partisan tweet which was shared by such lefty luminaries as Dr Éoin "sorry I was wrong" Clarke, and Luciana "I haven't a clue" Berger.

PUBLIC HEALTH FAILURE No.1. Look at fall in #NHS Stop Smoking Service performance under Tory/LibDem Gov. #lungcancer pic.twitter.com/GZ1tRxEtUh
— Gabriel Scally (@GabrielScally) April 11, 2015

Spitting on the coalition for its public health record on smoking is quite astonishing when you consider it banned vending machines, introduced the tobacco display ban - despite being in opposition in 2010 - and passed utterly pointless plain packaging in its final act before dissolution, but it should prove to politicians that appeasing nanny statists is a counterproductive exercise. Something it's long overdue them learning.

Anyway, I digress. Because Scally's point is just plain stupid. So he's trying to portray a reduction in people visiting Stop Smoking Services as a failure? Shouldn't he be looking at official prevalence figures instead? You know, like a proper, well-paid, objective health advocate should?

Here they are, and - not that Scally will ever admit it - the figures on decreased smoking prevalence since the "Tory/LibDem Gov" came to power make interesting viewing.

By the end of the last Labour government, it had almost stalled to zero, yet has picked up under the coalition, with a massive uptick at the start of 2014/15.

What's more, if we analyse those percentages we find that the change in prevalence has been increasing year on year under Cameron's government.

2010/11: 3.2%
2011/12: 3.3%
2012/13: 3.5%
2013/14: 4.1%
2014/15: 9.2%

If you're wondering how this is worked out, it is by using Simon Chapman's method of calculating incremental change which was enthusiastically tweeted by Gabriel Scally at the time.

So, to be consistent, Scally should surely be celebrating the ever-increasing decrease in smoking prevalence under the Tories, yes? And maybe even the biggest recorded decrease ever if the 2015 trend continues.

Now, I know what you're thinking, this isn't down to coalition policies and why is there no mention of e-cigs. And you're correct, the effect above is mostly because e-cigs are encouraging smokers to quit more than any hectoring from Scally and his hideous chums. This is borne out by the methods reported as being used by quitters, taken again from the Smoking Toolkit Study.

How 'bout that? More people are using e-cigs they pay for out of their own pocket, and far fewer are using pharmaceutical patches and gum which are provided at the expense of the NHS, at the same time that quit attempts are becoming increasingly successful.

What's not to like? Stop Smoking Services (SSS) are expending fewer resources yet the amount of people quitting smoking is going up. How can that possibly be called a failure unless one believes that more people using the SSS would bring even greater results? One way of doing that would surely be to go hell for leather and get SSS to advocate e-cigs wholesale.

However, that's not the Labour party's policy at all. Indeed, Scally's Labour party shepherded the disastrous EU TPD through Brussels - which will demolish the potential of e-cigs for millions of people - while coalition partners the Tories and LibDems were at least willing to listen to vapers and were overall supportive. It's arguable, in fact, that if the Labour party had been in power over the last five years, the e-cig industry would have all but been destroyed already in the UK.

But, y'see, Scally doesn't like e-cigs and has said that he wants to see them regulated out of existence and their use banned just about everywhere. It is exactly people like Scally who are preventing e-cigs being advocated at smoking cessation clinics up and down the country. If he wants to see an effective public health policy from the next government, and more use of Stop Smoking Services, perhaps the best way would be to make it relevant to the way people are freely choosing to quit smoking, instead of sticking to outdated ideology, political loyalty and irrational dogma.

The only 'public health' failure here is Scally's sixth form political views, his appalling judgement, and the incoherent policies of his fellow mouth-breathers on the left.

Wise Speeches And Silly Games

You may remember that this time last week I wrote about Forest's Stop The Nonsense event and mentioned a particularly good speech by Mark Littlewood. It's now available on YouTube so here it is embedded for your enjoyment.

On the same subject, there was an interesting bait and switch style move inflicted on another of the speakers that evening, Emily Barley of Conservatives for Liberty.

Y'see, she managed to get a perfectly sensible piece on the silliness of plain packaging into left wing site Shout Out UK at the weekend. However, nestled amongst the links added by the site's sub-editor was this pile of utter tripe about e-cigs designed, it would seem, to appear as if it was something Emily would agree with.

First of all, how can we say that something which contains as much as 48mg/ml of nicotine is harmless? I’ve observed that there is a tendency to believe that nicotine is addictive, but ‘that’s it.’ Well, sorry to disappoint, but it’s a psychoactive substance that binds to the adrenal medulla in our brains, increases our adrenaline flow, which in turn raises blood pressure, plus the heart and respiration rate. For somebody with heart issues, this could be fatal. For a healthy individual, this could cause heart problems in the long term. 

It seems rather strange to me that people find it normal to not be able to control themselves; when they don't find it unusual to get withdrawal symptoms or experience irritability without the nicotine. Which is what you get from e-cigarettes. It can even be said that they cause a more intense addiction because one can smoke them practically anywhere – there are no bans or restrains, so it’s not hard to spot someone ‘vaping’ intensely every 5 minutes on a bus. 

The World Health Organization has already called for stricter regulation of the product’s sales, more research and a ban on the use of e-cigarettes in public areas (due to recent research on potential risks of second-hand smoke to foetuses and children) – these issues will be discussed at the next UN meeting in October. Perhaps we will soon realise that no form of smoking is as glamorous as it seems and that there are better ways to quit than to substitute one type of cigarette for another.

Now, I queried this link with Emily by e-mail and she replied that "I think e-cigs are an excellent example of the market responding to people's desire for less harmful products. No need for government to get its big boots on!". So what that link was doing there in a piece extolling the virtues of liberty and condemning kneejerk anti-smoking fuckwittery is anyone's guess. Mine would be that Shout Out UK's anger at having to appear impartial was so great that they had to try to sabotage the piece somehow.

Still, while the snotty-nosed Shout Out children played their puerile games, Emily got her point across very well indeed. So well done her.

[W]hen it comes to ‘public health’ and freedom of choice, the slippery slope is real. All the things that well-meaning public health campaigners judge to be unhealthy are in the firing line. Unfortunately for us, the principle of control has been established. 

As you can see from our infographic (click to enlarge), it’s only a very small step from tobacco to alcohol and sugar. Bans on advertising, high taxation and plain packaging first for tobacco, and then for alcohol and high sugar foods.

Don’t like the idea of fatty livers plastered all over your favourite bottle of wine? Or chocolate bars doubling in price through tax? Reckon Coco Pops are perfectly formed as they are, and shouldn’t have their composition changed by government decree? Think that actually, California might have the right idea on cannabis? 

Then it’s time to stand firm on freedom of choice. Plain packaging will open the floodgates to these other controls, and I don't think that’s good for any of us.

Like the tobacco control industry, those on the left do try their best to nobble reasoned debate, don't they? It may explain why so many in public health are overwhelmingly of a leftish persuasion, I dunno.

If you're thirsty for more about the Stop The Nonsense event, Emily features in this condensed 12 minute résumé of the evening so do go have a watch.

The Faculty Of Public Health: Political Lobbyists

Bucking the trend of stifling bureaucracy and snail-like processes endemic in organisations which rely on or support the state, the Faculty of Public Health has moved with admirable speed to solve the problem of their President going batshit crazy on Twitter (see here, here, here and here).

Instead of following the due process of an independent enquiry by their board members, they've decided to tell him to delete dozens of tweets, then simply wait till the fuss died down before announcing that he's back in the game.

We look forward to Professor Ashton’s continuation in the role of President, so that both he and FPH can focus on championing FPH’s vision of delivering “better health for all”.

So why the urgent need to get far left activist Ashton back into his job with indecent haste, do you reckon? Could it be that the Faculty of Public Health need someone adequately qualified to promote their upcoming 'public health' manifesto of left wing ideology?

Click to enlarge and be amazed what counts as public health nowadays

You can view the original screen at their survey of FPH members (for God's sake don't complete it, that would be wrong!) just in case your belief is beggared too much.

Quite what the bedroom tax, speed limits, the living wage, zero hours contracts, UK transport policy, the national curriculum, green taxes and investment in renewable energy have to do with public health is anyone's guess. It looks more to me like a Socialist Workers Party letter to Santa rather than something the Faculty of Public Health should be involved in, but what do I know?

Well, actually, I do know that the FPH is a charity and that charities are barred from overt and unrelated political lobbying, so none of that should have anything to do with them. But then, demanding minimum alcohol pricing of 50p per unit, a 20% fizzy drinks tax, "rapid" implementation of plain packaging, and banning of food advertising after 9pm are all political goals too. Do the FPH do anything else BUT political campaigning?

It would seem that the Faculty of Public Health is less about public health than it is about promoting far left ideology to politicians and using the respected guise of a 'public health' institution to do so.

Of course they wanted their ranting far left business-hating President back sharpish, how could all the above be done otherwise? Especially if he was the one who proposed the survey responses in the first place.

The good thing about this is that whenever we see media quotes from Ashton, or hear him on the radio pronouncing on tobacco, e-cigs, fizzy drinks or anything else, we now know exactly what has prompted it. It has less to do with health but everything to do with his own far left political preferences and those of the FPH.

The man is busted, and by his exposing himself, so has the Faculty of Public Health revealed itself to be a political organisation which should have its charitable status reviewed.

The Charity Commission have a guide about complaints here.

Transport Policies Via The Medium Of Comedy

If you happened to wander past Puddlecote Inc this afternoon, you'd have been treated to the sound of gales of laughter as I was reading out some hilarious jokes to my fellow transport professionals. Well, they weren't intended as jokes but were just as funny nonetheless.

You see, because the French government has announced that it is banning vehicles on alternate days in Paris, the Guardian has floated the idea of the same being imposed here. Their readership has predictably lapped it up with a poll showing 76% approval - they get mighty excited about the chance to ban something over there, so they do.

The 'jokes' I read out were merely suggestions posted in the comments by people who seem to have no clue about transport, money, or even life in general for that matter.

If we said that all black cabs, buses and licensed minicabs have to be electric by 2017 (or whenever), what difference would that make to air quality in the long term? What if we extend the congestion charge system? What if we ban the same of diesel vehicles in the UK by 2020 (or whenever)? These are more serious policies, because they are less random and capricious.

That's the one which started off the chuckling, it's something you'd expect from a 13 year old before you sit them down and explain that it's a nice idea and all that, but hopelessly naive. Firstly, there isn't yet an electric vehicle which is economic enough for widespread use amongst domestic drivers with low mileage, nor will there likely be for probably another decade at least. The chances of there being an electric motor capable of operating at consistently high mileage is even more into the future, and one capable of reliably running a rig with the power to carry 150 passengers for continuous day-in-day-out periods is probably two decades away at least.

And even if it were available now, its cost would be massive as Puddlecote Inc knows very well having looked into alternatives ourselves on a regular basis. LPG, electric and hybrid are still novelties and come with a huge price tag. The replacement and running cost of such a huge shift in transport over three different industries would be so immense - because, contrary to what many believe, fossil fuel is way down the list of factors in pricing transport services - that fares would be unaffordable to all but the wealthy.

Isn't it odd how so many 'progressive' hobby horses seem almost exclusively designed to impoverish the poor?

Of course, the same can be said of the article's main premise of banning vehicles on alternate days. Those rich enough to run two cars will simply buy another, the less well off won't be able to. The proposal has a cost in itself because if it was an efficient and cost-effective way of running a city, it would be in operation already without the need for government intervention. Increased costs to businesses and public services are all passed on somewhere, either through taxation, reduced services or higher prices. It's a zero sum game.

But in the world of the Guardian reader, you just wave a magic wand and all your utopian dreams become cost-free reality ... it just takes someone with the appropriate form of madness imagination to commit to it.

Introduce fare-free public transport and there would be even fewer reasons to bring a car to London.

Yes, great idea, that won't cost anything at all. Simply tap up the government money tree and the problem is solved!

OK, so tube fares only account for 50% of the cost of running the underground and the state already has to chuck in £3bn per year - but what's another three billion per annum, eh? It's not like the public have to make up the monumental shortfall with increased taxes/reduced benefits/services, is it?

Eventually, all the country will be blessed with high speed internet access, all south facing roofs will have solar panels/water heaters on them, sewage farms will produce methane gas to be pumped into the gas grid and wind power, tidal turbines, wave power and energy efficiency will be the norm. 

Yes, that one had us in stitches too.

You are right about Athens, this system still continues. It had a huge impact on pollution levels and congestion, positive impact.

This is in reference to Greece sometime ago also having instituted the same ban as France. Because, of course, Greece has been a tower of economic strength ever since.

Unfortunately this positive impact on the environment is somewhat counteracted by the fact that the country is suffering from an epidemic of illegal logging, and, therefore, wood burning as people can no longer afford to buy heating oil nor the taxes associated with everything and so are turning to any other means. Mount Olympus, for example is being decimated, Athens is often clouded in smog, from wood burning. 

Wait for the punchline ...

Still, there are fewer cars on the road and that's jolly good.

By this time, tears were rolling down cheeks at Puddlecote HQ and questions were being asked as to where I was getting this top drawer material. Viz 'Top Tips'?

We need to get properly radical if we are to maintain an anthropofriendly climate. Commuting itself must be banned. People are going to have to live where they work and work where they live. We are subsidising a practise that is destroying our environment.

Err, "anthropofriendly"? And spoken like a truly myopic office worker who obviously wants his plumbing fixed remotely.

Why not something that celebrates diversity, multiculturalism or multi-ethnicity; driving days could be based on identity; gender, race, nationality, etc. So if you needed a ride you'd have to integrate, which would be good for a liberal city like London which is still very much separated by neighbourhood and choice of transportation.

Banned from driving into work today? Simple. Just stand at the side of the road and wait for a black or asian person to drive past and thumb a lift. Brilliant!

What should be banned in London is single driver vehicle drivers. It should be mandatory that vehicles in London have high occupancy of at least 75% of all available seating in a car filled as a prerequisite requirement to commute to outer and inner London.This will give incentive for drivers to seek out and advertise for and acquire fellow travelers or give up and use public transportation.

Seriously, I'm not making this up, they're all there under the line if you feel like fact-checking.

Anyhow, the suggestion is that - to be able to drive to work and contribute to the economy - you must have to expend your time and money first to find at least three other people to share your vehicle with. That's going to help to achieve full employment no end!

That's not all, this particular contributor is just warming to their task.

Also taxis should not be permitted to cruise for fares but park and be radio dispatched and only for multiple fares that fill available seating to at least 50% of available cab seating.We all have cell phones now.

Because tourists all have plenty of numbers to ring and anyone using cabs always, but always, knows another three people who want to go the same way. And also because sole trader black cab drivers won't demand their union push for increased fares by being forced to subscribe to radio control services. Oh no.

But he/she still isn't finished. The bright ideas just keep on coming.

Vans and commercial vehicles should be higher taxed or even ticketed and fined for "dead heading" on return deliveries from inner London.

Higher taxes which will be passed on in prices; fines - and 'ticketed' suggests licence endorsements - on deliveries for which there is no return package can only be performed by big businesses, who will massively increase charges to compensate or simply not deliver.

How about requiring that all the unoccupied/unused buildings in inner London be made into accommodation and rented out to anybody who works locally at an amount of, say, 20% of whatever their income is. 

That way people won't have the need to travel as much.

Are we talking about buying this property from the legal owners, or stealing it?

Someone else sees a charge he/she doesn't have to pay, so wants it expanded.

London is extremely well-served by public transport. It's largely flat, and it's quite compact. My suggestion would be to extend congestion charging to the M25.

That's right, charge everyone in the home counties to drive any kind of vehicle and give their already taxed cash to the state. That won't result in higher prices through increased demand on wages at all. Of course, charging everyone for using the roads could work, but I can imagine quite a lot of Guardian readers being up in arms about that considering it was proposed by the IEA last year.

But my personal stand-out fave was this.

Some don't have a 'choice' of transportation. Some disabled people either have to drive, be driven or take a cab because public transport is inaccessible to us. As long as anyone who physically could not use public transport was exempt from the ban I'm all for it.

In other words, as long as other people suffer and not me, that's fine. Which is what all the others were saying, really, just without the honesty. Oh yeah, and without even a basic understanding of transport realities and the consequential costs which offset every benefit known to mankind.

Still, terrifying as such ignorance can be if you take it seriously, it brightened up our day so can't be all bad.

Introducing Big Bad Cannabis

Via the Guardian, it seems the left's ideology is already getting a bit schizophrenic about cannabis.

Big Cannabis: will legal weed grow to be America's next corporate titan? 

The people who made a hippie dream come true do not look the part. 

Instead of tie-dye T-shirts, the campaigners who masterminded the legalisation of recreational marijuana in Colorado wore dark suits and ties to celebrate the world's first legal retail pot sales. Instead of talking about the counter-culture, they spoke approvingly of regulations, taxes and corporate responsibility. They looked sober, successful – mainstream.

Yes, because this isn't Hollywood. In the real world, you're not taken seriously if you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards, no matter your cause.

This, however, is a dog whistle for those who know what's best for, err, everyone else.

What was a fringe movement four decades ago had evolved into a slick, well-funded network based in Washington DC, [Kevin Sabet of the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana] noted. “It was, ‘We need to cut our ponytails, take off our tie-dye shirts, put on our Macy's suits, go to Congress and start lobbying state legislators.’”

Hey, if you want to be in the game, you play by the rules laid down by idiot politicians. As we here know very well in the cases of plain packs and e-cigs, you may as well not exist if you're mere Joe Public, scruffy or not - it's a lesson prohibitionists learned a long time ago and have been exploiting since the 1970s.

The National Society for Nonsmokers had been around - being routinely ignored - for fifty years before ASH was formed with government money and government-paid staff to campaign for bans and restrictions on tobacco. It was only then - when they wore suits and organised their lobbying - that politicians started to listen. Nowadays, ASH belong to a multi-national conglomerate tobacco control industry whose only purpose is lobbying ... and they all wear suits.

Of course, no prohibitionist can get his diploma without invoking big bag tobacco.

Many Americans, Sabet said, were unaware that pot could cause long-lasting health damage, especially to the young, and that the American Medical Association opposes legalisation. “It's Big Tobacco redux” said Sabet, who also directs the University of Florida's drug policy institute.

Just sayin', but presumably then, Sabet also wears a suit?

The fact that 'hippies' are now doing exactly the same as tobacco companies shows that it's quite natural, and the way the world was designed to be. Far from being a bad thing, it only goes to show that tobacco companies have been doing something that every business since the big bang has always done; stated their case.

When you are faced with out-of-control governments which would ban just about anything in a heartbeat if not opposed, you get organised, lobby and - yes - wear a smart suit to do so.

Not one mention in the Guardian piece, though, of the other greedy organisation which will profit greatly from cannabis industrialisation, no matter whether the drug is harmful, benign, or makes hipsters perform star jumps and win half-pipe Olympic gold medals by the bucketful. Can you guess?

It is, nonetheless, interesting to see these battle lines being drawn within less than a week of Colorado's legalisation. And for a glimpse of how the argument is going to pan out in the future, how about this from the Independent today?

The opening up of a legal trade in non-medical marijuana is not without its critics. Uruguay's decision to remove all legal restrictions on use was condemned by the International Narcotics Control Board, the body charged with monitoring international treaties on narcotics. "Cannabis is not only addictive but may also affect some fundamental brain functions, IQ potential and academic and job performance, and impair driving skills," it said in a statement. "Smoking cannabis is more carcinogenic than smoking tobacco."

Really? Well, fancy that!

Shouldn't Be Allowed

If you ever needed an explanation as to how detached public health is from how we - the people who pay their wages remember - would like to live our lives, just keep an eye on their Twitter feeds.

Here are three examples from just one day.

Want to make a fortune? Invest in #tobacco & #alcohol: best roi 2000-2013 @martinmckee @mikakosinska @borgton http://t.co/EQJhfzFKFQ
— Anne Hoel (@Anne_Hoel) December 8, 2013

It's not investment advice being given here, it's expressing disdain that popular products should be so successful. Something should be done about this, obviously.

Because the personal prejudices of a handful of extremists should trump the enjoyment of life by billions of people. Only organic quinoa farmers, owners of craft shops, and recycled tie-dye clothing vendors should succeed in this brave new world desired by George 'Scrooge' Monbiot and his swooning fans.

The poor can go hang too.

Help 'Crisis' homeless charity replace funding from Japan Tobacco International @crisis_uk @rcplondon @COPDdoc http://t.co/ra4decaNhJ
— Paul Belcher (@PaulJBelcher) December 8, 2013

Many people like buying tobacco, hence the success of the product; and people definitely like the homeless being helped, especially if it comes through profits from stuff which is being bought anyway. That's a win/win in anyone's book (even some psycho anti-smokers) surely?

Not good enough for the public health industry, though. Better the homeless stay that way and decrease the surplus population rather than accept donations from the extremists' ever-growing list of unapproved legal sources.

And. lastly, how very dare businesses offer the public things they quite like!

WH Smith's just offered me deals on confectionary & gave me Big Mac vouchers. How's the Responsibility Deal going? pic.twitter.com/dNXcG6ccX4
— Gabriel Scally (@GabrielScally) December 8, 2013

Sweets? Popular fast food? Shocking, I tell ya', quite shocking! WH Smiths ought to be ashamed of themselves for understanding what their customers enjoy.

They should, instead, bow to the will of a tiny minority of insipid, joyless tax-spongers who think their Grinch-like view of the world merits taking money from the likes of WH Smiths ... and using it to destroy them.

Will politicians stand up for the public and tax-paying businesses on issues like this, or will they pander to the most intolerant, self-important and anti-social members of our society? Well, what do you think?

Cringeworthy Comedy At The Guardian

Via Timmy, do go read this hilarious claptrap at the Graun.

Nigel Farage's cigarettes are often depicted as one of the most appealing things about him. To date, his deployment of crafty or, occasionally, cheeky ciggies, while all around him conform to public health advice, has been a remarkably well-received token of his libertarian vision. Of course, his constant smoking is, first and foremost, a little guy demonstration that he is nothing like professional politicians – NB E Milband, D Cameron – who rarely invest in anything more than a lager to advertise their human DNA.

Well, yes. That's perhaps why his party is riding so high in the polls, no?

But this is but a poorly-attempted hatchet job - as remarkably well recognised by the derision from Guardian commenters below the line - so could only result in one denouement.

When Farage argues for zero interference by the nanny state, this inevitably makes him an unhealth campaigner – for lung cancer, for obesity and for an epidemic of diabetes, not forgetting his party's enthusiasm for higher speed limits, thereby adding thousands more to Ukip's morbidity targets.

Course it does, dear, because absurd leaps of logic are no longer for immature spotty teens. As Dan Hannan explains adriotly, they are for idiot adults too.

Without intending to, Bob was using the same line that trolls habitually do: “Unless you explicitly say X, we can all assume Y”. Every blogger, every Tweeter, will recognise the tactic.

Not our pitifully poor arroganza, though, she's obviously not aware of anything of the sort. She just motors down that intellectual cul-de-sac without a care whether she has a reverse gear or not.

Why Farage should be 100% in love with easeful death is anyone's guess, but, for pure, cautionary value, he could still be the best thing to happen to the nanny state since the foundation of the NHS.

Presumably why voters are deserting Ukip in droves; why mainstream politicians are enjoying historic levels of popularity; and the nanny state has never been more respected by the public.

Do go read. Watching the desperate furiously scraping barrels can be very funny sometimes.

UPDATE: Simon Cooke has written about this with more of a broadsheet inspection to my tabloid guffaw. Go visit there and read about the "especially unpleasant piece of ad hominem in The Guardian".

Mascot Watch 25: BBC Badgering Edition

It's been a while since the last update on our esteemed mascot, but his contribution to yesterday's Culture Media and Sport Committee grilling of Tony Hall and Chris Patten deserves highlighting.

In early exchanges he broached the subject of the 'shelved' Panorama investigation into right-on charity Comic Relief (from 11:01:40 below) - not a great favourite of this blog - before moving on to questioning the presumed political impartiality of the BBC in general.

Watch (from 12:57:05) as he enquires why the Guardian, with its minor readership, is disproportionately referenced by a majority of the BBC; why right of centre think tanks come with a "health warning" but left of centre ones don't: and why the BBC news team routinely use Labour sound-bites in their political reporting.

Also, and of particular interest here I reckon, he asked why an EU press release on immigration was reproduced without question by Mark Easton despite it being unrepresentative of the report itself. Mark Easton, as you may remember, is the guy who desperately spun - a la Guardian - to deny that pubs were closing in their thousands because of the smoking ban.

We, of course, are very well aware of how the BBC reproduces propaganda without question. Just a few examples this year include Adam Brimelow repeating the 'heart attack miracle' lie without bothering to delve into the stats; unquestioning regurtitation of Ian Gilmore's support for minimum alcohol pricing based on fatally flawed 'evidence'; Nick Triggle celebrating NHS smoking cessation success ... from a 'study' blatantly produced by pharma shills and filleted even by tobacco controllers themselves; and 'exclusive' interviews - for no identifiable reason whatsoever - with two Aussie proponents of plain packs, without the remotest nod to providing balance by way of a differing opinion.

Perhaps, if our Phil stumbles across this 'ere article, he might be nudged into asking questions next time of the BBC's quite appallingly biased adherence to public health industry lies and spin. Including why they saw no reason whatsoever to double and treble check a Panorama episode - unlike in this week's Comic Relief case - which spouted nonsensical statistics they were later forced to apologise for and which led to the iPlayer re-run being pulled (but after millions had been led to believe it).

By contrast, our Phil is a model of impartiality. He doesn't solely target the BBC ... he is equally consistent in monstering Channel 4 too.

Salford Council Is Run By Idiots

See, this is why I love e-cigs. They are increasingly showing up anti-smokers as a rich seam of hilarious farce.

From Manchester Evening News:

A town hall has banned its workers from using electronic cigarettes ‘in public view’. 

Salford council has banned staff from using the devices – which taste and feel like cigarettes without the tar – close to any of its buildings. 

The policy, drawn up by town hall bosses, says: “Where smoking does takes place outside, the location should be out of public view wherever possible and must not be: 

– Directly outside buildings
– Constitute a risk in terms of fire;
– Be adjacent to doors or windows where second hand smoke could enter the building.

E-cigs (which are not alight) constitute a fire risk now? And emit second hand smoke despite not involving anything being burned? Do Salford councillors have extraordinarily large feet, bulbous bright red round noses and a car that falls apart when they slam a door?

A report prepared for a town hall meeting says these rules should also apply to e-cigarettes because they ‘resemble’ normal cigarettes.

Oh, I see, that part was about smoking. Err, but wasn't the policy to tackle fire risks and mythical second hand smoke? But e-cigs 'resemble' things that might - in the far-fetched imagination of a gullible Salford councillor - constitute a fire risk so they have to be banned too. Even if they don't let off wisps of smoke which are dwarfed by carbon monoxide from that fucking great ring road ploughing through Salford.

And the policy, sent to all staff, threatens to fine them - or even take them to court - if they are caught with cigarettes on council property.

Because a court of law will instantly issue a suspended prison sentence or hefty fine for possession of tobacco under the well-known parliamentary, err, Possession of a Legal Product Act. Huh?

It says: “Breaches of the policy will be dealt with in accordance with normal disciplinary procedures and may also be subject to formal action such as fixed penalty notices or a prosecution as detailed in the regulations made under the Health Act 2006.”

You know, that Health Act 2006 which famously banned smoking outside of buildings and the use of e-cigs in public places.

Firstly, have Salford councillors even seen an e-cig? Have they any clue what they entail outside of propaganda spread by their socialist fuckwit chums? Do they understand that court cases rely on laws being real rather than ones that exist only in their fantasies?

This is not a product of Salford's simpletons. This has been drawn up by people who receive money from the city's taxpayers and are apparently trusted to spend it wisely. They are responsible for teaching kids yet seem to be as incapable of independent thought as a decapitated chimp. How scary is that?

Or it could just be that Manchester is pitching for the title of Britain's most pathetic city with Salford as the jewel in its insane lefty crown?

Little wonder the BBC feels so comfy there.

The Stunning Success Of Foodbanks

"More and more are starving!", screamed the usual panic-mongers yesterday.

The number of people relying on food banks to survive has tripled over the last year, according to new figures. 

The Trussell Trust, which runs 400 food banks across the UK, said it handed out supplies to more than 350,000 people between April and September this year. 

The Trust is calling for a public enquiry into why so many people are having difficulty feeding themselves. 

A cross-party group of MPs has been set up to investigate the surge in demand.

The Trussell Trust themselves point out one quite important factor.

It admits that one reason for the rise in the numbers is that there are twice as many food banks in existence as last year. 

But the Trust says the number of people using them has still tripled, and that even the well-established food banks are reporting significant rises in their use.

But they forget to highlight another. Their website proudly boasts how many articles have featured them since December 2010. Put it in a graph and it looks a bit like this.

So an increase in supply coupled with significantly increased awareness resulted in a rise in demand? What else did anyone expect would happen?

The only way you could argue that the increases are directly attributable to more food poverty being caused exclusively by government 'cuts' (as has been the general thrust of most media outrage) is if levels of awareness have been constant. This is quite clearly not the case - access to the banks has been made easier, and millions more people have been informed of the existence of food banks in the past couple of years, as have referrers such as doctors, health visitors, social workers, citizens advice volunteers and the police.

Contrary to the opportunistic political rhetoric of recent days, increased uptake is proof of how very successful the scheme has been. More people than ever before are benefiting from an imaginative partnership between businesses, citizen donors and a philanthropic charity initiative. It is society and community at its best.

It's odd that the same people who forever cite availability and publicity as forcing people to buy stuff are now ignoring availability and publicity as factors in more people using a service that is free.

MEP Carl Schlyter's Strange Definition Of Proof

If you haven't yet read it, do go have a look at Chris Snowdon's transcript of a German TV show which highlights the barely-disguised funding of anti-smoking groups by the pharmaceutical industry.

Despite a flood of pharma cash being diverted to organisations sharing mail boxes with the Smokefree Partnership, and one of their advocates - Florence Berteletti-Kemp -  formerly being on the payroll of one of those organisations, some still believe there is no corruption here.

I found this quote particularly hilarious.

MEP Carl Schlyter (Green Party, Sweden): “According to my internet research I was not able to detect any connection to the pharma industry.”

No proud pharma logos sponsoring their conferences; no openly-admitted cash support; he detected absolutely nothing. He is either a piss poor detective or a very fair guy - perhaps he is so scrupulous that he refuses to call out a tobacco control industry arm as being in the pay of big pharma until he sees an audit trail from payment to bank statement.

Well, that would be believable if it weren't for the appalling tosh he spouts when talking about anyone who opposes the TPD.

But Carl Schlyter MEP, health spokesman for the Greens, called it "a shameful day for the European Parliament, as a centre-right majority, led by the EPP group, has done the bidding of the tobacco industry and voted for weaker rules".

A clue as to whom Schlyter classes as the "tobacco industry" is in his EU group's registry of contacts which you can read here.

Out of 95 communications, only 14 are from what you or I would class a tobacco company. The rest are not tobacco companies in any sense of the word. A large majority were independent e-cig companies who have never sold even part of a single tobacco leaf. The rest were packaging companies, trade mark associations, state approved anti-counterfeiting groups ... and even the Good Clinical Practice Alliance.

Apparently, Schlyter can find no evidence whatsoever that Berteletti-Kemp is a pharma stooge despite the payments being clearly evident ... yet he is absolutely certain - beyond any doubt whatsoever - that anyone who opposed the TPD is motivated purely because of payments by the tobacco industry.

This includes, by the way, Adults For Adults who are condemned for sending this letter to MEPs.

We are a group of intellectuals and artists who observe the measures taken by the EU with growing concern. We ask you: do you really believe that it is the role of politicians to issue health warnings? Given mass poverty in Europe, homelessness, rampant youth unemployment and social radicalisation, do you not think that there are other, far more important, complex and pressing political challenges? 

Do you not think that the patronizing treatment of adults at the hands of politicians can have dangerous and damaging consequences? If you treat responsible adults like children who need to be given health warnings, you might open the door to people actually behaving like children at some point in the future. Do you really want that? Would you prefer timid, obedient and servile subjects to autonomous citizens?  

If the issue you raise is the health costs caused by individuals, the situation might quickly escalate as the public begins to name and shame other costly or no longer productive individuals or groups and considers ways of disposing of them. We have already been there in the previous century. Do you really want to play this dangerous game? If you encourage citizens to perceive others solely as a potential threat, you engage in scaremongering and worsen social divisions, all of which erodes Europe’s social cohesion, already under threat, even further. 

Finally, if you treat Europe’s citizens, who have voted you in, as if they were legally incompetent, you ultimately question your own democratic legitimacy – following this logic, you would have been elected by legally incompetent voters.

Quite.

They also sent each MEP this glorious visual indication of short-sighted stupidity.

Totally off-message for the Greens and Socialists, so they're shoved into the pigeon hole as tobacco apologists and ignored by criminal citation of FCTC Article 5.3. But, of course, Schlyter finds no similar agenda with the Smokefree Partnership despite pretty clear pharma funding schemes - they are allowed to lobby with as much big pharma cash as they can stuff in their trouser pockets simply because they agree with Schlyter's EU group. Nope, no corruption there, no siree!

It shows just how magnificent the victory for e-cigs was when Greens and Socialists had their ears so atrociously and undemocratically closed to objectors throughout the entire process.

Public Health Now Further To The Left Than Cuba

MyChoice Australia last month made a very salient observation about the current World Trade Organisation dispute surrounding plain packaging.

Tobacco producing nations, including the Dominican Republic and Cuba, argue that plain packaging laws create illegal obstacles to world trade. 

Yes, Australia’s getting a lesson in free trade courtesy of communists.

Hardly surprising, really. If you were to view the Twitter feeds of Australian tobacco control execs recently, you could be forgiven for thinking that the election of mildly right of centre Tony Abbott as PM was akin to a return to sticking 10 year olds up chimneys and exiling petty criminals to, err, dustbowls on the opposite end of the world.

His crimes, it seems, are opposing carbon taxes and same sex marriage, while also appointing his cabinet on more substantial criteria than if they happen to have a vagina.

Whatever their outward reasoning, though, it's pretty clear that they're mostly just pissed off that a non-lefty government is not likely to shovel cash their way as liberally as they have become accustomed to.

It's a global feature of the health lobby in general. In the UK, for example, we have the likes of Gabriel Scally who advocates "socialism for all"; Sir David Nicholson, former card-carrying member of the Communist Party who now enjoys a comfortable retirement after NHS deaths under his watch and presiding over a culture of suppressing criticism; and Martin McKee who tweets about public health when he has time free from rabble-rousing about globalisation, public sector power, and the evils of capitalism.

Meanwhile, in the freedom-loving USA, public health fanatics are eagerly applauding Cuba for starving their citizens.

A few months ago, we noted a bizarre study in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal) that suggested that the famine caused by the repressive Communist Cuban Castro regime was good for people’s health. Harvard’s food-scold-in-residence, Walter Willett, commented positively on the outcome of state-sponsored famine, suggesting the study showed “powerful evidence that a reduction in overweight and obesity would have major population-wide benefits.” 

Now, the study authors (and Willett, presumably) indicated that they didn’t support the dictatorial methods, just the state-controlled outcome. But now Willett has gone a step further. He recently told a Harvard conference that “children are being exploited, same as sweatshops” and declared obesity “a natural consequence of a capitalist food supply.”

Now, agree with their politics or not, all of the above have one thing in common. None of them need to be elected in order to influence at the highest level, just like their Godhead, the WHO. Exactly what dictators throughout history have always aspired to.

Through public health, they've found a way to interfere in the lives of everyone on the planet fiscally, economically and socially without ever having to ask the public for approval. If you object further, or things don't quite go to their master plan, bullying, smears and ad hominem is usually enough to scare politicians into jumping when they're told to.

And tomorrow, an unelected EU Commissioner's Tobacco Products Directive - drafted under a long shadow of corruption and designed to completely ignore any consultation which disagreed with its pre-determined positions - will slime its way past plenary with the help of the socialist bloc(k) vote. Funny, that.

Wherever he is right now, I expect Stalin is applauding in admiration.

UPDATE: Thanks to a fellow jewel robber by e-mail, here's supporting evidence via the Twitter feed of  John Ashton, head of the UK Faculty of Public Health. Wow!

Lefty Media Lie About E-Cig Advert Bans

As gleefully reported by The Guardian, Independent, Huffington Post, Metro, BBC 5Live and Watchdog, all current TV and radio e-cig adverts have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority. Most notably, the E-Lites one featuring Mark Benton.

Now, we need to go back to January for the background to this. Back then, The Times described the tortuous route that the E-Lites ad had taken before being aired.

Adrian Everett, the chief executive of the Bromsgrove-based company, said it had taken 14 months to clear the 30-second advert with Clearcast, the body that vets TV advertising before broadcast. E-Lites was forced to drop any footage of the product itself or promote the “intrinsic benefit of switching” from tobacco to ecigarettes.

Clearcast is a service with, it claims on its website, "50 years expertise in ensuring that television advertising complies with BCAP codes". If anyone knows the rules, it is them, or so E-Lites and three other e-cig sellers assumed.

Sadly, Clearcast were wrong.

The main complaint for all the ads now banned was this one, seen in four separate judgements.

Ten Motives: misleading because it encouraged viewers, and particularly young adults and children, to visit the website but did not make clear the characteristics of the product;
ZULU Ventures: misleading, because it encouraged viewers, and particularly young adults and children, to visit the website but did not make clear the characteristics of the product;
Sorse Distribution: misleading, because it encouraged viewers to visit the website, but did not make clear the characteristics of the product.
Zandera (E-Lites): misleading, because they omitted material information about the product, specifically its ingredients and that it contained nicotine.

In fact, this was the crucial factor in the banning of all of them. The ASA made much the same explanation in all cases, such as this from the Sorse Distribution judgement.

We noted Clearcast had understood that references to the type of product (e-cigarettes) were prohibited by the BCAP Code and that it was for that reason they omitted that information from the ad. However, we understood that the BCAP Code rule only required that ads for non-tobacco products such as e-cigarettes (whether or not they contained nicotine) did not reference or promote smoking or tobacco and did not include a "design, colour, imagery, logo style or the like that might be associated in the audience's mind with a tobacco product". We considered the rule did not prevent an ad containing verbal or text reference to an 'e-cig', 'e-cigarette', or 'vaporiser', providing that it did not also create a link between the product and smoking or tobacco products. We considered it important that ads such as this made clear the nature of the product being advertised and stated whether or not it contained nicotine. We judged that to be material information the consumer needed to know in order to avoid the likelihood of being misled. Because the ad did not make clear the nature of the product being advertised, and that it did not contain nicotine, we concluded the ad was misleading. 

On this point, the ad breached BCAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.2 (Misleading advertising).

So, they were considered misleading because Clearcast had given advice which was over-cautious. A simple thing to fix by amending them to supply more information about their products.

There was one other complaint upheld against E-Lites, centred on the actor tapping his pocket and going outside for a cigarette.

We acknowledged that there were no direct references to smoking or tobacco products, but the ad nonetheless referred to smoking by showing the man going outside for a cigarette. Although, as stated in point 5 above, the reference was oblique, rule 10.5 was nonetheless clear on this point, whether or not the portrayal was negative. 

We considered that a dancing baby was likely to be very attractive to a broad range of children for whom the baby and the dance moves would both be engaging. We recognised that for younger children the reference to smoking was unlikely to be noticed or understood, but for older children, in particular teenagers, the inference would be clear.

The secondary concern here, then, was that canny teens would know the guy was off for a sneaky puff ... just as they see in real life.

That's not exactly how the lefty press reported the ASA rulings though.

BBC Watchdog reportedly claimed "the use of the baby could appeal to younger viewers, particularly teenagers, and as a result may make the act of smoking more attractive to them." which is making a bit of a leap considering the ASA clearly imply that the portrayal was designed to be negative. The ASA also explained that it was not the baby which caused the problem, but that when Mark Benton disappears from the room, it was a reference to smoking.

The Independent cleverly referred to the baby and children without mentioning the ASA's age distinction.

It said that the TV advert could amuse children and breached rules which restrict adverts that might interest children from referring to smoking. 

The Metro article was alarmist and bore little resemblance to the judgements.

E-cigarette advert is banned over baby and nicotine fears

But that's as nothing compared to the Guardian and Huffington Post, both of which blatantly lied.

HuffPoUk did so in their headline, no less:

E-Cigarette Adverts Banned Over Viewer Complaints They 'Normalise Smoking'

While The Guardian also made the lie a central part of their article in the header ...

TV and radio ads for E-Lites must not be broadcast again in current form following complaints they normalised smoking

... and also - without clarification - led readers to believe that tax-sponging government lobbyists Smokefree South West were pivotal in the outcome.

Smokefree South West and 41 others said the ad promoted a nicotine-based product and encouraged and normalised smoking or the use of E-Lites.

Indeed they did, but the ASA rejected their complaint out of hand.

5. Smokefree South West and 41 other complainants who believed that ad (b) promoted a nicotine-based product and encouraged and normalised smoking or the use of E-Lites, challenged whether the ad was irresponsible and therefore harmful. 

5. Not upheld 

As already noted above, e-cigarettes could be sold legally in the UK and were not a prohibited category under the BCAP Code, although they should be advertised responsibly.
We acknowledged the care taken with the TV ad (b) to avoid showing the product or referring directly to tobacco smoking. Although viewers would understand the man tapping his shirt pocket and leaving the room implied he was going outside to smoke, we considered that the ad's emphasis was on what had been missed as a result of smoking and that the ad's depiction of tobacco smoking was therefore negative. For that reason, we considered that the ad did not encourage or normalise smoking. 

On this point, we investigated the TV ad (b) under BCAP rules 1.2 (Social irresponsibility), 10.4 (Tobacco prohibited categories) and 4.4 (Harm and Offence), but did not find it in breach.

I take it we can discount any bleating from the Graun about press accuracy in the future, then? This is about as blatant as lying gets for a newspaper.

Now, I ask myself this. Why is it that it was only favoured organs of the tobacco control industry which picked up on these judgements the moment they were published? Why is it that they got their facts so very wrong? And why did they imply Smokefree South West to be a decisive complainant when their only complaint was one of the overwhelming majority to be dismissed as bollocks?

Hmm, where do you reckon they got their briefing from?

The above also illustrates that - despite their weasel words about being supportive of e-cigs - the UK tobacco control industry are moving heaven and earth to place as many obstacles in front of them as is humanly possible. .