Anne Milton – paradise lost
Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 11:18 
I guess we won't be seeing any more pictures like this.
Yes, it's true. Public health minister and ASH ally Anne Milton (third from right) has been removed from her post at the Department of Health.
I wonder whether this letter had anything to do with her eventual dismissal? Minister's links with ASH questioned.
Or this: ASH's credibility goes up in smoke.
H/T National Federation of Retail Newsagents
Probably not this but the headline says what many people thought about Milton's cosy relationship with ASH: I think I'm going to be sick
The photo was taken last year at the House of Commons. See ASH awarded WHO medal on 40th "birthday" (Forest).
From left: Sir Richard Thompson (president, Royal College of Physicians), Stephen Williams MP (chair of All Party Parliamentary on Smoking and Health), Kevin Barron MP, Anne Milton (minister for public health) holding the WHO World No Smoking Day Award, Deborah Arnott (CEO of ASH), Professor John Moxham (chair of ASH).
Warning: don't celebrate too soon ...
Reader Comments (13)
couldn't happern to a nicer person. good riddence!
Anna Soubry replaces her and we don't know how she feels about tobacco consumers because she hasn't voted on the issue yet.
Smokerphobic Stephen Williams gives me the creeps. He is to smokers what Nick Griffin is to gay people. I just wish the minister would see the bigotry is similar.
Sorry, mistook them for The Adams Family.
Yaaayyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another one bites the dust!
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
I have to say that it is wrong to dance on somebody's grave, but I will make an exception in her case. I have made some discrete inquiries and I believe it is that she was seen to be incompetent.
Anna Soubry seems to be a step in the right direction. She was Private Parliamentary Secretary to chain smoker Simon Burns at the Department of Health and has called for the legalisation of cannabis. She said in 2010:
""[In an open debate] you will come to the conclusion that certain types of cannabis are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco."
Without wishing to curtail celebrations, my guess is that Hunt and Ms Soubry will give out the right signals for about 6 months and then get house trained by their civil servants, ASH and Simon Williams. While I do not expect them to exceed Lansley and Ms Milton I also do not see a brave new world either.
Anyway the weather is nice and a glass of Merlot and a fag is called for tonight.
http://www.thehempire.com/index.php/cannabis/news/notts_mp_make_cannabis_legal
This recent article by Dr Dan Poulter, one of the new Health ministers, in which he argues for plain packaging, is not so encouraging http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/plain-packaging-cigarettes .
The war and bullying continues with the new health ministers. a new one in post decides his first task is to pick up plain packaging.
I think we've been scammed again :( http://patnurseblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/uh-oh-they-do-think-were-stupid.html
Well, Norman, that certainly puts a damper on things! Having said that, the article reads like an Ash press release - all the same mantras and slogans:
"Smoking-related illnesses are estimated to cost the NHS at least £2.7bn a year in England alone.", he said, without a word about the 10 billion plus which the treasury obtains from smokers.
The real question now is whether there are voices in the Ministry of Health (political voices) to counter his bigotted pontifications.
Soubry, my MP, is a human vaccuum. She wants power, influence and money, not necessarily in that order (and helping out her nearest and dearest in their business ventures). And she's a terrible constituency MP to boot. She still has not even moved into the area.
So she will say whatever will serve her interests best. Nothing more, nothing less.
I still maintain that the fact that few of the new “key personnel” aren’t tried-and-tested antis has got to be a tentatively good sign, if only because they indicate that maybe the Government has finally realised that people are heartily fed up with being bossed about and that many have recognised that it was the smoking ban which really started the ball rolling in this respect. I suspect, like many others on here, that we may not see much by way of positive developments, but my feeling is that we won’t see much by way of negative ones either. I think that smoking has become a bit of an embarrassment and is being quietly shoved onto the back burner. In fact, I think that the most persistent of the anti groups (who of course are squealing because they have so much to lose) are beginning to wear their financiers’ patience dangerously thin by not getting back into their box now that the Government’s given them their precious ban.
But I think that drinkers and the obese should be watching their backs very, very carefully, simply because the powers that be do like to have at least one “hate group” for everyone else to vilify (don’t we know it??) and if they think that the public is beginning to get wind of how massively they’ve been duped about smoking and SHS then all they’ll do is switch to another group in the hope (possibly well-founded, given the gullibility of the general populace and its enthusiasm to “have a go” at any permitted target group), that the public won’t notice or make the connection.
But we’ll have to wait and see. I’m certainly not counting my chickens just yet …
Kevin "two bellies" Barron and the un-dead.
It really is a hideous photo.
Heartbroken - that's all I can say.
But I'm still amazed that no-one's thought of chucking a bucket of water over Deborah yet.
It worked in the 'Wizard of Oz'.