Lansley sacked as Health Secretary
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:29 Andrew Lansley has been "demoted" from Health Secretary to Leader of the Commons.
Full story: Lansley replaced by Hunt in health job (BBC News)
I shall miss writing about Lansley. He has featured regularly on this blog, especially in recent months. In March, for example, I wrote: Andrew Lansley: pride before a fall.
In April I wrote: If Lansley is "open-minded" on plain packaging I'm a banana.
There are plenty of other references to him but my written relationship with the former Secretary of State for Health extends beyond this blog. Last year, for example, I wrote an article for Politics.co.uk: The bully state re-emerges in Lansley's anti-smoking crusade.
Most recently, in response to Lansley being listed as a "Supporter of Plain Packs" on the Plain Packs Protect website (while the public consultation on standardised packaging was still taking place), I wrote How stupid is Plain Packs Protect.
I even sent an email to the Department of Health in which I asked:
Is it appropriate for the Secretary of State for Health to be listed as a supporter of plain packs (by a campaign that receives public money) in the middle of a consultation on the issue and before the DoH has published its report on the consultation?
The matter was also raised in Forest's 64-page submission.
Now, weeks after the DH informed Forest (in an email) that the inclusion of Lansley as a supporter of plain packaging "was an error" and that the Health Secretary "has been very clear that he has an entirely open mind on standardised packaging for tobacco product", Lansley has gone.
Fancy that.
Reader Comments (14)
Hunt voted AGAINST the full smoking ban
My MP noticed Lansley on the supporter's page and wrote to complain about it and received a letter from Nanny Milton with the same "error" excuse.
If Hunt wants to keep his job, and doesn't want to turn off yet more Tory voters, he would do well to distance himself from the more insane demands of the Smokerphobic tobacco control industry.
His appointment could be good news but while Nanny Milton remains in office as Minister Responsible for Tobacco Control, then it means nothing.
The bully has gone - long live the bully?
I really don't know why you bother trying to engage with these people as they are clearly not at all interested in engaging with you. I admire and applaud your persistence, but it is getting you nowhere. Next verse, same as the first.
If Hunt has any sense he will keep a great distance between himself and the Tobacco Control industry. Those that do its bidding have a tendency to get thrown out of office. There's a reason they don't get any funding from the public, MPs - it's because everyone hates their guts! There is no political capital to be gained from sucking up to these people.
Of course, that is just if he has any sense. If he has any integrity, then he will see their funding cut (both direct and indirect) and root out its insidious tentacles in all areas of his department.
Still, that is probably too much to hope for.
If the new minister ditches Milton, there is just a chance of fresh thinking. If he does not, then we can expect more of the same thing.
Might be TC is falling apart ehh!
Ive got this gut instinct something is goin on and have had for the last 2 weeks.
I'm more of a cynic than an optimist - maybe Hunt is there so that when the Govt announces that we will get plain packaging despite the consultation, or because of the way it has been rigged, Lansley won't be there for us to blame as one whose mind was made up on the issue all along.
Like everyone else, I think that unless Nanny Milton goes too we can expect more of the same but in new clothes.
And yes, I agree the TCI is dragging down parties and individual politicians. None so blind as those who won't see so it is up to us to show them at the ballot box - no ifs or buts.
The 'plain packs embarassment' can go either of two ways, it can either be swept under the carpet, or tackled with renewed vigour. Let us hope that it is the former.
I’ve long said that this Government is seeking to distance itself from Tobacco Control. Ever since Cameron first took office with the statement that he had no intention of addressing the smoking ban “either way” and has since resolutely refused to comment on it in anything other than a thoroughly non-committal, Party-line way, all things anti-smoking have been very obviously firmly pushed into the background, despite increasingly desperate (sometimes to the point of risible) health claims, proposals and new “initiatives” by the anti-smoking industry. This Government knows that, for all its weasel words of platitude for the benefit of their erstwhile anti-smoking chums, the smoking ban has had an enormous negative impact on the life of many people - both smokers and non-smokers - and they know, too, that the suddenness and exactness of the timing of that impact has not gone unnoticed. Even people who, pre-ban, were generally supportive of it are now starting to think twice before supporting each and every new anti-smoking proposal and in all honesty only the real, dyed-in-the-wool zealots still remain resolutely blind to the effects of the ban, both immediate and more widespread.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that Lansley’s been “moved elsewhere,” in the light of (a) the faux pas of allowing his name to be added to the supporters of the plain packs campaign, (b) his classic one-liner that he wanted tobacco companies to have “no business” in the UK, and (c) his recent association with Tobacco Control’s “vision” for a smoke-free UK in 20 or so years’ time. None of those little snippets are conducive to the Government’s efforts to sweep the whole smoking issue firmly under the carpet in the hope that the public will forget about it and, even more importantly, forget that politicians had anything to do with it. Fat chance, of course, of any smoker forgetting about it when every single day is a stark reminder of it, but then the facts have never been known to get in the way of any Government’s idealised little visions for the future, have they?
Whether or not Hunt is any better, as far as smokers are concerned, remains to be seen, but if this is a political move – as it seems likely that it is – in order to achieve his aim of distance from the smoking ban and all its nasty knock-on effects, then Cameron would do well to ensure that his new Health Minister is not from the massed ranks of the hardened anti-smoking zealots within his Party. And, given Hunt’s voting history, as cited above, it would seem that shrewdly (for a change!), that is exactly what he has done.
Well, I suppose we'll soon find out whether the current government have been stringing the majority of the public along to the tune of the TCI.
We all know that JH has never agreed with the intolerance and pure evil of the heavily state funded anti-smoking movement; let's see if he changes his tune.
We'll all have our question well and true answered before the year is out.
Let's hope he sticks to his beliefs; I don't hold out much hope though due to the monetary gains and advancement attached to the industry.
Simon, is there any chance you could get an early interview with him - particularly over the factless claims in relation to SHS that the TCI have brainwashed our citizens with?
No matter how you look at it, its always good news when you hear that even one cigarette hater has been struck down.
Hope it puts shivers up the Quangos.
Well, Lansley gone. Burstow gone. And now arch-ASHite and close personal friend of Dreadful, Anne Milton, has gone, too.
A message being sent? Let's see what the result of the Plain Packs consultation is.
Misty may be right, however. While ASH is still wallowing in Pharma cash and taxpayer money that is laundered, sorry, I mean, filtered, through other charities like CRUK and BHF, hasn't their direct Government funding been cut? I heard somewhere that they were troughing around for Lottery support because their funding had gone....?
Mr A - Are you sure Anne Milton has gone too?
If that is the case then this would seem to be a deliberate clear-out of the anti-smoking zealot cabal.
As Simon says in his post above. Let's not celebrate too soon. We have been conned before, Hunt is a Govt man so his own personal principles don't come into it and we do know that the tobacco Control Industry is one of the most wealthy and one of the only growing industries in the Uk so it still carries far more clout than little ole us or indeed Little Tobacco.
The decision on plain packaging will be a clue as to whether the war on adult tobacco consumers has stalled. I am too cynical to believe that it will ever be over when its driven by hate, spite and buckets of cash.
But just being able to take one small sigh of relief feels wonderful after being suffocated by the jackboot these last long hard five years particularly.