Introducing ... Dawn Primarollup
Monday, January 19, 2009 Rod Liddle, a former Smoker-Friendly Journalist of the Year (Forest Awards) and a guest at our Revolt In Style dinner in 2007, appeared on The Politics Show (West) yesterday. Subject: the government's proposal to ban the display of tobacco.
An edited version of the pre-recorded interview appears on the BBC website HERE. It's worth watching. However, the online version is rather different from the broadcast version because it omits a substantial chunk of the interview, including this exchange:
DAVID GARMSTON (presenter): And when are you going to pack up the fags?
LIDDLE: I don’t know. I might give it a year. I rather enjoy it, it is very pleasurable. And of course one does look a lot cooler when you’re smoking a cigarette. You can’t get away from it.
GARMSTON: Dawn Primarolo will be watching this programme now and there will be smoke coming from her ears at your suggestion.
LIDDLE: I wonder, has she ever smoked?
GARMSTON: I don’t know.
LIDDLE: Wouldn’t surprise me if she had, a few roll-ups. Dawn Primarollup. [laughs]
GARMSTON: [laughs] Rod Liddle, we’d better leave it there. Thank you.
Amusingly, the programme then cut to a live interview with Primarollup Primarolo which began with Garmston saying:
"Well, Dawn Primarolo is with me now. Dawn, I wasn’t laughing. I was coughing from the fumes from his ciggies."
And Primarolo's response?
I don’t care when you laugh. He can be irreverent. What does it matter to me? I’m not asking him to like me. I’m not even asking him to agree with me, but, you know, he’s entitled to his view. He likes smoking, but the truth is that seven out of ten smokers want to stop smoking and they look to the Health Service to help them do that, so, you know, 87,000 people a year die of smoking-related diseases. It’s an important issue.
Prim by name, prim by nature. Later in the interview the minister for public health admitted that "I have smoked, yes ... but it was quite a while ago and I don’t smoke." So that's alright.
People
Reader Comments (7)
Am suffering an attack of antismoking-related disease, namely stress at the thought of primly Dawn ever being allowed near power again.
It's OK, she'll say she didn't inhale. Job done.
So Primar-rollup, thinks, or maybe even knows, that seven out of ten smokers want to give up and are looking to the Health Service to help them do it?
Well, if she had been in Brick Lane on Sunday morning when I was there, she would have seen the true other side to her made up figures.
As I was passing the old Charrington Brewery, there in the middle of the road, was a silly twerp dressed as a crumpled up cigarette, and opposite him, was his partner in crime, who was trying to dish out NHS leaflets, telling passers by that he was sure they wanted to give up smoking, and the NHS would help them.
I stopped for a few minutes and watched them, the twerp in the ciggy suit, just kept dancing to some Caribbean music from a nearby stall, much to the amusement of a couple of little children, but I never saw one single person take a leaflet from the other goofball.
I decided to try a little experiment of my own, and much to my wife's annoyance, I took her brand new pack of Bensons, from her bag, opened them up and started offering them to passers by, saying the following as I did so, "Want to start smoking?...Here you are, free cigarettes".
Needless to say I attracted some very angry comments from the two NHS twerps, but I also attracted a lot more favourable comments from the passers by, who cleared me out of my wife's Benson's in less than 5 minutes.
I wonder what Primar-rollup, would have said if she had seen that little experiment?
P.S. I did replace my wife's Bensons at the first shop we came to.
Peter you are priceless that took some courage to do and it is interesting how much positive response you got. I definitely get the impression that smokers feel under the cosh and bullied, no sh*t Sherlock. I am sure smokers and non-smokers who saw it had a frisson of the feel-good factor.
Brilliant! Peter T. I can't wait to try it myself if we have those sort of clowns in my town.
Peter , well done.
I had a similar experience at the weekend with 2 NHS placard wielding "volunteers" I walked over to them quite calmly and offered them both a fag much to the amusement of passers by !
LOL, good for you, Peter. I'd love to see this happening wherever these fools turn up!