If Lansley is "open-minded" on plain packaging I'm a banana
Friday, April 13, 2012 at 9:18 We were expecting the Department of Health to launch its consultation on plain packaging on Monday.
That will still happen but the story has broken early after health secretary Andrew Lansley gave an interview to The Times for its Saturday edition that the paper suddenly brought forward to today. Hence this morning's reports.
The Independent is one of many newspapers to feature the story online (with a quote fro me) – Government moves to stub out cigarette branding.
Update: Plain pack consultation "threatens to be a farce"
Update: As others have pointed out, not all Tory MPs are like Lansley - see Mark Field's article on ConservativeHome.
Update: The BBC has updated its report to include quotes from the TMA and Forest. See Cigarette packet branding to face consultation.
Update: Pro-smoking group: 'People are sick of being nannied' (ITV News)
Simon Clark
Forest's press release in full:
NEWS RELEASE Immediate Release Friday 13th April 2012
PLAIN PACKAGING CONSULTATION "THREATENS TO BE A FARCE" SAY CAMPAIGNERS
+ Smokers' group urges consumers and retailers to "defend Britain from excessive regulation"
Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest which runs the Hands Off Our Packs campaign, said:
"The consultation on plain packaging threatens to be a farce. Andrew Lansley says he is open minded yet he clearly supports plain packaging even before the consultation has begun.
"Hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money has been spent in one region alone trying to persuade people to support plain packaging. Government is effectively using taxpayers' money to lobby itself. This scandalous abuse of public money must stop now.
"Plain packaging is another step towards the denormalisation of a legal product. It is yet another attack on ten million adult consumers.
"The consultation on plain packaging has nothing to do with health. It's all about Andrew Lansley. The health secretary is using the consultation to curry favour with health professionals, many of whom are less than impressed with the changes he is making to the NHS.
"He possibly believes that by extending the war on tobacco he will buy himself some time to win their support.
"Despite our cynicism we urge consumers and retailers to make their voices heard and help defend Britain from excessive regulation."
Reader Comments (19)
This bunch of clowns have cut their own throats already. I cant wait to see the day when all the big three parties are history.
"We don't work in partnership with the tobacco companies because we are trying to arrive at a point where they have no business in this country."
I can't quite believe he said that. It's a declaration of all-out war. Do David Cameron and the rest of the Cabinet approve of him running around saying this kind of thing?
Wait until the EU collapses these LibLabCon muppett's and their bloated public sector don't know how to run a country without it.
That's if they get to the next election.
Big changes afoot ,everywhere in the west.
Rose - as you know Lansley has already allientated himself from the NHS Pros and this is his crafty way of trying to get back in favour with them.
I absolutely hate Lansley - the man is an undemocratic fool who is doing more to harm the Conservative Party and freedom in general than even the likes of ASH could do.
But don't worry too much - I have it on good authority that he is being replaced in the next cabinet re-shuffle - and good riddance to him I say!
Lansley has lost it.
His mind reprogrammed by new friends, Now, no longer a member of Government, representative of his party or the people of this Country, he has declared his opinion as the way forward in a deluded attempt to make members of tobacco control his disciples.
First he bribes them with ill-spent public money and now declares their desires totally unquestionable.
Doesn't he realise he is'nt God (yet).
I do hope so, Peter. I can't believe you guys all helped convert me from being a lifelong Labour to Tory voter, and then we got Lansley, who seems to need to prove he's worse than all the Labour Health Ministers put together!
Just been watching Boulton & Co, see Angela Harbutt from Hoop and Deborah Arnott from ASH, If that was a boxing match Angela would of won in round ONE,
Would that be after he has implemented plain packaging, driven out the tobacco industry in Britain or made the 80,000 employees in the industry jobless - or before?
It doesn't matter if he's out next reshuffle. He has been allowed in specifically to do the damage and attack legal industry and its adult consumers. Once done it doesn't matter who is in the health dept.
"But don't worry too much - I have it on good authority that he is being replaced in the next cabinet re-shuffle - and good riddance to him I say!" (Peter)
Oh, please God, let it not be Anne Milton.....
"I have it on good authority that he is being replaced in the next cabinet re-shuffle"
I sincerely hope Milton goes with him.
Here is Angela's interview with Deborah Arnott that Gary refers to.
http://news.sky.com/home/business/article/16207897
Rose - I hope you've learned the error of your ways and don't vote Tory again. I don't even think Labour would have been this bad.
Why dont smokers all vote for ukip i had an email from them and they said that the government has gone to far and lost the plot regarding smokers. They also said they would not interfere with smokers if ellected into government. Well i am voting for them they cannot be worse then this bloody lot.I absolutely hate this government i thought labour was bad enough but this man lansley is hitler in a plain suit.
Look at Deborah, look at Angela, who would you most like to spend time with. No, that was not gender specific, (well, maybe a tiny bit), it was just whose socialabilty attracted you most. That's right, the smoker.
"I'll have the one with the breath like an old ashtray". Cartoon from the 70's come to life. Angela wants to appear on TV a lot more, attractive, robust, eloquent, incisive. A few more like that and we'll swamp them.
A tsunami of aged patients costing squillians of health care money. The smoker has paid upfront but missed out on that poor quality of life that comes with living longer. There are no smokers in nursing homes. Where will the health dollar come from when everyone lives longer and on a costly pension. Taxpayers will be put upon when smokers are gone. from
Delia
Of course, Lansley's 'open-minded'.
What do you expect from one whose cranial cavity is entirely devoid of original thought ?
If he were a PC, and you tried downloading ANY amount of garbage, ANY algorithm a schoolboy programmer would laugh at, ANY virus created by Big Dave's bosses at the (tax-exempt) Foundation For the Destruction of Human Freedom, instead of the expected error message or warning, you'd get a little pop-up containing just two words:
"Yes, Master ! "
Someone should just pull the plug: he's a waste of OUR energy.
"the man is an undemocratic fool who is doing more to harm the Conservative Party and freedom in general than even the likes of ASH could do."
Oh, Peter - you ARE sweet !
'Democracy' means 51% of the Public's deciding for the remaining 49%.
On EVERY issue that comes before it.
Which is great, of course - PROVIDED you're a Non-Smoker, an Athenian warmonger, a Blue-Eyed Aryan, or a Born-Again, Burger-Chomping, Arab- Hater.
Not so great if you're in the Minority, however.
Instead of focussing on whether a policy is 'democratic' or not (a recent-opinion-poll suggests that a majority now favours crucifixion for smokers.....................blah, blah, blah), why not focus - as our ancestors often did - on whether something is Right - or Wrong ?
In that benighted era before Plastic Debt, Opium For The Masses (from a box in the corner in every home), and Lifestyle Gurus, we actually had a Civil War to determine precisely this moral issue.
‘Democracy’ – as I recall - was never mentioned. Merely the simple matter of whether excessive power, concentrated in the hands of a single man and a select coterie of loyal henchmen, was A Good Thing – or A Bad Thing.
On most Big Issues, you really don't need a Philosophy Degree to sort that one out: merely the instincts of the Decent Man or Woman.
Lansley is just plain Wrong - even if 99% of a gullible electorate support him.
And the 'Conservative Party' is just plain dead. Poor Lansley being but a nasty wart on the face of its rotting corpse. What difference can you possibly imagine its removal would make ?
(Jeeez.................what DOES it take ?)
"And the 'Conservative Party' is just plain dead. Poor Lansley being but a nasty wart on the face of its rotting corpse. What difference can you possibly imagine its removal would make ?"
My view exactly Martin and very well put.