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.