What's become of ASH?
Monday, February 21, 2011 at 15:33 Last week I intended to write a post that began, 'Have you noticed how quiet ASH has been of late?'
I refer, of course, to the London-based operation. You couldn't keep ASH Scotland quiet if you bound and gagged all 27 members of staff and left them on a remote Hebridean island without electricity (or a boat).
In England, however, there has barely been a peep out of our old sparring partners. They haven't issued a press release since November and their website hasn't been updated for what seems like ages. (To be fair, they're not alone in this. Forest is currently developing a new site, hence the lack of activity on our old one.)
Last year it was noticeable too that other tobacco control groups were doing more and more of what I like to call ASH's "dirty work".
Anyway, several theories are doing the rounds, including the preposterous suggestion that Deborah Arnott & Co are too busy drafting the new tobacco control paper for the Department of Health.
I couldn't possibly comment.
On Thursday, however, something stirred. According to Campaign (ASH blames ad spend freeze for failures to quit smoking), ASH seem to believe that the number of people who quit smoking is linked directly to the amount of public money spent on anti-smoking advertisements.
The advertising industry will no doubt endorse this view because it wants the money, but it's not shared by everyone. Chris Snowdon, for example, has this to say: How thick do ASH think we are? he asks.
Reader Comments (8)
Shhhhhhhush! Don't wake them up!
Fuck off.
We don't want them in the Hebrides, leave them in the Central belt. Or possibly drop them of the Forth Bridge.
They're probably in their bunker debating how to launch the next tranche of bleak, joyless directives on those who have the temerity to want to decide on their own lifestyles.
I never refer to them otherwise than as the "now discredited ASH". Just think - if everybody used this term they'd start to lose power. Think Goebbels and damn the truth.
Nisakiman: I think the important word with these people is 'enjoyment' of our own lives. If we go back through History, the banning of Christmas, dancing, the Maypole, back to the times of Pelagius, we see that enjoyment of anything, with this lot, is a mortal sin.
I, avidly, await a modern Restoration.
My feeling is that ASH have hit a bit of a brick wall with the coalition apart from the usual suspects. Labour were happy to take on board all of the half truths and spin from them and a more sceptical, especially Conservative Party will apart from Ms Milton be scruitinising for factual based evidence anything presented. For example I know Dr. Patrick Basham's paper on the Display Ban was widely read in the House.
Also I have been button holed in the "Westminster Bubble" a couple of times about SHS and asked to give my opinion. Hope springs eternal.
Good news, Mr. Atherton. Keep up the excellent work. Nag the bastards, pressure them. SHS is the key.
Sorry dave. As long as the NuConservatives have Andrew lansley and Ann Milton in Govt I don't believe a word of it. If they want to make a statement, they'd get those two out of Govt for a start.
sadly, I fear ASH will be back. I guess they are quiet because they are busy working with Lansley and Milton on the next horrible plan for smokers' exclusion. let's not forget, they have pushed through the plain packaging under Lansley to humiilate us further by ranking us the same as those who can buy porn freely. This Govt is falling for ASH's trash. I have no hope in them.
Smokers continuing support for this Govt only prolongs the agony and fits with ASH's plans to ensure tobacco culture is eradicated in future by any means.