Where does all the money go?

Serious questions must be asked about the use of public money to fund organisations and "charities" that unashamedly promote government policies. Last Sunday, two days before the Health Bill was due to be debated in the House of Lords, this full page advertisement appeared in the Observer. It was placed by Smokefree Action and was signed by "one hundred national, regional and local organisations and medical and scientific experts".

According to the Observer rate card, this ad could have cost between £11k and £13k. No doubt the groups involved (many of them publicly funded) will say the money came from private donations, but they would say that, wouldn't they?

All we know is, there are millions of pounds of public money in the anti-smoking purse. The public has a right to how our money is being spent. Misrepresenting the facts (see previous post) and manipulating "public" consultations to help drive government policy is totally unacceptable.

See also: Why do taxpayers fund the anti-smoking lobby?

Displays of ignorance

This is a longer post than usual but bear with me. Commenting on the previous post, Belinda has linked to a piece which was published today on the online magazine Spiked. Written by by Patrick Basham and John Luik of the Democracy Institute, the article asks "Why does New Labour want to ban cigarette displays in shops when there's no evidence it will impact on smoking habits?".

There's some excellent stuff here, but here's a taster:

In a further effort to bolster the quickly unravelling case for display bans, the government has circulated a study by Gerard Hastings and colleagues from the Centre for Tobacco Control Research at the University of Stirling. Hastings claims, most recently in a letter to The Times this week, that an increased awareness of tobacco brands, supposedly from tobacco displays, increases young people’s susceptibility to becoming a smoker.

Yet Hastings claims are refuted, first by the fact that, according to a US Department of Health and Human Services study, interest in smoking and intention to smoke drives brand awareness rather than the other way around. Young people interested in smoking are interested in tobacco brands. Interest in tobacco brands does not lead to an interest in smoking. Clearly, Professor Hastings has confused the sequence.

Second, Hastings’ claims are further refuted by the British experience in which there has been a significant decline in awareness of tobacco brands. Yet, according to the most recent statistics for England, there has been no decline in youth smoking. Indeed, there has been an increase in smoking among adolescent girls. If Hastings’ claim about awareness of tobacco brands driving youth smoking were true, then one should expect a sharp decline in awareness to bring about a corresponding decline in smoking.

Funnily enough, we have just sent some briefing notes to peers on a similar theme. One section, entitled "Misrepresentation of evidence", reads:

The anti-smoking lobby repeatedly implies that display bans in Canada resulted in a drop in smoking rates among 15-19 year olds from 22% in 2002 to 15% in 2007. The vast majority of Canada in population terms was not covered by a display ban until 2008 so the decline in smoking rates happened at a time when tobacco was openly displayed to the majority of the population. In fact, the state in Canada which first banned tobacco displays – Saskatchewan in 2002 – has had the worst record in the country for reducing youth smoking.

The anti-smoking lobby also quote data to the effect that smoking rates among 15-16 year olds declined following the introduction of a display ban in Iceland in 2001. Looking at the full data set for young people, 15 to 19 year olds, smoking rates were almost exactly the same in 2007 as they were in 2001, according to Statistics Iceland.

Significantly, ASH backtracked recently when challenged by Mike Penning MP (Conservative Shadow Health Minister). ASH told politicians that Iceland and Canada offered evidence that display bans work, leading Health Secretary Alan Johnson to say in parliament that “The number of young smokers in Canada ... was reduced by 32 per cent among 15 and 19-year-olds as a result of the implementation of the measure.”

Penning noted a subtle change in their rhetoric when he pointed out in his blog that “The choice of language used by representatives from the campaign group Action on Smoking and Health in a recent article is revealing – point of sale bans in Iceland and Canada are now being cited as ‘coinciding’ with a fall in youth smoking, rather than effecting this ...”.

In response ASH said that “ASH makes claims of causation with great care and for a number of technical reasons, including the fact that display bans were part of a range of interventions, it is not possible to definitely claim causation at this stage.”

The Smoke Free Coalition recently claimed in a briefing to peers that seven out of eight studies show a link between exposure to point of sale displays and youth smoking. Nothing could be more misleading. Virtually all studies into the reasons for youth smoking cite peer pressure and parental influence as the major factors. We are not aware of any study that set out with the clear aim of finding out what causes young people to smoke and came back with the answer: tobacco displays. The studies cited by the anti-smoking lobby always emanate from within the global tobacco control community and follow a similar pattern.

Research presented by tobacco control advocates is consistently lacking normal standards of academic rigour. According to the Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman, writing in 2006:

“The findings in the public health literature linking tobacco company (nonprice) marketing campaigns [with smoking outcomes] emerge from empirical implementations that fall far short of those required to establish well-founded causal relationships. These studies do not accurately model human behavior, as these studies ignore how human choice affects the measurement for both ‘treatment’ and outcome.” (Heckman, et al. 2006, p.43).

Basham and Luik's article coincides with the publication tomorrow of a Democracy Institute book called Hidden in Plain Sight: Why Tobacco Display Bans Fail. Details to follow. If you don't want to buy the book I recommend that you at least read the full article HERE.

PS. To answer Belinda's question, yes, Basham and Luik's piece will be sent to peers.

Tobacco display ban: game on

Yesterday was Day 1 of the Report stage of the Health Bill in the House of Lords. There are so any amendments that Clauses 19 (tobacco display) and 20 (vending machines) will now be debated on 6 May. I am told that the Government is going to impose a three-line whip on Labour peers to vote for the measures, which suggests they are worried that they could lose.

The Tories, I understand, are going to whip their peers to vote against a point of sale display ban. The LibDems however are giving their peers a free vote so if you want to make a difference I suggest you target your energy in their direction - asap!

Forest is currently writing to peers of all parties (and none) ahead of next week's vote, and we have also placed our "Say NO to the nanny state" video (see Featured Video right) on Iain Dale's Diary where it will alternate with Iain's Daley Rant video until May 8.

Double-click on the video and you can leave a comment on YouTube. .

Sign of the times

I don't as a rule do No 10 website petitions. However there are exceptions to every rule. THIS one was launched last week (Thursday). Last night it hit 20,000 signatures and already it's the eighth most popular petition on the site. The rate it's going it should be top within days, which would be quite funny.

PS. Glad to see that a petition opposing the introduction of a 50mph limit on all Britain's A-roads has attracted the support of 26k people. I might sign that one too!

Debating matters

Today I'm in Cambridge to help judge the East of England Regional Final of the Institute of Ideas' Debating Matters Competition for sixth form students. I have to judge two debates on the following topics: organ donation and cheap flights.

The organisers sent me loads of homework and I am belatedly doing some last minute revision. It's just like being back at school. I'm not sure who is going to be more nervous - the judges or the contestants.

PS. Debating Matters is sponsored by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Today's venue is Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Research Institute. I hope there are a few friendly faces!

Bad luck of the Irish smoker

It's just over five years since Ireland introduced a comprehensive public smoking ban. On Monday I will be on the Irish radio station 4FM. It's the latest of many interviews I have done on Irish radio, which highlights the lack of any organised opposition to the war on tobacco in that country.

And that's significant. After all, what happened in Ireland had a huge impact on the UK (starting with Scotland) and if I have any regrets it's the fact that we didn't fight the proposed ban in Ireland when we had a chance.

In 2001 we tried to raise money for an Irish campaign, without success. The importance of Ireland was underestimated by many people. Our focus, at the time, was on London. The Greater London Authority was considering unilateral action on smoking in the capital and it was believed that what happened in London, one of the world's major cities, would have far greater influence on Britain and the rest of the world than what was happening in Ireland.

As it happens, we enjoyed some success with our London campaign. In 2002, following a public consultation that included oral hearings in front of a GLA committee, we helped persuade them not to recommend further restrictions on public smoking, which was quite an achievement.

As for Ireland, it was also suggested that the Irish wouldn't take kindly to people in Britain telling them what to do. I understand that completely, which is why our proposed project would have had an office in Dublin and our spokesmen would have been Irish, just as we have had a succession of Scottish spokesmen in Scotland.

In 2003/04 I made several trips to Ireland, appearing on various radio and television programmes, but by then it was too late. The momentum for change had been allowed to develop with little or no opposition from the consumer. Only the publicans put up a fight - but as I had already discovered, Irish publicans had very little public support.

In 2003 a colleague and I were invited to take part in a debate at University College Dublin. In the course of the evening I was amazed at the open hostility towards publicans. Publicans, it was argued, had enjoyed far too much power and influence in Ireland. (Some members of the Irish parliament were former publicans, and it was suggested that publicans had effectively operated a cartel, keeping the price of alcohol unnecessarily high for years.) The smoking ban, we were told, was an opportunity to take them down a peg or two.

Forty-eight hours before the ban was introduced I was flown by Sky to Dublin in order to appear on a special edition of the Richard Littlejohn Show. It was broadcast live from a bar in the famous Shelbourne Hotel overlooking St Stephen's Green in the centre of Dublin and I sensed then that I was in a minority.

That weekend Dublin was awash with journalists and broadcasters from all over the world. A leading article in the Irish Times talked of Ireland being the centre of world attention, and a lot of people seemed happy with the idea. Ireland, they were told, was "leading the world" in public health. Younger people, especially, seemed to welcome the ban as a symbolic break from "old" Ireland.

Six months later I spent a week visiting pubs and bars from Waterford to Galway and beyond. It was clear, even then, that many of the older, more traditional bars were suffering as a result of the smoking ban.

Pubs that used to open at lunch were now closed. Instead they opened their doors at five o'clock. Staff were finding themselves with less work, or no work at all. I saw how non-smoking customers were spilling outside to be with their friends who had adapted but were still smoking. Some pubs were like morgues inside because so many customers were outside.

A handful of people wanted to fight the ban in Ireland but there was little we could do to help. We didn't have the money. Or the support. I once heard a smoker in Ireland say he was happy with the ban because, lighting up outside, he no longer felt guilty that he was polluting someone else's environment.

True, many Irish pubs were traditionally thick with smoke (the lack of decent ventilation was a much bigger problem in Ireland than the UK), but I wonder what he'll say if and when the authorities go to the next stage and introduce exclusion zones around pubs and bars and he won't even be able to smoke outside.

Only rarely did we encounter any serious expression of revolt. A Galway publican who did rebel (by opening his doors to smokers) was quickly prosecuted and fined heavily. Shortly afterwards, I am told, he sold up and moved to Florida.

On a visit to County Mayo I was told by the sister of a local publican that lock-ins were normal, but no-one was allowed to smoke indoors after hours. The police would turn a blind eye to drinking, but smoking ... well, the penalties were simply too great.

Meanwhile the anti-smoking juggernaut moves on and on 1 July 2009 Ireland will introduce a complete ban on the display of tobacco products at point of sale.

As far as I can tell, Forest is still the only group that consistently defends smokers in Ireland - but our media presence is generally restricted to a handful of commercial radio stations. Politically, if not culturally, smokers in Ireland appear to be invisible. They really need to come out of the closet.

Update on Monday, April 27, 2009 by Simon Clark

The interview with 4FM has been postponed until tomorrow. I have been bumped in favour of a big traffic news story!

Good morning Dublin

If anyone is interested, I am being interviewed (with Valerie Coughlan of ASH Ireland) for Good Morning Dublin on Dublin City Radio at 10.15. No?

Budget blog - tobacco taxation

The Chancellor has announced that tobacco duty will rise by two per cent from 6.00pm tonight. It could have been worse. Nevertheless any increase in tobacco duty hurts those who can least afford it, especially the elderly, the low paid and the unemployed.

It won't stop people smoking but it does encourage smuggling and it could lead to a serious loss of revenue at a time when the country can least afford it. Is that what the country needs during a recession?

Update: David Cameron has criticised the two per cent increase in alcohol tax as an attack on the ordinary working man (or words to that effect). No mention (surprise, surprise) of the identical increase in tobacco taxation.

That apart, great speech by Cameron who left the Chancellor and the Prime Minister looking utterly redundant. Liked and agreed with his description of the Government as the "living dead".

Update on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 by Simon Clark

ASH welcomed the "above-inflation increase in tobacco tax" and said "The tax rise will help reduce smoking by encouraging current smokers to quit and dissuading young people from starting". ASH Scotland also welcomed the tax increase but expressed "disappointment" that the tax on hand-rolled tobacco had not been increased to match that of cigarettes. There's no pleasing some people.

Why I hate Budget day

In the days when there was a "tobacco escalator" (inflation plus three or five per cent), Budget day was - in media terms - one of our busiest days of the year. We hung on to the Chancellor's every word and when he announced another hefty increase in tobacco duty the phones would immediately start ringing with requests for a response.

Some years we were invited to comment, live on television, as the Budget statement was being read out. This caused some consternation on my part because I was worried that I might be expected to comment on the economy as a whole and, as anyone who knows me will confirm, economics in not my strong point.

Truth is, I've always hated Budget day. It goes back to my schooldays. I can remember, even now, the disappointment of getting home from school only to find that all children's programmes had been cancelled or moved from BBC1 to BBC2 and the only thing to watch was some interminable Budget speech and the even more boring analysis that followed.

I should explain that in the late Sixties we didn't have BBC2 on our black and white television set. Before my parents bought a new (colour) TV in 1972, we had two channels to choose from, BBC1 and ITV (and we only watched BBC1).

Anyway, the Budget was hugely irritating and the interruption to my daily routine (come home, have tea, watch TV) put me off economics for life. Well, that's what I tell my accountant.

Update on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 by Simon Clark

I will be discussing the Budget on SunTalk Radio with Jon Gaunt later this morning.

Update: Jon has just interrupted our conversation to play a short clip of the Chancellor Alistair Darling ... accompanied by loud snores.

Alan, Carole, Ken and me - see hear

You may remember that I appeared on the Alan Titchmarsh Show (ITV1) last month. Here I am with News of the World columnist Carole Malone and former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone.

The producers sent me a clip which we have just uploaded on to The Free Society Facebook page. You can view it HERE.

This government is driving me crazy

As some of you have already mentioned (see comments on previous post) the Government wants councils to consider reducing speed limits from 30 to 20mph in residential areas, and from 60 to 50mph on many A-roads.

They say they want to focus on accident black spots but that's not how it works. It may start like that, but as we know politicians, bureaucrats and campaigners never know when to stop. Eventually, irrespective of the number of accidents in a particular area, central government will intervene and reduce speed limits on roads throughout the country.

I don't have a problem with reducing the speed limit on high streets, housing estates or near schools. But the idea of travelling at 20mph through every built up area - or, worse, 50mph on many A-roads - drives me crazy.

My parents live near Ashbourne in Derbyshire and as far as I can tell the entire county is a 50mph zone. Parts of Derbyshire are extremely rural and, yes, there are lots of sweeping, dipping roads with numerous blind corners and sharp, hazardous bends.

But even Derbyshire has long straight stretches of road that are perfect for overtaking. But I can't because I'm stuck in a long line of slow-moving traffic in which every Tom, Dick and Eddie Stobart is forced to drive at the same effing speed - 50mph.

Why won't they allow me to use my common sense - and a powerful engine - to get past slower moving vehicles without being caught out by one of the hundreds of speed cameras that blight this beautiful county?

What I also object to is the fact that, yet again, the changes the Government wants to introduce are entirely restrictive - unless you're a cyclist in which case you'll be doing wheelies at the news that someone who drives "too close" to you could be given an on-the-spot fine.

I've written about this before, but why can't they give as well as take and increase the top speed on motorways to 80 or 90mph? The Tories, if I remember rightly, were proposing to do exactly that a few years ago. It was even in their 2005 election manifesto.

Since then the idea has been quietly dropped. Why? Apart from a promise to amend the smoking ban, that is the one policy that would convince me to vote Conservative at the next election.

But what really bothers me is that this story - reported on the front page of The Times HERE- has nothing to do with road safety. Like Gordon Brown's fatuous intervention on MPs' expenses, it's all about spin.

How many more ill-considered policies are they going to come up with over the next few weeks and months as they try to manipulate the news agenda and regain what they consider to be the moral high ground.

Reduce deaths on the road? Lower the speed limit! Reduce youth smoking rates? Ban tobacco displays and vending machines! Reduce "binge-drinking"? Increase the minimum price of alcohol! Etc etc.

It reminds me of a retreating army, burning everything in its path ...

Health Bill: letters to The Times

Next week the House of Lords will debate the Health Bill which includes proposals to ban the display of tobacco in shops and outlaw cigarette vending machines.

Today some of the leading lights in the anti-smoking movement (including Cancer Research, British Lung Foundation, British Heart Foundation and the British Medical Association) called on peers to vote for these proposals and to consider plain packaging.

In a letter to The Times they argue that:

Removing glossy tobacco displays - designed to attract youngsters - from sight doesn't infringe "smokers' rights: to choose their favourite brand ... The UK has led the way in tobacco control: the smoking ban now enjoys huge public support. But Ireland and Scotland are ahead of the game with plans to put tobacco out of sight and ban vending machines. We urge Parliament to follow suit by ensuring that health - not the financial interests of the tobacco industry - is at the heart of the Health Bill.

Full letter HERE. My response, published HERE, reads:

Sir, The proposals to ban the display of tobacco in shops and outlaw vending machines are less about reducing youth smoking rates and more about the “denormalisation” of smokers. It is designed to shame adults into changing their behaviour. When a smoker has to ask for a packet of cigarettes to be taken from its hiding place beneath the counter, campaigners hope that he or she will suffer a sense of shame and social embarrassment, as if they are asking for a pornographic magazine.

In a free society adult smokers are entitled to purchase and consume a legal product without being made to feel guilty or embarrassed. Smoking may not be the healthiest choice an individual can make, but that is the nature of freedom. Individual freedom is about having the ability to choose how you want to live your life as long as you do not force that choice on to other people.

The Health Bill, to be debated by members of the House of Lords later this month, represents a disturbing and particularly aggressive form of social engineering.

Note: you can comment on The Times website.

Burning our money

It's the Budget this week and we can expect tobacco duty to go up, as it always does at this time of year. But by how much? The Chancellor may be tempted to cane smokers in order to increase revenue, but history tells us that it won't work.

Ironically it was the last Conservative Chancellor Kenneth Clarke (who later worked for British American Tobacco) who introduced the so-called "tobacco escalator". The was the policy whereby tobacco taxation rose in line with inflation plus three per cent. Needless to say his successor Gordon Brown went a step further and made it inflation plus five per cent.

Result? Revenue from tobacco taxation fell by as much as £4 billion a year as the smugglers moved in and criminal gangs made a fortune selling cheaper foreign cigarettes on the black market. It also encouraged a much bigger market for counterfeit cigarettes.

Let's not forget, too, the tens of thousands of people who, quite legitimately, bought their tobacco abroad and brought it back into the country "for their own personal use". In fact, in 2001 a survey by the Tobacco Manufacturers Association suggested that one in three cigarettes smoked in the UK were brought in from abroad, either legally or smuggled and sold here illegally.

The following year Brown jumped off the escalator and since then tobacco duty has risen each year in line with inflation but no more. The smuggling, though, continues so jumping back on the escalator makes no sense because it will almost certainly be counter-productive.

Is that what the Government wants? With this bunch in charge, who knows.

See also: Tobacco duty (Politics.co.uk)

University challenged

There have been over 100 responses to the Scottish Health and Sport Committee’s call for evidence in respect of the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill. See HERE. Forest's submission can be viewed HERE.

As a graduate of Aberdeen University I am curious to know why "The University of Aberdeen believes that the measures proposed to eliminate sale of tobacco product displays and vending machines are both justifiable as are the associated penalties". Full response HERE.

The University's submission is signed by Professor Stephen Logan, Senior Vice-Principal. As far as I can tell, no other university has responded to the call for evidence. Why Aberdeen? What the does a bill to ban the display of tobacco have to do with this ancient university, founded in 1495? And on whose authority, other than Prof Logan, was their feeble "evidence" submitted?

I think we should be told.

PS. I have emailed the university requesting a response. Don't hold your breath.

Derek Draper on political intelligence

For 15 years I edited the monthly Mensa Magazine. No, I wasn't a member. I was a freelance journalist and I got the job partly through my friendship with Madsen Pirie who was on the board of directors.

The cover of the September 1998 issue featured the young and very talented pianist Elena Konstantinou who was performing at the Mensa Music Festival at the Royal Academy of Music. Other performers - all members - included professional cellist Oliver Gledhill and Andy Leek, formerly with Dexy's Midnight Runners.

Less prominent was the headline "Exclusive! Derek Draper's Guide to Political Intelligence".

Like me, Draper wasn't a member of Mensa but in 1998 he was a leading spin doctor, a former aide to Peter Mandelson, and I couldn't think of anyone better to write 1200 words on the subject.

It was a thoughtful, well-written piece and in view of recent events I thought you might like to read some excerpts. Reading it again I am particularly struck by the final paragraph. But judge for yourself:

It was John Stuart Mill who first labelled the Conservative Party the "stupid party". He meant it as an insult but it is the least intellectual who seem to prosper best in politics. The much more wounding put down is to be told you're "too clever by half". One can be bright but not too bright ...

The Tories have always been more withering in their contempt for intelligence … Prior to the Thatcherite takeover [the] party prided itself on being an ideas free zone. Whilst the socialists worried themselves about Gramsci, Marx, Crosland or Laski, the Tories got on with governing the country.

Only with the accession of Thatcher did intellectuals turn the party into an ideological venture. Managing decline was no longer a policy option. But whilst Thatcher built an intellectual coterie during the 1970s, as soon as she gained power the brains were spurned and the old machine politicians took over …

Blair has similarly turned to trusted party men now he has the keys to No 10 … Welcome Jack “The Enforcer” Cunningham, a man who learnt his trade amongst the shop stewards of Newcastle GMB; Peter Mandelson, a strategist with a keen intelligence but not an intellectual; and John Prescott. Only Gordon Brown (with his PhD and desperation to get to grips with neo-endogenous growth theory) could remotely be described as intellectual ...

Being too clever by half is, of course, only a handicap in British politics. In France, Italy and Germany politicians regularly display their intellectual depth with turgid books on the foundations on their political philosophy ...

In Britain the ambitious politico settles for a newspaper picture of himself drinking local ale in the nearest saloon bar. Politicians like the Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, the Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine and even William Hague are widely viewed with suspicion for their clever-clever air.

The only way, as George Bush found during the 1988 US Presidential campaign, is to dumb down, lose the hauteur and go for the soundbite. For the cruel truth is that modern electorates like the impression of ordinary men doing extraordinary jobs; not extraordinary men who deign to perform ordinary jobs.

Ultimately it is instinct, common sense and, above all, luck which services the successful politician more usefully than any degree of grey matter. Tony Blair’s instinctive response on the morning after Princess Diana’s death earned him a deeper and more lasting support than any clever policy wheeze ever could.

Intellectuals have their function – but it is usually limited and far from the centre of power. Politics is, in a now hackneyed phrase, about hard choices. The intellectual usually sees too many alternatives, paradoxes and complications to act with the decision and brutality required.

Brutality? I wonder if Damian McBride read this?!

PS. In the same issue Madsen and I created a "political quotient" for each member of the then Labour Cabinet. We did this by estimating and giving marks for the political and intellectual ability of each minister. Tony Blair, for example, got 8 out of 10 for political ability, and 5 out of 10 for his intellectual prowess. Brown, in contrast, got 6 for political ability and 6 for intellect. To achieve a PQ rating we added these figures together and multiplied the result by five to give a mark out of 100. Simple!

It was just a bit of fun and the winner was ... Peter Mandelson with a PQ of 90. Other scores included Stephen Byers (85), Baroness Jay (85), Jack Straw (75), David Blunkett (70), Tony Blair (65), Alastair Darling (65), Gordon Brown (60) and John Prescott (45). Bottom of the class were Clare Short, Nick Brown and Chris Smith with PQs of 30.

See: Mandelson the 'brains' behind Labour