Today's Labour Health Recipe: Reheated Snobbery In Envy Sauce

Today's Labour "New Approach to Public Health" must be the most disingenuous and spin-fuelled document I think I've ever read, and that's saying something.

It reads like it was written in Islington by a bien pensant yogic chakra-chasing millionnaire surveying life outside their window with disdain and revulsion at how the unwashed choose to enjoy themselves. This, apparently, is what the modern Labour party thinks will chime with working class people currently deserting them en masse for something more honest. Elitist snobbery with lashings of lefty anti-business envy thrown in for good measure.

Do have a read of the document here, it's a dog's breakfast even before you factor in the spelling and grammar mistakes. But if you can't waste your time on it (and I wouldn't blame you) I'll save you the trouble by pointing out some corkers.

If the 20th century challenge was all about adding years to life, then the 21st must also be about adding life to years. 

As was much discussed on the media today, this is Labour's war on "alcohol, sugar and smoke", all of which are enjoyed by many many people. It's how a significant majority of us add life to the years we have on this planet. By deciding that these free choices are bad for us so we should be stopped from enjoying them as much as we have chosen to, Labour are simply "adding years to life", so how exactly has anything changed? Orwell would have pissed himself laughing at Labour's shifty and clumsy attempt at hiding that.

Changes to diet and lifestyle mean it is all too easy to lead a less healthy life than in times gone by, and we all risk taking on more sugar, fat and salt than is good for us 

It kinda depends on who is deciding what is good and what is not good for us, doesn't it? At the moment, we mostly decide for ourselves, but Labour want to change that. However, it's not finger-wagging, oh no.

[T]o avoid accusations of a ‘nanny state’ approach we need to set out clearly what we see as the proper limits to government action. If policy makers fail to address the ‘nanny-state’ claim, it could in the end undermine public support for making progress on public health. A negative tone, perceived as telling people what to do, can turn people off.

Would "telling people what to do" include, for example, mean demanding that they quit smoking whether they like it or not? Of course.

The ban on smoking in enclosed public places is an example of how big social change to improve health can be achieved with broad public support.

There was never broad public support for the ban we had imposed on us, in fact there was majority support for exemptions. Labour ignored them and wagged their finger anyway. Or, to be more accurate, their finger was wagged by the tax sponging quangos and fake charities which I often think must have compromising pictures of Labour politicians dogging or something, so obsequious are they to public health extremism.

It has been left it (sic) to Labour, from the Opposition benches, to lead the public health debate with the move to ban smoking in cars with children and proxy purchasing of cigarettes.

Debate? What debate? Public consultations are a sham and no legislation on smoking which we currently suffer was included in manifestos before we could vote on it. Which brings me on to plain packaging, because Burnham and Berger are ignoring the debate on that too.

In the face of prevarication from the Government, it was left to Labour, from the Opposition benches, to push forward the legislation to enable the introduction of standardised packaging of cigarettes

Or, to put it another way, it was left to Labour to ignore the largest public consultation response the UK has ever seen ... which roundly rejected plain packaging. Not to mention their adherence to public health extremists who perverted the whole debate by using taxpayers money to rig evidence, employ corrupt practices and lie.

This, I suppose, is what Labour would call good information.

We will empower people with better information and support to make their own choices, rather than the finger-wagging ‘don’t do this, don’t do that’ approach that can make people switch off.

No sign of that with Labour. Choice and education have long since left the building in favour of bullying legislation. By Christ! Labour are even universally opposed to e-cigs - a perfect example of how people can and are making "their own choices" - as was proved with the EU Tobacco Products Directive where every attempt at engagement was ignored and destroyed by Labour MEPs. The left-wing public health extremists who advised Labour then and undoubtedly did so for this document are still doing the same thing now by destroying "better information" and saying "don't do this, don't do that".

Towards the end of the document, they give a nod to e-cigs. Now, how do you think this is going to turn out, be honest.

We will continue to monitor the emerging evidence on the appropriate use of devices such as e-cigarettes in smoking cessation and take action if required.

The party which is advised by far left activists posing as 'public health' professionals are promising to monitor evidence? They don't know the meaning of the word. Their evidence will come from the same people who are promoting misinformation in order to keep their snouts in a lucrative tax-funded trough. The "action" will be to ban e-cigs, thereby removing the chance for vapers to "make their own choices".

The rest is much the same ... but often even more sinister.

The Government has an obligation to protect children from poor choices that may be harmful to their long-term health.

No, Labour, you're confusing the word "government" with "parents". Parents have an obligation to protect their children, not some Tim-nice-but-dim with a PPE degree who has never met them.

Whilst we are clear that the Government has a responsibility to protect and safeguard children and has an important role to play in tackling health inequalities, we are not in the business of telling people how to live their lives. 

Yes you are, that's exactly the business you are in. Who decided that alcohol, tobacco and sugar needed controlling? Not the public, because the public freely choose to buy these products.

It is not something done to people by experts.

No, it really is.

Instead, we want government to be on people’s side

Then fuck off and leave us alone.

If people want this nannying crap, they are quite capable of tackling the businesses themselves. The 21st century population has more access to businesses producing their food and drink than any in history.

Facebook groups, Twitter, e-mail, you name it, it's there. Unlike politicians who try to imprison critics, or 'public health' liggers who block us, consumer-facing industries welcome the feedback. The products which are on the shelves are not some evil conspiracy to make us all fat, they are there because industry spends billions finding out what people want to buy - they wouldn't be able to sell the stuff otherwise. The fact that these products are on the shelves is proof positive that the public want them, or else they wouldn't buy them.

But this is where the Islington yogic chakra-seeker comes in, you see. Just because the public has moulded what they are sold is not good enough. It is what highly-paid idealists consider acceptable for the plebs which is important, and that is the message Labour will be taking to working people in May.

Seriously.

Badly advised as they are, ball-gagged Labour gimps still feel that they have to give something back to the wealthy public health execs who have played them like a fiddle. Hence these disturbing footnotes.

We will make public health a licensing objective and we would like to include the Director of Public Health as a key consultee in the creation of a licensing statement.  

We will ensure public health is engrained (sic) throughout the licensing system so that measures promoting public health (which could range from measures such as plastic glasses and bottles to a ban on superstrength beer and cider) are included in the licensing statement.

The only possible result being to close down pubs, because 'public health' will never say there are too few. Remember that next time some Labour MP says he cares about your local. Definitely not finger-wagging, nanny state, or telling people what they can and can't do, now is it?

And straight out of the finger-waggers playbook ...

Health in All Policies 

We will adopt the internationally accepted ‘Health in All Policies’ approach – putting health concerns at the centre of our programme for government.

Yes, as demanded by the unelected WHO, the first priority of the Treasury will not be looking after money, it will be pandering to health extremists; the Department for Education will ensure children are given health propaganda before learning to add up (like prohibitionists from the discredited past); and the Department for Business will vet every profit-making entity to ensure they have policies on fatties, smokers and vapers while making sure they don't object to 'public health' demands which harm the economy.

Remember the days when Labour used to defend working class people against snobbery, disdain and bullying from a rich elite? It seems a lifetime ago now Labour themselves are the snobs, elitists and disdainful, doesn't it?

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.

What We Learned From Ellison And Chantler Today

We learned some interesting facts about the way our country is governed today.

We learned that politicians don't listen to honest argument or debate, and that the best way to sway them is to rig consultations and silence the opposition; we learned that people who encourage corrupt practices and make false claims are respected whereas the public is not; we learned that misrepresenting research is considered acceptable behaviour; we learned that MPs lying in parliamentary briefings and hiding meetings from public record is considered to be scrupulous governance; we learned that government lobbying government is spectacularly more likely to succeed than ordinary people expressing their opinion; and, above all, we learned that if you are a member of the electorate paying taxes to the state, you will be ignored, but if you are paid by the state to bully the public, the establishment will hang on your every word.

How else can you describe this ...

... translating into this?

The government is moving forward with plans to ban branding on cigarette packs, Public Health Minister Jane Ellison told MPs.

The commenters at the BBC article aren't conned by this folly - the highest rated are unanimously of the opinion that it is pointless and won't work - yet a spokesman for ASH claimed this evening that the policy enjoys "strong cross-party support in both houses".

Can you see a bit of a disconnect there? You know, perhaps a reason why voter turnouts are at an all-time low; hatred of politicians at an all-time high?

Unsurprisingly, Labour are fully behind the idea - they do so love depriving working class people of their meagre pleasures - but the plan was announced by a Tory minister, for crying out loud, the main coalition party led by a man who once proudly boasted of how "big bossy state interference is coming to an end" and, once elected, promised "no more of a government treating everyone like children", while Deputy Clegg vowed to "roll back the power of the state" and "restore British liberties".

So what compelling new evidence has convinced these fine, upstanding defenders of freedom to abandon their deeply-held beliefs, then? Well, I really haven't a clue. The Chantler review - as Snowdon points out - offers nothing new except an almost child-like trust of policy-led junk research produced by those who imagined, lobbied for, and whose salaries depend upon, hypnotising daft politicians into legislating for plain packs.

Chantler's methodology throughout is to categorically believe everything the tobacco control industry has ever published on the matter - even if, as he admits, much of it has limitations and some hasn't even been finalised or peer-reviewed - while dismissing every opposing item of evidence as "unconvincing" ... and citing tobacco control industry rebuttals as his reason for saying so!

As for the Tory front bench, they seem content to plough on with this despite their own backbenchers and supporters identifying it as bunkum, and without assessing wider issues as Jane Ellison promised in January.

Now, you could almost understand the public being ignored if the evidence being presented was so overwhelming that it merited public opinion being sidelined, but the Chantler review cannot remotely be described as such. Its summary declares that "research cannot prove conclusively" that plain packaging will work, but that Sir Cyril reckons - after having his ear bent by his tobacco control industry pals for four months - that it may have a "modest" effect. Surely, then, the best course of action would be - as was the wise conclusion last year - to wait and see how the real world experiment in Australia pans out ... especially since the British public are significantly opposed to it.

Or - and I know you're going to laugh at this - allowing us poor saps, who have to pay taxes for this shower of professional politicians, to have the casting vote considering the justification for it is so desperately poor and inconclusive.

Instead, it looks like we'll be ignored once again, as always. Not only that, one of Chantler's findings opens a can of worms which you will be seeing again and again as it is going to delight Alcohol Concern, Action on Sugar, and any number of other state-funded prohibitionists.

"The tobacco industry argues that all of its marketing activity, including packaging, aims solely to persuade existing adult smokers to switch brand and never targets children or new smokers. However, in my opinion, whatever their intent, it is not plausible that the effect of branded packaging is only to encourage brand switching amongst adult smokers, and never to encourage non-smokers from taking up smoking. I have heard no coherent argument as to how this purported separation occurs in practice and in my opinion a ‘spillover effect’ is highly plausible whereby packages that are designed to appeal to a young adult, also, albeit inadvertently, appeal to children. It seems to me that children and non-smokers are not, and cannot be, quarantined from seeing tobacco packaging and in my view once they are exposed to this packaging, they are susceptible to its appeal whether it is intended to target them or not. In the light of these and other considerations set out in my report I believe that branded packaging contributes to increased tobacco consumption."

This may as well have been written with other bansturbators in mind. If plain packaging is introduced as a result of Chantler's review, every repulsive prohibitionist the world over will be quoting it and saying - quite rightly - that the same applies to their particular consumer product.

When marketing aimed at adults is described as being impossible because "in practice" it "inadvertently" appeals to children who will be "susceptible to its appeal whether it is intended to target them or not", no marketing at adults will ever be possible and must therefore be banned.

And that is just one more thing we have learned about politicians today. Not only are they supremely incapable of resisting the lure of state-funded single issue lobbyists and contemptuous of the public who pay their wages, they are also astonishingly brilliant at inviting every miserable tax-sponging 'public health' crank to park their tank on the government's lawn.

Well done, Chantler and Ellison. You utter klutzes!

How To Rig An EU Tobacco Products Directive

Take a good look at this woman. She is - according to tobacco control's own claims - possibly the most dangerous European alive today.

It is Linda McAvan, the Labour MEP chosen as 'rapporteur' for the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) which seeks to permanently ban snus and effectively render e-cigs useless. As rapporteur, it is her role to shepherd the TPD through its various stages of implementation. She is, as you might expect, a virulent smoker-hater and - I'm ashamed to say - British.

I mentioned yesterday that 1.5 billion fewer cigarettes are being smoked in the US in 2013 as a result of e-cig use, a figure that will only exponentially soar if allowed to blossom. The population of the EU is four times bigger than that of the US, including one million vapers in the UK alone according to the BBC who McAvan hopes to force back into tobacco use.

Despite admirable protests by other UK MEPs, most notably Lib Dem Chris Davies, it would seem that McAvan is keen to exclude debate from anyone who disagrees with her blinkered views on e-cigs, as David Dorn reports.

Linda McAvan has seen fit to appoint a known opponent of e-cigs as the curator of the "knowledge" that will be presented at said workshop. Will Clive Bates (@Clive_Bates) be there? Professor Gerry Stimson (@GerryStimson), Professor Constantinos Farsalinos, Professor Michael Siegel, Professor Jacques le Housec or Professor John Britton? Somehow I doubt it. And yet they damned well SHOULD be there. 

Why? Well, simply put, each and every one of those luminaries are capable of separating nicotine from the act of smoking lit tobacco. This curator of the knowledge - Dr Martina Potschke Langer - is not. To her, you either quit (meaning become nicotine abstinent) or die. Her world is so very simple. 

Where it is possible for her to distort the truth about e-cigs, she does. If she can present a biased conclusion and miss out vital information about e-cigs or their comparators, she does. Frankly, in this writer's opinion, she has no place curating this "knowledge base" for MEPs to partake of. In my opinion, she is not qualified. In my opinion, she is the very opposite of qualified for the role, as her bias is so very transparent.

Indeed, because McAvan's choice of curator is truly insane and solely designed to ignore objections. 

Martina Pötschke-Langer is a spiteful bereaved East German who has dedicated her life to the eradication of anything that resembles smoking. 

She was influential in achieving a ban on e-cig use in Hanover's civic offices, and considers e-cigs to be a "gateway drug" which she claims causes "respiratory irritation and dizziness" to anyone in the vicinity of someone using one. Passive vaping, to you and me.

She is also behind an atrocious article in the Mail on Sunday which claimed e-cigs are more dangerous than cigarettes which was deleted by the newspaper because it was pure unsubstantiated garbage.

Can you think of anyone who is more unsuited - in the whole of Europe - to collate evidence for or against e-cigs? Because Linda McAvan seemingly foresees no conflicting interest whatsoever.

It's a recurring theme with the tobacco control industry, isn't it? If it is looking like the public are opposed to the latest madness being proposed, democracy can go hang. They'll just rig proceedings by any means possible. 

It is towards quite appalling individuals such as McAvan and Pötschke-Langer I directed this paragraph yesterday.

In effect, they'd prefer it if those 1.5 6 billion cigarettes continued to be smoked until the smoker quits using a cessation method approved by their global cabal. 

It tells you all you need to know about the tobacco control industry. Within it are hideous hypocrites who are more interested in the 'control' part of the job, and their own self-enrichment, than public health goals they like to pretend they are working towards.

History will surely judge these evil ideologues to have blood on their hands.

Should We Lie Like Tobacco Controllers?

Regular readers will remember that the campaign in favour of plain packaging by tax spongers in the highly state-funded tobacco control industry Goliath was a truly astounding display of mendacity and corruption.

The level of cheating, chicanery, political manipulation and blatant, unapologetic, provable lies was quite simply off the scale, as I described in 2014.

The often fraudulent abuses of process, democracy and common decency are too numerous to list in full, but just to remind you of a few highlights: 

Attempting to rig the consultation; producing literature containing bald-faced lies to MPs; enthusiastically encouraging corrupt multiple signatures; and attempting to influence government to exclude any consultation responses they disagreed with and then trying to hide the evidence. Along with inviting two zealous supporters of plain packaging to review the evidence, including a far-left lunatic who simply despises marketing of any product, before producing an impact assessment document which the Regulatory Policy Committee rightly considered shoddy. This without mentioning shovelling taxpayer cash to vested interests to lobby government with, making demonstrably false claims, and blatantly misrepresenting the results of their own research.

In fact, the lies are still continuing on the subject to this day. It's just what tobacco controllers do. They lie. In the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. Heck, I reckon they even dream about lying.

I didn't think anything could top the outrageous deceit of that campaign, but the remarkable lies which we have seen in the past couple of months surrounding vaping have, if anything, been even worse! By that I mean that the plain packs campaigners at least tried to hide their lies, whereas those trying to undermine e-cigs don't even seem to care. The misdirection, untruths and junk science are so transparent it's like they are almost proud of them; blasé and safe in the knowledge that no-one - including journalists - is going to look deep enough into their source material to call them out on it.

We've seen them lying to pretend vaping is no safer that smoking and then refusing to alter the basis of the claim when the lie was globally ridiculed; lying to say e-cigs stop smokers from quitting, a study described as "misleading", "not scientific" and "a failure of peer review" by their own side thereby making the author, Mad Stan, guilty of the same doubt creation tactics tobacco controllers routinely accuse long-dead tobacco company execs of dealing in; lying to claim e-cigs cause drunk driving and car crashes even though their study clearly stated blood alcohol levels are not affected by vaping; and lying to claim teens who vape are more likely to take up smoking, contrary to all evidence on the subject and so poor a study that only oleaginous tobacco control extremist groupies bothered to publish on it.

This, of course, on top of anti-vaping crusaders quietly attempting to silence any positive commentary about e-cigs; inventing laughable conspiracy theories in order to try to weaponise the Chief Medical Officer against their use; and deliberately lying in their own professional journals, aided and abetted by the journal editors themselves.

If the plain packs campaign was a slurry pit of corruption, lies and deceit - which it most certainly was - then what is happening with e-cigs can be described as an entire fucking sewage works of dishonesty, fraud and vile, self-enriching, anti-scientific thuggery from people who claim to care about 'public health'.

The process the tobacco control industry lives by seems to consist of these purposely-designed steps:

1) Commit to a policy
2) Create junk science to fit that policy, by any means possible
3) If the junk science doesn't throw up believable results, lie in the press release
4) Sit back and ignore the inevitable debunking, the headlines are out and everyone will believe them

This is what tobacco control calls 'science', and the people who promote lies - because that's what they are - in this manner are described by the press as 'experts'. Yes, I know, bonkers isn't it?

Now, the reason I mention this is because I was out with a business consultant friend last night in London and this very subject came up. After my explaining how these false headlines are created, my analyst friend asked why our side doesn't do the same. Not verbatim but it went something like this.

"Perhaps you need to do your own studies, pick out a positive part - even if the whole study doesn't support it - and press release that. Get your own positive headlines to counteract their corrupt negative ones."

He summed up the situation very well (that's what he gets paid for after all) and, all things being equal, I suppose that would be the way to play it. What's good for the goose, as they say, is good for the gander. If they are lying, then it's obviously perfectly fair that the same approach can be employed to counter it. As Sun Tzu once said, "the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself", so if anti-vaping fraudsters are being successful by being economical with the truth for ideological ends then perhaps we should be doing so too.

However, can you see that ever working? For a start, if anyone on the pro-vaping side were to cherry-pick something and press release it to gain a headline - despite it misrepresenting that study - the first critics of the release would almost certainly be pro-vaping scientists. Carl Phillips especially would rip it to pieces!

Additionally, tobacco controllers being the debate-avoiding, objective science-phobic, play-the-man-not-the-ball types that they are, the instant reaction would be to accuse our side of being like the tobacco industry of five decades ago. Actually, scratch that, they're already doing it. They'd accuse us of being addicts, shills and astroturfers (oh yeah, they're doing that already too) and try to smear anyone who has a contrary opinion ... ah, yes they already do that as well.

After mulling this today, I really don't know what to think of it all. A detached opinion on the situation by my analyst friend, condensing all the facts and assessing how an equal and opposite reaction could be delivered, says that our side should be mirroring what extremist tobacco controllers are doing. At least then it would be  fair fight. But at the same time, we are not a bunch of blatant liars like they are and value things like principles, standards, scruples, ethics and - yes - the truth! We also don't get paid for what we do, of course.

So I suppose what it comes down to is that, once again, we are disadvantaged by being on the side of the angels, unlike the liars and generously-remunerated, consciously-fraudulent professional shysters who are ranged against us.

You might have a different view of course. Is it worth us sinking to the cesspit level of tobacco control and lying to get the true message out, or just hope that one day the public will work out how debased and corrupt the so-called 'experts' of 'public health' are?

Discuss.

Ireland's Plain Packaging Farce Promises To Be Even Worse Than Ours!

For regular readers here, the fiasco of a campaign in the UK in favour of plain packaging will be well-known.

The often fraudulent abuses of process, democracy and common decency are too numerous to list in full, but just to remind you of a few highlights:

Attempting to rig the consultation; producing literature containing bald-faced lies to MPs; enthusiastically encouraging corrupt multiple signatures; and attempting to influence government to exclude any consultation responses they disagreed with and then trying to hide the evidence. Along with inviting two zealous supporters of plain packaging to review the evidence, including a far-left lunatic who simply despises marketing of any product, before producing an impact assessment document which the Regulatory Policy Committee rightly considered shoddy. This without mentioning shovelling taxpayer cash to vested interests to lobby government with, making demonstrably false claims, and blatantly misrepresenting the results of their own research.

Like I say, this is by no means an exhaustive list, far from it.

So it is interesting to see the same grubby techniques of truth-avoidance and disinformation being played out in Ireland as they embark on their own fraudulent exercise in anti-democratic ideology. In early skirmishes, we've already seen loopy anti-smoking minister James Reilly threatening to ban small boxes, John Crown preferring to make an arse of himself than engage in debate, and an Irish GP glorying in how wonderful it will be to copy the Soviet Union!

However, Forest Eirann's John Mallon today describes how the Irish procedure is not going to be like the corrupt procession we saw in the UK ... if anything, it promises to be even worse.

The day I addressed the Oireachtas Health and Children Committee in Leinster House

Pumped up by their own self-importance and sniffing a chance to attract the media spotlight, members of the Committee rattled off ASH-style propaganda followed by their own vitriol and phobic hatred of smoking. That the tobacco gents behind me didn't just get up and march off was amazing in itself. 

It was, according to members of the Committee, all about our precious children (and not re-election at all). Strangely, though, several of our esteemed democrats got their digs in and then left so when, finally, there was a chance to reply we were talking to a largely empty room. 

And what of the outcome? Well, that had been decided before the whole charade began. The Health and Children Committee will no doubt support the bill to introduce standardised packaging and the process will continue to its natural conclusion.

So, not so much an evidence-gathering exercise than a show trial, then. At least the UK government had the decency to properly gather evidence from tobacco interests in camera, not that the usual lefties were happy with their playing by the rules, of course.

But we also saw today that the Irish debate - even at such an early stage - has already descended into farce.

Law Society president John Shaw yesterday insisted it was “not in the pocket of anyone”. 

The Irish Cancer Society had hit out at the group for adopting the same position and language on the legislation as the tobacco industry. 

Mr Shaw told the Oireachtas Health Committee that the Law Society had concerns about the legal implications of the General Scheme of the Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2003 in terms of its effect on intellectual property rights. 

The Law Society was criticised by senator Jillian van Turnhout for failing to show the “clear links” between the members of its intellectual property committee and the tobacco industry in a declaration of interest sent to the Oireachtas committee. “The tentacles of the tobacco industry are everywhere,” Ms van Turnhout said.

This is the Irish Law Society, for Chrissakes, but because they raise a valid debating point which doesn't agree with an obviously pre-conceived outcome, they are now apparently a bunch of vile tobacco industry stooges? Good grief!

So outraged by this ridiculous smear are the Law Society, they have taken the step of publishing a rebuttal on their website.

The Society is concerned at the coverage in certain newspapers of the Society's contribution to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health & Children's (the Health Committee) consultation on 'plain packaging' for tobacco products. 

By no means has all of the newspaper coverage accurately reported the Society's position. In particular, some coverage has falsely suggested that the Society's contribution on this matter has been influenced by, or indeed even supportive of, the tobacco industry. This is completely untrue. 

For emphasis, the Society's representatives:- 

1. Made perfectly clear to the Committee that the Society was not representing anyone but its solicitor members and the public interest which the profession serves;
2. Were only highlighting intellectual property law issues to which the plain packaging proposal gave effect;
3. Were not claiming any expertise on health policy matters other than to recognise that "tobacco has had a disastrous impact on health";
4. Agreed with the objective of the Bill and said as much;
5. Were well received by the Committee and thanked for the Society's contribution.

Quite bizarre!

So we have a collection of politicians who walk out of an evidence-gathering session without hearing the evidence, followed by a stakeholder to the evidence-gathering process being defamed for telling the truth as they see it. How much more pathetic can anti-smoking morons get?

Good luck, Ireland, but I fear your government seems to be comprised of a bunch of feckin' eejits.

Footnote: As such, if you're cursed to be living over there and ruled by these hideous, venal numbskulls, do consider signing up to fight them at the Plain Packs Plain Stupid campaign site. 

Transport Policies Via The Medium Of Comedy

If you happened to wander past Puddlecote Inc this afternoon, you'd have been treated to the sound of gales of laughter as I was reading out some hilarious jokes to my fellow transport professionals. Well, they weren't intended as jokes but were just as funny nonetheless.

You see, because the French government has announced that it is banning vehicles on alternate days in Paris, the Guardian has floated the idea of the same being imposed here. Their readership has predictably lapped it up with a poll showing 76% approval - they get mighty excited about the chance to ban something over there, so they do.

The 'jokes' I read out were merely suggestions posted in the comments by people who seem to have no clue about transport, money, or even life in general for that matter.

If we said that all black cabs, buses and licensed minicabs have to be electric by 2017 (or whenever), what difference would that make to air quality in the long term? What if we extend the congestion charge system? What if we ban the same of diesel vehicles in the UK by 2020 (or whenever)? These are more serious policies, because they are less random and capricious.

That's the one which started off the chuckling, it's something you'd expect from a 13 year old before you sit them down and explain that it's a nice idea and all that, but hopelessly naive. Firstly, there isn't yet an electric vehicle which is economic enough for widespread use amongst domestic drivers with low mileage, nor will there likely be for probably another decade at least. The chances of there being an electric motor capable of operating at consistently high mileage is even more into the future, and one capable of reliably running a rig with the power to carry 150 passengers for continuous day-in-day-out periods is probably two decades away at least.

And even if it were available now, its cost would be massive as Puddlecote Inc knows very well having looked into alternatives ourselves on a regular basis. LPG, electric and hybrid are still novelties and come with a huge price tag. The replacement and running cost of such a huge shift in transport over three different industries would be so immense - because, contrary to what many believe, fossil fuel is way down the list of factors in pricing transport services - that fares would be unaffordable to all but the wealthy.

Isn't it odd how so many 'progressive' hobby horses seem almost exclusively designed to impoverish the poor?

Of course, the same can be said of the article's main premise of banning vehicles on alternate days. Those rich enough to run two cars will simply buy another, the less well off won't be able to. The proposal has a cost in itself because if it was an efficient and cost-effective way of running a city, it would be in operation already without the need for government intervention. Increased costs to businesses and public services are all passed on somewhere, either through taxation, reduced services or higher prices. It's a zero sum game.

But in the world of the Guardian reader, you just wave a magic wand and all your utopian dreams become cost-free reality ... it just takes someone with the appropriate form of madness imagination to commit to it.

Introduce fare-free public transport and there would be even fewer reasons to bring a car to London.

Yes, great idea, that won't cost anything at all. Simply tap up the government money tree and the problem is solved!

OK, so tube fares only account for 50% of the cost of running the underground and the state already has to chuck in £3bn per year - but what's another three billion per annum, eh? It's not like the public have to make up the monumental shortfall with increased taxes/reduced benefits/services, is it?

Eventually, all the country will be blessed with high speed internet access, all south facing roofs will have solar panels/water heaters on them, sewage farms will produce methane gas to be pumped into the gas grid and wind power, tidal turbines, wave power and energy efficiency will be the norm. 

Yes, that one had us in stitches too.

You are right about Athens, this system still continues. It had a huge impact on pollution levels and congestion, positive impact.

This is in reference to Greece sometime ago also having instituted the same ban as France. Because, of course, Greece has been a tower of economic strength ever since.

Unfortunately this positive impact on the environment is somewhat counteracted by the fact that the country is suffering from an epidemic of illegal logging, and, therefore, wood burning as people can no longer afford to buy heating oil nor the taxes associated with everything and so are turning to any other means. Mount Olympus, for example is being decimated, Athens is often clouded in smog, from wood burning. 

Wait for the punchline ...

Still, there are fewer cars on the road and that's jolly good.

By this time, tears were rolling down cheeks at Puddlecote HQ and questions were being asked as to where I was getting this top drawer material. Viz 'Top Tips'?

We need to get properly radical if we are to maintain an anthropofriendly climate. Commuting itself must be banned. People are going to have to live where they work and work where they live. We are subsidising a practise that is destroying our environment.

Err, "anthropofriendly"? And spoken like a truly myopic office worker who obviously wants his plumbing fixed remotely.

Why not something that celebrates diversity, multiculturalism or multi-ethnicity; driving days could be based on identity; gender, race, nationality, etc. So if you needed a ride you'd have to integrate, which would be good for a liberal city like London which is still very much separated by neighbourhood and choice of transportation.

Banned from driving into work today? Simple. Just stand at the side of the road and wait for a black or asian person to drive past and thumb a lift. Brilliant!

What should be banned in London is single driver vehicle drivers. It should be mandatory that vehicles in London have high occupancy of at least 75% of all available seating in a car filled as a prerequisite requirement to commute to outer and inner London.This will give incentive for drivers to seek out and advertise for and acquire fellow travelers or give up and use public transportation.

Seriously, I'm not making this up, they're all there under the line if you feel like fact-checking.

Anyhow, the suggestion is that - to be able to drive to work and contribute to the economy - you must have to expend your time and money first to find at least three other people to share your vehicle with. That's going to help to achieve full employment no end!

That's not all, this particular contributor is just warming to their task.

Also taxis should not be permitted to cruise for fares but park and be radio dispatched and only for multiple fares that fill available seating to at least 50% of available cab seating.We all have cell phones now.

Because tourists all have plenty of numbers to ring and anyone using cabs always, but always, knows another three people who want to go the same way. And also because sole trader black cab drivers won't demand their union push for increased fares by being forced to subscribe to radio control services. Oh no.

But he/she still isn't finished. The bright ideas just keep on coming.

Vans and commercial vehicles should be higher taxed or even ticketed and fined for "dead heading" on return deliveries from inner London.

Higher taxes which will be passed on in prices; fines - and 'ticketed' suggests licence endorsements - on deliveries for which there is no return package can only be performed by big businesses, who will massively increase charges to compensate or simply not deliver.

How about requiring that all the unoccupied/unused buildings in inner London be made into accommodation and rented out to anybody who works locally at an amount of, say, 20% of whatever their income is. 

That way people won't have the need to travel as much.

Are we talking about buying this property from the legal owners, or stealing it?

Someone else sees a charge he/she doesn't have to pay, so wants it expanded.

London is extremely well-served by public transport. It's largely flat, and it's quite compact. My suggestion would be to extend congestion charging to the M25.

That's right, charge everyone in the home counties to drive any kind of vehicle and give their already taxed cash to the state. That won't result in higher prices through increased demand on wages at all. Of course, charging everyone for using the roads could work, but I can imagine quite a lot of Guardian readers being up in arms about that considering it was proposed by the IEA last year.

But my personal stand-out fave was this.

Some don't have a 'choice' of transportation. Some disabled people either have to drive, be driven or take a cab because public transport is inaccessible to us. As long as anyone who physically could not use public transport was exempt from the ban I'm all for it.

In other words, as long as other people suffer and not me, that's fine. Which is what all the others were saying, really, just without the honesty. Oh yeah, and without even a basic understanding of transport realities and the consequential costs which offset every benefit known to mankind.

Still, terrifying as such ignorance can be if you take it seriously, it brightened up our day so can't be all bad.

How To Rig A Consultation By Excluding Relevant Government Departments

Back in May, I highlighted a couple of cynical ways that the consultation on plain packaging had been rigged to reach a pre-ordained result.

Firstly, the Department of Health ensured that the people who would be tasked with assessing the impact of any proposed legislation will solely be those with a particular interest in ensuring that it goes through without hindrance.

The second addressed the curious decision by the DoH to commission supporting evidence for the consultation which was written by the very same people campaigning for plain packaging, complete with references to their own 'studies'.

Both were in contravention of established rules laid down to ensure democratic transparency and open government.

The thinking behind these two slimy departures from process is now made crystal clear on reading the plain packs consultation response from the National Federation of Retail Newsagents [pdf].

While the lead Department is listed as Health under the Impact Assessment, there are none listed as ‘other’ Departments being consulted on this policy. This is a huge concern for us as the concessions made for small shops within the Tobacco Display Ban legislation (specifically the 3 year delay for small shops and the 10-fold increase in permissible display) only came about through rigorous debate with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Somewhere, a penny drops.

You see, the Department of Health were mighty pissed off in 2009 that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS) had the temerity to raise concerns about the damage the display ban would have on retail shops. They were forced to water down the proposals as a result, and that just won't do.

So, this time, they have excluded the DBIS entirely to ensure that no-one can raise a silly objection like, you know, 58,000 small businesses - which are overwhelmingly against the idea for good reason - being shafted on the whim of the lucratively tax-funded tobacco control industry.

As far as these hideous people are concerned, every newsagent, corner shop, convenience store and kiosk in the country can go to the wall as long as a tiny few tobacco controllers can add another line on their CV and keep the tax receipts coming.

They not only want to rig the evidence for the consultation, they also wish to shut out a hugely relevant fellow government department for fear that it might raise valid concerns.

Thanks to the level of responses against plain packaging, this approach - well, let's call a spade a spade here, it's civil service corruption - may be exposed, and the methods employed by the pro-stupid lobby and their Whitehall cockroach chums can feel the uncomfortable warmth of a spotlight on their perversion of democratic process.

This is why if this plain packs consultation is a sham - as many have concluded - and it turns out that the legislation is tabled regardless of the overwhelming tide of objection, it's by far the end of the matter.

Instead, it will finally prove beyond any vague hint of doubt that government is broken; consultations officially not worth the cyber-bytes they are written on; and the civil service - in every single area - fit only for mass sackings and re-briefing to focus arrogant minds.

And with the newly-protected Freedom of Information Act at our disposal, that's when the fun will really start.

How To Rig The Evidence For A Consultation

Right.

We now know the public consultation on plain packaging has been fixed to deliver the result Lansley's crowd are expecting, thereby confirming that Sir Humphreys exist in abundance even in this era of faux transparent government.

"A basic rule of government is ... never set up an inquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be."

The findings of people paid to find exactly what they have been paid to find is one thing. It can be challenged if the bias of those doing the 'finding' is obvious ... which it will be.

However, they would still point to the 'evidence' as being a cast-iron back up for their 'expert' opinion. The problem is that the (pfft) expert evidence is cut of the same cloth.

Here is the document (pdf).

The first thing you might notice if you do a word search on it is that the lead author, Crawford Moodie, is referenced 80 times in all in the review. This is because it is mostly a collection of studies conducted by the people who wrote the bloody thing. Studies either authored or co-authored by fellow lead names Linda Bauld, Ann McNeil, Kathryn Angus and Gerard Hastings, are also quoted as sources of *cough* independent research.

As far as I can see, out of the 37 studies cherry-picked selected by the report's authors, 16 were written or co-written by those who compiled the evidence review on which Lansley's department is relying for information.

If such woeful bias is allowable for something as important as a systematic evidence review, I think I'll have to pitch for my own slice of the easy money. I can find 37 articles saying the whole idea is crap. OK, so 16 were written by me and my mates, but what the hell? It's 'science', innit.

Look a bit deeper and you'll notice even more cliquey manipulation.

The authors would like to thank ... Dave Hammond for his contribution to the development of the protocol.

Yeah, I haven't a scooby what 'development of the protocol' means either, except that it sounds like someone casting their eye over the methodology.

Perhaps that's why Hammond - who is almost certainly going to be one of the aforementioned expert subjective assessors - is mentioned 83 times in the review, with no less than 12 studies by him being cited. What a big head, eh?

Other names you might recognise as source material are renowned impartial 'scientists' Deborah Arnott, Martin Dockrell and Simon Chapman.

The review states that they filtered the studies from a starting list of 4,518 citations. How bad the others must have been to leave just 37 which were predominantly authored by the same people conducting the review can only be guessed at. Scribblings on the back of a fag packet, presumably. Is tobacco control really that bad, or are these people just advancing their one-sided agenda under a cloak of impartiality?

I have my own opinion, but will leave you to decide.

What makes it even worse is that four of the names at the top of the review are quoted as being from the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-ordinating Centre (EPPI). These are meant to be independent reviewers of accuracy and rigour. EPPI is referenced throughout to give a cosy, scrupulous sheen to the pack of lies 'evidence'.

Except that - considering the high level of self-referencing going on - the EPPI's own guidelines have not so much been broken as shattered.

A protocol is one component of an open, consultative approach to undertaking reviews. It is also argued that if the review's methods are defined explicitly at the start of the review, reviewers are less likely to be influenced by, for example, their knowledge of study authors or by study findings.

Knowledge of study authors and findings doesn't get more acute than being the people who wrote them, surely. And I don't believe there is much in the text to say something like "this is a review which we wrote about some of our own work" by way of defining 'explicitly' what is going on here.

Perhaps the EPPI lot were just eating doughnuts and chatting about what they watched at the cinema last weekend while tobacco control's prime tax spongers were concocting over a hundred pages of steaming horse shit. It certainly doesn't appear that they did much examination, but then perhaps that wasn't demanded by gimp Lansley's whip-handlers at the Department of Health.

So, thus far, we have a proposal which wasn't in any manifesto; government shovelling artic-loads of money towards lobbying itself; an evidence review which includes tobacco control referencing their own (already paid for) fantasies; and a set of expert opinions to be taken from the same people who imagined, demanded, got paid for advancing, and submitted biased 'evidence' for, plain packaging of tobacco.

Now, if you can see any involvement of just one member of the public in that democratic process, you're a better man than me, Gunga Din.

Hands Off Our Packs - The Book Of The Campaign

It's been just over three years since the idea of plain packaging was first mooted in Westminster as a possible policy, ironically by a government which trumpeted how it was going to roll back our liberties and shackle the nanny state when elected in 2010.

The pro-plain packs campaign came with indecent haste after the lies which heralded the pointless tobacco display ban and the Neanderthal stupidity and stunning lack of impartiality which epitomised the business-shattering ban on vending machines (which both coalition parties had vehemently opposed while in opposition, by the way). Perhaps that's why the tobacco control industry were so blasé about their task and proceeded to conduct a campaign of such astonishing mendacity that I struggled to keep up with their almost daily abuses.

I did try, believe me, but the best summary I could collate from my many posts on the subject was this from last year.

The often fraudulent abuses of process, democracy and common decency are too numerous to list in full, but just to remind you of a few highlights: 

Attempting to rig the consultation; producing literature containing bald-faced lies to MPs; enthusiastically encouraging corrupt multiple signatures; and attempting to influence government to exclude any consultation responses they disagreed with and then trying to hide the evidence. Along with inviting two zealous supporters of plain packaging to review the evidence, including a far-left lunatic who simply despises marketing of any product, before producing an impact assessment document which the Regulatory Policy Committee rightly considered shoddy. This without mentioning shovelling taxpayer cash to vested interests to lobby government with, making demonstrably false claims, and blatantly misrepresenting the results of their own research. 

Like I say, this is by no means an exhaustive list, far from it.

The whole thing should have come to a shuddering halt after vehement rejection by the public at consultation stage but still it rolls on like an extra from The Walking Dead.

I've often thought that the plain packs campaign from anti-smokers has the makings of a great book about how very wrong our current political system - and state-funded cronyism - is, but am just not organised in my free time to adequately write it.

Fortunately, though, Forest's Simon Clark was taking notes on the whole campaign from the start and has produced a comprehensive run-down of it by way of isolating blog articles at Taking Liberties which offer us a revealing timeline of events.

There's an accurate taster of highlights at the Free Society review, and I can highly recommend settling down with your favourite brew and reading the book for free at this link. (Tip: I saved the pdf  'to drive' on an iPad and flicked through it as if was a Kindle e-book but if you prefer the hard copy experience, Brian Monteith points out that you can email contact@forestonline.org for a freebie).

Do also consider sharing with others as it's a timely account of how debased modern 'career' politics, and its corrupt system of government lobbying government, has grown to systematically defraud the public. Do go have a read here.

How To Rig A Public Consultation?

If you were a responsible politician keen on delivering fair and transparent government, who would you appoint to impartially evaluate evidence pertaining to a public consultation? A crossbench Lord? An impartial judge? A retired police commissioner or business leader?

Well, looking at the impact assessment for the ongoing consultation on plain packaging, Andrew Lansley's Department of Health seem to have plumped for none of the above (from page 28).

Annex 2: Elicitation of Subjective Judgments of the Impact on Smoking of Plain Packaging Policies for Tobacco Products

The sample will consist of three groups of internationally-renowned experts on tobacco control policies, one group recruited from each of Australasia, the UK and North America. We will aim to recruit about 10 participants per group, numbers found to be sufficient in previous studies. Experts will meet Hora and van Winterfeldt’s first four requirements for participation, that is: (a) tangible evidence of expertise (as evidenced by publications), (b) reputation (as indicated by peer-nomination), and (c) availability and willingness to participate, (d) understanding of the general problem area (in addition to being a requirement for recruitment, participants will be provided with papers on the topic area to ensure sufficient knowledge). The latter two requirements suggested by Hora and van Winterfeldt (impartiality and lack of an economic or personal stake in potential findings) are considered impractical in this area, and so instead we will include a description of the participants’ employment and expertise for transparency.

Now, forgive me if I'm wrong, but this would seem to suggest that the 'experts' to be appointed for this purpose will all be people paid to come up with tobacco control policies ... like plain packaging.

The tract admits that there's no way they will be impartial, and that many will have a personal stake in seeing one side of the argument prevail over the other. However, the civil service doesn't seem to envisage any problem with this.

It's like handing control of the Leveson Inquiry to an associate of Rebekah Brooks, or even Rebekah Brooks herself with James Murdoch as a fellow panel member. Or Alex Ferguson appointing four members of the Manchester United Supporters Club to be officials for an important Champions League fixture.

In the scenario above, it's not inconceivable that the 'experts' recruited to offer 'subjective' judgements on plain packaging could include Simon Chapman, Linda Bauld and Stanton Glantz!

This is what passes for democratic process in this wonderful free country of ours.

Since we're well into the consultation period, one wonders if these panel members have been appointed yet or, if not, if the DoH has an idea of who they will be contacting for the roles. I can feel another FOI request coming on.

Popcorn Time: Australia Is Wobbling On E-Cigs

The Australian Guardian reported on Tuesday that the Aussie government is to set up a new inquiry into e-cigs.

The health minister Greg Hunt has agreed to an independent inquiry into the health impacts of nicotine e-cigarettes after a concerted push in the Coalition party room over several months to legalise vaping. 

Several MPs raised the issue in Tuesday’s party room meeting, saying there was widespread support within the government for making nicotine e-cigarettes legally available.

This is significant considering Greg Hunt famously said that legalisation of vaping would never happen 'on his watch' last year. It may be political pressure which has forced his hand, but I reckon deep down he's quite relieved that the decision has almost been taken away from him because Australia - and, consequently, Greg Hunt - is fast becoming a laughing stock while all other developed nations are moving to sensibly regulate safer nicotine products.

This announcement has, of course, been welcomed by tobacco controllers keen to find out if vaping can lower smoking rates, just as they have always wanted. Oh, I'm sorry, my bad. I was confusing tobacco control with other professions who have integrity, of course they didn't welcome it, they reacted in their customary manner. By issuing veiled threats.

The prospect of a truly independent inquiry absolutely terrifies the tobacco control industry, which is why they routinely rig evidence-gathering for policymakers, as I have written about many times. My personal favourite is, coincidentally, from Australia as explained by Catallaxy Files.

In 2012 Professor Melanie Wakefield of the Victorian Cancer Council was awarded a $3 million contract to conduct a national tracking survey of tobacco consumers (and recent “quitters”) immediately prior, during, and after the implementation of plain packaging. Professor Wakefield has previously been a member of the National Preventative Health Taskforce that had recommended the implementation of plain packaging, she was a member of the Federal Government’s Expert Advisory Group on plain packaging, and was then was commissioned by the Health Department, in the absence of a tender process, to investigate the efficacy of the very policy she had recommended, designed. and implemented. Unsurprisingly the results of her research (with several co-authors) supports the efficacy of plain packaging as a policy to reduce the prevalence of tobacco consumption.

And yes, that's exactly how the tobacco control scam has worked for decades. Imagining, preparing, setting questions for, and marking their own homework. It's corruption, basically.

So of course the desiccated Sydney pensioner is going to feel threatened. After all, truly independent inquiries don't cherry-pick rare outliers and try to build doubt about products on the basis of pure prejudice like a Sydney pensioner would. A truly independent inquiry takes the body of evidence and weighs up costs against benefits to come to a sober policy conclusion. Tobacco control industry 'independent' research is always - and I mean always - conducted by state-funded anti-smoking lobbyists with huge conflicts of interest, is preconceived to come up with a certain result, and counts only costs, never benefits.

If tobacco control is scared of this inquiry, it could well be properly independent and could be a massive embarrassment to the bunch of senile dinosaurs in Oz who still cling to the idea that e-cigs can be banned forever in order that they can proudly remain in the elite club of basket case nations who continue to do so.

Australian tobacco controllers will also be scared about a truly independent inquiry because it might show that they have been paid barrels full of money for pathetic and inconsequential tobacco control ideas, while nations which have permitted alternatives have left Australia in their wake.

You know what the likes of the Sydney pensioner and his geriatric old farts need right now? Some real world statistics to prove that their policies are wildly successful. Yes, that would be the ticket! Something to show those federal MPs that they are barking up the wrong tree with vaping and should just carry on listening the old guard, like always.

Cue South Australia, then, and their latest stats on smoking prevalence, also released on Tuesday.

Oh dear. Not a good look, is it?

Yep, despite huge regular 12.5% tobacco tax increases and plain packaging, South Australia's smoking rate is almost exactly the same as it was in 2012. And what are they going to do about this? Incredibly, they are planning to legislate to follow other states down the regulatory path of equating e-cigs with smoking and banning vaping in public places as well. The stupid is very strong down under.

While smoking rates have been plummeting in countries like the UK and US since 2012 when e-cigs went mainstream, in Australia they have just trodden water despite the most hardline authoritarian anti-tobacco policy environment of any developed nation in the world. Just as in perfect population level experiment in the UK and Ireland, Australia - to its embarrassment - is proving that coercion is not successful, while encouragement and harm reduction is.

No wonder, then, that Greg Hunt is probably mighty relieved right now. He will have had people urgently whispering in his ear that he and his government are starting to look like clowns, and that maybe he should back pedal a bit. And politicians really don't like looking like clowns.

This should be incredibly interesting to watch - fortunately from 10,000 miles away - so I'm breaking out the popcorn. If Australia does a U-turn on prohibition of e-cigs, we are going to have sooo much fun! 

Plain Failure

Longer term readers here will remember the fiasco of the plain packs campaign in the UK. The often fraudulent abuses of process, democracy and common decency were quite shocking and this article would turn into a mini-book if they were all listed here. But here is a reminder of a few highlights:

Attempting to rig the consultation; producing literature containing bald-faced lies to MPs; enthusiastically encouraging corrupt multiple signatures; and attempting to influence government to exclude any consultation responses they disagreed with and then trying to hide the evidence. Along with inviting two zealous supporters of plain packaging to review the evidence, including a far-left lunatic who simply despises marketing of any product, before producing an impact assessment document which the Regulatory Policy Committee rightly considered shoddy. This without mentioning shovelling taxpayer cash to vested interests to lobby government with, making demonstrably false claims, and blatantly misrepresenting the results of their own research.

Like I say, this is by far an exhaustive list!

It's now five years since Australia first implemented the daft idea, and it will come as no surprise to anyone that it has failed miserably. It hasn't helped the credibility of the country's politicians much either.

59 percent of Australians believe that standardized packaging has been ineffective, 80 percent of them believe the government wouldn’t change or would be reluctant to change a preferred policy even if the evidence were weighted against it.

What's more, as this five minute video from RMIT University Melbourne's Prof Sinclair Davidson shows, the Aussie government has gone to extraordinary lengths in order to hide the failure. 

When such a lot of time and money has been spent on a policy (and the subsequent desperate civil service wriggling) which has had no effect whatsoever - and the public can see it for the red herring it is - it illustrates just how wasteful, gullible and spineless western legislatures have become in the face of state-funded 'public health' troughers, doesn't it?