Saturday
Jan302010
New tobacco control strategy to be unveiled
Saturday, January 30, 2010 Oops. ITN seems to have broken an embargo on a government press release that was embargoed for 00:01 hours on Monday morning. Click HERE.
The DH's new tobacco control strategy will be unveiled officially on Monday. Forest has issued a response, also embargoed until Monday, and I shall abide by it - but it's annoying because I suspect that the story may have been leaked deliberately to ITN.
Watch this space.
Update on Sunday, January 31, 2010 by
Simon Clark
Simon Clark
The Sunday Telegraph has also gone early with the story HERE.
Reader Comments (29)
If anyone is in any doubt that this government had any intention of amending the smoking ban legislation...then this video nails it. They want to halve smoking by 2010...this will mean a further tightening of the law not less.
Eventually we are looking at cars and private homes coming under scrutiny, although this will be much harder to enforce.
Erroneously the film states that 7 out of 10 want to quit smoking, such a figure has never been substantiated, but of course it sounds good.
Smoking ban amendment…not a chance!
I shan't even bother to watch.
But I bet that the reporter hasn't enquired how this target-obsessed Government plans to replace the lost revenue.
They never do.
THAT would be too much like Journalism.
If only the Nazis had stayed in Germany (where they belong), and not emigrated and gone all cuddly on us.
Still, as long as they spare us lampshades made from dead smokers...................
Martin
I'm afraid we all have to watch if you want to continue railing against further erosion of our civil liberties.
This video if nothing else blatantly exemplifies the unbalanced nature of the media. ITN present this without any critique or alternative view point - one example being that smokers cost the NHS £2.7bn a year, a much larger figure than has ever been the case...naturally it fails to tells us that over £11bn are raised in taxes each year from smokers .
Bit of a boo-boo, either been pulled, or the smoke in here is too thick to see it, never mind can always catch up with it on Monday, no scrub that I'm going to the fucking pub afore they outlaw that too...
BREAKING NEWS:
Bloke in edit studio reads out verbatim hand out from government with library footage of people smoking etc overlay...
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20100130/video/vuk-government-aims-to-halve-uk-smokers-49bfa63.html
BONG!
Chris -
"naturally it fails to tells us that over £11bn are raised in taxes each year from smokers...."
Just the point I was making, I think - and I've won my bet.
And a 'biased Media' is hardly, er, 'news'.
Nonetheless:
Given the HUGE diversity of Human Character, and the range of opinions on EVERY conceivable subject, you'd imagine that there'd be at least ONE Prominent Person (beloved of the Media) PUBLICLY raging at this Dying of The Light in our once-beautiful land - wouldn't you ?
Why am I STILL waiting ?
But - given the brain-dead conformity of the Left AND the latter's infiltration into every area of public life (especially broadcasting and the New Conservative Party) - I'm probably being naive in even asking that question.
I'm SO sick of all this crap:
"There ain't nothing more powerful than the odor of MENDACITY.....You can SMELL it. It smells like DEATH." (Tennessee Williams)
And you can't shampoo it out, either..........
Smoke free homes will be implemented.
This is a threat.
Stay away from my home .
I mean it, this is a threat.
Only the crappy Labour party could come up with illeberal filth like this.
God how I hate the Labour party just dirty little control freaks.
New Labour were never going to stop at a blanket smoking ban; they seem to be obsessed with anti-smoking measures regardless of whether there is any evidence to back the latter.
It is ever more important, not just on the heathist agenda, to make sure New Labour do not have the power to implement further illiberal laws across the spectrum of human activity. I do not care who you vote for, as I fear the Conservative Party are only marginally more open-minded on such issues, but not to allow a further 5 years of these incumbant control freaks.
I agree I am sick fed up to my back teeth of the persecution of people who smoke by this bunch of incompetent amateurs masquerading as a government.
They are corrupt as well which makes it even worse.
Corrupt and incompetent.
With you all the way, Specky.
Yet - despite ALL the evidence - there will STILL be people voting for Brown in their millions. Why ? Because, of course, the 'Labour' Party represents-the-interests-of-the-working-man-and-woman.
When WILL people get it into their silly heads that 'Socialism' (in its various guises) NEVER 'cared' about Ordinary People: it merely USED them to further its ultimate objective of TOTAL control.
The architects of Socialism (none of whom was ever short of money), DESPISED Ordinary People.
And its current batch of intellectual apologists and groupies continue to do so.
In many respects, RUSSIA (whose people I GREATLY like and admire) now has more freedom than we do.
WE have become a Socialist Country.
WE are now the most centrally-controlled, propagandised, driven and spied-upon people in the West.
And by 'we', I mean the British AND the American
people.
This is a TRAGEDY !
But it ain't no 'accident'.
People never voted for Socialism in America - because they WOULDN'T.
People never voted for Marxism in Britain - because they WOULDN'T.
So the product-makers merely changed the label on the tin.
And The People bought THAT.
The LABEL - not the PRODUCT (which they've been happily consuming these 60 years and more).
Job done !
Meanwhile, the one peron we SHOULD be looking towards for some sort of succour twitters on endlessly - just to keep favour with the readers of the Woman's Page of the 'Guardian' and their wimpish male cohorts (aka 'New Men').
Complacency - or Connivance ?
I name no names (but it IS Scottish).
'Tobacco Control' ?
Nope - just Control.
And it's not over yet....................
It gets worse.
These anti smokers really are NAZIS, they behave in the same manner.
Kangaroo courts for smokers jesus what next concentration camps ?
Glad I am not a celebrity smoker !
Link.
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2010/01/28/eu-attacks-smokers/new-recommendations-ashtray-ban-smoking-police-trials.html?ets worse.
Some exerpts from the article.
• ‘Smoking police’: The EU states are being asked to set up a system for enforcing the smoking ban, including a system of prosecution. The use of inspectors and enforcement officials is recommended. They will also carry out random spot checks.
• Ashtray ban: It will be the responsibility of all companies and public services to ensure that there are no ashtrays in the building.
• Shock trials: The EU states will be encouraged to carry out sensationalist prosecutions designed to shock the public.
Celebrities who smoke will also be targeted and exposed publicly as smoking offenders.
The document states that if individuals in the public eye have deliberately disregarded the law and this is publicly known, the authorities will demonstrate their commitment to and the seriousness of the legislation by reacting with rigorous and speedy measures, attracting the widest possible public attention.
With these measures, the EU is trying to attack and eliminate smoking as much as possible. The aim is for all enclosed workplaces and public areas to become smoke free, including those which are partly open or enclosed.
The smoking ban will also include all hallways, staircases, toilets, staffrooms, store rooms and lifts that are used at work.
In the future tobacco smoke should not be seen or smelled in the air - it will probably be illegal to light a cigarette!
The dossier even defines smoking as including the ownership or handling of a lit cigarette, regardless of whether or not the smoke is actively being inhaled.
I put in an FOI reqeust because Gillian Merron said in Parlt that reports had been prepared in advance of the review this year. Those reports - four of them - cost £222,000 EACH. I asked to see them and was told that was not possible until the DoH had reviewed the reports.
I imagine the public will be entitled to see them once the DoH has "sexed" them up, cherrypicked the bits that confirm the dept's bigotry, and NuLab's smoke free ideology, and what the public will then see are reports that show how healthy we have all miraculously become and how everyone loves the smoke-free law.
Rememember you saw it here first!
Adolf Hitler didn't like smoking. His 1,000-year Reich lasted 12 years (1933-1945) - this Reich has lasted a little longer, only because Brown and his comrades refuse to bail out and stick in their bunker. However, we all know what happened to Adolf, don't we?
I agree with all of you above.
This anti-smoking hysteria now seems to have become an obsession. Bet the 0.1% growth figures are wrong!! :)
"what next concentration camps ?"
Much more subtle, I suspect, Specky.
I suggest:
A growing REFUSAL by doctors, clinicians, and other members of the Caring Professions to offer any treatment to a Smoker - UNLESS he agrees to undergo a course of therapy at a Smoking Cessation Centre.
His attendance will be closely monitored.
And non-compliance or non-attendance will result
in his being refused any future treatment.
Following the 'success' of such measures, similar ones will be adpoted by (inter alia):
All adoption agencies.
The RSPCA
The NSPCC
All Housing Associations.
Most educational establishments (esp primary schools).
And so on.
A subsequent Opinion Poll will reveal that 65% of the Sheeple AGREE with such measures (even though harbouring SOME 'reservations' about the infringement of choice etc).
Why ?
Because (of course) smokers NEED to be 'encouraged' to give up, they cost-the-NHS-zillions, it's for-their-own-good etc etc ad bloody nauseam.
If this was 1980 - and all this nonsense happening in East Germany - what would people and politicians be saying HERE ?
Tell me I'm exaggerating, somebody.
And that the shadows are NOT gathering in Middle Earth.......................
Yes, well folks, what the EU really means to us is all coming out now. WE've only one chance left - and it's our last chance. We've got to get a hung parliament with a sizeable number of ukip MPs and the voice of reason at their head - Nigel Farage. But how on earth to reach the public? The media won't let us in.
I sent UKIP an email today:-
To UKIP Policy Makers
In your manifesto, I suggest UKIP consider reducing excise duty on tobacco products. The results would be:-
1. Tobacco smuggling and the cost of policing it would cease.
2. It would greatly increase our tourism industry.
3. It would be in keeping with UKIP’s policy of fair trading and freedom to choose. Other European countries have enjoyed this privilege for years.
4. Loss of revenue would be easily outweighed by increase in employment and well-being.
5. The outrage such an announcement would cause could bring to light, at last, the bogus science which lies behind the dangers of smoking – similar to the bogus science which lies behind the man-made climate change scam. However, this would not be the reason for doing it – simply a commonsense trade and employment decision.
6. It should certainly cause an uproar in the media!
Bear in mind that around 30% of the population still enjoy smoking, even if it is only an occasional cigar after dinner – and outside in the freezing cold, at that! Many non smoking friends and family are outraged by this Big Brother edict which spoils their social evenings out. Efficient air filtration systems are easily installed and they remove other odours and circulating germs too.
Such reduction in excise duty would be very popular with voters and news would soon spread - even to people who don’t normally vote and have never heard of UKIP.
Absolutely everybody is fed up with having to fly to Spain to buy cheap cigarettes – let the Spanish come here.
Best wishes!
MARGOT JOHNSON
Folkestone & Hythe Branch
FOOTNOTE
I’m sorry to mix up two subjects here but a reduction in tobacco excise duty would inevitably bring up the tired old “smoking is bad for your health”. These are just a few reminders that it is actually beneficial for those who wish to smoke and the whole subject is based on lying “science” from the pharmaceutical companies whose motive was profit.
The bogus science behind the dangers of smoking has been carefully crafted by the pharmaceutical industry over the last 40 years. They, themselves, have always tried to mirror the benefits of smoking by using nicotine as the base of so many of their products. They call it “Niacin” or “Nicotinic Acid” or Vitamin B3 –[ read the labels]. These products have harmful side effects. Smoking is self regulating. The body absorbs the amount of nicotine beneficial to it and exhales the rest. Some people don’t choose to smoke and some people don’t choose to eat red meat or drink beer.
It is Freedom to Choose.
PAT NURSE:=
Following your resounding success at tabling a m motion against antismoking Quango's at the UKIP conference and your decision that you would stand as a PPC if the opportunity arose, there's a vacancy suddenly come up in the constituency next to mine. Would you relocate to Kent? I've a cosy bedroom waiting for you and the historic English Channel is just down the road.
My best regards to all the fellow freedom fighters above!
margotjohnson@talktalk.net
"However, he will stop short of planning an outright ban on domestic or in-car smoking – claiming this would be a move too far against freedom of choice."
Well thanks Andy, thats real fucking big of you...
"However, he will stop short of planning an outright ban on domestic or in-car smoking – claiming this would be a move too far against freedom of choice."
I for one will be taking that comment with a pinch of salt.
It was promised that priviate members clubs would be excempt from the ban, but we All know what happernd there.
Margot -
Now THAT's what I call 'thinking'.
If only it would catch on elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Dave the Dazzler continues to impress us all with his political courage, originality, and deep insight into human nature and the REAL causes of our 'broken society'.............
Everybody!
In the same way that Climategate has revealed that THE DETAIL of global warming is suspect, so Burnham's statement reveals a similar lack of understanding of THE DETAIL of the enjoyment of tobacco. In Burnham's opinion, there is no such thing as 'the enjoyment of tobacco' - there is only HARM TO HEALTH. Clearly, the same idea must also apply to alcohol. Enjoyment of alcohol is irrelevant - only the health aspects are important plus (to make things even worse) the tendency of youths to go over the top.
Burnham et al do not seem to understand that there is a difference between smoking one cigarette (or cigar, or pipeful) per day and smoking a hundred cigarettes per day.
The whole of Burnham's logic is based upon the idea that there is no difference between smoking one cigarette per day and smoking 100 cigs per day, But to say that this is true MUST be the most abject nonsense. In any case, there is no proof whatsoever that smoking 100 cigs per day is going to kill one - it may or may not.
Burnham's logic is based upon that simple, uncontested statement that 'there is no such thing as a safe level of smoking'. That statement needs to be contested, because, by the same argument, there would be no such thing as 'a safe level of drinking alcohol'. IE, not a single dram of whiskey must pass ones lips, and children must not be allowed to breath the fumes of whiskey which emanate from the bottle or glass, and IN NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER, UNDER PAIN OF DEATH, be allowed actually to taste whiskey.
The Burnham logic must be contested.
When I was 'called ups' to serve in the armed forces is 1960, if one was serving abroad and was thus likely to be the first to go into action, there was a cigarette and alcohol 'allowance' in the form of coupons. There was a sort of unwritten understanding that your life was on the line and a few fags or a few pints was neither here not there. It was a sort of 'quid pro quo'. In the circumstances, the HEALTH OF THE NATION was irrelevant.
One cannot help but feel that Burnham's enthusiasm for tobacco control has nothing to do with health as such, but is entirely to do with the NHS.As also is the war on alcohol.
Somehow or other, this short-term illogicality has to be stopped. I am no conservative, historically, but we HAVE TO vote Conservative to get these people out - as many of them as possible. It may just be possible that the Conservatives may get rid of masses of these quangos (including ASH and CRUK and the Climate Change doom-mongers and spongers).
Wow!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8490490.stm
"One day, in the not too distant future, we'll look back and find it hard to remember why anyone ever smoked in the first place."
Errr, because of self-righteous, bigoted pricks like you persecuting folk?
I'd like to use this dolt as a human ashtray, resting my feet on his back.
There was also some absolutely bonkers package on earlier about Italy getting all het up about butts causing global warming, and the awful chemicals in cig butts, but obviously can't find this on BBC news site.
Here's a link:
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/node/17117
still cant find it on the beeb news site, I didnt imagine it honest!
"'there is no such thing as a safe level of smoking'.
This, of course, is one of those uncontested allegations that the Health Robots seek to bludgeon us all into submission with.
Naturally, it IS palpable nonsense.
There ARE - demonstrably - 'safe' levels of practically ANY toxin you can name: the human body contains hundreds of them.
If there were, for example, no 'safe' level of ARSENIC, then tomatoes would be banned.
Clearly, our Masters have decided instead to equate Tobacco with Plutonium and that lovely armour-piercing Depleted Uranium (used extensively in Bosnia and the Gulf Wars) which has caused permanent disability (from 10 to 100%) in over 40% of United States service personnel alone (no - the MOP suits didn't help) - and the most frightful birth defects among the Iraqi population.
But, hey - who cares about a few babies with arms growing out of their shoulders and cyclops eyes on the side of their face ?
One MOLECULE of DU in the lungs is sufficient to trigger numerous cancers in the body.
The Pentagon used over 35 TONS of the stuff in Iraq.
It has a half-life of over 4 BILLION years.
I make NO mention of the NUMEROUS chemical and biological experiments conducted against an unwitting population in the US and Britain for decades - and (in all likelihood) STILL being conducted.
Or of the growing body of compelling evidence that the AIDS virus is a man-made pathogen, 'accidentally' injected into large numbers of the African population via the WHO's smallpox vaccination programme.
And (aha!) a carefully-selected target group of white, male homosexuals in America in the late Seventies.
Just blame Green Monkeys and 'lifestyle-choices'.
Or of the growing insertion of Fluoride (a HIGHLY toxic substance) into our water supply - DESPITE the well-founded fears and well-grounded arguments of informed members of the public.
I mention the above merely to demonstrate, Ladies and Gentlemen, the kind of MINDSET we are dealing with.
Pure EVIL (if you'll forgive my quaint romanticism).
But the dosy public is supposed to get itself into a lather over a little cigarette smoke and the newly-discovered social phenomenon of Unpleasant Hair Odour.
Expendable, ten-a-penny prats like 'Andy' Burnham are an irrelevance, frankly. But they serve the important purpose of keeping the audience happy (or, at least, occupied).
But our Dark Masters now have a problem. When people become increasingly sick (as they WILL over the coming decades), WHOM will the 'governments' of the world be able to scapegoat ?
Not the poor old Smoker - that's for sure.
Meanwhile, June Brown (now 82) will CONTINUE to test HER 'safe level' by consuming five packs of ciggies every day.
Somebody should warn her about the consequences of her wicked, wicked ways................
Correction:
" a few babies with arms growing out of their shoulders................."
That SHOULD read:
" a few babies with HANDS growing out of their shoulders......................"
Nice, eh ?
Margot - if only I could stay in your spare room, I'd jump at the chance of such good company. I have ultimately plumped for Louth and Horncastle in Lincolnshire - Jeffrey Archer's old patch!
It is a safe Tory seat but lately it has become an area where the BNP is enjoying a lot of support. My challenge, I think, will be to persude voters that there is a party that listens to them, is vastly different to the three main alliance, and a BNP vote is a racist vote. I don't believe the British are naturally racist but the BNP promises them they matter - something the three parties are not doing.
I'm currently saving for my election fee as UKIP here doesn't have a lot of money spare (any donations welcome :)) UKIP does, however, have grass roots support and an army of spirited people willing to put their money where their mouth is.
Pat.
Great news from you and God be with you. Beware the enemy within, especially promises of massive leaflet dropping. Make sure the printers' details are on the foot of all leaflets and on the back of badges, rosettes, etc. Be guided by UKIP every inch of the way and stick close to the website. Especially pay close attention to the iniquitous new election rules invented by this present government. Keep meticulous accounts of all expenditure and income from 1st Jan onwards - you won't get expenses refunded but they must be declared.
Folks - support her! She has her own website.
Martin V.
Your genius leaves me breathless!
Please do all you can to ensure your diatribe above and so many like it, reach the widest possible audience. Pass it on to famous journalists who do get a public hearing. Take yourself very very seriously. You have so much to give.
Your country needs you.
Margot -
Many thanks for your kind words.
If I didn't 'know' you better, I'd have assumed I was the victim of a Bad Attack of Irony.
Not in this case, I think.
But, hell - I ain't no 'genius': just another Square Peg working a twelve-hour shift in a factory (it's a LONG story).
My philosophy:
If an idiot like me can FIND it, and SEE it - why can't others in more privileged positions, and with greater time to devote to the Pursuit of Truth ?
Much of the work has already been done for us - by others who (in many cases) have quite LITERALLY paid with their lives.
The Romantic in me tends to revere that.
Ah - The Truth !
To borrow (and adapt) an observation made by a certain author many years ago, here is the problem:
In my estimation, the Human Race - divisible in so many other ways, admittedly - may be divided into TWO groups.
The 95% who take Authority as The Truth.
The 5% who take The Truth as Authority.
Those of us who regularly contribute to Simon's site (and I naturally include Simon) belong to that rather select MINORITY.
Great for the Ego.
But VERY bad for the Race.
That HAS to change.
If not, we really ARE (if Fraser will forgive me) doomed.
And I rather resent that...................
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/john-walsh/john-walsh-the-little-sadists-will-insist-on-cigarettes-being-sold-singly-in-paper-bags-1886129.html