In A Nutshell

Busy times here in Puddlecoteville but here's a quick gem from an article I read in the office this afternoon over a corned beef and pickle sarnie.

Ben Popken of NBC News has written a fairly balanced piece about differing policies towards e-cig use in American offices. In essence, it seems that small businesses are mostly embracing their use while larger ones opt for counter-productive and lazy blanket bans. However, the comments underneath also tell a story of their own about the new phenomenon of vaping.

As you read down you will see one pompous anti-smoker after another desperately drawing extreme scenarios, expressing faux outrage, or coming up with far-fetched excuses to fear e-cigs and show disgust towards anyone who uses them. Without any 'evidence' of harm - you know, like the olden days when smoking bans were supposed to be about that - to hang their irrational prejudices on, each scrape of the barrel is effortlessly countered by other more tolerant and rational folk.

It's a joy, it really is, but the whole situation is gloriously and succinctly encapsulated in this excellent put-down by some non-smoking geezer called "Mike from Gary". Watch and learn.

Admit it, people like you are simply enjoying lording it over people who use a still-legal product, and are just pushing as hard as you can, simply because you can. You pushed them into "smoking areas," then complained the areas were too smoky. You pushed them outside, then complained because you could smell them when the wind was right. Now they've found a compromise solution, but you're not interested in solutions, are you? You just enjoy imposing your will on others.

Nailed it. It's never been about health

Y'see, this is why I love e-cigs so very much. They almost appear sent by a heavenly being to expose anti-smokers - and the junk scientists who cater to them - as the absurd, self-centred, intolerant, anti-social control freaks they have always been.

And do you know what? I think more and more people are beginning to notice.

The New Flat Earthers

Commenting on the incredible incompetence of the Western Australian government in banning e-cigs, shyster of the week is Roger Magnusson, Professor of Health Law and Governance at the University of Sydney.

Professor Magnusson says it’s breathlessly naïve to assume e-cigarettes will function only or mainly as stop-smoking devices.

“US research suggests these products are a gateway to smoking as often as a gateway from smoking,” he says.

“If they are such a great quit smoking device, they might nevertheless be made available to smokers on prescription. That would give smokers an alternative option, while minimising the creation of a new market for recreational nicotine that may well lead to smoking addiction for many of those new initiates, a great many of whom will be adolescents and young people.

Yes, it's the zombie gateway theory yet again, uttered with absolute certainty despite having been thoroughly debunked on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the US, official statistics showed that youth smoking fell as vaping rose, while another study concluded that "it didn't seem as though [e-cigs] really proved to be a gateway to anything". Meanwhile, back in Blighty anti-smoking fake charity ASH reported last month that "significantly, usage among non-smokers remains negligible" and "there is no evidence from our research that e-cigarettes are acting as a gateway into smoking".

Pretty conclusive, huh?

For Magnusson - and others like him who cling to their dull-witted imagination rather than real life evidence - to invoke "US research" while burbling such nonsense is comparable to someone pointing to the existence of orbiting satellites as proof that the Earth is flat.

He is either so laughably ignorant of facts surrounding e-cigs that he shouldn't really be approached for a quote, or else he's a monumental liar. You decide.

More Cameron Quote Fun

Following on from the astonishing claim made on the Conservative Party website about David Cameron's philosophy, Dave Atherton spotted another stunner from 2009.

"In his speech at the Open University in Milton Keynes, Mr Cameron said a 'massive sweeping, radical redistribution of power', including a curb on the power of the Premier, was needed to halt social breakdown.  

He sought to channel what he called the 'terrible but impotent anger' voters feel when confronted by nanny state officials who are 'self-serving, not serving us'." 

"We rage that, as we go about our business, we are picked and poked and bossed around, annoyed and irritated and endlessly harassed by public and private sector officialdom that treats us like children with rules and regulations and directives and laws that no one voted for, no one supports, but no one ever seems to be able to do the slightest thing about.”

Yes, I do believe this is the same David Cameron who now wants to filter the internet, impose minimum alcohol pricing, and is reviewing plain packs.

Fancy that!

Mascot Watch 23: Thatcher Tribute Edition

Apologies for the lack of content this week, just got back from a couple of days in Amsterdam with flaky WiFi.

I managed to catch this cheeky contribution to the Thatcher tribute debate from our esteemed blog mascot though.

"Margaret Thatcher was my political inspiration. I only wish that I had been here in Parliament when she was Prime Minister, as it would have been a rare treat indeed to be on these Benches and able to support a Government with whom I agreed from time to time."

Oof! Right in the love spuds, eh Cameron?

Pasties, Chocolate Oranges, Chicken, And Now Sugar Puffs

A week is a long time in politics? Ha! Try a few hours, Harold.

The title above didn't include any cereals when I penned it as a draft last night, but then this turned up on the BBC early today.

Labour has urged the government to consider introducing legal limits on sugar, salt and fat content in food.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said current voluntary agreements with the food industry were not working and the obesity problem was worsening,

First of all, it's not worsening, dickhead, try reading the ONS stats we pay for out of the taxes you steal from us.

Mr Burnham denied Labour were promoting a "nanny state", insisting parents must "decide for themselves" on food choices for their children. 

"I'm not talking about banning anything... my argument is, shouldn't we just bring down those fat, salt sugar levels to make them more healthier (sic) than they are?" he added.

Nanny Beeb was very careful not to highlight the fact that Burnham was talking about products like Frosties and Sugar Puffs which have been on the market for over half a century, but that is what this entails.

Via Lawson

Burnham is a front bench MP - part of a government overseeing 60+ million people - yet he apparently can't read the back of a box of cereal. Hmm, do you think he might be lying there? Or is he really so dense as to be able to bend light?

Just the day before, Brendan O'Neill was writing (beautifully) at the Telegraph about the laughable contorted wibblings of another in the shadow health team (ably fisked at the Cat Counters). You know her, she's the svelte example of perfect human form known as Diane Abbott. You really should read all of O'Neill's piece if you can, but here is something I found to be somewhat familiar.

To appreciate just how bizarre it is to have a well-known politician kick off a new year by declaring war on fried chicken, try to imagine if a minister or shadow minister did something like this a few decades ago. Cast your minds back before New Labour; before the emergence of what Labour MP Frank Field christened "the politics of behaviour"; before all the major parties made nannying and nudging the centrepieces of their political programmes; back to a time when politics was a more serious business concerned with class, power, wealth – imagine if, back then, a minister announced that she (or more likely, he) would wage war against chippies, or pie shops perhaps, in the name of helping the masses see the error of their gluttonous ways. People would be bamboozled. They'd think the minister was mad. They'd certainly ask why he or she was banging on about chips when such serious problems as poverty, homelessness and inequality were rife. It is testament to the extraordinary shrinking of the political imagination, to the shift from a politics concerned with changing the world to a politics obsessed with changing the habits and waistlines of the people who live in that world, that Ms Abbott's anti-chicken rant could be nodded through without so much as a "Whaaat?"

You see, I wish I could write like that. Because I said much the same thing a year ago but with more economic vocabulary.

Here we have two walking, talking broom handle politicians exhibiting how extremely wrong British politics has become. 

Chocolate Oranges are one of life's little treats. The overwhelming majority of the public like them. Indeed, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't like chocolate. 

Yet here we are with two leading politicians arrogantly competing to be the one who appears toughest on making that treat more difficult to enjoy. This isn't a mind-altering drug we're talking about here - legal or otherwise - merely a fucking Chocolate Orange! 

Statisticians would punch you in the face if you suggested they waste their time calculating the risk of death from 30p off a fucking Chocolate Orange from WH Smith's, yet the Prime Minister - let me say that again, the fucking Prime fucking Minister - and the leader of the bastard opposition both consider this subject worthy of creating policy.

And guess what! Faced with an open goal with which to kick Burnham's credibility into the middle of next year, Jeremy Hunt - yes, Jeremy Hunt, the Tory - decided to fucking agree even as the vast majority of the nation were laughing or cursing into their Coco Pops at the fucking cheek of these arrogant morons.

The country is in trillions of pounds of debt; fallout from the EU collapse has yet to fully bite us on the arse; youth unemployment is rocketing; they are fighting wars in two countries with perhaps others to come; they are widely despised by just about every breathing human in the British Isles, yet what have been pressing issues for these monumentally stupid wooden-topped suits recently?

Gregg's pasties, chocolate fucking oranges, chicken and chips, and Golden poxy Nuggets.

There is, however, a silver lining - well, if there ever could be one with a Westminster packed full of nodding dogs doing their best to shit the nation and its culture down the nearest sewer - and it's the fact that Burnham and his pals have made it extremely easy to explain to youngsters why MPs should be despised and never, ever be respected.

Simply tell your kids they are trying to ban Sugar Puffs. That should be enough to ensure a whole new generation views them as dangerous as axe murderers for a long time to come, which is definitely a very good thing on today's evidence.

We're Not Being Utter Bastards To You, Honest

Speaking to the BBC, [former regional director of public health, Professor Gabriel Scally] said: "I don't think anyone in this country actually thinks that the food industry are the right people to decide what we should be eating."

Listen, you goggle-eyed closet Trot, food companies don't decide what we should be eating ... we do.

Some of the foodstuffs referred to by Andy Burnham have been on the market successfully for over 60 years. If we didn't choose to buy them, they would have ceased to exist long ago. Yet again, a professional finger-wagger attempts to pretend a policy isn't an attack on consumers and freedom of choice when it most definitely is.

Once that misdirection and spin is taken out of the equation, I reckon the public would overwhelmingly think that the person who buys the food should have far more say in deciding what they eat than some blinkered, hyperbole-spouting career politician from Liverpool.

Only A Third?

Amusing quote of the day.

The campaign comes in response to statistics that show more than a third of smokers still think the health risks associated with smoking are greatly exaggerated.

That'll be because they most definitely have been.

The World Watches, But Might Not Be Impressed

Considering we're talking about Bruce Springsteen and Sir Paul McCartney here, this story has flown around the world.

[E-Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt] said: "One of the great gigs ever in my opinion. But seriously, when did England become a police state? Is there just too much fun in the world? We would have been off by 11 if we'd done one more. On a Saturday night! Who were we disturbing?"

Maybe the Olympics could leave a very useful legacy, after all. The pathetic state of risk and offence-terrified, jobsworth, authoritarian, and utterly joyless Britain is beginning to be noticed.

Personally, I hope there are many more examples like this in the coming weeks. If our own bovine public can't be bothered to get these people off our backs, we'll just have to hope that international embarrassment and ridicule might do the job instead.

Well, you never know.

He's Got A Point, You Know

John Redwood has kicked 2012 off with a cracker.

Public sector managers appear on the media to say they cannot do a good job because they are short of money. Private sector managers appear on the media to say they are doing a good job despite the shortage of cash.

Uncannily enough, the little Ps had been asking what public and private sectors mean just before Christmas. I'll file this in the memory for next time they show their curiosity.

Mascot Watch (15) - Plain Speaking Edition

See? Parliament can be fun, as our esteemed mascot proved on Monday.

Commenting in a short debate involving New Boy Nick [...] and Nanny Brokenshire on alcohol issues, our boy Phil was more direct than is often seen from the green benches.

May I urge the Minister to concentrate on tough penalties for people who get involved in alcohol-induced antisocial behaviour instead of introducing this rather soppy, wishy-washy, nanny-state nonsense of minimum pricing of alcohol?

Sadly, Westminster runs on a diet of soppy and wishy-washy, washed down with a large measure of Victorian vintage nanny-state nonsense these days. Nice to see Phil gallantly taking them to task, though.

Talking of diets, Bercow's closing remark hinting that Nick Soames wanted to talk about the food industry boggles the mind ... I do hope it was to ask for more all-you-can-eat buffets, rather than something proscriptive. If not, I'll start truly believing we have slipped into an alternate universe.

A 'Left Libertarian' Writes

With this afternoon's 'teaching of stuff which our taxpayer-funded education system should have already covered' completed, I'm off out soon for my weekly stint of sporting voluntary work, so no time for any recreational writing tonight.

Instead, nod your head along with this rather good comment below today's CiF article on the libertarian blogosphere. Nestled, as it was, amongst the usual (deliberate?) misdefinitions of the concept - and the ubiquitous lazy and unimaginative Somalia references, natch - it came as a pleasant surprise.

OK, there are definitely bits I'd disagree with, and I'm really not sure libertarianism can properly square itself with traditional right and left labelling, but there's still a lot to like about his viewpoint.

kermitbantam
2 November 2010 4:13PM

Of all the different pigeon holes, I'm definitely a left-wing Libertarian. There should be just enough state to protect people, because we are social creatures, but no more.

The problem now is that we have too much state, and none of it is protecting our interests. The banks get bailed out with my money, whilst I lose my job. The MPs and the Lords get to trough away hundreds of thousands of pounds of my money, whilst I struggle to make ends meet. The police get to shoot people dead and then make jokes about it during testimony in the inquest, and nothing happens to them.

Extortion is what it is, nothing more, nothing less. I was given a choice: pay £16,000 to RBS or go to prison. Hand over your money to the Export Credit Guarantee Department, and to the thieving MPs, and to the bloody traffic wardens, or go to prison for a very long time. So was each and every one of you. How is that acceptable in any way, shape or form?

And then think of all the new criminal laws brought in under New Labour. It's illegal for me to do the wiring in my kitchen and bathroom. It's illegal for me to change my own windows in my house. It's illegal for me to have large quantities of cash on my person. It's illegal for me to watch TV without paying the TV Tax. It's illegal for me to look after a friend's child without a looking-after-children licence from a bureaucrat in Darlington. Why are you lot not angry about this too?

The Libertarian blogs have been angry about all that, very very angry indeed. And quite right too. I don't agree with the economic views they hold, but anyone who demands a small a state as possible is worth reading. I won't miss the bloggers like Old Holborn, who focused too much on the economic, but people like Constantly Furious I will miss. Someone needs to be questioning the need for such a massive state, and the only regret is that they're being quieter now the Tories are in. The Tories aren't cutting the state back at all, they're just massaging it so that more money goes from my pocket into the pocket of their fat cat banker friends. Nothing at all has changed, and the need for Libertarian anger has not changed either.

Indeed.

The Perils Of Travelling With A 1970s Guide Book

"In Zanzibar Britain is held up as country where things are done properly and where people are treated with respect."

Ha!

"Those illusions have been shattered."

Wow! Common Sense? In Scotland?

Is it not a matter of personal choice whether we choose to risk our life and health by indulging in pies, whisky and cigarettes (or, for that matter, canoeing, ecstasy and hang gliding)?

It may be frustrating for a doctor that we make their job harder by being so wilfully human. But the sole purpose of our lives should not be to make our doctor’s life easier.

Amen to that.

The writer of the article from which the quote was taken is performing at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. On the evidence above, one might assume it'll be well worth a watch.

Hopefully, they'll tour other parts of the country, at some point, as I like to stay as far away from Nicola Turgid and her monster raving health police as possible.

Quote Of The Decade

"The tendency of government has been to legislate for the sake of legislating. Bills have been rushed through in order to give the impression that action is being taken. However, many ills cannot be solved by legislation. Much legislation is drafted in haste and is not solidly evidence-based."

Ain't that the truth, Lord Norton!

Thought For The Day

Mr Puddlecote Sr often regales us of the time in the early 70s when he played against Andy Ripley. An awesome, unstoppable prospect on the pitch - a gentleman off it. We could all do with remembering these lines from his Telegraph obituary.

“Dare we hope? We dare. Can we hope? We can. Should we hope? We must, because to do otherwise is to waste the most precious of gifts, given so freely by God to all of us. So when we do die, it will be with hope and it will be easy and our hearts will not be broken.”

Andy Ripley RIP

UPDATE: Thanks to Rick S in the comments for uploading this to YouTube.

Common Sense Of The Week

Once you buy the argument that some segment of the citizenry should lose their rights, just because they are envied or resented, you are putting your own rights in jeopardy-- quite aside from undermining any moral basis for respecting anybody's rights. You are opening the floodgates to arbitrary power. And once you open the floodgates, you can't tell the water where to go.

The author is commenting on Barack Obama's recent generalisation that "at some point, you have made enough money.". Do go read the whole piece as he argues that such a policy doesn't breed social justice at all, as socialists seek, but instead manifestly damages society. And the poor will always suffer the most.

The above paragraph leapt off the page though, as it can be applied to just about any facet of human behaviour.

From the moment the government made it compulsory for bikers to wear helmets, a chain reaction has taken place whereby, even if living the life of a nun, the state has a hand in dictating how you live. And behind every law - every cry that 'something must be done' - is a group of people who will, at some point, become targets of those who disagree with their own way of life. Not only that, but by perpetuating the assumption that it is acceptable to meddle with the mores of others, they actively contribute to their own future troubles.

Such does the sum of human enjoyment and prosperity deteriorate with every action designed to lecture, or coerce, others.

Or, as John Stuart Mill once put it:

"All errors which [a citizen] is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good"

Which kinda proves that not only are the righteous often a financial drain on our country, or any country for that matter, they are also a social one.

In short, although they truly believe they are improving matters, in reality the best thing they could do to improve the overall state of the nation is hang themselves from the nearest tree.

Quote Of The Day

The entire point of freedom is to protect the right of someone else to do something you think is stupid, or even wrong. Otherwise, when the winds of popular opinion shift, who will protect your right to do the same?

Yes indeedy {waves to CAMRA}.

Quote Of, Err, Yesterday

Tim Worstall on libertarian paternalism over at the ASI.

I know of no adult who lives their life with a final horizon of only the next election and I know of no politican with a horizon of longer than that next election.

In short, we're better than the politicians but then we all knew that anyway, didn't we?

Do go read the rest.

Quote Of The Day

"here in the midst of the coldest winter since global warming began"

Norman Tebbit's blog.

Dick Out And About: Quote On David Hockney's Today Prog

An incredibly apt (though embarrassing) quote from Krautland, and an audio clip from yesterday's Radio 4 show. (link)