The Grey Miserable World of 'Public Health'

Life still exceptionally busy with Puddlecote Inc, I'm afraid, but I see that the 'public health' bandwagon is still accelerating down the slippery slope they claim doesn't exist.

I find this kind of thing quite staggering.

Cadbury, Chewits and Squashies sweets have become the first companies to have online adverts banned under new rules targeting junk food ads for children. 

The Advertising Standards Authority said the companies did not do enough to prevent under-16s seeing the content.

Now, if you were around in the 80s or 90s, did you ever think we would be in a position where kids are not allowed to see adverts for things that they like to eat, and have for decades? All based on a fantasy panic whipped up by repulsive self-enriching tax thieves?

The Telegraph carried an article which is equally astounding.

The Easter Bunny cannot be used to market chocolate to children, the ASA has ruled after finding against Cadbury. 

The chocolate company marketed a storybook, featuring eggs and the Easter Bunny, on its website, which broke the rules against promoting food that is high in fat, salt or sugar to children under the age of 16. 

Cadbury was banned from marketing The Tale Of The Great Easter Bunny, written by pop singer Frankie Bridge, on its website, after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), decided it was aimed at children.

The Easter Bunny? This is a character that parents have thrilled their young kids with for hundreds of years, but in the new joyless, grey, miserable world that 'public health' have planned for us, this is now illegal.

The hold that 'public health' has over politicians is astonishing, but then it's because politicians are weak, cowardly, and ultimately incredibly stupid, as I have mentioned before.

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!

But back to today. The trouser-stuffing tax spongers were elated, of course.

Obesity Health Alliance lead Caroline Cerny said: "Whilst today's rulings should be celebrated, the complaints demonstrate the blatant ways in which the food and drink industry attempts to exploit loopholes in the rules."

They are 'celebrating' another little bit of joy being eradicated from children's' lives just so they can keep their snouts in the trough. There is little more vile than that.

And who, pray, was it who complained anyway? What disgusting type of person is so miserable as to be driven to complain about something kids like? Well, fortunately, the rulings are on the ASA website. Here is the one ruling against Cadbury.

The Obesity Health Alliance challenged whether the ads were for products that were high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS product ads) that were directed at children.

In other words, no-one at all cared about the ad except the Obesity Health Alliance themselves, a collection of mostly state-funded organisations who would be out of work if they didn't continually promote scares to keep their funding stream.

The complaint about Chewits is much the same.

The Children’s Food Campaign (Sustain) challenged whether ads (a), (b), (c) and (d) were ads for products that were high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS product ads) that were directed at children.

Sustain is a taxpayer-funded parasite which is also, strangely enough, a member of the Obesity Health Alliance.

And who complained about Squashies? You guessed it.

The Children’s Food Campaign (Sustain) challenged whether the Squashies World advergame was an ad for products that were high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS products) that was directed at children.

In each case, there was only one complainant, and it was from people who fabricated the moral panic in the first place and took government money to lobby the government to come up with rules to take as much joy out of children's lives as possible.

It is surely about time politicians woke up and realised the destruction these self-centred bastards are doing to society. They are draining the joy out of kids lives for financial gain and are entirely unrepresentative of public opinion.

Where is this bonfire of the quangoes we were promised? It's the least that should happen because some of these obnoxious parasites deserve to burn for eternity.  

When The Lie Is Just Too Big

The Graun has today come over all concerned about shisha pipes.

Experts fear many shisha smokers are unaware of the health risks they are taking. They claim that shisha smoking – inhaling flavoured tobacco smoke after it has passed through a water basin – is significantly more damaging than smoking normal cigarettes.

Really? What 'experts' are these then?

A survey soon to be published by the anti-smoking group Ash says ...

Hmm, not a promising start, is it?

Experts said they were concerned many people were unaware of the risks associated with smoking shisha pipes. The BHF survey found that 84% of people thought that using a shisha pipe for an hour was equivalent to inhaling the smoke of 10 cigarettes. In fact, according to the BHF, it is like more than 100.

So, not experts at all. Simply the same old rent-seeking, from the usual suspects, in their favoured lefty organ. And spouting a figure which is pure fantasy.

Except that no-one - not even traditionally state and ban-friendly Guardian readers - is buying it this time, as is plain from the comments.

"Will they ever publish any objective studies to show the contents and effects of shisha smoke? Having seen the actual quantity of tobacco in the flavouring it's hard to see how the damage equates to a hundred cigarettes an hour." 

"Alarmist nonsense." 

"Do BHF even know how shisha is smoked by the casual smokers? [...] If you're going to tell me that an hour of shisha is as harmful as a 100 cigarettes, you're really going to have to give me a link to the study"

They won't be doing that anytime soon. You might read it!

"I don't really think the denizens of Edgware Road's shisha cafes give a XXXX what the BHF says. In fact, I'd take their opiniion on the matter over the self-interested scare-mongering of some tax-exempt charity any day...."

"ASH and the BHF are a bunch of sticky-beaks. what the hell has it got to do with them if some people want to enjoy a pleasant, fun, sociable smoke of a shisha pipe? I get the impression ASH and BHF are just not interested in positives."

Have they ever been?

And I get the impression they're not doing their reputations any good by adhering to a lie that is just too big. It's a classic case of the serial fantasist getting caught out when the Walter Mitty life they are living becomes too far-fetched to believe and doubts are irrevocably sown. 

As such, I do hope they continue with these daft shisha claims, because they lead to comments like this, my personal favourite.

"do ASH and the BHF really care about people's health, or are they simply a bunch of self-righteous puritans looking to guilt trip and scare people."

Well, we know the answer to that question, don't we? But it's great to see those scales falling away from many eyes, nonetheless.

We Pledge To Change Our Tune To Suit Our Bank Account

Here, you're gonna love this.

Further to my little rummage in the postbag recently, a somewhat disgruntled fellow jewel robber has kindly passed on an interesting letter from Cancer Research UK. As I mentioned in that article last month ...

[...] the employee who replied is one of a minority within [Cancer Research UK] who are aware that their company is involved in political lobbying. I've had cold callers begging for money who have laughed at me for suggesting that their charity is involved in politics. If their own fundraisers aren't aware of it, how do they expect anyone else to know [...]

Indeed, it would appear that the "Supporter Contact Advisor" who signed this letter - rejecting a plea for start-up support for a local cancer charity - is just one of very many who are blissfully ignorant of how CRUK spend their sizeable cash.
Strictly Research

Remember that quote when the sponsor form is thrust under your nose from someone trying to raise £50 by dressing in pink for a £482m mega-business. "When the public donates to us, we pledge that their donations will strictly go towards researching cancer.".

One wonders, then, how they square that 'pledge' with the £56k they recently gave to the University of Bath for a wiki guffaw-fest, or the substantial funds they have funnelled into the CRUK tobacco advisory group. Not to mention the alcohol equivalent.

It seems that they only proudly boast about their integrity in distributing funds when it is to refuse a leg-up to grass roots charities.

While on the one hand admitting they use donations for political lobbying ...

The link between smoking and cancer is irrefutable, which is one reason why we are currently campaigning for the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes.

... they blankly deny it when someone comes asking for a tiny portion of their substantial wage bill.

I wish they'd get their story straight.

A Rummage In The Postbag

Now we know that the tobacco control industry gets a bit upset about being questioned, it's added some 'glitzy' attraction to the approach, don't you think?

ASH reasons that tobacco companies are only upset about plain packaging because they know it will work (pfft). So by the same token, if tobacco controllers are squealing at having to justify themselves, they must be worried about being exposed. QED.

As such, the most effective way of irritating them as they bully you is to send letters and queries to find out what they are hiding away so assiduously. Since mentioning that readers here had been doing exactly that and sharing their e-mails with me, unsolicited, I'm happy to report that others have also stepped forward to raise other grievances.

Without wishing to sound like a modern day Barry Took, here's an interesting such missive from Mr R of somewhere or other (I don't pry).

Dear Cancer Research UK

A bit of licence there, I presume that would have been the introductory address.

I have given money to Cancer research uk in the past, thinking that it would be spent on cancer research and treatment. However I have since found out that a portion of the money is spent on stop smoking campaigns. I want 100% of my money to be spent on cancer research, not prevention of people smoking. Please stop your anti-smoking campaigns or I will stop giving money to you.

They did, at least, reply (not that it would harm their £482m annual income if they didn't) but contrite it ain't.

Thank you for your e-mail.

Cancer Research UK is dedicated to preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer. The link between smoking and cancer is irrefutable, which is one reason why we are currently campaigning for the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes.

Err, smoking causes cancer ... so we're hoping to ban colour schemes? That's one hell of a leap. There's still no whiff of evidence any kid has started because of the pack, let alone suffered years down the line as a result. In fact, CRUK's own report said they don't even notice them. But hey, salary-chasing anti-smokers have never been known for their integrity.

We fully appreciate that some of our supporters would like their donations to solely go toward our research. We therefore have the ability to ring-fence cheque donations received, so that this may be achieved. All that we ask is for the supporter to make it clear to us in a covering note that this is their stipulation and it will be processed accordingly.

Weasel words, if ever they have been seen.

All that people who donate to CRUK ask is that their money is used for what it says on their highly-advertised tin.


Nothing there about "together we'll beat anyone who enjoys tobacco", or "together we'll stop you drinking alcohol". Oh, you didn't know that as well as a Tobacco Advisory Group, CRUK also have an alcohol equivalent? Well, they do. They're not too keen on the food you choose to eat, either, and throw cash at demonising fast food produced by popular companies.

Somehow, "together, we'll stop people enjoying themselves, by lobbying government, because we haven't the first clue how to cure cancer after over 100 years pretending" isn't as snappy, and certainly won't help those 164 employees of theirs to continue earning over £60k per annum, eh?

So perhaps, if they were being transparent and scrupulous they might - instead of only revealing the 'ring-fencing' option when challenged by e-mail - let every potential donor know this before they put their hand in their pocket, or run round a field wearing pink, to help pay for the CRUK CEO's £210k+ salary plus pension. See, that might actually mean something rather than soft soap from an administrator who knows full well that whatever the odd disgruntled correspondent says won't make a blind bit of difference to how their ocean of cash is distributed.

But more than that, they are weasel words since the employee who replied is one of a minority within the organisation who are aware that their company is involved in political lobbying. I've had cold callers begging for money who have laughed at me for suggesting that their charity is involved in politics. If their own fundraisers aren't aware of it, how do they expect anyone else to know, or - more to the point - be able to find some obscure part of their website (if it exists) which details any 'ring-fencing'?

No. Best course of action is to give your charitable donations to local efforts which deserve them and, sadly, are often starved of cash because of the well-funded predatory nature of CRUK Mega Inc.. Or there's always less bigoted deserving causes who don't turn down donations due to being wedded to the goals of the pharmaceutical industry like, err, Cancer Research UK.

Anyway, I digress. Keep pumping out those badgering e-mails and letters, won't you? And do share the results, the more they squirm the more cathartic the experience, I find.

ASH's Contribution To Bingo: Thousands On The Dole

I haven't done this for a while, but an article which nearly passed me by has prompted yet another look at the now legendary ASH-drafted document, Myths and Reality of Smokefree England. Here's their take on bingo.

Myth: It will be bad for bingo

In the lead up to the smoking ban, pro smoking groups argued that the smokefree legislation was going to be particularly detrimental for both the profitability and long term outcomes of Bingo, with smokers more likely to stay home and use online gaming sites.

Reality: Gaming group Rank, which has 86 clubs in England said it was encouraged by performance at its Mecca bingo, with company shares up by 8.75%.

What ASH omitted, as is their wont, is that their own reference actually reported a decline in fortune for Mecca immediately following the ban.

Like-for-like revenues fell by 4.4 per cent at its English bingo clubs in the first weeks of the ban

Three and a bit years on, the true 'profitability and long term outcomes' of the industry can be assessed. And it's not pretty.

TWO bingo halls a month are closing and hundreds are ­fighting for survival because of plunging attendance figures.

A new study shows that profits in Britain’s once-booming bingo ­industry have nosedived since the smoking ban in July 2007.

As well as emptier halls, clubs have suffered a double blow ­because fruit machines used to generate up to half their income. But revenue from ­using them has dropped a third to ­£575million a year because players go outside to smoke rather than play machines between games.

In five years the number of UK clubs has dropped from 678 to 526 – with 25 closing last year alone.

Accountants Ernst & Young warn that many clubs are close to a 1,000-visits-per-week “tipping point” and more drops could put them out of business.

Profits halved from £250million in 2006 to ­£125million last year as ­players fell from five million to 2.5 ­million.

I think we can now safely say that ASH were comprehensively wrong on that particular myth reality. But then, as VGIF observed in May last year.

Myths and Realities of Smokefree England already has the makings of a fascinating historical document. With one or two possible exceptions that can be argued over, all of the so-called 'myths' have turned out to be true and all of ASH's 'realities' have turned out to be myths. And it took less than 3 years.

With the review of the smoking ban coming up in July, one would hope that the chasm between what ASH said would happen and what actually happened might come under scrutiny. It should certainly make policy-makers question ASH's credibility when it comes to passing further laws.

Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? Especially considering this woeful incompetence is financed by large sums of - now scarce - public money.

And incompetence it truly is since the original report reveals a human cost** not mentioned by the Mirror.

In line with the negative trend within the bingo industry and the continued evidence of club closures, industry employment has fallen in recent years. There were 12,256 employees in the industry in 2009. This represents a decline of 29% from the 2006 figure of 17,152 employees

That's a very precise figure (unlike the pretend numbers ASH routinely pull out of their derrières) of nearly 5,000 real, productive job losses attributable to hideous bastards such as ASH and their fellow tobacco control tax scroungers. It could be worse too, as this only counts those directly employed - the report also points to 0.76 losses in supply trades for every employee lost to the bingo industry.

And just to further highlight the objectionable nature of policies promoted by anti-smoking rent-seekers.

[...] the greatest proportion of bingo clubs are located in areas with relatively low median earnings. It therefore follows that a reduction in employment in the bingo industry is likely to be concentrated in low income areas.

Yes, that's right. ASH - who perpetually attempt to justify their lucre-motivated agenda as reducing inequality - are actively working to throw the less well off out of employment while they themselves continue to roll in state-funded lolly.

What's more, as they count their cash and enjoy a comfortable life on the back of the tax taken from the labours of others, ASH will doubtless also not give a stuff about the real, but incalculable, unhappiness they have caused by destroying bingo.

Former bingo caller Jim Bowen understands how much the game means to millions of fans.

"A lot of people who play bingo are widows, people whose husbands have died or are ill, and they're carers, and they manage to get two hours away from the strain and stress and demands of domestic life."

Contrary to the laughable departure from reality promoted by money-grubbing tobacco control advocates, the smoking ban has indeed been "particularly detrimental for both the profitability and long term outcomes" of the bingo industry, just as predicted. It has also turned low income families into no income families, and closures have brought misery and seclusion to the lives of many thousands of people.

How proud they must feel.

** The impact on ordinary people is what is important here since the Bingo Association are hardly blameless for their demise.

NSPCC Render CRB Checks Pointless

The NSPCC's rent-seeking MO of painting everyone with the paedophile brush continues apace, I see.

Via the Manifesto Club comes this prime example of normal adult/child interaction being presented as potential kiddie-fiddling (pun unavoidable in this instance).

As teaching musicians point out in this forum discussion, not only is the video a 'caricature' of their usual (and in no way sinister) instruction methods to elicit the correct creepy response, it is also unhelpful to the student.

Teachers note that touch essential - it is the simplest way to straighten backs, reposition hands, or deal with all the myriad errors in technique reproduced in every young player. They also note that no-touch policies make everybody anxious, and make the whole thing into a big (and potentially seedy) issue.

Indeed.

The Musicians Union, who collaborated with the NSPCC in this dirty-minded effort, say that the kids being taught may feel 'uncomfortable' but - anecdote alert - my only uncomfortable moment when being taught the cello in my youth was when the handlebar-moustachioed teacher loudly farted in the middle of a mock grade 3 exam, thereby right putting me off (perhaps that was the point, I never asked). His moving my fingers up and down the strings never raised any thought in me except that I was ballsing things up.

That aside, what I find quite extraordinary about this is that it would appear to suggest that the system of CRB approval is entirely useless. Here we are, as a country, suspiciously checking up to 14 million people in order to ensure they are safe to work with children yet - even after being cleared, as every personal music teacher will have been before holding lessons - any touch is still automatically considered to be grubby and assumed as a precursor to abuse.

The NSPCC are very good at spreading such irrational fears, which have led to sports days excluding parents, grandmothers being banned from taking pics of their grand-kids swimming, and friends being barred from looking after each other's children. But then, if they didn't, donations may suffer and their consultants wouldn't be able to sell as many books.

Oh yeah, and without such funds (£157m last time of asking), they also wouldn't be able to produce scaremongering videos about music teachers, or loan employees to political election campaigns.

If you ever wondered how we came to be in the position where parents aren't allowed to take photos of a nativity play; where mothers require a CRB check to help out on school day trips; and where voluntary theatre groups deem it not worth their while to accommodate kids, you should look carefully at the NSPCC and their self-serving scaremongery.

Call me old-fashioned, but people who see filth in every natural life situation used to be derided as 'sex cases'. Now they are respected and given money.

That's progress, I suppose.

Going, Going, Gone Barmy

I've been drafted into a quiz team tonight. Well, it's not exactly a team as such, there being just two of us. However, we shall gallantly challenge significantly more populated outfits consisting of squash-quaffing suburban librarians, teachers, legal secs and bank clerks ... and their iPhones. Our mission, as I understand it, is to drink plenty of beer and not finish last.

In the meantime, you might be interested in this catalyst for an involuntary collision of head and desk, flagged up today by Alex Deane of Big Brother Watch.

Jim Railton is an auctioneer. He was given a lot to sell - a little wooden cabinet with some 19th century eggs in it. It was valued at £30. He put it up for sale.

He was arrested and treated like a criminal - he is now charged with two offences relating to the sale of bird eggs under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (an Act some 90 years younger than the eggs...). As Jim says,

"in retrospect, we should have just smashed the eggs. They are antique birds eggs, and all of common species, and had old paper copperplate hand-written labels on them. It was a little oak chest, which we judged to be circa 1900.

We sell butterflies, shells, taxidermy – in fact just the type of things that come from people’s attics. To be arrested for offering to sell this little chest seems absurd, and a complete waste of police time. They have interviewed me twice, taken my fingerprints, swabbed me for DNA, had RSPB specialist inspectors visit Berwick to look at the eggs..."

Two questions immediately spring to mind.

a) Which birds, exactly, are being protected here by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds?

b) How does one go about building a time machine to carry us back to the days just prior to the brutal murder of police common sense?

Home Smoking Bans Just Got A Step Closer

Taking Liberties reports that ASH Scotland have just received a quite obscene amount of money even for a collection of tax-scroungers who spend most of their time begging for handouts.

You see, this is how ASH Scotland currently derives its £1m income.


If you look very carefully, you'll just be able to make out the sliver of pie which is freely and knowingly sent to this 'charity' by the public. If Jaffa Cakes contained an orangey bit as meagre as that, Trading Standards would be on the phone to McVities pretty damn sharpish. But it's set to get even smaller with the award of half a fucking million quid from the Big Lottery Fund. Yes, seriously, half a fucking million.

Hey, I know what you're thinking. What on earth could warrant a government body increasing ASH funding by 50% in the midst of a recession? Well, here you go.

The BIG Lottery Fund has awarded just under £500,000 to ASH Scotland over the next four years to manage a research partnership with the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The aim of the project is to develop knowledge which will lead to better interventions within homes of smoking parents/carers and better health.

Now, I hate to say I told you so but ... err ... I told you so in October.

John Tilley from the Department of Health, said:

“Action on smoking in the home will be a necessary part of future strategy on tobacco control."

And don't think that because you don't have kids that you are getting away with this. ASH Scotland already have a stated aim of banning smoking in all private vehicles [pdf page 14] by 2010, and half a mill leaves a lot of scope for diversifying the message they can give to their knob end chums in the scottish parliament.

What on earth were the Big Lottery fund thinking in awarding such a hideous amount of money to this appalling collection of righteous bansturbators and dangerously dictatorial finger-waggers, with the express intent of intruding on personal privacy? Especially when their work is so poorly valued by the public (lottery players included) that ASH would barely be able to afford a few desks and a cup of tea via public donations?

The Chief Executive of the Big Lottery Fund is Peter Wanless. He is on Twitter, so perhaps you'd like to ask him that very question.

The Public Are Too Inconvenient For Public Consultations

Al Jahom has been investigating stakeholders to the NICE consultation on plans to give powers of access to private homes.

Amongst the government agencies, he found a few quangoes and fake charities (clicken to embiggen).


The term 'stakeholder' is a specifically post-1997 Labour construct which has had a dramatic effect in excluding the public from all but a negligible input to the consultation process on any of the thousands of restrictive laws forced upon us.

The only real way of getting a contrary point across is to become a stakeholder. So, I thought I'd try. After all, I tick all the boxes, which suggests I have a stake in this study.

1) I own a house, which is referenced in this consultation. Tick.
2) I have a large 'stake' in the NHS, NICE's funding stream, as I pay a king's ransom every year towards it. Tick.
3) I have chiiildren (the excuse for this consultation). Tick

Unfortunately, the NICE web-site says that the public are not permitted to become 'stakeholders', so I asked why, exactly, I wasn't allowed to fill in the Word document and send it back along with all the other bodies which are funded by ... err ... the public.

The response was polite, but to the point.

Individuals are not accepted as stakeholders as it would be impossible for us to collate & respond to queries from the population at large.

Too much effort, you see.

So that's all right then.

The e-mail was also keen to point out that the press has been 'misleading' with regard to this process. Apparently, it's only a consultation to establish guidelines for the government. The implication, one would assume, is that this Labour administration - THE most restrictive, domineering, control-obsessed, invasive, and dictatorial in modern history - don't have to act on them.

So that's all right then, too.

Sometimes, one almost wishes that the replies to such enquiries would be more honest. You know, something like, "Just pay us money, sit down, and shut the fuck up".

When Crying Wolf Goes Bad

Hypocrisy, or a dramatic epiphany from the NSPCC? You decide.

Plans to vet parents who take part in activities involving regular contact with children have been criticised by children's charity, the NSPCC.

Children's services director Wes Cuell told the Sunday Telegraph the move could stop people doing things that were "perfectly safe and normal".

Like some might say home education was safe and normal, perhaps.

Vijay Patel, policy adviser for the NSPCC children's charity, also sees the need for a review. "Some people use home education to hide. Look at the Victoria Climbié case. No one asked where she was at school."

So to clarify things. Parents teaching their own kids at home is suspect and all such arrangements should be treated as potential child abuse opportunities until proven otherwise. However, volunteers taking other people's kids to events is 'perfectly safe and normal'.

Great. Clear as mud.

It's good that the NSPCC have come out with condemnation of the government's latest daft plan, though. I mean, how on earth did our MPs become so paranoid? Who has been bending their ear with inaccurate and alarmist information?

How the NSPCC faked child abuse stories to generate cash

The Advertising Standards Authority slammed the NSPCC for its actions.

In a damning summary, it upheld the claims of three recipients who complained the letter looked like a genuine example taken from a case of a child who had been abused, which could cause distress to young children who might have picked them up.

Say, what?

In May, the NSPCC ran a newspaper ad campaign to coincide with the Baby Peter case telling all and sundry that ...

The latest research reports that 1 in 6 children are sexually abused before they reach the age of 16.

Seems a tad alarmist, I'd say. That's because it is.

It's clear that the 1 in 6 figure is astonishingly over-stated as regards the dangers that parents fear from paedophilia. Saying that 1 in 6 kids are being 'sexually abused' is a sound-bite to strike the fear of Ian Huntley into any parent, and I venture to suggest that the NSPCC fully intended their figures to be taken that way.

Do you reckon the NSPCC might have conveyed this hysterical stuff to MPs at some point? Loudly? If so, it would explain a lot.

Be On Your Way, This Is Our Territory

It's been an 'I told you so' kind of week.

OK, admittedly the advancement of the 'ban on all alcohol advertising' propaganda wasn't difficult to predict unless you're a drinks industry appeaser with your cranium firmly planted in the desert. Even deluded local CAMRA officials might have got the idea by now.

However, I have been derided in the past for suggesting that the anti-smoking battle isn't about health at all, merely a corporate takeover of how nicotine is sold.

In 1964, a process began that was to lead, eventually, to the 'denormalisation' of a legal product and the leperisation of its users.

It wasn't initially supposed to happen that way. In fact, the producers and their public health detractors sat round a table to find a way of negating the newly-discovered health consequences of the popular product. Unfortunately, the initiative was shelved, or to put it more accurately, ruthlessly removed from history. Why? Because an alternative method of delivery had been invented.

The program was abruptly terminated, the team dismantled, the research records destroyed, and any trace of the program erased.

The tentacles of Big Pharma, in the course of perfecting transdermal nicotine and other nicotine delivery devices, stealthily took hold of public health, and pushed its authorities to pursue the policy of abolitionism, 'denormalization', demonization and fraud-based prohibition that we see today

Such was the birth of nicotine replacement therapy, and with it, the war for control of the nicotine market.

It's never been about anything else. Tobacco v Pharma, that's it. The real deal, the rumble in the corporate jungle. The world is their stage and smoking bans merely players.

Individual choice and liberty are quickly subjugated in the face of a £50bn global nicotine market.

Cancer Research UK, that austere and well-respected charity, are in the forefront of reducing the harmful effects of smoking. They trumpet regularly of their wish for a smokefree world. They foster a multitude of web-sites promoting campaigns devoted to eradicating cancer, the latest of which is to hide tobacco from view. That's how comprehensive their research is. Meticulous.

They haven't been too successful in finding a cure so far, but as they are not averse to spending £250,000 on adverts during Corrie to get women to run around a field scraping up £60 for them, I'm sure it won't take them much longer. 107 years isn't much to worry about in the grand scheme of things.

They do need every penny though, so dig deep. You could even try donating a percentage of your company's profits to the cause.

UK Electronic Cigarette company cheapelectroniccigarettes.co.uk are today launching a scheme which will see 10p of every product sold being donated to Cancer Research UK.

Owner Michael Kitt stated, “We sell a lot of electronic cigarettes all over the world and feel that it is only right that we also support a charity which has the same vision as us – creating a smoke free environment around the world by offering clean smoking without tobacco, tar and the thousands of other chemicals found in traditional cigarettes.”

What's not to like?

What, indeed.

Cancer Research UK Decline Donations From UK Electronic Cigarette Company

Online PR News – 08-September-2009 – On the 31st August 2009 cheapelectroniccigarettes.co.uk announced that they would be donating 10p of every product to Cancer Research UK. This was done, not only to show that they are good people but to also support a charity who they believed shared the same vision of creating a smoke free environment around the world by offering an alternative to tobacco smoking without the tobacco, tar and the thousands of other chemicals found in traditional cigarettes.

But to the shock of the business owner Cancer Research jumped at the chance to disassociate themselves with the scheme by utilising the skills of Neha Singhal, Volunteer Paralegal.

In an email written not to cheap Electronic Cigarettes but to the Manufacturers NUCIG, he wrote 'Please find attached a snap shot of the website where it is being claimed that you are donating 10p of every cigarette sold to Cancer Research UK and a press release dated 31st August also claiming the same thing. Please remove reference to our name from the website and also please make sure that no such press releases are announced in the future.'

Oh dear. It looks like CRUK have deemed e-cig manufacturers as the wrong suppliers of nicotine. So much so that they decline donations in favour of paying legal fees to stop the money coming in.

Nicotine replacement therapy is only acceptable if provided by CRUK's preferred partners. Electronic cigarette companies are not in the club, not on the list, and ain't coming in.

How very odd. Well, not really.

Those who smoke are quite welcome to bust a gut on the Race for Life, raising funds which CRUK will use to bend them over and make them take it very roughly, but trying to help people give up smoking in practice, and donating to CRUK in the process, before pharma companies can design and market their own e-cig, is a big no-no.

Giving up the fags without CRUK's pharma chums getting a few shekels out of it? Bad form. There is to be only one nicotine industry, and pharmaceutical companies don't like competition.

All about health? Please.

More Charity Scaremongery

You surely must have seen or heard it. We voluntary hedonists are all in mortal danger from cancer ... again.

Alcohol is largely to blame for an "alarming" rise in the rate of oral cancers among men and women in their forties, say experts.

Figures produced by Cancer Research UK show that since the mid-1990s, rates of oral cancers have gone up by 28% for men in their forties and 24% for women.

Yes, it's Cancer Research UK {yawn} de nouveau - you know, the ones funded by this government to produce stats which agree with their temperance agenda - on the hotline to Comrade Beeb (funded and controlled by this government to pump out stats that ... err).

"Alcohol consumption has doubled since the 1950s and the trend we are now seeing is likely to be linked to Britain's continually rising drinking levels.

Around three-quarters of oral cancers are thought to be caused by smoking and drinking alcohol.

Tobacco is, by far, the main risk factor for oral cancer, so it's important that we keep encouraging people to give up and think about new ways to stop people taking it up in the first place."

Yep. Alcohol consumption has grown since the 50s so it must be that, plus the fact that their research can't possibly make a case for it being down to tobacco means they have to add a little bit of extra scare to save face. CRUK have a tobacco control department and an alcohol control department (not that it is at all relevant, of course), so it must be them.

Don Shenker is ready with a quote again.

Alcohol Concern chief executive Don Shenker said: "Many people are not aware of the connection between alcohol and cancer, yet as this research shows, it can be a major contributor or cause of the disease."

I like that. Many people are not aware. Nor was he until CRUK told him. I bet he did excited star jumps when they rang on the righteous bat-phone. Cos then he could say this again.

He said it was time to introduce tobacco-style health warnings on alcohol.

And 'new research'? They looked at a graph, looked for a way of applying it to their continual hypothesis, and banged out a press release.

Proper cunt Ian Gilmore, and Alan Maryon-Davies the 'libertarian', were doing their rent-a-gob bit for the Beeb again but I'm sure we don't need to repeat their bollocks, do we?

There is, of course, no rebuttal or dampening down of the scaremongering from opposing interests on the BBC. I mean, how can one argue with rampaging cancer? If the producers of alcohol were to try, they'd be a right bunch of heartless kiddie-orphaning bastards, wouldn't they? Tobacco manufacturers might like to have a go, but then they had their opinions censored years ago.

Shame really, as they could point to some pretty sound stats which would lend themselves to a not guilty verdict.

Let's ruminate on some of the timescales involved here. CRUK are reporting on a massive increase in mouth cancer rates in the past decade. So what has happened in that time regarding alcohol consumption to cause this? I sigh as I quote Costigan Quist's analysis of ONS figures yet again.

Are we drinking more now than a decade ago?
No. You can look at all the data and see that pretty much everyone, men and women, all age groups, are drinking about the same as we were in 1992 and in 1996.

So the increase in mouth cancers has happened despite no corresponding correlation in consumption of alcohol. Must be something else then, no?

CRUK have obviously worked this out, so they increased the lead time to 50 years. On that they have a decent point. We are drinking more, there is no doubt. Twice as much, in fact. And, of course, in those 50 years, there has been no improvement in health care or detection rates for mouth cancer it would seem, according to them. No improvement in such things in the past 10 years in that regard, either. The world has, in effect, stood stock still (no improvement in the NHS at all, despite today's revelations by Andy Burnham).

OK, cheap shot, I know. So let's look instead at smoking rates since 1950 seeing as that is the incubation time that CRUK have chosen for this stuff. It's difficult to find such figures, but here's some that may be useful.

In 1950, they were very high.


But as you can see, they have fallen dramatically. They were already significantly lower in 1974 and have halved even from then.


But no dramatic reduction in mouth cancer rates. It could be, could it not, that detection has improved. That would surely be the only reason one could point to an increase in mouth cancers being linked to a massive decrease in smoking prevalence over the chosen (by CRUK) incubation rate of 50 years. If detection has improved, then perhaps the quarter increase in diagnosis of such cancers is small beer compared to a doubling of alcohol consumption in half a century, coupled with increased health awareness, dramatically better health care, and improved diet.

So, no real scare at all.

There were a couple of aspects that CRUK failed to mention in relation to mouth cancer, though.

How about the appalling state of our dental system under Labour?

A shortage of NHS dentists is leading to thousands of needless deaths from mouth cancer, according to dental experts.

There are 4,750 new cases of mouth cancer in Britain a year. A Citizens Advice survey found that almost three million adults in England and Wales have had no dental treatment since the introduction of a new NHS contract for dentists in April. The BDHF estimates that the real figure for the UK is up to 30 million.

"That's the really frightening number," said Dr Carter. "We need funding at ground level to ensure people are given easier access to dental care."

Funny that CRUK and the Beeb chose not to mention such a thing.

Neither did CRUK talk about the increased oral intake of alcohol via dental mouthwashes.

This review assesses the epidemiological evidence, supportive in vitro studies and mechanism by which alcohol is involved in the development of oral cancer. Further, we review the literature that associates alcohol-containing mouthwashes and oral cancer. On the basis of this review, we believe that there is now sufficient evidence to accept the proposition that alcohol-containing mouthwashes contribute to the increased risk of development of oral cancer and further feel that it is inadvisable for oral healthcare professionals to recommend the long-term use of alcohol-containing mouthwashes.

Hey, CRUK. Care to mention mouthwashes as a possible contributory factor? Or are you too far up the arses of the pharmaceutical manufacturers of such products to mention things like that?

Next time you hear or read the phrase "say experts" via a BBC medium, treat it the same as you would the "an insider said" prefix to something written in the Sun. There really isn't a lot of difference these days.

More Charity Scaremongering Challenged

Here's a rather topical article.

Sun warnings ‘overstated’ as science finds new clue to skin cancer

Sunshine is not the main cause of the most dangerous form of skin cancer, according to researchers, who say some warnings about the perils of sunbathing are scaring people unnecessarily.

So who would these scaremongers be, then?

Why, step forward multi-million pound business charity, Cancer Research UK.

Most skin cancers are caused by overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun or sunbeds.

Not so, says this study, produced by "An international team of researchers from Queensland, Australia, Montreal, Canada and Philadelphia, America, led by King’s College London".

Scientists, whose research appears in the current issue of the journal Nature Genetics, claim the number of moles on your skin is the most important factor in the risk of getting melanoma. This reignites the debate over whether official health warnings about avoiding the sun are overstated.

The authors of the research paper maintain sunshine causes only a small proportion of melanoma cases. They believe health warnings would be more useful if they focused on people who have more than 100 moles, and taught them to check regularly the moles for changes in shape, size or colour.

A CRUK spokesperson is wheeled out to comment on the latest news.

“The research does not in any way contradict the bulk of scientific evidence, which shows that most skin cancers are caused by overexposure to ultraviolet [UV] rays.”

Well, it sort of does, but then she is obliged to put a positive spin on it seeing as CRUK fund and/or produce the 'bulk of scientific evidence' of which she speaks.

If this latest study is correct, it would seem that CRUK, through their Sunsmart campaign, have been wrongly scaring the public about the dangers of exposure to the sun for years, with messages such as "Children Cook Quick" and "Sunburn fades - Sun damage lasts".

Targeting merely those who have 100+ moles on their body isn't quite as emotive, and as other national charities have long since worked out, terrifying scare tactics are good for business.

It's just a pity that they are also bad for the public's enjoyment of life in general, and maybe worse.

Discussing their work, the researchers even claim our “obsession” with the dangers of exposure to the sun has contributed to serious vitamin D deficiency. A shortage of sunlight – the most important source of vitamin D – can lead to an increase in deaths from other cancers, osteoporosis, depression and premature ageing.

Something else for Stop Charities Ruining Everyone's World with Egregious Mendacity (SCREW EM) to get their teeth into, perhaps?

H/T Nanny Knows Best

SCREW EM

Here we go again. An incredible over-reaction to a negligible problem, and as usual, it's the law-abiding who suffer. In the aftermath, life takes another step into the realm of joyless paranoia for everyone involved.

Schools bar parents from sports day... to keep out paedophiles

Parents have been banned from attending their children's sports day in an extraordinary measure to protect pupils from child abductors and paedophiles.

More than 270 pupils from four primary schools took part in the event - but there were no spectators because the organisers said they could not prevent 'unsavoury' characters from sneaking onto school grounds.

The decision to bar parents was made after a risk assessment concluded that Sandy Upper School in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, could not 'guarantee the children's safety' when it hosted the athletics day.

Those who decided this are unrepentant.

Paul Blunt of the East Bedfordshire School Sports Partnership, which ran the event, said the 'ultimate fear' was that a child could be abducted.

He said: 'If we let parents into the school they would have been free to roam the grounds. All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children.

As pointed out in the comments, is not that last sentence particularly chilling? All adults are now considered to be paedophiles and have to be 'supervised'. Even when just turning up to watch their children.

A child might be abducted? This, as is common practice with those who overthink tiny dangers, is the 'nuclear' scenario designed to sell a ludicrous measure to a staggered public. It has no basis in fact, it is merely the excuse. The righteous are well aware of the persuasive qualities of a scare.

There is, of course, no previous example of such an occurrence at a sports day - I wouldn't fancy the chances of a sex case who attempted to abduct a kid in front of the parents of 270 fellow children, would you? If I were a nonce, a school sports day would be the very last place I'd trawl for kicks (the kicks would end up being exclusively aimed at my head, for why). And even if such an outrage did happen, it would be because there was inadequate corralling of the pupils (sorry, students) by the teachers themselves, rather than staff supervision of parents, which would be at fault.

Where do these ridiculous people get the impression that paedophiles are lurking behind every tree and lamppost in the country, just waiting to pounce on some stray child?

Why, from charities such as the NSPCC, of course.

In May, the NSPCC ran a newspaper ad campaign to coincide with the Baby Peter case telling all and sundry that ...

The latest research reports that 1 in 6 children are sexually abused before they reach the age of 16.

Seems a tad alarmist, I'd say. That's because it is (remember that this is the same organisation who asserted that home schoolers were to be viewed as probable child molesters).

Let's number-crunch for a bit. There are approximately 30,000 on the sex offenders register, this figure appears constant whichever report you read. The NSPCC's own figures estimate the child population to be in the region of 12 million. As such, thus far discovered sex offenders must be screwing around 67 kids each to reach their ratio of 1 in 6. If they are less prolific, let's say they only manage to fiddle with 10 each, we are talking about 170,000 undiscovered paedophiles roaming around looking for young flesh.

Actually, there are probably more seeing as having sex with a bicycle, and being an inquisitive guitarist with The Who will get you listed, as will countless other transgressions which fall way short of abduction and buggery.

No fucking wonder everyone is scared!

But then one must take into account that the NSPCC is not so much a charity anymore, but a business operating in a crowded charities sector. They take hundreds of millions of pounds every year and roughly half of their income is spent on encouraging more donations.

To do so, the basics of marketing dictate that you must create a need for your product. The 1 in 6 figure is exactly that. It is trotted out at regular intervals, including the Baby Peter ad, and is a main plank of the Stop It Now campaign document [pdf]

The latest research reports that 1 in 6 children are sexually abused before they reach the age of 16.

By 'latest research' they mean a study in 2000[pdf] of just under 3,000 18-24 year olds, conducted by Pat Cawson. It was published by the NSPCC and they have been quoting that figure ever since. You won't be surprised to learn that Pat Cawson is Head of Child Protection Research at the NSPCC and, as well as her NSPCC salary, has a tidy sideline in selling books on the subject.

Cawson's study didn't just focus on what most people would term as abuse, but also consensual kissing and hugging between under 13s and those 5 years older than them (I hate to brag, but by those terms, I was 'abused' by a girl when I was 12 who kissed me lustily. I bloody loved it). It also encompassed activities where the child might have been asleep or unaware, and we're not talking being touched up here, merely being watched. Not only that, 30% of those asked couldn't be bothered to reply so the study is fundamentally flawed straight away. Plus, of the 16% who the NSPCC class as being abused, only 6% actually said they felt they were.

It's clear that the 1 in 6 figure is astonishingly over-stated as regards the dangers that parents fear from paedophilia. Saying that 1 in 6 kids are being 'sexually abused' is a sound-bite to strike the fear of Ian Huntley into any parent, and I venture to suggest that the NSPCC fully intended their figures to be taken that way.

As with other forms of charity fear-mongering, the lie is spread with their tin-rattling chums and is twisted to ignore the loose definition of the abuse being desribed.

Result? Parents banned from sports day. And it has to be re-emphasised.

All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children

It's getting to the point that we need a charity ourselves to protect us from the wolf-crying of money-grubbers who are destroying the fabric of life in this country, merely to inflate the coffers of their bloated payroll.

So, I've been thinking about this as it is not just the NSPCC who take the piss. Regular readers here will have seen the misapplication of funds endemic in Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation, but all the major charity names are at it. Enriching themselves on the back of skewed studies, massaged statistics, scare stories and shameless tapping of the public's pathos and goodwill for financial gain.

As a result, I was thinking of starting my own charity - Stop Charities Ruining Everyone's World with Egregious Mendacity (SCREW EM) - I reckon it's a goer.

I've even thought of a slogan/ad mantra.

Just give £2 a month and we can eradicate these greedy fucks forever. Together we can beat the blight of charity cash-trousering on the back of misery and fear. Give a national charity chugger a direct debit mandate, and their commission will feed them with McDonalds for a day, give them the tools to shoot their supervisor in the head, and they will live a lifetime not bugging you on the High Street garnering funds for their marketing department to lobby politicians into ruining your life.

OK, it might need to be made snappier, but it's a start.