Have the Tories misread support for tobacco control?
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 9:20 However depressing today's Government announcement may be, there is some good news.
Long gone, for example, are the days when it felt as though Forest was fighting a lone battle against the anti-smoking movement.
For the first time I can remember, there is a genuine coalition of forces lined up against against excessive tobacco control, as a letter in today's Daily Telegraph reveals. It's signed by:
Patrick Basham, director, Democracy Institute
Dr Eamonn Butler, director, Adam Smith Institute
Donna Edmunds, director of Research, Progressive Vision
Dr Helen Evans, director, Nurses for Reform
Dr Tim Evans, chairman, Economic Policy Centre
Daniel Hamilton, director, Big Brother Watch
Angela Harbutt, executive director, Liberal Vision
Tim Knox, acting director, Centre for Policy Studies
Mark Littlewood, director-general, IEA
Matthew Sinclair, director, The TaxPayers’ Alliance
Simon Richards, director, The Freedom Association
Meanwhile I have written article for ConservativeHome – aWhatever happened to the party of business, deregulation and personal responsibility?.
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You should also write to your newspaper and to your Conservative MP, if you have one.
Reader Comments (13)
No Simon. I don't think they have misread support for the anti-smoker industry. Lansley has always been out as an anti-smoker himself and we've seen how Ann Milton is in ASH's pocket.
Sorry, but I won't be wasting any more of my time writing to MPs who don't listen and newspapers blinded by their own anti-smoker agenda.
My disgust at what is happening to law abiding consumers who just want to be left alone will be shown at the ballot box. There is no other way now. After 10 years of writing letters, posting on forums, meeting politicians, being patted on the back and then ignored I have come to the conclusion that the only way to show all three parties - including the current Govt - is by voting against them.
It is time we got together on this and showed them at the local council elections which are due soon. if that doesn't jolt them back into reality, then I have no idea what will - certainly not writing to Mps or newspapers. It hasn't worked yet.
What will the Government (and therefore the population of the UK including anti-smokers) do without the £10.5 billion in revenue it currently receives from excise and VAT if we all give up smoking? I just wondered?
Simon Richards has just emailed to say that he will be on Jeremy Vine's show 12.30-1.00 with ASH.
Plain packaging on cigarettes. How utterly ridiculous. Do you really think this will stop me smoking, or asking for my own particular favourite brand? Mind you, how do I know that my small corner shop is actually selling me that brand? Maybe, because times are hard, he will be tempted to sell me cigarettes that have come from abroad illegally. How would I know?
What next I ask? Plain packaging on all alcohol; wine, beer, cider, alco pops, so that it will discourage to young to buy it?
Or, as fast food is so terribly fattening, and unhealthy, why not insist all fast food outlets such as; McDonalds, BurgerKing, Subway and the like, also have plain packaging on their shop fronts. No logos, no corporate colours, no advertising, no slogans and plain packaging. After all, we don’t want to encourage the young to be obese do we? It’s bad for their health.
Come on, don’t let’s just crucify the tobacco industry. Let’s be a real nanny, and put everything that’s bad for us in plain packaging.
Get real Conservatives
NO child ever starts smoking by buying their first cigarettes from a shop, because
1. It is illegal for under 18s buy them from shops
2. Children start smoking when they get cigarettes from their friends or nick them from their parents.
This is not about preventing children from smoking. This is about a final push to stop adults from smoking in line with the target they are trying to achieve. When they drop that target further, as they will, then we will be criminalised because that will be the only way they can stop us. It won't happen yet but it will.
Hi guys especially Patsy I am on Radio Lincolnshire at 1.15pm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_lincolnshire
Damn and blast! I caught the very end of that show, I think. Peter Levy? As soon as my other half heard "Smoking" on the car radio he turned over before he was subjected to the inevitable profanaties from me. I promised to behave, he turned back, and we caught the very end of the show - a woman who said leave smokers alone - alcoholics are worse (or words to that effect).
Can I listen again Dave. I'd love to hear it. Was it by phone or can I buy you a drink if you're still here - although I am in sunny Skeggie today :>))
Hi Patsy, I believe F2C have recorded it, I'll keep you informed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p0 ... 10_03_2011
Dave starts 1.28.00 in
Great work Dave. Well done.
Right link for above
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00f630q/The_Peter_Levy_Show_10_03_2011
Well done, Dave.
Today the Peter Levy Show, tomorrow R4's Today (well, we can dream)
Thanks Joyce I have done the BBC World Service and the Producer told me that 53 million were listening. Hey I left Bush House at 11.00 am and had a very large glass of red at the nearest place that served.
Good heavens I was wound up.
Simon has my undying respect.