Open Mind, Mr Lansley?

The government's line on plain packaging has always been that they are keeping an open mind on the idea. You know, waiting to see what comes out of the consultation. They've been very consistent about that.

Andrew Lansley, himself, could not have been clearer on the matter.

"Would plain packaging of the type you are demonstrating, would it offer a significant additional health benefit? At the moment actually our minds are open on this subject - mine too."

Strange, then, that he is listed amongst other enthusiastic supporters of the proposal on the Plain Packs Protect campaign site, eh?


Now, either Lansley is a liar or plain packs campaigners are trying to con the public into believing that the Secretary of State for Health - and thereby the government - are fully behind the plan.

So who is lying? The Plain Packs Protect Campaign, or Andrew Lansley? I think we should be told, don't you?

(by the way, Tory policy-former Oliver Letwin is listed too, which explains a lot)

Beware Of Your Shadow, Britain

Britain's emotional state. Every day. Pictured recently

Following on from that atrocious debacle on the M6, The Sun carried a feature on e-cigs which takes a deeply depressing snapshot of 21st century Britain.

Reporter Nick Francis took one out and noted reactions on a bus, in the supermarket, a cafe and a pub. To facepalm reactions.

"It would annoy me if you sat next to me though (on a bus). There’s quite a lot of fake smoke.”

Before long the [supermarket] manager asked us to leave.

AT the Turk’s Head café, in Wapping, the manager barked: “Get out, I won’t allow it.” She added: “We have kids in here and they shouldn’t see smoking.”

[Landlord Pete Biddle] said: “The minute someone uses one I get endless customers complaining someone is smoking. I tell anyone using one to go outside like any other smoker. It’s only fair.”

With the exception of the bus passenger - who merely expressed annoyance - there seems to be a sense of tangible fear over something as innocuous as an e-cig producing odourless water vapour.

Talking anecdotally, last year I was at a pub in London where someone (not me) was using an e-cig which glowed blue at the end. The landlord stiffened and bristled as if the guy had pulled the pin from a hand grenade. Seeing this, I thought it useful to allay any fears he had and went to explain what it was to him, and to assure him that it was perfectly legal.

He relaxed a little and admitted he had heard of them but added that he "doesn't agree with them. I think they should be banned too". Asking him to expand, he replied - and I quote - "that sort of thing doesn't belong in a pub".

Now, this isn't one of your gastro-crèches we're talking here. In fact, it is a 'landlocked' premises which has won accolades for its real ale selection and still has a comforting fireplace at one end of the room. Small, friendly, and with pictures all over the walls celebrating its own history.

Exactly the type of place you could imagine seeing an old geezer in the corner, on a wizened leather chair, reading the Telegraph and puffing on a Briar. In fact, I've been in there before 2007 with the same landlord in charge and there was, indeed, a guy doing just that. Ashtrays on the tables too for whomsoever wished to use them.

How has such a guy been brainwashed that a perfectly harmless e-cig doesn't belong in a pub? The same pub which welcomed smokers for the previous hundred years at least.

We know the answer, of course. He is scared witless of the penalties (difficult to invoke and mostly unapplied) he imagines he might be liable for if anyone lit up an 'analogue'.

Likewise, the Sun's café owner is terrified by either the same threat or the incessant - and false - propaganda from anti-smokers saying that if a kid sees something that appears to be smoking, that they will instantly pop down the road and buy 20 Embassy. The supermarket? Well, they're just spooked to the point of denying custom by fear of the unknown.

It's hard to imagine that this is the same public which proudly boasts of winning two world wars, isn't it? Limp, effete, and cowering like timid rabbits at a small cloud of water particles which float for a second before disappearing into history.

I've drawn this picture before, but it's worth re-stating. Y'see, this is the country I grew up in.

And this is the insipid, spineless, trembling, feeble, life-drained, petrified, submissive, gutless, yellow-bellied, vanquished and whipped one we see today.

A nation of jittery and easily malleable pansies.

Churchill would weep, so he would.

The Health Mafia Strikes Again!

Possession of an independent mind is not really something the health lobby consider a quality, sadly.

A retired GP has been suspended from the BMA Welsh Council until 2014 after he questioned the evidence behind the BMA's campaign to ban smoking in vehicles on BBC Radio.

Dr Brendan O'Reilly, a retired GP, has also had his BMA membership suspended until he provides ‘an acceptable written apology' to four named BMA members, including Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of the BMA science and ethics committee.

In a hearing held yesterday a BMA Council panel said they considered Dr O'Reilly's language when describing his opposition to the BMA's use of statistics on the risks of passive smoking in cars as ‘unacceptable'.

And what was he criticising?

Among figures questioned by Dr O'Reilly was a statistic that children in cars are exposed to 23 times more toxins than people in a smoky bar.

In its determination, the BMA admitted it did, at a later stage, have to publicly revise some of the data in its briefing paper Smoking in Vehicles. But it said Dr O'Reilly's use of the term manipulation was ‘detrimental to the honour and interest of the BMA'.

That's right. Pointing out that the BMA were publishing absolute rubbish, which they themselves later admitted, is a crime liable to suspension in the BMA's book.

‘BMA members should be able to debate differences in opinion without being threatened or harangued for doing so,' he added. ‘There is a massive issue here about free speech.'

Free speech in the field of anti-smoking hysteria? I'm afraid it's not allowed, sunshine. Nor is truth, more's the pity.

Just ask James Enstrom or Michael Siegel.

More Pubs Are About To Get More Expensive

Never let it be said that this government doesn't act on the comments of Daily Mail readers.

Draft legislation has been laid in parliament so that later this year local councils will be able to:

- use early morning alcohol restriction orders (EMROs) to restrict the sale of alcohol in all or part of their areas between midnight and 6am
- charge a levy for late-night licences to contribute to the cost of extra policing, and other costs linked to late-night drinking like street cleaning

You will note that these powers are being given to 'local councils'. You know, the kind of entity sometimes run by utter maniacs.

Now, what do you think they will do with such powers? Use them in only the most excessive of cases, or whenever they are able to play with their new toy? Whaddya think?

The detail is even more depressing, as detailed in the government's consultation response document.

On the restricting of sales between midnight and 6am ...

2.14 Suggestions for types of premises that should be considered for an exemption from EMROs included charity events; art galleries; best practice schemes; Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASCs); private member’s clubs; restaurants and community or country pubs. Other comments suggested that responsible premises should be exempt from every EMRO; that licensing authorities should have the discretion to introduce their own exemptions; and that there should be no exemptions from EMROs.

Sounds fair.

2.17 We have decided that there will be no exemptions from EMROs. The intention is that an EMRO should be a simple, pre-packaged tool for licensing authorities to use to readjust the focus of their night-time economy away from problem drinking, when it is found not to promote the licensing objectives. Exemptions would dilute the impact of an EMRO

Oh yeah, silly me. It matters not how responsible you or your customers are, or whether you contribute to late night problems or not. It's just too difficult to distinguish from those who cause problems and those who don't, so everyone must suffer a collective punishment.

They're kind enough to allow you a drink after midnight on New Year's Eve, though. Small mercies, and all that.

And on the late night levy?

3.04 Local residents can use their existing rights to make representations and other channels of communication to call for the implementation of the levy in their area. The 2011 Act has provided residents with new opportunities to be involved in licensing decisions by removing the requirement that they must demonstrate vicinity to premises before making a representation.

Don't live anywhere near the noisy bars and late night revellers? It doesn't affect you until you open the Mail and read the hysteria? That's not a problem, you can inflict extra charges on the premises regardless. Just pick up the phone and whine to your heart's content about the youth of today, how it wasn't like that in your day, and that national service would sort 'em out. Job done.

3.11 Restaurants will not be exempt from the levy. We believe that restaurants which operate between midnight and 6am are usually part of and profiting from the night-time economy.

Not only will you not be able to enjoy a Cobra with your Chicken Bhuna, you're also likely to pay more for it thanks to Mr Angry of a town miles away.

But surely, Dick, this is only something which will affect city centre hell-holes, why should we care? Well, if that were the case, why would there be a need for this exemption?

3.18 Country village pubs will be included as a discretionary exemption from the levy, subject to specific definitions. In England, this exemption is applicable to those premises which are within designated rural settlements with a population of less than 3,000

So, I take it that the daft idea of minimum alcohol pricing can be shelved now late night carnage - urban or rural - has been tackled by our brave and benevolent government?

Course not, that's not the way the ratchet is set. It only ever goes one way, remember?

The New Tobacco This Week Is ...

What's the new tobacco this week? Go on, I'll give you as many guesses as you like, you'll never get it.

Smokers and pro football players have something in common: They engage in risky behavior that can be potentially harmful to their health over time.

That's American football specifically, but who knows where it could spread from here?

The recent wave of lawsuits filed on behalf of retired players uses similar arguments to those made by attorneys representing smokers who sued tobacco companies more than 15 years ago — in this case, that the National Football League knew repeated concussions could lead to brain damage and yet hid the information.

More than 2,400 retired players are now plaintiffs, looking for the kind of success smokers had against the tobacco companies. The result then was a landmark, $206-billion settlement shared among 46 states. But the ex-players face a huge challenge as they take on a multibillion dollar industry that is the most popular sport in the United States.

Err, Big Football, do you mean? By crikey, popular has never been so derided, has it?

“The NFL took a page right out of the tobacco industry playbook and engaged in a campaign of fraud and deception, ignoring the risks of traumatic brain injuries in football and deliberately spreading false information to its players,” said Sol Weiss, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs.

I don't know how many millions of supporters the NFL system has, but I suspect they won't be happy about their teams being starved of cash by ambulance chasers inspired by insane tobacco-hating lunatics like Stanton Glantz.

Never in the history of human existence have so few selfish, lucre-motivated obsessives harmed the gentle pleasures of so many decent people.

Next stop boxing, perhaps?

H/T NorCal David G

The Game Is Fixed, But Not Playing Is Defeatist

In typically trenchant style, I think that the Devil has had a bit of a veiled pop at me this morning.

Originally, I'd planned to reply in the comments but it was becoming rather long, hence this article. You see - we both being libertarians and my occasionally dropping one or two articles over at the kitchen myself - it shouldn't come as a surprise that I agree with him.

Well, up to a point.

A great number of bloggers are getting terribly worked up about the plain packaging consultation, both relevant to the subject matter.

It is inevitable, of course, that because the government have not got the answer that they wanted from the "consultation" that they should "extend" the timescale to let all "stakeholders" respond.

None of this matters.

The power to "dictate the colour of cigarette packs, their shape, the trademarks displayed on them and any labelling" was handed to the Health Secretary solely back in 2009.

And you poor fucks think that we live in a democracy.

The consultation on this matter—just like the "consultation" on the display ban—is simply a democratic fig-leaf: the government simply wants to pretend that it is, in any way, answerable to the people.

Anyone who believes that our democracy is in any way "representative" is an idiot.

Indeed, this is mostly true. And also something I've acknowledged here before with articles entitled "How to rig a public consultation", and "How to rig the evidence for a public consultation", both relevant to the subject matter.

Politicians with power in this day and age are as slippery as a turkish wrestler; the civil servants behind them bent and self-serving. Politics is corrupt, and trust in the whole process is rightly screwed as evidenced by quite appalling election turnouts.

However - and it is a big however, in my book - this is precisely the reason why we should be getting right under the skin of these hideous fucks by playing their game, however fixed it may be.

Objection to the idea of plain packaging has come overwhelmingly from the police; the proposal has been lambasted by retailers; and packaging and related industries have detailed how it will put people on the dole in a recession, no less. Additionally, personal responses to the consultation have been numerous; and if government was hoping it would be a simple case of counting signatures collected by their various truth-free networks, the busy opposing petitions - including one outside London stations which fellow jewel robbers report to be doing a brisk trade - have embarrassment factor written all over them if handled right.

On the other side is nothing but hyperbole, government-funded self-lobbying, unsubstantiated claims, and - most importantly - a complete lack of any evidence whatsoever, which even the plan's biggest supporters admit.

If the dust settles with parliament deciding to ignore the sane majority once again, especially so soon after their pathetic idiocy has been unveiled to an incredulous public with the laughable tobacco display ban, it will mean hundreds of thousands more who will have had their eyes opened as to the disgusting abuses imposed on them by common sense-challenged MPs and their unaccountable support network.

The alternative - to shrug shoulders and just let the self-serving pricks get on with it - is unconscionable, in my opinion. Every opportunity that exists to show them up as ignorant and dictatorial should be seized upon with both hands, and this campaign has the potential to do just that.

Politics is, and always will be, a long game. The loony left and Mary Whitehouse-esque figures were objects of derision just a couple of decades ago - now they run the country, a perfect example of why knocking on closed doors is something we should be doing however futile it may seem right now.

There's also the matter of principles and integrity. As Delingpole described a week or so ago. While the bansturbators lie through their teeth and destroy the lives of others purely to trouser more cash for their grubby selves, we can hold our heads high and know that we've acted in defence of liberty and self-determination ... unlike Westminster tosspots who should be doing so but wouldn't recognise integrity if it were presented as a super-hero and advertised on billboards twenty foot high outside their office window.

So, I will continue to advocate that the consultation should be responded to (if you haven't yet done so, please go here and object in the strongest terms), and in a most emphatic fashion. The Devil is correct that insular Westminster knuckle-draggers will most likely ignore us, but that isn't any reason not to get a blow in here and there along the way. Being stubborn and saying no is a virtue which - if shown by more of us - would have prevented the vile bastards from putting us in such a powerless position in the first place.

Well, that's my take on the situation anyhow, although it has to be admitted that the Devil's mass hanging idea is equally attractive.

Full Fact Joins Us In Rubbishing The Heart Attack Miracle Lie

Via Belinda (who is in top form of late, do go read her excellent commentary today as well), it would seem that we have a reason to thank serial bullshit-writer, Laurie Penny.

True to form, her Independent article on the fifth anniversary of the smoking ban was merely her usual exercise in anti big business parroting of whatever line she believes will keep her on the lefty payroll at any particular time. Sadly for Laurie, pulling numbers out of her ideological arse has backfired this time as widely-read statisticians, Full Fact, decided to call her bluff.

But has the smoking ban achieved what it set out to and improved the health of the nation? Particularly, have heart attack rates in the UK fallen by as much as 26 per cent as Laurie Penny claims in her comment piece for the Independent?

At first glance it is not obvious where the statistic quoted by Ms Penny comes from.

Is it ever?

I won't go into detail, except to urge you to go read their full analysis and enjoy how politely they illustrate how she just made it up as she went along.

Despite this, though, we should be thankful that she was so blasé with her 'evidence'. Because, you see, it's something that tobacco controllers have been accustomed to getting away with for years. It's only once someone high profile like Penny utters the same patently unbelievable crap that the likes of Full Fact are attracted to it.

We should also thank Laurie for this graph that Full Fact have provided to their many thousands of followers.

And the 'Emperor's New Clothes' commentary which accompanied it.

The most noticeable thing from the chart is not only the steady decline in the heart attack rate, but that this decline has been happening at roughly the same rate since 2002. The smoking ban in England, introduced in 2007, doesn't appear to have affected the previous trend a great deal.

Or, indeed, at all.

We jewel robbers are past masters at seeing through public health snake oil salesmanship of course, but Laurie shouldn't be condemned too much for swallowing the tincture in one gulp seeing as her brand of unthinking gullibility is par for the course these days amongst the easily-led. We should, instead, rejoice that some long overdue focus is directed at literally impossible claims thanks to her ham-fisted attempt at defending Labour's illiberal excesses.

Just one of many examples of the same statistical sophistry can be seen in this 2008 BBC article on the marvels of the ban.

The smoking ban in England, introduced a year ago, has dramatically increased the number of people giving up the habit, it is claimed.

A survey [by anti-tobacco, competing interest professional Robert West] suggests more than 400,000 people quit smoking as a result of the smoking ban.

Which materialised as, according to the Department of Health's Tobacco Programme Manager, Andrew Black?

See that 'dramatically increased' number of people quitting? No, neither could anyone else if the true evidence was presented to them, but then true evidence is something that the public are never meant to see if the tobacco control industry has anything to do with it.

In such a way does the truth-avoidance anti-tobacco bandwagon keep rolling on, with one cleverly-placed soundbite after another fooling the dull in society that failure is actually something to be desired.

While we're on the subject of true evidence, you might be interested to know that the aforementioned Andrew Black was doubtless quite happy that the BBC's quitters claim was published, but his department has been eerily silent when it proved not to be correct. Only hand-picked 'facts' are ever allowed to see the light of day, and only if they agree with the one-sided aims of civil servants and authoritarian MPs.

He is now heavily involved in bludgeoning through the {cough} 'evidence' to prove plain packaging will be effective. Just one more reason - to add to very many others - not to believe a single syllable the absurd and venal pro plain packaging lobby utter on the subject, I'd say.