Time to support pubs, not boycott them

A couple of months ago I attended the 2010 Scottish Licensed Trade News Awards. I was a guest of Imperial Tobacco who were supporting the Best Smoking Facilities award, which was won by a smoker-friendly bar in Edinburgh, and I wrote about it HERE.

I mentioned that I had bumped into Paul Waterson, president of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association (SLTA). I have known Paul for several years. In 2007 he even attended Forest's Revolt In Style dinner at The Savoy hotel in London.

A couple of weeks before the 2010 SLTN awards Paul had given us a quote in support of our Smoking Gun report that highlighted the impact of the smoking ban on pubs in Britain and I have no doubt that this was a major help in generating a lot of coverage for the report in Scotland.

Comments on this blog were not entirely supportive of the report ("Unless this study reaches the mainstream media then it's little better than useless") or the role of publicans in opposing the smoking ban in Scotland.

I was forced to defend the report and even the publicans themselves. In response, for example, to someone who questioned why I had attended an awards ceremony "for the very people who so actively supported the smoking ban" (eh?), I wrote:

The Scottish Licensed Trade Association (in particular its chief executive Paul Waterson) fought every inch of the way to stop a comprehensive smoking ban being introduced in Scotland. I don't believe they could have done any more than they did. It was good to see Paul at last night's event because he is one of the good guys in all this.

While we continue to fight for amendments to the ban it is important that we support those pubs and clubs that go the extra mile to accommodate smokers in as much comfort as possible.

It is also important to keep the smoking issue alive and in the minds of the hospitality industry. Last night I spoke to a number of people in the hospitality industry in Scotland and was able to do just that. Refusing to engage and operating in a bubble surrounded by like-minded people and preaching only to the converted will get us nowhere.

I mention this because this morning a report in the Aberdeen Press & Journal, headlined 'Publicans appeal for the return of smoking', includes the following quote by our old friend Paul Waterson. The article also mentions our Smoking Gun report:

Recent research by the Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign showed that 11.1% of pubs north of the border had closed their doors since the ban. There were 6,610 operating pubs in Scotland before the ban. This fell to 5,873 within four years.

If I sound a little put out it's because I am, a bit. Some people - on this blog and elsewhere - are very quick to poor cold water on the work that we do, the contacts that we make (and maintain) and the networking (including the occasional glass of champagne!) that is a necessary part of any lobbying effort.

What this amounts to is keeping the issue alive and, believe me, that's important. I have seen first hand - in Ireland and in Canada - just how hard it is to relight the flame of liberty once it has been allowed to splutter out and die, and I will do everything I can to stop that happening here.

That's why we have NEVER criticised publicans in Scotland, least of all members of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association who, unlike their counterparts in England, have consistently opposed the smoking ban.

It is also why we have NEVER encouraged anyone to boycott pubs as a form of protest. In these difficult economic times it is important to support your local pub before not after it goes bust.

While you are there point out to the landlord and your fellow customers why you continue to oppose the smoking ban and invite them to support the campaign to change it. (Download this poster and ask the landlord to put it on the wall.)

In the new year we will be announcing a special event that will take place in Westminster in 2011. We need as many publicans as possible to come and make their voices heard. And that means working with them, not against them.

Update on Thursday, December 30, 2010 by Simon Clark

Quick reminder: this is not a message board for cut 'n' paste articles. Ditto, long-winded comments that exceed 300 words may be edited or deleted.

What's special about this picture?

Someone I had not heard from since school contacted me recently via Facebook. He also sent me this photograph, taken in the Lake District in 1975 when we were 16. (To avoid confusion, I am second from the left.)

The previous year the same group had spent a week camping in Pitlochry in Perthshire. One of the few things I remember about that experience was waking up one morning, extremely hungover, unable to move, and enveloped by the smell of stale Newcastle Brown wafting from an old enamel camping mug sitting on the ground inches from my nose.

The following year we were driven from Fife, where we all lived, to Cumbria so that we could walk from Windermere to Keswick, camping overnight in various boggy fields.

It wasn't a happy experience. It certainly put me off hill walking (and camping) for many years. In fact I vowed that never again would I carry a heavy rucksack any distance if I could find someone or something (ie a car) to do it for me.

Once again the single abiding memory of that holiday is associated with alcohol. You probably have to be Scottish (or to have lived in Scotland) to appreciate it, but this is what happened when I walked into a pub near Ambleside and asked for a beer that the locals had never heard of:

Me: Pint of Special, please.

Barman: What's special about it?

At least I got served. No need for proof of age ID cards in those days.

Above: Mike Tough, me, Bill Roberts, Guzzle Gray

Keith Richards: a true life story

Welcome back. For me, the great joy of the week after Christmas is having the opportunity to do absolutely nothing, apart from eat, drink and read.

Top of my 2010 Christmas reading list is Keith Richards' Life. I should finish it this afternoon and I can't tell you how much I am enjoying it. And I'm not the only one.

Writing in the Telegraph today Boris Johnson reveals that not only was he too given the book as a present, but it has convinced him that Richards should be given a knighthood.

I'm not a great fan of the Rolling Stones but reading Life I have to agree. Full article HERE.

Happy Christmas to you all

Just collected the turkey so I think that's enough blogging for now. All that remains is to wish you all a very happy Christmas. Normal service will be resumed in the New Year. Next week there will be an open thread for people to comment as you wish. I may also publish some archive material so do drop by.

PS. The Daily Telegraph reports that Gentleman's smoking lounge makes Parisian comeback. On that half decent note, I bid you au revoir.

Update on Thursday, December 23, 2010 by Simon Clark

STOP PRESS: 10 Ways Christmas Is Good For Your Health by Dr Patrick Basham and Dr John Luik. Enjoy.

Carols by candlelight

Enjoyed the annual Carols by Candlelight concert at Ely Cathedral last night, even if it was pretty cold inside this magnificent old building. Fortunately, not only were we well wrapped up, we were able to buy mulled wine at the interval and in the second half they handed out candles which we lit and used to keep warm!

The truth about passive smoking

Sorry, don't have time to comment on the feature that appeared in The Times today. Unless you subscribe you can't read it online but I have read it in the cuttings. Rose W calls it "execrable". I agree. It almost (but not quite) put me off my mince pies.

If, like Rose, you want to read "the truth about secondhand smoke", I recommend this definitive report, published in 2005 and entitled, funnily enough, Prejudice & Propaganda: The Truth About Passive Smoking.

PS. Journalist Simon Crompton has his own website HERE.

Update on Tuesday, December 21, 2010 by Simon Clark

I have emailed Simon Crompton as follows:

Dear Simon,

Your article in The Times today gave an appallingly one-sided picture of the threat of secondhand smoke. Not only was it highly partisan (some of your statements were pejorative to say the least), you completely ignored those who believe that the stats have been grossly exaggerated and are based on intuition and estimates rather than scientific evidence.

I appreciate that you may dismiss what a group such as Forest has to say, but there are people within the medical and scientific community who have studied the evidence, as we have, and have concluded that the relentless scaremongering is simply not justified by the hard evidence.

I attached a report, published by Forest in 2005, entitled Prejudice & Propaganda: The Truth About Passive Smoking. If you don't want to plough your way through it I suggest you read the introductory note that appears on our website.

Regards,

Simon Clark
Director, Forest

Now, what do you think the odds are on a reply?

All donations gratefully received

A supporter who died this year very kindly left Forest £2,000 in his will. I suggested to the executor of his estate that instead of putting the money into the general pot that covers all our campaign costs, we might put it towards a one-off event (or resource) in our benefactor's name.

Any suggestions?

PS. This morning we banked a further £300 from another supporter. All very generous and much appreciated.

A toast to Brian and Jackie

I was hoping to be in Edinburgh tonight celebrating Brian Monteith's wedding to Jackie Anderson although, if I'm not mistaken, Brian and Jackie have been on some sort of extended honeymoon for two years (at least) so it may come as a surprise to some people that they are not already married.

It's a happy story because Brian and Jackie were at school together in Portobello and were reacquainted at a school reunion a few years ago. Since then they've spent a year in Trinidad and have travelled the world, returning from time to time to Scotland where they catch their breath before setting off on another foreign jaunt.

Anyway, following their wedding yesterday the happy couple have booked the City Chambers overlooking the statue of Adam Smith in the High Street (aka the Royal Mile) for what is generally known as a "bit of a do".

Unfortunately my wife and I can't be there because apart from the weather (heavy snow was forecast in Edinburgh today) my father is in hospital after breaking his hip earlier in the week. He's also on dialysis and had a heart transplant 13 years ago so it's fair to say there are complications!

Consequently, while guests were preparing to enjoy a "very special evening" in Edinburgh, I spent the afternoon at the Royal Derby Hospital.

Tonight however we shall be raising a glass or two to Brian and Jackie - while watching the final of The Apprentice - and I hope you will join me in sending them our very best wishes. Bon voyage!

Update on Monday, December 20, 2010 by Simon Clark

Brian writes:

The snow just keeps falling! The celebration went well with the band's singer getting into Edinburgh by 5.00pm last night after two days' travel from London. The rest of the band arrived at 2.00am the night before!! Much fun was had by all however - now for the honeymoon travel!

Perfect couple: public health minister attends ASH AGM

H/T Brian Bond via Dave Atherton

Public health minister Anne Milton MP recently attended ASH's annual general meeting (December 15, 2010.

Brian points out that Anne Milton is married to the director of public health for the East Surrey PCT while her Wiki profile reveals that:

"In February 2006, Milton was among a minority of Conservative MPs to oppose exceptions for private clubs from the proposed Smoking ban in England. Milton had previously announced her opposition to a partial ban, stating it was "the worst possible solution. In summer 2007 David Cameron appointed her Shadow Minister for Health".

Funnily enough I wrote recently to Milton querying her statement, reported by the Morning Advertiser last month, that "there is little, if any, evidence that would link the closure of pubs and clubs to the introduction of [the smoking bans]”.

I pointed out that:

Over the period 1990-2010 the total number of pubs has indeed shown a long-term decline from around 63,500 to 52,000.

However, a little analysis demonstrates the considerable acceleration of the trend from the end of 2006 – the last data point before the bans in England, Wales and N Ireland.

The period from 2006-10 showed an average closure rate of 2.7% a year - over four times as fast as the long-term trend of 0.6%. In other words, on average more than a thousand more pubs closed each year after the bans than before.

Given the frequent references to the impact of the smoking ban by licensed trade associations and companies this is likely to be much more than just a coincidence.

Please find attached a research paper that examines the pub closure data in more detail. This shows an almost exact correlation between the rates of decline in pub numbers in Scotland, England, Wales and even the Republic of Ireland, when viewed in comparison to the varying dates of their bans.

All of these data are publicly available. Given the commitment of the Government to a private sector-led recovery, the closure of more than a thousand businesses a year in a key part of the economy surely requires a more thorough investigation and review.

I look forward to your response and hope that the Government will review its decision not to review the smoking ban in accordance with a commitment given by the previous government.

Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath.

Smokers may be refused operations

The Sunday Telegraph and the News of the World are running a story first reported by the BBC last month - namely, 'Smokers and overweight patients in need of major operations could be thrown off hospital waiting lists under "desperate" cost-cutting plans'.

The policy seems to have angered several groups including the Patients Association and even some GPs. The Telegraph includes a quote from me.

Full article HERE.

The News of the World features my response alongside that of "News of the World GP" Dr Hilary Jones.

Update on Sunday, December 19, 2010 by Simon Clark

Thanks to Dave Atherton for bringing my attention to a Dutch study funded by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports. Conducted in 2007 and published in 2008 it found that:

Despite the higher annual costs of the obese and smoking cohorts, the healthy-living cohort incurs highest lifetime costs, due to its higher life expectancy ... Furthermore, the greatest differences in health-care costs are not caused by smoking- and obesity-related diseases, but by the other, unrelated, diseases that occur as life-years are gained. Therefore, successful prevention of obesity and smoking would result in lower health-care costs in the short run (assuming no costs of prevention), but in the long run they would result in higher costs.

Click HERE.

Norris McWhirter and the BBC: loose words cost reputations

Via Iain Dale on Twitter I was alerted to an extraordinary post on the Archbishop Cranmer blog. I can't summarise the situation better than His Grace so if you want to know what I'm talking about nip over there and read The Freedom Association is ‘a posher version of the BNP’.

Welcome back.

First, I have to declare an interest. I was never a close confidante of Norris McWhirter, co-founder of The Freedom Association, but we did work together, directly and indirectly, on various occasions and he was always very friendly and extremely supportive.

The first time we met was in the Eighties when I was analysing BBC current affairs programmes for, er, left-wing bias. I remember visiting him at The Freedom Association office off Oxford Street and again when the Association downsized to a smaller office south of the river.

In 1990 Norris wrote the foreword to a booklet entitled Broadcasting and Political Bias that featured an essay that was based on a speech I gave to Granada TV's 'Reporting the Nineties' conference in Manchester.

A decade later I'm pretty sure I interviewed him for Freedom Today, The Freedom Association magazine, when I was editor and he was still chairman of the Association.

Outside the Westminster village Norris was far better known for founding the Guinness Book of Records and presenting the BBC children's programme Record Breakers with our old friend Roy Castle. Despite Norris's fame he remained until his death in 2004 the nicest, most modest person you could wish to meet.

Appearances could be deceptive however because his self-effacing charm masked a steely determination never to submit to the unions, who very nearly destroyed Britain in the Seventies, or the IRA terrorists who murdered his twin brother Ross a short time after they launched the National Association for Freedom (later re-named The Freedom Association) in 1975.

The Freedom Association can fight its own battles so I won't bother to respond to comedian David Baddiel's claim on Five Live yesterday that the Association is "a very, very right-wing, kind of sub-BNP, slightly posher version of the BNP organisation".

I'm more interested in defending the reputation of McWhirter, six years deceased, who spent a large part of his life fighting totalitarianism and defending democracy. Ignoring this, presenter and comedian Alan Davies chose to ponder whether McWhirter was "a brown shirt with Mosley". With no-one in the studio to put him right this slur went completely unchallenged.

I'm sure Davies and Baddiel weren't being malicious. But that's not the point. In my view this is a classic example of the unthinking political bias that permeates the BBC at every level.

Fortunately Norris McWhirter has a lot of friends who won't rest until the BBC apologies for yet another deplorable lapse. Watch this space.

Update on Sunday, December 19, 2010 by Simon Clark

Last night I emailed an MP, a close friend of McWhirter's, who replied as follows:

"Please tell The Freedom Association that I shall be happy to send a letter to them in support of any formal complaint they make about any suggestion that Norris, who risked his life in the most successful anti-U boat task force during the Battle of the Atlantic, should be compared to the BNP scum."

I have suggested that those who were on the Members' Council of The Freedom Association when Norris was chairman should be invited to sign an open letter to the BBC denouncing Davies, Baddiel and Five Live for broadcasting such pejorative comments without a balancing opinion.

For the record, in 2001 members of the Council included:

Vice-Admiral Sir Louis Le Bailly KBE
Lord Blake FBA JP
Christopher Chope OBE MP
Winston Churchill
Baroness Cox
The Rt Hon the Lord Hamilton of Dalzell DL
Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE
Gerald Howarth MP
Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Laurence Robertson MP
and, er, John Bercow MP

Whatever happened to him?

See also: BBC must make full apology for BNP smear on The Freedom Association

Update on Sunday, December 19, 2010 by Simon Clark

Alex Deane of Big Brother Watch has THIS to say on ConservativeHome. And Dan Hannan MEP writes about it HERE on the Telegraph blogs.

Tory and Lib Dem rebels fight back against Big Government

Thanks to Peter Thurgood for drawing my attention to this remarkable - some might call it exciting - story on ConservativeHome: Fifty Conservative MPs demand a free vote on shop tobacco display ban.

How marvellous to see backbench MPs (Lib Dems as well as Tories) fighting back, with Big Government the target.

The tobacco control industry will be having kittens today. However, as Spectator blogger Alex Massie pointed out on Tuesday, in respect of the smoking ban, the real debate is not about smoking, it's about individual businesses and an overbearing government.

The same is true of a display ban. So let's hope the Coalition Government sees sense, sticks to its pre-Election policy and announces that Labour's display ban has finally been consigned to history.

Note: you can comment on ConHome HERE.

Forest petition - final total

Well, that went down to the wire. I can't tell you how busy we've been these past couple of weeks (or how many Christmas parties I've been to) but we finally submitted Forest's response to the EC Tobacco Products Directive consultation this afternoon, an hour or so before the deadline.

And the petition? Well, the online petition we launched ten days ago attracted a total of 1655 names (and addresses) of whom 1610 were EU citizens. Others came from America, mostly, but also Australia, Thailand, Japan, Mexico, Norway and Switzerland, but we had to exclude them because the consultation was targeted at EU citizens only. (Perhaps I didn't make that clear.)

Anyway, given that the petition didn't get much promotion beyond Forest's mailing lists, Iain Dale's Diary (which helped add 150-200 names earlier in the week), Taking Liberties and two or three other blogs (Dick Puddlecote, Pat Nurse and the ASI blog), I'm not unhappy with the result.

Interesting to note the location of respondents, by country. I've had a quick glance at the documentation and the numbers seem to break down as follows:

United Kingdom, 1300
Netherlands, 157
Spain, 31
Denmark, 31
Romania, 21
Ireland, 19
Belgium, 12
France, 11
Germany, 9
Poland, 6
Estonia, 5
Sweden, 3
Finland, 2
Portugal, 1
Greece, 1
Hungary, 1

Total: 1610

PS. The EC has previously tried, and failed, to exclude Forest from stakeholder meetings in Brussels on the grounds that we are not an EU-wide organisation. Now, perhaps, they will believe me when I say that we have supporters in a number of EU countries.

H/T to Wiel Maessen for the Dutch contingent.

Update on Friday, December 17, 2010 by Simon Clark

Here are some excerpts from Forest's online submission:

Scope of the directive
The [consultation document] not only ignores the very important issue of consumer choice, it is also looking for problems that do not exist ... The EC should not be proposing further regulations and/or restrictions that are not based on clear scientific evidence.

Smokeless tobacco products
Europe is supposed to be a single market. It is therefore wrong to deny consumers in all EU member states the opportunity to purchase a product [snus] that is freely available and widely used in another member state ...

Consumer information
Forest rejects the suggestion that packaging is used as an “advertising tool”. Packaging allows the consumer to differentiate between different brands. There is no credible evidence that packaging is a significant reason why anyone, let alone “vulnerable groups”, start or even continue to smoke ...

Increasing the size of the picture warning will have little or no long-term impact other than adding to the unnecessary “uglification” of our surroundings and the unacceptable “denormalisation” of a legal consumer product ...

The [consultation document] talks of “current package design … generating evocative images such as luxury, freedom and glamour”. Tobacco control campaigners often refer to “glitzy” packaging. We are not aware of ANY tobacco packaging that falls into these categories ...

A much bigger problem, not addressed by the [consultation document], is the exaggerated “quit or die” message implicitly promoted by most health warnings, supported by pictorial warnings that are not only ugly and offensive but exaggerate the risks to most consumers. We do not question the health risks associated with smoking but we do question the way those risks are communicated to the general public. In our experience the health messages are now so gruesome (and run counter to most people’s personal experience) that the opportunity to educate consumers in a sensible way is being lost.

Access to tobacco products
Forest supports proof of age card schemes but we do not support further controls on the display of tobacco products. There is insufficient evidence to support the claim that such a move would reduce smoking rates among children or adults.

Likewise we do not believe that a ban on tobacco vending machines will reduce youth smoking rates. Instead it will restrict choice for adult consumers. Use of tokens, credit cards or radio-controlled vending machines would all but eliminate underage access without the need for a ban.

We are concerned that increasing restrictions on tobacco displays and vending machines are designed to artificially “denormalise” smoking and stigmatise adult consumers who choose to purchase a legal product in full knowledge of the health risks of smoking.

Banning tobacco display and vending machines will encourage illicit trade and the sale of counterfeit tobacco in pubs and bars. Not only will the governments lose revenue, consumers (including children) could be put at greater risk.

A ban on tobacco displays is an act of commercial censorship that will eventually reduce choice for adult consumers because tobacco companies are less likely to develop new brands and products if their ability to communicate with their customers is severely restricted.

Plain packaging
As long as tobacco remains a legal product, manufacturers must have the right to differentiate between their products by means of graphic design and consumers should be allowed to differentiate easily between brands.

Plain packaging will also make it substantially easier for criminals to supply counterfeit cigarettes that may have been manufactured and sold contrary to current regulations.

And so on.

Update on Friday, December 17, 2010 by Simon Clark

The Freedom Association has also submitted a response. I'm delighted because it shows that tobacco control is finally being taken seriously by non-tobacco related groups.

Ten years ago, had I invited the then chairman of The Freedom Association to speak out against tobacco control, I know exactly what he would have said. I was editing The Freedom Association magazine Freedom Today at the time and I didn't even bother to ask. I know what the reply would have been.

So credit to The Freedom Association and the author of the submission Stephen Hoffman. Click HERE.

Forest petition - 36 hours left to sign

OK, there are just two days left to sign the Forest petition which opposes proposals to ban, for example, tobacco displays, vending machines and smokeless tobacco products throughout the European Union.

You have until midnight on Thursday and we will then submit the petition to the European Commission in Brussels on Friday, which is the closing date for the public consultation.

As I write there are 1,511 names on the petition so let's have a final push to see if we can get the number up to 1,600.

ASH spokeswoman accuses tobacco industry of "terror campaign"

As I reported earlier Dizzy had this story on his blog this morning. It got lost a bit in my earlier post so I am highlighting it again, having now listened to the interview with Cecilia Farren of ASH on the Today programme.

Responding to Wiel Maessen, organiser of the small bar owners' campaign that successfully challenged the smoking ban in the Netherlands, Farren told presenter James Naughtie:

"It's a very backward step. For me, on the side of keeping smokefree law is public opinion, public health, workers health, equality of access. There's just so many reasons and on the other side it's just long campaigning by the tobacco industry, frightening businesses. It's an absolute terror campaign and I think you've got to have backbone to stand up to them or actually back down in front of their campaign."

Three years ago Farren tried to "name and shame" me at a tobacco control conference in Edinburgh, a story I recorded HERE. She embarrassed fellow tobacco control campaigners that day and listening to her now I'm sure she's embarrassed a few more.