Plain packaging? They must be crackers!
Friday, November 30, 2012 at 8:24 
This advertisement appears in the latest issue of The House magazine, published today.
The new edition features what is a described as a "very emotive dialogue between Stephen Williams MP and Ian Paisley MP around plain packaging".
Williams, of course, helped launch the Plain Packs Protect campaign. He is also chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health that last month tried to smear Forest with an allegation of petition "rigging".
Paisley is the author of a recent letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, signed by 72 MPs, that urged the government to abandon the idea of plain packaging.
Publishers Dods say 85 per cent of MPs read The House. I've always been sceptical about this claim because it's not the most exciting publication but you've got to be in it to win it, as they say.
In June Imperial Tobacco placed this ad in The House. It was actually a cover wrap and it caused quite a stir.
Dods also own PoliticsHome and next week they will be running a banner ad with a link to the Hands Off Our Packs website.
Subscribers to PoliticsHome include "MPs, peers, key opinion leaders, parliamentary researchers, lobbyists, political media, broadcast media and business leaders".
PS. To download the Forest/HOOP advertisement click here.
Reader Comments (2)
I have nothing against plain packaging, as long as it is applied to all consumer good. People will still be free to shop in supermarkets, but all the products will be in brown paper bags with a small typewritten label on the front indicating their contents.
Why would anyone have a problem with that?
We could also free up an enormous amount of television and radio time for educational offerings if we forbade advertising of fats, sweets, cars, meats, and other wasteful and harmful products. Sure, there'll be grousing about sports sponsorships being lost and such things, but if people enjoy sports they can still play them and watch other people playing them in the parks. What's the big deal?
The human race got along just fine for hundreds of thousands of years without fancy colorful packaging and glitzy advertising, and there was far less obesity and far fewer cases of diseases of old age. A return to yesteryear is being called for by the masses, and only the evil corporations and their boot-polishing lackeys are blocking the way!
Onward! Upward! Throughward! And Backwards Forever! Let that be our motto ringing from the heavens!
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" (Originally in plain white packaging in which it did quite well.... )
Yes indeed we should all demand plain packaging for all consumer goods and revert back to brown paper bags like the old days.
And if this doesent happen we should take a case to the Human Rights/Consumer Assoc or whatever relevant quango, for outright unfair trading practices and discrimination to a minority group which are smokers.
As the drinks trade is now going down the same road as the fags and seem to be next on the hit list, we should demand plain labelling for bottles and cans too.
Then we should demand the same for the cosmetic industry, and demand they put how many animals have died to bring this particular shade of make-up to suit your complextion.
Whats good for the goose is good for the gander!