The Mask Slips (The Myth Of Democracy)

While dissecting Andy Burnham's break for New Labour glory was rather enjoyable yesterday, his daft proposals have been fairly well filleted from just about every political corner. It would seem that the more draconian Labour fuckwits become toward smokers, the more support is engendered - smoking isn't the universally-accepted evil after all, probably much to the surprise of blinkered cretins like Burnham.

As a result, I'll leave the grey packets, car/home smoking bans and vending machines etc for another time.

There is, though, one more truth ruthlessly exposed by Burnham's vindictive crusade, that being their irreconcileable divorce from any pretence of democratic process.

As VGIF pointed out yesterday, Burnham has admitted that the review into the smoking ban, planned for 3 years after implementation, is going to be nothing more than an exercise in propaganda.

Anyone familiar with the small clique of individuals and state-funded organisations who actually dictate policy in this area will suspect that the review will be nothing of the sort. They would be right. It will be a closed shop, with only the shrillest voices from ASH and the Department of Health allowed to be heard.

But even the most hardened cynic would at least expect them to wait until the review begins before publishing the foregone conclusion. Alas, that is not the case. Today's publication shows that it will only be a question of how far the ban is extended:

Smokefree legislation, introduced in 2007, continues to see high levels of compliance and public support. We have undertaken to review the impact of smokefree legislation in 2010.

That review will provide an opportunity to examine whether the legislation is working and where it can be improved, and will also enable assessment of what more can be done to extend protection.

Particularly, we will look to promote and support smokefree prisons and examine the case for extending smokefree requirements around building entrances.

Just to prove that the review has indeed not yet started, here is Gillian Merron, Minister for Health, in replying to a written question from Tory Bob Neill earlier this month.

We have given a commitment to review the impact of the smokefree law three years after its implementation on 1 July 2007. The review will take place in the latter part of 2010. In preparation for the review, the Department has commissioned a number of research reports. Once these reports have been completed and peer reviewed they will be published and will be given full consideration as part of the review.

So, no review yet, no completion and no peer review, yet Burnham seems to know - NOW - that it will show that further measures are required.

Yet there is plenty of evidence that the ban has failed in many ways and is not popular. Something a rational government should be taking into account, surely?

For example, leaving three years until conducting a review was almost certainly to take advantage of the availability cascade which Labour presumed would build up in that period. Simply put, they thought that the ban being portrayed as a done deal, that it would not be amended or repealed, would result in majority acceptance of the need for a blanket ban.

Because, you see, the official figures have always, but always, shown that the public didn't want that at all.

However, if that was their hope, it has failed to materialise. The majority, in fact, would still prefer some form of choice even after three years of Labour marketing, propaganda, and lies.

What's more, if Burnham's drive is to reduce smoker prevalence, that too has failed miserably, as was to be expected after the experience of Ireland and every other country which has implemented blanket bans (the latest was Italy this week).

It is a failure in Scotland.

The number of young people smoking in Scotland has returned to a level last seen nearly 10 years ago, according to a report by health officials.

The survey revealed nearly a third of people between 16-24 are smokers.

In 2004 the number of young smokers in Scotland had fallen to just 25% but by 2007 that figure was 31%.

It is a failure in England (official figures confirm an earlier study).

The latest annual lifestyle survey has found that the overall smoking rate among adults in 2008 remained at 21%, the same rate as in 2007. However, there was a small increase in smoking among people in routine and manual groups

And it ain't doing much good to lung cancer rates in Wales, either.

New figures show that the incidence of lung cancer in women is increasing at an alarming rate. There has been a 10% increase in the number of women diagnosed with the disease in the past four years.

And clinicians said they are seeing more younger women being diagnosed with the disease.

All of which points to a review which should be wide-ranging and imaginative if Labour's true motive is to reduce the number of smokers, to effect a reduction in health problems, and just as importantly, to be backed by their employers - ie, us.

Yet here we have the Health Secretary announcing that the review will lead to stricter legislation, on the back of some invisible unbridled success ... which is clearly not the case.

In the past I have mentioned that public consultations under this government are pretty shoddy, but what Burnham's pronouncements yesterday prove is that Labour are now completely abandoning the idea of consulting anyone except themselves.

On this basis, I'm afraid to say that one must conclude, yet again, that Labour's approach to smoking legislation has nothing at all to do with health ...

... and democracy can go hang as far as they are concerned.

Same Common Sense, Different Venue

Charlotte Gore may have packed up blogging, but you can't keep a good classic liberal down for long.

Yet people continue to smoke. They stop when they want to stop, on their own terms, for their own reasons. Or they don't. They make the choice to continue doing something that is perfectly legal, in the full knowledge of the consequences and risks.

Quite.

And if the current level of official hostility against smokers is having no effect, what does it say about us that we support it irrespectively? Is it simply that expressing our displeasure at smokers makes people feel better about themselves?

She's got a point, you know. Off you pop and read the whole thing.

Stupid White Man

So, as [Michael] Moore was making a film about evil capitalists taking money from regular folk, he was actually applying for a taxpayer subsidy from a state with huge fiscal problems and staggeringly high unemployment:

How very socialist.

The Mask Slips (Follow The Money)

OK, we've established that it's not about health, and noted the clinking of champagne glasses as sales bonuses come flooding in for ASH and Pfizer et al.

So, is there anything in it for Andy Burnham and the Labour administration? Why, of course there is.

Immediate investment in extra overseas officers to stop 200 million illicit cigarettes entering the UK every year.

My, my, wouldn't that be expensive in a recession? You know, with all the cuts that will have to be made?

Of course not, the funds were prepared last year and, as such, it has been well and truly costed already.

When VAT was temporarily reduced in December 2008, tobacco and alcohol excise duties were increased to compensate, leaving prices broadly unchanged. However, when VAT returns to 17.5%, there will not be a compensatory reduction in excise duty. Therefore, the raising of VAT from 1 January will have a unique impact on the tobacco and alcohol sectors. It will lead to increases of between 13-18 pence on a pack of cigarettes, representing the largest single tax increase since March 2000, when smuggling was at its peak.

So the best way to tackle the increased attraction of smuggling, created by the exchequor, is to employ a few people to stop it ... from the super profits gained by Darling's quiet little exemption in 2008.

Will the wages paid out account fully for the huge windfall from this accounting subterfuge? Well, considering the extra VAT take is probably in the region of £40m per year (based on an a real terms increase of 2.17% on £1.8bn, and that's just the tobacco take), no they won't.

And the best thing is that many of those officers won't be needed for too long anyway, as the WHO are already in the process of stopping the only good thing about the bloody EU, the booze and fag cruise.

Great little scam, and bloody good for increasing the state payroll (and with it potential Labour voters) whilst simultaneously shrugging shoulders and pocketing the cash when the WHO and EU wade in and dull our lives further.

Still not about health, then.

The Mask Slips (The Nicotine War)

Burrow deep enough into today's tripe from Andy Burnham and you find a little thank you gift to the driving force behind Labour's attack on smokers.

A major shift in the government’s anti-smoking policy has been quietly announced, allowing nicotine products to be sold as a long-term substitute for smoking, not just as an aid to quitting.

The announcement acknowledges that some smokers are nicotine junkies, who find it close to impossible to give up the addictive element in cigarettes.

Indeed they are, as a Mail article last week highlighted.

My name is Claudia and I am an addict. For ten years I have been addicted to Nicorette - a nicotine chewing gum - and I am desperate to give up. How I rue the day I ever started smoking. It has cost me a small fortune and undoubtedly damaged my health.

She is not alone. Such addiction is commonplace and, contrary to the mantra pumped out by tobacco controllers, can definitely be damaging. Because, you see, nicotine replacement therapy can be a killer.

A teenager was rushed to hospital after he overdosed on nicotine gum handed out to pupils at school.

Aiden Williams, 14, was kept in overnight on a heart monitor after chewing 45 pieces of Nicorette - the equivalent of smoking 180 fags.

Doctors said the dosage could have killed him, but he probably survived because he smoked and had built up a tolerance to the drug.

And yet lethal doses are readily available, even in the current risk averse climate, to Labour's beloved children - without sanction.

Mum Caroline yesterday called for the Nicorette handouts to be banned after hearing smokers as young as 12 can be given up to a week's supply - 105 pieces - by health counsellors at the school without parental consent.

It doesn't look like government are going to change this policy anytime soon, although they are very scared indeed at the thought of adults using e-cigs.

"The Department of Health is not aware of any evidence about the long-term safety of e-cigarettes and, as such, would suggest that consumers exercise caution.

"E-cigarettes are not promoted by, or available on, the NHS," she said.

It would appear to be a contradiction, unless you have read here before, in which case you will know exactly why. It's because big pharma sells NRT but hasn't got any fingers in the e-cig pie.

ASH are heavily reliant on pharma dosh, as are Cancer Research UK, who have a policy of refusing donations from e-cig companies.

CRUK is not a lot more than the R&D arm of big pharma (think about it - if they found a cure, who would make it and sell it to the NHS?) so it's hardly surprising.

During preparation for Labour's successful attempt to hide tobacco displays, ASH were heavily involved in disseminating misleading information, and a Cancer Research UK employee was seconded to the DoH for one day a week.

So what better reward for unremitting loyalty than to extend the scope of NRT prescriptions, on the NHS natch, thereby making big pharma rather happy.

ASH are very happy too.

But the move was welcomed on Sunday by Action on Smoking and Health which has been campaigning for the change for some time.

“This is quite a substantial shift in policy, and important one,” a spokesman said. “It is the first time the government has come out and said it supports a harm reduction strategy, and not just a quit smoking approach”.

I did mention all this quite a while ago.

All that really matters is that you get your nicotine from the right supplier. There are huge profits to be had. It's a straight fight between tobacco manufacturer and pharmaceutical industry, for control of the income.

And again more recently, when my crystal ball was working particularly well concerning the threat of e-cigs, the cuckoo in the nicotine delivery nest.

Without wishing to be accused (again) of not knowing my subject matter, or of ignoring externalities, I have tended to suggest many times that Banzhaf and his UK-based ilk are merely shills for big pharmaceutical interests before. This is merely further incontrovertible proof that one cannot believe a word that ASH, or any smokefree body, says. It has always been the way, it's just that our current MPs have been too stupid to see it.

Are UK politicians as quite stunningly dense as those in New Jersey? We shall see, but secretly you know that I'm going to be back here very soon pointing out that they are, don't you?

For tobacco control, and the pharmaceutical industry, Labour are a tax-funded ATM that just keeps pumping out the cash.

As I said earlier, it has never been about health.

The Mask Slips (It's Not About Health)

You must have seen this today.

Yes, it's the oleaginous Andy Burnham trying, as A Tory sagely points out, to increase his profile in the jockeying for position ahead of Brown's bunkered demise.

The whole thing is all very dramatic but what I find most interesting is that, at last, Labour have abandoned the silly pretence that the smoking ban was about health.

Take this, for example.

And there will be a review of smoking legislation, which could see public bans extended to places such as the entrances of buildings.

The prime - in fact the only - reason why Labour reneged on their 2005 manifesto commitment to exempt private members clubs and 'wet' pubs - why they eliminated any choice at all, without recourse to voters - was to protect bar workers.

Howard Stoate, Labour rodent for Dartford and member of the health select committee, explained the reason for his pushing for an anti-democratic blanket ban.

He said that public opinion had moved "very quickly" on smoking and that, as a GP, he could not "stand back and allow some workers to be exposed to secondhand smoke."

Yet now Labour are seriously talking about banning smoking near entrances. And the scientific proof that smoking outdoors can be dangerous to health is ... ?

Nowhere. It doesn't exist.

Of course, it is impossible for it to exist, considering that to get merely an incredibly weak correlation for passive smoking indoors, anti-smokers conducted study after study after study on non-smokers living with smokers in sealed environments over decades, with no ventilation. The vast majority came up inconclusive or, to their horror, showed a protective effect.

The only way they could create some kind of headline was after cherry-picking the most favourable studies, lumping them all in together, and then changing scientific practice to make the limp thing stand up ... a bit.

Already, this makes the threat of a couple of hours in a pub with separate smoking/non-smoking areas, and ventilation, quite inconsequential. So merely walking past smokers outside a doorway for a few seconds poses no health consequence whatsoever. And no amount of science fraud will ever prove otherwise.

Which all points to Labour effectively now resorting to legislation to ban an unpleasant (for some) smell.

The victory of bigotry over common sense.

Once again, we see Labour, the champion of the selfish and anti-social, striking a blow against community, tolerance, and property rights.

Still, I suppose we should be thankful that they have finally given up the pretence that their policies are anything more altruistic than bullying, control and spite.

If you smoke, Labour despise you. Vote against them tactically wherever you are, show them that the sentiment is mutual.

Nom Nom Nom

As Crampton queries ...

A subtle commentary on the relationship between Prime Ministers and taxpayers?