BBC makes a mountain out of a dunghill
Friday, October 23, 2009 I missed Question Time last night. (I was guzzling champagne and stuffing my face with canapes and "light bites" at the Royal Academy of Arts, but that's another story.) Nevertheless, an article by Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail on Tuesday reminded me of something.
"Back when I had a show on Sky TV," Littlejohn wrote, "my producer thought it would be a good idea to invite Griffin to appear. After all, we'd had the Islamist headbanger Omar Bakri on the programme a couple of weeks earlier, so why not?
"Interviewing the shifty and unsavoury Griffin was like trying to nail jelly to a wall ... Afterwards, I felt rather grubby."
As it happens, I was a guest on that very same programme. So, too, was Henry Olonga, the first black cricketer to represent Zimbabwe at international level.
Henry and I were chatting in the green room when we were joined by the BNP leader. I'm not sure if Henry knew who he was, or what he represented, but Griffin's presence certainly put a dampener on the conversation!
In the event, his appearance on Sky came and went without comment. There were no protests, no editorials, nothing (as far as I can recall).
Truth is, only the BBC could make a mountain out of a dunghill.
Reader Comments (133)
.."we are the people to blame for letting it happen, and for still standing back and not opposing it vigorously!" PT
It's been very difficult as one person watching the hysteria build up over several years to do anyhting about it. I was prevented from knowing that there were other voices by a bigoted media that didn't care to look for any opposition to the anti-smoking propaganda.
I have lately come to the conculsion that it is just too late. There is nothing that can ever be done. You might as well get used to being excluded and treated worse than a leper. This situation will not improve and when tobacco is made illegal - as I believe it will be within 10 years - then you will be criminalised as well.
It will happen because this movement is too undivided and weak. We can't even agree on one vote for one party to show those that want to be in control that we matter and this issue matters more than anything. In truth, to many people on here, it doesn't.
I can't believe anyone would vote - or even consider voting - Tory without an assurance from Cameron that this anti-smoking persecution will end.
I think this will be my last word on this subject. I have one committment in Birmingham which I am sure will come to nothing because smokers can be treated in ways that the law prevents others from being treated and then my fight ends.
Pat, I found your comment after I came in from raking up leaves. While I was doing that I was mulling over this same thread and, after much hesitation, I had decided to post one further message. I say ‘further’ instead of ‘last’ because there is much that is uncertain. I have been aware, though, that this issue has been dominating much of my thought when there are other matters which are also pressing in my life, indeed, in a personal sense, more pressing.
It is appropriate that you did make this post because my thoughts relate to your comments elsewhere about the young mum who lost her baby and was not allowed, in her grief, to smoke a cigarette. I copied that to my MP and quite soon received a reply. I then replied to him with a request that I might publish some of the correspondence on this site. I considered that to be the proper approach to take. Just over a week has passed and I have received no reply so far. What I feel I can do, however, is quote just this from his reply, because it encapsulates many of the issues.
‘I have every sympathy for the lady in the story you relate although it is told with a particularly emotive spin. But I also have every sympathy and compassion for those cared for at the hospices I visit who struggle to gasp their last breaths as the lung cancer induced by their or others smoking kills them.’
There is a difference between despondency and resignation. Perhaps we should not be resigned to the situation even if fed up. I have written here before of middle England. My MP – I have not actually met him – is a conscientious and no doubt, in his own world, caring, representative of his constituency. He just can’t imagine what it is like to be in our position.
I am capable of feeling real distress and anger when I go into a bank and there is no escape from piped music. I used to love sea swimming and I was glad when dogs were banned from the beach and I could go for an early dip without my bare ankles being attacked by dogs who thought the beach belonged to them. I was very glad though, that when dogs were banned from some beaches during summer months, they were allowed on others. Piped music is not yet universal but if it were I would hope that there were places where I could enjoy silence.
I’m pretty sure that when the beach bans came in, dog lovers will have been pretty fed up and unable to understand what the fuss was about.. Perhaps we’re a bit like the dog lovers but with no place of our own. Here’s hoping.
I sympathise with you Norman. The only consolation you might have, is that you are not alone, and I am not just talking about smokers, I am talking about many, many things which have changed and been taken away from us over the years.
As you so rightly say, piped music is forced upon us almost wherever we go, from banks to supermarkets, to retail outlets, and what I particularly find annoying, is when you are kept waiting on the phone and you have to endure minute after minute of pathetic rubbish which you do not want to hear. I have always toyed with the idea of having a radio or a CD ready, and as soon as the person you are waiting for gets back in touch with you, to give them a blast of something horrible, such as Des O'Conner for instance, or would that be going too far?
As for dogs on the beach, I am undecided on that one. In one way I love to see them, especially when young children take them there and they play together, rollicking in the sea and having so much innocent fun. What I do not agree with however, is the excrement which they leave behind. Imagine slipping over in a packet of that!
But if it were left to me to decide, I would put the onus on the dog owners, and say that dogs are welcome, but the owners must clean up after them.
This is one of the problems which we have been discussing here, that the British, as a whole are too timid and obedient. My apartment in Spain faces directly onto a beautiful beach, and at the entrance to the beach is a large sign, saying what you must not do on the beach, such as no BBQs, no football, and no dogs, to name just a few.
I like nothing better than to go out onto the terrace during the evening and watch people cooking on the BBQs on the beach, kids playing football, and dogs playing happily in the water's edge.
If that same sign was on Brighton beach for instance, all of those innocent pastimes would have disappeared overnight, and we would have council officials patrolling the beaches and handing out fines to stray dogs, without owners, who had dropped their doggy-doos without wiping their bottoms properly afterwards.
With regard to Pat's post, this again is what we have been discussing, i.e. people's ignorance. The doctor in question states "who struggle to gasp their last breaths as the lung cancer induced by their or others smoking kills them"
This poor guy probably believes it, and this is what we are up against. We must change people's perception of smokers. We must make them see that we are not murderers. Those people in the hospices are not struggling to gasp their last breaths because of passive smoking at all, as there is no such thing!
But when even doctors believe it, then we have one almighty struggle on our hands. It seems to me that too many people are relying on some super-hero to come along and say "Do not worry Super Fagman is here and I will save the day". The bad news is, he 'aint going to come. The good news is, we can do it ourselves. Start educating now!
The latest comments tend to make pretty gloomy reading, I must say !
Norman's post in particular - or rather his MP's response - demonstrates what a good job the torturers have done with people's collective brain (as if we didn't know already).
But such an attitude is pretty well on a par with the banning of smoking on Death Row in the States.
How DOES one deal with such a toxic mix of lunacy and cruelty ?
Peter's otherwise reasonable suggestion that 'education' is the answer has only one flaw: it pre-supposes that the people that count WANT to be 'educated'.
No need to develop THAT theme.............
I wonder if there's ANY chance of a 'Question Time Special', with the panel consisting of a representative cross-section of the Anti-Smoking Lobby (eg Arnott, Donaldson, and a couple of tame MPs) - and the ENTIRE audience consisting of outraged smokers and libertarians, including Simon, Rod Liddle, Joe Jackson, and possibly a couple of our American friends.
Would Auntie risk it ?
And another thing.............
Peter's HORRIFIC suggestion of using a Des O'Connor tape as a counter-measure has prompted me to confess A DARK FANTASY:
Deborah Arnott is screaming in an upturned car, trapped, and with the flames licking around her. She cries to ME for help.
And - by way of re-payment for all the kindness and understanding she's shown to US over the years, I scream back:
"Burn, you bitch ! At least YOUR misery will soon be over..................."
Of course, were such an awful thing ever to occur, I would do all in my power to save her.
Conscience can be such a drag sometimes.
But God forgive her and her kind for ever making it POSSIBLE for me even to think in such a wicked way.
Nonetheless:
Mind The Gap, Deborah.................
Pat -
Please DON'T give up !
Churchill (a Sagittarian) had his Black Dog days, too, remember.
Short-term Pessimism, but
Long-term Optimism.
The only way, surely.......................?
And there's MORE at stake here than just our 'simple pleasures'.
Much, much more......................
Martin (22.17), Auntie would have a fit of the vapours at the mere suggestion...
Outrage is only acceptable if expressed by a State-approved mob.
Pat, please dont give up, we all suffer from the 'black dog' from time to time and more frequently in these crazy PC times of 'new world order' EU bullshit of makey up rules and regulations for all, which have just one common denominator agenda of filty lucre, and to make it easier for our new dictators to rule us and keep them in their cushy jobs/unaccountable expenses/companies etc, at the expense of our enjoyment and civil liberties, especially minorities like us.
There has been a great discussion going on here with brilliant input from you all, which keeps the rest of us going and gives us ammunition to fire at our detractors.
We just have to keep chipping away.
Remember, from a little acorn an oak tree grows!
Joyce -
Don't worry about me.
I've pre-booked my place in a lovely camp (somewhere in the Orkneys, I believe).
Plenty of fresh air, honest labour, and 're-education facilities' - according to the brochure.
Stylish pyjamas, too (striped).
Hope they've got postcards.
And BBC 1...................
PS:
Chatting today with a workmate (aged 36), and asked for his views about the New World Order.
"Haven't heard of it. "
Yep - we've LOTS to do.....................
PPS:
Sorry Auntie - I love you, really. But you CAN be a trying old cow at times.
Ann -
Re:
"Remember, from a little acorn an oak tree grows!"
Wouldn't it be nice if it were an English one ? (American Oak easier to work - but far less interesting grain pattern).
I think this will be my last word on this subject. I have one committment in Birmingham ... and then my fight ends. Pat Nurse
I wish it were that easy for me to throw in my hand, fulfil the one last commitment before ending the fight.
But such decisions are not mine to make. It would be like trying to switch off a volcano. I couldn't do it. The anger just keeps coming, day after day after day. I'll only ever be able to walk away when and if that volcanic anger burns itself out. And coming up on on two and a half years into the ban, that anger shows absolutely no signs of fading away. If anything, it just gets more intense and more focused.
So, best of luck with giving up, Pat. There's zero chance I'll be doing the same.
I go along with everything that Idlex says. My 'anger' does not diminish over time What really, really annoys me is the idea that, according to the killjoys, if I smoke in the pub, then I am, in effect, killing those people who are around me - even those people are smokers themselves. Every time that I head outside for a fag, I feel resentful. I cannot see any way in which this feeling can ever be diminished.
But I wonder sometimes if our approach to this 'issue' is the correct one. We bang on about how the doctors etc are wrong, and that passive smoking as a harmful event is wrong, but I ask myself if there is another point of view which is actually more important than the 'issue' that doctors want to concentrate on.
I ask myself whether or not the RIGHT OF ASSEMBLY is not more important than 'health'. I seems to me that the smoking ban infringes our RIGHT OF ASSEMBLY. This right (to assemble peacefully) was hard won.
It cannot be right that our right as individuals to assemble peacefully can be overturned for health reasons, or even 'health and safety' reasons. The right to assemble peacefully is a fundamental right that we, as individuals, possess. The State, the Government, have no automatic right to limit out right to assemble peacefully.
I think that this idea is fundamentally important. If it were not so, then the State could ban people assembling peacefully in order to play football because 'experts have said that playing football is bad for a person's health' and it is a drain on the NHS. The answer, of course, to such an idea is, "Fuck off, Mr Expert, and leave us alone". (I do not often swear).
Does what I say make sense, or am I dreaming?
Of course, we ALL know (or sense, at any rate) that all this nonsense has NOTHING to do with Health at all, really.
The High Command tends not to share its grand strategy with the dumb Infantry.
'Health' is merely the PUBLIC justification for something really Rather Nasty.
And that's why all our rational (and theoretically indefeasible) counter-arguments on health grounds tend to go unheeded.
If They can 'control' - with the tacit approval of the majority - some 25% of the adult population with regard to something as PERSONAL as smoking, then what will They NOT be able to achieve in the coming years ?
Sadly, MANY people now appreciate this.
And STILL don't give a damn.
And THAT makes ME angry. Very, very angry.
Still, if some silly little girl somewhere now feels she doesn't HAVE to shampoo her hair every time SHE goes to the pub, I guess it's all worthwhile...................
I feel exactly the same as Idlex. For three years and one month (when I realised that 'passive smoking' was a scam), I've felt unhappy and angry, with the feelings intensifying over time as I've become more aware. I've wished that I could accept the ban in the hope that my anger would lessen, but I can't.
I'm not certain that the fight against the ban can be won in isolation. Too many smokers are unaware that it's based on a fallacy, that there is opposition and have accepted the ban. In the blogosphere, however, there is anger about the many other issues that affect everyday life in the UK and I don't believe that the blogosphere is unrepresentative of the population. I think that, sooner or later, there will be a tipping point and the anger, anxiety and resentment will erupt and cause a backlash. If the smoking ban is amended it will be as a result of the backlash. Meanwhile, all we can do is to keep speaking out about the nonsensical 'evidence' which informs the ban and link Big Tobacco Control's tactics with those now being used to demonise alcohol which also casts doubt by association on the 'evidence'.
The ban having stimulated my interest in politics and this Government's activities in particular, I've come to loathe New Labour so much that I even found myself rather wishing that the odious Griffin would embarrass Straw on QT. I no longer believe anything that New Labour says, no longer believe that it is benign and will cheer with every seat that it loses at the next election. The irony is that all this wouldn't have happened if I'd been allowed to continue to have a cigarette with a cup of coffee in a cafe
Does what I say make sense? (Junican)
Of course it makes sense. It's just another important dimension of the smoking ban, another profound infringement of liberty, another reduction and diminution and constraint.
Talking of anger, what infuriates me most is the way that MSM has largely given up on objective reporting.
For example, when did MSM ever really question the supposed threat from second hand smoke? To my mind never. Far easier to quote the latest figures from some government department or quango saying that 62 million people die each week from it. Ever heard on the news the view that moderate smoking might be beneficial? No, me neither.
Again, it's very rare for anyone on tv or the newspapers to actually question the dubious science behind the new religion of global warming (OK, Chistopher Booker is an exception but he's not exactly mainstream).
When did someone on MSM actually debate whether continued EU membership is a good thing for the UK and what actually would be the consequences of our leaving?
The establishment view is always taken as a given and the attitude is one of "we know that XXX is a fact so we don't need to discuss that any more". Any other viewpoint gets zero coverage in the media.
As such it has become little more than an instrument of state propaganda and something to be ignored - surely this hasn't always been the case or am I just seeing things through rose tinted spectacles as I get older?.
Hear hear, Joyce, I'm sure you speak for us all in regard to the anger that is still raw with everyone here against Nulabour.
When you think of the underhanded, sneaky and jack booted nazi way they rode roughshod over our simple smoking pleasure, turning citizens against each other, and the way they used their spin doctors to control the media with false statistics under the guise of concern for our health.
To the extent that people now feel that the devil himself in govt couldnt be much worse!
Too true Martin V re english oak. Hope you do a good job in re-educating them over there in the Orkneys!
@Junican - but, of course ASH & Co disingenuously say that they're not denying our right of assembly, just the right to smoke while assembled indoors and for the perfectly legitimate reason that we're damaging the health of the innocent. Our only recourse is to show that the evidence of that is untenable.
OT, and rather barbed I know, but every time I read this thread, the first thing I read is Simon Clark's first few words:
I was guzzling champagne and stuffing my face with canapes and "light bites" at the Royal Academy of Arts, but that's another story.
Somehow, I think that's the story of Simon Clark's life.
I really tried not to be here today but I think our frustrations and anger have made us likely to take things out on each other. Screwtape's pupils at Ash would enjoy that.
Touché.
Norman -
Re:
"our frustrations and anger............"
Understandable in the circumstances.
But WE also have one other thing:
VITALITY !
And you can't win battles without it.............
(And if this thread gets any bigger, we'll have to call it 'Topsy')
@ goodstuff
No, it hasn't always been this way. Not that long ago, our elected politicians decided for themselves what the best thing to do was in any given circumstance. They did not rely on 'experts' to decide for them. They relied upon the facts placed before them. REAL facts, not vague statistical facts. For example, slavery was abolished because of the principle that ALL MEN ARE EQUAL. Africans are not some sort of sub-species to be treated like animals. More recently, the need for clean water and decent sewerage was recognised as necessary for public health HARD FACTS supported the law.
What has happened in recent times has been something like this:
Imagine a cabinet meeting. Sec of State for Health says that, according to her department's experts, thousands are dieing, not only because of smoking directly, but also because of smoking indirectly (passive smoking). Something must be done.
Most of the cabinet have no knowledge of the matter and do not know what to do, and so the chairman says, "I'll tell you what. Hands up all those who like smoking". Result, 2. "Hands up all those do not like smoking". Result 10.
Thus, the Sec of State for Health gets the go- ahead to 'do something about it'. What the Sec does is accept the opinion of her own 'experts' and totally ignores the opinions of any other experts. She must do that, because otherwise she would be caught between two stools and be unable to decide. That is why our opinions and the opinions of all others are disregarded. MPs have no idea what to do, and so follow their masters. That is the way it happens these days.
@ Joyce.
Yes, that is what Ash have said, but NO NO NO! Our right to assemble over-rides all such thoughts. Persons who do not like tobacco smoke do not have to attend the assembly. They can go elsewhere. Persons who do not wish to work in the vicinity of smokers do not have to do so. There is no problem. In a way, the argument about 'workers' rights' not to inhale tobacco smoke is turned on its head. Rather than stopping people smoking, the onus is transferred to employers to relieve staff from the duty to work in a 'smoky atmosphere'. In that case, it would be to the advantage of employers to minimise smoke which they can do in various ways. They could, of course, always ban smoking in their premises if that is their wish.
There is only one problem with the idea of our right of assembly and that is TERRORISTS. Do terrorists have the right to assemble?
In this case, one has to think just a little more carefully, because a new idea comes into play, and that is CONSPIRACY.
In short, yes, terrorists have the right of assembly. They can go to the pub and watch football, have a beer and a fag just like the rest of us. But can they use the right of assembly to conspire to blow us all up? I would say not, but what I am objecting to is THE CONSPIRACY and not the right to assemble.
At this point, I rest my case.
Junican -
This is the problem when you PROFESSIONALISE an occupation (our entire Empire having been run by Amateurs):
People feel not only that must DO something.
They must also be SEEN to be doing something.
The art of Masterly Inactivity need never be acquired.
Result ?
Professional Fidgets and Busybodies............
I enjoyed listening to Prof Nott at the weekend, after his dismissal by the Sec of State for Health (I think).
Whilst I do not believe or accept all that he says, ie that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco (it may be, but it has yet to be proven to me!), I liked his attitude and what he said about government and just how dim and stupid they all are.
I heard on the radio this morning that over the weekend several more govnerment advisors have quit in protest of Prof Nott being sacked and it is apparently likely that more will follow.
My point, at the end of all this, is what would be the chance of getting some of these guys on board to help us fight our battle against the government on the smoking issue?
I do also realise that on the face of it, Prof Nott may not have done smokers any favours by his comparison, but then again, we don't know yet how dangerous/harmful he believes cannabis to be.
My point, at the end of all this, is what would be the chance of getting some of these guys on board to help us fight our battle against the government on the smoking issue?
Zero. Prof David Nutt probably wants to ban smoking even more than Alan Johnson does (if that can be imagined).
Just because Nutt is the enemy of your enemy, that doesn't make him your friend.
You can read some of Prof Nutt's views here.
The other thing you’ll notice is that there is a drug missing, and that’s cannabis. Also missing is alcohol, which will have killed a similar number, 2,000 to 3,000 people, in Scotland over that time, maybe more. Of course, cannabis wouldn’t have killed anyone because it doesn’t kill. And that’s one of the reasons why we thought cannabis should be class C because you cannot die of cannabis overdose.
He's quite right, actually. Nobody dies of smoking cannabis, just like nobody dies of smoking cigarettes. And nobody claims that they do.
What is instead claimed is that tobacco smoke is carcinogenic, and you end up dying of lung cancer. But cannabis smokers always insist that cannabis smoke isn't similarly carcinogenic, even though it's made up of pretty much identical constituents as tobacco smoke.
"Smoke from tobacco and cannabis contains many of the same carcinogens, and cell damage linked to lung cancer has been found in the lungs of chronic cannabis smokers."
Perhaps someone, somewhere, has already commented on the reported words ofthe MP David Wilshire in today's 'Daily Telegraph'. Criticising what he is reported as calling a 'witch hunt' over MPs' expenses he is quoted as saying: 'Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler's gas chambers.'
@Norman - Yep, they don't like it up 'em. It's incredibly worrying when MPs haven't grasped that, if the Government shows ads on TV which proclaim that smokers are killing other people, it demonises smokers and gives carte blanche to everyone else in society to treat us as scum. They just don't see the parallel with '30s Germany. When, on the other hand, they're caught with their hands in the till, so to speak, they bleat because they're so morally inept that they can't distinguish between the allowable and the ethical.
What WOULD happen if, at the GE, huge numbers of voters spoilt their ballot papers because the choice was between expense-fiddlers? Does there have to be a minimum number of votes for the election to be valid? Anyone know?
"'Branding a whole group of people as undesirables led to Hitler's gas chambers.'"
Nicely spotted, Norman !
Sadly, Westminster tends to be an Irony-Free Zone these days...................
(And Mr Wilshire's name is strangely absent from the voting record on the Ban).
You are no doubt right Idlex; it was just a vain, fanciful hope on my part!
I am finally receiving psychotherapy and have a session weekly. My task for this week is to make a list of what I used to enjoy doing and then to try and pick out of that list what I may enjoy returning to.
Very difficult! As I said at the time to the psychologist, what I enjoyed doing a few years ago was enjoyed in a relaxed atmosphere in which I could smoke. Smoking helped me because I am terribly comfortable in social situations. Now, anything I used to enjoy has become far less enjoyable because I would have to leave the 'event' or whatever each time I wanted a break and smoke instead of still sitting in and being a part of what was going on. It is too much like being at work where for years I have had to go outside to smoke and have been restricted in many instances as to how often I can do that.
My list is still blank, I have until Thursday to try and populate it with something!
Lyn -
Once again, my sympathies go out to you.
It breaks my heart that such things should be happening in England, of ALL places (but I'm just a Stupid Romantic who no longer belongs).
I've just been watching a DVD of the excellent 'Public Eye' series from the early Seventies (the Golden Age of TV drama - and much else besides). Smoking was ubiquitous - even by or in front of DOCTORS.
The resolutely NON-smoking Frank Marker offered ashtrays to his smoking clients, never waved his hands once, and (get this) even OFFERED TO LIGHT the cigarette of a lady friend.
Once, such courtesies were de rigueur.
No longer - thanks to Progress.
They can stuff it !
These ghastly puritans (inc Professor NUTT) are almost BEYOND parody.
Almost..................
Thanks Martin, although I am not seeking sympathy, just trying to put across that this ostricisation is affecting many people far more than just being an inconvenience of having to 'pop outside' for their 'fix'.
I even coped with my depression without the aid of medication for over 40 years, due to the help of my ciggies! The last three years I have been on varying doses of anti depressants and it is unlikely that this will be reduced in the forseeable future!
There are plenty of others suffering as I do who, for whatever reason, are not able to blog here or anywhere else - perhaps they, like many, are just afraid to make their voice heard.
Mental health issues affect every sufferer in a subtley different ways, all of which can be very debilitating.