Three against one: is that a fair fight?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 "Alan," I whispered, "it's not your fault, but I don't think that was very balanced."
A little defensively, he replied: "I gave you more time than anyone else."
Yesterday, as most of you know, I was a guest on The Alan Titchmarsh Show (ITV1). I was invited to take part in a six-minute discussion about the rights and wrongs of the tobacco display ban. I knew I was going to be outnumbered but I had expected it to be two against one: Deborah Arnott, director of ASH, and Kelvin Mackenzie, former editor of The Sun, versus me.
In the event it was THREE against one, a fact that was kept from me until the very last moment. I was sitting in my dressing room having a chat with one of the producers when he casually mentioned that there would be a fourth guest, journalist Jaci Stephens, and - surprise, surprise - she too turned out to be a fierce anti-smoker.
Eventually, having sat in my (rather cold) dressing room for 90 minutes, a runner came to take me to the studio where the programme was being recorded in front of a live (if elderly) audience. Ten minutes later we were led on to the set.
The six-minute "discussion" flew by but this is what I can remember. After a false start (caused by Kelvin's microphone not working), Alan turned to Deborah who trotted out the usual statistics about the number of deaths (allegedly) caused by smoking.
Kelvin (whose father died of a smoking-related disease suffered a heart attack eight years after giving up smoking) weighed in to say that he is in favour of choice but (there's always a "but") he supports anything that discourages people, especially young people, from smoking.
"Simon, surely you can't argue against that?" said Alan.
"Yes, I can," I said, "and I will."
I explained that I am a non-smoker who grew up surrounded by tobacco advertising and sponsorship. Likewise, all my life I have been exposed to the sight of cigarette packets in corner shops and superstores and, like millions of other people, none of this has ever encouraged me to become a smoker.
It is nonsense, I said, to say that people impulse buy cigarettes and there is no evidence to suggest that display bans have a significant impact on youth smoking rates. The New Zealand government, I added, has just rejected a display ban for that very reason.
None of the other guests agreed with me. In fact, said Jaci Stephens, the legislation doesn't go far enough. All smokers (she seemed to be saying) are addicts and we have to do everything we can to help them quit.
"I accept that some smokers are addicted to nicotine," I said, "just as some people are addicted to alcohol and others are addicted to chocolate. Do we put alcohol and chocolate under the counter too?"
Yes, said Jaci. Or, at least, I think she did. I'll have to check the recording.
She then said that she had been looking at the Forest website and was particularly irked by the suggestion that some people actually enjoy smoking. As if!!
What happened after that is a bit of a blur although I remember Alan asking me to respond to the desperate cliche that "your freedom to smoke ends at the tip of my nose". I replied by talking about designated smoking rooms and the fact that the smoking ban has closed thousands of pubs and clubs. A tobacco display ban, I said, could have a similar impact on community stores.
The last word, inevitably perhaps, went to Jaci Stephens but I can't remember what she said because by this time I was pretty pissed off.
Let me be clear. I don't think this was a deliberate ambush. It was a cock-up, nothing more. Nevertheless, three against one - on such a controversial issue - isn't acceptable and it certainly doesn't encourage a decent debate or show people in their best light. (I was so determined to have my say that I was forced to be unduly aggressive which I know can be counter-productive.)
To show how bad it was, Deborah Arnott heard me complain to Alan Titchmarsh and sought me out afterwards to say she agreed with me!!!
Oh well, make up your own minds. The discussion will be aired on Friday at 3.00pm. Or you can watch it later on ITV Player.
Simon Clark
Reader Comments (15)
Typical !
And I don't buy the 'cock-up' theory, either.
In order to restore the 'balance', however, perhaps the show's production team would be happy to stage a 'debate' at a later date between THREE Pro-Choicers and ONE Anti.
Or would that be too contrived ?
And, at the risk of sound like a hard-hearted so-and-so, I'm getting heartily SICK of the 'My Daddy died of a lung condition' schtick:
My sympathy for others' bereavement ENDS at the point where they think they are somehow entitled to use THAT as a justification for trampling on the freedom of millions.
In my book, that's SELFISHNESS - pure and simple.
And tears don't make it any less so.............
Simon, it sounds that, as ever, you did you very best in the most hostile of circumstances.
I do hope that Jaci Stephens not only checks out this web site, but reads this, and undoubtedly many other posts that will tell her that just like people drinking tea (which I hate) and coffee, it is indeed very possible and in fact true, that most of us smoke because we actually like to do so!
For some of us there are also other reasons and that is that smoking helps us in stressful situations and many of the people (of which there are now estimated to be 1 in every 4) who suffer from depression rely very much on their cigarettes to keep going and for many the cigarette actually helps enough to keep them off medication. It did for me until this ban!
Smoking is a very pleasurable and social activity and has helped to prevent obesity, alcoholism and severe effects of depression. If Jaci Stephens has never tried it, how the hell can she comment on it? If she has tried it and didn't like it, then that is the same as me trying a cup of tea and hating it; I just don't drink tea and stay as far away from it as possible. I don't expect smells that I do not like to be banned for my benefit!
Sorry, rant over, but I do so hope that Jaci Stephens and others of her ilk visit this site to see what you reported and what your 'followers' have to say.
Martin, my first husband died of lung cancer, he was a smoker and an alcoholic.
A few years prior to his being diagnosed he was riding his motor bike on M4 between the Bristol and London (he was a motorcyle courier); it was a hot, sultry summers day when nothing was moving. In passing by some agricultural land he realised that some spraying had been going on and the 'chemical' was just sitting in the air.
When he got home he called me at work to fetch him and take him to hospital - he could hardly breath. He was not the sort of person that panicked, but this really did scare him. After a few hours in A&E on oxygen he stabilised enough to come home.
I have often wondered if that had anything to do with or to trigger his cancer. He also suffered some physical traumas coming off his bike in those last few years and it is said that physical trauma can also 'set off' cancer, not cause it, as I smoking does not cause it. The errant cells that mutate into cancer have to be in the body in the first place and you can't catch them in the way you catch a cold! You either have them or you don't.
Just when was the last time the Alan Twatmarsh show had a fourth guest taking part in a discussion?
Jaci Stephens if your reading this...you're just as big a rotten zealot as Arnott, perhaps a law should be brought in to ban people like you writing utter drivel about soaps that rot the minds of the most vulnerable in our society...and of course don't forget the children!
Lyn. I hope that you are not drinking too much coffee, which can be addictive, because it can cause panic attacks.
What is a panic attack?
A panic attack is a severe attack of anxiety and fear which occurs suddenly, often without warning, and for no apparent reason. Various other symptoms then occur during a panic attack. These include one or more of the following:
Palpitations or a thumping heart.
Sweating and trembling.
Hot flushes or chills.
Feeling short of breath, sometimes with choking sensations.
Chest pains.
Feeling sick.
Feeling dizzy, or faint.
Fear of dying or going crazy.
Numbness, or pins and needles.
Feelings of unreality, or being detached from yourself.
"My sympathy for others' bereavement ENDS at the point where they think they are somehow entitled to use THAT as a justification for trampling on the freedom of millions."
Martin V, I must remember that one. Excellent. :-)
Well done Simon, sounds a tough gig.
Jaci Stephens, eh? In the notebook she goes. ;-)
What did you expect from a dull conventional bunch of bores like those ?
Lyn -
I do hope that my remarks above did not cause you any painful memories. I should hate myself for having done so.
Nonetheless:
Back in December of last year, there was an interesting article in the 'Telegraph', entitled 'Could genes be a licence to smoke ?'
You may find the following extracts of some interest:
"But while such tests (ie to determine the future behaviour of a cancer, and hence the appropriate treatment for it) may help patients as much as they harm drug firms' profits, there is another potential winner - the tobaco industry. Profesor Sikora (currently professor of cancer medicine at Imperial College) says it is just a matter of time before the HUNDREDS of scientisits working in that industry identify which genes trigger cancer in smokers......"It's the obvious thing to do.....
They will have to study the entire genome of large groups of people......but the end result could be a gene-testing kit cheap enough to give as an 18th birthday present, so your children can find out HOW SAFE IT IS FOR THEM TO START SMOKING."
And further:
Dr David O'Reilly, the head of public health and scientific affairs at British American Tobacco, still foresees a day when BAT might sell a cigarette NO MORE HARMFUL THAN GOING OUT IN THE SUN:
"Our vision of the future is that (consumers) will have a CHOICE of products along a CONTINUUM OF RISK, so that those who WANT to smoke should be allowed to do so."
The article concludes:
"In other words, just as we are now seeing personalised drugs tailored to our DNA in order to CURE cancer, we can look forward to personalised cigarettes to help us AVOID it."
(My emphasis throughout)
Don't know about you, but I find that pretty exciting news.
Though I doubt whether Deborah A and her Fat Friend will share my enthusiasm................
PS:
And Dr Alexandre Akoulitchev, of Oxford BioDynamics, reminds us that the Japanese have the longest life expectancy in the woeld, yet 'smoke like chimneys.'
My question is this: WHY haven't we devoted the millions (billions ?) wasted on junk science, propaganda, and useless organisations like ASH, to investigating THAT perplexing phenomenon?
Especially when the end results could benefit EVERYONE - not just smokers ?
Very similar to the ambush on Nick Griffin by the BBC. However, instead of the viewers turning against Griffin they actually felt sorry for him and thousands joined the BNP while 22% felt they could be persuaded to vote for them.
Hopefully you will get the same reaction because I do believe that most ordinary people are not obsessed about smokers and the ban and feel that the persecution has gone far enough.
Well done Simon for holding your own againt those four wankers, outrageous the way you were outnumbered but I notice that this is always the modus of big brother. The No side on Lisbon faced the same situation.
But listeners will make up their own minds just like in the case of Nick Griffin, and will show their 'objections' eventually.
I wonder would the simple reason why they plunge billions into useless organisations like ASH be, because its a handy job recruitment setup for friends of govt partys and is a lucrative source for donations, that would otherwise be censored.
Martin, you certainly did not upset me, it has been 13 years now and I am happily remarried. It just makes me so mad when people blame smoking, either first or second hand for another's demise due to them dying of cancer!
Maybe smoking was the cause of my late husband's cancer, maybe it wasn't. That is the point I try to make whenever I get the chance. The facts are that there were numerous other possible causes and all may have contributed.
Thanks for the information you provided. I had not realised that tobacco companies were involved in such research - bit dim of me really! It does, of course, beg the question, why then do we need CRUK and the like, posing as charities, to bleed the unsuspecting dry in the form of donations when the actual research appears to be being done by the tobacco companies? Pity this is not something more widely known.
Thanks for your concern, but have no fears, I am well over that time in my life, but am far from over what is happening now!
Chas, thank you for your concern. I have drunk excessive coffee in the past, but not now, well mostly not, anyway. Although, coffee or water are my preferred drinks!
I do know what panic attacks are as I have had them, but never in direct connection with coffee!
Being extremely claustrophobic has been the cause of some panic attacks, and this can also lead to irrational behaviour on my part if I feel that I am being prevented from 'leaving' a place, especially if it is in order to have a smoke! Places like airport customs!
On that occasion I did walk out, but prior to that my husband actually thought I was going to light up inside, which nearly caused him a panic attack!
It is my belief that some people take up the smoking habit based on normal tendencies because there is a natural quality inherent in God's tobacco plant as gift to those who truly need it.
All the arguments about freedom from pain and suffering, medicinal attributes and enhanced clarity of thought and creativity argued by those in favor of marijuana legalization could be as equally applied to the tobacco leaf, in the case of some persons, not all, and a reason why God put smokable plants of various sorts here on His green earth - tobacco, marijuana, henbane, salvia, others.
There is arguably as much natural reason why tobacco leaves, along with other plant leaves, were begun to be smoked millenia ago as much as some people turned to the eating of wheat, corn, tomatos and barley.
And for some people, such might not apply and so they would not be driven to smoking tobacco should there be no benefit of calming, pleasure, psychological and physical pain relief or mental stimulation to be gained by it.
Thus advertising, tobacco retail displays and the sight of someone else smoking will do little to "force" someone not of that totally natural inclination to begin smoking - it goes against common natural sense and God's good order of the planet.
There was a few years back a scientific study done in Japan to determine why the incidence of smoking was so high, in excess of 50%, among their extremely long-lifed population - and it discovered a genetic marker on the DNA code that foretold that in some persons, there is a 100% natural inclination to want the use of tobacco - nothing to do with "addiction" and more to do with satisfying a pre-determined genetic disposition.
That study has probably since been buried in the annals of science, too embarassing to the world-wide anti-tobacco movement engendered by the UN and one-world-government types assuming hegemony over democratic individual free-choices, but it did paint a different sort of picture as to why or why not some persons might or might not be inclined to want to begin smoking in the first place - and it had nothing to do with advertising or lack there-of.
It's simply nature's way, under God, is how the whole thing began - and will continue unless or until the anti-smoking one-world-government practitioners are able to burn out of existence all remaining tobacco plants on the planet with the same fury Hitler's youth burned books in Berlin.
The big problem here David is that Brown and his like have forgotten all about the One God and firmly believes that he, himself, is god - I am sure of it!
The one thing that really gives him and others of this mindset away, is their sheer arrogance! The True God has no need for arrogance.
Sorry Simon. It wasn't three onto one. It was four onto one. How can that be a balanced debate?