A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Boisdales

I did say that I was going to write about the night of Forest's 35th anniversary party last week but - thanks to Puddlecote Inc still bogging me down at the moment - I've only now managed to get around to it a week later.

I was accompanied by vaping consumer advocate Twigolet (read her account of the evening here) and the genial Mr Snowdon but we didn't go straight there. Instead we'd arranged to meet up at an event chaired by Martin "Bubblegum" McPhee, a man so devoid of features you'd associate with good health that - naturally - he wants to tell you what to eat, drink and not vape or smoke.

It was a very amusing event, delivered in monotone by whey-faced drones and - customary for any public health "debate" - devoid of even a soupçon of differing opinion. It was clear from the outset that the only answer to the question of Can The War on Tobacco Be Won was going to be yes. The long history of disastrously failed prohibitions was put to one side in this particular echo chamber as they congratulated themselves on how fantastic the FCTC has been in destroying the tobacco industry since its inception in 1997.

It matters not to these people that - according to their own sources and those of others - tobacco sales globally have never been higher. They will continue to talk up their own self-importance because the event was held in front of about 100 aspiring young bansturbators who need to to be trained in how to earn money from the taxpayer by talking bollocks. One in particular seemed especially eager to be seen handing a metaphorical (toffee?) apple to his portly far left wing host.

Audience member says PH shouldn't just tackle tobacco, but instead "Coalition of socialist movements" is needed to tackle *all* business
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) November 4, 2014

McKee's colleague at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - and member of ASH's editorial board - Joy Townsend was then called upon to give her opinion on the tropical medicine required to defeat the Ebola crisis. Oh silly me, course not, she was banging her anti-smoking drum again instead.

Perhaps that's a bit harsh. I did feel for her somewhat because she was billed as an 'economist' despite her previous burblings proving that if she has ever learned any economics, she has abandoned it in favour of blind allegiance to pathetic anti-smoking dogma.

There seemed to be a genuine person in there somewhere when she spoke of how the tobacco industry in the 1960s recognised harm from tobacco and tried to research a "safe cigarette". She also sailed dangerously close to heresy by describing e-cigs as "looking like a safe cigarette" ... before blowing it all by claiming that "all the good people" in the tobacco industry - yes, every one of them, without exception - left when young girls still screamed at sight of the Beatles. I don't know how old Joy was when BAT set up its harm reduction labs at around that time but you'd think someone who considers themselves an "expert" would have been aware that they'd just celebrated their golden anniversary?

Shame really, because if she ditched her ideological nonsense she could actually make a difference.

Next up in this incestuous charade was another McKee sidekick and co-author of the now legendary "nicotine is a chemical weapon" paper. The capacity to shamefully exploit the atrocities of Anders Breivik to push anti-smoking extremism tells you all you need to know about Pascal Diethelm, but it was still a surprise when - after being billed by McKee as about to reveal "the truth" about the tobacco industry - he simply trundled out the codswallop that must rattle around his one-track obsessive head in quiet moments.

Apparently, anti-smoking NGOs do it all for the love and don't get paid a penny {splutter}, while those working in the tobacco industry earn a fortune and "have no morals whatsoever". None of them.

This really is how well paid, grant-guzzling public health academics see themselves. Staggering. pic.twitter.com/eR2jjvcWFB
— Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) November 4, 2014

But Diethelm has a cunning plan, you see. All that is need for the "endgame" to succeed is to get those tobacco industry profits down so that people don't buy their shares any more. It's a doddle and the FCTC has been terrorising the tobacco industry since 1997 so it's only a matter of time. Allegedly.

Presumably, this is why BAT's share price - along with their competitors' which follow a similar graphic trajectory - has been dying on its arse since then, huh?

So let's see what a real 'expert' thinks about the link between successful tobacco control and tobacco share prices, shall we? How about, I dunno, Nanny McPhee?

@alexralph @COPDdoc Big Tobacco share price by far best indicator of whether tob control policy effective. This makes case for #plainpacks
— Martin McKee (@martinmckee) November 28, 2013

Hmm, doesn't say much to the success of the FCTC in the past 17 years, does it?

All that was left was for McKee to round off proceedings by reminding everyone present that e-cigs don't work - despite no-one really broaching the subject in any depth - and for him to remind us, with a cheeky chuckle, that the next debate was about Ebola so would "obviously not be as well attended as tonight". Of course not. Why would anyone at the London School of Tropical Medicine be interested in a potential global pandemic, eh?

After witnessing such scintillating wisdom from people I'd not trust to run a car boot stall, myself and my companions parked the bubble gum we had been chewing in the nearest bin and travelled a couple of stops on the tube to an entirely different world where reality still exists and where choices of the public are still respected.

Like being in a cult. Term "tobacco industry" been used 100s of times. Word "smoker" or "vaper" zero. pic.twitter.com/iWvtVG3ca5
— Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) November 4, 2014

Arriving slightly late, we joined a throng of decidedly un-monotone guests and fantastic people bearing glorious trays like this.

It was then just the, err, simple task of finding the others we had heard were attending.

There we are by the bar, can you see?

Those we caught up with are too numerous to mention, but having a long overdue chat with good friend Tom Paine was a particular highlight of the evening for me, as was meeting Joe Jackson for the first time - someone whose music I used to buy as a teen and who now impresses me even more with his catalogue of resistance to deniers of freedom of choice.  I also had the pleasure of a lengthy chinwag with DK while Twigolet met up with the subject of an article from August, Peter Thurgood, and engaged him in good-natured banter.

The evening also saw an unofficial launch of new campaign group Action on Consumer Choice, as announced on the night by Simon Clark.

Consumers who want choice, are prepared to defend personal responsibility and act with consideration for others now have another voice they can call their own.

Who could argue with that? Personal freedom of choice is surely as basic a freedom as you can imagine.

Well, ASH can, of course.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said she doubted whether the ACC would be able to attract anything other than tobacco companies. “It would be crazy for food or drinks companies to jump into bed with the tobacco industry. It would wreck their reputations and completely undermine any arguments they want to make against future regulation.”

From her pre-emptive reaction we can assume that Arnott - you know, the one who claims her organisation doesn't attack smokers - doesn't believe there should be a campaign to defend freedom of choice to consume tobacco, alcohol, fast food and vaping. Or perhaps it's just the usual psychotic hatred of the tobacco industry blinding her to a perfectly reasonable concept.

Not only was her contribution to the Guardian's smear article an implicit acceptance that the 'domino theory' - which she publicly denies, remember - does, indeed, exist. It also read like a warning to other popular industries not to get involved or else they'll be treated poorly when PH comes for them too. It's like an organised criminal protection racket except it's being communicated by a state-funded fake charity against legal businesses - actually, it's not like a protection racket at all, it is one. You do what we say and we won't come for you next. a veiled threat that her and the like-minded bores we'd seen earlier at the LSHTM cannot wait to destroy any other popular industry which dares to defend the freedom of choice of its customers.

I digress, but I think you get the picture and I've already gone on too long. I can only finish by referring you to Twigolet's summation of the night, because it's nigh on perfect.

The comparison between the two events I attended yesterday could not be more extreme. At the first there were the ideological rantings of those who think it their place to control how we all live, what risks we take, how we balance risk against pleasure, and who are conceited enough to believe that their own war on the tobacco industry trumps all other interests. At the second were people who were happy to enjoy life to the full, and just want to be left alone to do so. I know whose company I prefer.

Quite. Never forget we're on the side of the angels here.