Lords support ban on smoking with children in cars - media coverage
Thursday, January 30, 2014 at 11:27 That went well. Not.
I'll conduct a full post mortem on last night's vote (BBC News, Ban on smoking in cars carrying children backed by Lords), and the media reaction, in due course.
It was disappointing, obviously, especially after what was a very the long day, media wise. Here's the full list of interviews I did yesterday:
Television
BBC1 Breakfast
BBC News Channel
Sky News
ITV Lunchtime News
ITV Evening News
National Radio
0705 BBC Five Live Breakfast
0735 BBC Radio 4 Today
Local Radio
LBC
BBC Merseyside
BBC Manchester
BBC Cumbria
BBC Cambridge
BBC Coventry and Warwickshire
BBC Devon
BBC Hereford and Worcestershire
BBC Leicester
BBC Nottingham
BBC Cornwall
BBC Suffolk
BBC Humberside
BBC Sheffield
BBC Oxford
I had to turn down the following because times clashed with other interviews:
BBC Essex
BBC Stoke
BBC Berkshire
BBC Shropshire
TalkSport
Voice of Russia
As I mentioned yesterday Chris Snowdon (IEA), Ian Dunt (editor, politics.co.uk) and Dave Atherton also did number of interviews.
Chris did BBC Five Live's Morning Reports, BBC Radio Wales and Channel 5 News.
Ian did ITV's Daybreak and Channel 5 News.
Dave did a number of local radio interviews.
Forest was quoted in most if not all national newspapers.
Here are one or two links to video reports:
Smoking in cars with children ban bid (Sky News)
Ban on smoking in cars is 'excessive' says lobby group (ITV News)
See also: Pro-smoking group: Labour 'playing politics' with issue (ITV.com)
The Jeremy Vine Show (BBC Radio 2) is discussing the subject at 1.30pm today. Not sure who's doing it, but I know the programme will feature someone on 'our' side.
Breaking news: Nick Clegg opposes ban on smoking in cars with children (BBC News)
Update: Featured guests discussing smoking in cars on the Jeremy Vine Show were Alex Cunningham MP and James Levy, author of the Forest Guides to Smoking in London (1997) and Scotland (1998).
The programme also featured a listener called David Hall who described smoking in cars with children as "child abuse".
Reader Comments (19)
Yes very disappointing but we should come to expect that because as consumers we will never be heard or listened to. I know Forest is against it, but the only course of action now is direct. My car. My line. Enough's enough! I don't smoke with kids in the car, but when they are not I will smoke in my car and I care not whether the ban extends to all vehicles as the only way these people can enforce it.
The tragedy is that those in parlt now - including the extremist Lib Dems - will push this through with swivel eyed smokerphobic glee and then get thrown out at the next election but the damage will have been done. All smokers have a duty to disobey laws that remove rights to consume a legal product on their own property.
And having posted that, I see Clegg has found both some guts and some common sense. That gives some hope. I expect he is astute enough to see that it's a vote loser and, let's face it, the Lib Dems can't upset any more people as their vote is collapsing.
Labour, however, is so sure they will win the next election by default from people voting against the Tories, they've simply lost the plot now and have gone totally nuclear without care of what anyone thinks.
I'm intrigued, Smoking in a car,children or no children is not a traffic offence nor a road safety issue, it is a violation of the smoking ban, and as such is no concern of the police, it is a matter for the local authority. Who then may I ask will have the task of apprehending a smoking passenger at 70 MPH in the middle lane ? Or have I missed something here?
Where is Nick Clegg and what have they done with him?!
Where have I heard the ‘23 times more toxic…’ before?
Some of you will have heard of the appearance of the ‘23 times more toxic than a smoky bar’ bilge when it first popped up back in 1998 in the local paper called the Rocky Mountain News in Denver Colorado. This is the same quote that’s been referred to over recent years by the BBC and other media.
Now of course it’s just been freshened up slightly. Same figure of 23 times but now the location has moved to a ‘typical house’, whatever that means. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that has ever been found that supports this in any peer reviewed study or scientific literature of any kind.
At a BMA conference some years ago it was decided that smoking should be banned in cars for health and safety reasons (no mention then of children) despite problems of enforcement. The proposer was Dr Douglas Noble who said then that “the toxic potential of smoke inside cars was 27 times higher than in the home and 20 times higher than in public houses (where it is now banned).
Hmm...his figure was 27 times. Now it’s 23 times, and didn’t the BMJ revise that down at some stage to 11 times because they made an error. But now it’s crawled its way back up to 23 times again. One therefore assumes that the peer-reviewed study that Noble brought up was accurate, so why change it to 23 times. Was another study done? Then again another review to land on 11 times, before perhaps yet another review taking it back up to 23 times. My oh my, don’t you just find this all so confusing?
I wonder if Luciana Berger can perhaps tell us if:
1. Has she read the study?
2. Does she know the name of the study?
3. Who authored the study?
4. When was it peer-reviewed?
5. Where was it published?
6. Where can we access it?
You can see the problem can't you?
If legislation is to be predicated on this 'so called' evidence, then shouldn't it be at the very least based on unequivocal scientific fact which is open to thorough scrutiny rather than allow this unmitigated garbage to determine further legislation which will affect millions of people?
Anyway, I’ve saved the best till last.
Our friend Dr Douglas Noble from the BMA's public health committee gave us this absolute gem. I was going to say that I’m tickled pink at finding this – but you will understand why I couldn’t possibly do that.
"But let me give you one headline to remember - it would be safer to have your exhaust pipe on the inside of your car than smoke a cigarette, in terms of fine particulate matter released. And evidence suggests rolling down the window doesn't eliminate the problem."
This from a man who is supposedly well educated and in a position of influence, wasn’t this used to murder innocent people in mobile gas chambers during WW2...or am I missing something here?
How vile and utterly disgusting – I do so hope he can be reminded of this one day.
Interesting article
http://fullfact.org/articles/smoking_in_cars_just_how_toxic_is_it-29336?
Smoking in cars.
Just how toxic is it?
Yesterday afternoon Iian Dale on LBC, The first hour of his show which starts at 4pm had a discussion about the above and from some of the calls it was about 50/50, BUT in all fairness to Iain Dale he did strongly oppose this and he admits he's no fan of smoking and credit where credit due, he opposed the smoking ban in pubs & bars and said smoking should up the owner and strongly believes in choice, unlike the female presenter who is on LBC between 1 & 4, who said yesterday when speaking with Simon, I'd ban smoking totally if I ran this country. "yea I bet she wood".
"But let me give you one headline to remember - it would be safer to have your exhaust pipe on the inside of your car than smoke a cigarette, in terms of fine particulate matter released. And evidence suggests rolling down the window doesn't eliminate the problem."
Yes, indeed, Dennis, only a complete fool would say that as it's so easy to debunk anyway. Simple test, the complete fool gets in his car, rigs up the exhaust and pumps it in. In 20 minutes he'll be dead.
Part 2: take one of his colleagues and stick him in another car with someone smoking a cigarette. In 20 minutes they'll still be very much alive.
This is a revamp of the old "smokers in a sealed garage argument."
Same thing, seal a garage and pump exhaust fumes in. In 30 minutes, occupant of garage dead. Then, same scenario, seal garage, 20 smokers all puffing away furiously, and in 30 minutes they all emerge alive although some may be coughing slightly, or maybe not as the case may be.
Indeed Blad, I wrote to this idiot (Dr Douglas Noble) and invited him to just such a scenario but he failed to respond to my challenge-so I did wonder if he had already tried this scientific experiment out..... and was now 'laid out' ? ( http://www.forestonline.org/news/headlines/sticking-an-exhaust-pipe-in-your-car-is-safer-than-smoking-says/ )
Also, on this subject of children/cars....simply drive around smoking..... but with two large dolls in child seats in the back of your car-the health police will have a fit as this is a complete p**s take! :)
ASH survey...you bet!
Off topic Simon.
I hope commenters will take the ASH survey (public reputation survey), who want you to tell them how well they’ve performed their job.
Don't just tick the boxes because there's plenty of room for comments. If you type your comments in Word make sure you save and copy and paste into the survey, because if you leave the survey page whilst working in Word then you will have to start again.
I've left mine with a vengeance...all the bitterness just came pouring out!
@Sheila - that is interesting -
"....when smoking next to an open window [in a car], it [the concentration of SHS] fell further to 223 μg/m3 (around two and a half times the highest concentration level seen in the home).
even 223 sounds quite scary until you translate the measurement into plain english: that, in a space measuring 35ft x 35ft x 35ft (1 cubic metre equalling just over 35 cubic feet) there are 223 micrograms of concentration of SHS and that a microgram is one millionth of a gram! Or, in a space 35ft cubed, there is concentration of 0.0002 grams of SHS
...and that's in a stationary car - hardly the typical scenario of smoking in a car.
...and is this when one small roll up is smoked or after chain smoking twenty superkings!!
Should we conclude that such an article simply can't do justice to the complexity and rigour of the studies (study?) behind these results. Doubt it.
This is where appeasement gets you. Be nice, reasonable, polite, agreeable and so on. The result is that they will simply ride roughshod over you and anyone else who stands in their way.
Coming soon, no smoking in homes with children, rapidly followed by no smoking indoors even if the in and doors are your own property. If you stand still for this one and go all mealy mouthed the next step is your doorstep.
Chris Snowdon has spotted something very important. This bill includes an ENABLING clause::
"This basically gives carte blanche to any health secretary to bring in plain packaging and create any number of new tobacco crimes at the drop of the hat. Knowing how quickly politicians go native when they start working at the Department of Health, this is a crank's charter and ASH knows it. As far as they are concerned, the amendment makes plain packaging a done deal."
http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2014/01/no-matter-who-you-vote-for-public.html
ASH explains in 2012
Smoking in Cars
"Smoking in cars causes harm in several ways –
Firstly, there is the harm to the smoker from inhaling tobacco smoke.
Secondly, there is harm to other occupants of the vehicle from inhaling secondhand smoke.
Thirdly, there is the potential harm that children will perceive smoking to be normal adult behaviour.”
http://ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_714.pdf
Almost non-existent
Joyce – where can these measurements be found. I thought perhaps Michael J. Mcfadden wrote about how small they were. Do you have any links?
Thanks.
Preventing people smoking in their own homes is going to be virtually impossible to enforce and especially if there are no well
brainwashed blabbermouth children around to inform on their parents.
Likewise in cars - very difficult to enforce as no-one can see what you are doing in your car most of the time - so discretion can ensure successful and satisfactory ban flouting on a regular basis.
As for e-cigs, discretionary use in cars is even easier and I now use mine all over the place: in hotels, work, hospital toilets and so it goes on.
As for police enforcement, they will probably be keen at first but after a while enforcement always becomes more lax. Moreover, I cannot see many chief constables giving smokers high priority given the real crime they have to deal with and judging by their attitude to date. Furthermore, quite a lot of police smoke too.
There comes a point when the "badness" of a law can be demonstrated not just by its unfairness of general flaws but also when it becomes very difficult to enforce.
Given that the war on illegal drugs has failed as indeed has the war against counterfeit tobacco, tobacco control are now reaching their limits. Soon, all they will be able to do is squawk indignantly.
Is that a dead parrot?
Dennis,
I just linked to the article that Sheila, above, linked to then converted metric into imperial and googled to find what a microgram actually is (I'd never even heard the term before).
Hello people, stop supporting "FOREST", the endlessly delightful Simon Clark and all the other appeasers. Much though I respect Mr Clark and his efforts to represent the consumer the opportunity to attent nice dinners at trendy venues has become far more important than representing their constituency. Mr Clark, smokers want to be people, they pay taxes and they constitute a significant proportion of the voting public, they do not want to spent their lives apologising for their existence. If you want to represent the smoker stop apologising for them, smoking is not a crime. Appeasement ought to be.
Thanks Joyce.
These measurements are so ridiculously small that I would like to see how it is possible to prove harm by SHS. Biased opinion and conjecture based on prejudices simply isn’t good enough.