Call You and Yours
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 I'm on Radio 4's Call You and Yours from 12 noon today. Other guests include Sunday Times columnist Minette Marrin and Professor Julian Le Grand, former government advisor on health.
Today's programme will be asking whether people should be forced to improve their "unhealthy" lifestyles. Have your say by calling 03700 100 444 - full details HERE. Lines are open between 10.00am and 1.00pm.
Simon Clark
The political information service DeHavilland reports:
Call You and Yours focused on the issue of whether people who did not look after their health should be refused treatment by the NHS.
Simon Clark, director, Forest, said, “The problem is that the benign nanny state (has) moved on to … the bully state … you’re now being bullied to changing your entire lifestyle. If (politicians and campaigners) put out this advice and people choose not to take that advice they then start getting nasty.
“Smokers pay … about £10bn a year … to the Government through tobacco taxation … the cost that it is said to treat smoking related diseases on the NHS is estimated to be £1.7bn … they pay for whatever treatment they may get. Plus also the whole point about the vast majority of smoking related diseases is that although they may be associated with smoking you cannot prove conclusively that they’ve been caused by smoking … the whole purpose of the NHS is that it doesn’t discriminate against people.”
He said, “I feel very strongly about what smokers have put up with over the last decade or so … the Government has set very artificial targets in terms of the smoking rate. For example they introduced the smoking ban not to protect the health of non smoking bar workers but to drive down the smoking rates to 21% by 2010 … what we do know is that a lot of pubs and clubs have gone out of business … a lot of bar workers have lost their jobs.
“There should be some places where people who choose to smoke a perfectly legal product can do so indoors in comfort … (not) everywhere should be non smoking … it’s very important in a free society adults are allowed to make choices for themselves.”
He said, “Governments are not elected to tell us how to behave and the Government does have a role in public health, it’s to warn people of the potential risks to their health in a measured, matter of fact way, keep the messages simple, don’t over exaggerate … and leave us alone to choose for ourselves.”
Reader Comments (32)
I was just about to post about this.
Sock it to 'em, Simon.
"You and Yours" ?
They can always be relied upon to give a 'balanced' (New BBC Style) view of smoking................not.
Good luck, Simon, anyway..........
And Minette Marrin's usually pretty sound.
You made some good points (as usual), Simon.
But the caller who mentioned the effects on his cigar-smoking 'habit' by the whining of his seven-year-old son tested the limits of MY tolerance, frankly.
And him a CIGAR-smoker, too................
Gimme strength !
PS:
I'm just DYING to hear a BBC presenter (preferably 35+) announce his/her intention to START smoking - and publicly regret the pleasure he/she's been missing all these years.
About as likely as the End of the World in 2012.
Well spoken, Simon.
I have to take you up on one point though. You said that for 50 years smokers have been told about "the health impacts associated with smoking," and added, "They know that!" Well, yes, we have been told, but what do we "know" in any meaningful sense? These days I spend my time dismantling the smoking research on which this "knowledge" is based. It's surprisingly easy to do, because it's all such bad research. I've come to the conclusion that we don't "know" anything at all that's worth knowing, and all public health messages are complete tripe.
Anyway, I thought Minette Marin was worse than laughable (as you described her). She kept describing herself as a libertarian, while advocating taking everybody's liberties away. I think that next time somebody should tell her: "No. You are NOT a libertarian. You are just a Nazi."
And I was surprised by Julian Le Grand's seeming discovery of the right of people to make their own choices. Perhaps he's been reading what's been said about him on the Devil's Kitchen and by Dick Puddlecote and others? It's not very nice!!
Did I hear Julian Le Grand say that healthy people cost the health service far more than unhealthy people?
We'll be able to hear a recording after 3pm.
Idlex -
Yes - Miss Marrin was VERY disappointing.
And her Heart-Surgeon Brother sounds like a right sanctimonious little shit.
Don't doctors get PAID for their work, then ?
Just imagine a garage mechanic's saying "I'm not going to mend your car if you KEEP driving it like that."
Why don't they ever get Joanna Lumley on these things................?
Go for it Simon.
Quote
"Can I ask you why you are so hell bent on destroying everything?
Would you not agree that £43million wasted on anti smoking by the NHS would be better used by paying nurses a decent wage, opening closed wards and emergency centres, buying new equipment and preventing MRSA in hospitals stupid ideas like these that will save real lives not and not 40,000 non existant paper lives?"
I found this quote and it says everything I want to say to the anti smokers.
Julian Le Grand said that 'heathy people cost the health service rather more than unhealthy people'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00m62ys
An interesting show. Simon talked a lot of sense as usual. Minnette Marin really needs to have another read of her 'hero' JS Mill's books before she starts calling herself a libertarian and - was it just me? - Julian Le Grand sounded rather less authoritarian than usual.
I notice that the (nonsmoking) woman who rang up to complain about the smoking ban soon got cut off!
I couldn't hear the programme and I wonder if they read out my email (knowing the Beeb, probably not). As Chas has just reminded me, I can listen again....
You seem to be saying that choosing to smoke is a solipsistic, subjective, rational decision and that any form of government coercion is an infringement of liberty. People smoke for a lot of reasons, but one of the most significant (at least for my patients) is that (like alcohol and junk food) it is a potent stress reliever. Since deprivation leads to stress and cigarettes and cheap booze are the most easily available, culturally familiar stress relievers in deprived areas, don't you think that deprivation amounts to a coercion to smoke?
Perhaps Jonathan. But in that case, the deprivation should be tackled to restrict new entrants to smoking.
Bullying those who choose not to quit is exactly that, coercion and bullying.
Whilst I share your libertarian principles, and despair of state bullying of individuals, my concern is that it takes a lot of confidence, knowledge, and money to be sufficiently autonomous to freely choose to do risky things. I believe we need different standards for someone choosing to sell a kidney, another standard for someone choosing to take ecstacy and another for smoking and so on. The world is packed full of coercive forces, governements certainly don't have a monopoly. By reducing coercive forces (not merely governmental) we can increase automony and the freedoms associated. It would require a massive cultural shift.
Tackling coercion, as you suggest, doen't restrict new entrants to smoking, it leads to greater autonomy, so that people may still choose to smoke, they just do so with less social coercion. Until we're all equally free and autonomous (and live in an anarchist utopia), freedom to choose will lead to a widening of inequalities which will result in increasing government interference in order to reign in the bad habits of the deprived.
Just heard your comments on You and Yours today; wish to commend your sane, rational, cogent and reasoned arguments you put forward. It is absurd and distinctly "fascist" to treat any section of the community as smokers are currently treated. Like you, I am sure this anti-liberal agenda is only half completed!
Oh, I am a non smoker too having stopped instantly when at my GP's surgery four years ago- Fear overcoming addiction to a most pleasurable habit.
Your point about pubs for smokers is so sensible but of course, anathema to the social engineers (armed division)
Good luck!
Jonathon -
Re:
"increasing government interference in order to reign in the bad habits of the deprived."
Doesn't your admirable desire for maximising autonomy conflict somewhat with your characterisation of certain pleasures as 'bad habits' ?
THAT, surely is for the Autonomous Individual to decide (once he's been apprised of ALL the facts) ?
And none of the smokers of my acquaintance could reasonably be described as 'deprived'. They lead pretty comfortable lives, and have exercised THEIR freedom - in deciding NOT to give up.
As, indeed, have I - in no small measure as a result of the activities of bitches like Patricia Hewitt and the goblins at ASH.
The Freedom to Be Perverse is an important measure of the Freedom of Society - IMHO.
Beware the words 'libertarian' and 'libertarianism'. They put us in a box - just another option: 'libertarianism',authoritarianism','fascism', 'New Ageism', 'vegetarianism', 'flat earthism'. It's the 'same difference'. Pat them on the head and ignore them.
Freedom is what this is about. It is not an 'ism'.
Roger -
Well said !
You are clearly on the side of the Angels in this matter.
You may NOT go to the Ball - but you WILL almost certainly go to Heaven.
Are you saying, Jonathon, that Government bullying is acceptable because it, effectively, counters the social coercion experienced by those who live in deprivation?
I'd prefer to have Government deal effectively with the deprivation and have individuals left to exercise their free will. To put it crudely, how many people living without hope of a better life manage to keep going because they have the solace of a smoke and what right has anyone to decide that they should be denied that solace without furnishing the hope?
BTW, well done, Simon, I think you echoed the feelings of many, if the callers were representative. I detect a change, perhaps people have finally begun to realise that the way that smokers are being treated is part of the grand plan that will envelop them at some point. I do despair, though, at people like the man with the son who seem not to question the integrity of scaremongering and emotional blackmail.
Joyce, Government bullying is used because they haven't got the will to do anything about autonomy, I doubt any government is genuinely interested in increasing (rather than manipulating) the power (or choice) of its citizens.
Martin. I'd say (in the terms of this debate) that 'bad habits' are either those defined by government (or society) as bad/undesirable or those habits not freely chosen due to coercion. Autonomy/freedom/ i.e. the ability to choose without coercion is unevenly distributed throughout society. I'm quite happy with the idea that not only are more autonomous people more free, but that they ought to be allowed more freedom, because they are better able to judge the merits of their choices. But this leads what may be a classic anarchist paradox: equality is a means to an end which is freedom, but freedom as an end in itself leads to inequality.
Jonathon -
Thank you for a most interesting reply.
However, I take issue with your definition of a 'bad habit' as including those:
"not freely chosen due to coercion."
I would object to the notion of MY being 'coerced' to start smoking at 16 (5 Park Drive a week). It seemed to me to be a thoroughly adult - and obviously pleasurable - activity which I couldn't wait to adopt. Drinking had little appeal. Sex would come later (you had to know the 'right' girls in those days).
Further, although I assume this is not YOUR intention, there seems to be a subtle undercurrent of Middle Class snobbery at play here - which equates smoking with 'being deprived'.
For 'deprived', read 'Working Class' or (dare I say it ?) 'Underclass'.
In the 'We're-All-Middle-Class-Now' Society (something I tend to question), this understated association of tobacco-use with tattoo-bearing navvies and underage Vickie Pollards reinforces the sense of Legitimate Exclusion on the part of otherwise fair-minded people.
Conversely, the ubiquitous use of the 'F word' in what used to be Polite Society is ONE 'working class habit' whole swathes of the Educated Bourgeoisie seem to have adopted with relish (together with a faux-enthusiasm for soccer). You only object to THAT at the risk of being castigated as a sanctimonious prig.
And, of course, the Middle Classes LIKE to drink - with the result that it's only 'drinking TOO much' that is stigmatised by the lab-coats, the killjoys, and the incompetent thugs at Westminster.
Why is it that today, one NEVER hears of 'smoking TOO much' - as we used to in the not-too-distant past when doctors used to urge us to 'cut down' ?
It's always struck me as odd that whereas governments ARE apparently able to advise on 'acceptable' levels of alcohol consumption (x units per day - unless you're a pregnant ten-year-old etc), they now seem incapable of offering similar advice with regard to tobacco.
To suggest that even ONE cigarette a day is self-evidently 'bad-for-you' is a palpable absurdity. And the fact that 'doctors' are prepared to adopt even such an extreme position only serves to undermine THEIR credibility, I fear.
A WISE Priesthood should make certain allowances for Human Sin.
I would suggest that this has little to do with Science - much less with Philosophy - and EVERYTHING to do with Taste (that carping nanny of the Bourgeois Conscience).
Heard this as I awakened at the crack of noon-thirty today. First thing that registered was this Minette character describing herself as a libertarian before saying she'd like to see a ban on eating in the street - because she doesn't like it.
Head spinning with the Magic Roundabout theme for hours after.
Could've been worse though - if I wake up to any of the nulabor spokeswimmins [or token ladyboys come to that] having a love-in with the presenter, my poor battered clock-radio resumes its' secondary role as punchbag and my first words of the day are a bleary, but very loud "JUST FUCK OFF".
A WISE Priesthood should make certain allowances for Human Sin.
They're not wise. They're not priests. And they make no allowances.
And, last but not least, we're not sinners.
Idlex -
You're right on the money - as usual.
However, I was referring of course to THEIR perception of their role towards US.
And, alas, we are now ALL compelled to adhere to THEIR World View, and it seems that the only way to win Redemption is by obeying the commands of the State.
And those of us who chose NOT to yield to the New Theocracy, and NOT to smother our individuality with a sheepish conformity, are freely stigmatised, bullied, and punished for our heretical perversities.
And we smokers ARE sinners: ask any seven-year-old !
That's 'Progress' for you................and the INEVITABLE consequence of 65 years of 'progressive' (aka 'collectivist') politics.
When even the great Alice Sheffield - Philosopher-in-Residence at CONSERVATIVE HQ - can write to me (of the Ban):
"We're ALL in this TOGETHER, Martin",
you realise HOW far things have come.
It amazes me that so many STILL don't see it..............
Congratulations, Simon, on a truly brilliant interview. You were positive throughout and certainly put the two opposed to you into an awkward stumbling position. So different from the old days when you were scarcely allowed to speak and then only within their framework of conformity. Your only defense in those days was a feeble plea for freedom of choice.
This interview was not defence, it was attack. You wiped the floor with them. You were the favourite speaker of the chap doing the interviewing due to your command of the subject and your sound commonsense. You left no stone unturned from persecution of smokers to, by inference, the dubious science and statistics this persecution is based on - not to mention the damage it has done to our economy and traditional British way of life.
The tide has turned and this is due in no small part to Forest and, in particular, your own "Taking Liberties" site.
Well done again Simon.
Just to underline how much the "healthy" cost, if I may remind you of the Dutch Minstry Of Health Study of average lifetime costs from the age of 20 of these three groups:
1. Healthy- £215,000
2. Obese- £187,000
3. Smokers- £165,000
Yes, the healthy should be paying 27% more.
This her? Alice Sheffield - Philosopher-in-Residence at Conservative HQ. What an attractive philosopher! I could spend hours and hours talking to her about philosophy. Or pretty much anything.
Idlex -
You're VERY welcome !
Try 'talking' to her about SMOKING (and her lovely Big Brother-in-Law, Mr Cameron): that might just curb your hormonal enthusiasm !
Me?
I'm sticking with Scarlett Johansson - and the wonderful Ann Leslie................
Oh dear! So what was she talking about when she said,
"We're ALL in this TOGETHER, Martin" ?
Idlex -
Re:
"So what was she talking about.........."
Oh, I don't know. I was polishing my pipe rack at the time.
You know how it is..........some females have NO sense of occasion.
Strange chaps, women.
Simon, I wish there was more of your type to spread around the anti smoking countries of europe.