Hooked on their own petard

According to the Advertising Standards Authority annual report, published today, the advertisement that received the largest number of complaints in 2007 was a Department of Health campaign showing people with giant fish-hooks in their mouths.

According to the Telegraph, the £7 million (seven million!!) television and poster campaign "prompted 774 complaints from people who found them offensive, frightening and distressing". 

Although the ASA found that the ads were "unlikely to cause serious offence or distress to adult viewers", it upheld the complaints "and ordered the Department of Health not to run the campaign again".

Too late, some might say, but I don't. The fact that it was the most complained about advertisement demonstrates a significant degree of opposition. The government will think twice before embarking on a similar campaign and it gives me confidence that smokers are no pushovers.

So, well done to everyone who took the trouble to write and complain. Now we have to channel that energy in other directions.

Dawn breaks on another dodgy dossier

A question by Stephen Hesford MP concerning the effects of the smoking ban "on (a) public health and (b) the Department of Health's expenditure, and what mechanisms have been put in place to measure these effects" has received the following written answer from health minister Dawn Primarolo:

"Smokefree legislation was introduced primarily to protect people from the harm of second-hand smoke in enclosed parts of work and public places. Research has been commissioned which will evaluate various aspects of the impact of the smokefree law in England; the resulting reports will be published once completed and peer reviewed.

"While it is still too early for any of the Department's commissioned research to have been published, in October 2007 Cancer Research 29 Apr 2008 : Column 259W UK and the Tobacco Control Centre published results from a small scale study of the impact of the new law. That research found that hospitality workers exposure to harmful second-hand smoke may have fallen by 95 per cent since 1 July 2007.

"An assessment of the costs and benefits of smokefree legislation is set out in the Final Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA), entitled "Final Regulatory Impact Assessment to be made under Powers in Part 1 Chapter 1 of the Health Act 2006" was published by the Department in December 2006.

Note the lack of substance in Primarolo's reply. I guess we'll have to wait for the "commissioned research". I don't know why, but the words "dodgy dossier" spring to mind.

Smoking rates up in Ireland

I have just done an interview for a Dublin radio station. According to a survey published yesterday by the Department of Health in Ireland, smoking rates have gone up since 2002, despite the introduction of the public smoking ban in 2004.

The number of people in Ireland who say they are smokers is currently 29%, up from 27% in 2002. One theory is that the ban has made smoking cool again. Another is that as more and more people (including non-smokers) migrate outside, smoking is perceived as a rather sociable activity. You couldn't make it up.

Full story HERE.

Update on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by Simon Clark

I'm doing another interview for another Irish radio station later this afternoon. Apparently, some anti-smoking campaigners have suggested that the way to reduce the number of people smoking is to remove all outdoor tables and heaters. I'm sure some of these people mean well, but ... words fail me.

Revolt in style - again

Following the success of our Revolt In Style dinner at The Savoy last summer, Forest is once again joining forces with Boisdale to highlight opposition to the smoking ban.

Proposed events include a large reception (Revolt In Style II) and a small (but perfectly formed) Cigar Terrace Party on (where else?) the cigar terrace at Boisdale. The latter will be co-hosted by the new Campaign for Separate Smoking Rooms (patron, Boisdale MD Ranald Macdonald!).

Ranald is currently in California (his business empire now stretches to Moscow, Washington and beyond) but I caught up with him last night and (wearing his CSSR hat) he gave me the following quote:

“We don’t wish to reverse the smoking ban but we do want sensible revisions that would enable businesses such as Boisdale to offer customers what they want. The smoking ban is unnecessarily draconian. We support restrictions but we know there is a demand for well-ventilated smoking rooms and, together with Forest and the CSSR, we will continue to press our case.”

Details of all events and initiatives will be published on the new Forest website - coming soon.

He said it!

Message from Brian Monteith, policy director of The Free Society, who earlier today was at Frankfurt Airport waiting for a connecting flight to Nigeria. Apparently, he's still there:

"My Apple Mac's internet clock showed Central European Standard Time as the same as Nigeria - but Germany is in fact an hour ahead and so I missed my flight!!!! Now I'm staying in Frankfurt for two nights waiting on my next flight on Thursday!! What a PLONKER!"

I couldn't possibly comment.

Update on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by Simon Clark

It's amazing how even the most innocuous post prompts a string of comments attacking the EU or promoting UKIP. I'm no fan of the EU, but this is NOT a UKIP message board. It's repetitive, increasingly tedious and will drive people away. Please stop. (Note: the same applies to The Free Society blog.)

Party poopers

Our old friend Bob Shields reports that the war on tobacco has claimed another victim - the Casino Bar at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. "Many a Daily Record adventure or Tartan Army trip began and ended with a beer and smoke at this friendly wee watering hole. But not any more," he writes HERE.

A few weeks ago I described how Bob once joined a Forest jaunt to Paris. It was No Smoking Day and we had decided that the best response was to escape to what was then the European capital of smoking. Bob agreed, and wrote a very funny piece about the trip.

The next year we gave him our prestigious (!) Smoker-Friendly Journalist of the Year Award. The awards were presented at a party - attended by 300 people - at Little Havana, just off Leicester Square. (The party is described, very eloquently, HERE.)

Bob turned up in person to collect his prize - a substantial cigar lighter that looked just like a World War II hand grenade. Unfortunately, when he arrived at Heathrow to fly back to Glasgow, his "award" was confiscated by eagle-eyed officials who gave him a good dressing down and demanded to know what he was doing with such a thing in his hand luggage!

PS. I have just Googled the words "cigar lighter, hand grenade" and discovered THIS story from 2003, three years after Bob's little incident.

Is food the new tobacco?

Late on Friday it was announced that a private member's bill designed to make it an offence to promote "less healthy" foodstuffs to children had failed to pass its second reading in the House of Commons. Thankfully, opposition MPs blocked the bill which included a 9.00pm television watershed for "junk food" advertising and restrictions on "non-broadcast marketing".

In particular, former Conservative minister Christopher Chope struck a blow for common sense when he said the bill would do little to tackle obesity and argued that parents are responsible for their children's diets.

Needless to say, the health police isn't listening. According to Ruairi O'Connor of the British Heart Foundation, "Junk food companies have been given a last shot to prove they can put the interests of children first, and take the issue of childhood obesity seriously, before the government will surely be forced to regulate."

Some time ago I gave a speech ("Is food the new tobacco?") at a seminar organised by the Adam Smith Institute. It's still relevant (I think) so an edited version is published HERE on today's Free Society blog.

Coming soon ...

The new Forest website will go live in a couple of weeks. It's not a radical departure from the current site, but we've stripped it down, "refreshed" the design, updated much of the information, and introduced new features.

Some features will be introduced gradually. For example, we have already designed and developed a video player and library but we are holding that back until we are ready to make and upload our own videos in the autumn.

The present site currently attracts around 5,000 visitors a day. Hopefully, the new site will encourage more people to play an active (as opposed to passive) role in the smoking debate. For the moment, watch this space.

Speaking honestly

One of the great pleasures of Saturday morning is reading the papers, in the conservatory, with a mug of coffee in one hand and a Belgian bun in the other. I particularly enjoy the Daily Telegraph's Motoring section, especially Honest John ("the dealer you can trust") whose views on speed cameras, speed bumps and other motoring issues mirror my own.

Today, in response to a reader's query, HJ writes:

With a security camera for every 14 people, ours is the most watched nation on earth. Town-centre security cameras, allegedly installed for our protection, are now being used to extract penalty payments for the most minor transgressions. And in relation to vehicle owners, the Data Protection Act has been torn up so that anyone can get hold of our personal details to impose and enforce civil penalties. Britain has become a really nasty country.

Honest John's personal website can be found HERE. Warmly recommended.

Cereal nutters

Today sees the second reading of a private member's bill that would outlaw the promotion of so-called "unhealthy foods" until after the 9.00pm watershed and from child-centred websites altogether. On today's Free Society blog, Brian Monteith attacks the latest threat to Tony the Tiger, Coco the Monkey, and Snap, Crackle and Pop. Full article HERE.

Update on Saturday, April 26, 2008 by Simon Clark

At last, some good news - "MPs block junk food advert ban". See HERE.

Help! I'm confused ...

The Office of Fair Trading has issued a statement alleging that certain tobacco manufacturers and retailers may have engaged in unlawful practices in relation to retail prices for tobacco products in the UK. It is suggested that deals between cigarette companies and supermarkets may have restricted the retailers' ability "to determine its selling price independently".

I can understand that the OFT (a government quango) doesn't like price-fixing, but if they really want to help the consumer I suggest they also look at the government's policy on tobacco taxation. In the UK, 80-89% of the cost of tobacco products is pocketed by the Treasury. I'm not an economist, but I can't believe that encourages competitive pricing.

What I really can't get my head around is the extraordinary response from ASH. According to the Financial Times, "Action on Smoking and Health, the anti-smoking pressure group, said it was concerned that cigarette prices were rising faster than justified by levels of taxation and inflation."

Since when did ASH become the voice and friend of the consumer?

Help! I'm confused. (Full story HERE and HERE.)

Update on Friday, April 25, 2008 by Simon Clark

The government wants to ban the display of cigarettes behind the counter - out of sight, out of mind. What could be more anti-competitive than that? How the hell can the consumer choose between different brands (and prices) if he can't see what's on offer? I can't wait to read what the OFT thinks about that.

Now that's what I call a result

In 2000 Forest kick-started what proved to be a successful campaign on cross-Channel shopping. At the time we were inundated with calls from aggrieved smokers who had had their tobacco, and sometimes their cars, siezed by Customs officials as part of the clampdown on smuggling.

Of course, there was plenty of smuggling going on - even students and OAPs were getting in on the act - but lots of innocent people were being harassed, quite unnecesarily. The guideline, then, was a paltry 800 cigarettes (compared with 90 litres of wine). It wasn't illegal to bring back more - you just had to prove they were for your own personal use.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we helped one chap challenge Customs in court (by finding him a solicitor and barrister and paying his legal costs, around £5,000) and that led, eventually, to the government increasing the guideline to 3,200 cigarettes in, I think, 2002.

Smuggling is still rife (thanks to the high rate of tobacco taxation in this country) but as far as legitimate cross-Channel shopping is concerned, law-abiding smokers seem OK with the current guideline and it's no longer the major issue that it once was.

Incidents do still occur, however, and I'm pleased to say that, for once, I can report a happy ending. On Monday we took a call from a guy in Wales. He explained that Customs in Portsmouth had confiscated the 3,100 cigarettes he had brought into the country.

He decided to appeal and sought our opinion. (For legal reasons we don't offer "advice" - you need a solicitor or the Citizens Advice Bureau for that.) He told me that he smokes 25 cigarettes a day and we suggested that to prove it he needed evidence (receipts or credit card statements) of previous purchases. Needless to say, he didn't have any. After all, most people pay for tobacco with cash and don't keep the receipt.

Another tack, we suggested, was to ask friends, family or employer to write letters confirming that he smokes as much as he says. (We also suggested that he ask his doctor to write a letter but he hasn't seen his doctor in years - he hasn't needed to!)

On Tuesday, armed with several letters, he returned to Portsmouth for a meeting with Customs. Last night he called to say that his cigarettes (worth over £400) had been returned to him "and they even helped re-pack my case!".

Needless to say their generosity didn't extend to refunding his travel costs (£60) but, in this day and age, I consider that a result.

PS. We can't promise this outcome every time so buyer beware.

Why I won't be celebrating St George's Day

So, today is St George's Day. (You can hardly miss it, especially if you read the Telegraph. They've devoted a whole 8-page section to it.) I'm as English as the next man, although I normally describe myself as British, but it's not something I feel the need to shout about or "celebrate" in some artificial manner.

I have been conditioned, I think, by living half my life in Scotland where I witnessed, at close hand, the negative impact of petty nationalism. It often seemed to me that you couldn't be Scottish unless you were anti-English as well.

I didn't notice it at school (St Andrews) or university (Aberdeen), apart from a few humorous comments, but when I returned to Scotland in the early Nineties it was painfully obvious that the whole thing had turned rather nasty. Some blame Thatcher for the institutionalised, anti-English outlook, but I don't buy that. In my experience, the most vociferous anti-English comments came from middle-class professionals - accountants and solicitors - the very people who benefitted most from her policies.

Numerous incidents spring to mind. One took place in 1994 when Murrayfield hosted the World Rugby Union Sevens Cup. England brought a team devoid of "names" such as Will Carling (a hate figure in Scotland), but that didn't stop the braying, barbour-jacketed crowd venting their spleen every time England appeared on the pitch. I felt physically sick.

Day after day the Scottish media stoked the fire. If, like me, you read most of the papers, it was relentless and fairly depressing. (If you didn't read the papers it probably wasn't so bad.) A typical headline in the Scottish Daily Mail during Euro 96 screamed: WHY WE HATE THE ENGLISH WHEN THEY'RE WINNING. (I don't know why they added the words "when they're winning".)

I remember watching the England-Spain game at a friend's house south of Glasgow. His brother (in his early thirties) watched the match with us. Ignoring the fact that I was in the room, he kept up a running anti-English commentary and stalked out in a huff when England won the game on penalties.

Euro 96 was the first time I can recall the widespread appearance of the flag of St George. Prior to that England supporters waved the Union flag, which was (unwittingly) a red rag to the Scottish bull. How dare the English adopt the British flag as their own! Then, when the Union flag was replaced by the flag of St George, that was just as bad. It's all right, it seems, for people to celebrate being Scottish by waving the Saltire, but woe betide an Englishman who sticks a white flag with a red cross on his car or house.

I haven't lived in Scotland for nine years and I am told there is less anti-English feeling than there used to be. Hmmm. I still don't know many Scots (apart from Gordon Brown) who would welcome an England victory in a world cup at any sport.

If attitudes are changing that has to be good for Scotland because there are only so many times you can blame your neighbour for all your ills and perceived slights. Perhaps devolution has something to do with it. Maybe independence would accelerate the process. I have my doubts.

Anyway, I've probably said too much. I have many Scottish friends who are not overtly anti-English and I admit that I am over-sensitive on the subject (even though I married a Glaswegian!). Nevertheless, it's interesting to note that crafty Alex Salmond is not averse to stoking anti-Scottish feelings in England in a bid to achieve independence (as THIS article in The Spectator explains).

You see, no-one knows better than the nationalists the power of negative thinking. So, please, no Little Englander type comments on this blog. Positive thoughts only, please!

Match report - Hicks prevents own goal

As a Chelsea supporter (since 1967), I have little interest in the boardroom shenanigans at Liverpool. However, when I read (in today's Telegraph) that Merseyside police had given co-owner Tom Hicks a "firm warning" to stay away from last night's Champions League semi-final because "they could not guarantee his safety", it made me question the sort of society we are living in, and the role of the police.

I know how hostile some football supporters can be. Twenty years ago I was a regular at Stamford Bridge, a notorious hotspot for hooliganism in the Eighties. A violent pitch invasion following a League Cup defeat against Sunderland sticks in my mind, but there were plenty of other incidents inside and outside the ground.

I once stood among Leeds supporters on the terraces of Derby's old Baseball Ground and watched as glass bottles were thrown on the pitch by visiting "supporters" who stripped to the waist, turned their backs on the game, and taunted the home fans to fight them.

At White Hart Lane (home of Tottenham) I remember standing among Arsenal supporters behind the goal at a North London derby. It was pre-Hillsborough and we were packed together so tightly we could barely breathe, let alone raise our arms above our heads to fend off the half-bricks being lobbed in our direction by Spurs fans.

Nevertheless, there is no justification for Merseyside police giving the co-owner of Liverpool Football Club a "firm warning" to stay away from last night's match. Had Hicks chosen not to go, the only winner would have been Britain's intolerant, illiberal yob culture.

In a free society, the police are there to help us go about our daily business and protect us from yobs and potentially violent morons. Running away from the problem and refusing to tackle it is not the answer.

No taxation without representation?

On The Free Society blog today Robin Butler asks, does this government have a moral right to collect a tobacco tax from people it is trying to airbrush out of society? Smokers, he adds, are not represented by government, so why should they pay an additional £10 billion a year on top of income tax and National Insurance?

If there was ever a social contract, guaranteeing personal freedoms as a condition of meeting our social responsibilities and duties as citizens, then in the case of many millions of citizens, the state has just torn up its part of that contract.

Full article HERE.