Happy Halloween

Just in from De Havilland, Forest's parliamentary monitors: "The Department of Health is to launch a new television campaign on Halloween which aims to alert youngsters and their parents to something very real to be frightened of. The latest stage of the government's anti-smoking campaign intends to give people in the West Midlands sleepless nights by driving home the scariest aspects of smoking, such as the impact on health, the poisonous contents of cigarettes and ultimately the effect dying will have on those they leave behind.

"Paul Hooper, regional tobacco policy manager for the Department of Health West Midlands, said: 'This new campaign doesn't pull any punches. The messages in the advertisement and the new images on the sides of cigarette packets are specifically designed to make people uncomfortable and point to where help can be obtained.'

"Among the hard-hitting messages the region's health chiefs are trying to
get across are:

• Smokers die younger
• Smoking can cause a slow and painful death
• Smoking causes fatal lung cancer
• Smoking causes heart attacks and strokes
• Smoking causes ageing of the skin
• Smoking can decrease fertility
• Smoking can cause impotence
• Smoke contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen
  cyanide.

"Halloween is a day where it is fun to be scared," said Hooper. "However, when it comes to smoking there is a very real danger to be frightened of that can lead to death and serious illness."

As Nick Ross, former presenter of Crimewatch, used to say, "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well."

Say no to 'no platform'

I look forward to seeing some of you at the Battle of Ideas this weekend. Just to remind you, the End of Festival 'FREE SOCIETY' party is on Sunday at Ognisko (The Polish Club), 55 Exhibition Road, South Kensington. Entry to the party is free, and there will be canapes, complimentary drinks and live jazz. From 7.00pm to late.

One of many subjects to be debated over the weekend is 'Free speech on campus'. This is increasingly under attack but, thankfully, some students and academics are beginning to fight back. See THIS feature on The Free Society website.

Politics and sport don't mix

Having posted two football-related items in the last couple of days, I didn't expect to publish a third so soon. This, however, has to be read to be believed. Full story HERE.

Politicians should butt out

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross over-stepped the mark with their prank phone calls to Andrew Sachs. That much is clear. However I recognise a witchhunt when I see one and when politicians - including the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition - jump on the bandwagon, it makes me feel very uncomfortable.

Prize for the most worrying and ill-judged comment goes to shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt who says it is "wrong for broadcasters to produce programmes that legitimise negative social behaviour".

So who decides what constitutes "negative social behaviour"? In some people's eyes, smoking represents "negative social behaviour". So does drinking more than eight units in a single session. And what about Gordon Ramsay saying "fuck" every few seconds? The list is endless.

I don't condone what Ross and Brand did but when politicians stick their oar in I know whose side I'm on.

Story HERE.

Down Wembley way

I have just spent the afternoon with my accountant. I have used the same firm since 1984. This is the view from their office in north west London.

Fever pitch

Above: Tannadice Park, Dundee, on a wild, wet, windswept day. Despite the weather, double the usual number turned up to pay their respects to United's late chairman Eddie Thompson. Great atmosphere, good result. Report HERE.

Not to be missed

I'm driving up to Scotland this afternoon with my 13-year-old son. Tomorrow we'll be in Dundee - to watch Dundee United play St Mirren at Tannadice. For once, there's more to this game than a mere three points. As a United supporter for most of my life, I wouldn't miss it for the world. Full story HERE, HERE and HERE.

See also THIS previous post. Now, where's my scarf?

Food for thought

In eight days I am taking part in a discussion (at the Battle of Ideas in London) called 'Food & identity: are we what we eat?’ I have now been sent some of the questions we are going to address. They include:

What do our food choices say about us, if anything? Are we defined by what we eat – morally, ethically, culturally, physically? Do we treat food (and other) consumption as a personal/political statement? Are today’s food debates more central to society than they were perhaps in the past? If so, how and why? What’s changed, if anything, in society that means food has such an importance today beyond merely providing us with essential nutrition? What does the future of food look like?

Full details of the session HERE. Any thoughts?

Driven to drink (part two)

Postscript to the Westminster Health Forum seminar on 'Alcohol and Responsibility' (see below). There were several things I didn't get a chance to say in my presentation or during the Q&A session that followed. Here's a couple:

There are numerous examples of scaremongering. Last year, for example, a report in the British Medical Journal said that binge drinking has increased to such an extent that cases of “exploding bladders” are on the rise in the UK.

Exploding bladders? Even Alcohol Concern had the grace to admit that these are few and far between - in fact there seem to be only three documented cases in the entire world – but a spokesman went on to say that “this new development certainly highlights the facts that the risks of heavy drinking go way beyond liver cirrhosis”. Hmmm.

On Monday I was tickled to read the following promotion in the Daily Telegraph: "Win an iPod and one year’s free supply of gin". Hilarious. My only query is: how much is a year’s supply?


If it was based on my consumption of gin (at home), half a dozen bottles would do nicely. For someone else, however, a year's supply might be 52 bottles - one for every week of the year - or more. Then again, if I was given six bottles as a prize, who’s to say I wouldn’t knock them back inside a month.

The point is, what represents a year’s supply is for me to decide – not the government, not the healthy lobby, nor - if I may say so - the Daily Telegraph.

My full presentation, including the bits I didn't say because I ran out of time, can be found HERE.

Update on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 by Simon Clark

Before I forget I must mention Chief Inspector Shaun de Souza Brady of the Metropolitan Police who spoke in the session that followed mine. Having explained the problems that can be caused by late licences and drunken, rowdy behaviour, he described one highly successful problem-solving model in Haringay, north London.

Asked whether he would welcome more legislative powers, his reply should be read by every politician throughout Britain. "Legislation," he said, "wouldn't really help unless things were really falling apart, and I don't see that at this moment."

Legislation, he added, imposes on people. What is needed are strong partnerships and local area agreements involving the police, local residents and local businesses (notably pubs and clubs), with the police held to account.

I couldn't agree more. This is the future, not more and more laws, many of them prohibitive. But is anyone listening?

Driven to drink

Sixty One Whitehall is home of the Royal United Services Institute. It was also the venue for yesterday's seminar, 'Alcohol & Responsibility', organised by the Westminster Health Forum.

Fittingly, perhaps, the event was organised with military precision. The first session, chaired by Lib Dem health spokesman Norman Lamb MP, began on cue at 9.05 and finished, on schedule, 40 minutes later. There were four panellists - Professor Sir Charles George (British Medical Association), Cathie Smith (British Institute of Innkeeping), the rather fearsome Professor Mark Bellis (Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University), and me.

We were each given 4-5 minutes to give a short speech on binge drinking. After four minutes a yellow card was held up at the back of the impressive Duke of Wellington Hall. Sixty seconds later a red card appeared and we had to stop.

I was the last to speak. Needless to say, I was just getting into my stride when the yellow and then the red cards were held aloft. In my allotted time I expressed scepticism at the extent of Britain's "binge drinking culture" and the ever-changing definition of what constitutes "binge drinking". I also voiced concern that if the scale of the problem is exaggerated, then the reaction to the problem will also be exaggerated (eg Boris Johnson's booze ban).

Alcohol, I said, is a legal consumer product. (Sound familar?) Adults have every right to purchase alcohol, to consume alcohol, and to enjoy alcohol. People have every right to "binge drink" or get drunk, if they so wish. And if, when they get drunk, they become boorish or bad-tempered, fall asleep in their chair or wake up with a hangover, they have every right to do that as well.

What they DON’T have the right to do is to become violent or aggressive or threaten people and damage property. But we already have laws – and a police force - to deter that sort of behaviour, so I see no need for yet more rules and regulations. Or to tar all drinkers with the same brush.

The audience (a mixture of MPs, peers, civil servants, health professionals, PR execs and people from the drinks industry) seemed a bit non-plussed. When I confessed (shock horror) to being an occasional binge drinker myself (according to government guidelines) there wasn't a murmour - not even a titter.

It wasn't my best performance but I must have made some impression because Norman Lamb prefaced his closing remarks by saying, "Simon Clark issued a challenge". (Challenge? I'd hardly started.) Inevitably, though, he concluded by saying that the evidence (of the harm allegedly caused by binge drinking) supported a "powerful case for society to intervene". (Funnily enough, he said much the same in his opening remarks so no-one can accuse him of inconsistency. A decent chap but better, perhaps, if we'd had someone more impartial in the chair.)

As for the "evidence", I'm still not convinced. A lot of it is based on statistics: 40% of all male drinking sessions are binge-drinking sessions; Britain’s drinking culture is costing the country £20 billion a year; 17 million working days are lost to hangovers and drink-related illness each year; 40% of A&E admissions are alcohol-related; and (best of all) 5.9 million people drink more than twice the recommended daily guidelines on some occasions (my italics) - as if this is a terrible, anti-social thing to do!!

Afterwards the director of the Westminster Health Forum invited me back to speak on other issues. No problem, I said. But first, I need a drink.

No plans ... "at present"

Further to my post about Lord Laird last week, the good lord has received the following answers to his questions about smoking in "enclosed places where children are present" and "public open air spaces".

According to Lord Darzi of Denham (parliamentary under-secretary of state, Department of Health),

"There are no plans to make smoke-free regulations specific to enclosed places where children are present. The Health Act 2006 includes powers to make regulations for specific non-enclosed (open air) places to be smoke free if there is significant risk that persons present there would be exposed to significant quantities of smoke. At present, the Government do not intend to make any non-enclosed place smoke free. We are committed to review the smoke-free parts of the Act by July 2010."

Proper use of public funds?

On Tuesday Conservative MP Nicholas Soames submitted the following written question: "To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps he takes to audit funding provided to Action on Smoking and Health by his Department to determine what proportion is used to lobby his Department; (2) how many meetings (a) he, (b) his ministerial colleagues and (c ) his officials have had on the future of tobacco control with (i) charities, (ii) professional bodies, (iii) retail businesses and (iv) manufacturers in the last three years; which of the charities with which meetings have been held are funded by his Department; and in each case how much funding has been allocated to each charity."

This morning Soames received a written answer from health minister Dawn Primarolo:

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) received funding from the Department in the current financial year in accordance with the 'Section 64 General Scheme of Grants to voluntary and Community Organisations'.

ASH has received this grant specifically to carry out a defined project entitled "Capitalising on Smokefree: the way forward". None of this funding is to be used for lobbying purposes.
The Department has completed a public consultation on 31 May 2008 on the future of tobacco control. This consultation was carried out in accordance with the Cabinet office code of practice. A copy of the consultation document has already been placed in the Library.

Meetings have taken place at all levels of the Department, and at regional and local level. No central record has been kept of all the meetings held with the organisations listed and with other stakeholders. The consultation has received over 95,000 responses and these are being analysed. In due course a summary of the analysis of responses will be published on the Department's website.

A large number of charitable organisations will have been involved in responding to the consultation. Details of the funding of those organisations attending meetings or taking part in this consultation have not been collected in the form requested. There will continue to be meetings with interested stakeholders at all appropriate levels, as a future strategy is developed to tackle the death and disease caused by smoking.

I have to say I am amazed that the consultation attracted 95,000 responses. Rest assured, this was the result of a huge lobbying campaign by the anti-smoking lobby. If, as I suspect, this was part of the "Capitalising on Smokefree" project mentioned by Primarolo in her reply, it means that public funds have been used - quite cynically, in my view - to influence the outcome of a "public" consultation. If it is true, hats off to Nicholas Soames for exposing it. Watch this space.

New era of even Bigger Government

These are worrying times for anyone who wants less government interference in our lives. The Freedom Zone, our two-day conference in Birmingham, was devoted to "Putting individual freedom at the top of the political agenda". Although the event was considered a success, I was in no doubt - having attended all three main party conferences - that interest in individual freedom among senior politicians and influential opinion formers is the lowest it has been for 30 years.

Given the current financial situation - the credit crunch, the threat to jobs etc - I understand why the economy is foremost in most people's minds. I worry however that recent events - the nationalisation of some of Britain's leading banks, with barely a murmur of opposition - will condition many people to believe that government intervention is the answer to many of our problems, including health and other issues.

I'm not against regulation, I'm against over-regulation. I'm not against education, I'm against coercion and the idea that politicians and their advisors know best. If, like me, you believe in market forces, you have to accept that boom and bust are part of the equation.

I know that's easy to say when (fingers crossed!) I'm not staring redundancy in the face, but I have always believed that the state cannot impose an iron grip on the economy without damaging the entreprenurial spirit on which capitalism - and the population in general - usually thrives.

If people accept, without question, the nationalisation of Britain's banks, they will also accept excessive government intrusion in other areas of our lives. I'm no economist, but if you value our economic and social freedoms, government must be reminded daily that recent measures are short not long-term solutions to our current problems.

There is a real danger, in my view, that politicians will use the credit crunch to reassert their "authority" (including their moral authority to dictate how we go about our business). And they won't stop with the economy. As night follows day, they will take advantage of the public's perceived acquiescence by introducing a whole raft of regulations designed to "save" us from ourselves, and the market.

Eating, drinking, smoking ... we've seen enough to know that a new era of state paternalism is already upon us. Thanks to the credit crunch, and the government's determination to "take action" to bolster its chances of re-election, things could get a whole lot worse.

Update on Thursday, October 16, 2008 by Simon Clark

On my way home from London tonight I bought this week's issue of The Spectator. The leading article seems to agree with me, albeit at greater length and rather more eloquently. Full article HERE.

Are we what we eat?

In addition to talking about alcohol (see below), I have also agreed to discuss food - this time at the Battle of Ideas in a couple of weeks. Title of the meeting, at the Royal College of Art in London, is "Are we what we eat?". Details HERE.

Sobering thought

I am about to move outside my comfort zone. Wearing my Free Society hat, I have been invited by the Westminster Health Forum to speak at a seminar called Alcohol & Responsibility.

My session, chaired by Norman Lamb MP (Lib Dem shadow health secretary) concerns binge drinking and ‘everyday’ drinking. The other speakers are Professor Sir Charles George, chairman, Board of Science, British Medical Association; Cathie Smith, British Institute of Innkeeping; and Professor Mark Bellis, director, Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University.

I have been asked to talk about "the rights of the citizen to enjoy alcohol as part of their chosen lifestyle", plus the impact of current anti-drinking campaigns and the cultural issues behind drinking.

The seminar is next Tuesday. If anyone has any thoughts on these matters, I'd be delighted to hear from you.