Department of Health: what children really want for Christmas
Thursday, November 3, 2011 at 7:37 According to a press release issued by the Department of Health this week:
Children are so concerned about the impact on their parent's health that they'd go to considerable lengths to get them to give up, including going without Christmas presents; giving up their pocket money; and even committing to complete their homework every night, according to new research ...
The research, which was conducted on behalf of Department of Health, reveals the anti smoking stance of a new smokefree generation of kids [sic] who are so opposed to cigarettes they've labelled smoking stupid, say they will never try a cigarette and that they wish that nobody in the world smoked.
It wouldn't be a DoH press release without the gruesome twosome popping up to comment, and sure enough:
Anne Milton, Public Health Minister, said: "What's clear from the research is that children really want their parents to give up smoking ..."
Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive, Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), said: "Evidence shows that smokers need to be motivated to quit and need advice on how to quit ..."
Frankly, I don't know why ASH bothers to have its own office. The DoH must have a spare room. Or Anne and Debs could share. Think of the savings ...
Reader Comments (30)
ASH have morphed into a political pressure group and are no longer a charity even though they registered as one at inception.
In this case they should raise their own funding and not have taxpayer’s money given to them whether the taxpayer likes it or not.
Many of the most successful charities in the UK stand on street corners and rattle tins. I doubt very much however that ASH would collect much.
I would like to know how much money they receive from the general public annually.
You can look them up on the Charity Commisioners site John, where it should tell you everything you want to know about them and their funding!
Shame on ASH for frightening children so much that they live in fear of their parents dying if they continue to smoke.
Thanks Peter, I will.
Just as they do in schools every year 8. Once over the initial shock and tears though, it doesn't generally work out too well for them. Not happy you're getting through so try it at Christmas, eh, ASH? frighten the sh@t out of the cheeeeeldren just as it's their supposedly joyful time of year, eh? All to get your own way.
These so called 'people' defy decent description. Sheer filth.
The DoH is corrupt. We've seen plenty of evidence of it. Nothing they say can be taken seriously. There needs to be an investigation into the power of unelected lobby groups forcing their ideological policy on the general public.
Hated and outcast smokers - Still happy you voted Tory? Please don't do it again or you will be giving backing to hate crimes against yourselves and those of us who don't deserve it because we saw there was no difference between Lab and Con and voted sensibly.
There is only one way this hatred can end - by getting in fair govt that is prepared to listen to both sides of this debate - not just the one they are paid to hear.
In the ASH acounts for 31 Mar 2011 it states this under volutary donations:
Voluntary
Gifts, donations and legacies from the public and grants from Government and other charitable foundations which provide core funding or are of a general nature.
Their voluntary donations amounted to £463,349 but when broken down ASH received less than £17,000 from the general public – just enough to cover heating, lighting and insurance at their Shoreditch office.
Massively popular with the public then?
"Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent, offers another parallel. "Mobilising children to police their parents' behaviour used to be something you only found in totalitarian societies. I grew up in Eastern Bloc Hungary and I remember children being encouraged to tell teachers if their parents listened to rock'n'roll."
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2009/020509_green_dictatorship.htm
BTW guys a little birdy told me that ASH and the Mandarins at the Dept of Health are not quite seeing eye to eye. Too many tails wagging dogs I am reliably informed.
When they move both Bully Smokerphobic Lansley and Nanny Smokerphobic Milton from the DoH and get someone more impartial in then I might start believing in the Tories and Dave. Until then, any noises they make that they "understand" our point of view is no more than propaganda. Actions speak louder that hollow words. I have seen all the wrong kind of "action" from the DoH so far.
Don't the Conservatives want to win another election?
@Dave Atherton
Quite honestly Dave, I'm surprised that ASH have had the ear of politicians in the way they've had for so long. It would appear by what you're saying that ASH have now become too big for their nasty little jack-boots.
Politicians are so dammed gullible
.
i was worried about my parents smoking, it's not surprising really because smoking is bad for you and kids know it like everybody else does
John,
ASH is a front group for the Royal College of Physicians. It is the quack professors and quack doctors who have the ear of the Health Dept. It is the professors who organise the studies etc. They then make it seem that ASH have originated the work that they themselves are doing. If there is any flak, it is ASH what gets it and not the professors themselves.
@John
Anne Milton is only in Parliament and a Minister because she is a woman. I am told that when she got the seat there were many more men better qualified who were bumped down the list to make way for her. "Cameron's cuties" and all that.
Ms. Milton is an ex cancer nurse married to Dr. Graham Henderson who she seems to paid for work in the past after her election in 2005.
ASH is the front group for the DoH. It began when Doh minister George Godber approached the Royal College of Physicians and asked them to set it up to make it look as if there was grave concern about smoking among the public when in reality there was not. It's why Godber said they had to "foster an atmosphere where it is perceived" that SHS is dangerous when in reality they knew that it was not. This was the only way they could push forward the long term political smoke free agenda by 2000.
Forest, on the other hand, was set up by an ordinary bloke who did his duty in WW2. He was enjoying his well earned pipe on a railway platform when a smokerphobic woman approached him and assaulted him with her handbag. It was a good job he had the foresight to see that the nutters would take over one day and founded a real grass roots support group for ordinary people like us who expect impartiality from our health dept that we contribute to more than those who chose not to smoke.
I would have thought that terrorising children in this way was nothing more nor less than Child Abuse! It certainly comes closer to Child Abuse than any amount of smoking does!
The DoH themselves, I believe, have stated that people are living longer and longer and the first generation to do so are those that grew up in the height of smoking popularity, when the majority of people smoked! How, therefore, is it killing people?
Surely some logic should prevail somewhere?
John Henson stated 'politicians are so gullible'. For years John, I have seriously wondered whether politicians have even half a brain cell! Their actions continue to make me wonder!
Dave - surely Cameron has more intellectual women of merit than vacuous Anne Milton in his party to chose from if just putting a woman into the job because she's a woman is all Cameron has in mind. :(
@Pat
The antidote to the awful Anne Milton is Simon Burns one of Cameron's health ministers, who is described as:
"The Tory health minister Simon Burns has been described as a “chain-smoker”. Prior to the smoking ban being introduced in the UK he criticised plans to prevent smokers from lighting up in restaurants in the House of Commons in 1998 citing “the new nanny Labour army”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8371619/Famous-smokers-in-politics.html
I don't care if the health minister is smoking or non smoking, male or female, I just want a fair minded, impartial person that listens to both sides and doesn't get incestuously close to just one. Someone who has common sense and is not easily led by the nose by self interest lobby groups would also be a bonus.
I remember when I was at school and about 5 or 6 saying that I would never smoke. My parents didn't smoke but my grandparents did. At that age, you are easily manipulated (guided) by parents and school, but when I was at school you couldn't get into the staff room for the smoke and that was the same throughout my educational years.
Now schools send children home with letters to say that their children will gain additional points for getting their parents to give up smoking (not sure what the points are for) but they are ostracising (sp?) the children who's parents smoke, making them feel like pariahs. A disgusting state of affairs. I grew up in an age when smoking was the norm and something even more normal was a little thing called .....Tolerence.
And BTW although I said I would never smoke, I started and now it seems I have the attitude of my grandfather, you can pry my last smoke from my cold dead hand lol.
The only interest Smokerphobics have in children is how well they can use them as human shields to deflect any challenge to their made up garbage they call "research".
Kids also great to manipulate to control adults. Debs and Co are beneath contempt in the way they exploit children for their own ends. It's despicable.
"Don't the Conservatives want to win another election?", asks Pat.
I've long suspected that Big Dave's magical ability to destroy a 20-point lead in the polls, thus compelling a marriage-of-convenience with the carrot juice-drinkers and windmill-worshippers, came as a huge relief to his masters.
From that point on, he could continue to rely upon the unquestioning support (or obedience) of the poor saps who voted for him by making the occasional rhetorical flourish in favour of 'conservatism', whilst continuing the marxist/socialist/corporate fascist dismantling of everything that true conservatives (and true liberals) believe in.
The man is a thug - pure and simple. And he loves his work.
So, the next Dumb Tory (and there are legions of them still) who informs me that "At least it's better than Labour" (etc etc) had 'better' have a well-crafted reply handy when I pose the obvious question:
"How is it in ANY sense better, Moron ?"
“The DoH must have a spare room”. The toilet cubicle would be a good place, Debs can chuck and flush her bile there to her hearts content.
I notice they are still using kids in anti-smoking ads. When one came on last night dinner nearly got spat across the room in anger. Appear in the adverts yourself Arnott instead if using kids to spread your propaganda!
BTW, I'm not sure whether it's true, but I have heard that this 'Anne Milton' of whom you speak with such unguarded admiration is in fact Hazel Blears - following an operation that went slightly awry.
Probably just an ugly rumour.
"children worry about their parents smoking ..............."
Well, they certainly didn't back in the Sixties - when it seemed as though practically every grown-up smoked. I'll tell you what many of us WERE worried about, though: thermo-nuclear warfare (even I had nightmares about it).
But then we were allowed to BE children in those days - before the institutional mind-benders crawled out of the woodwork, with their schoolgirl science and phony phobias.
Probably something to do with the fact that OUR parents had survived a World War, and thus had a rather more balanced view about what REAL danger and REAL fear were.
The toxins poured into children's minds these days - psychological and pharmacological and sociological - will have a far more devastating effect upon our crumbling society and civilisation in the long term than the fumes of a few dried leaves (whether inhaled or not), believe me.
Hell, most of them can't even spell or punctuate these days - much less frame a cogent argument about anything.
Rather like many of the adults who claim to be 'teaching' (or at least speaking on behalf of) them.
Happy days !
ah yes the evil anne milton and debs arnott and ASH, damn smokerphobic antis, hatred , dumb tories and all of that tosh in no way disguises or hides the very simple to understand and truthfull points that:
children worry about their parents smoking and wish they would give up because smoking is bad for their health.
and that's the truth no matter how much time and effort is given to discrediting individuals or campaign groups, the hatred is shown by smokerloonies who want "smoking is bad for your health" covered up in as much shite as they can throw at the subject.
"But then we were allowed to BE children in those days..." (Martin V)
Am I the only person who thinks that children sound like mini-adults these days? I hear children being interviewed on the news after a member of the family has died or there's been a local tragedy and they sound like characters out of a soap... and why does anyone think that it's appropriate to interview them anyway?
Children don't worry about their parents smoking unless they have a phobic fear of it. I've had four kids and I have grandchildren and I can assure you smoking has never been an issue.
The only time it came up was when my son - then 8 - now 18 - came home crying from school because his teacher told him I was going to die before he grew up. He was cheered up when I was one of the winners in the mum's race on sports day that year because it went against everything his teacher told him about how smokers could hardly walk let alone run with "limited lung capacity". His teacher said I'd probably have been an athlete if I didn't smoke and I might but then I never wanted to be.
Smoking has not disabled me in any way. Quitting might.
My son was also angered by one of his friends who swore he must be lying when he said I'd smoked since I was eight years old because "your mum wouldn't be alive now if that was true".
I never once worried about my own parents smoking either. Fear of smoking is taught to kids through propaganda both at school and in the media.
Promoting fear of active smoking is fine if it stops children smoking but not OK if it fills them full of unfounded fear with a view to creating prejudice and hatred against those who do.
Anne Milton as a Govt minister has a duty to be impartial and not to back exclusion of minority groups. I would have no problem with ASH being so close to Govt if a smokers' rights group like Forest was also given such exclusive access so at least the minister gets to hear both sides of the issue and make decisions on what is fair and not what is dictated to by a unelected political lobby group based on its own hatred and prejudices.
And Dickie Doubleday, I can't take anything you say seriously as one who believes you are a "nicer person" than me because you don't smoke and I do.
Joyce -
Re: "Am I the only person who thinks that children sound like mini-adults these days?"
Indeed you are not ! But curiously badly-informed and neurotic mini-adults, I fear. And I in turn wonder whether I am alone in regarding the widespread and ostentatious display of grief by schoolchildren (aka 'students') at the death of one of their number (usually accompanied by a school-closure - as a token of 'respect') as unsettling as a footballer's blubbing at a missed goal opportunity or the self-lacerating confession of marital infidelity on day-time telly.
But, as Richard Stivers argues (citing Johan Huizinga's observations as far back as the Thirties), there seems to have been a strange inversion of 'traditional' cultural norms over the past few decades.
Whatever happened, for example, to Honour, Self-Restraint, Integrity, and Public Dignity ? Such quaint ideas are as redundant in the modern Public Psyche as the passion for Freedom and Liberty.
Yes, in many respects children today often do sound 'older' than their years (though scarcely wiser), whilst too many adults seem to be steeped in a self-perpetuating infantilism. What, for example, can be more childish than the fantastical, iconic Woman of Today who thinks she can Have It All ? In Olden Tymes, that used to be called ‘being greedy’.
He also points out that another mark of this social infantilism is the modern tendency to regard serious activities (eg politics) as nothing more than a kind of point-scoring playground game, whilst earnestly obsessing about the trivial and the transient (eg sport, talent(?)-shows, and yes, even tv soaps). And thus (perhaps) it is that whilst Joe Public is freely allowed to bathe his senses in yet another synthesised gore-fest from Hollywood, he is mercifully spared the bloody and unsettling images of the impact of real warfare upon real people being waged in our name (Col Gadaffi NOT being a Real Person, of course, but an officially-certified Mad Dog and Hollywood Villain).
Just as he is spared (gratefully, it seems) the onerous task of deciding between a smoke-free and a smoker-friendly pub or club.
The World turned upside down ? It’s certainly beginning to feel that way.