Blackpool beckons
Friday, April 8, 2011 at 8:09 Travelling to Blackpool later today.
I'm having dinner tonight at Blackpool Football Club with several hundred members of the Working Mens Clubs & Institute Union (CIU).
Tomorrow, wearing my Save Our Pubs & Clubs hat, I'm giving a short speech at the CIU's Annual Meeting at the Opera House in the famous Winter Gardens.
I'm told there will be 900 members at the Annual Meeting. I'll be asking them to become active supporters of our campaign and contact their member of parliament. (Note: I had a call only last week from an MP who stressed the importance of of writing letters. If MPs don't hear from constituents about a certain issue they assume it's not important.)
One MP who doesn't need any persuading to change the smoking ban is Brian Binley, Conservative MP for Northampton South. Brian is another guest of the CIU tonight. In fact, I think we're on the same table.
PS. I'll also be inviting branch secretaries and other members of the CIU to join us at a special event we are organising in June. Can't say more just yet but watch this space.
Reader Comments (10)
Good luck Simon, Labour must be having kittens that their core vote is being well received by some Tory oriented people. I hope it may persuade them to offer to amend the ban.
If people at TL are interested I was a speaker at the British Medical Journal's debate on "Is smoking a disease or a habit." At the start the room voted 5-1 for the motion and at the end it was 50-50. I also had the help of the charming Christianne Vink a Dutch Psychologist.
Also on Sunday I am off to Vienna to the Austrian Tobacco Forum 2011 with 80 interested pro choice groups and the best way to fight them. I am one of the main speakers. I can smoke in the bar!!
Good luck tonight.
Sadly I wrote to my MP Mark Spencer for Sherwood, who in no uncertain terms told me he had no interest in seeing the ban overturned, and that he thought it was a good idea. I think if your MP doesn’t want to consider a change then no amount of writing will change that. However when his calling card comes at election time, then he will have my opinion in no uncertain terms.
Neither can you write to other MPs if you don't live in their constituency. You can of course write to an MP at the House of Commons.
@JJ
For someone who has a majority of 214 he has some front.
You may want to point that UKIP are for an amendment and if they pick up too many votes he may lose his seat at the next election. You might want to point out that Gillian Merron (the Labour unior Health Minister) with a majority of 4,613 lost to Karl McCartney who in 2010 now has a majority of 1,088. As my campaign said "Anyone but Gillian Merron, Labour MP for Lincoln," and it appears that they did.
The positive messages is that the local CIU would support him and get some good pics in the paper.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=350164750917&set=o.348888949973&theater
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=348888949973
Good luck Simon, the Licencing Industry in Blackpool is not in very good helth at the moment like the rest of the country.
Dave - Thanks, I'll make him aware of this.
Maybe you can mention todays headlines as drinkers are about to be targeted as well:
"Alcohol causes cancer - even if you drink just over a pint of beer a day"
Sound familiar and so starts the campaign to ban Alcohol - as predicted. Get the brewing kits ready.
@John
Just written this letter to them.
"Here we go again"
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Drinking is obviously the new smoking, so lets get our funding for the next 5 years sorted out.
I will hypothesis that the reason there maybe more people get cancer who drink is because they simply live longer. Alcohol has an undoubted positive effect on heart disease and heart attacks as this paper from the BMJ says. (1)
"..Dose-response analysis revealed that the lowest risk of coronary heart disease mortality occurred with 1-2 a day,.... Secondary analysis of mortality from all causes showed lower risk for drinkers compared with non -drinkers (relative risk 0.87 (0.83 to 0.92)).
Conclusions Light to moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a reduced risk of multiple cardiovascular outcomes."
Other papers reach the same conclusion (2) and the meta analysis and studies are (3)
The way this is being reported in the media is quite disgusting that drinking is bad for you, when the empirical evidence is the complete opposite.
Bearing in mind the junk science surrounding passive smoking, (4) epidemiology is returning to the dark ages of medieval alchemy and in my opinion putting lives at risks.
This is becoming a worry.
1. http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d671.abstract
2. http://www.aim-digest.com/gateway/pages/heart/articles/gene.htm
3. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L4B_orDIiBI/TXZrlvw4HkI/AAAAAAAAAgY/D42I-
8evsXw/s1600/heart+alcohol+plot.jpg
4. http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7398/1057.abstract?sid=0a438674-3f96-4c61-88f7-60f7fa61cec5
Competing interests:
Attended 7/4/11 BMJ's is Smoking a disease or an addiction, Amsterdam and expenses were paid by Pfizer.
For the sake of clarity I am not remunerated, or expensed by tobacco or alcohol companies. <
Relax. This anti-alcohol thing is going nowhere. It's too eaay to make your own and sugar can't be taxed enough to make a difference.
"Relax. This anti-alcohol thing is going nowhere"
Thirty odd years ago the same could have been said about the anti-smking lot, look where we are now.
This anti-alcohol thing must be niped in the bud.
Dave A laments that:
"Bearing in mind the junk science surrounding passive smoking....epidemiology is returning to the dark ages of medieval alchemy and in my opinion putting lives at risks."
This is true, and it's a bloody disgrace. Science - or, more accurately, the Scientific Establishment - has clearly put itself entirely at the service of the State. This fact alone should be ringing alarm bells throughout the land -. and we hardly need to travel back to the Middle Ages to discover the potentially awful consequences of such a betrayal.
And 'betrayal' it is. For, at its highest level, the aims of Science are precisely the same as those of Religion: Truth (measurable in the case of Science, and immeasurable in the case of Religion). And the empowerment and liberation of Mankind.
The consequences of debased Science, on the other hand, are also those of debased Religion: Darkness - and the enslavement of Mankind.
To my mind, the Smoking Ban (alone) perfectly exemplifies both of the latter. Which is why it is not only our 'right' to oppose it. It is also a moral imperative that we must do so. Smoker and Non-Smoker alike.
And yes - Good Luck, Simon !