Understanding freedom

"In order to defend my freedom to smoke," writes James Harkin on today's Free Society blog, "we need to admit the shallowness and the emptiness of my freedom to smoke compared with other, more substantial freedoms.

"Sometimes," he adds, "when you want to fight for freedom, you have to hold up the banner and join battle against freedom. That is only way in which the smoker, banished to the furtive margins of the city like a gay man in the 1950s, is going to become a emblem of something more lasting than his packet of fags."

Full article HERE. Discuss.

Monteith attacks "lifestyle fascists"

News travels. Writing from Botswana, Brian Monteith has some strong words to say about the proposal to introduce smoking permits. The former MSP, who is policy director of The Free Society, makes the point that:

A smoking permit is not about winning the argument against the freedom to smoke, it’s about persecuting smokers in full gaze of the public, it’s about de-normalising smoking by making smokers pariahs ... And of course, it’s not just about smokers, it will then be about drinkers, drivers, bungee jumpers – anybody the lifestyle fascists wish to control.

Full article HERE.

In the name of democracy, sign here

Rarely a week goes by without a request to sign or promote some new petition or other. Most of them have been posted on the 10 Downing Street website and I always decline. I'm sorry, but I have no intention of playing No 10's silly little game. It's an 18 carat gimmick, and I'm surprised so many people waste their time.

Another thing that bothers me is the sheer number of petitions, many of them on the same subject. (The smoking ban, for example.) What is the point? If you are going to sign a petition, at least sign one that's clear and concise. For example:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to amend the smoking ban to allow a limited number of smoking licenses to be obtained by owners of pubs, restaurants and clubs from their local council.

As I write that petition has 2,497 signatures. No-one in government will look at it until it has hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of signatures, and even they will probably ignore it, but if you want to sign a serious smoking-related petition that's the one I'd choose. Click HERE.

On the other hand, if you fancy being a little more subversive, you could sign THIS petition. It currently has just 35 "supporters" but they include the wonderfully named 'I LOVE BEING AN EXTREMIST ASSHOLE TOO'. (Well, it made me laugh.) It would be even funnier if we could get several hundred people to sign it using equally inventive names.

Over to you.

Senior health advisor agrees with Forest!

In September 2004 I was invited, with the late Lord Harris, chairman of Forest, to a meeting with John Reid, then Health Secretary. Apart from Reid, there were four other people present, who I took to be civil servants and advisors. One of them was Julian Le Grand (left) who has been making the news with his plan for a £10 permit for smokers.

Ralph Harris and I began the 30-minute meeting by outlining our objections to a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places. We spoke for five or six minutes, focussing on the issue of secondhand smoke. We highlighted the major studies and concluded that the evidence could not possibly justify a comprehensive ban. (Note: the meeting took place BEFORE Reid announced his plan to ban smoking in all workplaces except private members' clubs and pubs that don't serve food.)

When we finished, Reid turned to his senior advisor and asked: "What do you think?" Julian Le Grand didn't hesitate. "I agree with them," he said, nodding in our direction. Reid thought for a moment, then said (I paraphrase): "Yes, I've always been pretty dubious about passive smoking."

Less encouragingly, he went on to say that the threat of "passive smoking" was not the reason the government wanted further restrictions on public smoking. The real reason, he explained, was to encourage smokers to quit so the government could meet its target of reducing the smoking rate to 21 per cent by 2010. (That is why, despite our best efforts, the issue of passive smoking remains a sideshow to the main event.)

I am not aware of any official record of that conversation because it was a private meeting and Ralph and I felt honourbound to respect the confidential nature of our discussion. Sadly (to the best of my knowledge), neither John Reid nor his senior advisor ever went public with their true thoughts on secondhand smoke. 

Until last night.

On Radio Five's Stephen Nolan Show I reminded Le Grand of what he had said. He claimed not to remember but added, helpfully: "I don't actually think the arguments on passive smoking are all that strong."

So there we have it. Senior government advisor on health says:  "I don't think the arguments on passive smoking are all that strong." Who would have thought it?

PS. In interviews yesterday Professor Le Grand repeated the anti-smoking mantra that 70 per cent of smokers wish to quit. It's a figure that comes up all the time and it came up at our meeting in 2004. As I recall, John Reid was quick to dismiss it. In his opinion, the true figure was nearer 30 per cent. Now, who would you believe? A middle-class academic in his smoke-free ivory tower, or a former nicotine addict whose constituency has one of the highest smoking rates in the country?

Permission to smoke, master?

A senior government advisor has proposed that anyone who wants to buy tobacco should have to buy a permit to do so. It would cost in the region of £10, it would have to be renewed annually, and "acquiring it could be made difficult if the forms were sufficiently complex". Full story HERE.

I have my own thoughts on the idea - which I shall be sharing (expletives deleted) with listeners to Radio Five Live's Drive programme and a number of other radio stations this afternoon. I would be very interested to read your comments.

Update on Friday, February 15, 2008 by Simon Clark

See BBC report HERE. The Daily Mail has also followed it up HERE. I was supposed to be on Five Live Drive at 4.15. This was moved to 6.50 but the interview has now been pulled because of scheduling difficulties. (The programme is broadcasting live from London and Lahore.) Oh well, I've spent most of the afternoon in a BBC studio talking to various local radio stations and - fingers crossed - I should be on News 24, the World Service and Five Live (different programme) later this evening.

Just fancy that!

Interesting article in today's Times by the paper's excellent and (in my exerience) open-minded health editor Nigel Hawkes. According to a new study, "Smoking in pregnancy is far less damaging to the unborn baby than commonly supposed. If women give up smoking by the fifth month of pregnancy, the effect on the baby is negligible, the study found. And even if they do not, the effect on birthweight is surprisingly small."

The study - by Emma Tominey, a research assistant at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics - "also shows that the worst effects are suffered by women from the poorest backgrounds, because in their case smoking is often combined with other unhealthy activities, such as poor diet and consumption of alcohol".

Full story HERE.

Ronnie H bites back

You can't keep a good man down. Bafta award-winning screenwriter Ronnie Harwood has reacted to THIS post with the following riposte:

Please tell Mr ..... that I think he is an intellectual giant otherwise how else could he be an assistant editor of the most politically correct newspaper in Western Europe? Presumably he believes everything that politicians and doctors say. Presumably he believes that they never exaggerate to make a point? What a mind he must have. How enviable.

I suppose he has investigated everything from cash for honours to climate change, from the dodgy dossier to MPs' expense claims. Has he investigated the smoking statistics? And will he answer my question - how many people does he know who have killed another human being under the influence of a cigarette? Please ask him to show me a death certificate where the cause of death is given as 'passive smoking' or 'second-hand smoke'?

And please ask him to remember Lady Churchill, the heaviest passive smoker in history. She died aged 92. I'll settle for that.

This could run and run.

Note: I haven't revealed who our Guardian contact is because I'm not sure that his original email was intended for public consumption. In due course, perhaps ...

Those were the days

Founded in 1836, the Reform Club in London is currently hosting an exhibition dedicated to the history of smoking in its palatial Pall Mall home. Keen to see it, I gratefully accepted an offer of lunch at the club and yesterday - after a very pleasant meal (guinea fowl and claret, if you want to know) - we went in search of "All Puffed Out" (or was it "Out Of Puff"?).

It was probably the smallest "exhibition" I have ever seen. Nevertheless there were some nice touches. I was amused, for example, to read this notice from March 12 1935:

We have received this morning cable advice from our Mr Kay, who is at present in Hanava, stating that a General Strike of makers has taken place in all cigar factories in Havana. We give you this information which may be of interest to you.

From the Club Suggestion Book came the comment:

On a recent occasion there were no cigars in the Club although the appropriate shops are well stocked. Could the bad housekeeping of the Club be improved in this respect, or do members have to bring their own cigars just as they have to bring their own bread and cheese at weekends?

In 1934 another member had thoughtfully suggested that:

"In future smoking should be allowed in the Morning Room at all hours. I feel sure that 99 per cent of members would agree to this.

It took 18 years but finally he got his wish:

Smoking was permitted in the Morning Room from 1905 and after 12.00 [midday] from 1938 until 1952 when all restrictions were lifted [my italics].

Those were the days.

Excuse me while I throw up

Allied to a "smoking ban: special report", yesterday's London Evening Standard reportedthat "nearly 22,000 Londoners are believed to have given up smoking". Claiming that this is a public health victory, the paper argues that it is "good news for former smokers" and welcome for "those who inhaled smoke in pubs and bars andare now free of that danger to their own health".

There is no evidence, the paper says, that the ban has encouraged people to smoke more at home and "there has been little evidence that companies have been driven out of business by the ban alone". A leading article (entitled "Smokers saved") concludes:

This picture puts into perspective the fears expressed by many that basic rights were being infringed by the ban ... Now, the fact that those who continue to smoke can adapt demonstrates that there was no fundamental right at risk. As a society, we should perhaps allow ourselves a moment of quiet satisfaction that change for the better has been achieved at no great cost.

Rarely have I read such smug, self-satisfied [insert a word of your choice here]. I think I'm going to be sick.

Double whammy for smokers?

The Treasury announced yesterday that the Budget will take place on Wednesday March 12 at 12.30pm. I don't want to worry you, but that's the same date as No Smoking Day. No doubt the Chancellor will be expected to pull a rabbit out of the hat for our rabid anti-smoking friends. I can't believe that any politician - knowing the impact it has on smuggling - would be stupid enough to raise tobacco taxation above the rate of inflation, but you never know.

Then again, he could choose to abolish VAT on nicotine replacement products. I don't have a problem with that, even though the main beneficiaries would be the anti-smoking industry pharmaceutical companies. At least it would address the original purpose of No Smoking Day which was to help those who wish to quit.

Today No Smoking Day is indistinguishable from any other anti-smoking campaign. It's just another part of the denormalisation process, another act in the anti-tobacco circus. A little more respect for those who choose to smoke and don't want to quit wouldn't go amiss. But I'm not holding my breath.

Cat among the pigeons

Last week I reported that Roger Helmer (MEP and chairman of the Freedom Association) had been invited to lock horns with ASH before a so-called "People's Jury". Roger has now written about the event on his own blog. He begins:

Last Wednesday (Jan 23rd) saw me in Shoreditch Town Hall, at a "People's Jury", organised by ASH (the anti-smoking lobby group), on the question "What more should the government do to reduce smoking?".  I rather threw the cat amongst the pigeons by arguing that it had done too much already.

And concludes:

"It's time for the government to back off, and leave the citizens with at least a little elbow-room to make their own choices and live their own lives."

Click HERE for the full blogpost.

Trial by jury

A curious "event" takes place in London this morning. ASH has commissioned Dr Foster Intelligence to conduct a citizen's jury (sic) on the pros and cons of further tobacco controls. The areas that ASH wish to consider are:

• Tighter controls on smuggling
• Increasing tobacco taxation beyond inflation
• Restricting marketing further including plain packaging and banning product display
• Banning sales through vending machines
• Increasing access to smoking cessation services
• Making nicotine replacement therapy more widely available
• Increasing "social marketing" campaigns to encourage smokers to quit and discourage young people from starting
• Promoting voluntary "smokefree homes" especially in homes where children live
• Banning smoking while driving
• Banning smoking in front of children

The "jury" will hear from two speakers - Deborah Arnott, director of ASH, who will promote the case for further tobacco control, and Roger Helmer, MEP and chairman of The Freedom Association (above left), who will counter many of her arguments. He will, I'm sure, do a great job. (I know for a fact that he's been very well briefed!!)

A tolerant non-smoker who addressed the Forest reception at last year's Conservative party conference, Roger believes that action against smokers is now a challenge to personal liberty. Our job is to persuade more politicians who share his - and our - view to speak out.

Update on Thursday, January 24, 2008 by Simon Clark

Roger reports that the event went "just fine". Details to follow.

Oops, she did it again

From today's Daily Mirror: "Ex-public health minister Caroline Flint has fallen foul of the smoking law she championed. She has been driven out of her Commons office by people lighting up in a designated smoking area right by her window. Now Ms Flint, welfare minister since Gordon Brown's summer reshuffle, wants a room away from the Westminster addicts she forced into the open. Husband and office manager Phil Cole said: "Even with the windows closed the smoke kept coming in."

Article HERE.

Birthday girl

Hilda Newson has just celebrated her 109th birthday. She told her local newspaper: "I do not take any pills or drugs and still play the tambourine. My favourite meals are roast dinners and chicken and I enjoy a fruit juice with my meals. I used to smoke 40 cigarettes a day but gave it up 24 years ago when I was 85." Full story HERE.

Cigarettes and cocaine

I first saw Squeeze in 1978 when they shared the bill with Eddie and the Hot Rods and a band called Radio Stars at the Music Hall, Aberdeen. Three years later I caught them at London's Hammersmith Palais. I've also seen them play Hammermith Odeon (1985 and 1989), the Royal Albert Hall (1987), and the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow (1993).

I missed the recent reunion tour (which didn't feature Jools Holland) but, to make up, I have been reading their former pianist's amusing autobiography, Barefaced Lies & Boogie-Woogie Boasts. If you get past the awful title, it's a quite a good read, and on page 210 Jools turns the spotlight, briefly, on cigarettes and cocaine:

There are lots of things that are very bad for you but they tend to have at least one or two good aspects to them. Cigarettes, for instance, smell great, look great, feel great, the packaging is great, you look more glamorous with a cigarette - everything about smoking is great apart from the fact that it kills you after disabling you horribly. That's the bad bit. Obviously there has to be a good bit, or nobody would smoke, would they?

Now, with cocaine, I actually think the truth of it is that everything about it is bad. It's hard to see any positive aspects to it at all, other than the ability it gives you to talk non-stop rubbish to your friends or to people of a similar disposition. You hear about drug-fuelled orgies but, if cocaine increases the desire for such activities, it doesn't help your ability to engage in them ... I'm no drugs tsar but I wouldn't advise anybody to touch it in the first place.

This is as serious as this gentle, rambling (and surprisingly discreet) book gets - but I thought you might like to comment.