Welcome back. Hope you had a good Christmas.
I am about to drive to BBC Cambridge where I've been booked to appear on the BBC News channel.
Earlier today I was on LBC (7:05) and BBC Radio London (8:10). Subject: the Government's new anti-smoking ad campaign.
The £2.7 million campaign highlights the "hidden dangers" of smoking. According to the Department of Health press release:
Smokers will be told that just 15 cigarettes cause a mutation that can lead to cancerous tumours in a return to hard-hitting health campaigns, the Department of Health announced today.
The new ads - featuring a tumour growing on a cigarette as it is smoked - are the first shock adverts since the "fatty cigarette" ad eight years ago. They aim to encourage people to quit over health concerns, by making the invisible damage visible.
The campaign comes in response to statistics that show more than a third of smokers still think the health risks associated with smoking are greatly exaggerated.
I suggested that shock tactics may have some initial impact but the long-term impact is negligible.
Graphic health warnings, for example, appear to have had relatively little impact on smokers' behaviour. Why this is I don't know. Perhaps it's because some of the images (rotting teeth and oral cancer, for example) are rarely if ever witnessed by most people in real life. Rightly or wrongly, such images are perceived to be disproportionate scaremongering.
Another example is the flaccid cigarette that represents impotence. I'm not saying that smoking doesn't cause impotence but I'm sceptical of the risk. After all, back in the Fifties, when a majority of the male population smoked, the country experienced a baby boom!
Anyway, LBC invited smokers to phone in and say whether the Government's latest campaign will encourage them to quit. You might like to comment here too.
PS. I have developed quite a croak overnight. I thought Lemsip would help but I still sound like I've got a bad case of smoker's cough!