Permission to smoke, master?
Friday, February 15, 2008 A senior government advisor has proposed that anyone who wants to buy tobacco should have to buy a permit to do so. It would cost in the region of £10, it would have to be renewed annually, and "acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex". Full story HERE.
I have my own thoughts on the idea - which I shall be sharing (expletives deleted) with listeners to Radio Five Live's Drive programme and a number of other radio stations this afternoon. I would be very interested to read your comments.
Simon Clark
See BBC report HERE. The Daily Mail has also followed it up HERE. I was supposed to be on Five Live Drive at 4.15. This was moved to 6.50 but the interview has now been pulled because of scheduling difficulties. (The programme is broadcasting live from London and Lahore.) Oh well, I've spent most of the afternoon in a BBC studio talking to various local radio stations and - fingers crossed - I should be on News 24, the World Service and Five Live (different programme) later this evening.
Reader Comments (48)
Simon, I was so outraged that I started to post under the previous feature on surveillance, "A British Disease".
Crypto-fascist idiocy is the first thing that comes to mind. Second thing is that this government will take everything they can; preferably twice.
I prefer to spend £20-£30 on a coach trip to Belgium. A good day out and a saving of hundreds of pounds on tabacco, cigarettes and cigars. if the Government was to introduce this, then they would lose even more money in taxation, because more people will go to Belgium or Spain for the day or a weekend.
Any attempt to license either to purchase or to sell is one step nearer a total ban.
Total defiance, make a point of filling in the form incorrectly, have a row and confrontation with the pen pushers, cheap abuse, I might even light up in their presence. Saying that it might not matter as I get my tobacco from Spain.
I read this on Forest and they mentioned about stopping black market and smuggled tobacco and that that should be stopped anyway. As we are part of Europe, then those of us that go abroad to Spain or anywhere else in Europe have the right to bring back, legally, tobacco for our own use - are they intending to stop this as well?
Is it also not discrimanatory to target the poorer people, as the article said, it will be the less well off who will have a problem affording the licence and completing the form, so it will benefit them! How bloody patronising! Just because people are not well off financially does not mean they are also totally ignorant, just as being well off does not mean that you are not ignorant!
For pities sake, can someone come up with an idea as to how we can resurrect Guy Fawkes - perhaps we can help him do the job properly this time - when the place is full!
The really crazy thing is that it is becoming more and more apparent that smoking harms no-one! I've said before and will say again, look back to the 40's, 50's and 60's when more people smoked than do now, but people were happier, healthier and there were very few allergies and nowhere near so many people suffering from asthma. Common sense says that means something. Now, the number of people smoking has decreased, without any help from the interfering bullies in government, yet cancer and heart disease rates have increased, just have allergies and asthma! Even an infant school kid could work it out that it can't possibly be down to smoking, unless it has to do with the increased stress and depression that is also known to cause heart disease and other illnesses, often blamed on smoking, which in many cases relieves the symptoms of stress and depression. Of course, over the past 60 years or so we have not progressed in terms of chemicals and other pollutants that we use daily, without even thinking about them, such as petrol and diesel fumes and all these wonderful chemical cleaners we have in the home now that kills just about everything, including our children's immune system!
You may be able to tell from my rant, I am bloody furious, frustrated and if anyone wants to volunteer to help, right now, I would be happy to blow up parliament myself!
Out of interest, Simon, was Forest one of the 'stakeholders' that was included in the discussions leading up to the ban? Also, will Forest be one of the stakeholders included in the upcoming discussions relating to further 'tobacco control measures'? I am curious to know who the stakeholders are that actually speak for those of us who smoke.
Presumably, if Forest are classed as a stakeholder, there is some sort of blur in the government's mind as to whether Forest speaks for the smoker or the tobacco industry. What concerns me is the thought that there is not a single stakeholder speaking exclusively for the smoker - meaning that we have no voice in this whatsoever. Even if Forest *is* considered a stakeholder in speaking for the smoker, how does that measure up, in terms of proportionate representation for the groups involved (i.e. 12 to 15 million smokers vs what? About 20 anti-smoking zealots who's voice carries disproportionately far).
Just wondered if you could enlighten me on this.
As for the licence issue - I'm beginning to think that the tobacco companies gave up the fight long ago because they knew it was already lost. I am deeply depressed and feel that the government is hell-bent on removing from me the only 'vice' I have ever had, and the ONLY thing that pulled me through the most horrendously difficult times in my life. "Libertarian Paternalism"? Ha! More like a way to get all our names on a database because we don't fit the 'model citizen' picture of the future..
Every day I feel that there is another piece of news aiming at beating me down and forcing me to submit to the government's will. If it weren't for family commitments, I would be leaving this country today. As it is, I will be leaving the moment those commitments come to an end.
The zealots are welcome to the New Restricted State of Puritania. Presumably they will all die from brain-shrinkage, tunnel vision or some terrible nasal disease brought about by a life of sticking their nose into other people's business. (Most likely they'll all die of heart attacks while out jogging though - as do so many health fanatics).
Lyn, I don't think they care about the truth, or about common sense. All they care about is their "mission", and to hell with who gets hurt in the process. These people are on a crusade.
I totally agree with you on the subject of poor people, many of whom have more wisdom and useful knowledge in their little finger than the whole of this patronising government put together.
Sorry... I don't mean to hog this comments section, honestly, but something just occurred to me.
I wonder how many of these meddlesome people had a beloved and respected grandfather who smoked and lived to an old age, and I wonder if they ever stop to think how they would have reacted to their inane hissy fits over tobacco.
I'll bet they wouldn't have dreamed of treating their own grandfathers like a scummy, second-class citizen who needs to be thrown out in the cold and put on 'ze list' in order to learn what's good for him,
The cost of cigarettes already encourages people to buy abroad. There is also a flourishing black market trade in counterfeit cigarettes that are deadly but people are being forced to risk being poisoned to save a few pounds.
If this comes in and/or the cost goes up further then more people will use these suppliers and the cost to the country in lost revenue and increased hospital admittances will be immense.
Smugglers and counterfeiters will not be bothered about permits as they do not care about age, and the result will be the same as prohibition in the USA- increased profits for the criminals and increased deaths from the products sold.
Those meddlesome people, Struggling Spirit, wouldn't give a damn if it was their old grandfather or their own son or daughter. They would still treat them like scum. It is a part of their programming.
When we see old news footage of what happened in the German concentration camps, we cringe and weep, at the way these people were treated. Who could do such things, we ask?
But, as we now know, the might of the Nazi propaganda machine at that time, was so powerful, that people that were once ordinary human beings, with feelings, just like us, suddenly became the zombie like mass murderers, who treated these poor unfortunates as lower than animals.
I am afraid to say, that what is happening today in this country, looks very much like the first steps towards the same type of thing happening here.
Oh, I know the anti smoking lobby will hold up their hands and cry shame, that anyone should even mention their work, which is obviously for the good of mankind (I seem to have heard that before somewhere?), should even be mentioned in the same breath as Nazism and the way the Jews were treated.
But we all know that it is true, and it is about time that the general public were made aware of this as well. The Government propaganda machine must be stopped, before it gets completely out of hand. We need our own propaganda machine, but one with a difference, one that tells the truth.
This could be yet another example of government by 'scare tactics' i.e. threaten a £10 licence renewable yearly, create panic and fear amongst smokers, then introduce (for example), a £2 licence renewable 5 yearly, so everyone breathes a sigh of relief and accepts without a fight...
£10 p/a for smoking, give it another couple of years and it'll be £100 to 'maintain' your driver's licence.
Good news, Lyn - Guy Fawkes is alive and well and bringing the Internet to Scientology: http://deathboy.livejournal.com/1082404.html
This is another licence to print money, as are tobacco taxes, and a clever way of collating smokers personal details, for employment, insurance and worst of all withholding medical care.
A shocking reminder that we've only witnessed the very first steps of this insideous campaign by the righteous, a situation that is rapidly becoming 'mormal' for many. The Nazis taught them well.
Simon, even you must now admit that there will be NO compromises with this extremism. They have clearly set out their stall, and the time has come for much more robust protest, for thase who have at least some contact with the media. The TRUTH behind this lunacy MUST come out NOW!!
I guess this government is also immune to it's own laws as well, seeing as if they do carry this through and make the forms complicated then they are discriminating against disabled people; dyslexia and other print impairments are classed as disabilities and woe betide the employer who refuses to employ someone with dyslexia because he/she can't spell!
This whole country has become a complete and utter mockery and, yes, Peter, you are right, there is nothing to choose between the government,their puppeteers and the Nazis. It is just history repeating itself.
Sorry Struggling Spirit, but many of our grandfathers fought in the First World War and fathers and uncles in the Second World War, many giving their lives, for what? So this pitiful excuse for a government can squander what they fought and died for - FREEDOM. It is utterly shameful - they are behaving no better than school bullies, and we all know that the bullies are the biggest cowards!
Many posters point out that such a move will merely mean that the black and grey markets flourish even more. I have a more pessimistic view. First the permit, then powers given to plastic police to demand to see the permit then prosecution if you can't produce the permit and can't produce a passport that shows a number of trips commensurate (in the view of HMG) with the number of cartons in your possession....
When I had my rant on the other thread I said that the database generated by the applications to acquire a permit could be used to perhaps deny benefits to those on the database (after all Le Grand is keen to address the "health inequalities" between rich and poor (Ha!!)). I subsequently read in today's "Daily Mail" that HMG is considering denying benefits to people who refuse to "engage in participatory incentives" (or some such double-speak), in effect, to those who refuse to get with the programme (and the incentives in questio were to do with lifestyle, involving, if I recall, diet and obesity).
As others have suggested, the whole thing might be unworkable but the truly frightening thing is that HMG is even considering it. Am I right in thinking that prior to the "Final Solution" Jews in Nazi Germany were required to apply for permission to engage in activities which Gentiles were automatically entitled to do?
It's outrageous and competely unjustifiable that adults in a free society should have to ask the State's permission to buy a legal product. I completely agree with those who say that this really has to be resisted.
From the Daily Mail link:
"Dr Chaand Nagpaul, GP representative on the British Medical Association"s public health committee, said asking doctors to police the permits would be "unworkable".
For each smoker to see their GP to renew a licence would mean 25million extra appointments a year, he claimed."
And this is his ONLY concern? That GPs would have 25 million extra appointments to attend to?
And 25 million??? I thought there were 'only' 10 - 12 million smokers in the UK, or does he think we'd have to go back twice?
Well, if this is brought in that's something else I won't do, along with carrying an ID card.
Utterly bonkers. They really have lost it, haven't they?
"The next wave"... as if that's a given, as if it's necessary, as if it's inevitable. The goose-stepping executive clique march towards total prohibition and total control over an enslaved populace. Elected governors engaging masturbatory power-fantasies rather than serious policymaking to reflect their voters' needs.
The venal nu-labor controlbots wish to give their servant-paymasters another kicking, whilst once again instructing us to pay for the wear to their shiny clacking boots.
Even if this is just kite-flying, the embedded swastika's clear for all to see.
There's another issue here. If there's any compulsion to see a GP in this process (I must have missed that bit), then doesn't that automatically mean that smokers have had their human rights stripped away while non-smokers' rights remain intact?
As far as I understand it, we all have a RIGHT to a GP, but are not COMPELLED to have one. As long as we are deemed to have mental capacity, we have the right to refuse to be touched, medicated or examined by a Doctor.
Therefore, such a condition for the licence would be illegal.
Correct me if I'm wrong, someone, but that is my understanding of the Law of Consent.
I don't have a GP, I don't use conventional medicine at all, I cost the NHS nothing. No bloody way am I signing up to a GP by force.
Spirit, the benefits-incentives scenario that I mentioned above was also dependant on GPs acting as State enforcers.
Re the smoking permit I suppose HMGs position simply will be that if you want a permit then you must sign on to a GPs list even if you don't use that GP for treatment. GPs are a powerful bunch, however, and could get away with refusing to have anything to do with this scheme. How disappointing if they did so on the grounds of workload rather than on the grounds that the whole idea is preposterous in principle.
If successful application for a permit is dependant on a GP's decision (that smoking is not adversely affecting the applicant's health) then we really are well on the way to totalitarianism.. We will no longer have autonomy to make our own decisions based on our individual attitudes to risk; instead a risk-averse State will dictate to us.
I really don't think that we're so far from that position: the same "Daily Mail" article that I mentioned above reported that there was a proposal to introduce compulsory exercise and the idea has already been suggested for regulation of individual alcohol consumption.
Simon. I listened to 'Drive' and as you have said the discussion was pulled. I did see the interview on News 24, but not enough time was given so hardly anything was achieved.
Just after 11pm on Radio Five's Stephen Nolan programme, the interview went really well, especially with the help of listeners phoning in. I believe that by the end, the idea was completely rubbished and you managed to get Mr Le Grand to admit that passive smoking was not a killer, although said almost under his breath. Because Mr Le Grand was beaten, he said that it was just an idea that could be brought in, in five years time.
A further thought regarding a licence. Not everybody would need to buy a licence, as one person could get one and buy cigarettes for all their friends and family. This could make people buy a week's supply instead of one pack at a time and I know that when people have a large supply they tend to smoke more.
Also if one buys a licence, it could deter some not to give up, as they could think that because they have a licence, they may as well use it.
As someone who has smoked since the age of 15 (now 59) I feel that I must protest at yet another infringement on my human and civil rights. I have travelled extensively over the years and within reason have abided by the law, but it has now got to the stage where even trying to go on holiday be it UK based or overseas I am discriminated against.
In Ireland hotels at least offer the option of smoking or non smoking rooms. In the UK they appear to have wiped us out totally or as with one hotel chain insist you book an executive suite as that is the only place they will allow us smokers at an extra £50 per night.
I have just tried to book a holiday in New England and the feedback has been not only no smoking inside the accommodations but also no smoking within property boundaries, and all of those properties are in acres of ground. Canada has won in this respect because hotels will provide an external balcony for this purpose.
If we allow those who were elected to do our bidding supposedly - I voted BNP as a protest and the numbers are growing - then what will we as a nation be able to do after they have finished their worldwide jaunts, putting their children through university at our expense, pensions that make my state pension yet to be received even harder to live on than now. Will I be allowed to even breathe.
FOREST must fight this with everything it can. Discrimination is illegal in this country. Why should a community that contributes so much to national coffers be asked to pay even more. Sounds like Maggie and the EU.
FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT for our rights.
Chas
I don't like to pour cold water on your post, however I work behind a till for a few hours a week. Our till will not allow more than two packs of painkillers to be included in one sale. This could easily be extended to tobacco sales. Obviously splitting up a large tobacco purchase between sales would be impossible if a different ID card is needed for each sale.
And does this mean that we are not permitted to include cigarettes if we are shopping on someone else's behalf?
Just re-read all the comments posted and thought this may be of interest paid a visit to my GP yesterday having had very severe chest pains since Thursday evening. 3 points
emerged (1) because I had returned a mamogram form saying do not send again they had notified my GP to remove me from his list as I had obviously moved (2) I was suffering from something entirely treatable with a muscle relaxant and (3) other than that little problem I was completely healthy and I puff at 20 a day on average
Belinda
I also wondered what would happen if people bought for their friends. Would they bring in rationing to prevent bulk buying. I'm sure they will try that.
Belinda
Rationing already exists, when we buy abroad.
Thanks to Chas' info I've just listened to the interview on Five Live and there we have it ON RECORD from the horse's mouth that [we] managed to ban smoking from enclosed public places while believing that the weight of evidence on passive smoking was "insubstantial" (Le Grand). How can these people get away with ruining people's social lives and businesses on the basis of "insubstantial" evidence? Le Grand went on to say that, although the evidence on passive smoking was "insubstantial", his latest proposal was justified on the grounds that active smoking causes distress not only to smokers who die from smoking related diseases but to their relatives and that 70% of smokers want to give up. Le Grand might like to consider the thought that death from non-smoking related disease causes distress. Furthermore, why should the 30% be punished to help the 70% for whom there is already more than enough help?
Sorry, I know that I'm stating the obvious but I'm so angry that I have to vent it somewhere and I'm so tired of being treated like a naughty child by people who have absolutely no right, politically and morally, to manipulate me.
I doubt that this will go through. Not because of the freedom aspect, but the administrative cost. It also has shades of a laissez-faire attitude - ie. "if you're clever enough to fill in this form, you're clever enough to make the decision about smoking for yourself". That's not New Labour's style.
Also, I feel we need to stop using the phrase "perfectly legal product" as if it staves off anti-smoking legislation - it didn't stop the ban in public places, nor the gallery of images we'll be treated to come October.
The nice cure for all this would be to reverse the last 10-20 years of British history and restore purpose to the working classes and pride to the middle classes, but that's not going to happen because we're all victims nowadays. Victims of background, victims of depression, victims of smoking, it hardly matters. I think victimhood is "the zeitgeist" of Britain now, and it will continue to be encouraged because a self-pitying public allows the Government to provide solutions. Even the smoking ban itself could be perceived as a way to encourage self-pity: where once we basked in community spirit in a nice smoky pub, we now languish at home, alone and ostracised. We have become victims.
The trouble is, the Government are so good at taking away freedoms. They know how to get away with it. Even if alcohol was to be treated in the draconian manner that smoking is, would that be enough to mobilise an apathetic public? Or would they just roll over and take it? And the "opt out" exercise hour - sure it's creepy and fascistic, but even it could be sold as a positive thing. As long as it is done slowly enough, and each step can be sold as "positive", the erosion of freedom seems to be pretty much sorted.
What needs to happen is for the Government to piss off a sufficiently large number of people in sufficently few steps. Then there may be a backlash. But I just don't think my generation are going to rebel. They are quite happy to be told what to think. And if you doubt that, have a look at BBC THREE.
The other "side" of this whole thing is that the Government probably don't actually want to reduce the number of smokers. All this is, I'm sure, just a load of hot air designed to justify reducing freedoms. It is a state growing beyond its bounds, beyond its remit, and having to use excuses along the way.
Why don't the Government want to reduce the number of smokers? Assuming it is harmFUL your health, it will reduce the burden on the NHS because there are fewer people to put through care in old age - dementia etc. But assuming smoking is harmLESS to your health, the Government are making £10bn a year from it. Do they really want to be free of all that tax money? More likely they're doing this, as Joe Jackson suggested, to create an underclass of people who it's okay to hate.
The likes of ASH are just tools being used. They think the Goverment agree with their drivel. Like hell. The goverment are using them and as soon as they have vilified smoking as much as possible without damaging tax revenue, they will drop ASH and get into bed with some fascist anti-alcohol lobby group. Or anti-obesity group. Or anti-paedophile group. Any group who blindly campaign to reduce freedoms will be viable.
By the time all these lobby groups have been used and dumped, the Government will have achieved their ultimate aim: a population that hate each other, don't trust each other, spy on each other, report each other, never go out because it's dangerous and pleasureless, are all listed on a DNA/ID database, are on CCTV 4000 times a day, have all agreed to an NHS contract which they routinely breach by smoking, drinking etc (in private of course, alone) thus enabling the Government to pull them in randomly to remind each and every one of them who's in charge.
All in all, the Government must love the smoker. He has been a great prototype for the British Citizen of 2050.
PS. You know, I'd like to say "f**k Britain. The Muslims are welcome to it!" but that attitude doesn't solve anything. I don't want to move to another country. I'm British, for Christ's sake. I want my kids to be British. And this ain't British.
If this proposal goes ahead then I hope every smokers petitions this government with a march down whitehall. I hate this bullying government so much. If they are elected into power again then its is definately a fiddle, and i hope there will be trouble on the streets like in kenya.Thats what this government is heading for trouble. How much more will they be allowed to push us all we are doing is buying and smoking a leagal substance if they dont want us to do that then i suggest they ban them.They wont do that because they make huge ammounts of profits from them they are nothing better then drug barons that make huge profits from peoples addiction and weaknesses. This 10.00 permit is another way of getting tax from us I hope they are elected out of government very soon and never to return. Come on smokers get your arse in gear and show this bullying hypocritical greedy government we are totally against this as we are being picked on and it is not fair.
It has already been pointed out by many that this country is now awash with black market produce which the government can do very little about. And no, I am not referring to products which can be brought in legitimately via the duty free option of going abroad to purchase one's fags (which this government will probably try and close down if it adopts Le Grand's idea). I am, in fact, referring to proper black market produce generated by real criminal activity.
For the smoker, and just as occurred during the prohibition era in America during the 1920s, this presents a golden opportunity. Buy from the black market at cheaper prices and deprive the government of tax into the bargain. A very satisfying alternative which, I shall add, I fully endorse.
In the meantime, one has to ask if this government has a death wish. It is already failing miserably where the economy is concerned (and that is the first basis on which the success of a government is judged) and now it seeks to completely alienate some 25% or more of the electorate permanently. (Indeed, the figure is not down to 22% as the government kidologists would have you believe and has anyone taken a good look at some of their ridiculous attempts to survey and manipulate this issue for public consumption?)
The fact is that this government has forgotten that smokers are voters preferring, instead, to believe that smokers will be grateful to them for all the abuse and harassment. This is borne out by Le Grand's mantra generated claim that 70% of smokers want to quit. They do not and we at Freedom to Choose, along with Forest, are in far closer and more reliable contact with smoking opinion than the government or any of their mendacious cronies in ASH and the medical establishment. Certainly, there are a number of smokers who choose to give up each year, but even many of those are now digging in their heels in the opposite direction as governmental oppression continues.
Furthermore, isn't there something totally crazy about a government which talks about involving "stakeholders" in its consultations on tobacco control when it fails to consult the most important group - the smoking stakeholders - or if it does, the consultation is a pretence and any input from the smokers is ignored in favour of those who want to do things to us for our own good? In good old English vernacular: "Bugger off."
However, let us move back to the voting issue. The number of people damaged by the UK smoking bans is very large indeed and consists not just of smokers but all those countless people whose businesses have been either put at risk or terminated as a result.
As time proceeds smokers, and those in sympathy following business damage, are becoming very aware of the political clout they may exercise via the ballot box. In fact, they now comprise, way and ahead, a very angry and very large minority indeed and at Freedom to Choose we are very well connected to many people in various industries adversely affected by the ban. Moreover, we are striving to ensure (as I am sure are Forest) that people become more acutely aware of just how much damage we can gleefully inflict upon New Labour at the next general election. The smoking vote is now more that large enough to make or break any government and at the next election we shall ensure that New Labour's back is broken with a ton weight so ensuring that many current MPs will never see parliament again let alone government. During the 1980s, Norman Tebbit said that socialism was taking a long time to die. He was right, but, the Tories having failed to "execute" socialism, he may take a crumb of comfort from the fact that the "bruvvers" are now doing it for themselves.
At the next election this inept government is going to discover just how grateful we really are for the way in which we have been treated, but I also confidently send a strong an uncompromising message to the Liberal Democrats and Cameron's Tories. They too, have failed to represent the interests of a large portion of the electorate, preferring instead to jump on the trendy anti-smoker bandwagon. They too must remember that we are voters who require proper parliamentary representation and if Cameron and his chums think that the smoking ban will be "bedded in" by the next election (they even borrowed from ASH) they need to think again. Take a good look at America. Heavy duty smoking bans have been in force there in different locations for over ten years and yet, not only has the number of smokers remained undiminished, the smoking issue remains firmly on the political agenda. The same thing will happen here except that over the next two years smokers are going to become a force to be reckoned with. I kid you not. Watch this space.
Reading these comments give me great heart this morning. I just wish more of the country's smokers knew about this site (Simon - what about a mass leafleting campaign, pointing to these discussions?)
Joyce, I hope GPs do use their power to resist becoming State-sanctioned spies and social engineers, but I fear they won't resist that. It is sad that even intelligent people no longer seem to have the capacity to learn from the mistakes of history.
It is great to hear that Simon backed LeGrand into admitting the SHS evidence was 'insubstantial' - now that is a piece of news that should be published in every paper and on every news programme. But will it be? I doubt it. Maybe the Telegraph and Independent would publish it though - since they have a better track record than the rest. I hope you'll alert them to this, Simon.
Another point that hasn't yet been raised is that not only would there be a charge for the permit but also a charge for the GPs' endorsement of the application - about £50 a pop, I believe) which, of course, would also go into the coffers of HMG.
Somebody above mentioned business well in my small company 97% of staff are smokers. One office alone has a 100% rating.
The MD a reformed smoker of something like 60 a day and 75+ in age has now started to moan about the fact we are leaving our desks for a puff. Nothing was ever said before about the internal atmosphere. No about the fact that he would nick a ciggie from anyone stupid enough to leave them laying about.
£10 p.a mentioned now for proof to be able to purchase well I have my proof already they are called a drivers licence and british passport this give all the info HMG need my age, and in my drivers licence case I am sufficiently logical to pass a driving test ergo I am resposnsible enough to dcide whether I wish to smoke.
Well, every cloud....The Times, Daily Epress and The Sun have picked up the story and invited comments the vast majority of which savage the idea. Even better, many people seem to believe implementation is imminent and are ready to lynch HMG. Could we be seeing the beginning of the end of NuLabour?
Get in there, Simon and add to the fury by publicising Le Grand's admission!!!
Just as you thought it COULDN'T get any worse....................
I pray that one day very soon THEY will dare that One Step Too Far - the one that'll awaken the sleeping masses at last from their slumbering apathy to the realisation of what's really going on in the country I love.
Crikey - they've turned ME into a revolutionary !
Anyone care to phone Conservative Central Office about THIS ?
In the meantime, I'll just finish sewing on my yellow star...............
Nu-Labour, more like Nu-Fascism - yes Martin, I was was just wondering when our sew on badges will be coming.
Yes Blad, none of the 3 major parties will be getting my vote.
Well done Simon, from what I have read on here, I missed you on the radio, so I will see if I can find a way of listening again. I hope I can.
I have just heard the radio show. Well done Simon, I noticed Stephen Nolan, never questioned, the fact that SHS was virtually harmless,or the lies that have been told. Or what has been created because of those lies, the jobs lost, the buisness losses, social exclusion ect. If it was anything else, I think that would have been questioned! but at least he gave you some air-time.
I've just had a horrifying idea that probably appeals to people in Whitehall...
The permit could be absorbed into the current ID card scheme. Swipe your ID card and it tells the cashier whether you're licensed to smoke.
No need for a separate card. It's all so easy and convenient - how could you resist?!
But in return for this convenience, the swipe machine sends details straight to your entry in the national identity register of how many cigarettes you're buying, what brand, what strength etc.
Every day, a computer program will randomly choose a smoker and produce a detailed report of their recent smoking patterns - and you/your spouse will receive this report in the mail, complete with photos of cancer patients and a recorded message from one of them pleading with you to stop.
And if you do stop, you are allowed to record a similar speech confessing your addiction and pleading with smokers to give up, and it will be broadcast in towns and cities on big screens. Telescreens.
Col Dee: LOL
Why not go even further? They could extract from the database those who buy more than the average smoker and require them to seek help on pain of their licence to smoke (BTW this is the title for the latest Bond movie) being revoked. Such smokers would be assigned to "attitude and behaviour modification facilitators" (who, having been recruited from "The Guardian", will naively believe that they have real jobs). They would be required to attend centres (created from the pubs that have closed down) for their sessions during which the telescreens would transmit subliminal messages of cancerous lungs and "minging teeth" while scientific evidence on the dangers of passive and active smoking were presented by an expert from ASH. At later sessions Le Grand's other big idea of provision of exercise would be incorporated. As the programmes became extended to include recalcitrant drinkers who enjoy more than the recommended one unit of alcohol a week and those guilty of buying cakes on a Saturday, the larger premises required could be found in the bingo halls that have closed down, thus freeing up the pubs for housing (after all the population will explode with return to normal sperm count of the male modified smokers).
Think I'll stand as a Nu Labour candidate at the next election!!
Joyce,
You say "LOL", and yes I meant the post humorously, but I feel I should say something.
Six years ago, a friend and I were discussing the health warnings on cigarette packets and joked about how heavily-worded they were. This was back in the days when the warnings were in small font. Yet even that, back then, seemed heavy-handed.
We joked about how heavy-handed it COULD get - in some comedy future.
The idea came to us that a really desperate, fascist government may stoop to printing pictures of lung cancer victims on cigarette packets.
It was a funny idea because it was so preposterous. So distant and ridiculous. Impossible.
But fast-forward six years and it is REALITY. We are now living in a world two students regarded as an impossible joke six years ago.
So who's to say that the "comical" Big Brother future I described in my previous post will not be reality six years from now? Does it seem any more preposterous than the present situation would have seemed even two years ago?
Col.
Col, I did realise that your post was making a serious point and my last post was intended to be ironic. In fact, it is not so very far from the truth. I've made many posts on this thread (and started on the subject on the thread "A Very British Disease" because I was so outraged and there was nowhere else to post) and have alluded to other proposals to engineer people's behaviour (by denying them state benefits if they refuse to agree to Government diktat on lifestyle).
When Le Grand was defending his permit idea on Five Live he said (I thought in a rather surprised tone) who would have thought a few years ago that we could have banned smoking in pubs. A few years ago would anyone have thought that a British Government would consider it legitimate to micro-manage individuals' lives, backed by punitive authoritarianism as NuLabour has?
I said in an earlier post that, although the permit idea might well be unworkable, the truly frightening thing is that HMG is even considering it, both because of the fundamental right that it breaches and because of the potential sinister use of the database by HMG examples of which I've already mentioned.
I consider Orwell's dystopia to be already here. A town nearby me prides itself on being the first to have talking CCTV cameras. Apparently, if someone commits a misdemeanour, a disembodied voice shouts at them. There appears to be support for the voices used to be those of children. It's not a million miles away from subliminal messages on telescreens...
Please forgive me if I have either stated the obvious or put something on someone has already mentioned. If we have to have licences to smoke tobacco and obtain permission from GPs, then GPs will automatically have a record of who smokes and can, subsequently, refuse to treat them on the NHS as per the Prime Minister's New Year message re: smokers, drinkers and the obese. As regulations change at a rapid rate, perhaps this is a quick way of compiling data to justify refusal to treat 25% of the population and 'save' NHS costs and cut down waiting lists.
I saw this article posted on a few other sites related to smokers and was appalled, yet not surprised. I can see them trying this here in, what is still called, the USA. Anyone want to bet that those of you buying your smokes in other countries will have to show your license to bring those smokes back home AND then have to pay your UK taxes on them? Yes, I can see them doing just that.
The states here are almost doing that with the internet purchases smokers are making. They bully, threaten, whatever, the internet sites into turning over their sales records and then the state starts sending out letters to these people demanding their tax. I got one of those, and I've ignored it. They day they start stopping people like my sister at the state line, bus terminals, etc from bringing in her "tax free" purchases made in a state that has little or no sales tax and forcing her pay her tax is the day I MIGHT consider their demand. Technically, anyone buying a product somewhere in particular because it is cheaper, is guilty of tax evasion too, because there is less tax paid on the less expensive product. For example: Why should I spend $500 for a bicycle sold in a major sporting goods store when I can get the same bike at Wal-Mart for $250? By buying it at Wal-Mart, I've just paid a lot less tax on my purchase. That is called freedom of choice. We have the option to buy our goods cheaper somewhere else without having to pay the taxes we avoided buying it cheaper, so why are cigarettes suddenly any different?
People we, yes we as in all of us worldwide, need to stop being passive sheep. We need to stand up and fight. Let them tax auto users who poison the air everyone IS forced to breath because there's no escaping it. That's the major cause of these illnesses after genetics, followed by all the chemicals in the processes/packaged foods we eat.
I've been rolling my own cigarettes for a year now and will be planting/growing my own tobacco starting this year, because I do believe they will start to over-tax the loose tobacco also. I suggest all smokers do this, I saw a site where many of the posters were in the UK, in apartments (flats?), growing their own. Definitely something to look into and I hear it is not that difficult either.
That makes sense, Jenny. I must say I've pondered this issue a lot - the idea that doctors would refuse to treat people on the basis of lifestyle - and I really have to wonder if that's a workable situation. It can only be so if not a single doctor out there has any sense of ethics.
Of course, there must be plenty of doctors in the system (as in any job) who only want to do the absolute minimum and reap any rewards that come their way (be they 'freebies' from pharmaceutical companies or incentive bonuses from government), but there must also be some doctors in the system who honestly came into the profession with the idea of helping people and doing what they can to heal the sick. You know, the kind of doctors who travel to war zones and Third World countries to do everything they can to alleviate human suffering.
They must be there, somewhere, in the system (I've never met one personally, but they must be). Now if I were such a Doctor, I would be thoroughly incensed at the idea of refusing treatment to ANYBODY, and I would set up a charitable organisation to give free treatment outside of the NHS to all who needed it. Obviously the most high-tech treatments would not be possible from such a charity, but basic first aid, pain relief and palliative care would be. Just enough to prevent the needless and unwarranted suffering that the State now condones for us 'lesser mortals'.
Actually, I would be more likely to use such a system than I am the NHS, since I find the NHS unecessarily obtrusive and dictatorial, and (these days) a service that is more likely to MAKE you ill - be it through MRSA, botched operations, bad drugs etc.
So... if there are any decent doctors out there who really care about the alleviation of suffering, and see us all as equal, how about a truly valuable social revolution. Basic care for all without the government pulling your strings.
It was inevitable that the perceived success of the smoking ban would see a plethora of dafter and dafter proposals. The idiots who try to rule our lives are blind to the fact that most people obey the current iniquitous laws because they do not wish to see legitimate businesses hit with draconian fines or, even worse, forced to close. I welcome their stupid proposals, the 'permit to smoke' being merely the latest and most idiotic, as they may eventually galvanise us into some serious collective action. Current legislation relies on smokers conforming because of harsher penalties on others. When only the smoker is affected perhaps we will make a stand and refuse to pay the fine or buy the permit. Perhaps then ASH and their ilk will finally see that you can only push us so far.
"Nanny Knows Best" (link on The Free Society blog) has now picked up the story. The people blogging there are seriously hacked off with this Government and at least one person has commented that a few bloggers getting tetchy isn't going to halt "Nanny". Is this an opportunity to deveop a relationship with a view to future oollective action?
Hello again Joyce,
>I said in an earlier post that, although the permit idea might well be unworkable, the truly frightening thing is that HMG is even considering it
I agree with you. The question is: "Why are they considering it?"
That's what I don't understand. Why is the government so intent on gaining control? Is it a New Labour thing or would it be the same if the Tories got in - perhaps it's just "the way government is these days", regardless of which party is in charge. And is it unique to Britain or, as many people seem to think, a Europe-wide phenomenon?
Perhaps the cause is very simple: corporate management mentality has seeped into government, causing "the wrong people" to get into positions of power. People who enjoy control for its own sake and don't actually have a clue how to improve the lives of the public - their only vision is a vision of enhanced control.
I really wish I knew the cause.
>I consider Orwell's dystopia to be already here. A town nearby me prides itself on being the first to have talking CCTV cameras. Apparently, if someone commits a misdemeanour, a disembodied voice shouts at them. There appears to be support for the voices used to be those of children. It's not a million miles away from subliminal messages on telescreens...
It may not be the same town, but about a year ago I read that a town had held a competition in its schools to find the child who would be "the voice" of its CCTV cameras.
Quite apart from the X-Factor-like competition dressing, this alone strikes me as extremely sinister: why the desire for it to be specifically a child's voice? Why a child's voice?
There is no rational reason for it. Indeed, to lay eyes it seems absurd for a child to be telling adults what to do - let alone accosting them.
So I think it reeks of deep psychological studies and thinktanks; it seems to be the result of a long period of investigation and planning; as if much thought has gone into how to frighten people in the most primitive, instinctive manner.
I say that because the concept of a demonic child, or a child plugged into a computer, is immediately disturbing - and it's the exact image conjured by a child's voice emanating from a CCTV camera. It's sick.
And as for parallels with 1984, having a child telling adults what to do directly echoes Parsons saying how proud he is that his children turned him in for thoughtcrime. It's a long time since I read it but I seem to recall quite a few paragraphs about how parents lived in fear of their children, who could shop them to the Thought Police.
Of course parallels with 1984 are notable only for being so ironic. It's sometimes as if our Marxist overlords have read 1984 and decided to consciously emulate it.
For example, the adverts for car tax evasion, with the slogan: "You can't escape the computer". That translates very easily to: "Big Brother is watching you."
And political correctness is certainly ramified and subtle enough now as to be a prototype for thoughtcrime. Already, people are taught to be frightened of themselves - of what they might do, say, think - and to trust the authorities to form opinions on their behalf.
So I agree with you to an extent. In some ways, the pillars of Orwell's vision are present in Britain today. What is missing is the squalor and misery of his vision - and I suspect the forthcoming War on Climate Change may see to that.
If one believes in conspiracy theories - and it is hardly a leap of imagination to do so nowadays - it could be that the WOCC is being set up as the ultimate tool for controlling the public. It could be the equivalent of Ingsoc's perpetual war against Eastasia/Eurasia: necessary only to continue the war at home, and to keep everyone beholden to the State.
Hi Col,
I don't know either why HMG is determined to exert such unprecedented levels of control. Perhaps Blair and Brown are realising long held fantasies of a comunist Britain; perhaps so much power has been given to Brussels that the UK is now just a very small state in the United States of Europe and the UK government relegated to the status of "departmental head" whose function is to implement in the most efficient and effective manner the policies of the Board of Directors (the European Parliament); perhaps because the increasing secularisation of our society is in direct proportion to a decreasing sense of service and humility in our politicians so that they are prepared to cross a line that was hitherto regarded as off limits.
My town and "your" town are the very same. Children are being used quite shamlessly these days to push political messages: used in HMG's anti smoking ads and by advertisers using "green" spin (eg the one with the strapline "Every child has the right to.." for a detergent). It's to engender guilt in adults.
What I find really disquieting is the politicisation of education (see eg Simon Hill's blog) in which the curriculum is being hijacked as a tool for HMG's own agenda.