Thursday 27 September 2012

Laying The Groundwork In Wales

If you live in Wales, you'll have seen this before. In fact, you'll probably be pig sick of it by now.


Yes, as pointed out by my Twitter chum ArfurD, Fresh Start Wales - a government-funded anti-smoking org - has been sponsoring the ITV weather reports over the border.

I've always been interested in how much these things cost so, seeing as it is covered by the Freedom of Information Act, I asked.
Fresh Start Wales is paying ITV £18,334 per month to include the clip in weather bulletins. Fresh Start Wales is paying ITV £110,002 in 2012/13 and £73,336 in 2013/14.
This, remember, does not include our taxes they have spent on producing the video in the first place, nor on billboards and other advertising media supporting the same policy. I don't know how long the ads have been running so far, but this means Welsh viewers will eventually have to have endured ten months of it, day in day out, at all times of the night and day.

What is interesting about this is that it is subtle government lobbying government posing as a mini public information film.

The Welsh government has made no secret of the fact that they are soon to be tabling legislation to ban smoking in cars with children, so why not soften the public up first by shovelling £180k to one of their satellite bodies, eh? Ten months of a flawed message being subliminally dripped into the minds of relaxed TV watchers, and opposition - they expect - will just melt away.

If it doesn't, of course, the iron fist of the state will be brought to bear. Whereas in decades past they would broadcast films to advise the public, they now spend £180k in Wales alone to pass a message on, but with an open threat of coercion behind it if you don't comply.

And once they've slimed that law past a bovine public, they can go for what they have really desired all along, a comprehensive ban in all cars with children present or without.

To borrow a phrase ... whatever the weather outside, the state will always use your money to lie, cheat, bully, interfere and steal.


11 comments:

alf stone said...

I love the caption for the first picture on the home page of Fresh Start Wales:

Smoking in
your car poisons
your children.

Not might or could but obviously the science is settled. Where have I heard that before?

timbone said...

Can somebody please tell me what she is saying? I get the first bit, "whatever the weather outside" then she says something about "your car..............then it is garbled, is it in Welsh?

ivandenisovich said...

In other news, Mrs D is now being paid by bankers because the NHS trust that she works for is bankrupt. They already took her coffee break to make the place "more efficient". She is part of the much put upon group known as front line NHS staff and her views on the top heavy management of the NHS make even me blush. If only the DH was focused on efficiently running health services rather than harassing the population about lifestyles in the idiotic belief that it can force us all to live forever. Unfortunately it is run by highly paid idiots with personal agendas who get as many coffee breaks as they feel like. Sadly, the PM seems to believe whatever said idiots say.

Michael McFadden said...

"
And once they've slimed that law past a bovine public, they can go for what they have really desired all along, a comprehensive ban in all cars with children present orwithout."



Most certainly. And it'll be an easy sell: "It'll be so much easier to enforce. You can't expect officers to be peering deeply into moving vehicles and trying to make age judgments about the occupants at 100kph, can you?"


- MJM

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX You can't expect officers to be peering deeply into moving vehicles and
trying to make age judgments about the occupants at 100kph, can you?" XX

No. But you can bet a pound to a penny, that those same officers will be able to spot a half smoked woodbine from two thousand meters.

George Speller said...

It's badly produced - I agree that part of the voice over is unintelligible. That's what you get for exploiting kids. Unprofessional.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Same as a sign I saw last week at an out patient hospital. "The grounds and car parks are smokefree to 'protect' staff and patients". Like smoking in a field is akin to letting off a sarin gas canister, laughable! They're not even using the "health facility/set a good example" line anymore.

Adam Haseman said...

They had to use a kids voice. 'Scuse me while I puke.

timbone said...

Sounds like Smokefree Southwest. I had to read that every time I visited my father in Weston super Mare

david said...

Yes, they'll push for a comprehensive ban. It's not without precedent...


But...there's a major difference to the existing smoking ban in that the interior of privately owned cars are not public spaces. Nor work places. Also, at which point would it become legally enforceable? Surely not if you smoke in the car on your own drive? I mean, there's no requirement to wear a seat belt if the car is not being driven on the public highway. In fact, there are no laws applied to cars when they are not on the public highway. For example, you can't be fined for not displaying a tax disc if the vehicle is on private property, nor for not having a current MOT or using a mobile.


Basically, this proposal would, potentially, be a precursor to a smoking ban in all enclosed spaces where children/non smokers are, or might be, present. Houses, for example. And we must assume that the Welsh government is already considering even more draconian bans should it succeed with this initiative.


When the fuck are the voters going to wake up?

Dick_Puddlecote said...

"For example, you can't be fined for not displaying a tax disc if the vehicle is on private property"


You can if it hasn't been declared as SORN. Off-road cars have to be insured now too. Don't worry, the hysteria is so comprehensive that the law will apply even if you smoke on your own, in your garage, at 2:30 in the morning.