Diplomatic speak
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 
I have been sent a note about yesterday's meeting with John Healey (see previous posts):
Greg Knight MP and David Clelland MP [co-sponsors of the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign] have met with pubs minister John Healey to discuss their concerns, particularly over the smoking ban currently in force.
After the meeting, which lasted 30 minutes, David Clelland said: "The minister listened to our concerns. It is clear he is taking the problems facing pubs and clubs seriously."
Greg Knight added: "He promised to look at a number of initiatives and we asked him to consult as widely as possible during the smoking ban review. He also promised to get back to us on a number of points we raised. It was a good meeting."
If you're feeling a trifle underwhelmed by this report, don't mistake the language of diplomacy for a lack of rigour on the part of Messrs Knight and Clelland. Greg, in particular, feels very strongly about this issue and I have no doubt at all that he will have put our case firmly yet politely.
(Your comments, I should add, have not gone unnoticed but meetings like this call for an element of diplomacy. Perhaps it was better that I wasn't there!)
The good news is that yesterday in parliament a government minister met representatives of a campaign to amend the smoking ban. A small step, perhaps, but a move in the right direction.
The real work meanwhile will begin after the election. Greg is already thinking ahead so bear with us. To support the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign click HERE. You can also follow the campaign on Twitter HERE.
Above (left to right): Greg Knight, John Healey, David Clelland
Reader Comments (36)
Ralph Finlay the Chief Executive of Marston's Brewery says, "..predicts that a further 10,000 pubs will close over the next five years..."
"Findlay makes the case that food served in pubs...Food brings in families, females, and the over forties and fifties."
"The working man’s spit-and-sawdust pub that only offers a pickled egg by way of food is undoubtedly in terminal decline."
So beer led pubs are a thing of the past and we are all socialising at Wetherspoons type establishments.
Greg and David's intervention is important and timely. I just hope that CAMRA have got the message.
http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analysis/the-brewing-boss-who-says-pubs-have-clean-their-act-survive
Thanks for the update, Simon. Did Greg or David read the strength of opinion on the thread where you asked for comments? It would be nice to think that someone in parliament is aware of what ordinary folk are feeling.
Dave, I still can't get my head around why leaders of the alcohol industry, who are presumably interested in making money, should be apparently entirely unconcerned about the fact that millions of us simply don't go to pubs anymore, spit and sawdust or kiddy-friendly or any other kind, and have no intention of doing so while the total ban remains in place. Am I missing something?
l'm sorry Simon but l view Healey's words like this:-
lf he said good morning l'd know it was time for bed.
Rose, I saw Greg and David before they met John Healey and brought the comments on the blog to their attention so, yes, they are aware of the strength of opinion behind this campaign.
@Rose
Marston's are a PubCo and run tied pubs and it is alleged that they were threatened with a referral to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission at the time of the 2006 Health Act. They understand that with the smoking ban that there is no money to be made in a wet led pubs, except 18-30 vomit factories.
Again an allegation but I am also led to believe that Labour were going to exempt private clubs but Sir Liam Donaldson threatened to resign if it was included in the bill. So unelected civil servants setting government policy.
Alas the "strength" of the smoking ban is that it was a free vote, none of the MPs were whipped into voting one way or another. However the ban is a festering sore on the backside of Labour, and it is constantly being prodded and picked over by a vast range of smokers, non smokers and liberty oriented people. They wish it would go away.
Labour know full well how much real and subliminal damage it has done to their core vote and hate being reminded of it. To show some backbone and amend it would, wrongly in my opinion be seen as weakness. By far and away the biggest reason is that Labour and to a certain extent the other parties do not want by amending the ban want to incur the wrath of the extremely powerful medical establishment, who have instant access to the mainstream media.
Delete where applicable by amending the smoking ban Tories/Labour/LibDems/UKIP/SNP/PlaidCymru want to set the clock back and put people 's health at risk for the country's "most preventable illness." No politcal party wants this battle.
May 6th 2010 may show who really has the power.
http://www.abcmoney.co.uk/news/1420061944.htm
Dave.
I liked your comment about CAMRA as these boring but vocal old farts were strongly in favour of the smoking ban. They are supposed to protect the traditional pub and beers and fight against the infiltration of foreign lagers. Now that one of the larger brewers and pubcos has publicly stated that we are overpubed [sic-sounds like a cheap porno] and he advocates more gastropubs, CAMRA may well see that the smaller pubs and breweries are doomed.
Personally, I would not go into places such as these or Wetherspoons even if I was allowed to smoke as effectively they are only McDonalds or off licences with seats. Not what CAMRA was hoping for when they supported the ban.
Promises, promises.
'The Minister promised to look at...promised to get back to us...listened to....taking problem seriously'
I aint falling for that bullshit no more, especially when they say 'the real work meanwhile will begin AFTER the election'
Hardy, har, har, we're not that stupid that we'll fall for that one again because after the election my dear, they'll have your gullible vote and you can take a running jump for yourself to even bother them with the word 'smoke' not to mind ban!
No way Jose, you owe us an upfront honest and stand up promise this time around Mr Healey, after your govt's blatent lie about a total smoking ban before the last election.
If Healy isnt prepared to do that now, he can go and tell it to the Marines!!
Remember guys, they wouldnt even be talking to us now only they want something, the one thing that their very survival depends on and thats your Vote.
Dont throw it away on a foolish promise this time.
Its your ace in the hole!
I wonder what CAMRA would say about a German firm who have won the right to make a beer called 'Fucking Hell' and the EU trademark authority has permitted the firm to brew beer under that name.
Seemingly there's a town in Austria called 'Fucking' but its not known if they will allow it to be brewed there as the town are not too pleased with the title...of the beer!
I kid you not.
"pickled egg by way of food"
pickled eggs are for entertainment not for food. A bowl of olives can be made funny but pickled eggs are easier. What would be better for a comedy prop a pickled egg or an olive? Don't get me wrong , I like olives but pickled eggs reassure the customers that they are in an establishment with class. Blimey! Next they will be saying condom machines are for people who want safe sex. Clueless!
"Findlay makes the case that food served in pubs...Food brings in families, females, and the over forties and fifties."
And fuels the obesity problem.
In addition the Government is proposing to ban cigarette displays because as they say " it leads children to start smoking", yet they are quite happy to encourage children into pubs.
Their logic is crazy!
if i want food i go to a restaurant; if i want beer a pub....the smell of food in a pub is far worse than smoke. Can we also have a garlic ban please.
Precisely, the current argument re: pubs seems to be like saying that for films to survive art films need to be moronic, Adam Sandler fests rather than intriguing explorations into the human condition. The problem is of course, that these explosion-CGI fests then cease to be art films. They may involve sitting in a cinema but they are different, and no way would I want to subject myself to them so I would stay at home instead. I don't go to the cinema just to sit in a cinema, I go there to watch the type of films I like.
Ditto with the pub. We don't go to the pub just because it's a building called "Pub" - we go there because we want all that is associated with pubs - friends, real fires, beer and yes, cigarettes. Otherwise I'd go somewhere that offered something different - like those weird building that call themselves "restaurants", for example.
Of course the difference with this metaphor is that art films are a minority interest whereas smoking pubs are of interest to the majority.
So perhaps a more apt metaphor would be if cinemas banned any films that had explosions, CGI and Adam Sandler in and were forced instead to show The Three Colours trilogy or "The Seventh Seal" on a loop. Would they then be amazed that Joe Public was choosing to stay at home rather than paying for the privilege of going to the cinema to do something they don't want to do?
Unfortunately, I suspect they would be.
Sorry to digress slightly (but still on smoking). I am in the midst of some historical research, and suddenly came upon a section in Samuel Pepys diary dated June 7th 1665, the time of the Great Plague, where I read the following, which is not part of the actual diary but an afterthought:
[Houses infected by the Plague had to have a red cross one foot high marked on their door and were shut up - often with the victims inside. Tobacco was highly prized for its medicinal value, especially against the Plague. It is said that at Eton one boy was flogged for being discovered not smoking.]
Medical Uses of Tobacco, Past and Present -1958
Tobacco as a Prophylactic in Contagious Disease.
Allen (1835) stated that Diemerbroeck [De peste, 1646] has usually been quoted as authority for the anticontagious character of tobacco.
During the Great Plague in London in 1665, children were told to smoke in their schoolrooms (Lancet 1: 1266-1267, 1902); and A Brief Abstract of the Virtues of the American Tobacco Plant (1783) records that buffers of the dead, in charge of dead-carts, at first used tobacco as a deodorizer, "little thinking that what they used for momentary relief would prove a constant preventive.
When the Plague was happily stayed, the virtues of tobacco began to be investigated, and it was found that those persons who plentifully used it, either in smoking or in snuffing, had most wonderfully escaped the dire contagion: for though they' visited the chambers of the sick, attended the funerals of cartloads at a time, they unexpectedly avoided the infection."
http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/2445.html?zoom=750&ocr_position=above_foramatted&start_page=1
Page 10
I would love to see some research on things like this. I know that there is substantial evidence that secondary smoke actually prevents respiratory illness in children, but there are also quite interesting (albeit as yet anecdotal) evidence that shows a link between the rise in hospital infections and the spread of smoking bans in hospitals. Of course there could be a multitude of factors explaining the correlation (despite the antis seeming to be unaware of the difference between correlation and cause, I won't fall into their mistake of claiming a link) but it's certainly interesting.
From a personal viewpoint I know I have fewer colds and flus than most (judging by sick days, anyway) and when I gave up smoking for a year a few years back I had almost constant colds. At first I thought it was "my body cleaning out the toxins" but after a year or so it seemed apparent that I'd actually just become more sickly. I wonder if the fact that you're constanly inhaling particulates means your body is constantly in a state of "aroused defence" so that external bacteria etc have a lesser chance of taking hold?
Mr A
Its not just tobacco though.
Medicinal Smoke Reduces Airborne Bacteria
http://www.agri-history.org/pdf/Medicinal%20smoke.pdf
Validation of smoke inhalation therapy to treat microbial infections
AIM OF THE STUDY:
"In traditional healing, the burning of selected indigenous medicinal plants and the inhalation of the liberated smoke are widely accepted and a practiced route of administration."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18778765
Medicinal smokes
"Most of the 265 plant species of mono-ingredient remedies studied belong to Asteraceae (10.6%), followed by Solanaceae (10.2%), Fabaceae (9.8%) and Apiaceae (5.3%). The most frequent medical indications for medicinal smoke are pulmonary (23.5%), neurological (21.8%) and dermatological (8.1%)".
http://tinyurl.com/6ybwso
Poor Mr Healey.
I sympaphise.
It must be very difficult to operate with a hand shoved up the back of your jacket,
(see ventriloquism)
A gottle of geer.
A gottle of geer .
Mr A
There are huge medicinal benefits of both tobacco and particularly nicotine.
That is why we are at the point we are at. The war against anti-smoking is a smoke-screen. It is a nicotine war. Nothing more and nothing less.
As far s I'm concerned, if the health lobbies really valued the health of the population, they would allow them to absorb nicotine in the best way that suited them.
@Mr A - Chris Snowdon made a very good point in his book Velvet Glove, Iron Fist. After smoking was completely banned on aircraft a new problem arose, DVT.
I really, really wish that I was really, really wealthy. If I was, then I would definitely take the Royal College of Physicians to court. I would insist that they PROVE that I, personally, have in any way whatsoever at all harmed either my children or my grandchildren by enjoying my tobacco whether at home or in my car, and I would insist that the RSP PROVE that I have harmed them. Statistical analyses are unacceptable. Reality is the only important thing. I want astronomical damages from the Royal College on the grounds that they have said that I have damaged my kids.
If only I was rich!
Forest is rich...
Actually, in all seriousness I would love to see this issue get to court in some way and have Dave A, Chris Snowden and Michael J McFadden show up Dockrell and the like for the liars that they are. It's interesting that ASH make many pronouncements but always shrug direct confrontation. Almost as if they have something to hide....
I also heard Arnott admit on Five Live (when talking about banning smoking in cars) that she din't want to ban smoking but she did want to ban smoking in homes where children are present. It didn't get picked up on as it sort of slipped out, but the tape is on the F2C blog - it's near the end of the "Tony Blows calls her a liar" clip.
Typo - I really didn't type "didn't" as "din't" intentionally!
Another interesting thing in tobacco.
CTRI wins patent for using tobacco as medicine
"Many pharmaceutical companies have approached us for carrying out clinical trials for the usage of solanesol as anti-cancer and anti-diabetic drugs," CTRI Director V Krishna Murthy told reporters. Solanesol is rich in Coenzyme Q10 - a physiologically active substance with high pharmaceutical value"
http://finance.indiainfo.com/2008/02/17/0802171248_tobacco.html
Solanesol: A Tracer for Environmental Tobacco Smoke 1988
http://tobaccodocuments.org/ness/20844.html?zoom=750&ocr_position=above_foramatted&start_page=1
Solanesol Air Testing
"Many plants of the Solanaceae family, which includes the genus Nicotiana, of which the tobacco plant is a member, contain solanesol; particularly those that contain trace amounts of nicotine.
These include the tomato, eggplant, potato, and pepper. The potential interference due to these sources is negligible, cooking being the only likely potential source of interference.
An interference of this type would bias results high, overestimating the contribution of ETS to RSP."
http://www.coresta.org/Recommended_Methods/CRM_52.pdf
Studying the plant is what keeps me occupied these days.
Before you all get too carried away
http://www.freedom2choose.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65&p=122279#p122279
Reply to query by F2C member
Thank you for your email dated 1 March to the Rt Hon John Healey MP regarding the impact of the smoke-free law on pubs. This has been passed to me for reply.
Ministers recognise the important role pubs can play in maintaining community life and there is concern across Government about the number of community pubs that have been forced to close during the recession. Ministers are determined to tackle this and give them a helping hand during these tough economic times.
However, there is no evidence showing that smoke-free laws, either in this country or internationally, have caused the closure of pubs or bars and by far the biggest drivers of success in the pub trade go well beyond the fact that pubs are now free from second-hand tobacco smoke. Indeed, there are some indicators that the smoke-free law has been good for pubs, especially where they have diversified, for example by serving food. We have no plans at present to extend the areas required to be smoke free in accordance with the Health Act 2006. We gave a commitment to review the smoke free law after three years and that review will be carried out later this year.
You may be aware that the Government has now published a package of measures in light of inputs from the industry, community groups and other government departments to support community pubs. Our plans fall into three main categories:
§ Business support
§ Industry standards and consumer choice
§ Community and local authority action
Further details on our package of measures can be found on our website by following the link below:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1511255
I hope this is helpful.
Kind regards
Suzanne
Suzanne Walpole
Planning for Business Team
Planning Directorate
Communities and Local Government
If this letter isnt proof, however much stated in government speak language, that Healy and his cohorts in govt havent a bulls notion of amending the smoking ban, I dont know what is.
Ann, did you really ever believe this government had any intentions of amending the ban?
We don't need letter like this to prove what we have always known do we? Just take another look at the letter and some of its wording:
It is nothing less than pure rubbish, gov-speak. If ministers really recognised the importance of pubs in the community, they would have dome something about it long before now, or before waiting 3 years for a review on the law of the smoking ban. They say ministers want to tackle this problem? Ministers caused this problem for Christ sake. We wouldn't have this problem if it weren't for so called ministers. They brought in the smoking ban which caused 90% of the pub closures, and then they ruined the economy, which caused the other 10%.
The letter then goes onto say that there is no evidence showing that smoke-free laws, either in this country or internationally, have caused the closure of pubs or bars. There is no evidence to show there is a God in heaven either, so why not legislate to close all churches down as well?
Their biggest fopar however (in my opinion) is where they state "the fact that pubs are now free from secondhand tobacco smoke". Of course they are, but yes, and? Pubs are also free from customers aren't they, and without customers they close. They are also free from cyclists and an hundred and one other things which also don't mean a damn thing to the welfare of pubs, so why pick on the old chestnut of being "free from secondhand tobacco smoke".
I don't want pubs to be free from secondhand tobacco smoke, I want them full of smoke and smokers, I love the smell and I love the taste and it does not do non-smokers any harm, full stop!
Errr - "consumer choice" ...? One imagines the consumer only gets choice if that consumer is a non-smoker
I doubt Healey was even aware of this correspondence (signed inappropriately and unprofessionally by 'Suzanne').
"We have no plans at present to extend the areas required to be smoke free in accordance with the Health Act 2006."
"at present"
Maybe tommorow then Suzanne?
Fuck off
"Industry standards and consumer choice"
What fucking choice Suzanne?
Fuck off
You talk about being polite Simon...but the language on this site has deteriorated badly.
Why allow so many indiscriminate F-words now?
I agree Chris, I have had posts removed for being two words over the allowed limit, or for mentioning the word Nazi in connection with the anti-smokers, yet as you say, the sort of language that is now being used more and more on this site, belittles what is being said on here.
If I were the enemy, by which I mean the likes of ASH, I would be using the type of language now being used on here as proof that we are ignorant and should be ignored.
The landldy that handed a petition to Gillian Merron complained in the early days that the smoke ban was killing her pub. She was ignored. Her trade began to die immediately. The pub went bust. It has been taken over by a Pubco and refurbished and attracted a different clientele. The landlady told me that if this ban is ever reversed or amended, she will sue the Govt for loss of her livelihood and forcing her into bankruptcy.
Could it be that the Govt will not accept that the smoking ban is killing the traditional pub industry, because they fear the legal action that could follow if they did?
"the language on this site has deteriorated badly....." complains Chris.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Please: NO more use of the ghastly 'gastropub' expletive !
It is to Proper Pubs what Lady Gaga is to Music.
And as for Wetherspoons - I've experienced more 'atmosphere' at the dental clinic........
(Incidentally, has anybody living EVER seen sawdust on a pub floor - outside of BBC 'period' drama ?)
PS:
And, no - the promise of free root canal work will not get me into a Wetherspoons arcade, either !
Ban me from using a very fine Anglo-Saxon expletive if you wish, its my gut reaction to the nonsense the antis come out with.
Sometimes I get intemperate and annoyed, its only human is it not?
Anyway my apologies if I offended anyone here, I'm sure Simon can delete my postings and bar me, if he feels my language is unwarrented.
As for being "polite" to the like of ASH and the other shills, that day is long gone, my answer is the same - go forth and procreate.