Anne Milton And Her Policy-Based Evidence Gathering

Being a bit of a Philip Davies groupie, I'm always keeping an eye on his activities in parliament (it's not stalking, Phil, honest), and this week he asked a pertinent question of Anne "what am I doing in the Tory party?" Milton. Her reply staggered even a hardened bullshit spotter like me!

Philip Davies (Shipley, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health

(1) what peer review was undertaken on (a) the calculations of the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses contained in and (b) the research on the economic burden of tobacco use on society cited in the Tobacco Control Plan for England;

Anne Milton (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Public Health), Health; Guildford, Conservative)

“Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A Tobacco Control Plan for England” included an appendix providing resources for tobacco control (pages 48-53). The references to the Policy Exchange’s “Cough Up” report and the Action on Smoking and Health website provide further information on the costs of treating smoking related diseases and the economic burden on society of tobacco use

Beg pardon?

Leaving aside the laughable mention of ASH as a reliable and impartial source, does she seriously mean that car crash of a document Henry Featherstone wrote in breaks between snogging Deborah Arnott?

The report which led the IEA to take the extraordinary step of trashing a fellow right of centre think tank? The one hacked to bits by the TPA's Matthew Sinclair on Conservative Home, and pilloried at the Telegraph and the Spectator? The one that even the BBC - usually straining at the leash to publish anti-smoker junk studies - wouldn't touch due to its toxic lack of credibility? That report?

It would appear that, yes, she does indeed mean the one described on these pages as 'That Policy Exchange Nonsense'.

This, remember, is the same Anne Milton who claimed last year that she was "not aware of any evidence that removing tobacco displays will affect the number of retail outlets", despite having been sent a copy of a report - illustrating exactly that - presented to the IEA just half a mile up the road from her office.

Now, I'll be generous and not jump to the conclusion that she is either dreadfully inept at her job or crashingly stupid, which such incompetence would seem to suggest. Instead, let's assume her actions are perfectly in line with the way this government operates. From this, we can accurately map the complex processes involved in drafting rules and regulations within Westminster.

So here, exclusively, is a cut-out-and-keep guide to how modern political policy-making works.


I think, in light of the above, we've discovered why our government makes such a dog's breakfast of everything it meddles with, don't you?

Up With This Sort Of Thing

As a business owner, I've ploughed through many a politely-worded business-speak pdf file, the good Lord help me I have. I've seen so many that if you cut me up, my retinas would be indelibly imprinted with terms such as 'Key Performance Indicators' and 'Milestone Objectives'. In triplicate, probably.

Then, for relaxation, I come home and ... read more pdf files from public sector blow-hards and state-funded, pumped up, anti-fun bansturbators who seem to think they are somehow not the same as indolent benefit leeches. Which they are, of course. In fact, here are some pictured sitting on their sorry arses wasting the handouts that they are shovelled. Bring back national service, I say! Send the lazy, good-for-nothin' tax drains off to Afghanist...

... anyway, I digress. Back to the point.

I read yet another last night, as posted at Taking Liberties. A response to the Welsh Assembly by Imperial Tobacco, specifically, and if you haven't yet done so, perhaps you should read it too as it came as a bit of a surprise.

Simon Clark gave us a few teasers, but the whole document was a fully-referenced piece stubbornly rejecting the collective back-slapping of Welsh legislators in the tobacco control debate (if there ever was one).

As I said, these things have to be worded in a certain way - it's laid down in the public sector scriptures, so it is - but in seven glorious pages, Imperial Tobacco eloquently conveyed the message "Sorry, but you've lost the plot, and we ain't buying your crap no more".

What's more, they did so by quoting back to the assembly their own - and Westminster's - (expensively-drafted) documents. Here's an example.

It is therefore bewildering that the Government sees adult free choice as a ‘problem’; that prevalence stagnation is due to a lack of mass-media anti-smoking campaigns⁷, the use of niche tobacco products⁸, and smoking in cars and homes⁹, all of which were considered negligible issues at the time of the smoking ban⁶. When informed adults choose to continue smoking the answer should not be yet more draconian and disproportionate policies to force behaviour change.

The superscript references were Welsh consultation document assertions totally refuted by Welsh NHS papers apparently referenced in the process.

Likewise:

The Plan claims that ”Smoking is also a leading cause of health inequalities, having been identified as the main cause for the gap in life expectancy between rich and poor.”¹¹

The belief that health inequalities arise as a consequence of smoking is spurious. As set out clearly in the Marmot Report published in the UK last year, the root causes of health inequalities are fundamental:

“…Most effective actions to reduce health inequalities will come through action within the social determinants of health. However, attempts to reduce health inequalities have … relied increasingly on tackling more proximal causes (such as smoking), through behaviour change programmes. Part of the explanation for this emphasis lies with the comparative ease of identifying action to address behaviour, rather than the complexity of addressing social inequalities shaping such behaviours.” ¹²

Marmot sets out two alternatives; one challenging but effective, one simple but ultimately inadequate. The Government appears guilty of opting for the latter option.

And after blowing a raspberry at the consultation for its shoddy evidence, well, why not a bit of plain old-fashioned ridicule, eh?

The Plan insists that there is no evidence of a shift in smoking to the home from pubs and workplaces. Considering that prevalence levels have remained flat at 24% since 2007 it leads one to question where else the Government thinks the adult smokers, who have been forced out of pubs, now smoke.

I just wish the author had been allowed to suffix that with "well, duh!".

Oh, oh, wait. I nearly forgot this bit, you'll love it!

Furthermore, the evidential base for the introduction of invasive legislation is often absent or highly flawed. For example, one report that was extensively recycled in the media claimed that second-hand smoke was “…23 times more toxic in a vehicle than in a home...” ²⁰ Such claims are without any substance, and have been roundly refuted by the evidence²¹.

Indeed. In fact, there wasn't any evidence whatsoever. It was a load of made-up guff from the start and bolstered by a game of gullible Chinese Whispers, as we who are 'not experts, Dave' have known all along, but which ASH (the experts, remember?) swallowed whole.

As did dozy Welsh anti-smoking politicos (and boy are they dozy, you only have to remember laughing at this guy for proof), it would seem.

It's been suggested that the response, great as it is, won't even be read by the people paid by Welsh taxpayers to do so. That's as maybe, but perhaps Imperial Tobacco knew that, as the only thing missing from the response was a great fat dirty one of these at the bottom.

Yaki dah this, sunshine

Following on from obstinate challenges to the vending machine and tobacco display bans in Scotland, is this a new, hunkier tobacco industry we are seeing here? One more in tune with what we would like to see from them?

Let's hope so, 'cos I read the Imperial response and was hearing the A-team theme as Mr T bazooka-ed the damn fools who had held him captive for much of the show; it was the Indiana Jones grimace as he decided enough was enough in Temple of Doom; the bullied kid finally wising up and kicking Big Baz squarely in the balls.

We want more of this stuff, guys and gals. Civil servants and their fake charity lickspittles may not be listening, but if we really must be surrounded by morally and evidentially corrupt righteous scumbags, let's go down fighting like Butch and Sundance, not Mr bloody Bean*.

* Or, indeed, CAMRA.

Shocking, But Somehow Not Unexpected

In an excellent article at The Free Society, Simon Hills last week put his finger firmly on the foibles of well-off UK 'progressive' elites. Drawing on the recent referendum results, he highlighted the collective mentality of Guardianistas who seem to think they are more worthy, and infinitely wiser, than the rest of us.

We just know that this class would be pro AV. In the same way that we know that it is pro-Palestine, pro-abortion rights, pro-alternative energy, pro-positive discrimination, pro-gay rights, pro-immigration. By the same token we know that the chattering classes are anti-fast food, anti-big business (with the exception of the Apple corporation), anti-car, anti-smoking, anti-television, anti-selective education. Anti working class, in other words.

Never a truer paragraph written, I'd say.

While they look to form the country - and we poor saps who have to endure their righteous pomposity - in their own image, they no doubt glance with envious eyes at the lefty paradise of San Francisco, where much of the above - if not already enshrined in law - is assumed to be accepted by everyone without question.

So much so, that the pro-Palestine (and consequentially anti-Israel) sentiment has been carried a bit too far in their zeal to ban circumcision for male children. Yes, I'm serious, they really are doing that.

With lobbying now in motion, the pro-ban contingent have - seemingly with no shame - targeted natural Jewish, religion-led, opposition with startlingly offensive campaign literature.


Now, I first thought this must be a cleverly-constructed smear, but the Foreskin Man website gives credit for the idea to the President of the organisation at the forefront of pushing the legislation through.

I don't think anyone sane believed we'd ever again see a totalitarian ideology confidently promoted with such obnoxious imagery, but there it is in technicolour.

This type of staggering arrogance - that it is unquestionable that their opinion is correct, therefore literally anything goes in pursuit of the cause - seems to be very common in all 'progressive' campaigns from public spending plans, through anti-obesity/smoking/fatty food directives to loopy and disastrously expensive 'green' initiatives. Who cares how damaging their policies, propaganda or methods are as long as they get what they want, eh?

In light of this and the other iron fist measures pursued so vigorously by the formerly peace-loving hippies who have destroyed tolerance (and the economy) in San Francisco, you have to wonder if they really do deserve the label that some ascribe to them.

We'll not need to openly invoke Godwin here, I think you get the gist.

Aww, Just Look At Their Little Joyous Faces

See? I told you they'd be delighted, didn't I?

H/T @cjsnowdon

You Silly Sods!

Via Belinda, it would appear that someone at the Scottish Licensed Trade Association has spent too much time sitting in the sun recently.

Here's the facepalm lunacy as reported by the Sweaty Daily Mail:

Supermarkets would be forced to charge a minimum of £10 for a bottle of wine under plans outlined by Scotland's pub bosses yesterday.

The Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA) has urged ministers to dramatically hike alcohol in a bid to save bars from closure.

Its proposed £1 a unit 'minimum price' would send bills soaring for families. A can of standard lager would cost at least £1.76 and a bottle of whisky would rise to £28.

Under the SLTA proposals, the price of 12 cans of 1664 lager, which sell for £7.22 at Tesco, would hit £26.40. Under the SNP's 45p-per-unit plan, the price would be £11.88. For a bottle of First Cape Chardonnay, the current £3.49 cost would rise to £9.38 under SLTA proosals and £4.22 under SNP plans.

As ideas go, there haven't been many as barking since Stephen Milligan thought an orange and a bin bag might make a fun combination.

How anyone can believe that a minimum price policy would only be directed at one type of drinks retailer under current competition laws, is anyone's guess. And I don't know the prices of pub beer and wines north of the border, but even in the affluent south it's not hard to find a decent bottle of white on sale over the counter for around £8, and pints in the region of £2.

The SLTA proposals would mean a pint of Fosters couldn't be sold for less than £2.15, and a pint of Heineken, £2.84. That's Wetherspoon's year-round deals buggered straight away, let alone thousands of other offers in Scottish pubs which are desperately scrapping for market share by cutting prices.

Additionally - as Belinda soberly notes - it's a quite insane policy even if one forgets that Scotland has no border controls whatsoever to stop the huge increase in cross-Hadrian trade which would inevitably arise.

Minimum pricing will be good for nothing but creating mayhem in a country where many people can't afford shop alcohol prices. As recommended by the SLTA, it will do communities even more damage, without any likely impact on the closure rate of pubs. The recommended £1 per unit might persuade people to be grateful for a minimum price of 45p, in which case the licensed trade will have done the SNP an ill-deserved favour.

Indeed.

I'm minded of the attempted kidnap scene in Life of Brian where two groups of freedom fighters beat each other senseless to the bemusement of Roman sentries. Instead of a unified front to repel dangerous and absurd health lobby authoritarianism, here is an obscenely myopic organisation using supermarkets as a 'human shield' in the vain hope that they might be left alone.

I think my antipodean mucker Crampton said it best last year. And it is increasingly holding true in light of such rampant stupidity from entities such as the SLTA.

The hospitality industry lobbies for more restrictions on supermarket-bought alcohol to boost sales in bars; small brewers push for more punitive tax rates on big brewers... the only winners are the healthists who get support bit by bit for more regulations on everything. It's like a bunch of folks on the scaffolds complaining that the other guy's noose isn't quite tight enough. Y'all might instead direct your attention to the hangman sometime and try helping each other cut those ropes.

Quite. You have to wonder where these idiots have been for the past few years, and when they're finally going to realise that they are perceived as part of the problem, instead of this romantic fantasy they have of health obsessives somehow being sympathetic to them.

Good grief.

UPDATE: Yet the SLTA can, at times, be so very sensible ... like here. Go figure.

Dick Out And About: Tea And Cigarettes

Pat Nurse's Tea and Cigarettes blog was deleted over the weekend, but isn't anymore. I've written something over there to explain.

Please do go read.

Paternalism: Clash Of The Think Tanks

I know it's Monday morning, but let's wake the week up with a bit of libertarian verbal pugilism, eh?

Ding, ding, round one! It's the ASI v TFA on state intrusion into parental matters.

In the liberty corner we have Eammon Butler, Director and founder of the Adam Smith Institute.

[...] paternalism is best delivered within families, and by self-control in the media, rather than from governments and regulators. If politicians are worried about the sexualisation of our children, they should perhaps first reflect on how the state has intruded into the family, and undermined family culture and responsibility. Then butt out and let ordinary decent people decide what is best for their own children.

Quite right too.

And in the freedom corner sits, ahem, Freedom Association intern David M. Gibson.

I am a non-smoker, two of my relatives have died from smoking-associated cancers and my university years were spent sucking in other people’s disgusting smoke as I laboured in bars.

I believe heavy smoking when pregnant and around children to be child abuse and, wherever physical harm can be attributed to parents’ smoke beyond reasonable doubt, prosecution should follow.

[...]

if there is sufficient evidence (and I emphasise evidence) that a child has developed a medical condition because of his parents irresponsible smoking habits, it's no different from a child suffering obesity or malnutrition because of his parents irresponsible dietary habits.

Which looks dangerously like it could be construed as agreeing with the idea of precautionary home smoking bans and state interference in family meal choices to me.

Personally, I reckon the ASI wins by a knockout. You?