BBC Radio and the smoking ban
Tuesday, December 14, 2010 BBC Radio seems to be going big on the partial lifting of the smoking ban in the Netherlands. This morning both Five Live Breakfast and the Today programme on Radio 4 featured interviews with Wiel Maessen who led the revolt by Dutch bar owners.
Also featured was Cecilia Farren of GASP, a fascinating company described HERE as a "highly successful mail order company stocking everything and anything connected with stopping - or not starting - smoking". Good to know that Cecilia is doing so well from the anti-smoking industry!
While I was tuned to Five Live Dizzy was listening to the Today programme and he reports hearing the extraordinary claim that hose who campaign for the freedom to smoke and the amendment of blanket bans are engaged in a "terror campaign". He adds:
I'm not sure when Simon Clark and Forest were put on the proscribed terrorist list, but I'm sure they'll be very proud to know that their campaigns are being equated with the IRA and crazy Islamists on national radio.
Full post HERE. More to follow.
Update ... Five Live Breakfast has just featured an interview with landlord Nick Hogan who, as readers of this blog know, was jailed in March for failing to pay fines accrued for allowing people to smoke on his premises in Bolton and then released following an Internet campaign that raised £9,000 in less than a week.
09:00 ... The smoking ban is now the subject of the Five Live phone in. Brian Binley MP, a leading supporter of the Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign, will feature.
Above: demonstrators gather in The Hague in 2008.
Simon Clark
How depressing to hear, on the Five Live phone-in, such extraordinary levels of intolerance towards smokers. I don't like the blame game but I do think that successive governments (and the tobacco control industry) have a lot to answer for.
It is their policies, not public opinion, that is breeding intolerance and creating such a divided society. If any politicians (other than Brian Binley) were listening I hope they were as appalled as I was. What a really unpleasant country we are becoming.
Simon Clark
On the back of the Netherlands story, I am on BBC Radio Newcastle, Sheffield and Cornwall this morning.
Reader Comments (17)
I've always maintained - and have mentioned in previous posts - that we could see a domino effect once some territories or countries relax the bans. The bans came in Europe in a wave - started by the Irish - and could possibly be relaxed in a wave - started by the Dutch? I live in hope.
How do you know that the antis who phoned in were not pre-programmed Ashites? I don't think most of the public would be so concerned. Many may dislike smoking but not to the extent that they "hate" smokers.
I've been saying this for ages too - and also that it is promoted by Govt backing of the anti-smoking industry and anti-smoking hysterics who speak from a standpoint of hate not health.
Govt really should hang its head in shame for supporting this but no doubt it will continue to the very bitter end and sweep away all meaning of tolerance and choice in its path of domineering control not just for us but any other group that is not popular at any given time ... erm... where did that attitude take us last century...?.
After all - Lansley is one of those anti-smoking hysterics and George Osbourne, I am told, is making a nice little investmment in Big Pharma.
I thought that many who phoned into the programme, be it non-smoker or ex-smoker were in favour of CHOICE. Yes there were many heatted numpties who spoke absolute rubbish but such is life.
Throughout the debate, I was in direct contact with Wiel Maessen and he was happy with the heat generated on the issues on 5Live and that is what we need OPEN DEBATE and direct action
Antis are at perfect liberty to hate smoke but not at liberty to ban me from it. A simple concept they have great difficulty with.
I'd be inclined to agree with Blad above as any piece with comments in the press has vastly more anti banners than pro banners. Maybe the calls were filtered to try and show a 50/50 and not the more normal 10:1 against the ban.
Having said that, I don't believe non smokers are too bothered either way.
I believe the ones who are so ANTI are those who crave power but can't get it any other way as there tiny little minds don't warrant responsibility!
Very SAD!
I also agree with Blad and Frank but the problem is that the hystrical antis are very well paid to make a huge noise to the exclusion of all other voices which is why we are where we are today.
Smoker hatred hit me hard when I heard someone on a Labour FB page call for smokers to be charged with GBH - yes - these people really would criminalise us on no evidence but scaremongering by very skilled PR people but the point is what side does the Govt take as the ones with the power to criminalise us?
I think we know that answer so whatever the majority of decent non-smoking people think doesn't matter either.
... and I have no idea why I am nurse nurse but I haven't changed my profession :>)
Pat: That really would be good. To see somebody try to prove a smoking GBH charge in Court? Not one hope in hell! Oh, the thought! please, MP, have a go.
Goes to show what planet they inhabit, though.
The sad thing is Frank, it wouldn't surprise me if something like that did get to court; it would also not surprise me see the GBH charge upheld - not in the climate of today and thw cow towing to the EU and Big Pharma!
There is very little point in these 5 live discussions. There was an identical one not very long ago, at the time of the Commons vote. I guess a row makes good radio, but rationally, what is there too discuss. Six thousand pubs have shut. Six thousand smoking club permits could be issued. The anti smokers have neither lost or gained. They can carry on enjoying the clean air in the smokefree pubs. Why do they think they deserve an opinion? If I went round my neighbourhood demanding everyone painted their living room walls green, I'd be a laughing stock. It's a pity Nicky Campbell couldn't bring himself to point this out.
Lyn: One of the unspoken things about all of this is that in Law, there is insufficient proof that smoking can cause anything. Epidemiology is meaningless as, even if accepted, can only apply to the General population and not any specific case. Expert opinion may sway but that cuts both ways and is, therefore, unlikely. That's why nobody has yet succeeded in any civil claim and would be advised against it. And this is for direct smoking. 'Passive' has no chance whatsoever and wouldn't get through the door.
As I say, not a hope in hell.
Frank, I know what you are saying, but since when did the government take any notice of what is right or wrong in Law or anything else?
It is just me being ultra sceptical, but the way we are being bullied and dictated to, I wouldn't be surprised to see the corruption go as far as the courts!
I do, however, hope that you right.
There are rules of evidence, Lyn, in criminal cases and the decision must be beyond reasonable doubt. Little the Govt. can do to alter that, irrespective of the fashion of the times. In civil cases it's balance of probability and even with that, nobody has got anywhere at all.
This is the very reason that the likes of ASH must operate behind closed doors. They wouldn't get a look in elsewhere. They'd be shown up as baseless and unreasonable. (I hesitate to say anything else but we all know)
Frank -
Nice to hear you invoke the spirit of the Common Law, and the notion of 'reasonableness', which has run like a Golden Thread through much of its history. What, for example, would the fabled Reasonable Bystander have made of a Total Smoking Ban?
Sadly, however, we now live in the Age of the Legislator, our lives directed by the Ipse Dixit of the Expert, the Command of the Emperor, the irresistible force of the Fuhrer Order, and the Papal Infallibility of the Health Lobby.
There seem to be so few Common Lawyers among our law-makers these days. I find that sad. And EXTREMELY dangerous.
Generally, I believe the average person feels the total ban to be OTT. The point I make is, simply, regarding the possibility of an attempt at a court case stating smoking as a cause of death or illness, direct or passive Not a hope.
Great programme on BBC Wales this morning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00wmqqf/The_Radio_Wales_PhoneIn_15_12_2010
with plenty of time for the issue, not 3 minute soundbites.